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Hands-on reviews of AI tools, agents and self-hosted software, the monthly AI token market, and notes from the homelab. The verdict comes first in every one.

Sample entries: titles, dates, verdicts and figures on this page stand in until the archive moves over.

  1. Market

    AI token market, November 2026

    Verdict: mid-tier output prices fell again; the cheapest model per token is rarely the cheapest per finished job.

    Format
    Two wide price tables
    Unit
    USD per million tokens
  2. Review

    Restic and Backrest for homelab backups

    Verdict: keep it. Every test restore worked; the Backrest web UI is young and some settings still need the command line.

    Cost
    Free, plus storage
    Licence
    BSD-2-Clause, GPL-3.0
  3. Review

    Four local model runners, one GPU

    Verdict: Ollama for a shared team box, llama.cpp when you want every token a second, vLLM once several people hit it at once.

    Cost
    Free, plus power
    Licence
    MIT, Apache-2.0, proprietary
  4. Homelab

    Recabling the rack before adding a node

    Verdict: a labelled patch panel saved more time than the new switch did.

    Cost
    One weekend
    Parts
    Patch panel, short leads
  5. Market

    AI token market, October 2026

    Verdict: batch and cache discounts did more for real bills this month than any list-price cut.

    Format
    Two wide price tables
    Unit
    USD per million tokens
  6. Review

    Aider for a week of refactoring

    Verdict: strong on small, well-described changes; read every diff before it commits, because it will commit.

    Cost
    Free, plus model tokens
    Licence
    Apache-2.0
  7. Review

    Uptime Kuma as the homelab’s status page

    Verdict: running in five minutes and pleasant to look at; alert rules stay basic, so pair it with real metrics.

    Cost
    Free
    Licence
    MIT
  8. Homelab

    A UPS, NUT and a clean shutdown for three nodes

    Verdict: test the shutdown on purpose once. Mine failed the first time, and only the test found it.

    Cost
    The UPS, then free
    Licence
    GPL-2.0 (NUT)
  9. Market

    AI token market, September 2026

    Verdict: long-context surcharges are now the line to read first on any price page.

    Format
    Two wide price tables
    Unit
    USD per million tokens