Homelab
The 2026 Self-Hosted Starter Stack: A Proposed Design
A pragmatic 2026 self-hosted starter stack: host OS, Docker Compose, DNS, remote access, reverse proxy, backups, monitoring, and daily-driver apps.
Bufferbloat for Gamers: Why More Mbps Does Not Fix Ping Spikes
A gamer-friendly bufferbloat guide explaining latency under load, SQM, CAKE/FQ-CoDel, and why more bandwidth does not always fix ping spikes.
Why Your Gigabit Ethernet Is Stuck at 100 Mbps
A practical troubleshooting flow for gigabit Ethernet links negotiating at 100 Mbps because of cables, ports, terminations, or hidden old devices.
Cat6 vs Cat6A in 2026: What to Run, What to Avoid, and When Fiber Makes Sense
A practical home cabling guide for Cat6, Cat6A, DAC, multimode fiber, single-mode fiber, PoE, and what to avoid in walls.
MoCA Explained: Wired Networking Over Your Home's Existing Coax
A practical MoCA guide for turning existing coax into Ethernet-style wired backhaul for APs, consoles, PCs, and streaming devices.
Mesh vs Wired Access Points: The Home Network Decision Tree
A practical decision tree for choosing mesh Wi-Fi, wired access points, MoCA backhaul, and PoE APs in a real home network.
Private DNS for Homelabs Without Leaking Internal Services
Plan private homelab naming with home.arpa or an owned domain, split DNS, VPN resolution, and certificate choices, then check public records and recovery from each client network.
Home DNS Without a Single Point of Failure: Pi-hole, AdGuard Home, and Technitium
Design Pi-hole, AdGuard Home, or Technitium DNS around consistent records, independent resolver failure domains, and client failover tests, with a documented recovery path before changing DHCP.
Nginx Proxy Manager vs Caddy vs Traefik: A Reverse Proxy Decision Tree
A reverse proxy decision tree for homelabs: when to pick Nginx Proxy Manager, Caddy, Traefik, or raw NGINX.
Home Assistant Local Voice Control: Build a Private Voice Assistant That Actually Works
Home Assistant can run voice control locally, but the best setup depends on whether you want easy commands, full speech recognition, DIY satellites, or a hybrid cloud fallback.