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iCloud Photo Sync stuck - how to force resume

Sometimes it seems that Apples iCloud sync seems to do not exactly the right thing. During initial upload of my photos I multiple times had the issue, that it was not possible at all to upload the photos. When looking at the sync pane of the Photos app, it was something like “18 hours remaining…” but nothing happened, even after two days. The system process responsible for managing the photo upload is called cloudphotosd.

Thoughts on API design in a world of carelessness

The company I’m working at provides eCommerce solutions for many years now. A few years ago we decided to give up on our own product and started to become an agency that would work with a existing eCommerce application from now on. In our own software, we provided a SOAP API which hadn’t changed for years that had some client-side implementations in various ERP systems and when we switched over, we decided to provide a compatibility plugin for the new software that would expose the SOAP facade we built years ago and translate all requests to the REST API (which we called internally without going over HTTP again).

Building a FreeBSD NAS Part 3: System setup

FreeBSD is the ideal system to use when building a server. It’s reliable and rock-solid and it’s file system ZFS not only offers anything you would expect from a file system but is also easy to set up and to maintain. This is why I chose it to power my NAS. In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series I already described my intentions and the hardware assembly. Now it’s time to bring it to life.

FreeBSD: iTunes media server using forked-daapd

forked-daapd allows you to set up an iTunes Media server that hosts all music, podcasts and audiobooks and shows up in iTunes like a shared library. While other daapd implementations don’t work anymore with the current iTunes versions, forked-daapd does.

FreeBSD: Time Machine backup server with netatalk

While building my new NAS, I came across the question how to provide a Time Machine backup solution for my OS X clients. As I run OS X on all my machines I want to back up all data to my NAS. netatalk allows to create file shares for OS X to provide a simple solution for system backups.

Building a FreeBSD NAS Part 1: Concept & Hardware selection

After a long while I finally decided to build a new NAS / home server for my various needs. Though there are many solutions available, I chose to build one on my own as I want as much flexibility as possible. So I set out to buy all components needed for the system with upgradability and budget in mind.

OS X: Automated provisioning using Homebrew and Cask

I’m changing my hardware quite frequently as I often end up unsatisfied with my current setup. Setting up a computer from scratch is a pain in the a** but restoring a backup implies carrying around configuration files, useless software and other stuff for years. So I’ve decided to create a script that would set up a new computer from scratch and configure it the way I want it to be.

FreeBSD: Send mails over an external SMTP server

FreeBSD is shipped with sendmail as the default MTA, which is configured to local delivery on a vanilla installation. Therefore many people don’t even recognize one of FreeBSDs great features for system administrators: FreeBSD sends system status emails through periodic(8)…