https://papslab.com/feed.xml 2026-05-16T00:00:00.000Z PapsLab https://papslab.com/blog/posts/backup-for-family-photos-ireland/ 2026-05-16T00:00:00.000Z 2026-05-16T00:00:00.000Z

Irish households with bursting camera rolls — external drives in EUR, NAS options, and a simple 3-2-1 plan without enterprise jargon.

When “storage full” is really “no plan” The notification arrives after a holiday in Kerry or a communion weekend in Limerick: iCloud is full, again. Upgrading from €0.99 to €2.99 or €9.99 a month is easy Apple makes it that way — but paying forever for the same clutter of screenshots and burst sequences is not the same as knowing you can get those photos back if the phone is stolen or the account is locked. Irish families we help usually have two phones, a shared iPad, and years of Google Photos… https://papslab.com/blog/posts/leaving-google-workspace-irish-sole-trader/ 2026-05-14T00:00:00.000Z 2026-05-14T00:00:00.000Z

Moving from Google Workspace to Irish hosting — .ie domains, IMAP, MX on Blacknight or Register365, and what Revenue actually cares about.

Why sole traders leave (without it being a manifesto) Most Irish sole traders we speak to are not leaving Google Workspace because they read a blog post about surveillance capitalism. They leave because the €6–12 per user per month adds up when it is just them, because they want @theirname.ie to sit on a registrar they already pay, or because they are tired of admin consoles that assume a twenty-person company. Sometimes Proton, Fastmail, or mailbox.org is the destination; sometimes it is email… https://papslab.com/blog/posts/eir-router-keeps-dropping-what-fixes-it/ 2026-05-12T00:00:00.000Z 2026-05-12T00:00:00.000Z

Practical fixes for Irish fibre and cable dropouts — channel scans, mesh, modem mode, and when to ring the ISP versus local help.

Dropouts are not all the same fault A connection that vanishes for thirty seconds feels like one problem. A line that dies for an hour is another. In Munster we see both: a Cork terrace where Virgin Media cable runs fine until the kids are on three streams, and a SIRO-to-the-home house in the county where the fibre is clean but the Eir-supplied box reboots when it gets warm in a hot press. Before you buy anything, note whether the lights on the ONT or modem change when Wi‑Fi dies. If the fibre l… https://papslab.com/blog/posts/pi-hole-basics-for-quieter-network/ 2026-03-25T00:00:00.000Z 2026-03-25T00:00:00.000Z

What Pi-hole does on DNS, what it will not fix, and a sane first install on a Raspberry Pi or Docker with Irish ISP quirks.

What Pi-hole is, in one breath Pi-hole is a DNS sinkhole with a small web interface. Devices on your network ask for the address of a hostname; if that hostname is on a blocklist you selected, Pi-hole returns an answer that stops the connection, often by pointing at 0.0.0.0 for IPv4 and an appropriate null route for IPv6 when configured. Browsers, phones, and a fair chunk of home IoT then never complete the ad or tracker request. The benefit is network-wide: you are not replicating the same ad-b… https://papslab.com/blog/posts/repair-vs-replace-old-laptop/ 2026-02-18T00:00:00.000Z 2026-02-18T00:00:00.000Z

SSD, RAM, battery, and paste upgrades versus a new machine, with ballpark costs in Ireland and plain expectations.

“Old” is a shape, not a number A five-year-old business laptop with a socketed or replaceable RAM layout, a 2.5" SATA bay, and a service manual is a different project from a wafer-thin machine where storage is soldered and the battery is behind glue. Before you open your wallet, answer three questions. First, does the screen and chassis still pass the "would I be embarrassed on a call" test? Second, is the CPU doing real work for you, or is disk thrash and thermal throttling masqu… https://papslab.com/blog/posts/leave-google-without-losing-email/ 2025-12-10T00:00:00.000Z 2025-12-10T00:00:00.000Z

A pragmatic IMAP move to Proton, Fastmail, or your own domain for Irish users, with honest timelines and MX gotchas.

The goal is continuity, not a trophy migration This guide is for someone who is done with a Gmail address as the centre of their personal or sole‑trader life, not for a board-level debate about the ethics of ad-supported mail. The outcome you want is simple: the same set of messages in a new home, contacts that still autocomplete, a calendar you can see on your phone, and a sensible period when nothing disappears into the void because DNS was cached for longer than you expected. The steps below… https://papslab.com/blog/posts/why-your-wifi-dies-at-8pm/ 2025-11-22T00:00:00.000Z 2025-11-22T00:00:00.000Z

Peak-hour slowdowns on 2.4 GHz, neighbour congestion, and what actually fixes it in a typical Irish home.

The evening collapse is often physics, not a fault code It is a familiar story: the connection feels fine in the morning, and after dinner everything buffers. The usual suspects are a tired router, a “bad” ISP, or the classic turn‑it‑off‑and‑on again. Some of that can help, but the pattern that tracks the clock more than the weather is usually contention in the radio spectrum, especially on 2.4 GHz where the channels overlap like crowded tables at a market. On cable or fibre to the home from Eir… https://papslab.com/blog/posts/backups-that-actually-save-you/ 2025-10-15T00:00:00.000Z 2025-10-15T00:00:00.000Z

The 3-2-1 rule, local and cloud options for Irish users, and why an untested backup is not a backup at all.

Why “we back up to the spare drive” is not enough Most people in Ireland and the UK do not find out that their backup failed because of a fire or flood. They find out on a random Tuesday, when a laptop update goes wrong, a ransomware note appears, or a toddler rearranges a folder of invoices. A backup is only a backup if you can restore a real file, from real storage, in a time you can measure. Everything else is optimism. The 3-2-1 rule in plain language Three copies of your important data, two…