Consider getting a VPS to play around with to learn how this stuff works before you expose your data to the internet.

Highly recommend this, especially when exposing your local server to the internet when you may still be a bit green with the security aspects of self hosting. Small VPS for under $30 a year are dime a dozen really, and well worth the price for the education you can get from them.

Even now, I have a small VPS that I regularly test things on before I put it on the production server.

it lacks a gui

I’ve never used this, but I wandered across it about a month ago: https://github.com/qdm12/caddy-ui

If you search for ‘caddy ui’ there are a number of them. I don’t really see a need for a caddy ui, but some might.

I am a mediocre musician on my best day who has been playing stringed instruments for about 65 years now. I also play keyboards, tho not the piano which, imho, is a different instrument entirely. The AX-Edge is not one of my favorite instruments tho. I bought it on a whim thinking I’d give it a go and see what all the buzz was about. Back in the 80s and early part of the 90s, it seemed like everybody had one. After the initial excitement of discovering a new instrument wore off, it kind of goes south from there. The angle at which you have to strike the keys is very different than the angle of my normal keyboards/controllers which doesn’t seem like much but it gives me fits. Overall, it wasn’t worth the $400 I paid for it, tho I could probably turn it on CL for closer to the original price. The equipment itself is quite capable, it’s just one of those oddities I thought would be cool to learn, but in retrospect, $400 could have been better spent elsewhere.

https://www.trackawesomelist.com/

Tape drives are the keytars of the tech world. They seem cool and a pro can really jam with them… but they’re not the most practical and you should really get a guitar or a keyboard until you know what you’re doing.

That made me snort. But you speak the truth. I have a Roland AX-Edge that I bought off a guy who thought it would be a good idea to play. I think he paid like $1200 for it and after the new wore off, he sold it to me for $400, basically brand new.

In this vein, Backblaze Personal unlimited account would be well worth it to me. $8.25 USD ($99/year contract) for unlimited backups. The downside to Backblaze is if you’re pushing large volumes of data, like above 5 TB, it is excruciatingly slow doing a restore online. Luckily, they will sell/rent you a 10 TB drive with your data, shipped to you. After you make the restore/transfer, you can decide to send the drive back for a full refund, or keep it.

https://github.com/linuxserver/docker-obsidian

It uses the Kasm VNC. Takes a little to get used to, but it rocks.

I’m somewhat of a chemist too, tho, it was back in the 60s…and in my basement…but yeah.

without developing at least some actual understanding of the concepts underlying what you’re doing

I realize lemmy hates AI, but I use Grok a lot to explain commands, command sequences, etc. Those go in my notes as well, after I’ve refined them, and conformed them to my application. Of course, all the precautions one should take with any online tut in place, and pulling knowledge from multiple sources helps verify. Grok helps me out a ton.

I would like to reiterate the importance of taking notes. As a younger man, I never felt the need thinking, ‘I can remember all that’. Wrong! So as a elderly man, taking profuse notes is paramount. So it’s a good idea to get in the practice of taking notes while you are young.

I use NotePad++ locally, then transfer the notes to an encrypted Obsidian vault on my server. I can actually stand up a server, implement all the security necessary, install 30 or so apps, and be in production within hours just from notes. They house all my Docker compose files and everything. So it’s kind of like painting by numbers.

Get in the habit of taking notes and refine them as well, as you galong.

mostly just for when I’d search for instructions on something an a YT vid was my only option.

That was basically what I wanted to use it for. There are several fairly reliable Invidious instances still left. yewtu.be comes to mind and inv.nadeko.net. But it’s hit and miss, and it gets pretty janky having to refresh the instance, then pick a new instance, then Anubis weighs your soul to see if you are allowed to view content. But, like you say, if that’s the only video tut you can find… I usually just download the video and when done, delete it. Trying to jump through YouTube’s hoops is a futile endeavor. They’ve made it so painful to watch content on their platform while still trying to retain as much of your data as possible. Screw 'em.

There are still active instances out there. They are a pita to maintain as you’ll be playing catch me fuck me with Google ad nauseam. I gave up running my own instance and just rely on the public instances since they seem to be good at whack a mole a la Google.

Invidious

How do you keep Invidious running? I’ve tried all the alternatives like Piped, etc. I can’t keep them running for more than a week before it gets banhammered by Google.

Awesome SelfHosted is a great place to start looking: https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted

What else should I self-host, aside from HA (I don’t have a smart home), Calibre (physical books are my jam), and Jellyfin (I don’t watch too many movies + don’t have a significant DVD/Blu-ray collection)?

You sound kind of like me, but physical books are not my jam. I host a lot of things I use all the time. The most used app I selfhost is SearxNG. When you get it all set up, in your browser settings you can substitute DDG for your private SearxNG instance.

I host Obsidian which is a note taking app. It houses all my compose files, step by step tuts I’ve written to myself, interesting code snippets, etc. There are several encryption plugins for Obsidian that allow you to encrypt the document itself to keep it away from nosy people.

I host Readeck and Karakeep. These are bookmark type apps. I use Readeck for ‘read it later’ type articles I find are interesting. Karakeep I use for data preservation. Both can be used for both bookmarks and data preservation, I just keep 'em separated.

I host a lot more but that might get the juices flowing as it were.

If I’m on WIndows, I use MobaXterm. If I’m on Linux, I use tmux.

I’m always excited to try new stuff. You never know. A use case might develop that you didn’t think of.

I use UVR for vocal isolation. It just works, but that shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll check it out. At the worst, I’ll learn something.

Bookmarked. Thanks

Now that’s an interesting angle. I am a mediocre musician on my best day, but sometimes I incorporate phrases and lyric snippits in a piece. I wonder if I could use WhisperX to find those words or phrases from a stack of songs. For instance, I did a piece that used a line from Jimi Hendrix’s ‘If 6 were 9’ where he says ‘I’m the one who’s gotta die when it’s time for me to die. So let me live my life the way I want to.’ I wonder if WhisperX could pick that out of a stack of Jimi Hendrix songs.