Weekly Report 1 NAS is Fun｜Restoring Accounting Habits｜How to Receive Foreign Currency

I bought the NAS that I wanted for a long time, and now I only regret buying it late. Since I wasn't familiar with NAS, I asked some people for model recommendations. As a result, everyone recommended different models, which made me struggle for a long time. In the end, I chose the more basic Ugreen DXP4800, thinking I would try it out first, and I found it quite good.

Using NAS#

Media Center#

This is the part I've tinkered with the most. Initially, I tried to use BT/PT to download, but after a lot of effort, I felt it was quite troublesome. Finding resources was difficult, and downloading was also a hassle. Later, I decided to use cloud storage instead; Ugreen supports direct downloads from Baidu Cloud, while Aliyun Cloud requires me to download files on my computer first and then upload them to NAS. Since the Aliyun Cloud membership only allows 10GB of high-speed traffic per month in third-party applications, I didn't want to spend more money on a membership for that. On the NAS, I can create a one-way sync task that automatically syncs to the NAS after downloading. Note to ignore the .part files during the download.

Using Ugreen's media center felt quite good at first. Video information can be recognized well.

One downside of tinkering with NAS is that it demands more bandwidth from the network. My home network was originally 100M, but after setting up the NAS, I upgraded to 1000M... with a down payment of 799 and a monthly fee of 40 yuan, which feels okay. Now both Baidu Cloud and Aliyun Cloud can fully utilize the bandwidth, and uploading from the computer to NAS is basically at a similar speed.

Docker and Virtual Machines#

Another use case for me is running Docker. First, I can move all the containers I usually need for development to the NAS, so I don't have to run OrbStack on my laptop anymore. Secondly, I can run various application services, but I haven't tinkered with this part too much yet. An interesting application is bili-sync, which can conveniently sync videos from Bilibili to NAS. However, before happily running Docker, you need to pull a shell clash image on your computer, manually upload it to NAS, and then configure the proxy for Docker; otherwise, you might not be able to pull the image.

Regarding virtual machines, I tried using it to run OpenWRT as a bypass router, but I eventually found that controlling the proxy on various devices was more flexible, convenient, and easier to maintain, so I stopped pursuing that. If you're interested, here are two videos you can refer to:

It's important to note that this may have some impact on your network environment, such as being unable to access domestic networks, requiring you to find some solutions.

Resuming the Habit of Keeping Accounts#

Starting from 2025, I resumed the habit of keeping accounts, and the first entry I recorded was the money spent on accounting software. I use icost, and it feels quite good. Keeping accounts satisfies my obsessive-compulsive thinking while also bringing me an extra burden. I want to record every transaction clearly, even the small interest from my Yu'ebao account.

Recording every financial transaction is quite similar to marking every place I go; both satisfy my compulsive thinking.

How to Reduce Losses When Receiving Foreign Currency#

Speaking of which, I only recently realized the difference between local bank transfers and international transfers. The former can be credited quickly and without fees, while the latter takes at least a day and incurs a fee, usually several dozen dollars. Therefore, when you have a local bank that corresponds to the currency, it's best to use local bank transfers. Even if you need to convert to other foreign currencies, you should first transfer to the local bank and then use Wise to convert to other currencies. In this case, Wise usually doesn't charge for deposits and offers better exchange rates.

As a side note, after everyone received the news about the refund last time, I found that I could still use OCBC and didn't receive any email. However, I no longer dare to put a lot of money in it.

Conclusion#

At the end of this weekly report, I’ll share my current desktop setup. After upgrading the broadband, the Unicom plan provided a router, so I took the original Redmi AX5 to my room. This way, when I tinker with the network, it won't affect the people at home.