Pihole & Docker FTW!

I'd been planning to mess with Pihole but didn't want to mess with a Rasberry Pi.  I did some research and found that I'd the option to install Pihole on a running Linux system.  While looking at what that entailed, I also found that I could easily do it with Docker, too.

I've been running a Ubuntu system for a while now.  It is mainly a box I set up for use with NextCloud.  I hate NextCloud and stopped using it and the Ubuntu system.  The system was pretty much idle until I decided to set up a Wordpress instance in Docker for development of my Wordpress site that's on my Linode instance.  Whenever I'm trying something new in Wordpress, I test it on my Dockerized Wordpress instance first.  Eventually I'll work on replacing the Wordpress instance on my Linode host with a Dockerized instance.

Since I already have Docker set up on the Ubuntu box, I decided to give Pihole a spin in Docker.

I used this website to set up Pihole in Docker.  The whole setup was quick and painless.  In fact, my Wordpress setup uses three different Docker containers, and with Pihole now running, I'm now using four containers on that Ubuntu host.  None of them are consuming resources (thus far).

I'm now testing Pihole.  I'm totally unfamiliar with it but it doesn't appear to be a high maintenance setup.  At some point, I'll want to back up the Pihole configs, though, so I won't have to spend a lot of time setting it up again (when/if I end up blowing away the instance).

I've several hosts on my LAN using the Pihole setup and my daughter is trying it, as well.  She had a Rasberry Pi and was planning ot install Pihole on it, but I told her that this is far simpler - she should use the Pi for something else, IMO.

I've added some ad lists (block lists and some whitelisting), as well.

The biggest pain as far as adware goes is Youtube, and I don't think Pihole is going to be able to block Youtube ads when using the Youtube app.  I've had some luck blocking Youtube ads on my Macbook, but I view videos on the browser when using that notebook (and I've the uBlock Origin browser extension installed in MS Edge).

New Keyboard for My Mac Mini - Royal Kludge S98

When I bought my Mac Mini, I bought it without buying a keyboard for it.  Not long after purchasing the Mini, my older iMac died.  I ended up trashing the iMac, as I couldn't repair it (was unwilling to pump anymore money into it and it was over 10 years old.  Prior to it dying, I was using it as a monitor for my iMac and other systems (using Target Display Mode).

With the iMac gone, I still had the Magic Mouse and the keyboard that came with the iMac.  What I hate about the keyboard is that it eats batteries.  As well, I like full sized keyboards.  So, I thought I'd buy a nice keyboard for the Mini.

I purchased the Royal Kludge S98, mainly because it was a full sized keyboard (or nearly so), it could be used with other computers (it has 3 BT profiles), it's wireless, and it was a mechanical keyboard -- I've never owned a mechanical keyboard.

I've mixed feelings.  I like the keyboard a lot, but it doesn't have software for Macs.  It's software is Windows-only.  I would've liked to use the software's macro configurations.  As well, it doesn't have labeled Mac buttons (command and option buttons).

The specific version I bought was the Linear Viridian switch version in turquoise green.

I might try to buy Mac-specific keys for it, as the keys can be swapped out.  Maybe I'll get those two keys in red.

I like the keyboard screen in the upper right corner.  I like that I've the option for 2.4 GHz connectivity, BT, or USB wired connectivity.

I also love the lighting (it's RGB).  It also has a beefy battery - I can get a lot of use out of it, on one charge, if I disable the keyboard backlights.

I did notice one hiccup with the Mac Mini last week where I had the keyboard linked to it via bluetooth - I'd logged out of the Mac and came back later to do some work, but the keyboard wouldn't let me type out the password properly.  I noticed that it kept hanging on the 2nd character.  I had another BT keyboard handy and tried to log in with it and it was doing the same thing.  I thought it was strange.  I ended up doing a hard reboot (I hadn't thought of SSH'ing into the Mini to do a restart - I could've done that).  The system recovered and let me access it while using the S98.  I'm not sure if it was a keyboard-related issue but I've been using the Mac 2+ years and nothing like that has every occurred until I started using the S98.  I'll keep a watch to see if this occurs again.

UPDATE (2/5/2025):  Well I had the keyboard issue again, today.  Again, I don't think it's an actual keyboard issue, as I tried two different keyboards and both were doing the sme thing.  This go-around, it was the 6th character tht wasn't rendering on the first keypress.  After experimenting, I was able to press the key for the 6th character a second time to get it to register...doing that, I was able to log in successfully.  After I logged in, I typed in Terminal to see if I was having that same issue across my password characters - it rendered fine.  I then logged out and tried to log back in - I was able to successfully log in (I did this 3 times, successfully, to test).  I searched for some tips and most articles I saw suggested that there was a hardware keyboard issue, which is't the case here since I'm using two different keyboards that experience the same exact issue.  I also used Disk Utility to do a disk repair - there were no errors to repair.  I think there's a bug in the latest OS update (the latest OS update was applied a few days ago).  This didn't start occurring until after that OS update was applied.

UPDATE 2 (2/7/2025):  It happened again, just now.  It's definitely not a hardware issue, as I used my Mac wireless keyboard this time, too - I used all three keyboards and the issue still occurred.  As well, two characters weren't being recognized this time - characters 6 and 7.  This is so odd.

I'll report any issues with the keyboard, but I'm enjoying it thus far.