Last month I noticed something odd: a senator sold $2M in hotel stocks three days before a travel industry report tanked the sector. Coincidence? Maybe. But it got me wondering — is there an easy way to track what members of Congress are buying and selling? Turns out, the STOCK Act… Read more →
Security, DevOps & Trading Tech — Practical Guides
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OpenClaw Setup: Zero to Autonomous AI Mastery
Setting up OpenClaw is easy. Setting it up right so your AI agent actually does useful work autonomously takes some know-how. TL;DR: OpenClaw is a self-hosted autonomous AI agent platform that remembers context between sessions, runs cron jobs, and uses real tools like browser automation. This guide covers optimal setup —… Read more →
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GitOps vs GitHub Actions: Security-First in Production
Last month I migrated two production clusters from GitHub Actions-only deployments to a hybrid GitOps setup with ArgoCD. The trigger? A misconfigured workflow secret that exposed an AWS key for 11 minutes before our scanner caught it. Nothing happened — this time. But it made me rethink how we handle… Read more →
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Secure TrueNAS Plex Setup for Your Homelab
Learn how to set up Plex on TrueNAS with enterprise-grade security practices tailored for home use. Protect your data while enjoying smooth media streaming. TL;DR: Setting up Plex on TrueNAS securely requires proper dataset permissions (user/group 568:568), a dedicated jail or Docker container with read-only media access, TLS encryption for remote… Read more →
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Stop Ngrok Tunnels: Enterprise Security at Home
Learn how to securely stop Ngrok tunnels using enterprise-grade practices scaled down for homelab environments. Protect your home network with these practical tips. TL;DR: Ngrok tunnels are convenient but dangerous if left running or misconfigured — they expose local services directly to the internet with no built-in authentication. This guide covers… Read more →
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CSS Gradient Builder: Fixing Annoyances of Existing Tools
Last Tuesday I needed a conic gradient. Not a linear one, not a radial one — specifically a conic gradient for a loading spinner I was building. I opened three different gradient generators. None of them supported conic gradients. The ones that did were buried under ads, tracking scripts, and… Read more →
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Free VPN: Cloudflare Tunnel & WARP Guide (2026)
TL;DR: Cloudflare offers two free VPN solutions: WARP (consumer privacy VPN using WireGuard) and Cloudflare Tunnel + Zero Trust (self-hosted VPN replacement for accessing your home network). This guide covers both approaches step-by-step, with Docker Compose configs, split-tunnel setup, and security hardening. Zero Trust is free for up to 50… Read more →
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Pod Security Standards: A Security-First Guide
Kubernetes Pod Security Standards 📌 TL;DR: I enforce PSS restricted on all production namespaces: runAsNonRoot: true, allowPrivilegeEscalation: false, all capabilities dropped, read-only root filesystem. Start with warn mode to find violations, then switch to enforce. This single change blocks the majority of container escape attacks. 🎯 Quick Answer: Enforce Pod Security Standards… Read more →
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ArgoCD vs Flux 2025: Secure CI/CD for Kubernetes
I run ArgoCD on my TrueNAS homelab for all container deployments. Every service I self-host — Gitea, Immich, monitoring stacks, even this blog’s CI pipeline — gets deployed through ArgoCD syncing from Git repos on my local Gitea instance. I’ve also deployed Flux for clients who wanted something lighter. After… Read more →
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OAuth vs JWT: Choosing the Right Tool for Developers
I’ve implemented both OAuth and JWT in production systems across my career—from enterprise SSO rollouts to lightweight API auth for side projects. The single most common mistake I see? Treating OAuth and JWT as the same thing, or worse, picking one when you needed the other. They solve different problems,… Read more →