With all our discussion recently about BBS systems, modern interfaces, the growing anger against big tech, etc. I wanted to tell a bit about what I've been doing over the past 3 months.

Like many people, I do not trust big tech anymore. However, I realized that so much of what I use was integrated into it. I had long ago abandoned my "home lab" setup, lured by the promise of the cloud and how easy everything was in the cloud.

But now I wanted out. I wanted my data to be my data. I wanted to decide what features I needed, and when I needed them. Most importantly, I did not want AI scraping and training off my data by stealing it.

What I discovered was, much to my surprise, how easy de-big teching my life was. Which did surprise me.

First, I bought a sub-$100 SFF HP i5 with 32GB of RAM and a 750GB SSD off Facebook marketplace. I then installed Linux on it and slapped Docker on it.

From there - I discovered the world of self-hosting. Papra for my documentation management; gist for sharing/storing notes/recipes/you name it; a self-hosted bookmark app; self-hosted blog. All happily running in individual Docker containers on my little sub $100 PC.

I should note as I did this I was careful to always follow best security practices. Absolute minimum exposed to public web, and I had an edge router I've had for years - so it's own dedicated physical network for connection.

Pretty soon, I tackled data storage - the biggest task - I discovered how easy it was to setup my own file storage, redundant with secure backups. I can even access it securely from my mobile device or anywhere else with a few clicks.

And here's the kicker -- this stuff was not hard to do. Thanks to Docker and a myriad of sites out there that walk you through configuration and setup, it was a breeze for most of it!

Now, 3 months later -- I am saving $60/month on subscription fees I have cancelled out of my life. I have disconnected from "big tech" in a meaningful way and feel I have control over my data now. Most importantly, I feel I am learning again by maintaining my own. I am not longer upset because some cloud service changed their interface one day -- I control when the interface changes, and if it changes at all.

In short, I did my tiny part to give big tech and the tech bros the boot from my life as much as possible. It feels good, and I feel I am not only saving money, but I have more control over my own data now than I ever had before.

-dmxrob

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Re: Taking Back by Going Back
By: Dmxrob to All on Sun Aug 30 2026 09:09 am

meaningful way and feel I have control over my data now. Most importantly, I > feel I am learning again by maintaining my own. I am not longer upset
because some cloud service changed their interface one day -- I control when the interface changes, and if it changes at all.

In short, I did my tiny part to give big tech and the tech bros the boot from > my life as much as possible. It feels good, and I feel I am not only saving
money, but I have more control over my own data now than I ever had before. >

Do you have a credit card? Do you or your family members use facebook?
You have no control. They already have you.

--
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President of BBS Sysop's Union +++ https://bbses.info/union
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Dmxrob wrote to All <=-

From there - I discovered the world of self-hosting. Papra for my documentation management; gist for sharing/storing notes/recipes/you
name it; a self-hosted bookmark app; self-hosted blog. All happily running in individual Docker containers on my little sub $100 PC.

I want to look more into documentation and bookmark management. I've
gone on a scanning bender and scanned/shredded a ton of papers. It'd be
nice to have flexible tags and search for my documents at home.

I switched to Raindrop when my previous bookmark manager closed down,
played with Parakeep a bit. I might go back to it.

I have a homelab already, use it mostly for hosting the BBS and
creating test environments at work. Been wanting to build in more
self-hosted data tools, though.

There's a homelab echo on tqwnet, there are quite a few people hanging
out there...




... ONE OUT OF FIVE DENTISTS RECOMMEND GUM.
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poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Dmxrob <=-

There's a homelab echo on tqwnet, there are quite a few people hanging
out there...

I don't see any homelab sub on tqw... is my echo list outdated, or
you're thinking of some other network?



... Gone crazy, be back later, please leave message.
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Re: Re: Taking Back by Going Back
By: poindexter FORTRAN to Dmxrob on Mon Aug 31 2026 07:47 am

I want to look more into documentation and bookmark management. I've
gone on a scanning bender and scanned/shredded a ton of papers. It'd be
nice to have flexible tags and search for my documents at home.

Check out Papra - I think you might find it meets your needs. I love it because I can run it in a Docker container with persistent storage and just makes everything so "convenient". I have an hourly cron job that backs up everything to an encrypted storage bucket as well.

I have a homelab already, use it mostly for hosting the BBS and
creating test environments at work. Been wanting to build in more
self-hosted data tools, though.

Go for it! So many people I know who were big into homelabs and got out of it with the "cloud rush" a decade or 15 ago are now starting to get back into them. The best thing is you can run most everything you need today on the smallest/tiniest of systems using Docker! No more racks of equipment sucking up the power bill!

-dmxrob

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Re: Re: Taking Back by Going Back
By: Gamgee to poindexter FORTRAN on Mon Aug 31 2026 02:01 pm

I don't see any homelab sub on tqw... is my echo list outdated, or you're thinking of some other network?

Might be out of date, it was added several months back.

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Re: Re: Taking Back by Going Back
By: Gamgee to poindexter FORTRAN on Mon Aug 31 2026 02:01 pm

There's a homelab echo on tqwnet, there are quite a few people hanging
out there...

I don't see any homelab sub on tqw... is my echo list outdated, or you're thinking of some other network?

MeaTLoTioN repurposed the TQW_DOCKER echo for Homelab Discussion, but didn't change the name of it (yet).

"I have left the echo tag as TQW_DOCKER for now, but I do intend on changing
it at some point to TQW_HOMELAB - I will send out some notice when I do
have a date in mind."

This was a little over a year ago.

|08ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
|15 Ü|07 Ü |08Ü |11codefenix |08³
|15 Û|07ÛÛÛ|08Û |09ConstructiveChaos BBS |08³
|15 Þ|07ÜÛÜ|08Ý |01conchaos.synchro.net |08³ |08ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ
|07
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Re: Taking Back by Going Back
By: Dmxrob to All on Sun Aug 30 2026 09:09 am

disconnected from "big tech" in a
meaningful way and feel I have contr

Isn't it sad that a majority of people
out there only know of using platforms
and 3rd party things for all this?
They've never known anything else!

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Re: Taking Back by Going Back
By: phigan to Dmxrob on Tue Sep 01 2026 12:33 pm

Re: Taking Back by Going Back
By: Dmxrob to All on Sun Aug 30 2026 09:09 am

disconnected from "big tech" in a meaningful way and feel I have contr

Isn't it sad that a majority of people out there only know of using platforms and 3rd party things for all this? They've never known anything else!

I feel as if you have been born in the 90s forward, you were never given a chance to explore/build your own/run your own. By the time you were a teenager forward everything was going "online". People thought it was normal to pay $5.99/month for this and that, then $12.99 a month, and now $29.99/month.

Luckily we seem to be entering a new era where people are turning away from the big tech - slowly, and not 100% for sure. But at least now I see more people talking about it than ever before. I think you have Flock and Data Center buildouts to thank for that - along with the fact that most of the tech bro trillionaires and billionaires nowadays are pure assholes.

-dmxrob

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Re: Taking Back by Going Back
By: Dmxrob to phigan on Tue Sep 01 2026 05:32 pm

I feel as if you have been born in the 90s forward, you were never given a chance to explore/build your own/run your own. By the time you were a teenager forward everything was going "online". People thought it was normal to pay $5.99/month for this and that, then $12.99 a month, and now $29.99/month.

I've had the same though. I don't like paying recurring subscription fees for things.. I don't even have cable TV, and haven't in years.

Nightfox

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Isn't it sad that a majority of people
out there only know of using platforms
and 3rd party things for all this?
They've never known anything else!

I used to selfhost all my email, but that's not so easy anymore. Gmail receives just fine, but Outlook blocks everything because someone got my server's IP on a
blocklist at some point. At least I can still run my own web server, DNS, and BBS.

It really irks me that our IT guy at work may have to setup a Onedrive cloud storage system for our documents instead of a simple onsite FTP server. Heck, even a simple mapped network drive would be fine.

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