Tech

In the previous post, I learned how LLM works from LLM itself (Copilot, to be more specific). In this post, I will learn about RAG, of course, from Copilot. Methodology: Ask questions starting from “What is RAG?” to Copilot, and read answers Write down my understanding, asking Copilot if I’m correct Revise my writing until my understanding is solid Let’s start today’s learning. What is RAG? RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) is a workflow for retrieving relevant external information and injecting it into user questions for LLM to consume. RAG supplements these LLM’s weak points: ...

I’ve been learning JavaScript (beginner level), and just started learning Vue framework. I read Essential section of the official Vue doc, and now I’d like to do some hands-on with Examples. In this post, I setup a dev environment for Vue in my homelab Ubuntu server. I remotely access source files and the dev server via Emacs over Tramp and a browser over ssh tunneling respectively from a laptops (chromebook). Prerequisites: Headless server running Ubuntu (or other distribution) Can ssh to the server with ssh-key Emacs can edit files in the server via Tramp First, (take a snapshot of the Ubuntu VM and) update Ubuntu of the homelab server. ...

I’ve decided to expose ssh to the homelab server to the Internet. I had been afraid of doing so for months, but it’s about time and I think I’m ready. As a background, my homelab server already exposes web services such as blog and Immich via Caddy. Caddy and Immich are running in docker containers on Ubuntu on Proxmox. Before exposing ssh, I needed to fortify the server to protect it from bot and other malicious attacks. ...

Recently, I bought an old Chromebook from my daughter. She has a new M4 MacBook, and the old note PC had been left untouched for a year or two. It has a broken camera, and so she asked me only 25 dollars. Nice. I wanted to try the Linux(beta) feature. It is a Pixelbook Go “Not Pink” with Intel 8th gen Core i5 CPU, 8GB memory and 128GB SSD. Back then, I thought the $845 price tag was a little too high for a chromebook, and for her first PC. But she wanted the cute pink note PC from Google. ...

I have consolidated documents and other files in the homelab server such as: Memos and personal wiki pages (.org) Tax documents (.org, .pdf) Apartment leases (.org, .pdf) Holiday card-related info (.csv, .pdf) Calendar (.pdf, .py) Many files can be accessed from Emacs via tramp. But in some cases, I need local copies which either Emacs can’t handle well, need to access with local apps or need to access offline. An alternative and probably easier way is to make those files available by exporting a directory (ie, file server). But as files are in many directories and I don’t want to export everything, I haven’t set that up yet. ...

A few months after I started using Immich, I decided to migrate all my google photos data to Immich. Immich is a self-hosted, Google Photos alternative. Google Takeout You need to download all Google Photos data with Google Takeout. Google Photos is already chosen on the linked page. Click Next > File type: .zip, File size: change to maximum 50GB > Create export. After a while, in my case a few hours, Google sent to me an email with a link. Clicked it, and downloaded all .zip files. My photos and videos were totaled just below 150GB. I didn’t know that I had this much. As my internet plan is slow at 100Mbps max, it took 3 hours or so to download the 3 big files. ...

In my previous post, I introduced my homelab mini PC and how I set it up. In this post, I’d like to show how I backup the homelab PC. 3-2-1 rule Have you heard of 3-2-1 backup rule/best practice? It’s: 3 copies, original + 2 backup copies 2 different media 1 offsite copy Some people say #2 is irelevent anymore. I’m not sure if having copies both in SSD and HDD matters, either. Anyway, I will make sure one backup copy in an external USB drive and another in cloud to achieve both #3 and #1. ...

Introduction The company I work for has changed its device usage policy, and now it doesn’t allow company devices for personal use. So, I decided to buy a mini PC to setup a small homelab server, and migrate my personal data to it. Also, I wanted to start de-googling by having all my and family photos to it. This was my summer project this year. Mini PC for homelab server I bought AceMagic’s this mini PC for less than $200. I was pleasantly surprised at how small it is. It has Intel N150 processor, 16GB DDR4 RAM and 1TB S-ATA SSD. It’s not powerufl, but the beauty of N150 is its low power consumption, thus low electricity cost and also it’s relatively silent. ...

Introduction This past summer, I bought a $200- mini PC and made it my homelab. I installed proxmox + ubuntu + docker, and deployed several services on it: Pi-hole - network-wide DNS with ad-blocker Immich - Google Photos alternative RomM - retro-game library The other day, I obtained a domain name from https://porkbun.com/ and exposed the mini PC to the Internet so that I can see my photos from remote. I deployed: ...