Previously I ran a server rack on a 1000/1000mbps symmetrical service to my home (Ethernet provisioned from an ISP) to provide a number of personal media services to myself, friends and family.

Having had to relocate across 3 properties in the last 12 months however, drastically changed things – and I’ve since fallen back to a single 4RU server that’s packed to the gills with storage, and uses generic off-the-shelf consumer parts to keep going. There’s been a lot of benefits to this actually.

• It’s simple to get replacement parts
• Noise is kept to a minimum
• Reliability and up-time is a little less than enterprise hardware, but otherwise acceptably usable

With my recent trip to Japan and return – I’ve found the need to actually back up all my photos and media into a singular place that’s much easier to manage. So now I just run a single monolithic server called JT-SERVER which provides all the services I need.

Services I’ve built up to use nowadays are:

• Plex Media Server
• Nginx Proxy Manager – which routes to:
  • Overseerr
  • Immich

That’s it – nowadays there’s very little I do in the way of other things. A game server is still desirable but it’s not the highest priority for now. Maybe in the near future I might run:

• Minecraft (resuming previous efforts)
• Satisfactory (occasional)
• Factorio (occasional)

But otherwise most gaming requirements and needs for my “village” of friends and family aren’t necessary.

I think over the course of 2024, I’ve had to be much leaner, out of necessity. And I’ve come to find that some things just aren’t that necessary for “me and mine”. As I go into 2025, I head in with the goal of not buying any new technology, but rather just maintaining the status quo of what I have, and building a necessary platform of services for myself and my loved ones. It’ll be minimal, and a lot more wallet friendly, I think.

So it’s been several days since my last post about C States and power management in the Ryzen stuffing up Unraid OS.

I’m happy to report that things have been rock solid and for the last 90 hours or so, I’ve been solidly downloading my backups from Google Drive (yes, many years worth of data) onto the server. At the same time it’s been actively running as an RTMP bridge for all the security cameras around my house, and as an internal home network portal – all without falling over.

Here’s hoping I didn’t just jinx it….

Update: 8th August 2022 — Unraid’s been running solidly for 10 days + now!

I recently chose to go the Unraid route with my media storage server; I was lucky enough to be given a license for Unraid Pro, and straight up, let me say:

1. It’s easy to use
2. It’s beautiful to look at
3. It’s stupid simple to get working

BUT…

My server uses an old spare desktop I had lying around:

• AMD Ryzen 7 1700 (1st generation Ryzen)
• 32GB DDR4 RAM
• B450 based motherboard

But therein lies the problem. It turns out that Ryzens crash and burn with Unraid by default. You need to go into your BIOS settings, and turn off the Global C States power management states settings. Insane.

Why am I writing about this?

Because it took me 2 weeks to reach this point, wrestling with Windows storage, wrestling with shoddy backplanes in my ancient server chassis (which I then ordered a replacement case which set me back a pretty penny); new SAS controller; new SAS cables…

This is an expensive hobby, homelabs.

Local media storage. Yeah.

That’s right, I’m running Windows 10 Pro for a home server 😂

It’s been good so far, the machine is pretty old, but it is there for running things like local media storage, maybe a few other things that aren’t GPU reliant. It has an ancient PCIe 1x GPU in it (a GT 610 haha) that can’t really do anything more than let me remote in and work on the PC.

Although I do definitely want to run:

• Core Keeper
• V Rising

On the PC for friends and family to check out 🙂

Storage is a bit interesting; I forked out for StableBit Drive Pool and StableBit Scanner (there’s a bundle you can get) and it’s a simple GUI to just click +add to expand my storage drive with whatever randomly sized hard drives I have.

Why’d I do this instead of the usual zfs or linux based solution?

Mostly to keep my options open; it’s nice seeing a GUI and if Windows can handle my needs for my local network, I’m not doing anything extremely complicated, and the “server” it’s on is going to act as a staging ground for anything pre-gdrive archive.

I could just as (probably more) easily achieve the same results doing this over something like Ubuntu Server; except for the game servers mentioned above. There are some games that just require a Windows host much better, so this is what this machine is for.

The JT-LAB rack is finally full; all the machines contained within are the servers I intend to have fully operational and working on the network! Although not all of them are turned on right now. There’s a few machines that need some hardware work done on them; but that’s a weekend project, I think 🙂

So some months back, I backed this mechanical keyboard, the Keychron K2 on Kickstarter – I’d been on the hunt at the time for a wireless keyboard that really, I wanted to use with all my personal devices. A keyboard to ‘rule them all’ for all the areas of computing I have in my life.

I had three main areas that I wanted to use the keyboard on:

• My desktop PC
• My work PC
• My PS4 at home

Aside from that, I wanted it to also be wireless, and not have me tethered to a machine – I wanted to be able to pick it up, slip it into my backpack, and carry it between the office and home. Bluetooth connectivity was a must in case I decided to use it with a number of other devices I had laying around. The Keyboard arrived on Wednesday last week – and I’ve been using it as much as I can over the last 5 days.

So far, I’ve been thrilled with the keyboard – its touch feel, the key action – the sound, and the size of it make it a very satisfying package to use as my daily driver keyboard.

Only complaint I’ve had so far:

• I hate the placement of the Page Up, Page Down, Home and End keys -they could be better arranged on the right-hand side of the keyboard. I feel that the order (from top to bottom) would be better off as Home, Page Up, Page Down, End

You can see the layout complaint I have below in the diagram of the keyboard’s layout:

Aside from that – the lighting is great, keys are easily removable and the keyboard is super maintainable! I’m a huge fan of this keyboard, and can’t stop gushing about its usability and space-saving TKL 87 key design. I barely miss the numpad (although it now means I need to rethink how I bind my keys for MMO playing!)

All-in-all though, this keyboard scores a very high 8.5/10 for me, and has taken its place in my inventory as my daily driver keyboard; for all my regular code bashing and computing.

After my trip to Taiwan, I noticed that I personally started to up the usage time my laptop got. In a sense, I missed the full blown functionality of a PC; which was limited on the iPad.

The iPad is fantastic, as an extra TV screen, or a digital scribblepad. But that’s it; I haven’t the heart to use it for more. I could use it for more in a pinch, but I’d rather not. I bought my laptop at a weird time in my life; a lot of things were uncertain, and to top it off, I bought it with a broken ‘Up’ arrow key. It’s irked me using it ever since. The key still works fine and the keycap kind of still stays on. But it’s broken, and I’ll always be wary of it when I’m using this laptop.

Regardless, this little machine has grown on me. And continues to grow on me. The Gigabyte Aero 14 isn’t a bad device; it’s quite fantastic for my personal needs, and with it becoming my main work device; Ubuntu 18.04 needs to be installed on it.

And that’s why I’m here today, blogging.

So far, it’s been a pretty good experience – Ubuntu managed to install smoothly; and the only gripe is the need to reboot my laptop anytime I do a switch between my GeForce graphics card and my Intel graphics processor. The battery life is more than double when I’m using the Intel GPU, but in order to use two external screens, I need to use my Geforce GPU. It’s a small compromise though, given how quickly Ubuntu can reboot on the laptop.

There’s something beautiful about being able to carry a single device where all my work is focused; and with the power of the cloud™ I’m able to comfortably back up my stuff, too!

Ubuntu 18.04 and going into 2019 – I may well become a full blown Linux user.

So, it’s been about a week since I’ve been back from Taiwan, and I’ve finally had a moment to catch my breath with work and all the things that happened while I was away from the office, life and such.

To basically sum everything up – Project Cloud Citizen works. It meets my needs with my work and media requirements. Between the Nintendo Switch, mobile and iPad itself, my gaming needs are met too. There’s a few caveats however…

Caveats for why Cloud Citizen is a ‘success’

I’m no longer a hardcore gamer

This is probably the biggest caveat I can think of. Gone are the needs of 100% minimal input lag gaming; I’m not cruising around in some competitive FPS, and most of my gaming needs can be very casually met. I was satisfied mostly gaming on the Nintendo Switch, and the occasional odd iPad game.

I’m not as media creative focused anymore

I still tinker around every now and then in Photoshop and with some graphics; I don’t think this’d be possible with full blown video editing suites. Rudimentary graphic design is still very much possible, as long as you’re willing to compromise with colour reproduction and image quality while editing your work. The finished product will very much still be to spec, but due to the nature of streaming, you might not see your work with perfect clarity.

Cloud Citizen works for me

Photos

I was able to upload and retrieve just about every photo I took within a few seconds, on-demand during the trip. Taiwan has cheap, unlimited 4G for tourists (Alice and I picked up a 10-day SIM) with extremely consistent coverage everywhere in Taipei and Hualien. Whilst this is mostly a success due to the availability of mobile internet; the usability is a success from my phone/iPad with Cloud Citizen.

Remote Work

Whilst I was overseas, my team deployed a new project that had been in the works for about half a year. Thanks to Cloud Citizen, I was able to remote into my server, and via a remote setup on my iPad with a mouse — I was able to contribute meaningfully to the processes.

I could indeed use my iPad as my main computing device, as long as it’s backed up by the power of a full fledged desktop environment back at HQ…

If it’s a success, does that mean…?

That I’ll be using my iPad as my main device? After this whole experience, I feel that yes, I could indeed use my iPad as my main computing device, as long as it’s backed up by the power of a full fledged desktop environment back at HQ. It has made me reassess my needs (and wants) for mobile computing; and I come to the conclusion that I need something a little more robust.

My work, and often whatever I’m doing digitally, tends to be code based. And my workflows currently involve a lot of Docker container usage for my work. The #1 issue that I have with the iPad is that I have no way for testing my PHP code locally. Sure, this could be overcome by remoting into a PC and doing everything from there, and whilst it’s not terrible, it’s also not ideal (for example, if I’m overseas I might not have access to the internet, or be on a very data-restricted plan).

This, in essence, makes my choice for me going forward into 2019… I’m going to need to return to using my laptop. It’s no slouch, and it’s comfortably going to run all the Docker stuff I need; combined with some other applications – I think I should be quite comfortable with development on the go with it.

It’s unfortunate that yes, while I consider Cloud Citizen a success; it’s only a partial success with the particular ecosystem I brought with me to Taiwan.

So, over the next couple of weeks, I’m going to be travelling overseas to Taiwan. It’s a vacation, my first in nearly a decade; and since my last vacation, a lot of technology has changed that perhaps makes this journey a little more comforting to a reclusive geek like myself. The airline I’m flying with, provides a USB socket in its international economy seats, with 5V DC and 500mA charge, meaning I can power a device somewhat comfortably to enjoy a variety of media, and entertainment. So without further ado, I’m going to go into something of a diatribe about preparing for the trip to soothe my inner geek.

The constraints

There’s a number of limitations on this vacation, predominantly governed by my travel arrangements (flights, trains, etc.) so listing them out:

• Portability; I’m using a Crumpler 8L backpack; the “Low Level Aviator”
• Power; My gadgets need to last a while, and/or be charged with in-transit USB (5V DC, 500mA – about the same as a USB 1.1 port)
• Media; and Storage for photos and videos from my phone
• Entertainment; I don’t expect to have much time, but in the down time and flights I might watch a show, or three…
• Gaming; of course 🙂

The goal of this post is to put down my thoughts so that I can build up an EDC kit for my trip.

The EDC Backpack

Aside from my wallet – “The Pilot” by Andar; and my iPhone on my person – I’ll have most of my gear in my backpack with me:

• iPad Pro 9.7″ – it’s only 32GB, but it should hold enough of my notes and such to continue being useful!
• Nintendo Switch – previously in Project Cloud Citizen, this would’ve been my GPD-WIN PC, more on this later;
• Bullet Journal – my bujo, I carry this with me pretty much everywhere
• Pen cases – will hold my pens of course, and insulin injection pens, as well as some bandaids and what have you
• Screwdriver kit – this is a little portable kit with a combined tape measure that I will keep with me just in case
• Glasses case – obviously, for the glasses I wear, as well as a spare pair inside
• Battery Pack
• Cables for iPhone/iPad/Switch

This trip is a good opportunity to really see what there is that I can and can’t do when I’m truly away from my home desktop, and must rely on Project Cloud Citizen. I’m packing quite lightly with this trip, and my day-pack is smaller than my usual laptop bag. I’m also trying to ditch the laptop in favour of the lighter-weight iPad, and gaming/entertainment is handled by both the tablet and my Nintendo Switch instead.

In my last Cloud Citizen post I mentioned that I was going to use my GPD-WIN for my gaming purposes; but I am actually thinking more along the lines of no longer using it. For a few reasons:

• Its battery is good, but not as great as the Nintendo Switch or the iPad
• It’s far more general purpose, and far more of a compromise in power/features – so I feel like I’ve sacrificed too much to use it
• The iPad can truly connect with my Cloud Citizen server as a remote client now

For anything really PC related or desktop related, I can actually use my iPad now to remote into my server as needed using a piece of software called Jump Desktop, it works great with a specific bluetooth mouse and my iPad, and should satisfy any mobile needs I might have. In fact, I intend to work on this site and blog while I’m in Taiwan to try and get a feel for it.

So as it seems, I’m going to start using just my iPad and Switch, for this trip. It’s a 9 day long trip; so it’s a fairly valid testing opportunity!

So recently, I replaced my mum’s iPhone 5S with the iPhone 6 Plus I owned prior to my Samsung Galaxy Note 8. She was thrilled to have a larger screen, and a faster phone. Now, all I need is a way to port her mobile number across to an Optus SIM so I can data pool with her just in case she needs to head to out.

I out of curiosity, decided to try using the iPhone 5S as my main every day driver phone.

What I’ve always hated about the recent smartphone craze, is the need for larger screens, and bigger footprints for more power. I don’t suffer a long commute (I’m blessed with a carpark space in the middle of Sydney CBD, and I drive for my commute into the city), and it’s rare for me to be far enough away from a PC, tablet, or laptop that would require me to use my phone as the primary device.

I noted quietly the uses I have for my phone:

• Calls
• Messages (including SMS, and digital web-based messaging)
• Maps
• Occasionally reading
• Music listening
• Making a wifi hotspot

And that’s about it. I don’t exactly use my phone for media consumption, gaming or any kind of productivity really. So, my phone needs are quite a lot lower than your average smartphone enthusiast.

The downsides so far:

• The phone carked it this morning and I had to reboot it to get it working properly, it’s only my second day using this phone so I wonder if it’s the phone with a hardware issue?
• The phone’s antenna isn’t as powerful as the Note 8’s – I still get amazing coverage, but there is a noticeable reception bar difference sometimes.

The pros so far:

• Siri works really well for me. It lets me make calls while I’m driving, and that’s about it. The simplicity just works well for me.
• I can operate the phone very comfortably with one hand
• It’s one of the last iPhone SKUs with a headphone jack

At the moment, the iPhone 5S is meeting all my needs. In fact, I may end up selling the Note 8 if I reach the end of a few weeks and don’t find myself wanting the Note 8 anymore as a phone. 😮