Marcel Bootsman

About me

Hi! My name is Marcel Bootsman. This is my personal site on which I share some of my thoughts and experiences about my work, private life and everything in between. Also you might find some technical content here about Open Source, Web development, WordPress and Hugo (powering this website since October, 2022).

Professional biography

My current role, since April 2019, is Marketing Manager Dutch Market for Kinsta.

The journey of my professional life started in 2000, when I worked for IBM and was involved in developing a web version of a legacy terminal-based equipment ordering system. After about 9 years, and a diverse number of roles within IBM, the challenge of running my own company became so strong that I could not ignore it anymore.

In 2009 I started nostromo.nl. I started building websites with WordPress and became familiar with developing themes and custom plugins. Within a year of running my own company, I joined the WordPress community by volunteering. Organizing WordCamps (WordPress centric events) and helping out with translations in Dutch were, and are still, some tasks I really like to do.

Again after about 10 years (do you see the trend here?) I got to think about the status of my company during a walk from my hometown to Berlin for WordCamp Europe 2019. Soon after that event, I made the decision to stop my work at nostromo.nl, and work for Kinsta.

Marcel Bootsman

Latest blogs

Walk to WCEU logo next to the Statamic logo

Moving the walktowc.eu website to Statamic - Work in progress

Read this guide to learn how I migrated the walktowc.eu website from static WordPress generated files to an easy to manage and fast Statamic generated site.
WordPress.org contributor pins on a table

Contribute to WordPress - This is how you do it

You can contribute to WordPress in many ways. The various contributor groups are explained here so that you can easily choose what you contribute to.
Sunrise in Hazerswoude-Dorp

A 46km walk - Here's what I learned

I regularly walk long distance hikes, as in 40+ kilometers. This time I repeated an attempt to walk to Amsterdam from my hometown, and failed. Again.
A bag with a 2022 label

A 2022 update from me

Since february 2021, lots of things happened. Here’s my 2022 update.
A bridge during sunrise in a winter landscape

A winter walk around my town

Read about my 30.5km winter walk around my town, Berkel en Rodenrijs. I made a lot of pictures, so come and take a look.
Take a look at the archive with more posts

Latest notes

Some switches with patch cables

10 questions for your next hoster

Selecting a good hoster for your project is often experienced as difficult. What are the important questions that you should ask?.
Screenshot if Big Buck Bunny playing in VLC Player

Fix VLC Player deinterlacing not working

Are you experiencing deinterlacing not working in VLC player, while it is enabled in the settings? Read this note to find a possible solution.
An audiomixer seen from the front

Batch convert mkv audio to AC3 with ffmpeg

Some devices cannot process certain audioformats in video files. Here’s a quick command to batch convert these files with ffmpeg.
Home Assistant logo and text with all sorts of devices on the background

How to solve Home Assistant '400 Bad Request' error with Synology Reverse Proxy

When you want to run Home Assistant from behind a Reverse Proxy, running on a Synology, you might encounter a ‘400 Bad Request’ error. Here’s how to solve it.
Headphones on a yellow background

How to connect bluetooth headphones automatically in Ubuntu

Bluetooth headphones and Ubuntu, they just don’t get along. Here’s how to fix auto-connect for your Bluetooth headphones.
More notes

Connect

Here are some of my online profiles. Please feel free to reach out to me for a talk about WordPress, hosting, or any other topic.