Posts on Vinesh Raju

My Always-On Agent Costs Me Nothing*

Tue, 11 Aug 2026 22:00:00 +0100

I have a coworker. Friend? Somewhere in between, honestly. His name is ntran, he lives on a free virtual machine in Oracle’s cloud, talks to me through Telegram, and remembers conversations from months ago.

He’s not just a chatbot. He has a terminal. He has a browser. He has his own email and his own GitHub account. He can read my code and my calendar, updates me when the news matters, tracks my spending, and calls out my 2am ideas for the garbage they are. He also keeps me honest about running and the weight goal, which is simultaneously the most and least appreciated part of the service.

Hardening a Cheap VM: How Not to Get Hacked

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 21:30:00 +0100

Spinning up a cheap VPS to deploy a tiny app or bot is easy. But leaving it on defaults is basically inviting some random botnet to hijack your CPU for crypto mining.

Here is the quick checklist I use to lock down my servers before putting anything live.

1. Ditch the Passwords (SSH Keys Only)

First things first, passwords have to go. Automated bots are constantly brute-forcing default ports with millions of common passwords. SSH keys are the only way to go.

Running local models for coding and co-work

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been experimenting with a local coding setup because models are getting small enough to run on consumer hardware while retaining intelligence like hosted models. Also, it’s getting expensive for the amount of Dragon Riding I do.

The stack I ended up with is simple:

I use llmfit first to figure out what my machine can realistically handle
run the suggested model through either Ollama or llama.cpp
and then use OpenCode as the interface where I actually work.

Your Opinion Is Now Worthless

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve always liked the phrase “here’s my two cents.”

It makes an opinion sound polite. Cheap. Almost apologetic. Like you are not about to derail the meeting, just gently place a tiny coin of wisdom on the table and move on.

But inflation has been doing its thing in the background, and I regret to inform you that this phrase is no longer economically honest.

If you are still offering two cents in 2026, you are not being humble. You are underpaying.

I am a ball

Sun, 18 Jan 2026 15:42:00 +0000

I am a ball. I bounce back every time I fall

Dragon Riding: The Art of Vibe Coding

Thu, 19 Dec 2024 14:30:00 +0530

Programming is changing. We’re moving away from the era of manual, line-by-line character entry and into something much more… visceral. Some call it “Vibe Coding,” but to me, it’s Dragonning or Dragon Riding.

The name started as a joke. A friend and I were talking about the old way of coding versus this new, agentic, AI-led approach. We joked that people are still coding manually and expecting to keep their jobs blissfully unaware of the dragons!

Installing Jellyfin Media System

Wed, 31 Aug 2022 00:44:57 +0100

Jellyfish what?

No, “Jellyfin”.

It is a free, open source media system that allows to collect, manage and stream your media to all of you devices.

It’s like having your personal Netflix!

1. Install Docker

Update apt just in case

Command line variables on Flutter using --dart-define

Thu, 25 Mar 2021 04:42:02 +0530

This post explains how to send command line variables and use them with flutter.

Why send variables via command line?

Being able to set a variable through command line comes in very handy whenever you want to change the variable depending on the environment/client it’s being built for. Without having to change code manually every time.

A few common use cases would be

to configure your app’s base URL during build time.
to use separate API keys or client ids for development and production.

–dart-define to the rescue

--dart-define helps send key-value pairs to flutter at build time.

What do I use?

Sat, 20 Mar 2021 23:30:00 +0100

I use a lot of Tools, Apps, and Services to get by every day. I’ve listed down those that I love and use frequently here.

Services

Zoho Mail - as my email host
Duck Duck Go - to Search.
~~Google Domains~~ Cloudflare - to buy and manage domains.
~~Airtable~~ Supabase - as a backend for my experiments and side projects.
~~Netlify and Firebase~~ GitHub Pages with GitHub Actions - to host static sites, with CI.
Hetzner and Oracle Cloud - for cloud VMs.

AI (At the time of writing. Man this changes fast)

Gemini - My goto LLM for everyday tasks.
Cursor ~~and Antigravity~~ - With usually one of the latest thinking models as my coding agent.
Hermes - as my personal assistant.
Perplexity - coz why not.

Apps

~~Superwhisper~~ Handy - to talk to my computer.
Obsidian - for notes.
Youtube Music - to listen to music.
~~Firefox~~ BrowserOS - as my main browser.
~~Pocket~~ Looking for a good alternative - to save and read later.
~~Authy~~ Zoho OneAuth - for 2FA as a Google Authenticator replacement.
~~Spark - as my email client.~~
Zoho Vault - to manage Passwords.

Gear

iPhone 15 Pro / Samsung A54 - as my daily driver.
~~OnePlus 6 - for testing my apps.~~
MacBook Pro M4 16" - as my primary computer.
AirPods Pro - to hear music.
~~Apple Watch Series 6 - as a fitness tracker.~~
Fitbit Air as my fitness tracker on the left wrist, and Casio AE-1200WH to read the time on the right wrist.

In the beginning

Sun, 21 Mar 2021 02:52:51 +0530

I’ve always wanted to set up a website, a blog, and write.

Not that I had something to say online, I just wanted to blabber and share bits and pieces from time to time.

I’ve tried out a few blogging platforms before but never stuck with them. They were too formal. I wanted a place where I can be informal. Just write and publish.

I liked HEY World, but it came only with their email service which was too expensive for me. Moreover, I was happy with my current email service/client so I did not want to get a @hey account just for this.