• 1 Post
  • 8 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 17th, 2023

help-circle
  • I back up everything. I use Stablebit Drivepool with duplication for all of my source code, media, photos, documents, music, books, laptop backups, etc. I back that up periodically to a Drobo DAS and 8 Bay USB enclosure setup under Drivepool. I also have off site backup (working on a new NAS which will be accessed over a VPN). I don’t want to spend the time worrying about loosing anything I have put time and effort into. Been there and done that. Drives are relatively inexpensive but can fail without warning.


  • I bought both Plex and Emby. I started with Plex but had some technical issues related to my machine having multiple IP addresses so I switched to Emby. I tried Jellyfin before switching to Emby but it wasn’t as capable as Plex or Emby (at least at the time) and I wanted something with some commercial support behind it. I have been pretty satisfied with Emby, but do wish it would get requested features added in a much more timely manner.


  • After looking at other’s lists I think I am missing a good document server. Emby isn’t the best music and photo server so I could look at improving that, but it has been good enough for those purposes that I haven’t felt like going to the trouble of installing anything else.

    • Aster: Multiseat software for Windows allows several users to work on the same PC.
    • LaunchBox: Frontend for DOSBox, modern PC games and emulated console platforms.
    • Blue Iris: Video security and webcam software
    • Calibre: E-Book management and server
    • Emby: Server for videos, music, audio books, and photos.
    • Firewalla: VPN server, internet monitor and control
    • Foundary Virtual Tabletop: Online role-playing game server.
    • Grafana: Dashboard interface
    • Hubitat: Home automation
    • Hyper-V Manager: Tool that allows users to manage Hyper-V hosts and virtual machines (VMs)
    • InfluxDB: Real-time database server.
    • IotaWatt: Open WiFi electric power monitor
    • Microsoft SQL Server: Database Server
    • Octoprint: Web interface for 3D printers.
    • PCem: Emulator for various old 8086 through Pentium PCs.
    • SmartSync Pro: File sync program
    • SnapRaid: Backup program for disk arrays.
    • Stablebit DrivePool/Scanner: Disk pooling, file duplication, protection, disk surface scanner, and disk health monitoring
    • Steam Link: Access and play steam games remotely


  • If I had to speculate and GUESS, based on information I know now and if I give the CTO the benefit of the doubt and assume he was competent (contrary to what I saw), I would say they were having trouble canceling the contract with the third party consulting firm we were hired through. I also think they might have been quietly moving their operations out of state to another infrastructure originally belonging to another company they bought or merged with that had their own IT team and wanted us kept out of the loop. Hiring us might have been a way to reduce our compensation and get us under an NDA regarding the move. When hiring us failed they were able to re-negotiate the terms of the contract with the consulting firm for half of what it was. Again, just a guess.