A 2026 personal tech and blog to-do list

Here's a list of projects I'd like to do this year. Or maybe it’s more of an aspirational list of things I’d really like to get to. This was going to be a short post with a bulleted list but wow, it definitely did not stay short.

jadin.me

Starting with a few blog related things:

More ActivityPub stuff on Ghost

I'd like to go all in on my blog as my space on the fediverse. I think to do this I'll need to hack in more ActivityPub integrations into Ghost in the places it doesn't currently offer it yet:

• Published notes as its own page on my blog, or even next to blog posts on the homepage
• Fediverse and maybe webmention comments on posts
• Some lightweight system for notifications. If Ghost has an API for this, I could roll my email notifications or perhaps something more complicated.

Blog backlog

I’ve enjoyed writing more frequent, shorter posts on this blog this last year or so but I do also have a backlog:

• "A home server co-op" - A post about an experiment I’m thinking about running with this year, self-hosting stuff for friends and family, but in an expanded way.
• "Pull-makers" - A post centered around some childhood pictures my parents sent me, and how maybe I've always been a technologist.
• "NixOS and the year of the linux desktop (for me)" - This is multiple years in the making but I've been using Linux on my main personal desktop more and more the last 2-ish years. Right now I'm on Linux I'd say 85% of the time and Windows 15%.
• "You should use RSS" - A guide intended for friends/family
• "ADHD" - On getting treatment and managing this stuff better, which has been a focus for me since the middle of last year, and has been literally life-changing.

Other blog-related cleanup / improvements

I still haven't revisited my todos from this post: Some progress

• Restore old featured images
• Fix broken image galleries on some old posts
• Re-tag old posts
• Bring back the old comments system, Disqus, but just for the old posts. For new posts I'll just use the built-in commenting system.
• Put stuff in the menu bar, it looks weird and empty right now
• Footnotes, probably using this method. Ghost's normal editor doesn't support footnotes, but the markdown block does. As much as I like Markdown, I'd prefer to use Ghost's normal editor most of the time when writing blog posts.

Most of the items are still relevant to me and it's bugging me that I haven't made time for it. Adding to that list:

• Update my site to use the structure from our new Ghost installer on Reclaim Cloud
  • This should be easy, but I just haven't done it yet!
• Move jadin.me's DNS to Cloudflare or perhaps a different DNS/CDN thing
  • It's time I played with this stuff a bit more. I use Cloudflare for work quite a bit, but I'd still like to have personal stuff to play with here as well. I learn a lot from futzing/breaking my own stuff (arguably my whole career is based off of that).
• Do a bit more customization to Ghost in how comments look and feel, but maybe if activitypub / webmention comments turn out really well, I could just go all in on that instead. Or maybe I pull a D'Arcy Norman and vibe-code my own thing that perfectly meets my needs.

Self-hosted bookmarking

I would really like to own my bookmarks / read later tool. I've been using and honestly enjoying Raindrop for years (and before that Pinboard) but I really would like to move to something I host. It needs to have good support for automatic web archiving of saved URLs in multiple formats. I'd also like it to have a decent browser extension and mobile app situation, but I could be convinced to use bookmarklets and iOS shortcuts if necessary. I think Karakeep and Linkwarden both fit the bill at the moment, but I need to play more with them both.

Retro gaming stuff

I got me a Retrotink 4K and it’s an amazing little device. My next task is to get my retro consoles all set up to take the most advantage of it with the correct cables and stuff.

When it’s all done, the setup will cove:

• A Mister FPGA covering console, arcade, and computers all the way up the late 90s. The Mister has an HDMI output I’ll use in “Direct Video“ mode
• An N64 modified for SCART output
• Dreamcast with a VGA cable
• GameCube with a Carby HDMI adapter on its digital out port
• PS2 with component video cables
• An Xbox 360 using HDMI

The PS2 and Xbox 360 both have backwards compatibility so I can play PS1 and original Xbox games as well. All in all that provides relatively complete coverage of console gaming history all the way up to modern stuff given I have do have access to a Switch 2 and my gaming PC. All of these will be handled by the Retrotink with my LG C5, or I can skip the scaler and use my kinda crappy 21 inch Emerson CRT for an experience very similar to what I used with my Gamecube and N64 as a kid!

Most of all I want to actually spend more time playing these consoles rather than just setting them up!

Home automation

I have some smart light switches I’ve bought but still need to install. I’m particularly keen to do this to make sure we don’t leave the basement and outside lights on overnight. I’ve also got some door sensors that I want to try out to help remind me to close the Garage or shed before bed if they are still open. I’ve heard good things about Yo Link for long range battery powered sensors so we’ll see how that works with my Home Assistant setup.

Other projects that I probably won't get to

.. and I need to be ok with not getting to

Make a big git repo for most of my hosted stuff

I'm thinking about one git repo for the configuration of pretty much everything I do on the web, kept public as much as is reasonable (just .gitignoring secrets and content). I like the idea of a declarative config that I can just pull down on any host with Docker support, and get up and running by notating which services it should be running. I'd also include some reverse proxying back to stuff I run on cPanel. Ideally it’s a very basic and dead simple way to distribute stuff across multiple machines / containers as needed, while remaining very portable.

New home server situation

I'd like to move to a seperate NAS at home, possibly something from the Ubiquiti UNAS series, and then modularize some of the services I run at home a bit more, standardizing on all Docker most likely. This would make it easier for me to reuse and recycle older computers and devices to serve a single role/purpose, as I am finding I have a few old Raspberry Pi boards kicking around that aren't being used and would be perfect low-power hosts for one or two services and is kind of related to my hopefully upcoming "A home server co-op" post. I'd also like to maybe build a new gaming desktop, and turn my current one into a Proxmox host.