Jonathan Bossenger

Uses

I’ve been building PCs since high school, even though back then they were made up of whatever I could find in bargain bins or second-hand. Computers are the tools I use to earn a living, support my family and pay for my hobbies, two of which also involve computers. This page lists what my current setups are.

Daily driver – 14-inch MacBook Pro (Apple M1 chip)

Since I joined Automattic, my new daily driver is a company-sponsored 14-inch MacBook Pro, with the new Apple M1 chip. This laptop is a beast, and while I still don’t like macOS, the new Apple hardware is impressive.

  • Apple M1 Pro chip with 10-core CPU & 16 core GPU
  • 32GB unified memory
  • 1TB SSD

Personal Workstation

Custom-built as a new workstation in Dec 2020. I don’t use this as my daily driver anymore, but I still have it hooked up in my office if I ever need to access Ubuntu, Windows, or for gaming. During the course of 2022, I doubled the RAM to 32GB, and in Jan 2023 I upgraded the graphics to an RTX 3060.

  • AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU
  • Asus TUF GAMING B550M-PLUS (WIFI) Motherboard
  • 32GB 16GB Corsair VENGEANCE LPX DDR 4 RAM
  • Palit GeForce RTX 3060 12GB Graphics Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 Ti OC 6GB
  • Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB NVMe SSD
  • 2 x WD Blue 1TB 3.5″ SATA Storage Drives
  • Cooler Master MWE GOLD 650W ATX PSU
  • Cooler Master Masterbox K500L ATX case

Gaming – Asus ROG Ally

In 2023 I sold my home gaming PC and replaced it with the ROG Ally. I rarely did anything with the home PC anymore, besides gaming, and I much prefer gaming wherever I want to on the ROG Ally.

  • AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme Processor
  • AMD Radeon Graphics
  • 7-inch 1080p screen
  • 16GB LPDDR5 RAM
  • 512GB NVMe SSD

Latest Posts

  • I don’t understand computers

    Free computer chip image

    I’ve been building PCs for as long as I’ve been into computers (early nineties) and they still baffle me. Yesterday I installed a new graphics card on my office workstation, and the PC didn’t POST the first time. So I power cycle it, and it POSTs, but throws some “safe mode” BIOS error. So I…

  • Tuesday Twitch Streams

    I’ve been toying with the idea of doing weekly development live streams for some time now. Fortunately, my work on the WordPress training team regularly requires me to do some R&D work on new topics, which are the perfect subjects for live streams. So if you want to watch me fumble my way through WordPress…

  • Running Different PHP Versions with Apache on Ubuntu

    abstract business code coder

    I’ve been using Apache as my default local development web server since I started writing PHP code back in 2006. Back then, Nginx was barely 2 years old, and every web server was running Apache, so it just made sense. Over the years I’ve come to prefer Nginx on my web servers, but I still…

  • Let’s code! Creating your first WordPress Plugin

    As part of my sponsored work for the WordPress Training Team, I’m hosting weekly “Let’s Code” Online Workshops for Learn WordPress. Each week I cover a WordPress development concept. I’m sharing them here as well so that if anyone has questions they can ask me here (in the comments) directly. Watch this video on WordPress.tv…

  • Turning a shortcode into a block

    a laptop screen with text

    I’ve had a couple of folks either reach out to me or ask on Twitter if it’s easy to convert a shortcode into a block. The irony is that during my trial at Automattic, that’s exactly what I created, a tutorial on taking an existing shortcode plugin and adding it as a block. I am…

  • 45

    I turn 45 today, in a world where right-wing politics is tearing down individual rights, unjust wars are being allowed to kill innocents, and tech, in general, is just one big scam after another. I’m finding it hard to be positive about all this, but the one thing that keeps me going is the fact…

  • Configuring Ubuntu in Multipass for Local Web Development on a MacBook

    black and white browsing business coffee

    I’ve been using an Apple MacBook since June 2021. While I don’t totally hate it, I still prefer a LAMP or LEMP stack as my default local web development environment. The best alternative I’ve found on the Mac is Laravel Valet, but it’s not without some minor niggles, mostly the fact that the web server…

  • I’ll Remember the Days Before I Knew Everything

    The first time I heard about the Automattic creed was on a plane flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg, sitting next to Hugh Lashbrooke, as we flew to attend the first WordCamp in Johannesburg in 2016. I’d met the Johannesburg organizing team at that year’s Cape Town WordCamp, where we were all speakers, and I…

  • Coding Words

    The slides from my https://www.devconf.co.za/ 2022 talk. If you’d like to get early access to the book I’m writing on this topic, please fill in this Google form.