> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://blog.ipacd.my.id/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Me First Post... And the Thingies That Brought Me Here. - URL: https://blog.ipacd.my.id/me-first-post-and-the-thingies-that-brought-me-here/ - Published: 2026-08-28T23:58:09.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-29T00:37:18.000Z - Author: I Putu Astika For the sake of introduction, I already wrote it below here. [AboutHi, I’m Putu or Dhanny or anything else you would want to call me. Duh. Here I am, one of the curious mind and lifelong tinkerer who loves taking things apart to see how they work, then writing it all down.... Before I forget. I do work on one![](https://blog.ipacd.my.id/content/images/icon/favicon-8cf8300f-471d-4f8b-8c21-45550482bd49.ico)IPACD's BlogI Putu Astika![](https://blog.ipacd.my.id/content/images/thumbnail/bg-25b1ca58-9262-4559-b5c5-f2b138d04ce8.jpg)](https://blog.ipacd.my.id/about/) As of since 2010 me wants to be a writer or blogger or whatever it is, as inspired by one of the most prominent comedy writer in Indonesia that wrote KambingJantan and it's successors. And here I am, again, lurking again in blogspace since my *last* blog post in 2015 (don't bother to find it, of course I already killed the site lol). I must say, I do kind of want to lurk around here again because of this [specific blog post of a friend of mine](https://blog.kareem.one/en/2024/08/my-digital-garden/?ref=blog.ipacd.my.id). Also the admin team of one Discord server, owned by a [tech-tok that literally nails and 3M VHB his home lab servers onto the wall](https://www.tiktok.com/@aryawpratama/video/7408982089367883014?ref=blog.ipacd.my.id), that inspires me to do more sharing, because we do care to share. Thing is, I just always love to 'express' things in writing. Got a lot of time to think of what should I say here, as of my somehow-sometimes distracting sheer *perfectionism* on how my setup should be deployed and work as it is. Either it's my, thank God it's not so as ancient yet, gaming setup, or my definitely-need-more-RAM home lab server. Now, it's the time for some little... ## History Time How I ended up fell in love with tech and electrics. My parents and family always said I had a kink for… breaking things. Literally. Seven-year-old me broke a toy apart just to take its dynamo, added some paper and tape to make a propeller, and stuck the whole kit onto a piece of Styrofoam. And voilà — a boat in a bathtub. Or the time I somehow "borrowed" padlocks, electrical plugs, and assorted thingies from my grandpa's building supply store — including a Fluke 77 multimeter I found somewhere inside it, which I still use to this day. God rest his soul. Or the worst one: when I literally shocked the sh\*t out of my grandpa with an electrical short, because I'd left one little strand of copper touching the terminals of my mediocre lamp-fitting assembly. Instant darkness in the house after that… and yet it didn't stop me. But the most prominent one for me is how computers work. I learned to blink LEDs on Atmel microcontrollers (before Arduino or ESPs were even prominent in Indonesia), made a lot of classmates ask, "How the heck do you know everyone's parents' names?" — because the school's IT staff had literally exposed their internal SMB share on the school Wi-Fi (which students and teachers both used) without bothering to do *any* network separation. And how happy myself is when I can actually download Linux ISOs on my laptop at home, and then continue it inside of [my first Android phone](https://www.gsmarena.com/huawei%5Fu8350%5Fboulder-4234.php?ref=blog.ipacd.my.id) without starting from scratch. When asked the one reason why I took Bachelor of Electrical Engineering, I use my grandparents store's stories as one of the biggest reason. Also I do hate seeing lines of codes 8-12 hours a day — that was never my forte. There's Claude for everything nowadays, anyway. I just simply like to work of what I can, really, really, touch. Courtesy to Pops too. He literally is an avid DIY-er — wood cabinets, metal doors, even being a foreman of his own house. When people just simply buy to replace, he always fix the old ones that's broken, no matter how broken it is. His collection of Bosch and Makita too, superb. Sometimes scolded me of 'why you bought that when you can fix it?'.... Different mindset of course, I lean far more towards of the safety side, you don't want your wallet-crushing PC just to smoke itself all of the sudden. Kind of stubborn sometimes, only after I'd proofed a lot of things, that he would listen. ## So... Why homelab and networking? Well? You name it. On how god-dang eye catching of what's inside of [r/homelab](https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/?ref=blog.ipacd.my.id) is, of course! Yet also because I 'inherited' some good amount of DNA from my Pops. We do love to make things by our own hand and mind, and we do love to break sh\*t up, find how it works, and reassemble it until it works again. Pops, as of what above. On my side, it's as much of infrastructure and electrics as possible. Can't forget on how exciting it is when I suck 100+ watts of power bills, 24/7, using an old Core 2 Duo that's laying around for 250GB worth of SMB share and Minecraft server, [that I unfortunately only play alone](https://youtu.be/i62Zjga8JOM?t=9&ref=blog.ipacd.my.id). How I frustrated on how could I share my external HDD when both of me and my bro want to catch some series off, simply solved by the means of 30+ meters of mediocre-quality Cat 5e cable that can't even do Gigabit at all, one headless Acer Aspire 4253, and one of these old TP-Link ADSL routers, that fortunately could function as a switch, to connect each other. ![](https://blog.ipacd.my.id/content/images/2026/08/IMG_20220222_234535835--1-.jpg) Basically how the internet works at home, back then. Internet too, being a problem at home, especially on COVID times. Fibers are simply too expensive to afford by my family, and wireless tethering already kills one of the phone because it's so overused with Zoom, so I add some ZTE B860 v2 that runs OpenWRT, connect a Galaxy J1 Mini 4G that runs USB tethering onto it, now everyone could enjoy their 144p YouTube all the time (120 GB cap/mo). Still has to get huge downloads off McDonald's Wi-Fi though. Fries and coke are the best friend there. ![](https://blog.ipacd.my.id/content/images/2026/08/20230812_225215.jpg) First 'kosanlab'. Because I host it from the boarding house's Wi-Fi lol After years of watching content creators made home labs, got some decent income, finally the desire are simply so piled up, after using Windows 10 since 2017 just for one SMB share, in 2022 that I finally went more 'serious' to dive deep onto Linux CLIs, by running that exact same Aspire 4253 with it's puny E-350 and 3 GB of RAM, with Ubuntu Server + CasaOS. Slowly upgrades it with 120GB SSD, add Gigabit equipments, and separate router so I could use WISP, instead of dangerously exposing it to my boarding house's Wi-Fi. And how so-excitingly I am when I found out I don't even need public IP (everything's on CGNAT here), port-forward it, to expose things. [Thanks Cloudflare, 2022 until now.](https://blog.cloudflare.com/tunnel-for-everyone/?ref=blog.ipacd.my.id) Until it wasn't enough. It can't do Proxmox. I want more juice. I want virtualization. I WANT IT ALL. And perfect timing too. Beforehand, there's no [r/indotech](https://www.reddit.com/r/indotech/?ref=blog.ipacd.my.id), and there's basically no one talks about home lab (that I could find one, yet), in the net sphere inside Indonesia. Well, until one people DM-ed me for an invite onto one Indonesian Discord channel that specifically talks about home lab, mostly. Made me figure 'uh, turns out the communities are basically hidden in plain sight. Why the heck I don't use Discord before' duh. The desire deepens, of course. Spend finally like few mil Rupiahs for the excuse of 'learning by making and breaking sh\*t up, again'. Well... The itch of breaking those toys in my childhood, just went waaaaay more radical here. Designed the whole-house Cat 5e pulls into a centralized position inside my recently built parent's house. Bought the best wiring of all it is because wired is the main key of reliability, terminate it all well, cloud-managed and PoE switches, get the cheapest OpenWrt-supported 'router' (it's a Atom mini PC lol) and [Wi-Fi 6 device](https://shopee.co.id/search?keyword=jcg%20q20&ref=blog.ipacd.my.id) on Indonesian marketplace, even CCTVs are all PoE because I hate too much cable runs. Made my own VLANs, mesh Wi-Fi with BATMAN, even as deep as 802.x auth with RADIUS (with no success as of yet). All of which, are may kind of too complex for home use. Getting a lot of money 'wasted' got the attention of others too, that my Mum got 'why there's always a lot of package every month, Dhanny?', yet since fiber is so affordable too anyway, *both* of my parents now are so addicted to those AI-voiced Chinese drama that *five* minute of downtime because I misconfigured the *production* networking at home could bring up the voices, already. 🤣 When it was, it's always the 'learn Excel and things that's useful for the future'. Or the most legendary of all our Gen Z: ***'HAPE TROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOS'.*** ![](https://blog.ipacd.my.id/content/images/2026/08/awkakwa.png) Proof that 'HP TROOOOS' now concerns Boomers, so much more. 🗿 --- > Point is: > 'Serving' people is fun, especially with the things you made by yourself. You broke things up, you fix things up, you *always learn things up.* ![](https://blog.ipacd.my.id/content/images/2026/08/20250810_1835101.jpg) My hardworking and loving home lab server. 😗 As you even bother to read until this part of paragraph (thanks, by the way!), the very same text from beginning until you read as for now, is fully self-hosted from the very same server as of the picture above. Stay tuned for another part of, either it's fun, or [mildly infuriating](https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/?ref=blog.ipacd.my.id) gory 12 to 6 a.m. session because of Gemini is being.... Well, Gemini. And how it end up for the commitment of not getting too many subscription because 'hey, I got a homelab already!', onto, unexpectedly... More, subscription. 🗿