Q's Place, Q's Space
Every Secret in Its Place: Giving the Homelab a Secrets Manager
It started with a small, uncomfortable thought: I had secrets absolutely everywhere. Database passwords sitting in plain text inside Portainer stack definitions. API tokens copied into my own notes so I could pick work back up. A scratch folder quietly holding a CA bundle and half a dozen live credentials. Nothing was leaking, exactly, but the ... Read More
Windows via Microsoft 365… except it isn’t
I hit something recently that took longer to figure out than it should have. I bought a laptop for a colleague as a custom build; I do this from time to time when the standard laptops from our distributor don’t meet the requirements. All our standard laptops come with a Windows Pro OEM license in the BIOS, and we have no choice about ... Read More
The Memory Winter Is Here and It’s Dragging Storage With It
I keep having the same conversation with different people. It usually starts with “is now a bad time to buy servers?” and ends with someone quietly realising that the spreadsheet they trusted six months ago is now complete fiction. Not optimistic fiction either. Fantasy. This isn’t just DRAM being awkward again. It’s not a temporary wobble. ... Read More
Frustrating Experience With Out ‘n’ About: A £1000 Order Review
My Experience With Out ’n’ About: A Surprisingly Frustrating Journey for an Almost £1000 Order I do not usually write posts like this but my recent experience with Out ’n’ About deserves a proper write up. When you spend close to a thousand pounds on a pushchair setup you expect the service to match the product. Instead I found myself dealing ... Read More