Hubot and Slack
- Hubot will not respond to you in PM, you need to join a channel and then
/invite @hubot
and your bot will join you in that channel and then respond when you address him/her by name - When configuring channel names for slack (I use the gitlab plugin which needs a GITLAB_CHANNEL environment variable), do NOT include a
#
at the start of it if you use slack – works a treat in IRC, but skip it for slack. I spent quite a while looking for a bug in the slack adapter before I figured this one out so it’s written here for me to look up next time! - Also note that your hubot can only speak in channels that it has joined; I have seen hubot actually crash when asked to speak in a channel that exists but which isn’t known to it.
I think this central way of having plugins which can integrate with many messaging platforms on one side, and integrate with many external APIs on the other means we’ll be doing much more in chat ops moving forward. Already I’m impressed by how many of the hosted tools I use have webhooks, although there aren’t hubot plugins for all of them (yet!).
XHGui on VM, Storage on Host
Todotxt on Android and Ubuntu
- I use Linux (specifically Ubuntu 14.10)
- I don’t use a pointing device. At all. If I can’t use a tool from the keyboard, I can’t use it at all (as a side effect, I use keyboard enablers in my browser so if your website has “helper” keyboard shortcuts, I probably can’t use that either)
- My other devices (phone, tablet, work phone) are all android
Taken together, this makes finding tools a challenge – but I’ve had good experiences with todotxt and the ecosystem around it. Continue reading
Making a Play Kitchen
ZCE Questions Pack Unavailable
However from January the VAT rules change and I’m not in a position to comply with the new rules (they would cost a lot more than the sales make). I’m looking for alternative sales channels that would enable me to keep making the pack available but those won’t be in place immediately. If you are studying for ZCE over the Christmas break, please make sure you have the pack well in advance!
Edit: Pack temporarily unavailable now
I have other (free!) resources for you also on my ZCE page. If you have an earlier version of this pack, email me your receipt and I’ll send you a new copy – but again, you have about a week to do it!
Status Check on All Vagrant Machines
It turns out that (since vagrant 1.6) you can ask vagrant to tell you which of its machines are running, using the command:
vagrant global-status
Where did all my system resources go? Now I know!
Vim and HTML Tags with the Surround Plugin
Continue reading
New Job With Siftware
In fact this is my dream job. Steady, REAL development work, with real people in my timezone. Part time to allow the other aspects of my business to still get some time and attention, and to fit in my other interests/family commitments. Too good to be true? I hope not :)
Announcing the Git Workbook

Each chapter includes an explanation of the skill in question, followed by a hands-on exercise so that you can work through the skill yourself, and ends with a tickbox so you can keep track of how far through you are. It has quizzes, diagrams, mildly amusing stories, and as many other examples as I could think of that could help anyone to take in this technical topic and understand how to apply the techniques covered. Continue reading