Notes on banking, code & home automation
Dependency Injection in Vert.x with Dagger 2
Managing dependencies in async, event-driven Vert.x apps without a full DI framework is a challenge. Here is a lighter approach with Dagger 2.
Connecting RuuviTags to Home Assistant ↗
Ruuvi makes high-quality temperature, humidity, air-pressure and motion sensors. Here is how I wired RuuviTag and RuuviTag Pro into Home Assistant.
Integrating ControlMySpa to Home Assistant ↗
I have a Novitek hot tub that has Balboa ControlMySpa WIFI controller and I wanted to be able add some smarts to when it’s heating with these very volatile electricity prices. Sadly the only Balboa integration I was able to find was for…
Saving and investing for your child
How a child could become a millionaire with just under €95 per month invested from birth to age 17 — the power of compound interest.
How to get Tomcat to see HTTPS when it’s terminated elsewhere
How to make a Tomcat webapp generate HTTPS URLs when TLS is terminated higher up the server stack.
Top 3 reasons why Liferay projects fail
I’ve been using Liferay for well over ten years and I’ve seen lots of different ways Liferay projects have been done. There’s been successful projects and then there’s been failed ones. You typically don’t hear about the successful…
Liferay Yubikey OTP Login
I bought a Yubikey 4 last fall but didn’t have time to play with it until now. Yubikey is awesome and quite cheap USB authentication key. It also support FIDO U2F in addition to one-time-password. So far I’ve enabled on my Facebook…
Creating a custom Nginx build for Ubuntu/Debian
I’ve been using the RTCamp Ubuntu package for Nginx because it had ngx_cache_purge and ngx_pagespeed modules builtin. The problem with is that it’s still stuck on Nginx 1.8 version which doesn’t support HTTP/2 so I had to figure out how…
Moving a project from one git repository to another while retaining it’s history
I recently had to move a project from one git repository to another existing repository under different source tree and I wanted to retain the history of each file. This is rather easy once you know how to do it but you can easily jack…
Setting up https with Let’s Encrypt on Nginx
Let’s Encrypt is an awesome free, automated and open way of protecting your site with https. As you may have noticed this site is using Let’s Encrypt certificate and I’ve started rolling it out to all my other sites too. With free https…
Welcome to my new site
In the past I’ve had several sites for my various interests and many of them had some kind of profile who I am but as there are so many they can easily get out dated and some of them I’ve had semi anonymous. That changes now. I’m…
Monitoring Apache HTTPd with New Relic
When figuring out what’s wrong with a sites performance it’s important to get facts about every aspect and component involved with that site. Apache is quite often used in front of java applications and it’s the app server for php…
Monitoring Nginx with New Relic
Apache HTTPd has always been my goto httpd, reverse proxy and load balancer but lately I’ve grown more interested in Nginx. It’s very high performance and lightweight not to mention easy to configure. Of course with my currently a…
Monitoring MariaDB / MySQL with New Relic
In order to size your system correctly you need metrics and you need those also from your database. Not only is it important to know what’s happening in your database for capacity planning it’s also invaluable information when something…
Monitoring Ubuntu / Debian Server with New Relic
With New Relic Server Monitoring you’ll see all the important information about your system with just one glance. This is a essential tool for troubleshooting performance issues and also seeing that your system is properly sized.…
Monitoring with New Relic
New Relic is a wonderful software analytics suite that is 100% SaaS. I love it because it’s so easy to setup compared to Nagios, MRTG and other on premise software. Also their Lite edition is free with 24 hour data retention and for 30…
Unattended Java install on Ubuntu 14.04
I like to to automate all the tasks I do often and of the things many of my virtual servers need is Java JDK. Unfortunately the Oracle JDK is not available as debian package but there’s a way to make it. This is where WebUpd8 Team PPA…
Removing DRM from Kindle, ePub and PDF ebooks
I like to read all my books using my iPad mini so I buy all my books from various sources as ebooks but most places tend to add DRM to them and thus making it harder for me to use them on the device I want. Some go as far as requiring…
Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad ebook for free
Robert Kiyosaki is giving away his Rich Dad Poor Dad ebook for free. Download yours today. This is one of those books you should definitely read and now that it’s free there is absolutely no excuse for not reading it. You should also…
Robert Kiyosaki’s Increase your Financial IQ ebook for free
Robert Kiyosaki is now giving away his Increase your Financial IQ ebook for free. Dowload yours today. This is one of those books you should definitely read and now that it’s free there is absolutely no excuse for not reading it. You…
Mobee Magic Charger
The Mobee Magic Charger for Apple Magic Mouse is something I’ve been wanting for quite sometime without actually realising it. I accidentally saw it while browsing at a electronics store in Helsinki while waiting for my actual order to…
New Site New Focus
It’s been a while since I last posted anything and the site has been quite stale and out dated. So I thought I’d update it to a more modern responsive site that looks good on both desktop and mobile. As I wanted to focus more on actual…
Five Financial Figures Everyone Should Know
These five figures give good insight to your financial healthiness. The list comes from MSN Money article 5 financial figures you should know. 1) Credit Score This number is very important maybe the most important number you need to…
Monitoring and Graphing Liferay with MRTG
MRTG (The Multi Router Traffic Grapher) is usually used to monitor SNMP enabled network devices and draw graphs of how much traffic has passed through each interface. It can also be used to graph any two values (in/out) and I use it for…
Liferay Maven Support in Liferay 6.1 GA3
We've finally released both CE and EE versions of Liferay 6.1 GA3 and along with those releases we've also released the corresponding versions of Liferay Maven Support and Portal artifacts. The version numbers are 6.1.2 for CE GA3 and…
How to get your credit score for free
Knowing your credit score and how to improve it is very important. Your credit score affects how you get credit and at what cost. It affects the interest rate on your mortgage, auto loan, credit card and even the amount of security…
Five smart ways to use your tax refund
If you are getting any tax refund then you should consider these five ways to put that money to work. If you haven’t done your taxes yet then now is a really good time to do it. 1. Pay off debt If you have any debt especially high…
Dealing with high credit card debt
The average American household has $7,122 of credit card debt and the average indebt household has $15,266. Those are pretty disturbingly high numbers. So it’s no surprice if you belong to the 1 in 4 households that are struggling to…
Smartphone with or without a contract
Does it make financial sense to get your new smartphone with a 24 month contract? That is something I never even thought about before coming to USA. Back home most people paid full price on the phone and got what ever plan they wanted…
Got a speeding ticket now what
The first time I got the little yellow notice to appear that they give out here in California I was really confused. Back home when police gives you a ticket for speeding it has the fee you have to pay which is based on your income so…
Saving for a rainy day
One of the first things most personal finance gurus tell you to do is start an emergency fund. But what is an emergency fund: it’s a easily accessible stash of money that is dedicated to emergencies only. It’s not regular savings that…
The Importance of Budget and Tracking Spending
Everyone hates doing a budget and tracking their spending but it is really important to in order to make smart financial decisions. Doing a budget doesn’t have to be that hard and once you’ve done the inital work keeping it up to date…
Escort Passport 9500ix Radar and Laser Detector
So I finally bought a radar/laser detector. I wanted to buy one after my first ticket but never got around to doing the research on which ones are actually effective. Well now I really wish I had since I’d probably had already saved…
First impressions on Google Maps for iOS
Google maps for iOS is finally available in Apple App Store. It has turn by turn navigation, live traffic information and public transit directions. The UI is very responsive and easy to use as always. I must say that I’m very impressed…
iPhone Photography Accessories
Smartphone cameras have come a long way and now with smartphones like iPhone 4S you can pretty much replace a regular compact camera with your smartphone. So far I’ve always had a compact camera like Samsung TL225 12.2Mpix camera but in…
Nokia’s HERE maps for iOS review
Nokia released it’s HERE maps for iOS recently so decided to give it go since it’s free. There’s not much good I can say about that application. The UI felt weird compared to Apple Maps or Google Maps. The map graphics are really ugly…
Buying a gun as non resident alien in California
Most people would think that buying a gun is only limited to US citizens but many states that’s not the case. Non citizens have more requirements than citizens but it’s still possible to buy a gun legally in California even for us non…
The Diamond Resorts International Timeshare Scam
A few months ago I signed up for a sweepstakes to win $100.000 or dream car at Camarillo Premium outlets. Then just this week I got a call from Diamond Resorts International that I was selected as the few finalists. They explained that…
I love my AMEX
Ever since I got my Costco TrueEarnings American Express my credit worthiness has climed up. What’s best with this card is all the perks and cash back. I already had costco membership so my AMEX doesn’t cost me anything extra on the…
TriggerTrap Mobile
I got a TriggerTrap Mobile for me and my wife some time ago from Jan at TriggerTrap and this review has been pending ever since. We were going to do a field test and see how TriggerTrap mobile stacks up against Trigger Happy. That how…
Using your credit card actively without the negative impact on your creditscore
When you have a rewards credit card you want to maximize those rewards and only way to do that is to use your credit card to pay for everything possible that will yield rewards. For my American Express that I get at least 1% on all…
Installing MariaDB on Ubuntu
I’ve been using MariaDB for some time now and it’s perfect replacement for MySQL especially with the latest news onOracle’s move to hinder MySQL developer community despite it’s promise to EU. Now is a perfect time to ditch MySQL and…
How can I get credit?
Getting credit in US might be difficult if you don’t already have credit. Even if you don’t want to get credit card it’s going to be expensive to not have any credit. There’s few things you need to start building your credit: Social…
Liferay 6.1 GA2 Maven release
I'm glad to announce that we have release maven artifacts for Liferay 6.1 GA2 for both EE and CE. The CE version of portal artficats are in currently in Sonatype's repository waiting to be synced to Central and EE artifacts are…
Bose MIE2i mobile headset
Had some frequent flier miles expiring and I am anyways stopping using Lufthansa completely but more on that on a later post so I spent my miles on something less exiting (Cusinart cookware) but my wife in turn spent her points to get…
Trigger Happy Camera Remote has arrived
The Trigger Happy Camera remote I blogged about few weeks ago has finally arrived. The packaging was just a padded envelope with the trigger happy cable and a thank you note. Of course it didn’t work with my wife’s 4th gen iPod Touch so…
Tips for securing your Liferay installation
There’s few security related things that I see people constantly doing wrong. The very first thing is assuming Liferay bundle with it’s default settings is secure for production. It is far from secure. Don’t get me wrong this doesn’t…
Monitoring Liferay with Nagios, Jolokia and JMX4Perl
How do I monitor Liferay? That’s a question I’ve heard a lot lately. Well the standard way of getting some information about the application is by using JMX. The downside of JMX is that it’s a Java only standard and the only remote…
Trigger Happy Camera Remote Kickstarter project
In last March I discovered a cool Kickstarter project called Trigger Happy Camera Remote. It’s a DSLR camera remote that you control with a iOS or Android device. I immediately thought that it would be an excellent gift to my wife who…
Configuring c3p0 connection pool for Liferay on Tomcat
There’s several ways you could configure a connection pool for Liferay on Tomcat but the way I’m going to show is the JEE way and the only one I consider correct. The first thing is to copy or move the c3p0.jar from…
Why is my java process taking more memory than I gave it?
It seems to be quite common misconseption that the memory you give to java process with -Xmx and -Xms command line arguments is the amount of memory the process will consume but in fact that is only the amount of memory your java object…
What to Do When You Get “Error listerStart” with Tomcat
I’m sure many people other than me have banged their head in the wall trying to figure out an error like this: SEVERE: Error listenerStart 26-May-2012 13:44:27 org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext startInternal SEVERE: Context []…
How to Create a Consistent Liferay Backup
This is a question I’ve gotten asked in nearly all the Liferay System Administrator trainings I’ve given. Most people will just backup their database and Liferay data directory separately but any competent system admin will tell you…
Debugging Maven Plugins
When developing maven plugins things don’t always work the way you expect so you need to debug the Mojo to see what’s really going on. I had a weird case where my plugin worked when I ran it independently but when I ran it with mvn…
Developing Liferay Plugins with Maven ↗
My Maven presentation on Liferay Nordic Symposium 2012
SAML and Liferay ↗
My presentation on SAML and Liferay in Liferay Nordic Symposium Warm-up Cruise.
Don’t pay bank fees
Bank fees will add up quickly and you really shouldn’t need to pay your bank any fees. I primarily bank at Chase and they charge $6 account maintenance fee if you don’t have at least 5 debit card transactions or a minimum $500 direct…
The new 1080p HD Apple TV
The new 1080p HD Apple TV package from Amazon was waiting for me yesterday when I came from work to home. The package looks the same as previous version and contains the same things: the sleek black apple tv, aluminium IR remote and…
Creating Liferay Themes with Maven
Some time ago I posted on how you can get started creating portlets with Liferay Maven SDK now I’m going to show how you can add themes to your project. If you need a refresher on how to get started check out this post . 1) Open command…
LifeProof case for iPhone
My old iPhone case broke sometime ago and I need to protect my iPhone 4 so I thought I’d give LifeProof a try since it is supposed to make it water, dirt, snow and shock resistant. Check out the video where the guy demonstrating it goes…
Establishing credit history
If you are a foreigner like me that has come to US to work you’ll very soon notice that you will be paying a lot extra for everything because you don’t any credit history. For example I had to pay extra security deposit on my apartment,…
Getting started with Liferay SAML 2.0 Identity Provider
Liferay 6.1 EE comes with SAML 2.0 Identity Provider and Service Provider support via SAML plugin. If you are not familiar with SAML check out my Introduction to SAML presentation slides. In this post we will configure Liferay...
Deploying Liferay artifacts to your own maven repository
As part of Liferay 6.1 release we’ve created a new package that has a convenient script to install Liferay artifacts to your local repository or to a remote repository. This package is provide for both CE and EE releases but it is more…
Getting started with Liferay Maven SDK
This will be the first in series of posts on how to develop Liferay plugins with Maven. In this post we'll start by creating a new parent project for your plugins and add a portlet project to it. You need to have your maven environment…
Liferay 6.1 GA1 Maven artifacts released
I’m glad to announce that we have released Liferay maven artifacts to 6.1 GA1. All the artifacts will be pushed into the central repository through http://oss.sonatype.org where they are already available. This release includes…
Liferay maven sdk ↗
My tech talk about Liferay and maven.
Introduction to SAML 2.0 ↗
Slides from a tech talk I gave about SAML 2.0 and Liferay
Overriding and adding struts actions from hook plugins
This is a new cool feature I worked on with Brian and it’s coming on 6.1 as well as 6.0 EE SP2 and 5.2 EE SP6. With this feature you can add new struts actions to portal from a hook plugin and you can override any existing action with…
How do I cluster Liferay with Terracotta?
That's a question I've head many times and in this post I will show you just how to do that. These instructions are for Liferay 6 CE GA3 Tomcat 6.0 bundle however you can use any app server supported by Terracotta but the location and…
Using Freemarker in your theme templates
Freemarker is a template language very similar to Velocity. Starting from Liferay 6.0 Liferay supports also Freemarker templates in themes and Web Content templates. In this post I will show how you can use Freemarker in your themes.…
Liferay Maven SDK ↗
Starting to recover from jetlag after a two week trip Los Angeles and Liferay retreat. One of the things we finally made some progress during the developer retreat is providing official maven artifacts for Liferay as well as porting our…
SiteMinder integration is here
You've been heard! Out of box SiteMinder integration is here. Computer Associate’s (CA) SiteMinder is a centralized web access management system that enables user authentication and single sign-on, policy-based authorization, identity…
Configuring ActiveMQ 5 jms topic in Tomcat 6
For some reason it is quite difficult to find a clear instruction on howto configure ActiveMQ jms topic in tomcat as a JNDI reference and the consume message from it into message driven pojo. I chose to use ActiveMQ 5 since it requires…