I thought I’d share some light-hearted news before I can drop the pessimistic read on the tech sector as a whole. Anthropic hasn’t yet shared any update on when the US government’s suspension of Fable 5 will be lifted, but there are communities voicing support for the repeal of the ban, while sharing memes around its status.
From App-to
App to Restart Unhealthy Docker Container
One of the odd features left out of the Docker ecosystem is restart on unhealthy. Docker knows the status of individual containers, but it somehow does not natively support the feature. There are yaml tricks to have a container kill itself if unhealthy, so the Docker engine restarts it based on the policy. The tool I am recommending is a more comprehensive, if not more commonly recommended, method.
App to Span Filesystem Across Storage Pools
The home lab community has long assessed the pros and cons of NAS ecosystems and respective accessories for future expansions. Notably, Synology has been offering expansion units as a companion to their DiskStation lineup. For example, if the main unit only has 5 bays but the spec sheet says it supports up to 15 drives, the implication is that the user may expand the configuration with the compatible expansion unit they offer. That being said, an expansion over a single line of cable also presents a single point of failure — a risk most find outweighs the benefit of additional…
App to Discover IP Addresses for Proxy Switchers
If you are using a rule-based proxy switcher, checking IP addresses for each proxy could easily get out of hand. It is possible to stop the auto-routing and force the connection for manual testing, but that is not what I wanted to do with a browser extension.
App to Automatically Sync Subtitles to Videos
As I was going through my media library, there was one thing I noticed consistently — I am more or less after the fan-made subs than the rips themselves. The official subtitles tend to miss out on the clever wordplays, crude jokes, pretty much anything that is not broadcast-friendly in both literal and financial sense. But at the same time, I also consistently notice fan-made subtitles are out of sync by 1/4 seconds or so.
App to Manage Streaming Contents and Self-Hosted Media Discoveries
I know the title can be mouthful. So let me start by describing the problem first. There are different services available on the internet showing what streaming services in your region carry the contents you are after. The problem I had with these services were: one. it often fails to parse the localized titles used outside of North America, two. these services are not always up to date with licensing. What it means, in the real world, is you might be buying or adding a new subscription to watch a movie or a TV show that either you already own…
App to Import and Download Films for Plex
This is a related post from yesterday’s. Both Plex and *arr platforms share the same categorization of video contents. They are either films or series. Sonarr handles series, Radarr handles films or theatrical runs. One would think films would have less an issue fetching metadata, but managing media libraries can create some extreme edge cases.
App to Import and Download Series for Plex
One of the automation self-hosting streaming aims to achieve is matching and fetching metadata. Plex handles both rather well and is quite forgiving with file names on average. I suppose the emphasis is on average. Plex divides medias into two major categories: films (or theater) or series (TV shows, and others). If Plex fails to match the existing files for series, it has to be done manually; at worst, it could be a grueling work to match the show, the seasons therein, and then the episodes therein.
App to Self-Host Media Streaming Server
I had heard about Plex before, but I had never seriously put a thought into it. That is, until I realized how vulnerable of a geolocation I was in. If you are reading this in North America or Europe, it might not affect you as much; but geoblocking, coupled with intentional licensing lapse, it becomes impossible to trust a streaming service as a subscription to a media library.
App to Redirect URL on Browsers
The prevalence of web UIs with advanced DB features on them make it possible to save search queries on bookmarks. For example, I could keep track of a favorite author on a eBook platform with a url similar to service.ddns.org:port/search?=authorname. Each platforms have their own URL scheme, but the point is simple. This approach would effectively serve as “smart playlist” available on iTunes or Apple Music, if set up correctly. That is, if all platforms are willing to play ball.
App to DDNS with API for Local HTTPS Certificate
I’m still in the process of writing up the Caddy + DuckDNS post, but I thought to make a separate post anyway what DDNS is and why I am writing about DuckDNS for the particular home lab setup. DDNS is often used for home or small office environment, when the IP address to the said network is not fixed. ISP usually ask extra for fixed IP address. DDNS effectively keeps the record of your machine’s public IP, thereby connecting to the said DDNS domain would lead back to home.
App to Reverse Proxy on Synology DSM
Synology DSM is equipped with rudimentary level of reverse proxy feature, but after few home lab projects, I believe a user ought to notice the inherent reliability issue. In my setup, I keep my NAS unexposed the to the internet — the only way to access it is via Tailscale or VPN. The problem with the certificates were expected in the old setup; a certificate on DSM is issued on the premise NAS is exposed to the internet with the necessary ports.
App to Manage Multiple Tabs on Firefox
I suppose each developers have their own basic browsers to fallback to. If it works on this browser, it’s likely going to run on all browser. My go-to browser, especially for apps that offer web UI, is Firefox. Part of the reason why I haven’t moved to Chrome — aside from the usual memory jokes — is the reliability of the platform Firefox offers. Albeit not perfect, it has some level of reliability.
App to Fix Globe Bookmark Favicon on Firefox
Firefox is giving me different varieties of issues lately. Partly, because I think most apps are now geared toward Chrome and Safari — the most popular on all platforms or the most popular on single platform browsers. But that’s an excuse for Firefox not working with websites and web UIs, not the Firefox’s own bookmarks failing to grab favicon from added URL. The usual fix I could find after some Googling suggested re-adding or editing the URl to force Firefox to update the icon, but only to no avail.
App to Stop YouTube AI-Translation via User script
I had covered this issue before using a dedicated add-on on browsers. While it worked, there were two problems, at least in my opinion: a. it’s a separate app just for one website, b. it’s not available on iOS. Granted, I was not able to find a universal user script that works on both platforms, but tweaking it takes little to no effort as most of the script can be edited by the user.