Pragmatic, tested tech guides that work Monday at 3 AM
I'm Jonne — a sysadmin in Finland. I write honest, tested guides for two audiences: working sysadmins who need things to work, and adult children who are quietly handling their aging parent's tech. No vendor pitches, no consultant-speak, no upsells in every sentence.
What brings you here today?
🛠️I'm a sysadmin / IT pro / homelabber
Servers, networks, Kubernetes, automation, monitoring, backups — practical guides that hold up at 3 AM Monday morning.
👵I'm helping an aging parent with tech
Setting up their phone, picking safe apps, having the conversations that actually prevent scams. From someone who's been there.
🛠️I want the free bash scripts
5 tested sysadmin scripts (SSL checker, log searcher, SSH auditor, disk quota checker, safe service restart). MIT licensed, copy-paste ready.
🌱I'm new and just browsing
Start with the reader favourites — the posts people come back to most, organised by what you're trying to do.
🛠️ The sysadmin posts people bookmark
What to buy, what to install, what to skip. The post I wish I had at 22.
Catches 80% of problems before they page you. The Monday morning ritual.
20 minutes that prevent Monday-morning disasters. Includes the test restore script.
Most monitoring is alert noise. Here's how to make it actually useful.
Stop drowning in logs. Start at the end. Filter ruthlessly. Find the needle.
When I left, my replacement called 47 times in the first month. Here's the fix.
More sysadmin content: Zero Trust for Small Teams · Kubernetes Without Jargon · AI for IT Troubleshooting 2026 · Stop Doing Things Manually · Sysadmin Myths Busted 2026 · Building Your Own Linux From Scratch · Cloud Spend Reduction Before Year-End · Best Routers for Home Network 2026
👵 Tech help for your aging parents
I help people quietly handle this every day — including my own mother, who lost $4,200 to a fake Microsoft scam. That incident is why I built Buddy, a free companion app for elderly parents.
Lively, Consumer Cellular, iPhone SE, GrandPad — 5 tested picks with honest pros/cons.
The mom-tested app list. 13 apps, all free, all senior-friendly.
30-minute setup. Plus the 5 conversations you need to have first.
The conversations that actually prevent scams, not the ones that spark arguments.
Walk through their phone every 3 months. Catches issues before they become crises.
The advice we give everyone else, vs what we actually do. Useful when setting up for parents.
Free downloads: Senior Phone Setup Checklist (PDF) · Home Network Security Checklist (PDF)
Browse all family tech content →
🛠️ Free tools + paid toolkits
All hand-written, all tested on my own servers. MIT licensed.
The site at a glance
Reader favourites (start here)
These five posts work for both audiences and get shared the most:
- Setting Up a Home Lab — the homelab post that started it all
- The 5-Minute Server Health Check — the one people tell their coworkers about
- Best Free Phone Apps for Seniors — the mom-tested list
- The Quarterly Tech Checkup — the routine + emergency playbook for your parent’s phone
- Your OS Has Been Hiding Things From You — Windows and Linux hidden features
What this site is NOT
A few things I want to be clear about, since they’re important:
- Not affiliated with any vendor. Tool recommendations are honest — see the affiliate disclosure for the small handful that earn a commission.
- Not tracking you. No analytics, no cookies, no email popups that block the content. See the privacy policy.
- Not selling your data. Email is collected by Buttondown (my newsletter provider) and used only for the newsletter. That’s it.
- Not run by an AI. I write everything. Bash Buddy is an AI tool I built, but the blog content is human.
Latest from the blog
- Best Routers for Home Network 2026 (3 days ago) — Tested by a sysadmin over 6 weeks. 5 honest picks.
- Best Phones for Seniors 2026 (5 days ago) — Tested with real grandparents, not marketing copy.
- The Quarterly Tech Checkup (1 week ago) — Maintenance routine for any senior parent’s phone.
- 5 Conversations About Online Safety (1 week ago) — The talks that prevent the $4,200 scam.
- How to Set Up an iPhone for an Elderly Parent (1 week ago) — The 30-minute setup.
- Best Free Phone Apps for Seniors (1 week ago) — 13 free apps, mom-tested.
- When the Sim Becomes the Thing It Simulated (3 months ago) — What’s actually happening with AI right now.
Get involved
Hi, I’m Jonne — Finnish sysadmin by day, family tech support by night. This site is a side project I built to share what works. Thanks for reading.