Weekly Highlights
Every so often I receive a request to add software to selfh.st/apps that leaves me wondering if I actually know what constitutes self-hosting. Browser extensions, command line scripts, Discord bots, etc. Should self-hosted software always be accessible via the browser? What if I use a CLI-based monitoring or downloading solution?
Some draw the line at desktop apps, but I'm also aware of several communities that entertain discussion around desktop-based office software like LibreOffice – as well as occasional requests for the coveted self-hosted alternative to Microsoft OneNote (desktop-based, but I suppose it's also offered as an online service).
Either way, don't @ me for occasionally covering self-hosted adjacent software in this newsletter.
Unrelatedly, the CEO of GitHub announced they're stepping down this week and Microsoft wasted no time with a restructure that shifts its staff over to their CoreAI division. Cue the panic from the open-source community concerning its inevitable enshittification (despite the vast majority of these projects still utilizing it for their source code).
If you're not aware, viable self-hosted alternatives do exist – GitLab, Forgejo, and Gitea specifically come to mind (and Codeberg for those who don't have the infrastructure to self-host it themselves).
A few other things that captured my attention this week:
- The Vaultwarden project (passwords) finally merged a commit bringing SSO to the platform. I'm still not sure why someone would want this (user management?), but it did lead me to discovering the game changer that is Bitwarden SSH Agent (thanks, IDPea).
- Home Assistant announced a new Z-Wave device, which, as usual, is only interesting if you're currently in the market for a very specific type of hardware
- Is it really foss?, a project from Dan Brown (BookStack – not the The Da Vinci Code guy), celebrated its 100th-project milestone
- The relatively young fitness tracking platform SparkyFitness officially has an Android app (APK download)
- AOL is finally shutting down its dial-up service after just over 30 years of operation (The Onion had my favorite take on it)
- Reddit is officially blocking the Internet Archive due to the amount of data AI scrapes from its web archive. Data hoarders, unite? (Bonus points if you can archive u/ElevenNotes' posts as well.)
Happy selfh.st/ing!
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Content Spotlight
Meet BrickTracker, a self-hosted platform for tracking LEGO sets. Leveraging Rebrickable's API, BrickTracker provides a minimal web interface for importing and tracking specific LEGO sets and their accompanying pieces and mini-figures. Features include missing piece tracking, parts inventories, consolidated views of pieces across an entire collection, and wishlists for tracking future purchases.
BrickTracker can be easily deployed via Docker and requires an external API key from Rebrickable to populate set information.
Links: Source Code
Videos and Podcasts
- Dockpeek: A Docker Port Dashboard for Your Homelab | DB Tech
- Reflections on Matrix criticism over the last week | Matrix.org
- Forgejo: An Alternative to Gitea, A Fork of a Popular Forge Platform | Awesome Open Source
- Stop Port Forwarding! Secure Home Lab Access with Modern Tools | VirtualizationHowTo
- The Smart Home Long Range Performance KING | Everything Smart Home
- I Turned This Broken Phone Into A Home Server | Hardware Haven
Command Line Corner
Use tr -dc A-Za-z0-9_ < /dev/urandom | head -c 16 | xargs to quickly generate a password from the command line (create a bash alias for quick reference in the future):
$ tr -dc A-Za-z0-9_ < /dev/urandom | head -c 16 | xargs
M0hPYmTAu877Lj6qClick here for an archive of commands shared in past newsletters.
(Thanks to selfh.st reader Molnar E. for this week's command line tip!)
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