Greetings. My name is John D. Ford. I am a self-motivated, dynamic, intelligent freelance engineer supporting a small family (and a mountain cur mutt) in Somerset, Kentucky. I became ill in June of 2003 and have survived on a trust from associates since that time. I am seeking to re-enter the workforce and while not well-suited to group engagement, have extensive experience with Linux self-hosting — including Docker, Apache2, Cloudflare, Python, JavaScript, DNS, SSL certificates, and various Discord bots and gaming servers.
Below you will find the personal projects I have deployed, entirely on my own, on a server in my home. They are deployed on a Linux 24.04.4 LTS Enterprise server in a headerless environment (command line). I remote into the system with an SSH terminal for daily updates and maintenance. I have done this out of a developed curiosity for technology, a sincere desire to solve difficult problems, and an earnest love of the craft.
Interface of https://cloud.vexation.me
https://cloud.vexation.me is my instance of NextCloud. This is a self-hosted Open-Source application which is intended as a drop-in replacement for Google Docs so that a user might “de-Google” their workflows if they so desire. It is containerized via Docker with a reverse proxy using Apache web server through port 443 for encrypted access. It also provides a convenient central location for small corporate or independent teams to centralize scheduling (via a calender), documents and financing (with spreadsheet and word processor applications), voice chat including Teams-style meetings, and a robust chat system.
Interface of https://search.vexation.me
https://search.vexation.me is my instance of SearXNG, the Open-Source search engine aggregator that permits an interface with most major search engines (including Google, Bing, and Brave Search) while stripping away the branding, data collection, and advertising interfaces. This is a self-hosted Open-Source application, once again containerized via Docker with a reverse proxy using Apache web server through port 443 for encrypted access. It provides a private resource for conducting web research and investigation to a user or small team who might so desire such functionality.
Interface of https://files.vexation.me
https://files.vexation.me is my instance of Filebrowser, a very small tool that provides a WebUI for hosting and sharing any type of digital file, from Office or NextCloud documents to media files such as video and audio and even compressed archives or binaries. It is hosted on a 4TB RAID configuration on the Linux server mentioned previously and features per-user individual spaces and configurations. While not containerized, it still uses Apache web server for a reverse proxy.
Interface of https://caco-bot.com
https://caco-bot.com is an instance of Open WebUI, an interface for all major Large Language Models such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, xAI’s Grok and Anthropic’s Claude. Again, a self-hosted Open-Source application, containerized via Docker with a reverse proxy using Apache web server through port 443 for encrypted access. As you can see, I am also fully comfortable acquiring my own domains and setting the concomitant DNS entrys with SSL certificate requests. With this system, users can “pay per question” for each query to the LLM and not concern themselves with rate limits, caps, or “down throttling” to cheaper models, outside their control. It would make an excellent resource for supplementing a small team’s workflow with the most advanced artificial intelligence available in the current market.
Interface of Cinny accessing https://matrix.vexation.me
Finally https://matrix.vexation.me hosts my Matrix End-to-End Encrypted chat service for communication with my private acquaintances. It is a Docker container running three services which maintain encrypted chats, authentication and discovery and End-to-End Encryption so only the sending and receiving devices can decipher the contents of the messages. This service can only be accessed with a Matrix Client such as Cinny, Element or Element X and would provide an excellent resource for small families or teams to communicate without fear of privacy intrusion or data collection.
Guest accounts for all these services can be provided on request so you can try them out, just email [email protected]. I am available for freelance infrastructure, self- or cloud- hosting, and AI integration projects. View my GitHub or contact me at my private email. I eagerly await your interest.