In a home lab environment, the server is bound to go through more changes than conservatively-run enterprise counterparts. It is, after all, part of the experience. And one core difference in approach between the two environments is downtime. In the corporate world, server downtime is lost revenue. In the home lab world, well-architected downtime is yet another small project finished.
From How-to
How to Migrate Docker Containers from Synology
Synology DSM has been shipped with a Docker Engine for a while, but it failed to keep up with the latest version of Docker Engine, let alone stay within the EOL life cycle. DSM was given an updated 24.0.2 of Docker Engine in February 2025, the version already declared EOL in June 2024. At the time, the latest version of Docker Engine available was 27.5, at least 3 major versions past what Synology offered. In short, running multiple Docker containers as part of a home lab on the DSM platform is unreliable.
How to Scan Local Network for Reserved IP
While routers are becoming ‘smarter’ day by day, some of the rather basic features are pushed back to the “Professional” department. One such feature is LAN management, specifically, static IP reservation. Single-source-of-truth dictates one authority for IP assignment — routers could be that authority. However, practically speaking, none of the consumer-level routers I’ve encountered have managed to ship a proper static IP management. Hence per-device static IP.
How to Change Apple ID Region
Region-changing on old systems has become something of a quiet craze — remote work and streaming have made it a growing necessity that cannot be ignored anymore. Apple was relatively late to the game; as far as I know, the region-change program didn’t gain real traction until 2020. Now in 2026, the documentation is conflicting, even from Apple itself, on where the program actually stands.
How to Upgrade NVMe on Unsupported Synology NAS
Synology is known for making reliable HDD network storage, not NVMe. The few articles I found often recommended building your own NAS for NVMe, given the general reliability of SSD and price to performance ratio. While I agree on the principle, for those of us who already own a Synology branded NAS, there is no reason to avoid using M.2 slots on Synology NAS. There are scripts to enable a pool creation for this very purpose. And this is the part where I could not find documentation on. How do I go about upgrading a storage from 512 GB to…
How to Band-aid Fix macOS Music App Freezing on Launch
The app in question is the Music app bundled with every Mac, not to be confused with the streaming service from the same company. And unfortunately, I was not able to narrow down what causes the issue. Upon opening the app, none of the UI is working. The only recourse, even though the app is not “unresponsive”, was to quit it.
How to Set Complex Repeating Pattern on iOS Reminders
It was always possible to set more complex repeating pattern using Shortcuts. However, at least from my experience, Shortcuts automation do fail horrendously, when it needs to run in the background. These are some edge cases that I have the latest Reminders could not handle on its own:
How to Run Python Script from iOS Home Screen
On iOS, Pythonista is likely the go-to Python environment runtime for many script writers. I, for one, recommend using Pythonista for any projects that need some horsepower. As I have shared many times, one such problem was generating passwords. It is completely doable on Shortcuts, only that it would be so cumbersome to make it happen.
How to Auto-Switch Proxies on iOS using PAC
This one is mostly for documentation and proof of concept. I was able to get it to work, but it was never reliable enough. The iOS feature itself does work. But even at the basic home lab level, it doesn’t have any interface to speak of. For instance, I want to know if traffic is actually going through the designated proxy, but there is no notification of any kind. For day-to-day operation, I don’t think it fits the bill.
How to Load Lazy-Load Images in Background
I have an assumption about average internet speed — it’s fast enough for most parts of the world to have streaming services. But somehow, some websites still do use lazy loaders on their images and assets. Mad Tea Party is one of them, due to server’s resource issues. But for websites that have larger traffic, for the life of me, I don’t understand why they would want to have users wait for each image to load in-between the reading session.
How to Pass Brackets in URL Query for Komga
One of the reasons why I am still in the process of writing a piece on Komga is its weird quirks like this. As a comics and graphic novels manager, Komga has what I would consider Calibre has for graphical publications: lots of metadata managements, different lists that handle series and books, and more. But Komga has its own limits. One such limit, I have seen so many times, is that the web UI uses brackets in the URL for query. It often confuses browsers beyond limit.
How to Setup Multi-user Plex without Subscription
As I was saying about Plex, and it would apply to any other self-hosted streaming, my goal — and most people’s, no doubt — is to fill in the gaps between what mainstream streaming services offer and the contents that fell through licensing since we signed up for it. It’s pointless to argue that the users should be jumping through VPNs to see if the said media is still available in another region.
How to Prevent URL Stripping on Szurubooru
One of the platforms I didn’t anticipate I needed, but ultimately found myself pondering over were images DB. If it were personal or interpersonal photos, there are free and paid viewers, libraries, and management softwares available. If it were creating and catering new images, those exist for the professional illustrators. But neither particularly helps when the images in question are meant to be read and/or referenced. Szurubooru is one of these image board platform that could be the solution for personal uses. I am still in the process of doing a proper write-up on it.
How to Setup Caddy + DuckDNS for Local HTTPS
After starting few containers on Docker, the one problem nobody mentions, and quite frankly, none of the installation guides talk about, is the web UI management. Not a management UI of a single project, but managing the UIs, the plural. More and more user friendly open source projects are adopting web UI as baseline, yet, the only method these projects openly recommend is connecting via IP address. If you were using a NAS like I am, it would end up looking like this: NAS_ip_address:port. Now don’t forget all the other ports NAS is already using, along with additional ports these…
How to Use Space Bar on Komga Web Viewer
There are two parts advantage of moving to web-based apps and platforms from my experience: one, web-based development seems to be more active (completely anecdotal), and two, web-based means I can come up with an add-on rather easily.