80 lines
3.5 KiB
Markdown
80 lines
3.5 KiB
Markdown
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---
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layout: post
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title: "Experiments In Owning Data: Part 2"
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date: 2019-01-23
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comments: true
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categories:
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- freebsd
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- nextcloud
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- data
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---
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_[Checkout part 1](/blog/2019/01/20/experiments-in-owning-data/index.html)_
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I wanted the setup to have as much less friction as possible, more time
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maintaining systems and uploading data is less time for things that I actually
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enjoy. Luckily a lot of open source tooling exists to help in this space, some
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mature, some not so much.
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I stumbled upon these two apps during this experiment and they have become my
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daily drivers of sort -
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### Nextcloud
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[Nextcloud](https://nextcloud.com/) is your one-stop cloud storage app. The core
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of nextcloud is a file storage server with a web interface, easy enough right?
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True to the open source nature it is heavily [extendable with apps (more like
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plugins)](https://apps.nextcloud.com/) - and there is an app for everything!
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hosting calendars, editing office docs, taking markdown notes and even video
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calling.
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Nextcloud comes with companion mobile apps for Android and iOS. The apps let you
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access and upload data to the nextcloud server. They can also automatically
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backup new photos to nextcloud! Loosing a device never means loosing photos.
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The server also exposes a [webdav](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebDAV)
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interface, so one can just mount it as a folder with
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[davfs](https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/davfs2) over fuse. Webdav is not
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known for being very performant, but I like the simplicity of it and works well for my day today needs where I just need to work on a couple of small files.
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Nextcloud has replaced Google Drive/Photos for me. The whole process is not
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without pains. Documentation exists and is helpful, but sometimes falls short.
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I am yet to figure out how to setup
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[Collabora](https://nextcloud.com/collaboraonline/) (online office suite).
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### Tiddlywiki
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[Tiddlywiki](https://tiddlywiki.com/) claims itself to be a non-linear personal
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notebook. That's quite vague, because it depends entierly on the user. I use it
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to store tiny bits of notes, lists, code etc. I have managed to move everything
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from evernote to tiddlywiki with the exporter plugin. Formatting of exported
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notes is not great, but the content is fine - and that's all I care.
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## Current and Future
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I have been running this for almost an year now, other than nextcloud and
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tiddlywiki, the server also runs an email server (not my primary one yet), code
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repo and a CI setup.
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Where to now? I am obviously missing out on features, and I had to spent more
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time setting it up than signing up for a service. But the setup is tailored to
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my use and so far I am happy with it.
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That is not to say I think its perfect - I have a wishlist!
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### 1. Better photos interface and search
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I miss the fast and accurate photos search on google photos, and the current
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nextcloud photos interface is slow and only has file system hierarchy as a
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grouping mechanism. Maybe I can [inception-v3](https://arxiv.org/abs/1512.00567)
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or any other similiar image classification models and build an auto tagging
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system?
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### 2. Disaster proof backups
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Current backup system is quite rudimentary, it copys data every day to another
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server in the same datacenter (also on `raid1`). Its not great if the DC itself goes
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under - I would like something offsite, and also to backup server configs.
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Well, that's about it for now. :-) I do have a question to the reader: do you
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know any applications in this space that I should know about? please let me know over
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[twitter](https://twitter.com/notmycommit) or [email](mailto:mail@dbalan.in).
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