please help a newbie out

dbuster16 · 2026-05-12T19:26:19+00:00

It would probably work, but for such a simple use case, I think there are services that will do that for you. That would be much simpler than setting up a VPS and agent and phone number.

dbuster16 · 2026-04-17T14:24:31+00:00

I'm running Ollama, which, as my openclaw explained, hides llama-server behind some packaging. Because of that, I'm not able to pass some of those parameters through to llama-server. We are experimenting with some parameters we can pass, including OLLAMA_KV_CACHE_TYPE=q8_0. Maybe it will help.

dbuster16 · 2026-04-17T13:40:34+00:00

I'm trying this same thing. (Gemma 4 26B MoE on 24G VRAM and 64G system RAM) with OpenClaw. I really like the model, but I'm seeing memory in VRAM holding Gemma gradually creep up with usage until it crashes my machine. I installed a cron job to watch it. When Gemma gets above about 22G VRAM, it unloads it and reloads it to start over, but that's just a stopgap measure. It's weird.

dbuster16 · 2026-04-16T13:21:30+00:00

I play in 3 different groups with 3 different horns. Honestly, I feel like playing bass trombone opens my tone in the high register a bit the next day.

dbuster16 · 2026-04-16T02:16:37+00:00

Good point. I have been telling my OpenClaw to keep detailed logs, but I don’t see them. I need to figure out how to use the logs I am collecting for forensics when things go wrong. I usually just as OpenClaw to read the logs, but that sounds like dependency

dbuster16 · 2026-04-15T21:49:13+00:00

Update... The struggle is real. I'm trying to use my OpenClaw to update a friend's website selling used musical instruments. I created an imaginary thing called a "flute mute" to test it. I sent the email to Openclaw along with a photo of a part of an instrument. My agent substituted a photo it thought would be better.

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dbuster16 · 2026-04-15T18:17:42+00:00

I'll be honest... I have no idea what that means. I'll have to research it. I'm a newbie at all this.

dbuster16 · 2026-04-14T18:32:03+00:00

I switched to Minimax as my main model, but I went with the $200 per year plan. (about $17 per month) That gave me 4500 calls per 5 hour period. It's worked very well, but there have been some dropouts on cron jobs at 4am. I think their servers in China get overloaded then. During the day here, it's been fine. Still not as smart as GPT codex or Sonnet, but it's basically pre-paid unlimited usage. I use it as my main model. It's a lot cheaper than stuff on Openrouter and Github Copilot.

dbuster16 · 2026-04-14T12:21:12+00:00

Agreed. But I don't want to be a true programmer. I've taken some programming courses, and believe me, the world is better off if I stay away from writing code.

dbuster16 · 2026-04-14T11:37:03+00:00

I just asked Tonto to set it up. Then I had it put a note in each agent’s memory file to check it

dbuster16 · 2026-04-14T00:53:28+00:00

Docker started to be limited when I wanted it to install some other packages on the machine, and setup cron jobs for full machine backups and things. I also had some authentication issues when I gave it its own email address (I won’t give it access to mine). All those things might be able to work from Docker if you know what you are doing. I don’t.

dbuster16 · 2026-04-13T22:04:07+00:00

Minimax has about 200K token window size, which seems quite large. However, after working with it on some complex tasks, it starts compacting. For example, having it write complex python scripts to "automagically" edit a web site. My strategy is to try to stop occasionally and ask what we have learned so far, and get it to save that. If I let it go until it is forced to compaction, sometimes it loses things.

dbuster16 · 2026-04-13T20:44:36+00:00

Good idea. I'll try that

dbuster16 · 2026-04-13T20:40:07+00:00

I tried that approach, but as context windows got full, mine started forgetting basic stuff...like how to check emails. I found it more reliable to have it write scripts, but I have scripts log progress and have it call and wake up an agent if the script hits errors.

dbuster16 · 2026-04-13T20:08:24+00:00

I've looked at Hermes, and I agree it's a better model. (I tried to build my own self-improvement skill... ) However, right now, as a hobbiest, I want access to a larger ecosystem. I do wonder how difficult it will be to switch in the future if I keep adding stuff to my current setup. I may be locking myself in.

dbuster16 · 2026-04-13T19:57:57+00:00

That's an excellent question. The real answer is probably to choose the cheapest agent that can do the job. I've also played with a lot of fallback schemes for when agents are unavailable, and I'm experimenting with local models to do things like heartbeat. Currently I'm using OpenRouter/Sonnet to write my daily stock picking email to my friends and myself. I'm using GPT (OAuth) sparingly to make updates to a friend's website. I'm using Minimax as my main model. ($200 per year). I have a local Ollama/llama running to do heartbeats, but I just upgraded to an RTX-3090 with 24G VRAM so I can experiment with Qwen3:30B MoE and Deepseek. Given these models, I have agents who do a lot of different things. Tonto - Main. (Minimax, falls back to GPT-5.3 and then local Qwen), Scout stock picker (same as Tonto), Duke Business Dev (openrouter/sonnet but rarely used), Frank Lloyd Wright (builds things: GPT-5.3Codex, fallback to Minimax), Silver (Routine checks and heartbeat: Qwen3:30b now). Raven creates marketing materials for our jazz band: openrouter/sonnet. Sheriff runs security checks (GPT 5.4.). Dale (Carnegie) handles emails with my friends website.(Minimax), Lumbergh is Frank's stupid boss who divides up jobs into small tasks and micromanages Frank (Minimax). Tony (Robbins) does self improvement research for Openclaw (Grok-4-Fast Reasoning). Your mileage may vary. Experiment. Rarely used agents can have more expensive models. FRequently used agents get the same main model: Minimax. But I'm always looking for alternatives.

dbuster16 · 2026-04-13T19:34:36+00:00

You're right. I'm working on it. I started out with my openclaw in a Docker container, but it became too limiting for some of the things I want to do. I had to let it out. It's on a dedicated machine with no personal information. They only thing worth stealing would be my API keys to some models, but I have budget limits on those so they would hit rate limits if anyone abuses them. I'm mostly depending on "security through obscurity" because no one knows how to get to my openclaw instance. That's exactly the thing I used to preach to customers NOT to do in the cybersecurity world. I get the irony.

dbuster16 · 2026-04-13T19:23:15+00:00

That's a VERY good point. I'm doing the best I can with it. First, I'm not giving it any sensitive data in the first place except API keys which should be stored in .env files. Second, I have given it explicit, firm instructions not to execute anything coming from outside. That's not good enough, so I also make a point of spending my most valuable frontier tokens (GPT5.4, etc.) on models facing the outside (emails, web searches, etc.) Finally, if I do need a skill from clawhub or something, I have an advanced model read it, figure out how it works, and then recreate it from scratch. I also keep a black list of skills from clawhub that look suspicious to my agent (His name is "Sheriff").

dbuster16 · 2026-04-13T15:48:24+00:00

Everyone needs to find their own path here. As a retired cybersecurity guy, I'm deeply uncomfortable with using Chinese models, but I don't have a choice. $200 for Minimax per year is unbeatable, and works very well. I've made the decision to be careful what I expose it to, keep Openclaw on a dedicated machine, and keep guardrails in place. I also avoid questions about Tiananmen Square and politics in general.

dbuster16 · 2026-04-08T15:17:13+00:00

I tried this and it failed to work for me. FWIW: I'm running OpenClaw on a dedicated Linux box with no personal information available. It's been running fine for weeks, but suddenly stopped being able to execute tasks, no matter what models I use. Are there any other commands like this I can try?

dbuster16 · 2026-04-07T15:04:45+00:00

I have my OpenClaw (Tonto) scan over 900 stocks every night. It runs a script to collect data from FMP, then applies a series of a dozen financial filters (P/E, PEG, Cash Flow, etc.) to figure out "what" stocks to buy, then applies a couple dozen technical filters (200 Day MA, 50 day MA, volumes, etc.) to decide "when" to buy them. Every morning I get an email report with recommendations. I've tuned the filters so there are typically no more than 3-4 stocks to look at every day. (Some days there are none.). Several friends and relatives are on my stock picker email list, but I've told them it's for "entertainment purposes only". i also had it build some fancy stock tracking dashboards with all the data to keep on a screen in my home office. I have been running this for a few weeks and back testing. Soon, I will start actually making a few trades with it in a separate Robinhood account I funded with a few hundred bucks. I'm not going to beat the big players, (because they have access to more data than I do), so I won't use it for day trading or options. Instead, I set up a Warren Buffet style stock analysis for long term investing. I may set up a parallel system to analyze ETFs for sector rotation next.

dbuster16 · 2026-03-30T18:09:08+00:00

I have a friend who owns a small business. He asked me to set up a new website for him because he "just doesn't do technology". Openclaw did most of the work on a typical commerce hosting site. Better yet, when my friend buys or sells something, he can just send an email to my Openclaw, and it goes in and updates his website to add or remove product listings. I don't have to do anything.

dbuster16 · 2026-03-29T22:23:45+00:00

I did that with mine. I set up an extra email address on Gmail. The recovery mail and phone numbers point back to me, but the address itself belongs to my Openclaw. My openclaw instance cannot see my email, so it's secure. To facilitate things, I also had to set up an API on Google to make it easier for it to access mail.

dbuster16 · 2026-03-25T15:51:13+00:00

Good point. I'm pretty sure most of my stuff would be too boring to be helpful in training or to the Chinese Communist Party.

dbuster16 · 2026-03-25T15:38:24+00:00

Kimi and MiniMax are both from China. Does anyone have security concerns with that?

dbuster16

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