Henry Musk:

"useful" is highly subjective 😛

and I suppose so is "totally geeked out" for that matter

I use an Odroid HC1 (similar to a raspberry pi but with an integrated heatsink and sata hard drive adapter) to host my personal website as well as a few web applications that I like to use, like gitea (similar to github), my quick-share app and my password manager. I like it because like you mentioned, they are convenient and low power. For example, I enjoy how the computerI leave on all the time doesn't have to have any mechanical moving parts like a fan, and it consumes very little energy.

Henry Musk:

"useful" is highly subjective 😛

and I suppose so is "totally geeked out" for that matter

I use an Odroid HC1 (similar to a raspberry pi but with an integrated heatsink and sata hard drive adapter) to host my personal website as well as a few web applications that I like to use, like gitea (similar to github), my quick-share app and my password manager. I also have radicale to sync my calendar between my phone and my PC. I like it because like you mentioned, they are convenient and low power. For example, I enjoy how the computerI leave on all the time doesn't have to have any mechanical moving parts like a fan, and it consumes very little energy.

Henry Musk:

"useful" is highly subjective 😛

and I suppose so is "totally geeked out" for that matter

I use an Odroid HC1 (similar to a raspberry pi but with an integrated heatsink and sata hard drive adapter) to host my personal website as well as a few web applications that I like to use, like gitea (similar to github), my quick-share app and my password manager. I also have radicale to sync my calendar between my phone and my PC. I like it because like you mentioned, they are convenient and low power. For example, I enjoy how the computer I leave on all the time doesn't have to have any mechanical moving parts like a fan, and it consumes very little energy.

In reply to @forestjohnson:cyberia.club
In short, I like to use them to host web sites and web applications.

Having my own space on the WWW and not having to depend on large SaaS companies for my publishing needs just makes me feel good, it helps me feel safe in this weird world we inhabit, plus I also enjoy the process of setting it up and maintaining it.

YMMV, I can only speculate what you mean by "useful" and "not totally geeked out", could you be more specific about what kind of projects you might be interested in?

What are your hobbies or things that you do every day ? Maybe you can figure out a way to use low power computing to fix or optimize something that you already do. For example, I like to garden and I'm going to do some research on automated watering for next season. I might use a single board computer to read the soil temperature and moisture and control the flow of water with solenoid valves

@[Henry Musk]

port forward your router?

Yep. Each router does this differently but if you can log into the admin panel it's pretty easy.

don't know if I can recognize if it gets hacked if it is reachable on the web.

That's fine, for two reasons:

1. Unless you are a high value fugitive or intelligence officer or something, there is basically a 0% chance that a human (stranger) will spend time trying to break into your server. You only really have to worry about bots, and trust me, the bots are dumb.

2. Web servers and apps are secure when configured correctly, and the setup process for such things has gotten much much easier in the last few years.

Yes if you try to set up WordPress from scratch and you somehow use an ancient version of WordPress or otherwise set it up wrong, there's a possibility you might get hit by a bot. But any more modern server software that's easier to set up, like Caddy Server for example, you can rest ez knowing it's secure by default

In reply to @forestjohnson:cyberia.club

@[Henry Musk]

port forward your router?

Yep. Each router does this differently but if you can log into the admin panel it's pretty easy.

don't know if I can recognize if it gets hacked if it is reachable on the web.

That's fine, for two reasons:

1. Unless you are a high value fugitive or intelligence officer or something, there is basically a 0% chance that a human (stranger) will spend time trying to break into your server. You only really have to worry about bots, and trust me, the bots are dumb.

2. Web servers and apps are secure when configured correctly, and the setup process for such things has gotten much much easier in the last few years.

Yes if you try to set up WordPress from scratch and you somehow use an ancient version of WordPress or otherwise set it up wrong, there's a possibility you might get hit by a bot. But any more modern server software that's easier to set up, like Caddy Server for example, you can rest ez knowing it's secure by default

In reply to @forestjohnson:cyberia.club

@[Henry Musk]

port forward your router?

Yep. Each router does this differently but if you can log into the admin panel it's pretty easy.

don't know if I can recognize if it gets hacked if it is reachable on the web.

That's fine, for two reasons:

1. Unless you are a high value fugitive or intelligence officer or something, there is basically a 0% chance that a human (stranger) will spend time trying to break into your server. You only really have to worry about bots, and trust me, the bots are dumb.

2. Web servers and apps are secure when configured correctly, and the setup process for such things has gotten much much easier in the last few years.

Yes if you try to set up WordPress from scratch and you somehow use an ancient version of WordPress or otherwise set it up wrong, there's a possibility you might get hit by a bot. But any more modern server software that's easier to set up, like Caddy Server for example, you can rest ez knowing it's secure by default

In reply to @forestjohnson:cyberia.club
Yeah, you could make a matrix bot :)

In reply to @forestjohnson:cyberia.club
Yeah, you could make a matrix bot :)