v3ritas.TECH

w33k in g33k: June 05, 2026

· Sean P. McAdam

w33k in g33k Banner

👎🏻 Adulting

  • How-To Geek: This Excel tool can predict future trends—but you probably never knew it existed: “When you track data over time, patterns often repeat themselves. Ice cream sales naturally rise during hot summer months and dip during the winter, garden harvests follow similar seasonal cycles, and retail store revenue predictably spikes during the holiday shopping rush. This repeating pattern is called “seasonality,” and Excel’s Forecast Sheet tool is designed to detect it automatically without you needing to build complex formulas.”

🤖 Android

🖥️🍎 Apple

  • Apple Insider: How to exorcise your HomePod and HomePod mini of ‘ghost touches’
    • I have some of my Homepod mini’s unplugged because of this problem…
    • “Starting off simply, clean the display. If it’s a HomePod that’s sat on a shelf for a long time, it can get a layer of dust on the top, which can trigger a false touch.”
    • “Toggle off Touch and Hold for Siri” or change the hold duration through Accessibility settings.
    • “It is possible to disconnect the touch panel from the display entirely”
  • Lifehacker: This Tool Can Block Ads in Almost Any iPhone App
    • App Store for iPhone: Wipr 2
    • What Is Filtr?: “Filtr is brand new feature that extends Wipr’s blocking to all apps on the device. It acts at the network level, but it can access none of your data.”

🤖 Artificial Intelligence \ Large Language Models

🌎 Current Events

🎥📺 Entertainment

  • Make Use Of: Goodbye Goodreads — I found the reading app that’s better in every way
    • fable: “The modern app for every reader. Join a community of good people to discuss great stories on Fable.”
  • Lifehacker: 10 Shows and Movies Like ‘Backrooms’ You Should Watch Next
    1. Exit 8 (2025): “A man becomes increasingly desperate when he realizes he is trapped in a subway station, needing to complete a mission to get out.”
    2. Skinamarink (2022)
    3. In Fear (2013): “Two children wake up in the middle of the night to find their father is missing, and all the windows and doors in their home have vanished.”
    4. The Blair Witch Project (1999): “Three film students vanish after traveling into a Maryland forest to film a documentary on the local Blair Witch legend, leaving only their footage behind.”
    5. As Above, So Below (2014): “When a team of explorers venture into the catacombs that lie beneath the streets of Paris, they uncover the dark secret that lies within this city of the dead.”
    6. Vivarium (2019): “A young couple looking for the perfect home find themselves trapped in a mysterious labyrinth-like neighborhood of identical houses.”
    7. Channel Zero: No-End House (2017): Season 02 (Wikipedia)
    8. Timecrimes (2007): “A man accidentally gets into a time machine and travels back in time nearly an hour. Finding himself will be the first of a series of disasters of unforeseeable consequences.”
    9. Severance (2022): “Mark leads a team of office workers whose memories have been surgically divided between their work and personal lives. When a mysterious colleague appears outside of work, it begins a journey to discover the truth about their jobs.”
    10. The Deep House (2021): “While diving in a remote French lake, a couple who specialize in urban exploration videos discover a house submerged in deep waters. Their dive turns into a nightmare when they discover the house was the scene of atrocious crimes.”

🎮 Games

🏡 Home (Homelab \ Self-Hosted)

  • Rad Web Hosting: How to Install and Run Mail-in-a-Box on Ubuntu VPS
    • I know running a mail server is pretty much never recommended, but I’ve always been curious when i see email settings on self-hosted things, since I’ve tried Gmail SMTP in the past with mixed results. So i wanted to see how this would be.
    • Mail-in-a-Box: “Mail-in-a-Box lets you become your own mail service provider in a few easy steps. It’s sort of like making your own gmail, but one you control from top to bottom.”
  • How-To Geek: 3 Home Assistant projects that work outside of your home to try this weekend (May 29 - Jun 1)
    1. Make Home Assistant ring your phone for urgent alerts
    2. Get Home Assistant to remember where you parked
    3. Build a live dashboard for your family
  • Make Use Of: 4 smart home projects you should never DIY (even if the subreddit says you can)
    1. Upgrading an electrical panel: There is no way in hell i would attempt that myself 🙃
    2. An extensive router rack can be difficult: I don’t agree with this one… pretty much mentioning that replacing a router &\or modem is complicated?
    3. A smart water monitor shouldn’t be attempted alone: Definitely agree to have a plumnber do this..
    4. Installing an entire security system on your own: I have\had a security system that I’m replacing, so i was able to use the existing wires through the walls to put my own cameras.
  • Make Use Of: I stopped SSHing into my server just to run scripts — this free tool put them all behind one button
    • OliveTin: “Give safe and simple access to predefined shell commands from a web interface.”
    • This tool sounds familiar. I might have come across it before, but never set it up.
  • Make Use Of: I built a $4 temperature sensor that works with every smart home app
  • How-To Geek: Stop dreading the Plex-to-Jellyfin switch, this plugin does the heavy lifting
    • GitHub: cleverdevil / plexyfin: “A Jellyfin plug-in to integrate with a Plex Media Server”
      • “A plugin for Jellyfin that syncs collections and artwork from your Plex Media Server to Jellyfin.”
  • How-To Geek: My Plex server became something else entirely—here’s what it actually does now
    • Immich: “Self-hosted photo & video management solution. Easily back up, organize, and manage your photos on your own server. Immich helps you browse, search and organize your photos and videos with ease, without sacrificing your privacy.”
    • AdGuard Home: GitHub: AdguardTeam / AdGuardHome: “Network-wide ads & trackers blocking DNS server”
    • Home Assistant: “Open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts.”
    • Private Fitness Tracking (vs. Strava)
    • Nextcloud: “Nextcloud Hub combines the key Nextcloud products Files, Talk, Groupware, Office, Assistant and Flow, into a single platform, optimizing the flow of collaboration.”
  • How-To Geek: [3 weekend Raspberry Pi projects that actually solve real problems at home (Jun 5 - 7)(https://www.howtogeek.com/raspberry-pi-projects-that-actually-solve-real-problems-at-home/)
    1. Build an offline Wikipedia: Kiwix Server: “Acting as a dedicated HTTP server, sharing ZIM files, Kiwix Server compresses archives of websites like Wikipedia over a local network, making the content easily accessible on any device with a web browser, whether it’s a phone, laptop, or desktop…”
    2. Monitor your battery backups with Network UPS Tools: Network UPS Tools (NUT): “The primary goal of the Network UPS Tools (NUT) project is to provide support for Power Devices, such as Uninterruptible Power Supplies, Power Distribution Units, Automatic Transfer Switches, Power Supply Units and Solar Controllers. NUT provides a common protocol and set of tools to monitor and manage such devices, and to consistently name equivalent features and data points, across a vast range of vendor-specific protocols and connection media types.”
    3. Create a network troubleshooting toolkit: NetTool: “A comprehensive toolkit that transforms your Raspberry Pi into a powerful network diagnostic and monitoring station.”
  • How-To Geek: Every homelab needs these 3 free utilities
    1. Pi-hole: “Network-wide Ad Blocking”
    2. Proxmox VE: “Simplify your data center. Secure, flexible, and reliable open-source enterprise solutions. For the highest demands and tight budgets in professional IT environments.”
    3. TrueNAS Core: “From the edge to your data center – transform your data estate. Deliver data sovereignty with TrueNAS Enterprise storage solutions.”
  • How-To Geek: 3 Docker upgrades that will change how you run your homelab this weekend (Jun 5 - 7)
    1. Beszel: “Simple, lightweight server monitoring. With Docker stats, historical data, and alerts.”
    2. Dozzle: “Real-time Docker logs, stats, and debugging — in your browser.”
    3. Dockge: “Self-hosted - Docker compose.yaml - Stack-oriented Manager”

🖥️🔐 IT Security

  • GitHub: glytchtech / Pager-Mod-Docs: Mesh/payload.sh
    • I was looking into this to see if i could get Meshtastic installed on my PinePager, then see about connected a Heltec v3 or v4 & seeing if that works vs. the “official” glytchtech piece.
  • ars Technica: Dashlane explains how attackers managed to download encrypted password vaults: “In a campaign that started Sunday, the unknown threat actor abused the mechanism that allows Dashlane users to add new devices, such as computers or phones, to their accounts. By abusing Dashlane’s programming interfaces for device enrollment, the attackers sent requests to large numbers of existing users’ registered email addresses.”
  • Ammar Askar: [1-Click GitHub Token Stealing via a VSCode Bug(https://blog.ammaraskar.com/github-token-stealing/): “Just by clicking a link, it’s possible for an attacker to steal a GitHub token that can read and write to your repos, including private ones.”

🐧 Linux

  • Hack a Day: It’s Another Pi Handheld. But It’s A Really Good One: I really want to build this…
    • OSHW Lab: piBrick Pocket-CM5: “piBrick Pocket-CM5 is a smartphone-sized handheld PC powered by the Raspberry Pi CM5, featuring a 3.92” AMOLED touch display and a QWERTY keyboard+trackpad from BBQ20."
    • GitHub: amarullz / piBrick: “piBrick Pocket-CM5 is a smartphone-sized handheld PC powered by the Raspberry Pi CM5, featuring a 3.91” AMOLED touch display and a QWERTY keyboard+trackpad from BBQ20."
  • IT’s FOSS: This Credit Card-Sized Linux Box Has a Keyboard, Camera, and AI Capability
    • Something else i should have held off on, but caved & put money towards anyway…
    • Kickstarter: m5stack / cardputerzero: “Powered by CM0 | All-in-One Design | Standard Linux I/O | Grove & Advanced I/O Ports | 100+ Extra M5 Modules | Credit Card Size”
  • IT’S FOSS: I Tried This Open Source ChatGPT Alternative on Linux, But Went Back to Ollama
    • GitHub: janhq / jan: “Jan is an open source alternative to ChatGPT that runs 100% offline on your computer.”
    • Web Site: Jan
  • How-To Geek: These free, open source Linux apps made expensive creative software harder to justify
    1. Kdenlive: “Free and Open Source Video Editor. Kdenlive is the acronym for KDE Non-Linear Video Editor. It works on Linux, Windows, macOS, and BSD.”
    2. darktable: “darktable is an open source photography workflow application and raw developer. A virtual lighttable and darkroom for photographers. It manages your digital negatives in a database, lets you view them through a zoomable lighttable and enables you to develop raw images and enhance them.”
    3. Blender: “Blender is the free and open source 3D creation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, even video editing and game asset creation. Advanced users employ Blender’s API for Python scripting to customize the application and write specialized tools; often these are included in Blender’s future releases. Blender is well suited to individuals and small studios who benefit from its unified pipeline and responsive development process. Examples from many Blender-based projects are available in the showcase.”
  • How-To Geek: 7 Linux commands and shortcuts I wish I learned on day one
    1. Clear: clear: Clkears the screen. Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+L
    2. Copying & pasting text: “Place the cursor where you want to cut the text and then press Ctrl+K. This will cut the text to the end of the line in the terminal. You can also go the other way and cut to the beginning of the line with Ctrl+U. To paste text copied from within the terminal, press Ctrl+Y to paste it.”
    3. Moving around and reading files or folders: pwd, cd, ls
    4. Read the manual: man <command>, tldr
    5. Kill any running program: xkill <application>
    6. History: history, *Ctrl+R
    7. Install apps and update your computer: apt, dnf
  • GitHub: jeek / Meshtastic-Exploiteers-Hacker-Pager: sshclient

🎥📺 Media

  • Talk Android: Discover 10 amazing forgotten sci-fi shows you can stream for free right now
    1. Haven: A genuine hit on SYFY in the 2010s, Haven is loosely based on Stephen King’s story The Colorado Kid. The show offers small-town mystery vibes with a supernatural twist, exploring psychic powers and unresolved questions over five seasons. The cast—Emily Rose, Lucas Bryant, and Eric Balfour—had undeniable chemistry.
    2. The Outer Limits (1995 revival): Much like a darker, more mature version of The Twilight Zone, this series revived the 1960s anthology for seven seasons and over 150 episodes through the late 1990s and early 2000s, originally airing on Showtime and later SciFi Channel. Known for its impressive guest roster, you could spot Mark Hamill, Amanda Tapping, Ryan Reynolds, Kirsten Dunst, and Robert Patrick over the years.
    3. Continuum: This lesser-known Canadian time travel show ran as a SYFY original and followed a cop from the future who goes back in time to prevent criminals from changing history. Rachel Nichols stars, and the show explores the chaos and consequences of time travel.
    4. The Triangle: Back when SciFi Channel still took big creative swings with ambitious miniseries, The Triangle focused on the Bermuda Triangle. Written by Rockne S. O’Bannon and Dean Devlin, and starring Sam Neill, Eric Stoltz, Catherine Bell, and Lou Diamond Phillips, it offered high-concept sci-fi adventure.
    5. Relic Hunter: If you ever wondered what a budget 1990s-style live-action Tomb Raider knockoff starring Tia Carrere might look like, this short-lived syndicated show is it. Carrere plays a professor globe-trotting in search of mysterious treasures. The formula is familiar, but the adventure is fun.
    6. Lexx: Even sci-fi diehards sometimes forget Lexx. It ran for four seasons on SciFi Channel around the turn of the millennium, during a period when the network was experimenting with its direction. The show is dark, comedic, sexy, and unapologetically bizarre.
    7. Sanctuary: This SYFY original debuted in 2007 as an experimental web series before getting picked up for TV. Amanda Tapping, post-Stargate SG-1, stars as a scientist who studies unusual and wild creatures. The series was one of the first shot almost entirely using green screen, giving it a distinct, if now somewhat dated, visual style.
    8. Tin Man: Not to be confused with Wicked, this quirky revisiting of the Wizard of Oz concept premiered as a SYFY miniseries in 2007. The cast included Zooey Deschanel, Alan Cumming, Neal McDonough, Kathleen Robertson, and Richard Dreyfuss. It drew large ratings and reportedly cost $20 million to produce.
    9. Farscape: Perhaps not “forgotten” but definitely underwatched lately, Farscape remains a standout sci-fi series. It was the benchmark that put SciFi Channel on the map for original content, featuring a bold mix of puppetry and practical effects that still feel unique, alongside imaginative stories that rival Star Trek and Star Wars.
    10. The Dresden Files: Adapted from Jim Butcher’s urban fantasy book series, this 2007 SYFY show was well-received by critics and genre fans but didn’t draw enough viewers to last beyond a single season. Paul Blackthorne starred as wizard/private eye Harry Dresden. The series ran for just twelve episodes. As one viewer put it: “If the Dresden Files series had been called anything else… It was a good series if you’d never read the Dresden Files. It even got me to read the books … after which I found out why so many people didn’t like it. It was horrible as an adaptation. Not actors’ fault, they did the best you could expect.” Even with its flaws, it’s still an interesting watch, especially if you’re curious about Chicago’s magical underbelly.
  • Lifehacker: 10 Shows and Movies Like ‘Backrooms’ You Should Watch Next
    1. Exit 8 (2025): “A man becomes increasingly desperate when he realizes he is trapped in a subway station, needing to complete a mission to get out.”
    2. Skinamarink (2022): “Two children wake up in the middle of the night to find their father is missing, and all the windows and doors in their home have vanished.”
    3. In Fear (2013): “Driving to a music festival in Ireland, a new couple become lost and are then set upon by a tormentor with an unknown motive.”
    4. The Blair Witch Project (1999): “Three film students vanish after traveling into a Maryland forest to film a documentary on the local Blair Witch legend, leaving only their footage behind.”
    5. As Above, So Below (2014): “When a team of explorers venture into the catacombs that lie beneath the streets of Paris, they uncover the dark secret that lies within this city of the dead.”
    6. Vivarium (2019): “A young couple looking for the perfect home find themselves trapped in a mysterious labyrinth-like neighborhood of identical houses.”
    7. Channel Zero: No-End House (2017): Channel Zero, Season 02
    8. Timecrimes (2007): “A man accidentally gets into a time machine and travels back in time nearly an hour. Finding himself will be the first of a series of disasters of unforeseeable consequences.”
    9. Severance (2022): “Mark leads a team of office workers whose memories have been surgically divided between their work and personal lives. When a mysterious colleague appears outside of work, it begins a journey to discover the truth about their jobs.”
    10. The Deep House (2021): “While diving in a remote French lake, a couple who specialize in urban exploration videos discover a house submerged in deep waters. Their dive turns into a nightmare when they discover the house was the scene of atrocious crimes.”

🗣️ Social Networking

🖥️🪟 Windows

  • Make Use Of: 5 Windows settings you can only change in the Registry
    1. Bring back the classic right-click menu
      • “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID” > New Key: {86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2} > New Key: InprocServer32
    2. Stop web results in Start menu search
      • “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search” > BingSearchEnabled: Set value to 0.
    3. Skip the lock screen entirely
      • “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows” > New Key: Personalization > New Key: NoLockScreen. Set value to 1.
    4. Fine-tune menu and hover delay
      • “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop”: MenuShowDelay: Default is 400, so decrease to preferred value
    5. Get rid of shortcut arrows on desktop icons
      • “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Icons”: New String Value: Set 29 & enter path to a blank ICO file.

❔ Miscellaneous

selh.st: Self-Host Weekly (5 June 2026), by Ethan Sholly.

  • GitHub: streamyfin / streamyfin: “A modern Jellyfin client built with Expo”
    • Web Site: Streamyfin
    • While trying to get my Home Video library working between Plex & Jellyfin earlier this week, i downloaded a number of Apple TV Jellyfin apps, but I’m not sure if Streamyfin was one. I also have a number of the clients on my phone, so i should probably take a look at all of them & see if i can narrow down what i have.
  • GitHub: yakushstanislav / UltraViolet: “Self-hosted network discovery & search — your own Shodan, on your hardware.”
    • I thought this was going to be for more local discovery, but i could see use-cases for the public side too.
  • GitHub: perber / leafwiki: “LeafWiki - Self-hosted wiki. Single Go binary, SQLite, Markdown on disk. No external database required.”
    • Web Site: LeafWiki: “A self-hosted wiki. Single binary, no external database, Markdown on disk.”
    • I just wanted to save this one because it’s similar to some of the other note-taking apps i use (which is too many…), but using Markdown files, making backup (& migration if needed) extremely easy.
  • GitHub: afaneca / myfin: “MyFin Budget - Web frontend for the personal finances platform that’ll help you budget, keep track of your income/spending and forecast your financial future.”
    • Web Site: Myfin Budget: “Take Control of Your Finances with MyFin Budget”
    • I’ve been trying to get better \ more on top of budget, bills, finances, etc & just started trying to use Actual Budget after not really loving the Budget part of Oikos, so i wanted to give this service a look too.
  • GitHub: nezhahq / nezha: “Self-hosted, lightweight server and website monitoring and O&M tool”
    • Web Site: Nesha Server Monitoring: “Open-source, lightweight, and easy-to-use server monitoring and operation tool”
    • I haven’t found a home lab dashboard that I really love yet, so any time i see a new one mentioned i like to take a look at it.
  • GitHub: raceApps/nutritrace: “Self-hosted personal nutrition tracker — single Docker container, AGPL-3.0, no telemetry, no cloud sync.”
    • Along with trying to get a better view & handle on finances, trying to be healthier has been on the list too. After meaning to look into Cracked Oura, i thought this service might be worth a try too.
  • GitHub: pewdiepie-archdaemon / odysseus: “Self-hosted AI workspace.”
    • Web Site: Odysseus
    • A coworker mentioned this one to me earlier this week, so i think i have it listed above in my post, but I’m still adding it since Ethan is also including it this week.
  • fitpub.social/
  • GitHub: endurain-project / endurain: “Endurain is a self-hosted fitness tracking service designed to give users full control over their data and hosting environment”
  • Microsoft | Windows Blogs: Build 2026: Furthering Windows as the trusted platform for development
    • This is the part I’m excited for: “Coreutils for Windows – a set of Linux-like command line utilities that run natively on Windows, now generally available.”
  • https://www.plex.tv/blog/plex-introduces-a-social-platform-for-entertainment-discovery-across-streaming-services/
  • GitHub: caronc / apprise: “Apprise - Push Notifications that work with just about every platform”
    • Release v1.11.0: Doesn’t look like there’s any new servers added that i would use, but was worth a look.
  • GitHub: home-assistant](https://github.com/home-assistant/) / core: “🏡 Open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first.”
    • Web Site: Home Assistant: “Open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts.”
    • 2026.6.0: Home Assistant: 2026.6: Pick a card, any card
    • I do have to sit down with my Home Assistant install & really build out the dashboards in a way that’s actually helpful, so I will probably be digging into that new card picker that was added: “So you can imagine my excitement for my personal favorite of this release: the new card picker. Instead of asking “which card type do I want?”, it now asks “which thing in your home do you want to show?”, and then suggests cards that actually make sense for it, with live previews using your own data. For someone like me, that’s not just easier; it’s genuinely inspiring. It nudges me towards combinations I would not have thought of on my own. 💡”
  • GitHub: timothepoznanski / poznote: “Poznote is a personal note-taking and documentation platform.”
    • Web Site: Poznote: “Poznote is a personal note-taking and documentation platform.”
    • Release 6.17.0: Happy to see these two additions:
      • Added a new setting to display attachment preview thumbnails directly at the top of notes.
      • Added support for links to other notes, dates, and emojis within tasks.
  • GitHub: RackulaLives / Rackula: “rack layout designer”
    • Web Site: Rackula: “Drag and drop rack visualizer”
    • v26.6.0
    • I can’t remember if i did look at this in the past or not, but hopefully i’ll remember going forward that this is a bit more than i need for my home lab. Definitely looks useful if i did have full racks though.
  • solidtime-io / solidtime: “Modern open-source time-tracking app”
    • Web Site: solidtime: “The modern Open-Source Time Tracker”
  • jR4dh3y / BoxBox: “A modern, self-hosted file manager for your homelab. Built in SvelteKit & Go”
    • Web Site: BoxBox: " The file manager your homelab deserves. Manage Linux servers like local folders. Zero latency, instant sync, chunked transfers, and native code editing right in your browser."
  • SikamikanikoBG / homelab-monitor: “Plug-and-play homelab dashboard in one container — GPU, local-AI model VRAM, Docker, systemd and host health. One page, no Prometheus/Grafana.”
    • Web Site: HomeLab Monitor: “One small container for your home lab — GPU, AI VRAM, Docker, systemd and host health, all on one page. Multi-machine since 0.8 — register your other boxes over SSH and see every host’s vitals side-by-side in one cockpit.”
  • doomedramen / labitat: “Homelab dashboard”
    • Web Site: Labitat: “A modern, self-hosted homelab dashboard. Live service widgets, drag-and-drop layout, and full PWA support.”
  • slqdk/NoteControl: “Windows File explorer based notecontrol server with HTML5 as frontend”
    • “A self-hosted, multi-user notes app for Windows. Notes are plain markdown files on disk, one folder per vault — open them in any editor, sync them with any tool, back them up by copying a folder. The app is just a friendly UI on top.”
  • pewdiepie-archdaemon/odysseus: “Self-hosted AI workspace.”
    • Web Site: Odysseus: “Your own AI workspace, running on your hardware. Odysseus is a self-hosted interface for talking to language models — chat, autonomous agents, tools, model serving, email, research, and more. Local-first, privacy-first, and no telemetry. Just you and your models.”
  • Zoeille / picsou-finance: “Self-hosted personal finance dashboard Track bank accounts, brokerage, crypto, and net worth — all in one place.”