One trick I used to great affect with my previous Amazon Alexa setup, was a central Google personal calendar that was linked to wake up routines - it would, reliably, read out all the events on my calendar on that day. I found that hugely helpful. Since moving to Morgen, the best calendar app I’ve ever used , and Google Home assistant instead of Alexa, I’ve lost that calendar sync function. Thankfully, the paid edition of Morgen has a new feature that allows you to create ‘workflows’ where you can automatically schedule tasks to keep any number of Google Calendars in sync. ...

I have made numerous fixes to the hq.local server after realising that some of the services were not running as well as they should have been, following the server rebuild a few months ago, and also to improve things generally. I have made some security permission upgrades, making sure each major running docker service has its own username, and is restricted to dealing with files chowned to its own user name, and runs as its own user, and everything is running on a separate hq.local virtual docker network which communicates with other networks only via pre-defined ports to make things more secure. ...

I’m currently studying a post-graduate degree full-time while holding down a mortgage in Manchester. This is quite a feat in itself, and with my wife I have accumalated a lot of ‘frugal’ tips you can use in the UK to make your money last longer, especially if you are in a similar situation to us: If you’re anything like us, you are more intelligent than most poeple, and you have a lot more free time than people who are working highly paid but stupidly stressful jobs. Remember that this is a trade-off, and maximise the use of ‘smart thinking’ and of some of that extra time to avoid having to spend on unnecessary things. They called this ‘shoe leather costs’ when I was studying Economics at high school. We both use food reuse places to get stuff just going out of date and eat it on the day. My wife does both of our hair including dying. She’s done that since the pandemic - she’s become very good at it. We don’t own a car, either walk everywhere, get public transport or use our bikes. I am in the process of applying for all benefits and reductions possible based on our income and situation, including uni hardship funds etc. I am selling a lot of my more expensive posessions that I don’t need anymore, mostly electronics, on ebay, although you can sell most stuff on ebay and it will sell, although not at a very high price. I use royal mail to pickup packages from my door so I don’t have to take them to the post office, it works out the best way. I don’t go out that much at all, prefering to buy alcohol cheaply and drink it inside when I do drink. When I go clubbing or to gigs I usually buy cokes all night. We shop at ALDI, LIDL and budget supermarkets, and make use of special offers a lot. We buy clothes at ASDA, or buy really expensive clothes from German manufacturers who have much better clothing manufacture standards, and last years and years before wearing out. Spend time on frugal Youtube channels and DIY youtube channels and instagram, tiktok etc - there is a huge ‘frugal influencer’ scence and you can pick up a lot of tips that way. Try and make it a game how much money you can save in any particular week, all the while noting how LESS stressed you are than the ‘suits’ who are working 50 hour weeks and getting drunk to contain their misery. Buy a lot of things online where you can read reviews and get the best deal. Don’t shop in person at all where you can help it. See how many days you can go without spending any money whatsoever, given that shopping is pre-paid for etc. Get into DIY - especially if you own your own home. Have a reusable tool set for every occasion - you save tons on things you would otherwise pay builders to do. Choose leisure activities which are free, especially easy when the weather is good like now. Pack a packed lunch and go for a walk to the park - it’s completely free, you get exercise, sunshine and it’s just a really nice way to spend the afternoon. No-one seems to do packed lunches anymore! This is a huge hack - get a flask that keeps your drink cool, and a packed lunch and you save on the ridiculous cost of sandwiches etc. If you are technical like me, setup a Plex server and an ‘*arr’ hosting network and never have to pay for video or audio media ever again. Read books. Second-hand paperback books are a great value to cost ratio in terms of the number of hours they provide entertainment and the quality of the information in a lot of books is very good and you will learn a lot more than from an internet search. Even better, download ebooks illegally and read them on an e-reader for free. Personally I find that spending a lot of time getting good at ’looter-shooter’ computer games like Borderlands 2 or Diablo scratch the same itch that I get from real life shopping - it is difficult to feel poor with tons of expensive items in a virtual world. Use moneysavingexpert.com forums, although I wouldn’t post your budget because people will just attack it based on their lifestyle descisions - just use it to get information on cheap deals and free good quality financial advice, the newsletter is good for that too. Make friends with people that are in the same financial situation as you, and have advice or tips and whose idea of a ‘good time’ isn’t spending £50 in a restaurant every week. When you get ill, buy the ‘cheap persons lemsip’ a combination of - unbranded caffiene pills, ibruprofen, paracetomol, and high strength vitamin C pills - you can get a years supply of each at a much reduced cost than lemsip will cost you for a year, and it’s the same, if not better, and you can also use each component seperately when you need to. Just be happy for the little things in life and don’t spend where necessary. Don’t try and live the ‘rich influencer’ lifestyle because those people are unhappy idiots anyway and will be bankrupt and dead by 40.

I have been officially classed as ‘cured’ from my Relapsed Hodgkins Lymphoma cancer, which I was first diagnosed with at Stage 4 in 2021 and came back at Stage 3 in the same year. The past 4 years have been very, very difficult, not just on me but everyone close to me. But I’m glad to say I can ‘close the cancer chapter’ and move on to the next stage of my life. ...

After many many years of consideration, deliberation, hesitation, and procrastination, I have started a Masters degree at Royal Holloway, University of London. It is a distance-learning degree, and it is delivered in a part-time format, so it means I can fit it around (some) work. Fun party fact: University of London, Royal Holloway was mentioned in Dan Brown’s book ‘The Da Vinci Code’ as the university the Cryptographer heroine studied cryptography at Royal Holloway, in which would have been the ISG department , where I am to be studying!) It’s a shame the rest of the book is so terrible. ...

On hq.local, I have two Calibre libraries, one for EPUBs, and one for PDFs/comics. Size There are approximately 80,000 books across both libraries. Ebooks Inventory plus counts Comics Inventory plus counts But.. WHY?! I use both libraries both for recreational reading, (mostly comics and some written fiction) and research for work, as a tech worker, and as an aspiring ‘renaissance man ’. Hosting They are managed by Server.io’s Calibre docker containerised services . They are both running Calibre content server to serve directly to my e-readers. I also use Calibre Web Automated docker containerised services for both libraries. So in total, there are three services hosted, and three ways of accessing each Calibre library, per library - 1) the Calibre application running via a web-based remote desktop client, which I use for serious administration, but only sparingly as it takes up a lot of server resources when connected 2) The Calibre content server accessible on my e-readers and 3) The Calibre Web interface which I use to browse and read the books on computers. Sources I have built them up primarily from HumbleBundle.com book purchases, where the majority of the money goes to charity, and I still get a good set of e-books. I also ‘inherited’ a large collection of already DRM-stripped fiction books from a friend. Occasionally I use resources such as Anna’s Archive to download DRM-stripped books. Access Both libraries are accessible via my ZeroTier VPN . I use the Moon Reader application on Android devices to access the Calibre content server port, and I use the Calibre content server web interface on my Kobo H20 E-Reader . ...

I have spent a lot of time tidying up my hq.local server config, the IOC code that hosts all my services, including my Plex server, my full set of arr services,my calibre libraries, my SWAG Hugo blog sites, and various indexing, conversion and backup scripts. It should all be a lot easier to maintain going forward, and just ‘work’. That’s the intention anyway. For me to spend more time actually consuming the media on my digital media collection than collecting, indexing and maintaining the collection. ...

Portswigger Academy I have signed up to, and have been learning a lot from, the Portswigger Academy using the Burp Suite Community Edition. I have gone through all the ‘Apprentice’ labs, all 62 of them. I honestly think web application pentesting is something that could suit me incredibly well, given my background in web developer and SDET work. It’s so much more interesting than the stuff I was doing before! As soon as I can, I would love to purchase a license for the full version of Burp Suite, and start working on the other labs, with a view to take the certification they offer. ...

So today I finally ordered an 8TB moving platter disk drive so that I can expand the home server - hq.local. hq.local currently has about 19TB in disk space, almost all of which is fully utilised currently. The extra space will mean that I can rip more Blu-rays to put on the Plex server, and download more things through the *arr services. It has been frustrating being limited by hard disk space for at least 6 months, but before I simply could not afford a meaningful upgrade. ...

Someone made a comment the other day on a post I made on forum, that made me think. My post was asking ‘how to avoid becoming bitter and cynical as you age’. A pretty standard topic that I’ve seen affect many people as they get older. I outlined my life story so far, how some of it has been great, and how some of it has not been so great, and what I’ve achieved. ...