LanceTek

Journal: the tools, and why

Reviews of the software I build with, written for the person paying for it: what it replaces, what it costs to run, and when I'd advise against it.

  1. sSample entries. The titles and summaries show the Journal's format and subjects; full articles are not reproduced here.

  1. J8 Why your app runs on Docker Compose, not Kubernetes

    For one to three servers, Compose does the job with a tenth of the moving parts. Here's where that stops being true.

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    Kubernetes solves problems that come with dozens of services and a team on call. A small business running one application and a database has neither. Compose describes the same thing in a single file anyone can read, and a restart policy covers most of what people want from orchestration.

    When I'd change my mind

    If you need several machines sharing load with no downtime during updates, or a team deploying many times a day, the extra machinery starts to pay for itself.

    Docker Compose 7 min

  2. J7 Proxmox for a small office: what it replaces, and what it doesn't

    One modest machine can run your file shares, backups and a test copy of your software. It is not a substitute for an off-site copy.

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    Proxmox VE lets one physical server host several isolated virtual machines, each with snapshots you can roll back in seconds. For an office already paying for a NAS, a few cloud subscriptions and a forgotten tower PC, it can consolidate all three.

    The catch

    Everything now depends on one box. That's fine if the backups leave the building and you've tested bringing them back. If you haven't, start there instead.

    Proxmox VE 9 min

  3. J6 Letting an AI agent draft quotes, with a person signing them off

    How an approval queue is put together, and the three places I refuse to let a model act on its own.

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    The agent reads the enquiry, looks up your price list, and drafts a quote along with its reasoning. A person approves, edits or rejects it. Every step is logged with what the model saw.

    Never unattended

    Sending anything to a customer, changing a price, and anything involving a refund. Those stay with a person, however good the drafts get.

    Claude API 11 min

  4. J5 PostgreSQL is probably the only database your business needs

    Bookings, invoices, search and a job queue can all sit in one well-understood place. Fewer systems means fewer things to back up.

    Read the summary

    Specialist databases each do one thing well, but each one is another service to patch, monitor and restore. For the data volumes a small business has, Postgres covers relational data, full-text search and simple queues comfortably.

    PostgreSQL 6 min

  5. J4 Backups you've actually restored: restic and a second site

    A backup nobody has restored is a hope, not a backup. A simple routine that proves yours work.

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    restic makes encrypted, deduplicated backups to almost any storage. The tool matters less than the routine: a scheduled restore of one real file and one whole system, written down and done on the calendar.

    restic 8 min

  6. J3 Keeping your source code somewhere you own

    Whether your code lives on a hosted service or on Forgejo in your own office, the point is that it's in your name.

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    Too many small businesses discover, after a developer leaves, that the code was in that developer's personal account. Either hosting option is fine; the account just needs to be yours. Forgejo suits businesses that want everything on their own hardware.

    Forgejo 5 min

  7. J2 Tailscale or a traditional VPN for a five-person team?

    Remote access to office systems without opening ports, and what you give up in exchange for the convenience.

    Read the summary

    Tailscale builds on WireGuard and handles keys and access rules for you. It's far easier to run than a classic VPN appliance. The trade-off is depending on a coordination service; for businesses that can't accept that, plain WireGuard does the same job with more set-up.

    Tailscale 7 min

  8. J1 Uptime Kuma: the cheapest way to know before your customers do

    A small self-hosted monitor that checks your website, your booking form and your certificates, and emails you when something breaks.

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    Most small-business outages are found by a customer. Uptime Kuma runs on almost anything, checks what matters every minute, and sends the alert to you instead. It won't tell you why something failed, but it will tell you when.

    Uptime Kuma 4 min

Weighing up one of these for your own business?

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