As I am still doing migration projects from Pi (the hardware) to everything hosted on NAS, there were few things I wanted to try. One of which is open-source community-backed DBs. So far, not all of them were as good as I thought, but every projects I had seen so far showed the signs of efforts on the developing communities’ part. Now the pleasantries are out of the way, there is one area these databases suck at — collecting metadata of niche contents automatically.
Coding with Gemini was Fun Short-Lived
During my migration from Pi to NAS via all things Docker, one of the problems I immediately faced was how I was going to handle my aging databases. All these eBooks, magazines, articles, and etc. I have accumulated since high school had to go somewhere. I know there would be some people shouting I should simply throw them out like the 90s memorabilia in the attic. But I took this on as my personal DIY project.
How to Add Mouse and Scroll Shortcut for tmux
While tmux is a wonderful tool on its own, for mere mortals like myself, I jump back and forth between GUI and CLI. At least, that’s the impression I am getting from tmux why I am not getting 100% out of it. The shortcuts, quite frankly, are not intuitive for modern GUI users mind.
How to Find UID and GID on Synology DSM
If you are running home server using Docker containers, you would often see PUID (UID) or PGID (GID). The only problem is, as far as I could tell, Synology DSM does not offer GUI way to get these numbers. In fairness, in Docker territory, you are above the pay grade of consumer NAS products. For home servers, I believe it is customary for manufacturers to provide bare bone software support — it’s up to the users, and possibly the community they can rely on, to find answers.
App to Create Synology SSD Pools on M.2 NVMe Slots
As I am migrating from Pi setups to one NAS, one of the immediate upside and downside was HDD. I get more storage out of the physical machine, but HDDs are still slower than microSD cards on Pi. Fortunately, I had some old NVMe drives sitting around and decided to make use of it. The only problem was, DSM 7.* currently does not allow creating a pool from NVMe drives for my model.
How to Convert URL lists to Safari Bookmark
While I was working with Raspberry Pi projects, one notable trend which became prevalent was the web UI open source dockers started offering. With the proper DB, the indexing could not be faster than my handy work from 2000s. What that also meant was I ended up with a list of URLs I would want to keep on Safari.
How to Turn on Mouse and Scroll on tmux
Since I am still in the process of moving projects over from Pi, one of the big issues at hand is keeping tabs on the scripts I wrote. As much as I’d like to believe all my databases live on SSD, they don’t. HDDs are frustratingly slow, and the modern databases are designed around it. It’s really the matter of time. Using tmux, one does not need to worry about keeping the ssh session alive.
How to Mount Network Drive on Headless Pi
Though Raspberry Pi has added many handholding tools since, there are few quirks users from traditional operating system could not get accustomed to. Heck, I hail from different flavors of Linux, even I find headless Pi to be too barebones at time. I felt that the hardest when the earlier version of headless Pi would not mount USB drives automatically to /mnt/ point — I had to create a path for the mount command.
App to Backup Raspberry Pi over Network
I’m still in the process of retiring old projects. While I’m at it, I wanted a backup solution that will work over network. Putting a USB stick to a working Pi is a solution, only when that Pi is not headless (i.e. stuck away in a network closet). As far as I know, and this is a common enough warning seen in most Pi threads I’ve read, microSD card is the weakest link in Pi hardware. And once it fails, unlike HDD, there is no rescue.
How to Backup Raspberry Pi SD Card on macOS
I’m in the process of retiring my old Pi setups. It’s worth its own op-ed piece, but primarily, I built these DIY projects when Raspbian was still a thing on Buster. The latest Raspberry Pi OS (now renamed) is Trixie. I don’t know how I should take it, perhaps someone from professional background would have differing opinion — having to realize a pet project from 2019 is obsolete in 2026 felt off. So I am retiring the old ones completely — hopefully I will find use for them in the future projects.
How to Troubleshoot DualSense Stick Drift via Resetting
There is no permanent fix for stick drifts on official controllers, as far as I know. All controllers suffer from stick drifts to some degrees. And from what I can gather, aside from third party controllers (which may not support haptic feedback and/or adaptive trigger), the only option is to look out for premium models like DualSense Edge. Sony’s DualSense Edge is priced at $199.99, and it comes with the replaceable stick modules. I, for one, recommend getting a regular DualSense controller, considering the inevitable battery degradation.
1Password is Raising Price
Just last year I covered the very issue of leaving 1Password. Long story short, Apple Passwords, a free alternative for iOS and MacOS, has come a long way. With iOS 26, some argue it is now a suitable free alternative among many others. Not that I am suggesting everyone should jump ship, but I believe there is an argument to be made against where 1Password stands and why it is losing grip.
Umigari Spiel
I had played Umigari demo, and I liked the fishing and the usual Chilla’s Art special sauce that gave it some tangy flavor. I suppose it is the inherent problem in most fishing sims that fishing in video games often devolve into mini games. There are few games that escaped the usual fishing mini game criteria, and the demo seemed to have shown what is possible via mix of first person shooter with a harpoon. Overall, I’m afraid it overstays its welcome.
Where Is Poppy Playtime Going with the Factory?
This piece has been sitting in the back burner for some time now. The Chapter 1, though it had some fancy gadgets for a toy factory, it stayed a toy factory (with theme) with toy monsters. Compare that to what is going on in current chapters, the players are well past the point of factory floors. In fact, few assembly lines we do see in Chapter 5 don’t resemble anything like the special toy factory we had seen on the surface.
Poppy Playtime: Chapter 5 Spiel
Perhaps not so surprisingly, this will not be the end of Poppy Playtime the main franchise. As I understand it, the series was first planned with total of five chapters. Due to the nature of the episodic release, some parts of the review may contain spoilers. Please do check out previous posts on Chapter 1-3 or Chapter 4, if you would like to be cautious. This is also the first chapter I played on the PC at the time of the release, instead of waiting for a console port.