homelab

I share my journey of upgrading a home office temperature monitoring system by replacing an unattractive Raspberry Pi LED display with a sleek Universal Windows Platform application. This post details how I leverage Microsoft Azure services, including IoT Hub and Functions, to collect sensor data and present it through a custom desktop interface that runs discreetly in the Windows System Tray.

Join me as I document the upgrade of my five-year-old home workstation, sharing my criteria for selecting components optimized for virtualization and professional tasks rather than gaming. I explain why I chose to build a custom PC instead of buying a traditional server, focusing on balancing performance, noise levels, and cost for a setup that handles Plex, VMs, and daily development work.

In this follow-up to my initial planning phase, I explain how I refined my high-end workstation build to better suit my professional workflow and budget constraints by opting for an AMD Ryzen 9 setup. I detail the specific component choices that prioritized storage performance and development tasks over gaming, along with the straightforward assembly process of this new 1,639 € configuration.

In this post, I share the practical lessons I learned while designing and equipping a 31-square-meter home gym in my new house in Helsinki. I discuss how zoning restrictions influenced the layout, why I chose Rogue equipment despite limited Eurozone options, and how the initial investment compares to long-term gym membership savings.

In this follow-up to my homelab series, I share the final hardware configuration of my 18U rack, detailing the integration of a 4U server, NAS, and networking equipment. I also address practical concerns like noise levels, providing decibel measurements to show how the setup operates quietly enough to sit beside my daily workstation.