This blog is also a living document for myself so I can improve and reference this working pattern in the future.
Model selection
If using ChatGPT for coding tasks, especially maintenance tasks, opt for o1, other models are crap and will hallucinate or forget more of the original code.
Avoiding regressions
If the goal is to alter existing code, ChatGPT risks breaking existing code by removing as part of the end result, a good prompt is something like below, to reduce the amount of feedback loop and future debugging.
[insert-here your own description of your problem to be solved by ChatGPT/LLM, with instructions]
Here is the code to be modified. I want the complete code as the final result, with the same number of functions as in the original.
First, tell me the list of ALL the functions you see, and which ones you will modify. Show me all the resulting code from each modification. Show me the final file with the modifications. Do not omit code for brevity, keep untouched code same as before.
[Insert here the original code to be maintained/modified/debugged by the LLM]
We used to boot a computer and even a modem and be actually productive and enjoy life without checking for news, notifications, or email every 15 minutes.
Sans version control conflicture crap due to using Git-ware conflict-friendly patterns?
We used to just work together on code and discuss code, without focusing on the version control tooling.
Sans CI/CD tools to validate your work?
We used to validate our work before committing, in the old days.
Sans markdown?
We used to be able to read and write text without non-sense formatting, HTML was even a thing.
Sans proprietary note taking digital tools (Obsidian, Notion)?
We used to take notes on paper or in our own text editors in the past and format our notes in "raw" HTML.
Sans LLM for coding?
We used to reason about code and go read a programming language book or ask for help from colleagues in case of doubt.
Sans daily upgrades and ads and other modern web crap?
We used to have nice experience with computers.
In a world that used to be simple, what other "sans" would you can think of?
I have learned one good lesson from tasting someone's else food, it's never salty enough and I always miss the good drink pairing or something else is missing. And I'll feel bad for making any critique or special request.
I have a similar feeling about apps, tools and platforms I don't maintain. Sure i can help fixing them with requests that will likely be forgotten in their backlog. Or I can pick an alternative product which will unfortunately lack features from the former or will have their own ux issues, bugs, weirdness...
In the end I'll flavor ones that focus on simplicity and which provide good documentation and support for data import/export and customizations through their API or through plugins and scripting.
Miniflux, Shaarli, Obsidian, Dropbox, Cloudron....are those kinds of apps and platforms I use that do a thing well yet I have customized to my taste, e.g of such personalizations:
Dropbox is automatically organized based on custom rules, all orchestrated through cron jobs.
Bookmarks in Shaarli are tagged automatically thanks to a plugin I've made available in my shaarli_plugins Git repository.
My apps hosted in Cloudron are restarted automatically on schedule if they stop responding, thanks to some cron jobs and Cloudron's API.
Music I download on-the-go from my mobile phone through Seeker (Soulseek client) is synced automatically to my storage and visible in my Navidrome and Subsonic clients; so I do not need Spotify. It is also orchestrated via cron jobs, using rsync and syncthing.
Notes I take on my Obsidian at work and at home are synced automatically thanks to Syncthing an Git on my personal Gitea server.
highlight links I've already bookmarked in Shaarli.
add one-click buttons Add to Shaarli / Follow in Miniflux next to each link mentioned in those articles depending if it's some RSS feed or a random link I might want to bookmark in Shaarli.
Email attachments related to our financial activity are archived in our Dropbox and renamed automatically based on their content, using OCR. The whole thing simplifies communication with our accountant and their software.
My monthly invoices are generated automatically from InvoiceNinja and I'm looking at a solution using only Python.
I keep building more, I'm working on my own tools to supplement or replace InvoiceNinja, Shaarli, Wallabag, Obsidian and Miniflux. The fewer apps I rely on, the more focused I become.
Relying on my own recipes, scheduling things though cron jobs and building my own platform saves me costs, improve my computer experience and make me more efficient about problem solving.
It also likely make me a bit lazier and annoying.
You can be more efficient too, and I can help if you like!
Contact me to learn how to master of your digital life.
TLDR: In December 2023 I picked this low-cost VPS provider. I do not recommend them, and I hope this writing will save people from wasting any time or money on Contabo.
They claimed "German Quality, Always". It's neither good quality, neither always.
For the most part, from December 2023 to September 2024, I could almost live without caring too much about managing my server, whose setup is mostly delegated to Cloudron. And I had no problem using Cloudron for my web apps on this cheap VPS; my Cloudron backups were also configured in Cloudron to use Contabo Object Storage. No problem on the surface. Until Murphy's law enter the game:
An outage in September 2024 broke availability in Nuremberg Data center and so my backups and my Cloudron instance were unavailable. I entered panic mode because there was nothing I could see or do. Contabo offered no support because their customer portal was impacted as well and no fail-over mechanism had been put in place. That tells a lot. Fortunately this was solved after a few days.
Quickly after this outage resolution, I noticed too that rclone and Cloudron backups were acting weird, mostly due to the slowness or rate limiting of Contabo Object storage API. I couldn't find an explanation so I just contacted Contabo support, which fixed my problem without saying much, sadly.
Few weeks later still in September 2024, my DNS config on my VPS starts to cause issues, but only to the light of problems encountered in WordPress, Miniflux and Changedetection. All those issues exploded to my face in the form of timeouts or unreachable URLs. Fortunately I found this write up https://www.thomasmartens.eu/contabo-dns-lookup-timeouts/ and could just fix my default NetPlan configuration and switched from Contabo DNS to 1.1.1.1 (CloudFlare) and 9.9.9.9 (Quad9).
I noticed too that my object storage space was filling up constantly, causing me some anxiety. And I couldn't clean anything. The backup cleanups were also silently frequently in Cloudron as a result. In the end I couldn't find the root cause but switching to Hetzner storage instead of Contabo Object Storage fixed and made the whole process faster.
Unfortunately I went through those issues. But I could have avoided them. When one have to pick a product or service, it's better to do more research and ask around for advice.
Use ChatGPT to be brutally honest when giving you advice and saving you money and pain.
Or just visit forums and communities like Reddit;
Lessons learned
Some products and services are cheap for reasons: quality for free is often a scam.
I should have checked internet before. Be more picky, check the community forums and reviews. Avoid unneeded pain.
Do not put all your eggs in the same basket, i.e pick different locations and providers for your compute and data.
Monitor the health of your backups and storage location.
Both are in the same region. The amount of CPU and disk space vary, but overall there is a clear winner about performance.
-------------------- A Bench.sh Script By Teddysun -------------------
Version : v2024-11-11
Usage : wget -qO- bench.sh | bash
----------------------------------------------------------------------
CPU Model : AMD EPYC Processor (with IBPB)
CPU Cores : 6 @ 2799.996 MHz
CPU Cache : 512 KB
AES-NI : ✓ Enabled
VM-x/AMD-V : ✗ Disabled
Total Disk : 593.5 GB (53.7 GB Used)
Total Mem : 15.6 GB (4.9 GB Used)
Total Swap : 4.0 GB (268.2 MB Used)
System uptime : 6 days, 17 hour 31 min
Load average : 0.67, 0.85, 1.09
OS : Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS
Arch : x86_64 (64 Bit)
Kernel : 5.15.0-124-generic
TCP CC : cubic
Virtualization : Dedicated
IPv4/IPv6 : ✓ Online / ✗ Offline
Organization : AS51167 Contabo GmbH
Location : Nürnberg / DE
Region : Bavaria
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I/O Speed(1st run) : 131 MB/s
I/O Speed(2nd run) : 98.0 MB/s
I/O Speed(3rd run) : 94.4 MB/s
I/O Speed(average) : 107.8 MB/s
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Node Name Upload Speed Download Speed Latency
Speedtest.net 399.41 Mbps 399.48 Mbps 11.37 ms
Los Angeles, US 378.05 Mbps 401.30 Mbps 155.48 ms
Dallas, US 390.21 Mbps 402.25 Mbps 127.98 ms
Montreal, CA 44.98 Mbps 400.75 Mbps 105.08 ms
Paris, FR 404.24 Mbps 397.38 Mbps 18.16 ms
Amsterdam, NL 392.33 Mbps 396.11 Mbps 23.08 ms
Beijing, CN 275.61 Mbps 410.68 Mbps 241.41 ms
Shanghai, CN 129.99 Mbps 362.16 Mbps 428.46 ms
Hong Kong, CN 224.22 Mbps 386.99 Mbps 284.37 ms
Singapore, SG 93.82 Mbps 362.53 Mbps 329.19 ms
Tokyo, JP 302.55 Mbps 393.36 Mbps 256.67 ms
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Finished in : 5 min 43 sec
Timestamp : 2024-11-13 09:18:58 UTC
----------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------- A Bench.sh Script By Teddysun -------------------
Version : v2024-11-11
Usage : wget -qO- bench.sh | bash
----------------------------------------------------------------------
CPU Model : Intel Xeon Processor (Skylake, IBRS, no TSX)
CPU Cores : 4 @ 2099.998 MHz
CPU Cache : 16384 KB
AES-NI : ✓ Enabled
VM-x/AMD-V : ✗ Disabled
Total Disk : 75.0 GB (3.5 GB Used)
Total Mem : 7.6 GB (632.2 MB Used)
System uptime : 39 days, 14 hour 22 min
Load average : 0.03, 0.02, 0.00
OS : Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
Arch : x86_64 (64 Bit)
Kernel : 6.8.0-41-generic
TCP CC : cubic
Virtualization : Dedicated
IPv4/IPv6 : ✓ Online / ✓ Online
Organization : AS24940 Hetzner Online GmbH
Location : Nürnberg / DE
Region : Bavaria
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I/O Speed(1st run) : 846 MB/s
I/O Speed(2nd run) : 795 MB/s
I/O Speed(3rd run) : 929 MB/s
I/O Speed(average) : 856.7 MB/s
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Node Name Upload Speed Download Speed Latency
Speedtest.net 2292.48 Mbps 2473.56 Mbps 0.66 ms
Los Angeles, US 605.99 Mbps 2986.01 Mbps 157.65 ms
Dallas, US 702.97 Mbps 3420.20 Mbps 128.18 ms
Montreal, CA 175.26 Mbps 937.60 Mbps 90.89 ms
Paris, FR 7119.88 Mbps 9681.24 Mbps 13.65 ms
Amsterdam, NL 4993.84 Mbps 7353.62 Mbps 10.41 ms
Beijing, CN 627.18 Mbps 2611.88 Mbps 187.03 ms
Shanghai, CN 1.34 Mbps 1791.62 Mbps 325.14 ms
Hong Kong, CN 352.36 Mbps 2526.89 Mbps 234.43 ms
Singapore, SG 181.44 Mbps 670.17 Mbps 194.45 ms
Tokyo, JP 313.71 Mbps 2686.38 Mbps 236.80 ms
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Finished in : 5 min 48 sec
Timestamp : 2024-11-13 09:25:24 UTC
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Conclusion and what's next
I still have my main VPS at Contabo, however my storage and backups are with Hetzner, migrating to Hetzner should be a no brainer, thanks to the built-in quality of Cloudron.
I've also configured another VPS with Hetzner, with satisfaction, for running Gitea Actions, because there is no way I rely on GitHub.
So you know. Move away from them, unless for cheap, non business critical workflows where performance and reliability are not a concern.
