Posts
Page 8 of 41
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Pi-hole vs AdGuard Home: Block Ads for Your Whole Network
Browser ad blockers miss half the ads. DNS blocking kills them everywhere — TV, phone, game console, everything. Pi-hole vs AdGuard Home: here's which one to run.
13 min read -
Obsidian LiveSync: Self-Hosted Sync Without Paying for the Privilege
Obsidian Sync is $10 a month. Your notes are Markdown files. There's a free plugin, a Docker container, and about 20 minutes standing between you and never paying that bill again. Here's how to actually do it without losing your mind or your notes.
6 min read -
Appwrite: Your Own Firebase, Minus the Google Surveillance Subscription
Firebase is convenient right up until your bill is $300/month or Google quietly deprecates the product you built on. Appwrite is self-hosted BaaS — auth, databases, file storage, serverless functions, and realtime — on hardware you control. Here's how to set it up and build something real.
8 min read -
Colima vs OrbStack vs Docker Desktop on Mac
Docker Desktop got expensive and RAM-hungry. Colima is the lean alternative. OrbStack is the one everyone's actually using now. Here's the honest breakdown for Mac developers.
7 min read -
NocoDB: Because Airtable Doesn't Need to Know Your Business
Airtable is $20/user/month for features that a spreadsheet-over-Postgres can handle. NocoDB gives you the same gallery views, kanban boards, and auto-generated APIs — running on your own hardware, with your own database. Here's how to set it up and actually use it.
8 min read -
nftables: Modern Linux Firewalling
iptables is being phased out. nftables is faster, cleaner, and already the default on modern Linux. Here's how to actually use it without wanting to quit.
6 min read -
Wiki.js with GitSync: Documentation That Lives in Version Control Like It Should
Wikis that live only in a database are documentation that's one hard drive away from disappearing forever. Wiki.js GitSync backs your docs to a Git repo, gives you PR workflows, full history, and the ability to edit from your IDE. Here's how to set it up and actually use it.
8 min read -
Ollama Model Management: Beyond ollama run
You know how to pull and run a model. Now learn Modelfiles, GPU layer tuning, the REST API, running multiple models without OOM-killing your server, and actually useful system prompts.
7 min read -
Uptime Kuma: Status Pages, Alerts, and Knowing Before Your Users Do
Your users shouldn't know your service is down before you do, but here we are. Uptime Kuma goes way beyond basic HTTP checks — TCP monitors, Docker container health, certificate expiry, push monitors for cron jobs, and your own statuspage.io. Here's how to actually use it.
9 min read -
Caddy Advanced: Automatic HTTPS, Plugins, and Config That Doesn't Make You Cry
Nginx config files make you feel like you need a certification to write them. Caddy's Caddyfile is what happens when someone decides web server config should be readable by humans. Here's everything beyond basic reverse proxy — wildcards, plugins, forward auth, and the config API.
8 min read -
Restic vs Borg vs Kopia: Backups That Actually Deduplicate
rsync is not a backup. Restic, Borg, and Kopia do deduplication, encryption, and incremental snapshots properly. Here's which one fits your home lab and why.
7 min read -
Suricata vs Snort: Network Intrusion Detection That Actually Works
Snort invented network intrusion detection. Suricata multi-threaded its way past it. Here's how to set up real IDS/IPS on your home lab and actually understand what it's telling you.
6 min read
