iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 19/08/2026

One of my most used homelab services I set up by far is Pterodactyl. When I first set it up two years ago I was mostly doing it as a fun little experiment, but since then I've run so many dedicated game servers on there so easily to play with my family and friends. Such a cool piece of software.

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 25/03/2026

It’s not a home improvement project unless I go back to the hardware store like 20 times because of all the things I got wrong or forgot. 🤦‍♂️

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 20/02/2026

I'm a huge fan of ServerPartDeals. Not only do I love their manufacturer re-certified hard drives, but their customer service is top notch! Was having some issues and called their support, immediately connected, and they immediately resolved my issue! 10/10 absolutely love that company. #homelab

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 04/09/2025

Finally got my Z-Wave network set up with the awesome ZWA-2! I absolutely love this thing and decided to write a blog post about my decisions involving choosing Z-Wave and my specific setup using a Pi in a central location with Z-Wave JS UI. johnbwoodruff.com/posts/zwave/ #homelab #homeassistant

johnbwoodruff.com

Z-Wave for Home Assistant

I bought the Home Assistant Connect ZWA-2 and added it to my Home Assistant by connecting it to a Raspberry Pi in a central location. Here are the details of my setup.

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 26/08/2025

I accidentally covered all the identifying info apparently! 🤣 it’s the Home Assistant Connect ZWA-2. Super cool device. www.home-assistant.io/connect/zwa-2/

home-assistant.io

Home Assistant Connect ZWA-2

The ultimate way to connect Z-Wave devices to Home Assistant.

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 23/08/2025

Stoked to finally get my z-wave network set up! It looks like a paper towel holder but it’s glorious long range z-wave! 😁 #homelab #homeassistant

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 11/08/2025

I recently released my side project! Novella is a modern, distraction free writing application! I’ve been working on it on and off for years and finally decided to release it. It’s been quite the side project, and I wrote all about it! Check it out if you’d like! johnbwoodruff.com/posts/novella/

johnbwoodruff.com

Novella

A quick look at my passion project for the last 6 years. A retrospective of my learnings. The good and the bad.

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 31/05/2025

BLUESKY SEAN?? YES SEAN! YESSSSS!!!

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 23/04/2025

I haven't used it in years but I also haven't needed something like it. I've used Screen Studio for making "sizzle"-style videos, but those are usually very simple short things. Not sure what course content creators are using these days.

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 22/04/2025

If costs keep rising (which I'm sure they will) and electricity gets more expensive (I'm sure that will too) then I'll likely start looking more seriously at getting some lower powered machines to make up my homelab. Enterprise gear is fun but not at such high costs.

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 22/04/2025

I finally decommissioned my Dell R720. I had bought an R730 a bit ago and finally decided I'd had enough of running both. (electricity lol) So after a bunch of VM migrations and a GPU move, I am back down to 1 enterprise server lol! It feels nice. (and hopefully my wallet will thank me) #homelab

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 13/04/2025

Oh no. Does that mean in the future you'll be the "geriatric gen z"? 👴

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 08/04/2025

I know I could use kubernetes for better distribution and management but honestly I deal with that all day at work and I'm not looking for more of that haha. I like the simplicity of docker compose and portainer for insights. If my homelab gets too complex then it becomes a chore rather than fun.

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 08/04/2025

I've currently got one larger VM for my docker apps and use Traefik labeling to get it proxied with SSL. My next #homelab project is I'm going to spin up a few VMs on different machines so they can all be smaller and a little more distributed, then get Traefik hooked up to them.

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 03/04/2025

I LITERALLY SCREAMED WHEN THAT CAME ON

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 02/04/2025

That's sick!! Stoked to use this!!

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 12/03/2025

I already have a lifetime Plex Pass and it works flawlessly for me so I have stuck with it. I'm sure one day there will be a reason for me to try Jellyfin, but I've been very happy with Plex for years.

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 07/03/2025

This thing is so awesome, I've been using it for all sorts of things to help diagnose issues or make recommendations about managing my Nx workspace. Awesome work by the @nx.dev team! 🎉

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 03/03/2025

This post is brought to you by the literal cardboard I received from my local Little Caesar's this evening. I'm still not over it.

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 03/03/2025

I made a (pizza) pie chart about it. It's scientific and peer reviewed by my siblings and close friends.

A pie chart captioned "Little Caesar's Pizza". 40% is labeled "Terrible", 55% is labeled "Mediocre", and 5% is labeled "Best Damn Pizza You've Ever Had".

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 03/03/2025

Those experiences have me in a chokehold. The utter magnificence of that glorious Little Caesar's pizza potential has me coming back regularly, hoping I'll experience it again. I'm plagued by my palate's memory of previous pizza perfection. And yet, 9 times out of 10, I am disappointed.

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 03/03/2025

Sometimes you crave cheap pizza. It's a different mood than when you want high quality. I can't stop buying Little Caesar's. Why do I do that to myself, when the vast majority of their pizza is either mediocre or straight up cardboard terrible? Because sometimes I get an absolute God Tier pizza.

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 27/02/2025

😍 Okay how sneak peak is this? Like weeks away or days away? 🤣🙏

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 27/02/2025

This is sick. I'd love to see if integration like this could help Cursor Agent to identify things such as areas for optimization if the project graph is overly complex, for example. So many possibilities there!

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 20/02/2025

The irony of me doing this one day after posting this meme. 🤣

A screenshot of the Synology NAS console showing a data storage pool in the middle of a repair process.

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 19/02/2025

Your Outie has a fully implemented and regularly tested 3-2-1 backup strategy. #homelab

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 13/02/2025

Finally deleted my Twitter account. Kept meaning to over the last year, but never got around to doing it. It was a long time coming. The Bluesky community and platform is better in every way. Excited to be permanently away from all that.

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 25/01/2025

Ah, the weekend. I bought Manor Lords, it was on my Steam wish list for a while and went on sale. Stoked to start building my quaint medieval village. I'll post back with my initial thoughts after I've played for a bit.

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 18/01/2025

This mini rack project is so cool. If I was starting a homelab today I would 100% go this route. Not to say my route (or anyone else's route) is bad, but this is awesome having so many amazing options for a compact and low-powered #homelab. github.com/geerlingguy/...

github.com

GitHub - geerlingguy/mini-rack: Miniature rack builds, for portable or compact Homelabs.

Miniature rack builds, for portable or compact Homelabs. - geerlingguy/mini-rack

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 16/01/2025

I love how Nintendo quietly dropped this Switch 2 Trailer like "yes all the leaks were right now shut up and wait for April" 😂 www.youtube.com/watch?v=itpc...

youtube.com

Nintendo Switch 2 – First-look trailer

YouTube video by Nintendo of America

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 13/01/2025

WAHOO!! I have a playlist that is full of yours and Rozen’s Zelda music and I’m dying to add this in. 🤣 You’re awesome, thanks for your musical gift! 😁

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 13/01/2025

@theophanyremix.bsky.social any chance this will make its way to Apple Music sometime? 🙏🤞😁

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 12/01/2025

YES!! I listen to Time's End 1 & 2 almost on repeat while I'm coding throughout the day and this remix is PHENOMENAL!! Absolute chills!!!

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 12/01/2025

The hairs you're experiencing is commonly called "stringing". It's quite simple to remove with a blow torch/lighter that you VERY quickly brush across them. Kind of like what you might do to de-fray fabric. Be extremely light because PLA melts at low heat so you don't want to ruin the print.

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 12/01/2025

There's two parts to your question. If we're talking about PLA or PETG, then basically any kind of enclosure helps a lot with any smell. If you mean ABS or ASA, they emit harmful fumes and should absolutely be printed in a proper enclosure with filters, ideally in a well ventilated space.

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 11/01/2025

Any suggestions on the best filament respoolers to purchase? I know I can print one of the many designs but honestly that's one thing that I don't really want to print myself. Too many other fun things I want to do to spend all the time and effort to print and assemble one myself haha. #3dprinting

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 30/12/2024

We’re showing my son The Lord of the Rings movies for the first time. The absolute joy I had finally being able to tell him that Viggo broke his toe when kicking the helmet was nearly too much to bear. IYKYK. I’m in heaven.

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 26/12/2024

I'm going to give Cursor a proper try for the next couple weeks I have off and use it with my side projects. I'm always less inclined to try new tools at work because I don't want to negatively impact my output while figuring things out. Hoping I'll be blown away and make it my primary tool. 🤞

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 13/12/2024

Yep I’ve had that pointed out to me, I was too focused on taking a cool picture 🤣

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 13/12/2024

It’s a color changing shiny silk filament that is half blue half purple. The light pieces are also color changing but it’s not as obvious in the picture.

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 12/12/2024

I printed my 10y/o son a chess board, he had so much fun picking out the colors and pieces he wanted. Once it was finished then we of course played a game with it together. Listening to cozy music at night near our lit Christmas tree. My favorite use of #3dprinting is things to use with my family.

A 3d printed chessboard currently in a state of play. The black side pieces were printed with a blue/purple color changing silk filament, and the white side with a light blue/green color changing silk filament.

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 11/12/2024

So there is nothing sensitive in this document itself, and it merely points to the locations of the sensitive pieces of information. (whether passwords or documents) So the note is just on my phone shared with her. Nothing sensitive to worry about.

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 11/12/2024

My master password for 1Password she knows already and it's documented as well in a secure location she knows. Then my 1Password has everything she needs for all account access. Then in my document I mention what accounts are called in case it's something not totally obvious so she can find them.

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 11/12/2024

Anyway, I will once again recommend everyone does that. Just in case. Leave your loved ones with the tools they need to succeed if you end up not being able to be there with them due to an accident or illness or otherwise.

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 11/12/2024

While my #homelab post was the original inspiration for doing this, I was able to document a ton of critical information that would be critical in the event of an untimely death. You don't realize how much you assume your spouse knows until you document it all. Now I know she'll have that info.

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John Woodruff @johnbwoodruff.com · 11/12/2024

It was a mixture of morbid and satisfying documenting a bunch of stuff in case I die unexpectedly. Like I mentioned in the original thread I'm obviously planning on living a super long healthy life, but there's no guarantees. I want to make sure my wife wouldn't be left with a huge burden.

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