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Welcome to the boring part of the internet.
I'm Adam. I'm a Canadian husband, dad, technology nerd and chronic tinkerer. This is where I write about self-hosting, technology, saving money, fixing things around the house and whatever other rabbit hole I've disappeared down this week.
Some of it might actually be useful.
Pick a rabbit hole ↓Pick a rabbit hole.
If you're new here and don't feel like scrolling through years of random posts trying to figure out where to start, I've done some of the hard work for you.
Building My Own Canadian Home Cloud
Over the last few years I've been slowly moving more of my digital life back home.
That means fewer cloud subscriptions, less dependence on big technology companies and a growing collection of computers in my basement doing jobs that normal people are perfectly happy paying someone else to do.
I've built my own home server, replaced Google Photos with Immich, run my own DNS with Pi-hole, use Frigate with my security cameras and back everything up so one dead hard drive doesn't ruin my week.
Taking back my digital life: Building my own Canadian home cloud
Background I've spent a ridiculous amount of my life handing my digital life over to somebody else as most people have done over the years. Google has my
Read this first →
Build It, Host It, Break It, Fix It
Servers. Docker containers. Raspberry Pis. Networking. Home Assistant. Security cameras. Ghost. Cloudflare. DNS.
Basically all the things that make my family ask, "Why can't we just use the normal thing?"
I document a lot of what I build because six months later I've usually forgotten how I did it too. If one of those posts saves you a few hours of Googling, even better.
Home & DIY
Owning a house has taught me that there is always something that needs fixing.
Sometimes it's something simple. Sometimes you discover that the previous owner had a very different interpretation of the word repair.
I've written about maintenance, renovations, networking, security cameras, water systems, landscaping, pools and the occasional project that probably should have been left to someone who actually knew what they were doing.
But where's the fun in that?
Money, Investing & Saving a Few Bucks
I like technology. I also like not spending money unnecessarily.
That combination explains quite a bit of this website.
I've written about budgeting, Wealthsimple, building my own investment portfolio and some of the ways technology has helped us cut recurring costs.
I'm not trying to tell anyone what they should invest in. I'm documenting what I'm doing, why I'm doing it and occasionally looking back to see whether it was a brilliant idea or something I should quietly stop mentioning.
Canadian Alternatives
This has become an increasingly important part of what I write about.
Whenever possible, I've been looking for Canadian services, Canadian hosting and self-hosted alternatives to some of the large technology platforms we've all become dependent on.
Sometimes the Canadian option is better. Sometimes it's cheaper. Sometimes it's neither, but I try it anyway.
From Canadian mapping and social platforms to hosting more of my own data at home, this is my ongoing attempt to keep a little more of my digital life in Canada.
The Rest of My Boring Life
Not everything around here involves a server rack.
There are posts about our family, our house, trips back to Newfoundland, vacations, concerts, projects in the backyard and whatever else seemed interesting enough to write down at the time.
I've been writing online long enough that this site has slowly become part technical reference, part diary and part evidence that I apparently can't leave anything alone.
And I'm perfectly fine with that.
A Few Good Places to Start
These are some of the posts that give you a pretty good idea of what you'll find around here.
Taking back my digital life: Building my own Canadian home cloud
Background I've spent a ridiculous amount of my life handing my digital life over to somebody else as most people
Read this post →
How to set up Frigate on unRaid with Reolink PoE cameras
Learn how I use Frigate on unRaid with Reolink PoE cameras to build a local, self-hosted NVR with AI object detection, Home Assistant integration and no mandatory cloud storage.
Read this post →
Buying individual stocks vs Wealthsimple's Automated Investing Account
Ditch the spreadsheet trap. Discover how Wealthsimple's Automated Investing Account handles manual stock buying, rebalancing, and portfolio math for you.
Read this post →Still here?
Excellent. You now know considerably more about me, my servers and my tendency to turn simple problems into weekend projects.
You can head back to the homepage, browse everything I've written or hit the random button and let fate decide.
Boring one person at a time!