Well, that was a major update session.

It is easy to install something to test it. But after a few months, when the excitement has worn off, but the new ‘thing’ is part of your life, it becomes an effort to maintain it. It happens with everything: car, house, exciting new online service.

The way to keep up it to acknowledge that it is a chore, like vacuuming the carpets, and make a checklist to do every month.

Monthly checklist

  • Update laptop system software (4 laptops)
  • Update server system software (8 servers)
  • Verify backups are still being made, and can be restored
  • Update manually installed applications and services
    • Thingsboard
    • Matrix (synapse), and various bridges
      • mautrix-whatsapp
      • mautrix-facebook
  • Verify that service providers are up-to-date for the next month
    • Electricity and gas
    • Phone and internet
    • DNS service
    • Email service
    • Virtual-server provider
    • Office-app provider
    • Blog provider
    • Wiki provider
    • File and photo storage