Since I'm going to install a third-party Wiki there is no reason to keep using MacOS Server. Besides it being unsupported (the version I use is the last one before they removed a bunch of features) it also runs on macOS 10.13 which itself is quite old. Also macOS is old enough that homebrew and other apps I want to install don't support it.

At this point MacOS Server is used for my web server with static pages and for the wiki (which I was trying out with my DC Adventures and Pendragon campaigns). The beauty of static page web site is you can always upgrade the infrastructure and not break anything. For the wiki I guess I'll copy it to RapidWeaver to see how that would work for campaign tracking.

After that I guess the plan would be:

1. move DC Adventures and Pendragon wiki content to RapidWeaver
2. in-place upgrade to macOS v12 (last version that supports my Mac mini)
3. upgrade homebrew
4. use homebrew to install Apache (we'll use homebrew's Apache instead of the one in macOS)
5. install ssl cert, set up certbot auto update?
6. make sure web site publishes to correct folder
7. install PostgresSQL (homebrew or postgres.app)
8. install Node.js (download from official site or use homebrew node-build)
9. install Wiki.js

I want a wiki to track my RPG campaigns. RapidWeaver works less well for that; it feels like it'll be hard to navigate as a creator if you have hundreds of pages. Also the web sites it publishes don't have any search functionality which I understand is outside the scope of what RapidWeaver should do (mostly static web sites without PHP or backend code; any sort of dynamism is done view front-end modules that run on browser client).

If I can do the below then the wiki could also be my v6 web site.

- blogs with RSS feed
- podcast with RSS feed that Apple Podcasts app can read
- photo album

There are a lot of wiki platforms out there. I kind of looked at some and picked out a few promising ones.

BookStack

This is a wiki that uses a book model: shelves --> books --> chapters --> pages. Seems simpler to use for creators and users while creating good looking sites that by default supports the books model. Built-in page editor supports diagrams.net drawing capability.

Requirements:

Web Server that supports PHP
PHP 8.0.2
MySQL 5.7 or MariaDB 10.2
Git to retrieve the latest installation

diagrams.net support is interesting as you can create a diagram (that is saved as a PNG with extra diagrams.net data) and later edit the diagram. Could be useful for creating maps that you can add more data and notes as PCs explore the world.

Unfortunately it does not support blogs or rss feeds. I can see this as nice for RPG campaign management but not for general use.

Addendum:

I asked OpenAI's ChatGPT and it says BookStack doesn't support blogs (because it assumes I want commenting and customizing appearance of a blog). It also said that BookStack can do rss feeds by appending /rss to any link.

BookStack can't do podcasts. The closest would be "Audio" block which then pulls the file from another server. So I guess I could put the audio files on a different part of my website. But that still doesn't generate a podcast rss feed... You can use Feedburner or Feedly to generate the rss content than copy/paste into a BookStack page. Not sure how well that would work but worth a try.

For photo albums you can use "Image Gallery" and "Image" blocks to create your own. BookStack won't generate them automatically but I suppose that is sufficient.

DokuWiki

This is an older wiki platform and the interesting thing is that it saves data in plain text files whereas most every other wiki saves to a database. It has lots of plugins (1200+) and themes/templates (100+).

Requirements:

Web Server that supports PHP
PHP 7.2 or later
Optional: PHP GD extension or Image Magick, for image resizing

There is a Blog plugin which sets up its own wiki area separate from the rest of your wiki and uses its own database storage, or you can use several plugins to implement blogs.

There is also a 2 year-old podcast plugin though it may have been abandoned.

Because of the many plugins this can be a surprisingly complicated solution.

Wiki.js

A fairly slick and big wiki that runs on Node.js.

Requirements:

(No web server, includes its own web server)
Node.js 12.x or later
PostgresSQL (other databases supported but not in the upcoming 3.0 release)

It has a tabular editor for table data. There is a blog editor. Both are modules included in Wiki.js and I guess there are third party modules you can install though I didn't find any info.

Like BookStack, supports create/edit diagrams.net/draw.io diagrams via Markdown editor. Though not sure how well supported.

Addendum:

Asking ChatGPT Wiki.js has more blogging support including commenting and rss feeds. Podcast support is same as BookStack, i.e. minimal including generating the rss yourself and copy/paste into a page. Photo albums seem to be a bit easier to do that with BookStack as your preview page is just an index page.

MediaWiki

This is what Wikipedia runs on.

Requirements:

Web Server
PHP 7.4.3 or later
Database server: MariaDB, MySQL, PostgresSQL, or SQLite

It is kind of heavyweight for implementors and editors. There are blog extensions. Though I guess the problem with third party extensions is that people move on and the development is abandoned unless someone else picks it up. And also there are a hella lot of extensions for MediaWiki.


I guess Wiki.js is the closest combining ease of implementation/use and features that I want. BookStack is my second choice.

Sat Mar 18 2023

Sleep 0430 to 0900. 30 min nap. (5 hours)

• With C3 and Steph visiting parents for the weekend. Jaime Ignacio is there getting some residency time in the USA. Apparently he got his CA driver's license and is buying a new car.

Sun Mar 19 2023

Sleep 0315 to 1030. 30 min nap. (7-3/4 hours)

• Dave S started his Pacific Crest Trail hike yesterday at pretty close to the California/Mexico border. 11 miles yesterday and 10-1/2 miles today. He has a Garmin tracking him and he can communicate via text messages.

Mon Mar 20 2023

Sleep 0300 to 1000. (7 hours)

• Humble Bundle for Campaign Cartographer 3+ (with lifetime subscription), Fractal Terrains 3+, Cosmographer 3+ and several asset packs. From doing some research CC by itself doesn't draw dungeon maps (or more correctly it does in a "you can do this in a paint program" manner), for dungeon maps you want the Dungeon Designer 3 add-on. Also it's Windows only. For $30 it's just too much.

Tue Mar 21 2023

Sleep 0300 to 1200. (9 hours)

• Dave S was making good progress on his hike and the Garmin has been tracking about 50% of the hike (not sure if the part with no tracks is a dead spot or maybe the Garmin ran out of power). Today it indicates he jumped to San Diego and stopeed, which may just be a tracking glitch.

Wed Mar 22 2023
Sleep 0300 to 0930. (6-1/2 hours)

• Apple TV+ Friday Night Baseball will not be free for everyone but included in Apple TV+ subscription. It starts April 7 and I'm looking forward to it.

Thu Mar 23 2023

Sleep 0030 to 1100. (10-1/2 hours)

• I should find a simple CMS for my web site. RapidWeaver is ok for smaller web sites but kind of hard to make it look nice yet subtle.

Fri Mar 24 2023

Sleep 0315 to 1045. (7-1/2 hours)

• Csr has four new DDO accounts so we'll try to get them to 400 DDO points for the cheap expansion pack quests. Csr is thinking 200 favor in each of three servers.
• Turns out running three characters on my computer it's still performant. DDO is a fairly low resource game.

DDO currently has a month-long free questing coupon code which gives you almost all adventure packs (not expansion packs). They also have the quests for the first four expansion packs in the store for 99 DDO points each.

If you create a new free-to-play account now the first you want to do is grind to 1000 favor which gives you 500 DDO points so you can buy the cheap expansion pack quests. Maybe doable in a month spending two or three hours a day. Helps a lot if you have a buddy who can open quests at Elite but I guess with almost all quests available you can do all quests on Normal.

Guide to Free to Play is more about earning DDO points than what to spend those points on. Before the free questing coupon I had bought the Treasure Trove for $15 and was able to slip past the quest level 14-15 desert doing Mists of Ravenloft twice (Saga rewards not reduced second time). Currently the character is level 21 and should get to 23 before hitting a quest level 24-25 desert. Conveniently both deserts can be filled with Ruins of Gianthold adventure pack (950 DDO points) and then you can probably get to around level 27 or 28 before getting a bit stuck again. Mind you you'll need help so you can Reaper 1 then repeat a quest on Elite for all those bonus XP.

Anyways, now that I have enough quests to not worry about advancement what to spend my DDO points? I think I'll get the Shared Bank: Item Storage (30 slots) for 1495 DDO points (I'll wait for a 30% off sale). If I start a second character it'll be really annoying moving items between characters without a shared bank. Thirty slots is also nice so I can start collecting Heroic Ravenloft items. The cost seems high but 10 slot upgrades are 995 DDO points each so you're getting the initial 30 at a 50% discount.

Number two is possibly Alchemist (1495 DDO points). There are three locked classes but Artificer and Favored Soul can be unlocked through gameplay (Favored Soul maybe not without buying a bunch of quest packs). With all classes unlocked going for class completionist is possible.

A distant number three is 10th Anniversary of Free to Play Launch Bundle (3995 DDO points). Expensive but it includes Supreme +8 tome of ability (5745 DDO points), Shared Bank upgrade (995 DDO points), and a Heart of Blood (1495 DDO points). All three are useful (two for your primary character) so it's a good discount.

We want to install cellular modems in our elevator machine rooms for emergency communication (when you press the emergency button a service answers via voice and the service gets a video of the elevator interior). I used Oookla Speedtest app (which can use a couple hundred MB for testing so the below tests took a good chunk of my monthly quota).

Machine room 1 (near the front door): 80 Mbps down, 4.4 Mbps up, 100 ms ping.
Machine room 2 (near garage entrance): 200 Mbps down, 0.1 Mbps up, 80 ms ping, 90% packet loss.

Machine room 2 has bad upload. I tried two more tests:

Machine room 2 (outside door): 565 Mbps down, 14.7 Mbps up, 55 ms ping.
Machine room 2 (inside, near vent): 13 Mbps down, 1.7 Mbps up, 192 ms ping, 87% packet loss.

I'm guessing the installers will test the service to make sure bandwidth is adequate. In both machine rooms I get 2 bars so should be fine.

Also I use Mint which I heard is deprioritized on T-Mobile network. But I ran my tests at 0200 so network had low usage.

Sat Mar 11 2023

Sleep 0245 to 1115. (8-1/2 hours)

• After the GM's Day Sale I have two BECMI D&D products left to get: DMR1 DM Screen (with Escape from Thunder Rift) and AC5 PC Record Sheets (covering B/E/C sets).

Sun Mar 12 2023

Sleep 0500 to 1300. (8 hours)

• Rewatched Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Director's Cut). It grows on me. It's like a classic science fiction novel plot about humans exploring an immense alien artifact, which is great for reading but unfortunately does not make for an exciting movie.

Mon Mar 13 2023

Sleep 0430 to 1230. (8 hours)

• Updated Certbot (took a bit of effort because I have an old OS and HomeBrew doesn't support it so it's use it at your own risk) and want it to automatically renew my ssl certificate. But just realized there is a manual step to add certificate to web server. Hmm.

Tue Mar 14 2023

Sleep 0730 to 1330. (6 hours)

• Rewatched Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. Forgot how much Act One foreshadows what's going to happen later. Also paid more attention to Kirstie Alley's portrayal of Saavik. At the time it seemed rather un-Vulcan-like but seeing her as half-Romulan half-Vulcan (which is not in the movie but I think maybe in the script) and it's a pretty good characterization.

Wed Mar 15 2023

Sleep 0400 to 1230. (8-1/2 hours)

• After saying I wouldn't I ended up buying the two Advanced Fighting Fantasy bundles.

Thu Mar 16 2023

Sleep 0430 to 0800. 1 hour nap. (4-1/2 hours)

• Dinner at C3's.
• Arkham board game. We redid the second scenario and did much better, knocking out four of six villains (anyone we didn't knock out we'd face in the third scenario).

Fri Mar 17 2023

Sleep 0130 to 1030. (9 hours)

• Decided to quit Raid: Shadow Legends while I was taking a shower. Cold turkey now and early next week if I'm still good I'll tell my clan leader I'm taking a break.
• Earliest journal entry for RSL is Apr 2020. Probably started a month or two before that so it's been three years playing the game.

NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament started. Let's see which western teams made it.

South Regional

#2 Arizona (Pac-12, 28-6)
#5 San Diego State (Mountain West, 27-6)
#10 Utah State (Mountain West, 26-8)
#14 UC Santa Barbara (Big West, 27-7)

East Regional

#10 USC (Pac-12, 22-10)
#14 Montana State (Big Sky, 25-9)

Midwest Regional

None

West Regional

#2 UCLA (Pac-12, 29-5)
#3 Gonzaga (West Coast, 25-8)
#5 Saint Mary's (West Coast, 26-7)
#10 Boise State (Mountain West, 24-9)
#11a Arizona State (Pac-12, 22-12)
#11b Nevada (Mountain West, 22-10)
#14 Grand Canyon (WAC, 24-11)


I'd rank my favorite teams as:

1. UCLA (Pac-12, 29-5)
2. Arizona (Pac-12, 28-6)
3. USC (Pac-12, 22-10)
4. Arizona State (Pac-12, 22-12)
5. Gonzaga (West Coast, 25-8)

Shadowrun 5E Mega Bundle from Humble Bundle has 17 items for $18 although one 64-page adventure book.

CAT-27000 Shadowrun 5E Core Rulebook (2013)
CAT-27002 Run & Gun (2014) - weapons and expanded combat rules
CAT-27003 Street Grimoire (2014) - magic companion
CAT-27004 Run Faster (2014) - player character options
CAT-27005 Chrome Flesh (2015) - cyberware sourcebook
CAT-27006 Data Trails (2015) - matrix sourcebook
CAT-27007 Rigger 5.0 (2015) - vehicle companion
CAT-27008 Howling Shadows (2016) - critter sourcebook
CAT-27011 Forbidden Arcana (2016) - advanced magic rulebook
CAT-27012 Street Lethal (2018) - combat supplement
CAT-27013 Kill Code (2018) - advanced matrix sourcebook
CAT-27231 Dark Terrors (2017) - horror monsters
CAT-27200 Stolen Souls (2014) - deep shadows sourcebook for New York
CAT-27451 Market Panic (2016) - Big Ten megacorps sourcebook
CAT-27506 Complete Trog (2017) - ork and troll sourcebook
CAT-27110 Seattle Sprawl (2016) - boxed supplement
CAT-27401 Serrated Edge (2016) - campaign

Bundle of Holding did two SR5 bundles three years ago

SR5 Essentials - 7 books for $31
SR5 Lethal Streets - 7 books for $27

SR5 Essentials is in the Humble Bundle offer. Two of the SR5 Lethal Streets books are in the Humble Bundle offer. I declined to buy the Bundle of Holding offer because it had few adventures. Although $18 is a great price there is only one adventure book and SR5 was a big RPG line so the 17 books are a fraction of the ones published. I think I'll pass on this.

Sat Mar 04 2023

Sleep 0330 to 1115. (7-3/4 hours)

• Finally watched a full MLS game on Apple TV+. For non-MLS pass subscribers if the game is still live then when you start you can watch from current time or the beginning. If the game is over you can only watch 7-min recap. Unlike Friday Night Baseball where you can watch the whole game days later.

Sun Mar 05 2023

Sleep 0430 to 1100. (6-1/2 hours)

• Reading D&D Basic Set (1983 edition).
• You die at 0 hit points. This is only mentioned twice, once in the tutorial and once in the solo adventure.
• How do you heal naturally? This is not mentioned at all. Module B2 mentions that PCs heal 1-3 hp per 24 hours of full rest (but B2 is not included in the 1983 Basic Set).
• All weapons do d6 damage though there are advanced rules for variable weapon damage so that daggers do d4 and 2-h swords do d10 and so forth.

Mon Mar 06 2023

Sleep 2230 to 0330. (5 hours)

• AirPods Max were sometimes disconnected whenever I moved them a bit to scratch my ear. But got a haircut today and that seems to work fine so I guess the sensors don't work well through lots of hair.

Tue Mar 07 2023

Sleep 0300 to 1400. (11 hours)

• Based on the last 8 days, LLBean sends a marketing email every other day. Luckily you when you click unsubscribe the settings page allows you to set frequency to week, bi-weekly, monthly. Monthly is about my limit and we'll see if they keep to that or not.
• AirPods Max even after repair didn't really auto-connect after waking up from recharging so I kept rebooting them to connect. Today after some usage it didn't want to reconnect and I couldn't reboot. Will let it charge overnight then see if I can connect tomorrow. I've had the AirPods Max back for three weeks and one day since the repair.

Wed Mar 08 2023

Sleep 0330 to 1100. (7-1/2 hours)

• Dentist for teeth cleaning.
• Zachary's for a large stuffed chicken special, half-baked.
• Trader Joe's for chips and salsa.
• Just realized that what I like is Pico de Gallo salsa, not traditional salsa. Pico de Gallo is fresh, diced, not cooked, not blended. Always thought difference was due to chef's variability but they are different recipes.
• After an overnight charging AirPods Max still won't reboot though green light comes on when you unplug/plug into power. Guess I'll let it sit charging until Sat or Sun and try again.

Thu Mar 09 2023

Sleep 0300 to 1100. (8 hours)

• Hit renewal limit on my library books. Fairly sure there was no limit before but I guess that was for pandemic conditions. Now it's five renewals, each of 21 days, which seems like a lot but it takes me a couple months to read a book.

Fri Mar 10 2023

Sleep 0130 to 0930. (8 hours)

• DDO: got to level 15 on my alt account. Can go to 16 but then a bit hard to get to level 17 xp due to lack of level 13/14 quests. 1100+ favor so I can see getting to 1k favor on each of the other DDO servers.

Basic Set has no exploration rules. Module B2 the PCs are kind of expected to go from square to square until they hit an interesting point (at least in the forests but that's half the map). I don't want to do that detail so I just did a hex grid of the area using HexTML



Each hex has one interesting bit. B2 has four encounter areas, Cave of the Unknown and Caves of Chaos so that's six and I've assigned them to the non-base hexes. For each day of exploring chance of finding the interesting bit in a hex is:

Terrain	Exploring	Modifiers	Random Encounter
Clear	1-4 in 6		1-2 in 6
Forest	1-2 in 6	+1 if elf/halfling	1-4 in 6
Hills	1-3 in 6	+1 if dwarf/halfling	1-3 in 6
Marsh	1-2 in 6		1-3 in 6
Mountains	1-2 in 6	+1 if dwarf	1-2 in 6

Other Modifiers:

Clear LOS = 1-4 (already calculated)
Restricted LOS: -1 (already calculated)
Restricted Movement: -1 (already calculated)

Bad Weather: -1
Travel to hex then exploring: -1

PCs being stealthy: -1 explore and random encounter
PCs split up into 2 sections: +1 explore and random encounter (encounter runs into 1 section)

I've read the Basic D&D rules and Module B2 Keep on the Borderlands. I forgot how deadly the game is at first level and even at third level the Caves of Chaos is very dangerous if you barrel into a cave.

I'm thinking of adding a limited bit of Luck. PCs start with 3 points of Luck and get another point per level. Luck can be used for re-rolling most any roll, for example:

1. character generation ability score
2. character hit points
3. for a magic user if they don't like their free spell they can spend a luck point and choose
4. an attack roll, either PC, monster, or hazard
5. a damage roll, either PC, monster, or hazard
6. re-roll a random encounter (either the roll for encounter or roll for what they encounter)

There will also be a group pool that gets 1 point of Luck per session which any PC can use.

Luck accumulates until used so the group pool may get large.

Sat Feb 25 2023

Sleep 0040 to 0410, 0745 to 1245. (8-1/2 hours)

• Was going to watch MLS today but forgot. Going to Apple TV app you can find the past games (with scores, unfortunately) but only highlights for each game.
• Csr, Dave W and I played Gloomhaven online. I had to buy it -- have the Epic version which is Windows only whereas Steam you get both Mac and Windows versions. Surprisingly it's a nice experience on computer.

Sun Feb 26 2023
Sleep 0345 to 1045. (7 hours)

• Keep thinking I need to buy a space heater but then forgetting. Finally looked at WireCutter best space heaters. Then I see they use like 1500W so that's a lot of electricity.
• New plan. Good slippers since I can keep wearing more clothes when it's cold but my feet get very cold on these hardwood floors. WireCutter best slippers... guess I'll get L.L.Bean Men’s Wicked Good Moccasins ($90, the on sale one is limited options and weird color).

Mon Feb 27 2023

Sleep 0300 to 1100. (8 hours)

• HOA meeting. Patio work coming to conclusion, much delayed due to this being a rather wet winter (which is very good for alleviating our drought). Since we haven't gotten any volunteers in more than a year of trying I expressed interest in becoming Treasurer.

Tue Feb 28 2023

Sleep 0400 to 1200. (8 hours)

• I was thinking I need to cut down on television watching since I watch so much Twitch. It's crept up to 7-1/2 hours a week. Want to get to 5 hours a week or less.

Wed Mar 01 2023

Sleep 0330 to 1300. (9-1/2 hours)

• Dinner at C3's. Deliver from Noodleosophy.
• Talked with Csr and Corina and we decided to play Basic Set D&D (and specifically I'm using D&D Rules Cyclopedia which is BECMI D&D). I have lots of adventures and it's fairly simple game that Cjr can play.

Thu Mar 02 2023

Sleep 0430 to 0930. (5 hours)

• DriveThruRPG is doing their GM's Day sale for the next couple weeks so good time to pretty much finish my TSR Basic D&D collection.

Fri Mar 03 2023

Sleep 0200 to 0900, 2-1/2 hour nap. (9-1/2 hours)

• I'm quite excited reading the D&D Basic Set rules. So simple and brings back memories (though my friend ran it in grade school and we used the previous edition, the BECMI Basic Set was maybe my first RPG purchase and solely based on the intro solo adventure).

DriveThruRPG is doing their annual GM's Day Sale. Christopher, Corina and I decided to play a Basic D&D campaign (I'm going to use the Rules Cyclopedia so we're talking about BECMI D&D). Good time for the sale as I fill out some holes in my PDF collection.

• AC5 D&D Player Character Record Sheets (Basic) [$4.21 15% off]
• D&D Character & Monster Assortment [$4.21 15% off]
• Poor Wizard's Almanac [$4.21 15% off]
• Poor Wizard's Almanac III & Book of Facts [$4.21 15% off]
• B1-9 In Search of Adventure (Basic) [$6.99 30% off]
• CM5 Mystery of the Snow Pearls (Basic) [$6.99 30% off]
• CM6 Where Chaos Reigns (Basic) [$3.49 30% off]
• CM7 The Tree of Life (Basic) [$3.49 30% off]
• CM8 The Endless Stair (Basic) [$3.49 30% off]
• CM9 Legacy of Blood (Basic) [$3.49 30% off]
• M4 Five Coins For A Kingdom (Basic) [$3.49 30% off]

I'll most likely buy B1-9, CM5 to CM9, and M4. The other items are only 15% off so can wait for a future sale.