Having multiple side programming projects is a good thing. While I enhanced GoBlog with some security features in the recent past (multiple passkeys, hashed passwords, etc.), I worked again on another project, which I haven’t touched in almost two years. My URL shortener. I did some maintenance but also added some quality-of-life features. This time I worked with Raptor Mini in GitHub Copilot. On the small code base, that model worked quite well.

You are welcome to check out GoShort.

I should have set up something like this earlier, but now I finally did: Uptime Kuma. I currently host it on my home server and let it monitor my main VPS, my mail server, and some self-hosted services. Simple to set up and configure with SQLite!

GoBlog not only has a new README file on the repository (replacing the old, cluttered, incomplete documentation) but also has a new share button implementation. No more relying on third-party services for that basic functionality!

I think I did not blog about it, but I switched back to a self-hosted AdGuard Home instance quite some time ago from NextDNS. To reduce my number of subscriptions, but also to increase my control over important infrastructure I use.

As upstreams in AdGuard Home, I used DNS4EU, Mullvad, and Quad9.

However, today, I switched to a self-hosted instance of PowerDNS Recursor. So no more reliance on third-party DNS resolvers, except the root and authoritative nameservers.

I try it with AdGuard Home first, as I later also want to set up a second PowerDNS Recursor instance on my mail server to make use of some more spam protection features.

Let’s see if any problems appear. When yes, “it was DNS”! 😅

I finally have the Internet Phone Book as well. Ordered from Hyper Hypo in Greece because that was the only place with stock. Lots to explore for quiet moments!

Today, eight years ago, our time together came to an end, and the void you left behind is still immense.

But your values, your curiosity, the way you approached things, all of that shaped me and remains deeply rooted within me.

I miss you endlessly, Dad.

I finally took a closer look at OpenRouter today, added some credits, and used it with the Kilo Code VS Code extension to vibe code (or at least guide the LLM to code) a bit on the wedding website I’m building for next year. I used the Grok Code Fast 1 model most of the time. Furthermore, I also switched this blog’s AI plugins to use Mistral Small 3.2 for summary generation and image caption generation.

I wish there would be a European alternative that is as simple and supports as many models as OpenRouter. Ideally, it would even support the audio transcription endpoint with models besides Whisper.

And I need to experiment with some other models for coding, as I don’t like it being from one of Elon’s companies. At work, I use GitHub Copilot with Claude Sonnet 4 or 4.5 most of the time.

But the AI world is moving fast; I guess it’s just a matter of time.

It’s Sunday, and tomorrow I don’t have to work, as I have two weeks of vacation. The first time since May. My only breaks from work were when I hurt my hand and wasn’t able to type for a week, and two free days last week, but those also weren’t really relaxing for me. So I am very much looking forward to the next two weeks! I really feel the exhaustion from the last few months with work sometimes being stressful, the start of my fiancée’s teacher training, and some other topics. But this year again showed me that biking and sometimes going for a walk or a bit of hiking is a great refuge in a stressful time.

The good thing about having a tablet now and spending time with it instead of my laptop the last few days is that I finally brought down my reading list in Miniflux a lot. I also answered emails and checked a few other tasks off my (mental) to-do list.

I don’t know why, but somehow I am less distracted with this device compared with my laptop. Maybe it’s also just because it’s new?

Anyway, today the keyboard book cover (and a tempered glass screen protector) arrived, and the tablet now feels a bit like the Surface Go I had for studying. Especially in DeX mode.

There are a couple of add-ons to block YouTube Shorts in the browser, but if you are using Firefox with uBlock Origin, you do not need to install anything extra. Just add this filter list to the uBO settings, and you are free from those annoying short videos! At least on the PC… Sadly, even with YouTube Premium, there is no option to just ban Shorts from the mobile app.