Last year I got a new sever for the house, well, it’s an auld office one but for my needs perfect

When I first set it up, I went with a ZFS setup for the two 3TB drives I got with it, but that was a major mistake and the thing kept giving me headaches before deciding it was going to go offline and refuse to ever allow me to access it

Never figured out why it went so bad, but the end result was that the whole system ended up refusing to boot again, so I had to scrap the install and start again

And I was pretty disheartened by it, and basically just brought online the bare minimum

But the past few weeks I have been slowly doing stuff that’s gonna make it work better, slowly but surely I am restoring functionality and adding new stuff

Firstly the system originally used CasaOS as a front end GUI, and that’s turned out to be a mistake as the developers abandoned it and are trying to move everyone onto a paid version that has fewer features, so screw that

The first thing I got running properly was Kavita, a book server, which is a great piece of software, I use Calbre to add the metadata, then save it to the servers book folder

But why use this instead of Calibre, simple, this will allow me to download books or PDFs to my phone, which can be helpful, but more helpful, it will email books directly to my Kindle, as well as Lindsay and Megan’s kindles too when they log into their accounts

The second service to fully get working was the media services, this revolves around PLEX for which we have a PLEXPass, I hated paying for it, but JellyFin just isn’t there yet in terms of access.

PLEX is really good, we ripped all my families DVDs/BRDs as well as Linux ISOs and now everyone gets access to our combined library without having to physically lend people the media

For media requests we have Overseer, where people can tell me something they would like to watch, and then I will go to CEX or eBay and acquire the physical media to rip and upload. Sonarr and Radarr are also installed, just saying!

When media is uploaded, another service called Bazarr then hunts out subtitles, downloads and adds them to the programs folder for use on PLEX

Which is just great because as a neurodivergent person, I can tell you that subtitles can be a godsend

AudioBookShelf, has alson been getting a few upgrades, mostly in setting my Audible account to auto download to it, which means all my old books needing to be downloaded and sent to the server, but thats ok, most of whats left to got on there is histroy book!

We also have a CCTV system running now, which is great, its recording motion outside the front of the house and retaining the footage for 7 days.

We don’t exactly live in a crime free area, but its not too bad, but when stuff does happen its a pain in the arse!

And yeah the notice board is great too, that’s running out of Home Assistant and whilst its not 100% there its almost there

What I Am Modelling

I started out with a Daemon Prince for the World Eaters Combat Patrol

I painted a few bits for the Germans, starting with a proper Sniper team

Alongside a new officer, a fancy one with a pipe alongside an escort with radio, who could probably be used as an observer too I guess

And a weird one, that I will likely never use, a Chaplin

I then paint a Azeb for the Iron Sultanate, this one with an instrument

After that I painted a trio of dual Plasma Bombard Saturnine Terminators for the Ultramarines

As well as another trio, armed with Saturnine Disruption Fists and Twin Disintegrators

So whats next?

  1. Blood Angels Landspeeders
  2. Neophyte Hybrids x 10. Primus & Magus x 2
  3. Rat Ogres x 3
  4. Deffkoptas x 3 & Kustom Boosta-Blasta
  5. Grunstock Thunderes x 5 & Torrk Lennsen
  6. Ultramarines Saturnine Command Squad
  7. Einhyr Hearthkyn x 5
  8. Skywardens x 3
  9. Rogal Dorn Tank
  10. Wraith Guard x 5

What I Am Reading

I finished Genefather by Guy Haley, which was really good, and I listened to No Man’s Land by Martin Day, which was pretty good and Year of the Pig by Matthew Sweet which was quite enjoyable

I am currently reading Traitor General by Dan Abnett and listening to The War in the West Volume One: The Rise of Germany 1939 – 1941 by James Holland

What Video Games I Am Playing

What Achievements I Have Unlocked

Easy Red 2

What a Runner!

The more you sprint the better runner you are		16/07/2026
Impignorate

Kill a teammate		16/07/2026

What I Am Backing

Prelude to fear: Early WW2 armed civilians, has delivered another file

The files for WW2 Motorcycles & Riders: Volume 1 have all been delivered

Paintpal Studio XP has deliveded its files

STL Printable Terrain WW2 Desert Collection Vol 2 was fully funded as was WoWBuildings Does Bastogne, No Man’s Land: War Train and MakerPlot 2.0 

I am still backing Grimdark Empire of course!

What I Am Spending

We got a CCTV camera for the font of the house, there have been a few incidents down the years, and we think it would be handy to have a camera to help deal with that.

And I got myself a Rapier Direct Fire Battery for my Solar Auxilia

I also stocked up on resin and filament!

It was also Humble Choice and that got me