tl;dr: Proxmox or bare metal? Containers yes/no? What is your use case?

I used a Dell R710 when I first started self-hosting, it ran ESXi with one VM for each service I wanted. Restarting the server required me to first shutdown each VM in order and then the whole host. When setting up a new service to host I had to create a new VM (allocate RAM, disk etc), install the OS (I ran Debian) and then follow instructions for how to setup the service. This mostly was not a problem but one software I never managed to get working was Apache Guacamole.

Nowadays I have a Dell Optiplex I salvaged for parts, got a new case and all my HDDs from my R710. Because it has much less RAM and an old Intel i5 (6th or 7th generation), I decided to get into Docker. With Docker containers you write your compose file and it will just work. No more need to dig through documentation for which version of a dependency to use, how to handle if two services on the same host need different versions (this was part of the reason for one VM/service). With Docker, I can try out a software in seconds and have it configured to my liking in minutes.

Today I have NixOS (bare metal) and it comes with Podman which uses systemd. Hence restarting my OS (albeit not that often, almost never unless I mess up my config) is a no-brainer because Podman via systemd will manage everything. Adding, stopping or removing containers in general is easy. I have a script running as a service which will stop a container, create a BTRFS subvolume snapshot, start the service again and start borg backup to backup from the snapshot.

For me using Proxmox would just an extra layer of complexity I don't need. I only have one server and I am the only user.

Questions:

• Do you use Proxmox instead of a bare metal installation?
• Do you use containers or do you install manually?
• What is you use case that requires your setup the way it is?

Found this when trying to automate notifications for when books I listen to are published on their website.

I wanted to disable the prompt and button for new Outlook. I found this guide and wrote a few lines of PowerShell to automate it and wanted to share.

# Source https://edi.wang/post/2025/1/20/how-to-stop-automatically-switching-to-new-outlook
$path='HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook'

# Remove and create to ensure correct data type
Remove-ItemProperty -Path "$path\Options\General" -Name 'NewOutlookAutoMigrationStage' -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
New-ItemProperty -Path "$path\Options\General" -Name 'NewOutlookAutoMigrationStage' -Type DWord -Value 1
Remove-ItemProperty -Path "$path\Options\General" -Name 'NewOutlookAutoMigrationStage'
Remove-ItemProperty -Path "$path\Options\General" -Name 'NewOutlookAutoMigrationType'
Remove-Item -Path "$path\NewOutlook"
# Remove and create to ensure correct data type
Remove-ItemProperty -Path "$path\Preferences" -Name 'UseNewOutlook' -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
New-ItemProperty -Path "$path\Preferences" -Name 'UseNewOutlook' -Type DWord -Value 0
Remove-ItemProperty -Path "$path\Preferences" -Name 'NewOutlookRenudgeStartDate'
Remove-ItemProperty -Path "$path\Preferences" -Name 'NewOutlookRenudgeStartDate'

I just installed Radicale and could not at first figure out how to add a calendar that I could edit in the app. And since I could not find any decent post on the topic, here is how to do it (as of iOS 18.7.3 on an iPhone 13 pro, but I imagine the process being very similar on other devices):

1. Open the Settings application.
2. Scroll to the bottom and open the Apps options.
3. Open settings for the Calendar application.
4. Open Calendar accounts.
5. Add a new account.
6. Chose "other".
7. Chose "CalDav-account".
8. Enter URL and credentials for your Radicale server.

I have SSL set up with Let's Encrypt managed with Caddy so that was all I had to do. I say this because I read one discussion about SSL being needed.