A great tiny homelab server – with multiple expansion options!

I’ve been looking for low-power, small footprint homelab servers; servethehome.com’s YouTube channel has a great comparison of “tinyminimicro” servers – ultra-small form factor (USFF) desktops that make great mini servers. I’ve run into problems with USFF servers only supporting 16GB of memory – it’s why I paid less for a desktop form factor server that […]

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Outlook opens emails next to weblinks in Microsoft Edge

I noticed this support article; first, Microsoft put up ads in the Start Menu, then offer to change your default browser. If you run Microsoft Edge as your default and change the browser, you get a “Are you sure” prompt you don’t get with any other browser. Now, for your convenience, Outlook defaults to Edge. […]

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Microsoft 365, Outlook and Tasks

Microsoft is changing the interface of Outlook in a way that will affect people who follow David Allen’s Getting Things Done system, or people who rely heavily on tracking tasks in Outlook. Getting Things Done is a system that lets you capture information and tasks, take action by completing quick tasks, capturing the next actions […]

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Upgrading to Proxmox VE 8

I’ve used Proxmox for two years in a homelab that serves as a sandbox for work projects, a testbed Active Directory network, and running home automation tools. It combines the familiarity of F/OSS tools like Debian Linux, QEMU, and KVM, with a graphical interface that makes managing virtual servers easy – with a community supported, free […]

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CEPH and Proxmox VE

I’ve wanted to add high-availability to my Proxmox cluster, but I’ve got some work to do first. CEPH is a distributed storage system that can be used as a storage backend in Proxmox VE. CEPH provides highly available and fault-tolerant storage by distributing data across multiple storage nodes in a cluster. In Proxmox VE, CEPH […]

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Proxmox VE 7.4 released

Proxmox is an open-source bare metal virtualization system I use in my homelab. Proxmox supports clustering, high availability and backup using industry standard tools running on relatively mod-free Debian Linux, qemu and kvm. It supports any hardware supported by Debian, which makes use in a lab environment practical – after running VMWare’s vSphere and Nutanix […]

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Proxmox VE 7.3 released

Proxmox is an open-source bare metal virtualization system I use in my homelab – based on Debian and qemu, it supports a wide variety of hardware. Proxmox VE version 7.3 has been released and the upgrade from 7.2 went without a hitch using apt. I’m looking into it now, there’s support for ZFS dRaid pools, […]

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Proxmox First Steps

TechnoTim has a great homelab how-to channel on YouTube. This video shows all the steps he’d do when creating a Proxmox server for the first time. Setting update sources, reconfiguring storage, setting up networking and VLANs, updating ISOs, preparing for clustering, and more – all the things I wish I knew after my Proxmox server […]

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Cheap Home Office Fix – HDMI audio with multiple PCs

Many people are working from home exclusively or a couple of days a week as part of a hybrid work environment. With a few tweaks, a home office can do double-duty nicely. My home office has evolved recently, as I’ve written about previously. I have a desktop PC with a 34″ ultrawide monitor and work […]

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