Personal Workflow/Home Server Ramble

[IAmDarthMole]

Wasn’t sure if this belonged here or Software. My apologies if I chose wrong. 
 

Trying to finalize my personal productivity workflow/home technology setup and just wanted some feedback/thoughts/ideas.

 

I have a home server (an old pc with lots of hard drives) running Ubuntu and a SMB share for all my documents, videos, pictures, etc. I daily drive a Linux laptop running ZorinOS (for now) for email, word processing, spreadsheets, school, etc. All local applications (Thunderbird for email and Libre Office for, well, office, Firefox for browsing).

 

I also have a NextCloud installation on a Linode server which I just use for contacts,  calendar, and notes at the moment. I was working on replacing Google Drive before finalizing my home server/file share at the time I created the NextCloud installation. I know other than the notes I can basically just use a hosted email service (right now I use Zoho but in the past I just used whatever hosting company my website was on).

 

I don’t trust myself to properly secure my server so I really don’t want to open up ports in order to access it outside my home network. My thoughts are to use Tailscale to access files when needed. 

 

In addition to the laptop I also have a dedicated gaming rig with windows 10 and a 2019 iMac that I bought in the past before I got into Linux. I use it for Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator and Daz3D and also drawing with an iPad Pro with sidecar. I use an iPhone because I trust it more than android and also have an iPad mini for media (video and books) consumption and web browsing when not in front of a pc. 

 

While I use NextCloud for notes I also use TiddlyWiki, hosted on my server, and used with a browser extension on my different computers for record keeping, writing, and development efforts. Regarding my email, I tend to silo my online activities. Meaning if I make a website for something I also setup hosted email for that domain. Of the top of my head I have close to a dozen e-mail addresses that receive various levels of usage all currently coming into Thunderbird on my laptop.
 

I love consistency. Looooove it. Having the different computers and knowing if I want to try/switch up my Linux install I have to migrate apps drives me insane. I like the idea of having a Linux install that I can setup config files for all the different apps after having them install via a script but I’m not there yet. Not even sure if I can 100% accomplish such a thing with config files. 

 

I like the idea of NextCloud, and used to really use Google Drive for everything. NextCloud recently incorporated a browser based editor for office files based on Libre Office but most of my notes and writings are housed in TiddlyWikis now so the version control/access benefits aren’t as important/applicable as before. However the idea of using their web based email client so I don’t need to worry about setting up thunderbird each time is nice. In addition to thunderbird on my laptop I also use Mail on my phone and tablet to review emails. 

 

The only other thing is sharing work with potential customers. I don’t currently have any but I’m always considering getting back into web design and consulting so the potential need to provide access to certain things is there. I don’t like the idea of having my data (personal vs business) in two different locations (home vs linode) but that may be the only option. I just wish there was a way to setup NextCloud desktop app on my server that only synced the folders I selected on my server, instead of also creating a separate bucket that basically creates a loop. 

 

Sorry for the long ramble.

 

tl:dr - I have too many ideas and can’t pick one just yet and am requesting help. 

 

Thank you for any assistance!

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to Servers and NAS

[Needfuldoer]

17 hours ago, IAmDarthMole said:

The only other thing is sharing work with potential customers. I don’t currently have any but I’m always considering getting back into web design and consulting so the potential need to provide access to certain things is there.

Set up a professional Google account, use it for Gmail and sharing documents with the outside via Google Drive. Use your personal server locally.

 

II think you can mount your Google Drive to a folder on your filesystem where NextCloud can get to it, essentially creating a "public folder". (Either that or a specific folder can get replicated between the two automatically. I haven't done this myself, though.)

[IAmDarthMole]

18 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

Set up a professional Google account, use it for Gmail and sharing documents with the outside via Google Drive. Use your personal server locally.

 

II think you can mount your Google Drive to a folder on your filesystem where NextCloud can get to it, essentially creating a "public folder". (Either that or a specific folder can get replicated between the two automatically. I haven't done this myself, though.)

Thank you very much for the suggestion/idea!