AJ's Blog
This is a personal blog focused on computer software and hardware. Most
projects are implementing software and hardware for a homelab. What is a
homelab? I would say a homelab could be a single computer or dozens of
computers connected in a network. You can also integrate with computers
in the Cloud.
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Recent Posts
01-17-2026
This is a quick weekend post looking at a tool (just for macOS unfortunately).
When it comes to running containers, docker is the most widely used tool with millions of container images available on the public Docker hub. If you are not familiar with containers, check out a previous post to get an introduction. Running containers on macOS is not the best experience compared to even a simple Linux server like a Raspberry Pi. In the past, I have explored other options such as Colima.
01-11-2026
After several years I received a new MacBook Pro from my employer. This post is a walk-through of how I set up a new macOS device right at the start of 2026.
Setup
When you get a new macOS device, you must follow the setup wizard provided by Apple. If you have multiple Apple devices, you may consider enabling iCloud. I think you can still use a mac without and Apple ID.
12-31-2025
Today I am reflecting on the year 2025. I try to avoid my personal life on this blog but this year has been more eventful than most.
My first son was born this year, we said goodbye to a feline friend, my vehicle was totaled, AI tools have made big changes in my day to day work, and I have renewed my interest in photography with a Sony mirror-less camera.
12-26-2025
In this post, we’ll walk through setting up monitoring for a Synology NAS using the Prometheus SNMP Exporter, which taps directly into Synology’s official Management Information Bases (MIBs) to expose hardware-level metrics that other monitoring approaches simply can’t reach.
Prometheus is an open-source monitoring system that collects numeric metrics from targets at regular intervals, stores them in a time-series database, and lets you query that data. It integrates seamlessly with visualization tools like Grafana. If you are not familiar with Prometheus, check out a previous post to get started before diving into SNMP metrics.
12-14-2025
In today’s tech infrastructure landscape, understanding what’s happening on your systems in real-time can be the difference between catching a problem before it escalates and dealing with an outage. Netdata is an open-source, distributed monitoring solution that brings real-time, per-second metrics to your infrastructure. This blog post explores what Netdata is and how it differs from traditional monitoring approaches. While it may seem like overkill for a simple homelab, Netdata is actually remarkably easy to deploy and scales effortlessly from a single system to hundreds of nodes.
12-11-2025
If you’ve ever wished diagramming tools felt less like enterprise software and more like grabbing a marker and sketching on a whiteboard, you will like Excalidraw. It’s fast, intuitive, works offline, supports collaboration, and keeps things simple without getting in your way.
This post walks you through installation options and essential usage.
What Is Excalidraw?
Excalidraw is an open-source, zero-friction virtual whiteboard that produces hand-drawn-style diagrams. It’s used by engineers, product teams, DevOps, architects, and teachers.