entries
Building Normiebench: Benchmarking Local AI on Normal People’s Hardware
How a cheap 2013 Mac Pro trashcan, a Mac mini M4, and a curiosity about fair local LLM benchmarks turned into Normiebench.
Best Wi-Fi Access Points When You Already Have A Real Router
How I think about access points once the router is already handling router stuff and I just want clean Wi-Fi without wasting money on overbuilt all-in-one gear.
Best USB Flash Drives For Bootable Toolkits And Rescue Installs
While building Brando's Toolkit, I went looking for the flash drives that actually make sense for bootable installs, rescue tools, and carrying a real repair setup everywhere.
Best UPS Picks For Routers, Modems, Mini Servers, And Keeping The Internet Alive
How I think about buying a UPS for home network gear and mini servers after deciding that random power blips are a stupid way to ruin an otherwise solid setup.
Best Travel Routers For Hotels, Backup Internet, And Weird Wi-Fi Situations
My honest travel-router logic for hotel Wi-Fi, tethering, backup internet, and keeping all your devices on one sane little network when the outside world is being annoying.
You Are No Longer The Customer. You Are The Product.
Why digital privacy matters more than ever, how data turns people into products, and a practical, non-paranoid path to shrinking your digital footprint before AI-driven extraction becomes the default.
Best Smart Plugs For Energy Monitoring, Simple Automations, And Not Making Your House Weird
How I think about smart plugs when I want simple automations, real energy monitoring, and useful smart-home stuff without turning the whole house into cloud nonsense.
How To Build A Secure And Fast Home Network (Without Being A Network Engineer)
A plain-English guide to home network security and speed. Learn what routers, Wi-Fi access points, ports, passwords, and IoT separation actually do, and how to protect your privacy without overcomplicating things.
Verizon’s 4-Line iPhone 17 Pro Deal Is Literally Cheaper Than Buying The Phones
A full 36-month breakdown showing how Verizon’s 4-for-$100 deal with free iPhone 17 Pro devices costs less than buying the phones outright — and why it beats every competing carrier offer.
Best Portable SSDs For Backups, Boot Drives, And Moving Big Files Fast
My laid-back buying logic for portable SSDs after using them for backups, boot drives, travel storage, and moving big files without the usual flash drive pain.
My New Home Media Setup: Building a Clean, Automated Streaming Hub on the Beelink ME Mini
I used AI to set up my media center, and it worked like a charm.
Building a High-Performance OPNsense Router on the Beelink ME Mini
How I replaced my home router with a Proxmox-powered OPNsense box and automated the entire setup with AI.
Picking the Perfect Always‑On Mini PC for My Mini Rack
Finding the perfect balance between performance, price, and expandability for my home server
Building a Practical Doomsday PC: A Radxa X4 Survival Vault
The build that made sense for long-term survivability without being a budget-breaking prepper fantasy
Best PC Repair Tools For A Home Tech Bench That Is Not Full Of Junk
The PC repair tools I actually think are worth owning if you want a clean little home tech bench without buying a mountain of fake-necessary junk.
Hosting My Entire Blog On A Phone Powered By A Single Solar Panel
How I built a budget-friendly, off-grid, always-on blog using a phone, solar panel, and a battery.
Best NVMe Drives For Mini PCs, Tiny Servers, And Other Always-On Boxes
My honest NVMe shopping logic for mini PCs and always-on boxes, where cool-running behavior and long-term sanity matter more than benchmark-brain marketing.
A realistic smart home build without unnecessary frills
How I automated everything that actually matters
Best Mini PCs For Homelabs, Home Assistant, And A Real Home Router
This is how I think about mini PCs after using them for homelab stuff, Home Assistant, router duty, and the usual 'one little box that suddenly runs the house' mission.
Best 2.5GbE Switches For A Home Lab That Is Finally Outgrowing Gigabit
This is how I think about 2.5GbE switches after hitting the point where gigabit started feeling like the annoying part of an otherwise solid home lab.
Brando's Toolkit – The Ultimate Automated Flash‑Drive Utility
A one‑command, AI‑crafted PowerShell script that formats, partitions, downloads, and organizes a bootable tech‑tool flash drive. Open‑source, FOSS, and ready for your own files.