Things I build, break,
fix, and write about

12 December 2025
AI
Navigating licensing for AI-generated music

Manage licensing for AI-generated music on your homelab. Follow legal checks, tagging, streaming controls, automation hooks, and backup patterns that work. Label generated files, store licences with tracks, and limit public access until your rights are clear.

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11 December 2025
AI
Addressing shadow IT in Department of Defense communications

Non-Approved Messaging Apps create backchannels that bypass controls, audit trails and record retention. You should deploy an approved messaging tool, enforce mobile device management and use data loss prevention. Train staff and run audits to reduce leaks and speed incident response.

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11 December 2025
AI
Choosing ZFS for Proxmox on your NUC

Proxmox Storage Strategies matter on a NUC. I run Proxmox on small hardware all the time, so I will walk you through the choices, trade offs and a practical ZFS setup that fits a two‑slot NUC. I keep this hands on. No fluff. You will get commands you can run and checks you can make. […]

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10 December 2025
AI
Comparing Home Assistant deployment methods in Proxmox

I moved my Home Assistant onto Proxmox and I want to explain the trade-offs I ran through. The choice comes down to LXC or a full VM. Both run the same smarthome software, but they behave differently under Proxmox virtualisation. I’ll show how I chose, how I set the VM up, and how I tested […]

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10 December 2025
AI
Using Proxmox Datacenter Manager for homelab setups

Proxmox Datacenter Manager gives you a single interface to monitor and manage multiple Proxmox nodes and clusters in your homelab. You will find steps to deploy PDM on a VM or LXC, create API tokens, isolate a management network, and run multi-cluster live migrations.

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9 December 2025
AI
Using HTML comments to hide sensitive notes in Proxmox

Use Proxmox Notes HTML Comments to hide short-term secrets from the rendered Notes panel. You will still see them in the editor and configuration. Treat comments as a convenience; rotate or move your secrets to a vault.

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8 December 2025
AI
Creating Let's Encrypt certificates with Sophos firewall

Troubleshoot Lets Encrypt certificate failures on a Sophos firewall. You confirm DNS A records, port 80 reachability and that the ACME HTTP-01 token URL returns HTTP 200. Use dig and curl to test the exact token path. Fix NAT, firewall rules or proxies that block or rewrite /.well-known/acme-challenge.

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8 December 2025
Deals
Blink Outdoor 4 Camera + 2 more Amazon tech bargains

Discover the Blink Outdoor 4 camera and two more Amazon tech deals this week.

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8 December 2025
AI
Controlling camera access on MacOS devices

Learn how to securely grant USB camera access on a Mac for four specific users. Explore user permissions, camera settings, and effective management strategies.

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7 December 2025
AI
Using Safe Mode to remove Sophos Tamper Protection

Remove Sophos Tamper Protection offline using Safe Mode when your device cannot check in. You get clear checks, commands and remediation steps. Reboot to Safe Mode, stop Sophos services, remove files and clean registry keys, then reboot and verify no Sophos services remain.

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