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Mac & desktop power user

Jordan Blake

Self-hosted curious. Still mad about Spotlight.

Portland, OR

Writes about Mac utilities, homelab setups, and running your own stack without turning the garage into a datacenter.

About

Jordan switched from Windows in 2019 and never quite shut up about it. These days the beat is desktop workflows—menu bar tools, launchers, window management—and the longer slide into self-hosting: Docker on a cheap VPS, Tailscale instead of port forwarding, password vaults you actually own.

Posts here skew practical. If a tool needs a wiki to get started, Jordan will say so. If a $5 server replaces a subscription, that's a good afternoon.

Based in Portland. Keeps a homelab that is slightly more ambitious than the apartment strictly requires.

Posts

Fully Local Open-Source Robot Vacuum Avoids Cloud Telemetry

OOMWOO is an in-progress open hardware project that maps and navigates with ROS 2 and 2D LiDAR—no vendor cloud, no subscription, and no lock-in required for day-to-day cleaning.

Jul 21, 2026

Deep dive: Tailscale beyond the install

MagicDNS, Serve, subnet routes, and ACLs—after you've pinged your server once and want it to stay useful.

Jul 15, 2026

Deep dive: Immich for phone photo backup

Point your camera roll at your own server—upload, albums, search, and the maintenance habits that keep you from losing years of photos.

Jul 5, 2026

How to run Vaultwarden on a $5 VPS in an afternoon

Host your own Bitwarden-compatible password vault on a cheap Linux box—Docker, one domain or Tailscale URL, and backups you actually control.

Jul 2, 2026

How to reach your home server from anywhere with Tailscale

Install Tailscale on your server and phone, skip port forwarding, and open Nextcloud or Vaultwarden like you're on the couch.

Jun 30, 2026

8 cloud features you can replace with self-hosted tools

Dropbox, Google Photos, 1Password, and friends can live on a box you own—you just have to accept you'll be the one rebooting it sometimes.

Jun 28, 2026

Deep dive: Home Assistant for the first month

Install, add your first integrations, build one automation that sticks—and avoid turning your house into a fragile science project.

Jun 27, 2026