Docker Swarm: Falls Short Of Perfection

While I just wrote a glowing review of Docker Swarm, the truth is it's not nearly as capable as you'd need for it to be a total solution. Unlike the last blog post, this one gets a little more technical so I can properly explain a

So... I built a Docker Swarm Cluster

I've been hungry lately. Thirsty, even. Salivating at the idea of High Availability for Fifthdread Services. I had two "good" servers running over 100 docker containers, all running self-hosted services such as VaultWarden, Plex, Jellyfin, Matrix Synapse (Element Chat), Mumble, and a ton of other websites

I Tried Podman. It's Cool, But I Won't Switch From Docker (For Now)

Podman sounds pretty rad if you're into containers. As a heavy user of Docker, I was curious about Podman when I heard it's a completely Open Source alternative. Yes, Docker can be used completely free and from what I understand, has Open Source components. I just

Why Self-Hosting Is Important

As someone who has found self-hosting extremely valuable in my daily life, I wanted to try and explain to those outside of the world of self-hosting what's so valuable about it. Why do it? Why go through the effort to begin with? Surely there are products or services

Another Year, Another Step Towards Linux Full Time

It's not often I decide to write blog posts, but I find that I'm compelled to write more and more about my experience using Linux over the past year. Well, technically I've been using it for longer than that if you include the server,

My Experience Using Linux On My Main Laptop

I wanted to talk a little about using Linux on my main laptop for 4 months. I wasn't sure how it'd turn out , but I wanted to run a Linux Desktop on a dedicated machine and give it a fair shake. It's been awesome.

The Quest For 99.9999% Uptime

It's extremely difficult to build a system with enough redundancies to be online nearly 100% of the time, but It's the goal. Fifthdread Services has always aimed to have high availability- especially when I strongly encourage my friends and family to use them. While things are

Dockge may replace Portainer for me

Portainer has been an extremely useful tool for managing my two docker hosts, and while I wasn't pushing to replace it, when I heard about an alternative container management tool from the Louis Lam, the guy behind Uptime Kuma, I knew I wanted to give it a try.

If It Wasn't Bad Enough, Using GoDaddy Just Got Way Worse

That's right. GoDaddy, the classic Domain Registrar of the old days, has fallen from grace. In fact, it's been years since they've been considered the best option. The community has said for years that GoDaddy was trash, but I hadn't a major

Becoming A Linux God

It's been a long time goal of mine to become proficient at using Linux, but for the longest time, I've never had the need to do it. Windows was good enough. MacOS was good enough. There wasn't a huge incentive outside of privacy or

Self-Hosting email - Hello Mailcow

It's been a wild ride since deciding to self-host all the things. It started with the web server, finally migrating Fifthdread.com to my own infrastructure. Now, it's time for email. If you've read my previous article about Skiff, than you know that self-hosting

RIP Skiff email - You were too good to be true after all

And so it goes- the mail service which was "too good to be true" was in fact, exactly that. They say if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, than it's a duck. Skiff looked like an insane value compared to the competition, and

Finally Getting into GameDev

As an avid gamer and tech enthusiast, it's probably no surprise that I'd be interested in starting Game Development. I have a lot of respect for indie devs. They are able to work on passion projects that interest them, and share their vision for a game

I Switched to ProtonMail, then Switched Back to Skiff

Recently, I migrated Fifthdread.com from my web-hosting provider to self-hosting. During this switch, I had to decide on an email provider for the many Fifthdread.com email addresses. There are a vast amount of email providers out in the wild, so I had an uphill battle to find the

The ROG Ally SLAPS The Steam Deck And I Feel Bad Saying It

Trust me, it hurt to write as much as it probably heard to hear, but it's true. The ROG Ally is a fantastic device- one that outshines the Steam Deck in so many ways. While I still love what Valve has done with the Steam Deck, and I

One of my Fifthdread emails was sending spam, and I caught it

Yeah, it's a blunder. It's probably been going on for some time as well, and I didn't think to check. Too be honest, you're more likely to get your account compromised than you think. It's happened to so many of

AI Art Is Cool, And That's OK

Yup, here I am again with another Fifthdread Hot Take. I love AI Art, and I'm tired of pretending that I don't. Turns out, AI has blown up in the past year. From ChatGPT for text based generation, to MidJourney or Stable Diffusion for Generated Art-

Service Dashboards - Testing Three Popular Options

Yup, it's that time. We gotta have a dashboard discussion. No ifs ands or buts about it- Fifthdread Services needs a dashboard for all the various self-hosted services I provide. If someone asks me again for the Element URL, imma flip. "Fifthdread Services" as we call

Welcome to the new Fifthdread.com

It's funny, because if you scroll down just a little, a similar post was made a while back. But this time, it's a little different. Fifthdread.com and Fifthdread Services has gone through a few big changes which I want to talk about. First, I'

Quick update on Fifthdread Services

A week ago, I was devastated. I accidentally cloned a drive to the wrong destination, and as a result, I lost all my HyperV VMs. I’ve since spent the past week rebuilding everything from scratch, but this time, I was going to do things a lot cleaner, smarter, and

Fifthdread had an Oopsie!

My Server PC had a C Drive which was only 180GB in size… It was full. That’s when I decided to upgrade to a 2TB drive. It’d be a simple procedure. Clone the old drive onto the new drive, GG. Nope. I made a small but HUGE mistake.

Welcome to the new and improved Fifthdread.com

It looks the same as before… BUT, it’s DARK MODE! New dark theme, saving your eyes from the evils of white backgrounds. The truth is, we at Fifthdread Services have some new cool services for you to enjoy. Let’s talk about them now! New Fifthdread Services are available!

Devlog 1 - My Dream Game, NPCs, and game logic around schedules and locations

Bethesda upsets me. Not because I hate them or anything, but because they aren’t making the game I want them to make. I’ve been wanting a new Skyrim like game for a long while now, but it just seems like we aren’t getting it. The next Elder

Discord VS Element - My thoughts on the matter.

Honestly, I’m not keen on this discussion. It’s tough to have, considering people exist in two camps. Mostly me in one camp and everyone else in the other one. Discord has become a huge platform for both small and large communities alike, and many are quick to adopt

More Fifthdread Services Stuff

One thing that I wish I could improve about Fifthdread Services is making it easier to access stuff. For example- Look at my portal page. Now look at the URLs for a lot of Fifthdread services. Yeah, it’s all server.fifthdread.com:port number. That’s annoying. How are