Technical on Greg Herlein

How the AMD ISP4 Camera Stack Broke My ZBook Trackpad (and How Claude Helped Me Find It)

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 01:00:00 -0700

One morning I opened my HP ZBook Ultra G1a and the trackpad was dead. Keyboard fine. Touchscreen fine. External mouse fine. Trackpad: nothing. Twelve hours earlier it had worked. I hadn’t changed anything. Welcome to bleeding-edge silicon on Linux.

Guest Post: Robots and Drones Are the Same Thing (And Pretending Otherwise Is Holding Us Back)

Sat, 31 Jan 2026 01:00:00 -0800

Guest Post by Luca Herlein

The artificial divide between robotics and drone ecosystems made sense once. Today, it’s holding back the entire industry.

Automation Is Robotics (And You're Already Building Robots)

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:01 -0800

If software changes something in the real world, it’s a robot.

The Three Tiers of Software Development (Where will you land?)

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:01 -0800

Software development is stratifying into three distinct tiers. Where you land will determine whether you make more money, the same, or far less than today.

The New Whale Chase: Drones, Hydrophones, and a Father-Son Project

Sun, 28 Dec 2025 01:00:01 -0800

After two years of false starts with the Bristlemouth platform and permit headaches, I’m revisiting my whale song project with a completely different approach: semi-autonomous floating drones. The regulatory landscape has forced a rethink, and honestly, it might lead to something better.

Putting Claude in Container Jail: My localdev Setup

Sun, 07 Dec 2025 00:00:01 -0800

I let Claude Code do whatever it wants without asking permission.

Before you spit out your coffee: I keep it in a jail. A container jail.

Using Claude Code to Build gocat

Fri, 28 Nov 2025 00:00:01 -0800

In my previous post about Claude Code, I talked about using VS Code devcontainers to safely run Claude in “dangerous mode.” That was great for a typical software project. But what about something harder? What about porting a complex hardware-interfacing library from Python to Go, where you need to deeply understand USB protocols, radio registers, and firmware internals?

That’s exactly what I did with gocat – a Go library for controlling the YardStick One sub-GHz RF transceiver. And Claude Code was instrumental in making it happen.

From Clicking Yes to Letting Claude Run Wild (Safely)

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 00:00:01 -0800

So I’ve been working on this project called client-w-mcp – it’s a leanring project to truly understand how an AI agent works with MCP servers. And I’m exploring Agentic development - with Claude Code. Why Claude Code? The first time I used it, Claude just… flowed. It seems to do a lot more by itself to figure things out. I especially like the Task() so that it can go do more than one thing at a time.

Agentic Programming: The New Robot Revolution!

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 00:00:01 -0800

The evolution of AI-assisted programming has reached a pivotal moment, transforming from simple code completion to truly collaborative AI agents. This shift represents not just an improvement in tooling, but a fundamental change in how software is developed.

MacOS and Ubuntu Keyboard Remaps

Mon, 24 Feb 2025 10:50:08 -0800

How I mapped some basic keys to be the same on MacOS and Ubuntu and saved my sanity. UPDATED! UPDATED AGAIN!

Long Time No Post! RPi Pico, Zephyr, and Whales (oh my)

Sat, 26 Oct 2024 00:00:01 -0800

A short update on my whale song project: I fell down a few technical rabbit hole!

Learning gRPC in golang - with some ChatGPT help

Tue, 28 May 2024 00:00:01 -0800

I decided to learn how to write gRPC code in golang - and used ChatGPT as an accelerator! Jump to the writeup.

Whale Song Delayed - New Technology

Sat, 11 May 2024 00:00:01 -0800

A short update on my whale song project: it’s shifting technology.

Whale Song Update

Sun, 14 Apr 2024 00:00:01 -0800

A short update on my whale song project: it’s delayed. Need to sort out some legal stuff.

Hiring is a Two-Way Street

Sat, 13 Apr 2024 00:00:01 -0800

I’ve been thinking a lot about tech hiring and why it’s a crap-show for so many. I’ve posted my thoughts on staffing software engineers but I have some musing on the way hiring is done today.

Bristlemouth Dev Kit: SLOW - and Thinking

Sun, 31 Mar 2024 00:00:01 -0800

Work on the SOFAR Spotter with Development Kit is slower than I hoped.

Bristlemouth Dev Kit: YES!

Thu, 07 Mar 2024 00:00:01 -0800

I have possession and unboxed the SOFAR Spotter with Development Kit!

Bristlemouth Dev Kit May Not Happen

Wed, 03 Jan 2024 00:00:01 -0800

The SOFAR Spotter with Development Kit may not be able to get to me. There’s some legal paperwork that I don’t have - that may be quite expensive to get. Import/Export laws are a pain.

Whale Song - Some Background

Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:01 -0800

Recent press about an actual conversation with a whale was preceeded by ground-breaking work by Dr. Michelle Fournet and profiled in the fantastic documentary Fathom on AppleTV. This is a MUST WATCH if you love the ocean - or humanity!

Bristlemouth Dev Kit Delayed - Customs Woes

Sat, 30 Dec 2023 00:00:01 -0800

I’ve been accepted into the Bristlemouth Pioneer Program. I’ve been granted a SOFAR Spotter with a Development Kit. Unfortunately it was detained in customs due to it’s high invoiced value. I required a “customs agent” to clear it - which I did not have.

Ocean Technology and Talking to Whales

Mon, 25 Dec 2023 00:00:01 -0800

I’ve been accepted into the Bristlemouth Pioneer Program. I’ve been granted a SOFAR Spotter with a Development Kit. I want to build a system capable of autonomously recording whale song (and other ocean data). Humpback Whale songs is incredibly interesting - and scientists have JUST been able to actually talk to whales.

But really getting all “science fictiony” - can we build an ocean phone system to talk to whales?

Back to the Mac

Wed, 20 Dec 2023 08:00:00 -0800

I undid it. I’m still using my desktop (mostly remotely) and I do love my Lenovo X1 Carbon. But my primary machine is back to the Mac Book Pro.

Ubuntu Again!

Fri, 12 May 2023 08:40:43 -0800

I did it. I went total Linux on the Desktop again. Full blown beast of a real machine, and am getting a Lenovo X1 Carbon for travel.

MacOS Ventura - How to set network order

Sun, 26 Mar 2023 00:00:01 -0800

Apple moved things around in the Network tab in System Settings. Here’s how to set network order.

Fixing Hugo Scaled Images

Sat, 26 Nov 2022 01:21:00 -0700

Hugo broke image rendering. Well, they made it better, but broke how I used it. Here’s the fix.

Git Clone Workaround

Mon, 31 Oct 2022 01:30:29 -0700

Cloning from GitHub hanging for no apparent reason? A work-around. Anyone know why it works?

How I Locked Myself Out of my Linux System

Sat, 18 Jun 2022 00:00:01 -0800

Imagine my surprise when I could not sudo! Wait, what?

Book Review: AWS Cookbook

Sun, 22 May 2022 00:00:01 -0800

Tl;dr: The AWS Cookbook is a must have addition to your reference library. Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the author.

Book Review: Linux for Networking Professionals

Sun, 22 May 2022 00:00:01 -0800

Tl;dr: read the web instead of Linux for Networking Professionals. This book is a broad, shallow coverage that is probably more easily learned from web pages for free.

Using Clicky Web Analytics with Hugo

Sun, 15 May 2022 00:00:01 -0800

I added Clicky web analytics to my blog (running hugo)

First Trials: ESP32-POE-EA Board from Olimex

Sun, 15 May 2022 00:00:01 -0700

Tl/Dr: It’s on the network! But in my analysis, I fell victim to my own bias.

Picking up from last weekend, I play with the ESP32-POE-EA board from Olimex using the Espressif FreeRTOS ESP-IDF Framework.

Playing like it was summer (but with an ESP32)

Sat, 07 May 2022 00:00:01 -0700

Been awhile, head spinning, took some time to just play.

Making Prometheus Alert Manager (more) Consistent

Sun, 27 Mar 2022 00:00:01 -0800

Prometheus Alert Manager is an “AP” system, in “CAP” terms. How we made it more Consistent, including a forked repo of the Alert Manager code.

Goodbye Ubuntu, Hello Debian my old friend - AGAIN

Fri, 18 Mar 2022 00:00:01 -0800

Back to the future, debian again. Ubuntu begone!

DevOps - All Things To All People - or Not?

Wed, 16 Mar 2022 00:01:00 -0800

Seems like everyone is clammoring for DevOps folks. Do they really know what they want? That term means all things to all people. Some thoughts.

Thoughts on CI/CD

Tue, 01 Mar 2022 00:00:01 -0800

Yet again I am thinking about the overall software development/deployment life cycle, and am back to thinking about CI/CD again.

Creating an Ephemeral EC2 Instance for Development for Testing

Sun, 13 Feb 2022 00:00:01 -0800

“Cattle, not Pets!” they say. Except that for a lot of development, coders make their own laptop their favorite pet. “It works on my machine!” becomes normal. I got tired of that and automated the creation of my dev environment..

Learnings from patching a bug in a modern project

Thu, 30 Dec 2021 00:00:00 -0700

I’m continuing to dive deep on modern typescript/node development. I fixed a bug in a new tool I am using (projen) and learned a ton along the way. This post is to share some of that.

Spiral Again?

Fri, 24 Dec 2021 00:00:00 -0700

Merry Christmas Eve! Playing with the Beaglebone sends me into another thought spiral.

Local Data Collection and Command Distribution

Sat, 27 Nov 2021 00:00:00 -0700

I’m revisiting why I don’t like MQTT, and what I am doing about it.

Beaglebone Black - Getting Started

Thu, 25 Nov 2021 00:00:00 -0700

Getting Started with the Beaglebone Black (Again)

VLC Error

Sun, 03 Oct 2021 00:00:00 -0700

A bug in VLC? Grrrr. Reminds me of the old days.

The Power of xdotool in X11

Sat, 18 Sep 2021 00:00:01 -0800

X11’s xdotool cli is snazzy, and solved an annoying window placement problem.

Thoughts on MQTT

Sun, 27 Jun 2021 00:00:01 -0800

Some Thoughts on MQTT

Playing with Tasmota - A Swimming Pool Story

Sun, 18 Apr 2021 00:00:01 -0800

Playing around with Tasmota - as the sensing core of an IoT-based swimming pool temperature control system.

Progress on ESP32 and FreeRTOS

Sun, 04 Apr 2021 00:00:01 -0800

Progress, but not where I want it to be. But it builds and installs the FreeRTOS AWS IoT demo.

Back to Basics: AWS IoT C SDK

Mon, 22 Mar 2021 00:00:01 -0800

A few quick notes on getting the AWS IoT C SDK running on Linux.

Dabbling into ESP32 and FreeRTOS

Sun, 21 Mar 2021 00:00:01 -0800

Dipping a toe into the FreeRTOS ESP32 world.

ESP32-C3 First Playing

Sun, 07 Mar 2021 00:00:00 -0800

Finally got a few minutes to play withe the ESP32-C3 DevKit that Espressif was kind enough to ship. So I made a blinky light using the onboard WS2812 LED.

Kinesis Video Streams - Just Getting Started

Sat, 27 Feb 2021 00:00:00 -0800

Just started playing with Amazon Kinesis Video Streams.

AWS SysOps Administrator Certified!

Sat, 30 Jan 2021 00:00:01 -0800

This week I passed the AWS SysOps Administrator (Associate) Exam. Here’s some notes on what I did to prepare, and observations of the process.

Programming Serial in C

Sat, 19 Dec 2020 00:00:01 -0800

It’s back to the future again. Fidding with node.js a lot, but you know, C is still my favorite language. Dug up some old code to read/write from a serial port.

Power Costs

Wed, 11 Nov 2020 00:00:01 -0800

A quick measure of the costs of running on-premise computers.

Mac and Chrome HotKeys

Sat, 17 Oct 2020 00:00:01 -0800

A simple hotkey extension in Chrome that makes my life easier.

iTerm2 Paste Buffers on MacOS/OSX - how to increase size

Mon, 05 Oct 2020 00:00:01 -0800

Quick reminder: how to increase the copy-paste buffers size in iTerm2.

SRE 123

Wed, 30 Sep 2020 14:50:08 -0800

Everyone is all on fire about SRE. But what is it really? It’s as easy as 1-2-3 if you boil it down to the basics.

Fixing Hugo Social Media Icons in Blackburn

Sat, 26 Sep 2020 00:00:04 -0800

The Blackburn theme for Hugo has a bug in how it shows social media icons. Here’s how to fix it.

Hello Ubuntu - Kinda

Sat, 26 Sep 2020 00:00:01 -0800

Debian not good for me on the desktop - back to Ubuntu, lost the snaps.

Raspberry Pi Zero W Fun

Sat, 26 Sep 2020 00:00:01 -0800

The Raspberry Pi Zero W is likely the basis of my next few projects.

Goodbye Ubuntu, Hello Debian my old friend

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 03:10:43 -0800

Ubuntu just went too far with the snap crap. Back to Debian!

Blast from the past - Linux Telephony API

Sat, 27 Jun 2020 03:10:43 -0800

A trip down memory lane: the first linux telephony drivers

Docs as Code

Sat, 20 Jun 2020 03:10:43 -0800

One of the core principles of modern “DevOps” development is to treat your documentation as code, just like code. My team at Cisco open sourced how we do that.

Terraform in AWS: use AMI Names not IDs - and is Terraform the right answer still?

Sat, 06 Jun 2020 07:21:00 -0800

In AWS the AMI ID for a particular VM image is unique to that region. But it’s name is consistent across AWS. When building infra-as-code (such as terraform) use the name, not the ID. And some musings on terraform. Is it still the right answer for infra-as-code?

[Catchup Post] Speaking at SphereIT in Krakow, October 2019

Tue, 21 Apr 2020 07:16:43 -0800

Link to posted video “CloudSphere: Impedance Matching Legacy Apps to Prometheus Monitoring by Greg Herlein & David Wang”

Make RDP work from OSX

Tue, 21 Apr 2020 03:10:43 -0800

Quick reminder how to enable RDP sessions from OSX to an Ubuntu box.

SSH Tunnels

Sun, 12 Apr 2020 06:40:43 -0800

SSH tunnels are basically indistinguishable from magic.

Ubuntu Lid Control

Thu, 18 Jul 2019 18:40:43 -0800

The default behavior of Ubuntu 18.04 is not friendly for a notebook that swaps back and forth from desk to mobile.

Cloudy DevOps - Part 1

Sun, 10 Feb 2019 14:50:08 -0800

What exactly is Cloudy DevOps? How do you go from classic data center Enterprise deployments to the cloud? Here’s some of what I’ve learned across a half-dozen teams who’ve done it.

Boards!

Mon, 21 Jan 2019 10:50:08 -0800

I’m building a robotics board that basically is a WiFi REST interface to a variety of I2C sensors - the I2C side uses an I2C switch driven by an ESP32. My first RBOT board arrived, but alas, I got schooled on surface mount part numbering.

Ubuntu Again!

Sat, 05 Jan 2019 08:40:43 -0800

From 1997 to 2010 I believed it was only a matter of time before Linux on the desktop became a reality. I gave up in 2010 and went to OSX. But we may finally be close! Here’s my notes on installing Linux Ubuntu 18.04 on a Dell Inspiron 15 7000. It’s the easiest and happiest linux ever for me.

AWS Certified

Tue, 18 Dec 2018 23:50:38 -0800

On Becoming an AWS Certified Solutions Architect (Associate)

Avalanche! re:Invent 2018

Tue, 18 Dec 2018 10:50:01 -0800

Thoughts on AWS re:Invent 2018

I2c Tools for Project RBOT

Sat, 29 Sep 2018 08:44:43 -0700

I2C Tools I am Using for the RBOT Project

Pcal6416a Getting Started

Sat, 14 Jul 2018 19:32:04 -0700

I2C Port Expander for Robotics Use - Getting Started with the NXP PCAL6416A