SwizzleStick

On Dell server hardware with the right cards/licensing, you can remove the need for physical access to the server to input an FDE password by leaning on iDRAC. This provides access to the console remotely during the boot process (and thereafter).

Alternatives exist that supposedly do the same thing, but I’ve never had to try them. Airconsole, pikvm, blikvm etc.

You can keep this interface unexposed by using wireguard to dial in when you’re away, as per your original thinking. Just make sure the endpoint isn’t on the server you’re rebooting…

I love those little Lenovo boxes, also recommend.

Proxmox has also been good for me - great for just quickly spinning something up to play with before committing.

A third, and hopefully final attempt at getting an iredmail setup going. SPF, DKIM & DMARC all checking out fine. It’s actually working this time. Need to get the ISP to change our PTR record though, last bit of the puzzle.

Also picked up a used negate device, so we now have pfsense fronting everything. That’s allowed me to move the original router to a better location and put it in AP mode.

Emby media server moved off a Synology and into a proxmox container. Finally, we can stream high def with the hardware acceleration we weren’t getting before.

I have settled on Mullvad, for their simplicity and payment methods.

I run a split environment. Main router is set up ‘normally’ with what other people in the house and visitors would expect.

Attached to that is a Pi running an OpenVPN client and a hostapd server that broadcasts a separate WiFi network. Iptables on the Pi are set to only ever allow Internet traffic through the VPN as a killswitch (except for OpenVPN, to prevent a chicken-egg situation), and any wifi clients connected via hostapd are routed through it.

A script occasionally changes the VPN endpoint to keep it interesting. This Pi also acts as a qbitorrent client that stores downloads to a local NAS.

It’s a best of both setup that has been stable for over 5 years now.

Monetizing is what ruins other places.

I like the way my home instance does financial backing through an open model, and that’s part of why I chose it.

An ideal is enough contributors to keep the lights on and to reimburse the admins for their time spent in keeping it afloat. Moderation should always be a volunteer position for those that want to support their individual communities.

Any excesses in finance I would hope go towards future running costs (to a point), feature development and then charitable donations in that order. Non-profit on paper and in practice.

This is viable for a small instance. Maybe even larger ones if the users are altruistic enough as a whole.

Has gone suprisingly well.

Tesseract failed in some places, making some of the sub-headings come out in what looks like Klingon. HF have varied their paper stock dimensions as well, which caused a few things to be clipped.

Acceptable output for manual corrections.

Preview:

Expect a DM soon-ish.

Good news, they went through the ADF without too much trouble. Images just need a little contrast adjustment.

The copier used also OCR’d the whole lot, so they’ll be searchable.

Welcome.

Didn’t realise just how many I had - a whole box file full and overflow from that.

I’ve had a nice morning so far sorting, de-duping and remembering the time I coated half the kitchen in sesame seeds…

Been meaning to do it for ages so cheers for the incentive!

Python, Tesseract, OpenAI and my 3 remaining brain cells have now combined to form a working script that will rename the scan file names to whatever it reads in a certain section of the card.

Doing them by hand would be a nightmare 😅

Now I am wondering the same.

And looking down the rabbithole of Tesseract OCR haha.

I’ve done less useful things with a Monday morning before. PDFs, and I will try to suss a way to set the file names programatically.

A handful may come with ‘pre-printed accidents’ but all will be legible :)

As long as the scanner can handle the slightly thicker paper stock they use, we should be golden.

If you don’t mind them auf Englisch, I’ve got a hoard of them and time with a duplex scanner.

So they do.

That’s really neat!

Site either respects system light/dark theme or is dark by default. Either way, it’s a plus for me that is often forgotten.

Guides are simple enough and the illustrations are cute.

You’ve got the balance of plugging your own instance while reminding visitors that there are others just right.

All useful info and not so much of it that it is overbearing.

I’ve had some decent results with this:

https://github.com/ngosang/trackerslist

I lean on Irfanview+plugins for this kind of processing - it’s the bedrock of some of my workflows.

Will definitely give this a try though, thank you for sharing :)

It would be better if the server could detect bots and send them down a rabbit hole

Already possible: Nepenthes.

I just treat their letters as scrap paper or kindling. They are very carefully worded to give the illusion of power where there is practically none. Capita are masters in mismanagement, so I’m not surprised your declarations have been ignored in the past. Just don’t bother.

If you’re truly not doing anything required to have a licence, then they can’t prove you do. Licence dodgers are usually clever enough to not give it away too.

Don’t answer the door to them on the rare off chance they come prospectively calling. If you do, just close it on the scum without a word, and go about your day. No warrant = no entry.

Downsizing from an ex biz full fat tower server to a few Pis, a mini PC and a Synology NAS was the best decision ever here.

The new hardware was paid for quickly in the power savings alone. The setup is also much quieter.

You don’t think about power consumption a lot when working with someone else’s supply (unless it’s your actual job to), but it becomes very visible when you see a server gobbling up power on a meter at home.

You’re right about the impressiveness of working creatively within constraints. We got to the moon in '69 with a fraction of the computing power available to the average consumer today. Look at the history of the original Elite videogame for another great example of working creatively and efficiently within a rather small box.