Jeff Butts
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5 projects you can do for much cheaper with a Raspberry Pi instead of a mini PC
Save money with Raspberry Pi projects. From media centers to smart homes, Pi beats mini PCs in terms of cost and flexibility.
A 3D printer replaced my hardware store trips for five household items that actually matter
The best part? I can fully customize these prints to my liking
My failed 3D-printed dragon taught me more than any Benchy ever could
I started paying more attention to first layers, adhesion, and slicer settings after failing to print an articulated dragon
Single-board computers finally stopped feeling like compromises
SBCs have become fast, capable desktop machines for everyday work, without many of the compromises they once demanded.
I put a mini PC in my carry-on, and hotel TVs stopped being useless
I packed a mini PC for my hotel stay and turned the room’s TV into a proper screen for Jellyfin, browsing, home lab access, and more.
My 3D printer was burning filament on oversized purge towers, and one slicer change saved me hundreds a year
Oversized purge towers were quietly wasting filament on my multicolor prints. Reducing purge volumes cut waste and could save me hundreds each year.
My 3D printer's best feature is the local camera that stops me from wasting hours on failed prints
My local camera catches failures the cloud version would have missed
UGREEN's new smart home platform keeps your AI and storage local, no cloud required
UGREEN's new HomeAgent smart home platform keeps AI processing, storage, security footage, and device control local instead of relying on the cloud.
Proxmox's official Arm release doesn't support Raspberry Pi, so I installed it anyway
Proxmox VE now officially supports Arm64, but not Raspberry Pi. I installed it on a Raspberry Pi anyway to see how well it actually works.
I ditched my NAS's default OS for TrueNAS, and storage management finally made sense
TrueNAS gave me deeper storage control, better visibility, and more flexibility than the default NAS OS, even if it meant giving up some convenience.
My 3D print model library was controlled chaos, but Manyfold made revision management painless
Manyfold made my messy 3D printing archive easier to browse, organize, and revisit without relying on cryptic folder and file names.
I stopped printing these 5 things in PLA after watching them fail in real conditions
PLA looks great off the bed, but heat, flexing, weather, heavy loads, and safety-critical jobs can expose its limits fast.
Haiku OS is the BeOS successor nobody asked for, but I can't stop using it
Haiku OS is fast, focused, and full of clever desktop ideas that make its limitations surprisingly easy to forgive.
I added NVMe caching to my media NAS, and the real win wasn't the files
I added NVMe caching to my media NAS and found the biggest improvement wasn’t faster file transfers, but quicker access to Jellyfin and app data.
Jellyfin 12 will break some home servers, and I'm okay with that
Jellyfin 12 could break some home servers, but its stricter upgrade path may be exactly what the project needs to stay healthy in the long term.
I've tried every functional filament, but PETG is still my first choice for a reason
PETG is still my default functional filament, even after trying TPU, PA6-GF, and PCTG. Here’s why I keep coming back to it.
In the Plex vs Jellyfin debate, everyone forgot the media player that works without either
Plex and Jellyfin dominate the media-server debate, but Kodi can play local and network media without requiring either one.
My Jellyfin server has four layers of protection, and RAID isn't the most important one
My Jellyfin server uses RAID, backups, local metadata, and separate file copies to protect against various types of data loss.
SSD cache won't fix your storage array's biggest problem, and that's actually the point
SSD cache won’t transform a hard-drive array, but it can make the small, repetitive storage tasks that feel slow noticeably less annoying.
I ditched cloud printing to keep my 3D printer private, and it's the only thing standing between me and mandatory file scanning
Proposed 3D printer file scanning laws make local printing more important than ever