Why I left Microsoft

 Posted on March 5, 2025  |  4 minutes  |  848 words  |  Neel Chauhan

When I was very young, I was a huge Microsoft and Windows fan. I used Virtual PC to toy with multiple versions of Windows all day after school. Then after two years failing at YouTube with moderate “success” form pirated copies of Phineas and Ferb recorded over cable TV, I got very heavily into open source, most specifically FreeBSD. I learned to love Unix and hate Windows. I started self-hosting servers and running networks at home. [Read More]

ASRock Rack B650D4U/1U2S-B650: Fixing the 0d error on AMD Ryzen 9000-series CPU

 Posted on March 3, 2025  |  2 minutes  |  271 words  |  Neel Chauhan

If you thought HPE support was bad, ASRock Rack support is 100x times worse. But for my startup Fourplex branded servers have become cost-prohibitive post-COVID-19. I remember when HPE servers were actually affordable for a homelab. That being said Fourplex is planning to expand into VPS hosting and I have one 1U2S-B650 (using the B650D4U motherbord) and have three more shipping. One of the problems with the B650D4U is that the stock BIOS does not recognize Ryzen 9000 CPUs, nor can you flash from USB without booting the system first. [Read More]

I'm done with coding

 Posted on March 1, 2025  |  3 minutes  |  491 words  |  Neel Chauhan

In my high school days, I was a huge server and networking person. My homelab was basically my identity, and not even a good one: consumer-level networking gear running Tomato and a then-7-year-old homebuilt desktop PC running FreeBSD. Then I joined NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering for Computer Science. It was a full 180 into software engineering. I didn’t just code for assignments, I started with toy projects and went to [major Tor contributions](https://gitlab. [Read More]

Mastodon vs Bluesky is a new standards war

 Posted on December 7, 2024  |  3 minutes  |  508 words  |  Neel Chauhan

With Bluesky’s apparent rise after the elections, I’ve heard a lot of criticism about Bluesky on the Fediverse. I’m starting to feel the Mastodon vs Bluesky war is a new standards war, one that is analogous to the cellular standards war. While Gen Z readers are used to LTE and 5G phones which is based off the historically more popular GSM branch, there was another cellular technology CDMA which was a fierce rival and chosen by carriers like Verizon pre-4G days. [Read More]

MikroTik CAPsMAN v2 (WifiWave2) with VLANs

 Posted on November 24, 2024  |  2 minutes  |  356 words  |  Neel Chauhan

After a disasterous experiment with Ubiquiti UniFi APs, I decided to sell them on /r/homelabsales (because I’m not allowed to return) and buy MikroTik wAP ax APs. Interestingly, the Wi-Fi experience on MikroTik beats the UniFi one despite technically being “inferior” and the EU model. But one issue with CAPsMAN is how hard it is to configure, especially with a home network full of VLANs (actually three at home). So how do you configure it? [Read More]

I'm sorry, but I just hate Ubiquiti UniFi gear

 Posted on November 22, 2024  |  2 minutes  |  324 words  |  Neel Chauhan

About two months ago, I was thinking “why not get Wi-Fi 7” and got myself two Ubiquiti UniFi U7 Pro access points? Just to realize the experience sucked. In fact, my family has faster browsing on a subjectively “inferior” access point, the MikroTik wAP ax which is being used now, as well as the prior HPE Instant On AP25. Ubiquiti is often compared to Apple, and the UniFi dashboard goes look pretty damn good. [Read More]

openSUSE Tumbleweed and Sony WF-1000XM5/WH-1000XM5 Bluetooth Headphones

 Posted on November 1, 2024  |  1 minutes  |  185 words  |  Neel Chauhan

After my old Sol Republic earbuds died, all the headphones I daily drive are or have been made by Sony. This includes the WF-1000XM5 earbuds for going out and the WH-1000XM5 headphones I use on my desk or for plane travel. While Sony headphones generally work well with Linux (I’m looking at you, Apple and Beats), I recently switched my Linux desktop and laptop back to openSUSE Tumbleweed from Fedora. [Read More]

Bypassing AT&T Fiber/Frontier/AU 802.1X with MikroTik and bridge interfaces

 Posted on September 17, 2024  |  2 minutes  |  393 words  |  Neel Chauhan

Although I now live primarily in Verizon territory, my family has a second home in Frontier-land at least for a few more months. Frontier in Connecticut inherited AT&T’s 802.1X setup so if you’re not on XGS-PON, you are required to use Frontier’s router, in my case an Arris NVG468MQ. However, if you’re using a MikroTik CCR2004-series router, you can use that connected to the ONT and bridge 802.1X from the Arris. [Read More]

Tech is a cyclical industry: booms and busts are normal

 Posted on September 16, 2024  |  3 minutes  |  482 words  |  Neel Chauhan

It’s no secret that the tech job market really sucks. Even for me who still has a job, I’m not exactly keen on my department, I have many reservations about my product, I wanted to move on. But even when I tried applying for jobs, why should they hire me instead of someone who’s so desperate they’ll work for less? This just happened to me last week. This made me realize, tech is a cyclical industry. [Read More]

Have an ASN and IPv6 space? Build your own IPv6 tunnel!

 Posted on September 3, 2024  |  4 minutes  |  761 words  |  Neel Chauhan

For many years, Hurricane Electric was the de-jure IPv6 tunneling platform. If you wanted Netflix, just force Netflix on IPv4. For people without native IPv6, HE.net was truly a godsend. Then HE.net tunnels became more problematic, now we have multiple streaming services and other services blocking HE.net tunnels under the “public proxy” blanket ban. I remember the pre-COVID and the early-COVID era when only Netflix blocked HE.net tunnels when I lacked native IPv6 until summer 2020. [Read More]