Ideology

This post is originally composed on 2024-11-28. I’m updating it for combining NextDNS, since I have started using a new freemium app with nasty ADs in it. ProtonVPN’s free plan doesn’t allow me to configure AD blocking DNS, especially with their official app. But with WireGuard app, this can be trivial. Thank to the original guide on reddit, the newly added part is in the end of this article. As a early adopter of Protonmail, I use their later coming VPN product as well, regularly yet lightly. Although I’m a potential customer but still not paying for any of their plan, for many reasons. ...

There are many reasons why I’m doing this. In the days when Virtual Machine was the thing, VMware Workstation was the go-to option for a Windows host to run VMs. We have to find cracked version for personal use, since there was no VirtualBox neither Hyper-V. Many years ago, when I first decided to have a proper homelab in my household, I went blindly into ESXi just because VMware Workstation has already installed on all of my computers. Although I was pretty like Proxmox during that time, it was considered for not so serious projects. ...

This is the server I build back in 2023, based on a moded Dell Optiplex 3010 SFF motherboard with i5-2300 and Tesla M40. I wasn’t planning to put an Xeon E3 back then but something happened which changed my mind. After approximately 1.5 years of 24/7 running, my CPU power extension cable melted. This is just like the PCIe to EPS adapter situation last time, so I have to replace it with a heavier gauge (something better than the cheapest like above). ...

iPhone Talks There are a many cellphones that make me feel nostalgic. None of them is Android nor iPhone. Some of them are QWERTY, some are flip phones. Phones were much interesting back in the days when Motorola, Nokia, Sony, Sharp, Blackberry and more are still competitive in the market. Today’s smartphones are indifferent and rather being “boredphones”. And all of these boredness are rooted in the “iPhone Moment”. Despite how much I dislike iPhone’s disruptive innovation and its market breakthrough as well as Apple’s philosophy behind it. There is one thing true about the spirit of Steve Jobs, that is, a phone should be comfortably used in one hand. Although this was his defense of iPhone’s 3.5 inch screen size, I strongly agree with his ergonomics minded UX design. ...

Days before mini-PC become a thing, there was no NUC, MinisForum or Beelink. It was the time of thin client and SFF (small-form-factor), manufacturers such as Shuttle, Dell and Lenovo were made a lot of these. Back then, the performance of SoC was too weak so that even laptops wouldn’t use them. But my first dedicated home lab machine was an Atom D525, which was called embedded industrial computer. It served as a router rather than server due to its performance and heat. That was also the time when I got into the world of m0n0wall derivatives (pfSense/FreeNAS). ...