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17456 discoveries · Hand-picked discoveries from the open web, newest first.
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2023 Reflections and 2024 Goals
Okay, I know I’m finally finishing this post in NOVEMBER when 2024 is almost over, and it was mainly postponed because I lacked 2024 goals. So I’ve reflected on why and shared my thoughts below. But first, 2023 reflections! I made a huge life change that made it a great year for me. I moved to Seattle! It took me awhile to get everything ready and find a place to rent, but I finally did it! I chose Seattle for a few reasons. The nature in the Pacific Northwest really calls to me, and I want to go on hikes and enjoy it. I also have a few friends in Seattle, so it was an easier trans
miccah.io · EN
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An unexpected benefit to keeping notes
I keep a weekly journal of notable events, my feelings, and ideas. Most of the time, the value I get out of doing this comes from the act of writing it down in the moment. Writing notable events helps my memory, writing my feelings helps me understand and let them go, and writing my ideas helps me refine them. This is largely unsurprising and overall very valuable to my mental health, but occasionally I look back over the years of notes and regain a perspective of myself that I so easily forget: I’m awesome . I’m not saying this to brag! Living day by day and falling into the rhyth
miccah.io · EN
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2025 Reflections and 2026 Goals
It seems like 2025 came and went in a flash. Looking back, I’m happy to say that I continued being social and made some more friends. This past year, I.. Built a home server Okay, I actually built it in 2024, but I used it a lot this year and had a lot of fun setting up VMs with Proxmox . I keep all of my notes there, a gaming VM, and various media containers too. It may be recency bias, but I installed immich and have had a great experience with it, and even started a photo frame project that has been a lot of fun.
miccah.io · EN
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WireGuard is simply elegant
WireGuard is a secure, easy to use, and simple VPN solution that is the underlying technology for Tailscale . I’ve personally used it in both flavors and have been very happy with its reliability and the fact that it “just works.” So this week, I decided to learn how it can “just work” by reading the whitepaper describing its design and also watching the 2018 BlackHat keynote . While I enjoy exploring the technical details of a secure communication protocol¹ and will dive into that later, I want to take some time to appreciate the simple elegance of the WireGuard
miccah.io · EN
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Home cloud gaming server
At the end of 2024 I decided to build a new gaming PC. My existing one was a typical tower computer from 2012 that was big and loud and too old to run Elden Ring ! So I decided it was time to make a new build, but this time, I wanted to do it a little different. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of having a large and loud tower at my desk, so I thought it would be fun to build a server that could stream games to my laptop.
miccah.io · EN
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My NixOS dev machine
I have a home server that I built primarily for “cloud” gaming (read more about that here ). I’m running Proxmox so I can install other services, one of which is my notes machine. After many years of experimentation, I’ve landed on a system that I like: I ssh notes@notes which drops me directly into nvim -c VimwikiMakeDiaryNote and disconnects on close. It’s a very lightweight version of an SSH app, which I’m starting to realize I like quite a bit.
miccah.io · EN
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Ergonomic SSH development
I’ve been setting up a dev machine on my home server and doing all of my personal projects remotely over SSH . I’ve fiddled quite a bit with the system to make it ergonomic, so here are some of the things I’m quite happy with. Tmux autocompletions Of course, tmux is a t-must! One of the cool things about tmux is that you can programmatically read the contents of a pane via tmux capture-pane -S- -pt $PANE_ID , which means you can plug this data into autocomplete engines.
miccah.io · EN
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My New Note Taking Setup
I spent so much time in the past exploring different note taking solutions in order to put together a system that covers all my needs. I tried multiple apps and services, …
Posts on ilyess · EN
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How I Fixed My Linux Installation
A few weeks ago, I broke my Linux installation . After a lengthy investigation that involved messing with BIOS settings and flashing a new firmware version, I was now ready to load a live Arch ISO and start digging around in hopes of finding the root cause and deploying a fix. Note If you haven’t read the post referenced above , I suggest giving it a read before this one.
Posts on ilyess · EN
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Why I'm Adding Native Comments to My Blog
One of the main reasons I love blogging is the lively discussions my posts generate. Exchanging ideas with like-minded people brings me joy, helps me broaden my knowledge, and lets me forge long-term connections. Those conversations can’t thrive without a welcoming space. Broadly speaking, I categorize this feedback into two groups: private channels such as email and direct messages, and public venues like social-media posts or forums. In this article I’ll briefly outline the tools I’ve been using to manage public discussions on this blog, explore other comment-management sol
Posts on ilyess · EN
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Using Pi-hole Dns in Neighboring Docker Containers
In a previous post , I explained how to run Pi-hole in Docker and use it to manage the Domain Name System (DNS) for an entire home network — for example at home, work, or school. It’s a great tool for taking control over your DNS and blocking trackers and ads across the whole network. Once the network’s DHCP 1 server is configured, every machine on the network will begin sending its DNS queries to the Pi-hole container. But what about Docker containers that share the same Pi-hole host — what I’m calling “neighboring Docker containers”? Can they also use the Pi-hol
Posts on ilyess · EN
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Services Worth Self-Hosting for Privacy
A few years ago, I decided I wanted more control over my data. I was tired of wondering what Google knew about me, tired of cloud services getting breached, and tired of relying on companies that could shut down tomorrow and take my data with them. So I started self-hosting — not to be optimal, but to be in control. If you’re here, you might be thinking about doing the same. Maybe you’ve heard about self-hosting but feel overwhelmed by where to start. Maybe you think it requires a server closet full of equipment and a networking degree. It doesn’t.
Posts on ilyess · EN
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A New Home for This Blog
When I first launched this blog, I wanted a short domain name for it. A name built around “ilyess”, which is the identity of this site. Obviously, ilyess.com was already taken. So I turned to the cheapest top-level domain I could get started with. After some promo hunting, I settled on ilyess.cc . It checked most of the boxes: short, centered around “ilyess”, and cheap. But this domain name is on an uncommon TLD and it’s not that “cool”. At least I didn’t think it was cool, and I still don’t.
Posts on ilyess · EN
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My Writing Struggle
When I first set up this blog I had big plans for it. I wanted to share my tinkering with technology and online privacy. The main goal was to educate and inform others. The first target was 10 articles in year one. I published 3. I missed the same goalpost the next year, and every year after. Why? Why can’t I write as much as I want? My High Bar # I’m not short of ideas. I have a stack of drafts sitting on the back burner — posts that didn’t make the cut. Wait, what cut?
Posts on ilyess · EN
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My Quest for IndieWeb Citizenship
Browsing the internet, I landed on the IndieWeb site and went exploring that philosophy. I wasn’t new to the concept, but up until then I hadn’t taken the time to dig deep and really understand what it was all about. I knew it had to do with microformats — conventional HTML tags bloggers use to annotate information on their sites — and POSSE — which in practice for me means posting here first, then syndicating to Mastodon . But beyond that, I didn’t fully grasp the point. So I grabbed a cup of coffee and dove down the rabbit hole.
Posts on ilyess · EN
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Pi-hole Docker Version V6.5 2026.10.1
On October 31, 2026, the Pi-hole team released Docker version 2026.10.1 of their product, this being the latest version for Docker. On October 17, 2026, the Pi-hole team had released version 6.5 of their core product. You can install it for free on your Synology NAS, UGREEN NAS, or Asustor NAS using my handy guides. ... Read more about Pi-hole Docker Version V6.5 2026.10.1
Marius Hosting · EN
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Synology: Best Docker Containers For Halloween 2026
The night is getting longer, the pumpkins are glowing on the porch and somewhere in the corner of your house your Synology NAS is humming quietly in the dark, like a friendly little ghost that never sleeps. Halloween is the perfect excuse to give it something fun to do. Some of these apps keep an ... Read more about Synology: Best Docker Containers For Halloween 2026
Marius Hosting · EN
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How to Install Mitra on Your Synology NAS
Mitra is a self-hosted calendar that puts events and tasks on a single timeline so you can see when there is actually room to get things done. It runs as a single Docker container with its own database, stores calendars locally if you prefer, and syncs bidirectionally with CalDAV, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, Notion, Todoist, ... Read more about How to Install Mitra on Your Synology NAS
Marius Hosting · EN
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UGREEN NAS UGOS PRO 1.21.0.0190 Released
On November 2, 2026, UGREEN released the new UGOS PRO version 1.21.0.0190, the successor of 1.20.0.0142. Good news this time for the iDX 6011 / iDX 6011 Pro owners too: the DXP series and the iDX series get the same build, so nobody has to wait a few extra weeks. Below I will guide you ... Read more about UGREEN NAS UGOS PRO 1.21.0.0190 Released
Marius Hosting · EN
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How to Install Monline on Your Asustor NAS
Monline is a self-hosted application for tracking subscriptions, recurring payments, and budgets. It pairs a React frontend with a Node.js server and embedded SQLite storage, offering subscription management with automatic logos and flexible billing, a payment calendar, budget overviews, payment insights, bank statement imports from services like Enpara, DenizBank, and Garanti BBVA, multi-language support, themes, ... Read more about How to Install Monline on Your Asustor NAS
Marius Hosting · EN
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How to Install Mitra on Your UGREEN NAS
Mitra is a self-hosted calendar that puts events and tasks on a single timeline so you can see when there is actually room to get things done. It runs as a single Docker container with its own database, stores calendars locally if you prefer, and syncs bidirectionally with CalDAV, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, Notion, Todoist, ... Read more about How to Install Mitra on Your UGREEN NAS
Marius Hosting · EN
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CLI
A collection of command line related notes. Mostly things I can't quite remember.
Luca Pette · EN