Since today every package we ship out with DHL will be shipped with DHL’s “GoGreen” initiative. The GoGreen initiative is DHL’s approach to help reduce CO2 emissions. While it is not a gigantic leap towards the solution to healthier earth, it is a step in the right direction and we found this to be worth supporting.

More details can be found at our online shop!

By the way, our colocation in Oldenburg as well as our office runs on EWE Naturwatt power. I am currently investigating into moving our second location in Oldenburg to a better and cleaner way of getting power as well.

During our bytemine hackathon at the north sea, I gave a talk on the history of the company, the way bytemine has developed over the years and our current development culture. During this presentation we came to the conclusion that we follow the ‘evolution, not revolution’ paradigm, just like OpenBSD does.

This is also the paradigm of this bytemine manager release. Of course the bytemine manager had its fair-share of focus during the hackathon, after all it is, what we think the future in OpenVPN administration. But all the ideas we had and also the outcome of a user-interface-usability session, will not become alive over night.

The bytemine manager 1.2 brings a lot of fixes and smaller features, that have been added in the last five weeks to the codebase of the manager. Among other things the following items can be found in the ChangeLog:

• Many smaller UI fixes, the tables now grow upon resizing the main window, etc.
• CN and usernames do not have to be the same, eg. decoupled.
• Each controlcenter tab can now send custom commands to the OpenVPN server
• Updated bouncycastle provider jar (3rd party crypto library)
• External db can be passed on the commandline
• Extract the username out of X509 subject when revoking a certificate

and many more changes.

Of course we’ve also worked on improving the documentation. The manual for the bytemine manager is now also available in english. Direct links to the manuals: english manual, german manual.

The evaluation version of the bytemine manager can be downloaded for free from our eval version.

Daniel is actively working on a much improved user-interface, so stay tuned for further updates to the bytemine manager.

Alongside with the new bytemine manager, we’ve setup a new mailinglist. The mailinglist products-discuss is meant as a direct feedback channel for you. Not only for feedback, but also for technical (and philosophical) discussions around and about our products.

Enjoy!

As a reliable source for embedded boards coming from Soekris Engineering we’ve been asked many times on wether it is possible to order PC Engines systems from us. Well, we’ve finally made them available through our online shop. We also carry the 19” cases as well as various add-on products.

As a special deal, we currently offer the 2d13 at a special rate.

While waiting for the second car to arrive here at the North Sea, I want to give a short elaboration on what’s going on the next five days at bytemine.

Back in january we were on a visit at the North Sea for a kick-off-2009 bytemine weekend. Today two cars are heading again towards the North Sea.

This time, not for conceptional and strategic meeting, but for spending five days of hacking and development in a nice atmosphere. We’ve rented a house in St. Peter-Ording, where we will be with, at peak-times six people, working on features for the bytemine openbsd appliance, bytemine manager as well as on a product we will be announcing early next year.

Of course, there are going to be many more smaller and larger things going to happen in these days, which can be summarized in – what I would call – “developing a development culture”. We already have one at bytemine, but as we grow, these aspects do need some constant attention.

If you want to follow the things happening , lookout on twitter, we use the hashtag #btm-hackathon09.

Well, clock is ticking and in a few hours OpenRheinRuhr in Bottrop opens the gates. bytemine will be present as sponsor and exhibitor, so you can visit us at our booth and have a glance at our products or simply get in touch with us. See you there.