McGarrah Technical Blog

Adding Google Custom Search to Jekyll Website

8 min read
How to implement Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) on a Jekyll website hosted on GitHub Pages for better content discoverability.

Jekyll Website Optimization for GitHub Pages - Part 2

11 min read

In Part 1 of this series, we covered the foundational optimizations for Jekyll sites on GitHub Pages. Part 2 dives into advanced analytics, performance monitoring, and the lessons learned from running a technical blog with 100+ posts.

Homelab Storage Economics: Ceph vs Single Drive Costs

5 min read

After building and running a Ceph cluster for my homelab, I’ve gained valuable insights into the real-world economics of distributed storage versus traditional single-drive solutions. This analysis breaks down the actual costs per GB across different storage strategies in my setup.

Debian Linux Oh-Crap Moment in the Homelab

16 min read

We have all done it if you work long enough. I blew up my Debian Linux system with an incredibly stupid mistake breaking the whole system. It is actually one of the questions I have when interviewing someone. “What is the worst mistake you’ve ever made?” And if they admit one, the follow up question, “What did you learn?”

I renamed my /usr directory to /usr-root with a mv /usr /usr-root as the root user. I knew I was treading on dangerous ground so I fortunately had two ssh console sessions up and both running as root. The goal was to migrate the /usr to separate storage to recover space for the very full root disk.

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