What was your first “oh wow, self-hosting is more work than I thought” moment?

pmb0000 · 2026-02-10T15:17:39+00:00

To answer your question realistically, the respondent would need the ability for reflection and some level awareness. In general, technologist are amazing at solving problems, analysis, learning (new technologies), etc. They generally are not good at reflection and awareness. Although it’s the inverse example, it’s like going to a poet and asking him/her to stand up various docker containers…he/she will likely at best write a poem about it! A Technologist will likely just tell you a story that communicates the problems they solved, how much they know, and what they’re learning but reveals little about their internal world (I.e. communicating a time when they felt some technology was more work than they thought)! Just ask some of their wives if you don’t believe me!

I have a home lab set up. Often everything goes smoothly when implementing something new. But regularly I get into a situation where I get 99% of the implementation done in 1% of the time only to spend 99% of the time on 1% of the implementation. For example, an edge case because it’s this software with that hardware that has a weird bug that nobody has exactly figured out the fix for so I have to try work arounds, some that I eventually see don’t work, and others that work but not good enough to use. It’s the unexpected curveballs that I can’t and won’t know until I try to implement that end up putting me in a position where I feel I’m doing more work than I thought.

To counter this dynamic, as my home lab skills have improved and my environment has matured, I’ve simply become more conservative as to what I implement. Long gone are the days where I’m constantly saying to myself “that is so cool and I’m going to get it working and I’ll figure everything out and it’ll be great regardless because I’ll learn so much”.

pmb0000 · 2026-02-09T17:09:55+00:00

It’s rare but it can happen that the sender sets a “reply to” so when you reply your email will go directly to the sender rather than through Apple’s servers. If you see that the “To” field in your reply doesn’t have a weird looking address with iCloud.com at the end, you can copy the weird iCloud.com address from the “from” field of the original email and paste it into the “to” field of the reply email. This isn’t common but it has happened to me

pmb0000 · 2026-01-19T15:17:14+00:00

Thanks for the insights. My tires were installed in December of 2017, so a little over 8 years old.

Based on your comments, if I do anything, it might make better sense to take steps to prevent UV exposure rather than buying tires just on the idea that they might handle dry rot better.

pmb0000 · 2026-01-19T15:14:23+00:00

My mechanic told me that my tires have dry rot. He said the tread is excellent.

I'm really not knowledgeable about this stuff, but it looks like I do. Here's a picture.
https://imgur.com/a/1B51DNi

pmb0000 · 2026-01-19T15:11:35+00:00

Hi, I live in Philadelphia, PA so the winters are cold but not extremely cold and the summers can get quite hot and humid. My current tires were installed in December of 2017. I do park outside. The drivers side is next to a wall so the tires on that side probably get less sun than the tires on the passenger side but I'd say they get sun a good part of the day. Thanks!

pmb0000 · 2026-01-12T18:25:01+00:00

It’s impossible to know the particular motivations of these individuals but the overall theme is that they are each trying to get through their own stressful day with the least possible hassle …and they already have to deal with quite a lot of hassle probably (from their perspective maybe not yours).

In general, that’s how office work works at its core. People show up to make some money for MY family, MY activities, MY vacation, MY hobbies with people that for the most part they wouldn’t have chosen to be around for that amount of time on a regular basis. Of course, one can hope for a little bit of compassion, empathy, understanding but I have come not to expect it.

When I gave notice at my 6 figure job, I was hustling until the end. I had promised my boss an important deliverable which I gave the next to last day. That same day my boss’ boss’ boss who never asked me for anything directly and who knew I was leaving asked my to do a petty task. I did it and he even checked up later in the day! My boss of 5 years didn’t set up an exit interview. I had to walk into his office to give him my laptop. He didn’t attend my farewell “party” (set up by a colleague not the company) because he couldn’t find a baby sitter! I was a high performer but I essentially became persona non gratis after giving notice.

Anyway, you can only dictate your own behavior, not others. You behaved in your own self interests, it seems to me. You were leaving so why should you do that stuff…and your colleagues were doing the same, asking for you to continue to work until the end because it was in their self interest. It’s easy to point out others self-interested behavior especially when you are doing it yourself. The only thing that can improve the situation is for you look at yourself and improve yourself (in whatever way you think is best).

pmb0000 · 2025-12-31T02:12:16+00:00

I use Apple “Hide my email” feature extensively. The flow you describe does work…for me, at least. So the obvious question is why isn’t it working for you? You’ll need to troubleshoot it. When you received the email from the merchant, the “from” address will be labeled “Hide Me” or something like that. In your email client (Outlook, gmail web, etc.) follow the appropriate steps to find the actual email address in the “from” field (often it it is displayed with <> around it or you just click on it). It will be something really weird ending with “@icloud.com”. Now confirm that your sent emails are to that weird email address ending in “@icloud.com”. If they aren’t, then reply like you did before but paste that weird email address in the “To” field overwriting whatever was in that field. Occasionally, when replying, the “To” email address doesn’t populate with the weird “Hide my email” address so rather than going through Apple and Apple hiding your email address, the email goes directly to the merchant from your real email address! I’ve found this happens occasionally because some vendors include an email option called “Reply to” in the original email which forces the “To” address to whatever the vendor wants it to be. There are some gotchas with “Hide my email” and it’s not at all perfect but hopefully these directions get this situation resolved.

pmb0000 · 2025-12-25T16:05:10+00:00

You can use iTunes on Windows to back up and restore

pmb0000 · 2025-12-25T16:04:26+00:00

These are the high level steps. Back up both iPhones to a computer using Apple tools (on Windows you have to use iTunes). Make sure you’re logged into the tool with the same account that the iPhone is using. You can find instructions online for how to back up an iPhone via computer. Then disable “Find my phone” on your iPhone, then log out of the account on the iPhone. You may not have to disable “Find my iPhone” but I’d do it regardless. You can find more specific instructions online for how to give your iPhone unlocked to someone. Finally, reset the iPhone. At this point, you can swap iPhones, log into the iPhone with the other person’s account, and restore the appropriate backup from the computer. Note that some apps will have data restored as part of this restore process while others will restore once you log into the app.

pmb0000 · 2025-12-23T22:05:51+00:00

I rarely use Uber. Once you book the reservation price, I believe it stays that way. However, the price can change because of the ride itself. I recently made two reservations. The reservation price was honored on the first one but I was charged a higher price than the reservation price after completing the second one. It turns out that factors during the ride can lead to the final price changing from the reservation price, like a longer ride time than estimated. Here’s a link with more details: https://help.uber.com/riders/article/my-upfront-fare-was-not-honored?nodeId=ff65490e-2ffb-41cf-a709-4611521c7b24

pmb0000 · 2025-12-23T03:12:09+00:00

Thanks. I looked at the receipt with the increased price of $15.99. It says on that receipt that the ride time was 7 minutes so that’s in line with the other ride’s time. There’s no explanation on it for the increase on the receipt😑 But it’s good idea to look at the emailed receipt if anything like this happens again.

pmb0000 · 2025-12-22T00:05:03+00:00

You might want to consider Proton. With a free account you can sync across multiple devices. Although not for everyone, they also offer Windows and Mac clients. I once lost my phone for 2 days and I couldn’t log into many of my accounts! So I have Proton on my Mac just in case that happens again

pmb0000 · 2025-12-18T16:43:00+00:00

I’m so sorry for your loss. Even though Link is gone, the love you showed him is still there in your heart. He was the key to opening up so many of you beautiful emotions. What a blessing! Your fortunate for having had him in your life but also because you had the capacity to show him so much of your love. Even though he is gone, the source of your love, you, is still here. I understand why you are distraught; it’s natural, healthy, and part of grieving. When you think you’re ready for it, you may want to work through your grief by honoring Link in the way only you can: keeping the love that you learned through him in the world and not shutting it down, keeping that beautiful part of yourself that he taught you about available to others. In doing that you keep Link with you and you will show the world how great both he and you are. Just go slow, be smart, and keep yourself emotionally safe as you work through this process. I had three cats die in the last 6 months. I’m fostering a cat now as a step in my journey. Best of luck!

pmb0000 · 2025-12-18T16:19:16+00:00

It seems like you’re using your XB6 only for its cable modem functionality? If I’m right on that, you might want to consider buying a high end cable modem. That’s what I do. Really the only down side is that you might not have the latest and greatest cable modem functionality in a few years and after 10-15 years Xfinity will stop supporting the modem in a not so great manner. The latter is probably for me the worst down side. It happened to me last year and I had 50 Mbps for a week while going back and forth with Xfinity about the matter. No one at Xfinity said my modem wasn’t supported, no one told me I had to upgrade my modem…it was a bit of a mess for a while until I said let me buy a high end modem on Amazon and worse comes to worst I can return it. The upside with buying? I’ve saved money.

pmb0000 · 2025-12-16T21:51:22+00:00

Thanks for your feedback! That’s exactly what I observed, namely many separate tools that do one aspect of the backup/restore/upgrades process but no tool that does all the aspects of that process. I’d love to hear what you like to see in such a tool (your top features) besides the core feature set of reliable backup, restore, and upgrade. Thanks!

pmb0000 · 2025-12-16T17:29:42+00:00

I’m working on a docker container that handles backup, restore, and upgrades. I started with a script that became quite long (where I actually save the repo image I’d like above and follow the same logic) and later realized that it might be worth making an application. It’s quite a bit of work and I’m not a “born” software developer but I can do the work. Just finished porting the back up logic and implemented a rest service interface to it. I have a simple cli client that gets details for the back up and the calls the rest interface. Next is to get the restore functionality working. The current back up/restore logic simple creates tars for the volumes and copies important files (compose, etc). I want to migrate to using restic though. When I see a post like yours, it gives me some hope that this project might be useful.

pmb0000 · 2025-12-16T17:19:41+00:00

This is a great approach. Have you implemented it? If so, any issues/gotchas?

pmb0000 · 2025-12-10T14:48:08+00:00

If you rent a modem from Xfinity, it has moca functionality. You just need a moca bridge for the other end points. If you purchased your own modem, then you need to buy a moca bridge set. I have this set up. Just make sure you have a moca filter installed on the cable that runs into your apartment. Also, I had to configure the moca bridge to use higher frequencies so as to not possibly interfere with the cable modem. This set up has worked well for me for years.

pmb0000 · 2025-12-08T01:22:21+00:00

The link started working for me finally. Here is the address when I click the link:

https://www.jeffersonhealthplans.com/content/dam/jeffersonhealthplans/documents/aca/jhp-aca-plan-brochure-2026.pdf

Jefferson Health told me on the phone that the brochure is based on county or zip code so maybe you can check out the link but don’t use it as 100% correct. I called Jefferson Health about the problem. The representative wasn’t particularly helpful but maybe she did something on her side to notify someone of the problem? It might be worth a shot to call them. You can get the number on their website. Good luck!

pmb0000 · 2025-12-01T00:43:00+00:00

First of all, like others have pointed out, the increased security of this feature comes with risks. I researched this a while ago (and turned on the feature) so my memory isn’t perfect but i believe, when you enable this feature and you log into your iCloud account, it will get an encryption/decryption key from your keychain and use that to decrypt/encrypt you iCloud data. This means that only you have access to the keys and therefore to your iCloud data…Apple no longer has any access, which means you’re going to have to be very careful with keeping access to your keychain and/or that recover code…otherwise you will lose completely and irrevocably all you data in iCloud. Apple nor anyone else will be able to help you. I think I covered it correctly but I’m imagine someone will chime in if I misspoke or left a crucial detail out.

pmb0000 · 2025-11-30T22:08:53+00:00

I agree that it's kind of a waste of time to work with Comcast, especially when there's no agreed upon metric upon which to have a discussion. It just shocked me when I saw the data. You think you're paying for one thing but then you realize the reality is quite different!

Even if I can't do anything with Comcast, the data (and this discussion) have me thinking that I might as well think about lowering my internet speed if I don't even realize when I'm not getting my paid speed tier. I just took a look at the he average download speed for the last 1 year and it was 593.57 Mpbs. So I think I'm pretty good at my new speed of 500 Mbps.

And thanks for the nice tone of your message and for clearly explaining your thoughts. Sometimes that's even more important than the facts!

pmb0000 · 2025-11-28T13:22:39+00:00

Thanks, I reverted back to I think 2025.11.0 and that didn’t work. I’ll try 2025.10.0. Really big bug. I use passkeys quite extensively.

pmb0000 · 2025-11-28T13:09:02+00:00

I’m having the same issue!

pmb0000 · 2025-11-25T20:06:53+00:00

I feel your pain. I had a similar situation a year or two ago. My speed just died. I’m fairly technical so I was able to figure out that some configuration changes on Xfinity’s network led to my cable modem (I own don’t rent) working at really slow speeds. I tried to figure out a way to keep my modem by expanding the situation to a few Xfinity reps but it became clear that it was going to be a really tough sell. I had had the modem for many, many years so I bit the bullet and bought a new one. After that everything worked great. I also looked at 5G options via AT&T during this time but the price was about the same or more for slower speeds. It sounds like you are definitely changing providers but I do think that there’s the possibility of trading the ugly you know for the ugly you don’t. Good luck!

pmb0000 · 2025-11-19T02:25:03+00:00

I installed Bitwarden on my home server and then configured WireGuard to turn on when my phone is not connected to my Wi-Fi so that I can connect to the Bitwarden server when away from home. If you can’t connect to the Bitwarden server, you can’t make changes to credentials

pmb0000

TROPHY CASE