I thought about starting with 1, but we are already in week 8 of 2024 and this is a small recap of week 7. Or should I start with 1 and increase without the pressure of writing this every week? I’ll decide at the end of this post. Or maybe I need another number? #7-1? It looks confusing. #1-w7? 🤔

Strange soliloquies I'm having here. 😂

The Good

I finally found a setup for my office, where I can put my desk without having the door or the window in the back. :)

The Bad

It's challenging to get a new freelance project at the moment. I hoped that the market has healed in the last few months. Yes, I got some request, but the hourly rate was way under the usual price and was nearly as high when I started freelancing, ~10 years ago.

The Ugly

It is harder than I thought, getting our blind child into the local Kita. :/ I appreciate the effort and concerns of the team from the Kita, but their arguments can be easily refuted.

The Title

I've decided to go with “#1 of Week 7”. With this writing, it should be clear what is what. 😂

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8/100 of #100DaysToOffload

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Today I did an update of my paperless-ngx installation. Unplanned. 😅

I logged into my Synology DSM and saw that there was an update for the Redis image. Like always, I started the update and went on. Later that Day, I wanted to upload some files, but I got an 500: Error. I've searched the web and found that there could be an error with Redis.

First, I thought that this could be an issue with file permissions. Because I tried, for the first time, uploading an PDF via the share button on my Phone. But then it also failed while uploading a normal image of a Document. So I started my investigation.

First, I found this error message in the Redis logs: WARNING Memory overcommit must be enabled! Without it, a background save or replication may fail under low memory condition.. Did a small search and found some shell command for sysctl which didn't help. Because in this Redis image, there is no sysctl installed. This was one of the commands:

sudo sysctl -w vm.overcommit_memory=1

If set to 1, it is enabled. Mine was set to 0. Without sysctl installed, it looked that there was no way to set it. So I searched again. With no luck.

Then I thought maybe I could just restart the Redis container, but this also leaded into nothing.

So maybe I just could re-use the instructions (Link to a German Synology Forum), I've used to install paperless-ngx.

There were 4 commands I simply run again.

cd /volume1/docker/paperlessngx/config
sudo docker-compose pull
sudo docker-compose run --rm webserver createsuperuser
sudo docker-compose up -d

This helped. In some way. The downside was, that it reinstalled everything and also deleted the database. Luckily, I could restore all my files from the File system. The only thing I needed to add again were tags. For the next time, I should make a real backup with the document_exporter from paperless-ngx. (Second time I need to do this. https://bruegge.dev/paperless-ngx, maybe I should not postpone it for too long. 😅)

In the End, I have no solution to the initial problem. Just solved it accidentally by updating my installation and lost my database.

This post is also more or less a documentation for future-me, if I come to this point again. 👍

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7/100 of #100DaysToOffload

#log #toFutureMe #paperless #fail

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After writing my last post (Reading as a Sleep aid), I got a bit sentimental about this topic.

I've looked back, and thought about all the physical books I have read and then, about all the e-books I have read. There is no point where I would not hesitate to go back to physical books. I love how they feel. I love how you get used to them while reading. Not only that, but I also love how you get used to the quirks of the book because you want to read the story and get socked into it.

And then, you have e-books. They are pragmatic. They have a backlight. They are small and light. You can travel with hundreds of books without needing more backpacks or having a heavier one. You can adjust the font, the font-size, light-height ... everything, but still, they are just soulless objects.

I'm torn apart between physical books and e-books. While I love books, e-books are a more pragmatic choice. Especially when you have kids. Most of the time I read my books in bed. In summer, also sometimes on the terrace during a work break. If physical books had a backlight, I wouldn't miss the times when I had no e-book reader. 😁

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6/100 of #100DaysToOffload

#reading #books #ebook

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For years, we were used to falling asleep with the TV on. For years, I had problems after I went sleeping and started dreaming. Because stuff that I heard from the TV, I build into my dreams. My wife had no issue with it because she was used two it. I had a Problem with it because as I single, I turned off the TV after I got sleepy. So my sleep/dreams were influenced by it. Not that I had issues with waking up or feeling bad/tired during the day. I just don’t like that my dreams were influenced by it.

So I decided reading books while falling asleep could be a good idea. During my software developer apprenticeship, I was a good reader. I've had a lot of time reading while donating blood or blood plasma, or just in my spare time. The only place I was not reading, was the bedroom. I missed that time. After my training was over, I've started with gaming, played in a Band and did more social stuff because we moved to Berlin. It was easier than in the town we lived before. I also wish I were bored again sometimes because I also read a lot when I was bored. 😅

But, back to the topic. Reading as a sleep aid. The time I’ve decided to start reading to fall asleep, my wife didn’t like the idea because we had the TV in our bedroom, and she wanted to watch while falling asleep. We had this compromise that she turns off the TV when she thinks she is tired and can fall asleep, and I tried to dim the lights as much as possible.

The funny part, my wife has this wonderful ability to adapt effortless and fast. So not so long after, maybe 2–3 Books after I've started, she also decided to read to fall asleep. ~4 years later, we moved again and finally banned the TV from the bedroom because it was not used for years. We both upgraded to an e-book reader, so we do not necessarily need lights to read and don't bother the other one when we want to read longer. ~14 years after I've started this sleep aid, we have two kids who are sleeping next to us, and we can read without interrupting their sleep. 🥳

When I started this post, I just wanted to write about the sleep aid topic. I had nothing particularly in mind or a goal I wanted to archive. But I'm happy how it turned out.

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5/100 of #100DaysToOffload

#Sleepaid #reading #books #ebook

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Last week on 19.01. we were on the record release show from Tenside. A metal band from Bavaria. But I was especially there to see the band For I am King.

The show was packed with 3 bands:

• Oklahoma Kid from Rostock
• For I am King from Netherlands
• Tenside from Bavaria

It started with Oklahoma Kid. The first song sounded good, but then song after song they went softer and softer. The singer did a good job and was the highlight of the band. Overall, it was nothing for me.

Next, For I am King started. Alma wore a Dragon Ball Z 🐉 shirt. This caught me off guard and I liked it. Sadly, the sound in the location was terrible. For Oklahoma Kid it was ok because it was not a giant wall of sound. So, if you were not familiar with the songs, you had a hard time understanding and maybe having fun with the gig. For me, it was ok, but for my friend I brought with, he had a hard time enjoying it. I hope I can see FIaK again but then in a different location. In the end, for me, I enjoyed it, had fun watching and listening to this outstanding band. :)

At last, Tenside played. Usually, I'm not an early quitter, but we left after 2 songs because the sound was as terrible as with For I am King. I've listened to 1 record from Tenside in the past, and I've recognized one of the 2 songs, and it was good. But still, not my favorite kind of music anymore.

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4/100 of #100DaysToOffload

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https://100daystooffload.com/

To get a better start with my blog, I will try the #100DaysToOffload challenge. I see it as a doable challenge because of the loose restrictions. But I need to force me to not overthink it. Just write when I feel to.

An example of overthinking is: I need 100 Posts in 365 Days, his will be around 2 Posts a week. Which raises questions like “do I have so much to say that it will last for 100 Days?”.

Currently, I'm not used to writing at all. Which triggers a bit of fear in me. This sets my moot into something I don't like. It will be better to think about it like there are days when I will write more posts and days when I don't need to think of writing at all. I need to keep the pressure low. I also don't want to plan posts in advance, just to fill the gaps.

My goal with this challenge is to build a habit of putting my thoughts into text, so anybody can read, and we can talk about them. I've tried writing in silence by writing a dev log and a diary, but I got demotivated quite fast, and I stopped writing. My learning here was, that I enjoyed writing itself, but not in silence.

This thinking is working so far perfect for my mastodon posts. I enjoy just posting when I feel to. I hope this will work for this blog too.

Furthermore, I like the fact, when you think about a topic and have no idea how to write more than a sentence about it. And when you start writing, it grows more and more. Like this post. Initially, I thought about writing just one paragraph, and now I keep adding more because I have new ideas of what I can say about it. I had the same experience while writing my dev log and diary. Each day the posts getting longer and longer.

Let's see where this goes and if I can keep the motivation for this challenge.

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3/100 of #100DaysToOffload

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Found the “1 Commit per Day” Idea in this Video:

For me, it sounds a bit like the Book The One Thing: https://www.amazon.de/dp/1848549253/. Haven't read it yet, but it is on my list. Or Atomic Habits: https://www.amazon.de/Atomic-Habits-Proven-Build-English-ebook/dp/B01N5AX61W

This “rule” is interesting regarding a side project. Like writing a book, where you write 1 sentence per day. After a year, you have 365 sentences and maybe a short-story or the first chapter of your book. So if you write 1 commit per day, no matter what, you make progress on your side project even if it is a change in your README.md.

My first try on a similar rule was to do something on my side project for at least 30 minutes each day. But i never “found” time for it. Because I have to force me to do something for at least 30 minutes. That is a massive blocker in my head. Same for planing my day or week in advance in my calendar. Where I need to put my To-dos into the calendar and add specific time blocks to block time. Maybe it could work for me, but with a Family, it will take more time to manage these blocks and move them around instead of just doing something from my To-dos.

What I like more, is to just start and see where it is going. Like this blog post. I started writing this post about the Video but then, it is growing more and more. Something I didn't plan to do. For me, it is easier to just start and not force me to plan it. For example, I planned to write at least 1 mastodon post per day, but this is not working for me. Instead, I write, when I feel to. Clearly this results in fewer post, but who cares as long as I feel good about it. Same with this blog. I planned to write at least 1 post per week. Sadly, it feels like a burden, and I would rather not do something that is a burden if I have control over it.

In the end, I'm happy with how this post turned out. A bit self-reflective, that's what I was hoping for, will come out, when I start writing more. :)

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2/100 of #100DaysToOffload

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After my old paperless-ngx installation went out of date because the old docker image wasn’t updated anymore, I needed an alternative.

Found it quick. This article in German explains it quite good: https://www.synology-forum.de/threads/paperless-ngx-dms-via-docker-auf-dem-nas.124614/page-12#post-1068063.

Sadly, I've got an error while installing the Postgres Database.

django.db.utils.OperationalError: could not translate host name "db" to address: Name or service not known

So yeah, the Database was not running, and I postponed it to look deeper because I had no time.

Months later, finally today, I had time to look into it. The reason the Database was not running, was of another error. 🎉 There were conflicts with /var/lib/postgresql/data. So I deleted the folder and try&error'ed my way through it, but with no success.

I was thinking of giving up and trying another way, or just using paid hosting. But then, I had the idea to just rename the links to /var/lib/postgresql/data. From the config changed this part:

- ../pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data2
- /volume1/docker/paperlessngx/exportpostgres:/var/lib/postgresq/data2/backup

From data to data2. Just to test. This worked and I'm happy now. :) Currently, I'm importing my old scanned documents. Sadly, I need to add new tags. I missed making a backup from the old installation, but I see it also as a new, fresh start. :)

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1/100 of #100DaysToOffload

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