Category: Blog
How to Run a Modern Kernel on Ubuntu LTS with the HWE Stack
If you’re running Ubuntu LTS and hitting hardware bugs — USB devices crashing, missing driver support, Wi-Fi not working — your first instinct might be to upgrade to the latest Ubuntu release. But there’s a better option that keeps the stability of LTS while giving you a much newer kernel: the HWE (Hardware Enablement) stack.…
The USB Bug Trilogy: Phantom I/O, Camera Crashes, and Kernel Accounting Lies
I run a homelab with a dozen VLANs, 20+ monitored hosts, and a desktop workstation that doubles as my daily driver for development and gaming. Over the past few months I’ve hit four separate USB bugs on Linux that each took hours to diagnose — and they’re all related to how the Linux kernel handles…
How a Google Nest Hub Took Down My Entire Network
I run a homelab with 12 VLANs, an OpenWrt firewall, and about 70 devices. Last night I enabled Cloudflare’s proxy (the \”orange cloud\”) on my domain realm.watch and woke up to find every device on my network had lost its IPv4 address. Phones, laptops, servers, IoT devices — all down. Here’s what happened and how…
Building a Home File Server with Ubuntu, RAID, Docker, and Tailscale
Building a headless Ubuntu file server doesn’t require fancy hardware or expensive NAS appliances. In this guide, I’ll walk through how I turned an old Sandy Bridge desktop into a reliable home file server running RAID 1, LVM, and a full suite of self-hosted media services — all accessible from anywhere via Tailscale VPN. The…
How to Route a VLAN Through a WireGuard VPN Exit Gateway with OpenWrt, AdGuard Home, and Azure
The Goal Route an entire VLAN through a WireGuard tunnel to an Azure VM, so every device on that network exits the internet from a cloud IP — with ad blocking, DNS encryption, and a kill switch. No split tunneling, no DNS leaks, no IPv6 leaks. The result: connect to a dedicated “vpn” WiFi SSID…
Hardening a WordPress Server with Claude Code
The Problem I’ve been running jphein.com on a Google Cloud e2-micro instance since 2022. It started as a basic Docker Compose setup — WordPress, MySQL 5.7, and an nginx reverse proxy — with a backup script I wrote and mostly forgot about. Over time, things drifted: the auto-update script stopped working (silently!), legacy files accumulated,…
How to Host WordPress for Free with GCP and Docker — The Complete Guide
A practical guide to running a personal WordPress site on Google Cloud’s Always Free tier using Docker Compose, automatic SSL, security hardening, email alerts, and daily backups to cloud storage — all at zero cost. What you’ll end up with: WordPress + MySQL 8.0 + nginx/SSL running in Docker on a free GCP VM Automatic…
How to form a nonprofit in California
The most common type of charitable nonprofit organization is a 501(c)(3) organization, also known as a public charity. These organizations are exempt from federal income tax and are eligible to receive tax-deductible donations. The most common type of 501(c)(3) organizations are those that focus on providing education, health care, social services, or other types of…
Free Resources for Nonprofits
Nevada CountyLocal Resources Regional Resources Online resources This is not an exhaustive list, nor is it sorted in any particular order. Although, the ones at the top are more generally useful to the nonprofit. Many of them use techsoup.org to verify nonprofit eligibility. Technology Help Hardware Cloud Services You don’t pay taxes on communication services…
How to secure your custom website, and domain email services for free using Cloudflare
You want a custom domain for your website and email, but you don’t want to pay someone to manage your email security? Preparation: Steps: More Reading: Note: This guide assumes that you have already signed up for a Gmail account and Cloudflare account. Email security is important to protect your organization from phishing attacks and…
Internet Options in Nevada County
National Broadband Map The new Broadband Map website maintained by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an online tool that allows users to search and compare broadband internet availability and speeds at their specific address. The website provides a wealth of information related to broadband connectivity, including information on broadband providers, types of service available,…
Social Services in Nevada County for People with Low Income
A Non-exhaustive List Federal Level: State of California: Nevada County, California: Nonprofit services in Nevada County, California Note: This is not an exhaustive list, and program names, eligibility criteria, and benefits may vary by state. My experience I’m consistently amazed at the level of assistant you can get from government, and non-profit organizations if you…