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John Goerzen

http://twitter.com/jgoerzen

Areas of Expertise:

  • Linux
  • programming
  • software development
  • version control
  • git
  • darcs
  • Haskell
  • Python
  • shell
  • TCP/IP
  • networking
  • storage
  • consulting
  • speaking
  • programming
  • training
  • writing

Biography

John Goerzen is an American hacker and author. He has written a number of real-world Haskell libraries and applications, including the HDBC database interface, the ConfigFile configuration file interface, a podcast downloader, and various other libraries relating to networks, parsing, logging, and POSIX code. John has been a developer for the Debian GNU/Linux operating system project for over 10 years and maintains numerous Haskell libraries and code for Debian. He also served as President of Software in the Public Interest, Inc., the legal parent organization of Debian. John lives in rural Kansas with his wife and son, where he enjoys photography and geocaching.

Books

Real World Haskell Real World Haskell
by Bryan O'Sullivan , John Goerzen , Donald Bruce Stewart
November 2008
Print: $49.99
Ebook: $39.99

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Blog

John's blog posts are hosted at:
http://changelog.complete.org/

First impressions of the iPod Touch

November 01 2009

So far, our household has resisted any piece of the iPhone onslaught. Yes, I carry an iPod Classic, but that’s different. Terah’s old Palm m100 is becoming a problem. The platform is dead, and the desktop sync drivers for it are decaying rapidly in every operating system. Not only that, but… read more

Where to go in Europe…

October 31 2009

I’ve wanted to visit Europe for years, and just haven’t quite made it. School, jobs, kids, all got in the way. Well, it looks like Terah and I may have a chance to spend a week there in March. We’re trying to figure out where to go. There are two main… read more

FedEx Is Trying To Contact Me For My Package

October 30 2009

Most of us probably get spams with subject lines like “contact courier company for you package.” Yesterday the courier company contacted me. The FedEx driver called me because it had been raining. He saw my name on the package he was to deliver, and remembered the last time he tried to… read more

Apache Update

October 29 2009

Thanks everyone for the helpful comments yesterday on Apache vs. lighttpd. I’ve taken the first few steps towards improving things. I’ve eliminated mod_php5, switched all PHP to FastCGI, and switched from the prefork to the event MPM. The event MPM docs say that it’s incompatible with mod_ssl, but it worked, and… read more

Apache vs. lighttpd

October 27 2009

I’ve had a somewhat recurring problem that Apache on my server is a memory hog. The machine has a full GB of RAM now, but even so, heavy activity from spidering bots or reddit can bring it to its knees. I’ve been trying to figure out what to do about it.… read more

Ahh, updates…

October 27 2009

It’s been awhile since I’ve made a blog post, and it will probably soon be evident why. For myself, I am taking two college classes — philosophy and gerontology — this semester, and still working full time. That’s busy right there. I’m really enjoying them, and in particular enjoying the philosophy… read more

MoinMoin as a Personal Wiki, Zen To Done, And A Bit of Ikiwiki

October 01 2009

Since I last evaluated and complained about wikis last year, I’ve been using moinmoin for two sites: a public one and a personal one. The personal site has notes on various projects, and my task lists. I’ve been starting out with the Zen To Done (ebook, PDF, paper) idea. It sounds… read more

Sen. Brownback’s Visit

September 30 2009

Since I asked for suggestions on the Brownback town hall, I figured I ought to report what happened. He was scheduled to spend about 30 minutes in it; he probably spent a total of 40 or 45. He arrived a few minutes early, went around the room shaking hands and asking… read more

How To Record High-Definition MythTV Files to DVD

September 27 2009

I’ve long had a problem. Back on January 20, I took the day off work to watch the inauguration of Barack Obama. I saved the HD video recordings MythTV made of the day (off the ATSC broadcast), intending to eventually save them somehow. I hadn’t quite figured out how until… read more

Jacob Is Three

September 27 2009

Jacob’s third birthday was Saturday, and I thought I ought to give a bit of an update on him. I’ll start with his exactness. Jacob has become very particular about certain things. This morning, I was getting him dressed for church. We had this conversation: Me: OK Jacob, it’s time to… read more

Town Hall Questions

September 26 2009

Sen. Brownback (R-KS) will be at my employer Monday, and will have a short town hall session. I’m debating whether to go or not, and whether to say anything or not. I don’t agree with him on much, and highly doubt that I’d change his mind on anything. Should I… read more

Today

September 20 2009

I had a meeting in town today (yes, “in town” makes sense when you don’t live in one). Afterwards, I went shopping. And enjoyed it. Shocking, I know. I had a gift certificate to Anderson’s Office Supply. I found a beautiful print of a painting of a 1940s scene at the… read more

Late Summer

September 03 2009

It’s that time of the year again. Everything is changing, and maybe for the better. The days are getting shorter. When I left for work on my bicycle yesterday morning, it was still dark outside, and a little nippy. There’s nothing quite like riding a bicycle down a deserted country road… read more

Google Groups Fail

September 03 2009

Last month, I wrote that I was looking for mailing list hosting. It looks like some of the lists I host will move to Alioth, and some to Google Groups. Google Groups has a nice newbie-friendly interface with the ability to read a group as a forum or as a mailing… read more

Looking for a Linux-compatible scanner

August 31 2009

I own two scanners: a Fujitsu ScanSnap S510 and an Epson Perfection 4180 Photo. The S510 is a sheetfed document scanner, and works great at that. It has perfect SANE support, duplex mode, excellent sheet feeder, and is a generally good document scanner. It’s passable for photos, but only that.… read more