A sysadmin guide to running OpenTelemetry traces on a small stack: one Collector, OTLP from your applications, sampling that keeps errors and drops the boring traffic, Tempo or Jaeger v2 as the backend, and the limits that bite when the whole pipeline runs on one box.
A sysadmin guide to systemd-journald persistence: where the journal actually lives, the two steps that make it survive reboots, the size and retention knobs that stop it eating the disk, the silent ways entries still go missing right before a crash, and the journalctl calls that read the previous boot once the machine has already come back up.
A sysadmin guide to the Linux watchdog timer: what the kernel watchdog device actually does, why a hardware watchdog and the softdog module are not the same thing, and five steps to arm it safely, from systemd RuntimeWatchdogSec and per-service WatchdogSec to the userspace watchdog daemon, with the tests that prove it fires before you need it.
Supabase and Appwrite are the default names for a self-hosted backend, and both are heavier than most light projects need. A repo-level review of the alternatives that actually fit: PocketBase, Fluxbase, Spin, and Orva, plus TrailBase and Nhost, with the BaaS versus FaaS distinction, the real use case each one wins, and the limits their own READMEs admit.
The best accounting software for a freelancer is decided by the record, not the receipt: who can read your books, what the entry tier actually unlocks, how cleanly you can export, and what survives a migration. A sysadmin review of QuickBooks Online, Xero, FreshBooks, Wave, Zoho Books, and the self-hosted family (Invoice Ninja, Akaunting, Frappe Books, GnuCash), including what to check before you sign and the one case where self-hosting your books is the right call.
The best email for a law firm is decided by the archive, not the inbox: retention, legal hold, eDiscovery export, audit logs, and the tier that actually unlocks them. A sysadmin review of Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Proton for Business, Hushmail, Zoho Mail, and the one case where self-hosting is the wrong answer.
Docker and Incus both run containers on the same Linux primitives, but they wrap the kernel mechanism in different abstractions: Docker packages an application, Incus launches a whole operating system. A theoretical comparison of application containers and system containers, the lifecycles each one assumes, and when each unit of management is the right one, with links to our Proxmox vs IncusOS coverage.