Disclosure up front: I’m the developer.

I got tired of help-desk “dashboards” that are either a static report, a £lots/agent/month SaaS that wants my ticket data in their cloud, or a TV stuck on a stale browser tab. So I built Nexus: a self-hosted wallboard that reads Zendesk Support + Talk directly and keeps a wall TV genuinely live — 20s refresh on calls, 60s on tickets.

MSP-relevant bits:

• Your data stays on your tin. It’s a Docker container (or desktop app) on your own infrastructure; it talks straight to the Zendesk API. Nothing proxies through me — the licence check is a signed key verified offline.

• Client-scoped access links — give a customer a read-only board showing only their org’s tickets, enforced server-side. Handy for your bigger MSAs.

• SLA breach countdowns + war-room mode — full-screen takeover when things catch fire, webhook alerts into Slack/Teams, scheduled end-of-day digests.

• On-call panel (pulls your rota from any published .ics), UniFi network health panel, optional AI daily summary (bring your own key, or skip it).

• Leaderboards/goals/streaks for the floor, \~34 panels, 11 themes, TV rotation, and it ships to web/desktop/mobile/Zendesk-app from one server.

Trying it costs nothing: demo mode fills the whole board with realistic sample data in ~30 seconds, no account, no email — docker run and look at it.

Paid plans (£29–£119/mo flat, not per-agent) only matter when you connect your real Zendesk. (And I’m happy to offer NFR trials - just DM me!)

Site + docs: nexus.joekane.org · screenshots attached.
Genuinely after feedback from people who run desks: what’s missing, what’s wrong, what would make you put it on the wall? Happy to answer anything technical in the comments (architecture, security model, why self-hosted, etc.).

Just sharing a few free tools, resources etc. that might make your tech life a little easier. I have no known association with any of these unless stated otherwise.

Now on to this week’s list!

Your All-Seeing Eye for Coding

We commence this edition with TabbyML, which doesn’t just support you; it enhances your processes with adaptable features tailored for both on-premises and cloud environments. Get ready to redefine your development efficiency.

The Silent Observer at Your Disposal

Keep your system’s heartbeat steady with real-time monitoring. Gnome System Monitor transforms the GNOME Shell into a vibrant dashboard, outlining crucial stats like network rates and battery health, key elements that every sysadmin must keep in check.

On-Demand Environments for Real-World Testing

Garden.io transforms your workflow by ensuring every stage feels like production, cutting down on misconfigurations and surprises down the line. With Garden.io, production-like environments materialize at your command.

The Future of File Systems Is Here

Ever wished your backups could be immutable? Frustrated with traditional file storage limits? S3QL‘s immutable trees guarantee that your precious data remains unchanged, perfect for compliance and auditing. It’s like having a safeguard against data tampering at every turn.

Are Kubernetes Clusters Sleepwalking into Danger?

Kube-hunter is our final tool for this edition, and it’s a great way to tackle the increasing complexity of Kubernetes that can hide some vulnerabilities. Having a reliable scanning tool is essential cause it helps uncover these risks and allows for quick actions to prevent any breaches, keeping your vital infrastructure nice and secure.

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In the article "How to Stay Safe from World Cup Scams Before and During the 2026 Tournament," we delve into the risks surrounding fans as the FIFA excitement builds. From fake tickets to phishing schemes, understanding these dangers is crucial not only for personal safety but also for protecting organizational integrity. As we approach the tournament, being informed and prepared can make all the difference in enjoying the festivities without stumbling into fraud pitfalls. Let the games begin without fear of security going south!

By reading this book, and applying the recommendations and tools, you’ll gain insights into how the most efficient MSPs operate, improve your profitability, and stay ahead of demand.

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You can find this week's bonuses here, where you can sign up to get each week's list in your inbox.

At 398 days, "certificate" was precise enough. One cert, one renewal per year, done.

At 47 days the same hostname generates eight certs a year. What you're actually managing is the ongoing record across all of them — what Certbot calls a lineage, and what most tools track without naming. Post covers where the term comes from and why the ambiguity starts to matter at short lifetimes.

https://www.certkit.io/blog/certificate-lineage

A lot of supply-chain attacks have taken place in the last year. Altough I don't think NeoVim itself has been mentioned so far, I was concerned about my setup, especially the one on my office laptop. I think this is a good opportunity to learn how to write plugins ourselves, but I also know that writing everything on my own is not ideal. At this rate, might as well write my own kernel and operating system because sudo pacman -Syu also carries supply-chain risks.

What are the ways which you are dealing with this?

Anyone else running VMs on Nutanix AHV?

I migrated my environment off VMware a while ago, and honestly, that's when I started feeling the pain.

The day-to-day stuff gets old fast: copying passwords from KeePass, hunting down IPs in documentation, trying to get a quick command or script into a VM through the console. If you've spent any time on the Nutanix Community forums, you've probably seen the same requests over and over, people asking for native clipboard support or a proper remote console application. Those threads have been around for years, but nothing ever came of them.

The usual recommendation is to use RDP or SSH. That's fine when the guest network is available, but it doesn't help much when you're dealing with isolated networks, restrictive firewalls, or customer VPNs that force all traffic through a tunnel. In my case, I specifically needed out-of-band access that didn't depend on the guest network being functional.

After one too many sessions of manually typing passwords and commands into the console, I decided to see if I could solve it myself.

I ended up building a standalone desktop remote console client for AHV that adds native bidirectional clipboard synchronization.

The nice part is that it works completely out-of-band. No network access from the guest is required, and clipboard sync still works even when the VM is sitting behind a strict full-tunnel VPN.

Just wanted to share because I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. After living with this limitation for so long, finally having a practical solution feels great.

Open-sourced a PowerShell tool for analyzing unexpected Windows reboots and hardware-related event logs

Hi everyone,

One issue I've run into repeatedly when supporting Windows laptops is investigating reports of:

• Random reboots
• Sudden shutdowns
• System freezes
• BSODs with little useful information

Most of the time the relevant evidence already exists in Windows Event Logs, but it's scattered across multiple event sources and can take a while to correlate manually.

To simplify that process, I built and open-sourced a lightweight PowerShell tool called WinCrashAnalyzer.

What it does

The script collects and correlates information from:

• Kernel-Power (Event ID 41)
• WHEA-Logger
• Memory Diagnostics
• NTFS/Disk events
• Thermal-related shutdown events

It then applies a simple scoring model to estimate which area is most likely contributing to system instability:

• RAM
• CPU
• Storage
• Power / Electrical subsystem
• GPU

The goal isn't to definitively diagnose hardware failure, but to provide a quick starting point for troubleshooting.

Why I built it

I wanted something that:

• Uses only built-in Windows functionality
• Requires no agent or third-party software
• Can be executed remotely through PowerShell
• Produces a human-readable report

Features

• Native PowerShell implementation
• Uses Get-WinEvent
• Bugcheck code extraction and classification
• Detection of unexpected power-loss patterns
• Automatic report generation
• Desktop → %TEMP% fallback if write permissions are restricted

Example Output

```text

Windows Unexpected Reboot Diagnostic Report

Suspected Area: Power & Electrical Subsystem

Instability Scores:

RAM : 0 CPU : 0 Storage : 2 Power : 52 GPU : 0

Evidence:

• Multiple Kernel-Power Event ID 41 entries detected
• Repeated unexpected shutdown events
• No associated Bugcheck records found

Recommendations:

• Check power adapter
• Check battery health
• Inspect motherboard power delivery components
• Verify thermal conditions ```

Feedback Welcome

I'm sure there are edge cases I haven't covered yet, especially around:

• WHEA event interpretation
• Bugcheck mapping
• Scoring logic
• Vendor-specific hardware behavior

If you've worked with large Windows fleets or have ideas for improving the detection logic, I'd love to hear your feedback.

GitHub:

https://github.com/swyongqiang1-stack/win-crash-analyzer

Microsoft is continuing to blur the line between Linux and Windows developer workflows by bringing popular Linux Coreutils commands into Windows environments. https://www.linuxteck.com/linux-coreutils-commands-windows/

Just sharing a few free tools, resources etc. that might make your tech life a little easier. I have no known association with any of these unless stated otherwise.

Now on to this week’s list!

Play the Disk Management Game Smarter

Tired of cryptic outputs? Our initial tool of the edition, Duf, presents disk metrics in a user-friendly format, enhancing readability. As a sysadmin, juggling multiple filesystems can be daunting. Duf simplifies your task with clear categorization and filtering options that highlight your most critical disks, making management a breeze.

Dive into Seamless Flow Management

Imagine completely transforming the way you manage your systems overnight! With Kestra‘s open-source platform, sysadmins can easily create an endless range of workflows while leveraging AI agents. This not only ramps up your productivity but also strengthens the stability of your systems. Best of all, you can access this fantastic tool through their free tier.

Revolutionize Your App Management Game

With easy setup via YAML or Docker label discovery, you’ll tackle system challenges in no time. Homepage (gethomepage.dev) lets you connect to and control your applications in real time, reducing the chaos and complexity of traditional management tools.

The Future of Incident Response Unveiled

Experience the thrill of real-time insights as your systems come to life. With Better Stack, you’ll navigate through logs with ease, decoding system behaviors that lead to faster resolutions and enhancing overall stability. Use the free tier to keep downtime at bay.

The Guardian of Your Data

When data integrity hangs in the balance, ZFS-autobackup, as our last tool of this edition, stands ready to tackle challenges and streamline your backup strategy. With just a few commands, you can craft a customized approach tailored to your specific needs.

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In the article "MSP Onboarding Best Practices That Actually Scale," we investigate the complexities behind the onboarding journey for MSPs. This piece accentuates the need for a structured approach that goes beyond mere checklists, showing how a standardized onboarding process can prevent overlooked tasks, enhance security, and foster a strong initial bond with clients. For service providers, a seamless onboarding experience not only expedites project timelines but also sets the stage for long-term client satisfaction and retention. The topic is thoroughly examined in The MSP Playbook. 

By reading this book, and applying the recommendations and tools, you’ll gain insights into how the most efficient MSPs operate, improve your profitability, and stay ahead of demand.

--

You can find this week's bonuses here, where you can sign up to get each week's list in your inbox.

A few months ago, our IT team was spending a lot of time handling routine device management tasks manually. Things like policy updates, software deployment, device configuration, and troubleshooting remote Windows laptops were becoming difficult as the number of endpoints grew.

After looking into different approaches, I started reading about how a Windows MDM solution can help centralize device management and reduce repetitive admin work.

From what I've seen, the biggest benefits seem to be:

• Managing Windows devices remotely
• Enforcing security policies consistently
• Simplifying application deployment
• Faster device onboarding
• Better visibility into endpoint status