Like clockwork it’s the end of the month and I haven’t written a blog post yet. I was going to skip it but then I realized that this is the perfect opportunity to write about the importance of persistence in personal growth. This month I’ve been continuing to curb the phone addiction. But there’s been some other cool random things in the homelab that I’ve changed up too!
Fighting the phone addiction
I’m still using the tools from my last post. But now I am amplifying my usage of things:
Facebook is straight up blocked on most of my devices. I’ve always hated the platform but it’s useful for birthdays and talking to older relatives.
Youtube
YouTube homepage is blank on my phone. This has been big for making my phone feel less fun which is really important for staying off it long term.
Reddit is going to get the axe in June. I think I will do this by disabling the site and setting up a Redlib interface locally. Then I’ll redirect to Redlib for when I need to do any type of research. These days all I browse are /r/all (pointless) and /r/homelabsales (I don’t need more tech).
I left a large group chat that was the majority of my notifications. I think I am just becoming disillusioned completely since I already removed the explore feature and I’m not as social so I really only need to check once a day.
A note on persistence
One thing that I’ve realized this path month is just how powerful persistence and tenacity are. Especially for the younger generation there are just so many things that we are told we need to care about right now and it’s burning many people out of caring at all.
For me I found that the important thing when I start a new goal like fighting phone addiction or trying to get a blog going is to never fully give up. Whether it’s just writing one paragraph or disabling an app for a day. Each attempt at taking a step forward leads towards momentum. As you take more steps forward you will soon find yourself running. You may fall or even fall back but when that happens you typically learn something. For me I realized if I make my apps boring I naturally stop using them. It was hard at first but now it’s a piece of cake. I know that is cliche but it’s what worked for me.
Homelab updates
I’ve made a couple of upgrades to the lab and it’s starting to feel more like a homeserver than a lab as I settle into my services and hardware.
Seeing the sunshine and moonlight
I installed and started running Sunshine on my gaming PC and Moonlight on my Mac. I’ve always wanted to easily play games on my Mac but the big push was so that I could play the Horizon Call of Duty mod.
This software was really easy to get working and has restarted my love for gaming. Even though I am usually not looking for new virtual addictions (see above) I don’t forsee myself getting too locked into this. Plus a little relaxation between the stressors of life is usually a good thing!
Unify through Unifi
I got my hands on the old Unifi Dream Router and two Unifi AC Pros. It’s been really fun playing the the Unifi controller UI and has made most network management easier*.
I setup an AdGuard instance for my DNS but considering a switch to NextDNS as I’ve heard good things for ease of use but bad things for support. We’ll see how AdGuard goes this week.
* - UniFi makes DNS setting a bit obtuse especially since that’s usually easy to do with most ISP brand routers right out of the box.