Look its been a hot min since I made any posts here on my site, and I figured why not make a journal-personal post first just to get something out there. Plus some people might genuinely be curious as to why I haven't been making any content.

Technically I had some posts scheduled, and so those went out. However they are finished now, after 6 months, they have ended. It transitioned to a weekly idea, which I wanted to do still, but I have been failing at content (I'll tell you why in a second). Even the YouTube channels as well, the interviews, and especially the cross-platform clips I always shared. Nothing has been going out, and its driving me nuts.

I've always been the kind of creator where if I feel behind it just stresses me out beyond belief. Combine that with a "tight money purse" as they say/ just not making a enough income. That also puts me at a weird mindset. Them together and I barely function.

Almost Losing my MOST Important Data

Not only have I been behind, I even have been behind on clips for like two months now, but I almost lost ALL of my important data in one go. Granted I always try to back things up, but it just happened to be in that interval where I am between backups. Additionally, I was trying to organize my retro game collection as well as my photos/videos collection. Meaning they weren't recently backed up...

Let this be a reminder to backup your data!

At least I still have Gaming

Look most of my following isn't going to care about this part, but that is how I decompress or relax (even if my zombie game isn't very relaxing).

Gaming has always been a part of my life, and due to some new tech (see next section); I've been able to really pick up and play games much more easily.

Between the Legion Go I got late last year, and actually it was because I was trying to install steam OS on a flashdrive that I almost lost my data. Not to mention the Retroid Pocket 5 I recently got in a trade. I can just pick up these handhelds, and basically play anything I throw at them.

🎮 PolyInnovator Gaming - Official Website for Dustin Miller PolyInnovator [LLC]
A section of PolyInnovator geared towards gaming. On here I’ll write guides, before you purchase type of stuff, game lists, opinion pieces, and more! It is also where I’ll aggregate my various gaming streaming series. - About: https://polyinnovator.space/polyinnovator-gaming/
Official Website for Dustin Miller PolyInnovator [LLC]Dustin Miller | PolyInnovator

Massive wins with bartering with Trades

Look I don't have much income, but that doesn't mean I can't make progress. I was selling a decent amount of stuff on fb marketplace. However the platform changed gears, stopped showing half of my listings, and tried to get me to send in my ID to "prove" I am real.

Despite my account being from 2009. Idiotic company.

Thus trading became really my only option. I was already doing it, but I tried harder. Normally 8 times out of 10 people tell you to F off, or that they just need the cash (fair).

However the 2 times out of 10 it ends up being a really great trade. I'll make a video about it at some point. I.e. I had a 1080p TV just lying around, and I traded it for an upgraded mic and mic arm a while back.

Last December-ish, I had traded my Xbox Series X for a Lenovo Legion Go 1, which ended up being way more useful to me.

Recently, I traded a modern rocking chair I loved (but it was hard to move and aging), customized red xbox controller, fancy logitech keyboard, and an electric screwdriver for a Thinkpad laptop (a few years old, but high end one). That happens to be in between my current daily driver mini pc, and the one that I had sent back for RMA (I'm never getting that back unfortunately).

In another trade I got a Retroid Pocket 5 with a 512gb SD card, Pocket Classic, another 512gb and 256gb SD cards, and new controllers for the legion go. Crazy trades!

Slowly but surely Downsizing to be able to Move

That rocking chair was one of three things that I'd want to keep with me if I moved, the others being a hand me down side table, that if I'm being honestly I could probably pack it in a large suitcase or mail it.

The other being my new-ish bed, that is the best I've had in my life, although I could still probably buy a new one where I end up I guess.

Meaning that none of my furniture is holding me back anymore. My computer setup is all mini, portable, and packable. Besides my main monitor, which is long overdue for an upgrade anyways. This is why I got a portable monitor a little while back. Downsizing has been a long term goal for me.

Signing up to Speak at Conferences

I'm not sure if I'll be able to, but I hope I can!

Podcast Movement sort of vexed me because I had signed up right away, but my talks weren't on their voting page when that launched. Thus I had a couple weeks there where my topics couldn't get seen, they had told me they WERE there, but I searched for the topics and nothing came up.

If you're curious about what I'd speak on:

Podmove asked for three topics, and Vidsummit I was only able to submit one. Of course for both I presented the Creator Equation.

Home Server life - Homelabs - Obsidian Syncing service?

Something I've been spending a lot of my time on recently. Honestly I think more people should, there are some really easy entry points for people who aren't technical. It is just a matter of basically having your own personal cloud. Instead of backing up to Google Drive/OneDrive/Apple Drive, you back up to your own personal server.

It has been super easy with Zima OS, the one I chose, and I want to try another easy one Fygo. As that one has a built in Fygo TV, replacement for Netflix, like how Plex or Jellyfin are. Plex costs a lot, and Jellyfin takes more work to set up. Its also just not that good things beyond movies and TV. Fygo I think would be easier to use on various devices.

The Fygo Photos app also looks interesting, as a replacement for Immich, which it itself is a replacement for Google/Apple Photos.

The Homelab

I'm just using a cheap little Intel NUC, but with a fancy 2tb SSD in it. That's all you really need to get started, an old computer, and an easy OS to figure things out with. Sure the more feature rich ones like TrueNAS might be better in some people's opinions, but they require a much more steep learning curve.

Even as a techie myself I wasn't ready to put that many hours into just making a working system. Hex OS and Unraid cost too much to use.

Alternatively, to both the hardware and Operating System situations, there is Ugreen... They have some really intriguing products, and while some power users might find them tedious. I think new to home server people find the ease of use appealing. I'm right in the middle, I want it to be easy, but I am at least capable of figuring out issues. The 4x bay NVME SSD based NAS by Ugreen appeals to me as a high capacity/high speed solution for my content creation library. You can even edit off of it.sssssssssss

Zima OS or Fygo OS?

If I am not going with a Ugreen device, and therefore their UgreenOS. Then I'll be going with one of the free options, I looked in Olares not quite my thing, and those are Zima + Fygo. Both with their own benefits.

Technically Zima is just an overlay of a linux OS, but really that's all I need. It also treats docker images like additional apps, which really simplifies the installation of adding new tools.

Fygo has some better built in apps like I mentioned before, but not enough for me to just up and leave what I already have put together. Thus I'm going to try it on a different PC.

Also once https://ampchor.com comes out I may not need to move, as I can deal with Immich, it is the media apps that I have more qualms with. Ampchor aims to be the all in one, even for retro games and books too.

Obsidian Sync

I finally had gotten Syncthing to work, only for it to break when I moved SSD's on my laptop. Then it started messing up the other platforms in a sync loop, and so I just deleted everything related to Syncthing and started over (kept my vault of course).

It was a pain in the ass to put syncthing together, and the next option was technically worse to set up: Livesync. However I needed an alternative, and I thought I have this server I should USE it. After dealing with that for almost an hour to no avail I gave up on it.

Of course later on I found two new ways of syncing with new plugins, but what I ended up doing was just paying for Obsidian Sync official. I had long since avoided it, as the last time I tried it. It just DIDN'T work, and maybe that was due to Android devices going to sleep, and so they didn't fully sync. However I'm not sure, and to be honest as long as my laptop is synced right now with my server and desktop, then I'm okay. I'll get my phone later for workouts and daily journals.

This has been what I have been up to

Honestly all of these sections could be posts in of themselves, there are so many things to discuss in each of them. Maybe I will make those...

I don't know if many people will read this or not, but I hope the ones that do gain an understanding of what I've been dealing with!