sbarmen.no

Uptime Kuma monitor Proxmox Backup

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 07:39:40 +0000

I have not been blogging for years, but still been pondering a lot with technology so why no try to share some stuff again. Last years I have played a lot with Proxmox and buldling my own home lab setup. This blog is hosted on this lab so both performance and availability might suffer :P But that is a whole other topic for another day.

Where is Sofia now?

Thu, 02 Jul 2020 08:57:36 +0000

Here you will find the location of our boat, Sofia. See you on the ocean!

Sagrada Familia

Fri, 15 Nov 2019 11:29:20 +0000

I was in Barcelona for VMworld last week and managed to squeeze in a short stop at the amazing Sagrada Familia. This building is crazy and wonderful all at the same time. The light in the afternoon is stunning to say the least.

Insects on lavender in Croatia

Thu, 27 Aug 2015 19:44:01 +0000

It is really fun to do macro fotography, even with some dated equipment. These photos were taken in the early afternoon and it was a bit too bright light. If I had waited a few hours the sun would be lower on the skies and the shine would be less bright and intense.

Buying a Tesla?

Sat, 08 Aug 2015 08:28:26 +0000

Tesla is doing some word-of-mouth advertising of their cars Tesla Model S and in the future Model X. This basically means that people like myself that have a current Model S have the ability to give a current buyer of a new car a rebate of 10 000 NOK off the list price by clicking my link. At the same time I would get a credit of the same on my Tesla-account (for future car purchase, services, accessories or similar). So basically I am asking you, if you are contemplating buying a new Tesla, please click my link and go bananas!

Make Pizza on the Boat

Mon, 18 May 2015 09:12:09 +0000

Last fall we bought ourselves a new boat (old, but new to us!). The boat is a small Norwegian cabincruiser that gives us the ability to stay the weekend in the boat. One our favourite activities to do in the weekends is to make pizza. On the boat it is more complicated to make pizzas but far from impossible. This article is a short description on how do it :)

Long Exposure at Barmen island

Fri, 25 Jul 2014 09:42:59 +0000

Last night me and my wife took a walk down to the breakwater to take some midnight long exposure photo. The view is towards stadt seen from the north side of the island Barmen in Selje on the west coast of Norway. I used a polarizing filter to increase the colors and also reduce the light somewhat. We had about 30 seconds exposures and had the lens on maximum aperture. I love the way the ocean gets the smooth blur and the colors of the skies really pop out.

Building the ultimate quiet HTPC

Mon, 09 Jun 2014 07:11:09 +0000

I have for years been using a mediacenter PC in my livingroom, it started back in the days of the 4Mbit wireless days (before the wireless standards were approved) and up till today on wired 1Gbit with a NAS and dedicated TV server in the basement. All through the years it has been very important to me to have a noiseless computer, fan noise and CD chippering is just annoying!

Summer party and "Demolisionparty"

Fri, 06 Jun 2014 06:33:42 +0000

Yesterday we had a big summer party at Rykkinn Skole, and at the same time we celebrated that this summer the old school building “avdeling Berger” will de replaced with a new modern building in 2 years. If that was not enough, Berger also celebrates 40 years in operation this year.

Grrr... be aware of the animals

Thu, 29 May 2014 09:03:31 +0000

My kids were part of a show in Sandvika arranged by KGB Danseskole. This is a dance school teaching all dance styles and they put most of them together in a show where the theme was animals in a zoo and all the “animals” danced all sorts of dances with many styles of music. All the kids seemed to have a lot of fun and the show was really great!

Beitostølen in Valdres

Sat, 03 May 2014 09:32:20 +0000

New version of Firefox

Fri, 02 May 2014 07:31:48 +0000

I have been testing the new version of Firefox for a while and I must say it is vastly improved over the last version. Main argument is the new graphical user interface that has been refurbished. Also now then browser support sync of settings between installations.

Internet Explorer Security Issue

Mon, 28 Apr 2014 07:51:15 +0000

Update: The first of May Microsoft released a fix for the vulnerability, also for Windows XP. It is also possible to protect your machine by upgrading to the latest version of Adobe Flash player according to sources on the Internet.

Moon and Mars

Mon, 14 Apr 2014 21:12:19 +0000

Finally a clear and nice night here in Norway, and the alignment of Mars, earth and the sun is not that old so still the view is spectacular!

Tonight the moon is full and right now Mars is at its closest point (relative to earth), a mere 92 million kilometres away. The combination is just so cool!

Heartbleed SSL Vulnerability

Thu, 10 Apr 2014 06:58:44 +0000

The “superbug” in OpenSSL named “Heartbleed” is all over the news these days and is causing some confusion and concern for many people. This hole in the SSL encryption was discovered in the start of this week by Google and Code Nomicon, and the hole is a serious one. The problem is, what do you do with this? Here is a very simple simple guide to what I suggest you should do.

Snowflakes

Sun, 02 Feb 2014 18:18:26 +0000

I have lately been testing macro photography of snow crystals. This has proven more complicated than I have imagined so I will have to try some more.

Testing animated GIFs

Fri, 24 Jan 2014 08:17:42 +0000

The GIF is from this morning, showing the snow under a streetlight at Rykkinn, where I live :)

Happy New Year

Sat, 04 Jan 2014 14:30:30 +0000

Happy New Year to all, we had a nice evening in Bjørnebærstien with some friends celebrating the new year. Not a very photographic event this year but I did manage to get a few decent shots nevertheless. This is my first attempt at shooting fireworks so the results are not great, but OK. :)

What makes you buy Apple products?

Sun, 29 Dec 2013 10:11:42 +0000

This classic and great TED talk by Simon Sinek is very clever and should be watched by any company leader.

Start with why - how great leaders inspire action…:

Kontakt

Sat, 28 Dec 2013 13:32:27 +0000

Dersom du trenger å komme i kontakt med meg, bruk dette skjemaet:

[contact-form subject=‘Contact form stian.barmen.nu’][contact-field label=‘Navn’ type=‘name’ required=‘1’/][contact-field label=‘E-post’ type=‘email’ required=‘1’/][contact-field label=‘Webside’ type=‘url’/][contact-field label=‘Melding’ type=‘textarea’ required=‘1’/][/contact-form]

Light-Droplets in the Tree

Sun, 22 Dec 2013 09:03:18 +0000

This December has been very warm and windy, a lot of rain has taken the little snow we had and mostly washed it away. Not very good for all that have been looking forward to using skies and sleighs, but there is very little we can do with that.

Weekend to Vaset in Valdres

Thu, 19 Dec 2013 09:30:37 +0000

Last weekend we had a very nice weekend in Valdres, in a little mountain cabinvillage of Vaset. For the last six months I have been playing with the idea of putting together an HDR (High Dynamic Range) photo of a sunset or similar. This weekend I brought my old Canon 45d with my new Sigma 10-20mm (f3.5) and the sturdy tripod. Most of the weeken had fog and snow to offer but suddenly on the Saturday the light came out and we got a bit of sun! Quickly I configured my camera to lock the Aperture (to ensure stability in depth of focus) and setup the AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing) to take three photos. One would be normal exposure, one -2 steps and one +2 steps (underexposed and overexposed). The pohoto was taken on the tripod to ensure total alignment between the three, and of course I used the 2sec selftimer to get the picture with being totally hands off the camera.

Halloween

Thu, 31 Oct 2013 21:16:47 +0000

A very good Halloween celebration today. The photos are of my own pumpkin creation this year, and also from the house of the local SFO leader, Randee Hansen at Rykkinn. She is of course from the US and has helped kick off the celebration and accepts brave trick and treaters :)

I now collect bad wine

Sat, 21 Sep 2013 09:05:58 +0000

Ric Elias was sitting in seat 1D in a crashing plane and he has some amazing thoughts about that. Watch the short video, it makes all the sense in the world!

Semsvannet

Wed, 18 Sep 2013 19:22:03 +0000

Today I attended a training course at Semb farm and I took this picture during a short walk in a break. Mobile phone so the quality is not great.

Locate and wipe your Android

Fri, 13 Sep 2013 13:38:24 +0000

If you have an Android device (newer than version 2.2) and you wonder where it is for any reason, or maybe if you have lost it, or worse it is stolen then there is still hope. You can probably locate the device by using the Android Device Manager. The tools has three important functions:

Ylvis and The fox

Thu, 12 Sep 2013 18:48:22 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jofNR_WkoCE

Mummy on the radio

Mon, 09 Sep 2013 22:14:01 +0000

This posting and audio does not make a whole lot of sense unless you understand Norwegian so I will not translate the rest. If you understand Norwegian then go ahead! :)

Orchidaceae

Sat, 07 Sep 2013 10:16:11 +0000

I bought this wonderful Orchidaceae for my wife last week … wonderful ey?

My own domain name

Fri, 06 Sep 2013 10:00:46 +0000

I just registered a new domain name for this site, and then I needed to rewrite the old URLs to the new name. This is quite easy since I have a Linux server (CentOS in fact) with Apache. I wanted to tell the browsers and search engines that the new domain name is a permanent one and therefor the correct redirect is called a 301 server-side redirect. What this in simple terms means is that the web server will tell the web-browser or search engine spider that “this site has moved, and the new permanent address is: www.sbarmen.no”.

A world without emoticons

Sun, 01 Sep 2013 11:20:45 +0000

Me and a collegue at work discussed the other day that today we use much more written text than before. We communicate in writing all the time on our phones, computers, tablets, phablets and more. Some people today send hundreds of SMS every week, you might have a blog, use Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Instagram, Vibre, Google Hangouts, join in a forum (or ten!) and so fourth. I guess the use of IRC and Usenet/News no longer qualifies to be on this list but they were absolutely part of the evolution for the written text on the Internet.

A joke is a very serious thing

Sun, 01 Sep 2013 09:00:45 +0000

A joke is a very serious thing

Winston Churchill

Grand Canyon

Sat, 31 Aug 2013 10:47:50 +0000

Since we have been travelling around the world for many years with my family and for work I have seen many wonderful places. Grand Canyon is by far one of the more magnificent sites I have seen. This summer on my family roadtrip with a rented RV we visited the south rim of the canyon in early July.

American Sunsets

Tue, 20 Aug 2013 07:57:56 +0000

We had quite a few nice sunsets in the US this summer. Driving along the coast of California on highway 1 we had the sun set in the ocean, over Grand Canyon we had sun setting over the edge, in Los Angeles over the city … and they were all magnificent. Sunsets are a very popular photo motive and I really would like to get a remote or automated shutter with my tripod to take these photos, but usually I lack the gear when the opportunity presents itself.

Macro Photography in US

Sat, 17 Aug 2013 09:15:43 +0000

Just a few months back I bought the Kenko extension tubes from Amazon to be able to make macro photos. The reason I went with the Kenko is that they connect the electronics of your lens to the camera so that auto-focus etc will work. You can absolutely go with a cheaper option and still get the same great photos. or you can buy the Canon at tripple the price :)

Bugs in the hedge

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 10:15:27 +0000

How else to throw away some time than just sitting still close to the hedge in the backyard waiting for some bugs to crawl by … strange what you can see when you go very close. These guys were either fighting, playing, or mating, not sure.

Spring cabin visit to Hemsedal

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 20:22:03 +0000

Earlier this spring we rented a cabin from my employer, they have some few cabins around Norway for employees. This time my family went with my sister and her family to enjoy some days together. Very nice time with melting snow and a lot of fog, some rain and a wee bit of sunshine. Here are some of the shots I took while we were up there.

Macro photography

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 12:14:00 +0000

So when I was in the US I got some extension tubes for my Canon camera and this gives the opportunity to take extreme closeups with any standard lens. This is a “cheat” to turn any lens into a macro lens. Very well, I have tested with both my 18-250mm and the 50mm 1.4 and they both work great for macro shots. The 50mm is much more light sensitive and that means you need to go very close for the nice shots and that does not always work well with for instance insects and similar.

Macro photography

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:29:02 +0000

Lightroom 5 Beta Fun

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 16:04:13 +0000

So today I played around with Lightroom 5 and had some fun. I was looking at the new Lens Correction setting and also the spot removal and healing tools. Quite fun actually and if I can get this good a result imagine what the professionals can do. :)

Twitter Feed

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 14:41:06 +0000

Tweets by @sbarmen

Havørna Cabin on Barmen

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 13:00:02 +0000

My mother and Jan has built this cabin on Barmøyna on Barmen. This location is just wonderful and we love to travel there for holidays. Sadly it is quite far to drive so we are not there as often as we want to :)

Where is this?

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 08:58:32 +0000

Ok so finally my new blogg is coming together and even though not perfect at least it looks OK now. Was browsing through some old photos and came across these, you where it is? The images were taken in 2002 and they do contain geo information if you know how to extract that :)

Travels in Italy

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 15:29:09 +0000

In the summer of 2012 we visited a lot of Italy and drove from Rome to Rafadali on Sicilia and back up again. This was a very interesting trip where we got to see a lot of the cities as-well as the more rural side of Italy.

Safari in South Africa

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:06:39 +0000

Photos from our Safari trip in South-Africa in 2010. We had a great time in Pilanesbarg national park just outside of Pretoria. The whole area is protected and you can go on guided tours, and we have done that twice. Every time a great experience. For more information about Pilanesberg park, please see here: http://www.pilanesberg-game-reserve.co.za/

Links

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 11:50:15 +0000

My family blog: www.barmen.nu My open source XMPP Server: www.jabber.no

Contact

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 11:48:40 +0000

If you need to contact me use the following form:

[contact-form subject=‘Contact form stian.barmen.nu’][contact-field label=‘Name’ type=‘name’ required=‘1’/][contact-field label=‘Email’ type=‘email’ required=‘1’/][contact-field label=‘Website’ type=‘url’/][contact-field label=‘Comment’ type=‘textarea’ required=‘1’/][/contact-form]

Trollstigen

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 11:41:19 +0000

Here are some photos from 2012 when we drove via Trollstigen on our way from Molde to Måløy. Trollstigen is a serpentine mountain road in Rauma, Norway that is very famous and attracts tourists from near and far. The mountains closeby also attracts a lot of basejumpers and other “risktakers”.

Photos from Barmen

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 11:30:05 +0000

Having had some few nice days in the summertime at the wonderful island of Barmen in Nordfjord we got to enjoy some magnificant sunsets and of course I had to capture them with my camera. With the use of a zoom lens and a tripod I got some quite nice shots.

About

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Stian B. Barmen — CTO at Proact IT Norge; photography, boats, and homelab tinkering on the side.