Welcome to my website!

Hello and welcome to my personal website! Here you will find some information about myself and my other websites. My name is Marvin Johanning. I currently reside in Bielefeld, Germany.

Below you will find a rather lengthy about section detailing some of the things that I like doing. You should (at some point, at any rate) also be able to find some more in-depth information on various topics on this website. For example, you can find my books, get more information about my computer and more.

General information

I am and always have been very interested in computers and technology in general. I spend a lot of my free time doing various things on my computer. In addition to this, I also like photography. I mainly take photos of birds, but I also, at times, take photos of other things. I like interesting wines, teas and beer and will also, though only very occasionally, drink some whiskey, too.

Computers and Technology

I am most proficient in Linux and macOS as those are the two operating systems I use at home. I am not an actual programmer, but I know my way around HTML, CSS and PHP and also Ruby and a bit of other languages; I am, however, far from an expert in any of these and considering I do not often write in them, I’d have to practice a bit before actually starting to write anything again.

I am the owner and administrator of various websites and online services, namely birds.town (a Mastodon instance), ancient-greek.net (a website with information on Ancient Greek) and beakandlens.com (a website showcasing my photography). Formerly, I also ran birdtu.be, a bird-related PeerTube instance.

In April 2024, I built my own computer for the very first time so that I could finally play some games. I tend to play (A)RPGs, (usually older) shooter games such as Quake or Half-Life or more exploration-based games like No Man’s Sky. I am currently running EndeavourOS on that machine. My main machine, however, is a Framework 13 running CachyOS (as of April 2026). I also still use macOS on my MacBook Pro, especially since I require either a Windows or macOS system for various photography-related tasks. You can find more about all of my computers in the tech section.

I also self-host a whole bunch of things. I have a NAS at home (OpenMediaVault) running on Proxmox alongside a number of other services such as Immich for my photos (of which I have a lot), Forgejo and a Minecraft server. The server I also built myself! In addition to that, I have a Jetson running a bunch of services at home and a few VPS which host my websites and my Mastodon instance.

Languages

Back when I was still in school, I frequently had plenty of time to study languages – either in school or at home. However, ever since I have started working full-time, I have had less and less time to focus on everything that I want to do (obviously). Therefore, I have not really had the time to focus on studying languages as of late.

Nevertheless, I have studied a large number of languages over the years and have even written books about languages. One is a book about the Ancient Egyptian language, namely The Intricacies of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics. It used to be available in print form but I have since taken it down; you can still download it as a PDF on ancient-greek.net, however. Additionally, I have translated the Apocalypse of John from the original Ancient Greek into English. You can read it either with the Greek text alongside the translation or in English only. As I have not had the time to continue my study of Ancient Greek, my other translation projects have not yet been finished. I really need to start practicing more again!

The languages I am most proficient in are English, German and Swedish. I know a fair bit of various other languages such as (but not limited to) Spanish, French, Hindi, Ancient Greek, Russian and Tagalog. This is mainly because I have studied these languages in the past but have given up on them. I can still read Cyrillic, Devanagari and the Greek alphabet pretty confidently, however, despite my not necessarily being able to understand the words.

Photography

I also like and have always liked photography. Even back in school, I was very well known for always being the person to take photos of everything – for better or for worse. I still take a lot of photos, though way fewer than I used to. I mainly focus on photographing birds at the moment and occasionally take portraits or landscape photos (especially when going on trips). I use various different cameras and lots of software and lenses.

My Work and Career

I started an apprenticeship in IT in the summer of 2019 and successfully finished it in the summer of 2022. The German term for the apprenticeship that I did is IT-Systemelektroniker, which roughly translates to IT systems technician. At the end of the apprenticeship, one has to carry out an IT project. My project was the creation of a LoRaWAN using Chirpstack, for which I received a very good grade. This network has since been expanded and I have since been in charge of rolling out, configuring and managing the LoRaWAN at the company.

I am currently working at a small ISP near Bielefeld, the same company at which I did my apprenticeship. I do a lot of different tasks within that company, but my main focus is managing a lot of the IT and infrastructure required for running an ISP, including (but not limited to): configuring and planning networks; working with and setting up pfSense firewalls; working with and configuring TP-Link and FS.COM network switches; working with security cameras and managing them via ZoneMinder; 2nd and 3rd level support; working with FreePBX and VoIP telephony in general; managing and configuring BKtel XON1300 fibre modems for our customers; writing small tools and programs to make day-to-day work easier; being in charge of our LoRaWAN network; and a lot more, depending on what is currently important.

My main experience lies with Linux systems. You can find my CV here.