#ask php developers

[thunderlina]

In the wake of the TikTok ban and revival as a mouthpiece for fascist propaganda, as well as the downfall of Twitter and Facebook/Facebook-owned platforms to the same evils, I think now is a better time than ever to say LEARN HTML!!! FREE YOURSELVES FROM THE SHACKLES OF MAJOR SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS AND EMBRACE THE INDIE WEB!!!

You can host a website on Neocities for free as long as it's under 1GB (which is a LOT more than it sounds like let me tell you) but if that's not enough you can get 50GB of space (and a variety of other perks) for only $5 a month.

And if you can't/don't want to pay for the extra space, sites like File Garden and Catbox let you host files for free that you can easily link into NeoCities pages (I do this to host videos on mine!) (It also lets you share files NeoCities wouldn't let you upload for free anyways, this is how I upload the .zip files for my 3DS themes on my site.)

Don't know how to write HTML/CSS? No problem. W3schools is an invaluable resource with free lessons on HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and a whole slew of other programming languages, both for web development and otherwise.

Want a more traditional social media experience? SpaceHey is a platform that mimics the experience of 2000s MySpace

Struggling to find independent web pages that cater to your interests via major search engines? I've got you covered. Marginalia and Wiby are search engines that specifically prioritize non-commercial content. Marginalia also has filters that let you search for more specific categories of website, like wikis, blogs, academia, forums, and vintage sites.

Maybe you wanna log off the modern internet landscape altogether and step back into the pre-social media web altogether, well, Protoweb lets you do just that. It's a proxy service for older browsers (or really just any browser that supports HTTP, but that's mostly old browsers now anyways) that lets you visit restored snapshots of vintage websites.

Protoweb has a lot of Geocities content archived, but if you're interested in that you can find even more old Geocities sites over on the Geocities Gallery

And really this is just general tip-of-the-iceberg stuff. If you dig a little deeper you can find loads more interesting stuff out there. The internet doesn't have to be a miserable place full of nothing but doomposting and targeted ads. The first step to making it less miserable is for YOU, yes YOU, to quit spending all your time on it looking at the handful of miserable websites big tech wants you to spend all your time on.

[dandelionstep-moved]

on the freaking struggle bus with php today

[webfarmhouses-blog]

Web designer in Jodhpur

Creative Web Design

We are a web designing company that has a team of skilled and experienced web designers and developers who can create stunning and functional websites for any type of business or domain. We offer a variety of web designing services, such as custom web design, web development, web hosting, SEO, and maintenance. We also provide you with a free web design consultation, where we can discuss your goals, needs, and preferences, and provide you with a web design proposal that suits your requirements and expectations.

What we do in Web Design

Our web designing services are the services that provide web designing solutions for clients who want to create or improve their online presence. It involves the use of various elements such as colours, fonts, images, graphics, animations, and interactions to convey the message and purpose of the website to visitors. Web designing services can help clients with various aspects of web designing, such as Consultation: Our web designing services can help clients understand their goals, needs, and preferences, and provide them with expert advice and guidance on how to achieve them . Strategy: Our services can help clients develop a clear and effective web design strategy that aligns with their brand identity, target audience, and business objectives.Design: We help clients create a unique and attractive web design that reflects their vision and personality, and that engages and impresses their visitors.Launch: Our services can help clients launch their website to the public, and provide them with web hosting, domain registration, and security services.

Our Design Technology

At Web Farm House, we understand that web design is not just about making a website look good. It is also about making it work well, communicate effectively, and provide value to the users. That is why we use the latest web design technology to create websites that are:

Visually appealing: We use web graphic design to create stunning and consistent visual elements for your website, such as colours, fonts, images, icons, and animations.

Easy to use: We use user interface design to create intuitive and interactive elements for your website, such as buttons, menus, forms, and navigation.

Functional and reliable: We use web development to code and program your website, using languages such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and others. We follow the principles of web standards, web accessibility, web performance, and web security, to ensure the quality and reliability of your website.

Our Work Process

At Web Farm House, we follow a systematic and collaborative work process to create your website. Our work process consists of four main phases: Discovery, Design, Development, and Delivery:

Discovery: This is the phase where we get to know you and your project. We will ask you some questions about your goals, needs, preferences, budget, and timeline. We will also conduct some research on your industry, competitors, and target audience. Based on the information we gather, we will create a project proposal and a contract for you to review and approve.

Design: This is the phase where we create the visual and interactive elements of your website. We will start by creating a sitemap and a wireframe, which are the blueprints of your website’s structure and layout. We will then create a mockup, which is a prototype of your website’s appearance and functionality. We will present the mockup to you and ask for your feedback and approval. We will make any revisions as needed until you are satisfied with the design.

Development: This is the phase where we code and program your website. We will use the latest web development technology to create a website that is functional, reliable, and compatible with different devices and browsers. We will also test and debug your website to ensure its quality and performance. We will show you the progress of the development and ask for your feedback and approval.

Delivery: This is the final phase where we launch and maintain your website. We will upload your website to your chosen hosting service and domain name. We will also provide you with a user manual and a training session on how to use and update your website. We will also offer you ongoing support and maintenance services to keep your website running smoothly and securely.

We will also listen to your feedback and suggestions and make any changes as needed. We will work with you as a partner and a friend, not just as a client and a vendor. we value your input and satisfaction throughout the work process. We will communicate with you regularly and keep you updated on the status of your project.

Our Web Designing Services

Our is provides web design services for clients who want to create or improve their online presence. We help clients with various aspects of web designing, such as consultation, strategy, design, development, testing, launch, and maintenance:

Static web design

Liquid web design.

Adaptive web design.

Dynamic web design.

Responsive web design.

Single-page web design.

Why Choose Us?

We are a One-Stop Solution for delivering the best web design and development services. We render customized and affordable web design facilities to suit your requirements. Choose the best plans for building a responsive web design according to your needs:

Excellent technical support

Core PHP &Codeigniter + MySQL.

Secure and Reliable coding.

Satisfactory Customer Support.

SEO-friendly web development.

[exp-eriment]

(I've forgotten lots of stuff and get nervous explaining so there are gonna be better answer in the world wide web but- x))

HTML and CSS are structuring website elements like paragraphs, lists etc. and they give them more of a design. They are creating (almost only) static websites.

You need programming languages like JavaScript, PHP or other to make websites dynamic, include buttons, check if certain conditions are met (if else) and much more, so there's PHP for you.

MySQL (SQL = Structured Query Language) is a Database language where you need to write a query (Abfrage (von Daten nach bestimmten Kriterien)) and the Database (tables full of data) gives you the result back. You don't need to understand how it does it. You only ask of it to get your needed stuff.

And the connection between PHP and MySQL is to get data like account information (MySQL/Database) for your website (PHP, HTML, CSS etc.) to work with.

Would somebody else be kind enough to share a shorter explaination or to correct me? x)

03.july23,mon

i had my first work-day today at my internship and my brain started melting alreadyyy D: i knew they were using PHP for their websites so i started off with learning HTML and CSS so far. Why does PHP seem so complicated compared to those two?:,)

I also didn't understand the connection between PHP and MySQL yet? can someone explain?

i decided to use my free night to begin the codecademy tutorial about PHP and just do that until i fall asleep, hopefully it will open my eyes a bit more than the website they provided me with. wish me luck(pls)<3

[theveryevilblog]

Haskell > anything else

Haskell is the best programming language because it lets you write a fully functioning web server with three lines of code and zero understanding of how anything works You don't write programs, you declare intentions, and the compiler decides if you're worthy Every other language lets you make mistakes. Haskell waits patiently then destroys your ego at compile time Besides, who needs to 'build skill' in programming anyway?

Not even comparable to python, which is just... so annoyingly uncomplicated and pointless (to make good python syntax you need to make it as un-python as possible) and javascript? Who needs fast languages anyway? So unsatisfying And don't even get me started on C, C++ or C#, which are literally the same language by the way Rust? Bro, just send me the virus already. I don't care PHP? What does that even stand for? Poverty Holding Person? Like you? Java? You stopped being relevant about thirty years ago Swift? Buddy, I do not care about your apple vision pro R? You couldn't even spare another letter? What are you, C-- or something? Ruby? Just admit that Ruby on Rails died last decade... Go? Go where? Out the door? Because currently, that is what Go developers are being asked to do by employers Perl? I don't even know what that language is

[agam-shel-barvadim]

Fun Hebrew fact ג: "double-colon"

A little background in programming: plenty of programming languages make a use of the following operator:

::

Which is basically just the colon symbol twice in a row.

This operator has a name: The scope resolution operator (named after what it's meant to signify, I won't get into it)

But, this operator happened to have another, fairly-commonly-used name.

You see, there's a programming language called PHP which was mostly developed in Israel back in the day (by Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans from the Technion in Haifa. Side note: the language was created by the Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf).

And PHP was one of the first languages to use the scope resolution operator [source needed].

So these two Israelis, when they had to look for a name for that operator - they decided to call it פעמיים נקודותיים, Hebrew for "double-colon". and in English? paamayim nekudotayim. they didn't bother translating it.

And to this very day, there are PHP error message which include the term "paamayim nekudotayim", and to this very day there are people using that term, often without even knowing it's Hebrew.

So that is how Hebrew found its way into programming.

Sidenote: It's actually supposed to be pa'amayim nekudatayim (unless there's some type of Ashke pronounciation that i'm not aware of, which is fairly possible), and this is a common Israeli mistake (using the plural form instead of the singular before the ayim suffix, which means "two").

Bonus: people complaining about the term on Stack Overflow, a website where people ask for help with programming:

Another bonus: PHP's icon becauae I kinda like it:

[dubaiwebsitedesignss]

What Is The Difference Between Web Development & Web Design?

In today’s world, we experience the growing popularity of eCommerce businesses. Web designing and web development are two major sectors for making a difference in eCommerce businesses. But they work together for publishing a website successfully. But what’s the difference between a web designers in Dubai and a web developer?

Directly speaking, web designers design and developers code. But this is a simplified answer. Knowing these two things superficially will not clear your doubt but increase them. Let us delve deep into the concepts, roles and differentiation between web development and website design Abu Dhabi.

What Is Meant By Web Design?

A web design encompasses everything within the oeuvre of a website’s visual aesthetics and utility. This might include colour, theme, layout, scheme, the flow of information and anything related to the visual features that can impact the website user experience.

With the word web design, you can expect all the exterior decorations, including images and layout that one can view on their mobile or laptop screen. This doesn’t concern anything with the hidden mechanism beneath the attractive surface of a website. Some web design tools used by web designers in Dubai which differentiate themselves from web development are as follows:

● Graphic design

● UI designs

● Logo design

● Layout

● Topography

● UX design

● Wireframes and storyboards

● Colour palettes

And anything that can potentially escalate the website’s visual aesthetics. Creating an unparalleled yet straightforward website design Abu Dhabi can fetch you more conversion rates. It can also gift you brand loyalty which is the key to a successful eCommerce business.

What Is Meant By Web Development?

While web design concerns itself with all a website’s visual and exterior factors, web development focuses on the interior and the code. Web developers’ task is to govern all the codes that make a website work. The entire web development programme can be divided into two categories: front and back.

The front end deals with the code determining how the website will show the designs mocked by a designer. While the back end deals entirely with managing the data within the database. Along with it forwarding the data to the front end for display. Some web development tools used by a website design company in Dubai are:

● Javascript/HTML/CSS Preprocessors

● Template design for web

● GitHub and Git

● On-site search engine optimisation

● Frameworks as in Ember, ReactJS or Angular JS

● Programming languages on the server side, including PHP, Python, Java, C#

● Web development frameworks on the server side, including Ruby on Rails, Symfony, .NET

● Database management systems including MySQL, MongoDB, PostgreSQL

Web Designers vs. Web Developers- Differences

You must have become acquainted with the idea of how id web design is different from web development. Some significant points will highlight the job differentiation between web developers and designers.

Generally, Coding Is Not A Cup Of Tea For Web Designers:

Don’t ever ask any web designers in Dubai about their coding knowledge. They merely know anything about coding. All they are concerned about is escalating a website’s visual aspects, making them more eyes catchy.

For this, they might use a visual editor like photoshop to develop images or animation tools and an app prototyping tool such as InVision Studio for designing layouts for the website. And all of these don’t require any coding knowledge.

Web Developers Do Not Work On Visual Assets:

Web developers add functionality to a website with their coding skills. This includes the translation of the designer’s mockups and wireframes into code using Javascript, HTML or CSS. While visual assets are entirely created by designers, developer use codes to implement those colour schemes, fonts and layouts into the web page.

Hiring A Web Developer Is Expensive:

Web developers are more expensive to hire simply because of the demand and supply ratio. Web designers are readily available as their job is much simpler. Their job doesn’t require the learning of coding. Coding is undoubtedly a highly sought-after skill that everyone can’t entertain.

Final Thoughts:

So if you look forward to creating a website, you might become confused. This is because you don’t know whether to opt for a web designer or a developer. Well, to create a website, technically, both are required. So you need to search for a website design company that will offer both services and ensure healthy growth for your business.

[bugdotpng]

okee my performance eval is in my portal so i wanted to make a little thing i can reference when i'm Going Through It...i'm not putting my worth in my job, trust me, but some of these compliments are just...they're a lot more thoughtful than "she works hard" lol

here's some copy/pasted quotes in no particular order, starting with some project-specific stuff:

Her adaptability, technical initiative and rapid progress were critical to delivering a fully functioning, design system-based theme that will be used campus-wide. Her efforts were essential to the success of this project.

Not only did [NAME] help deliver the core WordPress theme with no prior experience in PHP, but she simultaneously designed and help develop a child theme specifically for the [REDACTED] site. She was able to manage this while the content for the [REDACTED] site was still in flux, requiring her to adapt quickly to evolving design, front-end and backend needs. Despite these shifting requirements and tight deadlines, [NAME] consistently delivered high-quality, pixel-perfect design comps, implemented front-end CSS and executed backend integration when needed with impressive speed and efficiency.

[NAME] has demonstrated exceptional performance and leadership in her role and is the primary contributor to the design system. Among a team of five contributors, she has resolved more than 65% of all GitHub tickets, including both bugs and feature requests. Her involvement spans the full product lifecycle--contributing to ideation, design, front-end development with pixel precision, and CMS integration.

and here's some general comments:

[NAME] has been a critical asset to the success of the team by leading the design and being a lead developer for the [REDACTED] UX Web Design System and related projects. She has maintained the design and front-end development of system components, maintained the Figma library and provided consistent support to campus teams through training, documentation and office hours. Despite no prior experience in PHP, she quickly learned and contributed significantly to building and launching the WordPress theme and a custom [REDACTED] child theme. Her strong work ethic, adaptability and attention to detail ensured high-quality, accessible and brand-compliant work under tight deadlines. [NAME]'s impact has been campus-wide and her contributions have been instrumental in advancing design system adoption and execution.

[NAME] demonstrates a strong sense of accountability by taking full ownership of her work and consistently delivering high-quality results. She follows through on commitments, meets deadlines even under tight timelines and holds herself to a high standard of accuracy and consistency--particularly in design, accessibility, usability and brand compliance. Her reliability has made her a go-to team member on high-impact projects, and her attention to detail ensures that nothing falls through the cracks.

[NAME] consistently demonstrates initiative by proactively identifying needs, taking ownership of complex tasks and delivering high-quality work with minimal supervision. She exceeded expectations by independently learning PHP to contribute to backend development and took the lead on critical design system components without being asked. Her ability to self-direct, anticipate challenges and follow through has made her a reliable and trusted contributor across every phase of a project.

and the overall comment/rating:

[NAME] has consistently exceeded expectations in her role, demonstrating exceptional initiative and accountability. As the lead developer to the [REDACTED] UX Web Design System, she has driven the design, development and support of system components with precision and care, resolving more than 65% of all GitHub tickets. Her proactive approach, technical adaptability and attention to accessibility and usability have made her indispensable to both the internal team and the broader campus community. She takes full ownership of her work, delivers high-quality results with minimal supervision and regularly supports others. Her impact is visible across every facet of the project lifecycle-from frontend and backend development to design system adoption and campus-wide implementation.

there were plenty of other positive comments but these were some that really stood out to me. sometimes it's nice to be reminded that i'm smort :^)

[goddesshime]

Hi goddess hime! Not a horny ask, as I am a man.

I saw the dice roller you built for the good girl playground. I'm new to web development and am looking for a place to host a side project for my family on the web. Can you tell me about how yours is hosted/direct me to any resources about hosting? It's going to be a fitness tracker app and I can build the front end, back end, and database for it, but hosting isn't something I've learned yet.

Also wanted to compliment the dice roller, v well designed. Anything you're willing to share about the project I'd love to hear!

Thanks in advance!

Hey! So to deploy I used a cheap https://spaceship.com/ shared hosting instance. It depends on what technology stack you use - if the fitness tracker is php-based like the dice roller, you could also use shared hosting to limit the costs (especially if it's not going to be a commercial app). A lot of developers host on Digital Ocean, but if you're learning, you'd probably make a better use of managed instance. Configuring it all on your own instead will be a pain - especially if you're beginner. For a managed hosting, a good start could be CloudWays. There's a good article on Reddit that goes in-depth about hosting, much more than I am able to - check it out: https://www.reddit.com/r/HostingHostel/comments/1adufsw/whats_the_best_web_hosting_for_2024_beginners/

[mk-web]

Finding a Good Web Developer in Stamford

In today’s digital age, having a strong online presence is crucial for businesses of all sizes. Whether you're a startup or an established enterprise, hiring a skilled web developer can significantly impact your success. If you're located in Stamford and looking to enhance your website or create a new one, here are some essential tips to help you find the right web developer for your needs

Define Your Project Requirements Before you start your search, it's important to have a clear understanding of what you need. Are you looking for a simple informational website, a complex e-commerce platform, or a custom web application? Defining your project requirements will help you communicate effectively with potential developers and ensure you find someone with the right expertise

Look for Local Talent Stamford has a vibrant tech community, making it easier to find local web developers. Consider attending local meetups, tech events, or networking gatherings to connect with professionals in the area. This not only helps you find potential candidates but also allows you to gauge their skills and expertise through personal interactions

Check Portfolios and Previous Work A web developer’s portfolio is a crucial indicator of their skills and style. Look for developers who have experience in your industry or who have worked on projects similar to yours. Reviewing their previous work can give you insights into their creativity, technical abilities, and overall quality of work

Read Reviews and Testimonials Don’t just take a developer's word for it—check online reviews and testimonials from previous clients. Platforms like Google, Clutch, or even social media can provide valuable feedback about a developer's reliability, communication skills, and project management capabilities. Look for developers who have consistently positive reviews and a solid reputation in the Stamford community

Evaluate Technical Skills Web development encompasses a range of skills, from front-end design to back-end programming. Depending on your project, you may need a developer who is proficient in specific technologies such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, or frameworks like React or Angular. Ensure that the developers you consider have the technical skills necessary to meet your project requirements

Communication is Key A successful web development project relies heavily on clear communication. During initial discussions, pay attention to how well the developer listens to your ideas and concerns. A good developer should be able to explain technical concepts in a way that you can understand and should be open to feedback throughout the development process

Discuss Budget and Timelines Before committing to a developer, discuss your budget and project timelines upfront. Be honest about what you can afford and ask for a detailed breakdown of costs. Additionally, establish clear deadlines to ensure that the project stays on track. A reputable developer will provide you with a realistic timeline and work within your budget

Consider Ongoing Support Web development doesn’t end once your site goes live. Look for developers who offer ongoing support and maintenance services. This can include regular updates, bug fixes, and security monitoring. Having a reliable developer available for future needs can save you time and stress down the line Conclusion Finding a good web designer in Stamford or a web designer in Rutland requires careful consideration and research. By defining your project needs, exploring local talent, reviewing portfolios, and ensuring effective communication, you can find a developer who aligns with your vision and goals. Investing time in this process will pay off, resulting in a high-quality website that effectively represents your brand and engages your audience.

[ldso-tron]

My interview with the Lead Programmer of TRON 2.0 and Designer of the Light Cycles experience, Kevin Lambert, for the 20th Anniversary of TRON 2.0.

You'll have to pardon me for constantly stumbling over my words, I was nervous during the entire interview.

Also did my best to clean up the audio. I don't have professional recording equipment, just a cheap headset with a microphone. Removed as much as I could of clicks, pops, hiss, breathing, clipping, and so on. But there was only so much I could do, and the final result definitely isn't perfect. You can still expect some distracting noise.

I can't thank Kevin enough for agreeing to do this. I'd like to try interviewing other Monolith Productions staff – who worked on TRON 2.0 – in the future, too.

I also want to thank @thedavetron (Senior Manager of Quality Assurance at Buena Vista Interactive, at the time TRON 2.0 was released) and Andrew Borman (Digital Games Curator at the Museum of Play).

Here's a link to the written version. It's not a word-for-word transcript, but rather summarizes the interview.

-TronFAQ

0:00:00 Intro

0:00:10 Greetings Programs

0:03:35 How Kevin started making games and his full resume

0:09:58 Work at Monolith Productions prior to TRON 2.0

0:13:41 Was Kevin a fan of TRON before working on TRON 2.0?

0:16:30 When did development of TRON 2.0 start?

0:17:38 TRON Killer App was the original name for TRON 2.0

0:18:59 Was the game delayed because of LAN/Online Light Cycle Multiplayer? ➜ TRON 2.0 Lead Designer Frank Rooke states no Online Light Cycle gameplay at 14:03: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRc9Omencs4 ➜ TRON 2.0 Lead Artist Matt Allen on additional Light Cycle gameplay at 16:19: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhgbmm3F2u4

0:22:56 Content cut from TRON 2.0 ➜ Former Monolith Productions CEO Jace Hall on Firewall level at 9:30: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C-f99FyOY0 ➜ Jace on ENCOM systems being geometrically primitive at 12:58: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C-f99FyOY0 ➜ Jace mentioning later systems were meant to be more sophisticated at 16:04: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C-f99FyOY0 ➜ My interview with TRON 2.0 Disc Arena Designer Dan Miller: http://tronfaq.blogspot.com/2010/05/interview-with-tron-20-team-member-dan.html

0:56:46 Why no free-roaming driveable Light Cycles, Tanks, Recognizers, or Solar Sailers?

0:59:07 Easter eggs in TRON 2.0

1:04:48 How Monolith's earlier games scale on more modern display resolutions

1:06:47 What were all the sources Monolith drew inspiration from when designing TRON 2.0?

1:08:16 Did you incorporate anything into the game that resembled yourself, or Monolith Productions as an organization?

1:09:50 What did you do to get the feel of Disc combat right in TRON 2.0?

1:10:52 How difficult was it to implement RPG elements, such as Subroutines?

1:12:13 How much of a technical challenge was the TRON glow effect lighting in TRON 2.0?

1:13:35 How long did TRON 2.0 take to develop, and how much testing did you personally do yourself? ➜ Post-mortem by Frank Rooke that adds insight to length of development: https://web.archive.org/web/20090509175547/http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2810/postmortem_monoliths_tron_20.php?print=1

1:14:57 Was there going to be an expansion for TRON 2.0? Would any cut content have been in it?

1:19:29 Did anyone at Monolith meet the cast and crew that worked on the original TRON film?

1:20:40 Did TRON himself appear in the game?

1:21:41 Why was there no TRON 2.0 Soundtrack CD? ➜ LDSO Unofficial TRON 2.0 Soundtrack download: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/release_tron_20_4769a/post108

1:23:25 How many copies of TRON 2.0 were sold? ➜ My Twitter thread, estimating number of TRON 2.0 copies sold: https://twitter.com/LDSO/status/1563016442949165056

1:25:54 How much did it cost to develop TRON 2.0?

1:27:34 Was there a sequel planned to TRON 2.0 at the time? In game or film form? ➜ Free .PDF version of The CRPG Book, with my review of TRON 2.0 on page 336: https://crpgbook.wordpress.com/

1:30:47 Thoughts about a remaster/remake with VR support?

1:33:01 What are Kevin's thoughts about entries in the TRON franchise that followed TRON 2.0?

1:34:48 If you could make another official TRON title, or even an unofficial TRON-like game, what would it be like?

1:36:20 What does Kevin think about fan-made content for games, and TRON 2.0 in particular?

1:43:33 Myself and fans thank Kevin

1:45:52 Killer App Mod news for 20th Anniversary ➜ https://mastodon.social/@LDSO/110959566656685334

1:46:12 What do Thorne's initials "J.D." stand for?

1:47:02 End Of Line

1:47:58 Outro

[dearayei]

Holiday Break Productivity

As a lady born in the year of the "Horse" 🐎, it is a natural characteristic of ours to always do something productive, even during breaks. This holiday break should have been a rest or game day for me, but instead I practiced my drawing skill and continued reading "Ikigai," which I hadn't opened in weeks.

I've been practicing different "emotions or feelings" in chibi, as I haven't drawn chibis in a while.

I used to sketch "anime" rather than chibis or illustration back in elementary because I was a big fan of ✨ 90s anime ✨ like Fushigi Yuugi, Ghost Fighter, Ranma 1/2, Flame of Recca, Hell Teacher Nūbē, Oh my Goddess!, Sakura CardCaptor, Boys Be, Gatekeepers, Slam Dunk, HunterxHunter, Sailor Moon, and many more.

Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of my sketches today because I used to draw on notebooks or pad papers - I remember back in primary school, my classmates would pay me PHP 5.00 - 20.00 💰💰💰 (yup! business-minded since I was a kid 🤣) to draw their favorite anime which technically honed my skill in creating anime art and marketing/sales, but as I grew older, I outgrown drawing animes and now I prefer to draw still life or illustrations/chibis since I love anything kawaii and sketching beautiful landscape or places.

Book Review: Ikigai (Chapter 1 to 3)

I promised myself to finish this book by May 🎯; please don't get me wrong, on why I'm still not done reading this book its because I didn't have a time for reading this past few weeks due to my workload (my job), but this holiday I made sure to allocate 3-4 hours just to read this book and discovered that...

Ikigai is one of my favorite book out of my 7 new self-development books and I am now currently on Chapter 4: How to turn work and free time into space of growth - very timely to what I need nowadays, isn't it? 😀

To give you an idea why I love this book so far, one of the reason is that it tackles on how we determine our life's purpose and reasons to live more, like the centenarians in Okinawa, Japan. It also emphasize the importance of maintaining physical health by staying active even after we reach the age of 60, since sedentary lifestyle can lead to hypertension, imbalanced diet, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and even some cancers. Sleep plays an important role in how we can slow the aging process and build our immune system because "melatonin" is a powerful antioxidant in our bodies that contains an ingredient that protects us from cancer, Alzheimer's disease, aging, and other diseases.

This book also discussed "Logotherapy," a therapy developed by Victor Frankl that focuses on people's search for meaning in life. Unlike other therapies, logotherapy takes a spiritual approach. Frankl's logotherapy incorporates three philosophical and psychological concepts: freedom of will, will to meaning, and meaning in life.

Freedom of will asserts that we have the ability to chose and take action in response to both internal and external circumstances.

Will to meaning states that we have the freedom to follow our goal and purposes in life, which means this is our major motive for existing and doing, allowing us to bear pain and suffering.

Meaning in life is a subjective experience, but the meanings exist within us and waiting to be realized by us in any moment or in any situation.

One of the therapies that this book also tackles is the "Morita Therapy," a therapy based on the Buddhist perspective and developed by Dr. Shoma Morita, wherein the therapy focuses more on accepting the fluctuations of thoughts and feelings, embracing negative emotions, and learning how to blend with nature - if you ask me, it is quite similar to what we've learned from Grandmaster Lao Tzu (Taoism) which is

"Go with the flow, Be like water 🌊"

Sounds very profound, isn't it? 🤔 The first time I heard that, I was perplexed: how and why be like water? Then our Grandmaster taught us the value of being fluid, soft, and flexible in any situation, just like water, which takes shape wherever you put it and can adjust to any environmental changes.

Change is inevitable and if you resist it, problems will arise in your life and that's why our ancient philosophers taught us the importance of adaptability, because change is constant and not fixed; our lives are the result of constant change in our environment, feelings, emotions, interpersonal relationships, religion, and so on, and those who adapt easily win life, whereas others rot in the past, are unable to move on with their lives, and are depressed.

Like "Morita Therapy," embrace the imperfections in your life, welcome them with open arms, and acknowledge that the sentiments or emotions you're experiencing are valid. Simply accept how things are and then figure out how to mend them or overcome your own demons.

I'm about halfway through the book, but I'm looking forward to get more insights and teachings from Ikigai.

I definitely suggest this book to everyone who has ever felt empty on the inside, unable to discover their purpose in life, or simply lost.

Sincerely, Ayei 🌻

[tap-tap-tap-im-in]

A friend of mine asked me recently to detail my Linux setup, and after thinking about it for a bit, I realized that this is essentially a personality quiz for the Linux users I thought I would detail it here as well.

I no longer have a desktop computer at all. I have two older generation "gaming" laptops and three Raspberry Pis. I'm going to go through in the order I got them:

Laptop #1:

[Purchased New in 2016] Acer ROG 7th Gen i7, 16GB Ram, nVidia 1050Ti Mobile, Internal 1TB HDD, external 2TB HDD

This was originally a windows laptop when I got it back in 2016, but in 2021 I was tired of the long windows boot times on the the HDD and was much more familiar with Linux due to several years experience doing webserver admin work.

I use Ubuntu LTS as my base. It's easy, it's well supported, it's well documented, and the official repos have just about everything I could need. The only thing I've really had to add myself is the repo for i3, but we'll get to that in a bit. I also chose Ubuntu because I already had my first two Raspberry pis, and both were running Raspbian, so using a debian based kernal meant that it wouldn't be much of a change when ssh'ing into them.

That said, I've never really liked the default Ubuntu desktop. Gnome3 is slow and full of too many effects that don't look especially nice but are still heavy to execute. Instead I loaded up KDE plasma. You can download Kubuntu and have them to the setup for you, but I did it the hard way because I found out about Plasma after installing Ubuntu and didn't want to start from scratch.

My plasma desktop looks like this:

Of my two laptops, this one is in the best shape. It's the one that I usually take with me on trips. With the dedicated GPU it can do some light gaming (it did heavier gaming on windows, but due to emulation layers the performance is just a little worse these days, Linux gaming isn't perfect), the screen hinge has never been an issue, and it's on the lighter side of gaming laptops (which is not to say that it's light). For that reason, I often find myself actually using it on my lap, in airports, at people's houses, on my own couch typing this up.

For this reason, I started looking into ways to better keep my hands on the keyboard, rather than having to drift down to the track pad, which is my least favorite part of this laptop. During that research I discovered i3. If you're not familiar i3 is a Linux Desktop Environment that is entirely keyboard driven. https://i3wm.org/

To be fair, it's less of a desktop environment and more of a keyboard driven window manager, as it doesn't have a "desktop" per se. Instead when you log into it, you simply get a black status bar at the bottom of the screen. It doesn't even black out the login screen, so if you don't know what to look for, you might think the whole thing has hung. But, the big benefit of this is that the whole thing is lighting fast for a DE. It doesn't waste any resources on effects or really anything that you don't need. But it's really nice for window tiling and task switching without having to get the mouse involved. This is great for productivity (if you're into that), but it's also just convenient for working on a gaming laptop, which might be balanced such that if you take your hands off of it, it might topple off your lap.

This laptop is my primary project computer. It has all my git repos and scripts for doing things like renewing my website's ssl certs. I also run game servers on it for Minecraft. I'm probably going to spin up a Valheim server on it in the near future too. Especially now that the process has improved somewhat.

Raspberry Pi #1:

[Gifted New in 2016] Raspberry Pi 3b, 4GB RAM, 32GB SD card

This one is my oldest RPi. It's had a lot of roles through the years, including an early version of the vogon media server during initial development in 2020. It's run headless Raspbian for a good three or four years now. Currently it's configured as a web server/php scripted web crawler and a pi-hole DNS server. My router currently refuses to use it as a DNS server without bringing the whole network down, but I will on occasion manually switch devices to it when I'm running especially ad-ridden applications.

There's not too much to say about this one. It's stable, I almost never have problems with it. I frequently use it for things that I want running in the background because they'll take too long and I don't want them blocking up one of my other computers.

Laptop #2

[Gifted Used in 2020] Asus Predator 7th Gen i7, 16GB Ram, nVidia 1080 Mobile, 2 internal 256GB SSDs, External 2TB HDD

This one runs windows 10 still. I use this primarily for gaming. The screen hinge is an absolute joke, and replacing it involves replacing the entire screen bezel assembly, which I can absolutely do, but is such a pain that I haven't gotten around to it in the 3 years I've owned this laptop.

There's nothing really special about this one, other than that when both laptops are at my desk, I use a KVM switch to swap my external monitor, keyboard, and trackball between the two computers.

Raspberry Pi #2:

[Gifted New in 2020/21] Raspberry Pi 4b, 4GB Ram, 16GB SD card, 2 120GB USB Sticks, External 2TB HDD

This is my media server. I got it for Christmas 2020 (or 2021, I don't actually remember which because 2020 was a hard hard year). It runs Rasbian, the full OS, with the desktop environment disabled from booting via the command line. It runs PHP 8.2, MariaDB, Apache2, and MiniDLNA to serve the content via my Vogon Media Server.

If you can't tell from the above storage, I'm running the USB ports well past the power delivery they are rated for. The webserver and OS are on the internal storage, so functionally this just means that sometimes the media disappears. I need to build a migration script to put the contents of the two USB sticks on the external storage, as there is more than enough room, and if I can put the HDD in an enclosure with dedicated power, that will solve the issue. But that's at least a hundred dollars of expense, and since the server only has 1, maybe two users at a time, we've been limping along like this for a few years now.

Raspberry Pi #3:

[Purchased New in 2023] Raspberry Pi 4b, 8GB Ram, 16GB SD card

This is the newest Pi. Work gave me a gift card as a bonus for a project recently, so after weighing the pros and cons of getting a VR headset, I settled on setting up a retro gaming tv box. Currently it's running Batocero Linux and loaded up with classic game roms up through the PSX. Though, I would really like to use it as a tv client for the media server. I've upgraded the devices in the living room recently, and there's no longer a dedicated web browser we can use without hooking up one of our laptops. I've got a spare 128GB SD card in the office, so I'm strongly considering getting a wireless mouse and keyboard and setting it up to dual boot between Batocero (which is convenient because it can be navigated with just a controller), and Raspbian. I think I'd set Batocero as the default in Grub, and then if I want to use Raspbian I'd need to have the keyboard handy anyway.

Maybe I'll get one of those half-sized keyboards with the trackpad built in.

Speaking of controllers. I use an 8BitDo Pro 2 controller, and I've been super happy with it since purchase: https://www.8bitdo.com/pro2/

So that's the setup. I have entirely too many computers for any one person, but I included the dates when I got them to show that a number of these have been around for a long time, and that part of the reason I have so many now is that I've put a lot of time into ongoing maintenance and repurposing.

If you've read this far, I'd love to hear about your setups. You don't have to reblog this, but please tag me if you detail yours.

[azurestarrysky]

"I want to be a developer"

Sometimes I wonder if this phrase from the job interview was the reason why exactly I was chosen among other people to be accepted to work in the company. Seriously, I performed really so-so, answered some questions and didn't answer the others, while being overall extremely nervous and anxious. Could I make a good impression back then?

In the very end of the job interview, they asked me: "what do you plan to do next?". And I said exactly what was in my mind and heart, that, no matter if I'm going to be accepted by their company or not, I will continue to study programming until I'll finally be able to become a good developer. And I was surprised myself how passionate that my phrase from the title sounded in result…

I was trying to control myself, but I guess I failed because of being worried? Who knows. I wanted to become a developer since being 15-16 y.o, I actually love creating my own programs and reading programming-related sites, but after graduation from uni I ended up not being able to find job for more than a year, experiencing constant humilitation from my father, HRs and myself. Of course I want to get a job exactly in this sphere, otherwise I'd give up long time ago!!!

And now it's been more than 4 weeks already, when I'm finally working officially as a trainee PHP backend developer in one of the best companies of the country, but the only thing I wish for is that I'll finally be able to stop being a failure, who constantly fail, fail at everything I touch. I wonder what the person, the head of backend department, who participated in my job interview, thinks about it now… The people here are super kind and nice, and the company is working on very cool projects, so I feel that it's a really rare, precious chance to work in such a dream company, but I wonder if I can do better than I'm doing already. In theory I should use any chance to show everything I can do, but thanks to failures I only start to think more that I actually can't do anything, and, if I'll try to be brave and confident, everybody will see that in reality I have nothing to show.

[skinsort]

I don't think I have a ton of followers, but for those who are here, below the cut is basically a very long think piece on jcink skinning that will probably offend a lot of people, but it's my honest take and I'm willing to hear other people's constructively expressed criticisms, and am very open to revising my opinion. I just was surprised by the SOPs I found in the jcink rpc when I started writing this skin and was doing research into whether I wanted to try selling it or not. For anyone wondering about the future the TLDR is as follows: I will probably make another skin and sell it as a multisale and see how that goes. This will probably happen a long time from now. I will probably never take custom commissions. I will probably charge more than people would like for my skins, but I think I have good reasons for that. More below the cut on the actual thoughts.

There were a few obstacles that became immediately obvious when beginning to work on a jcink skin for the first time.

First off, jcink is imo fundamentally bugged.

It has a slow initial load time even on the default skin, always over a second, usually over 2 in my testing. Industry standard is .5, and php (the backend language of jcink's templating system, and i assume the databases), though old, is perfectly capable of meeting that threshold. I personally find this an infuriating fact about jcink, especially since I can do nothing about it.

There are two distinct skins on any site by default, neither of which are responsive. Responsiveness basically refers to whether or not a website looks good regardless of screen size. It's a universal concern in any modern tech company. I understand that when jcink was first written, a lot of what's possible today wasn't available, however we are long since past the time (in my opinion) that it would have been simple for John to reskin the default view of jcink to be responsive and provide that as an alternative to the og defaults. If nothing else, this would provide a better standard for what a 'functional' skin might look like, and maybe even a baseline for people to build off of. Instead we have tables which are generally unusable in modern web design.

Jcink is also not terribly accessible by default. I found text labels missing in several places (for screen reader users), no keyboard accessibility on a few default functions (for people who can't use a mouse), and of course, nothing in the docs to remind people to keep what features there are in the default skin.

Then we have the added complications of the jcink rpc community, the skinners and coder in general within the space. I think I can break down my thoughts on this into three main categories: Price, Product, and People. I have a lot of thoughts about these topics, so bear with me.

Price

Look me in the eyes. Not one single skinner I could find was charging a market rate for front end web development. The most expensive person I could find wasn't even asking for 25% of the money a front end website developer would make for a skin professionally, and I found them because people were putting them on blast for charging as much as they did. The jcink rpc has been getting bargain basement prices on code for EVER, and seems to have NO concept of the time and complexity of writing actually good code.

I have mixed feelings on this.

I have not seen a professional grade skin in the wild, not once, not even my own. The css on my skin is sloppy. There are areas I got a serious case of the fuckits on and wrote some ugly code. There's at least one info page on my site that looks weird af on mobile and I have no intention of fixing it. I say this with love, compassion, and appreciation for everyone who codes for this community. Not one single jcink skin I have ever interacted with would constitute a professional level of work in my field. No one whose work I have interacted with (again, including my own!!) should be charging a fully professional rate.

This is a hobby. We do this for fun. We shouldn't be in an arms race for the prettiest skins, but we are. People like nice interfaces, it will affect their decision to consider or nope out of a site. So, we're in a situation that for a 'not boring' skin, custom skinning has become much more of a norm. In order to have a successful site, admins generally need to invest in a decent skin. With a custom skin, you can easily get to $250 in cost, and I've seen it go quite high from there. That's a lot of money for a site which may not survive. That's a big fuckin' deal. Some people are serial site starters so if one fails, that's fine, the skin can be reused, but I personally have not adminned a site since 2016 until a month ago. If I had sunk $250 into a skin, plus $80 for jcink premium for a site that never took off, suddenly my 'free' hobby becomes quite dear. I think it's only right that there be a certain degree of friendliness in the community when it comes to pricing because of this, even for truly professional coders (again, of which I've seen zero). Skinners are part of the ecosystem and deserve to be properly valued. Admins shouldn't have to pay out the ass just to have a better chance of their site taking off.

There's a great deal of risk involved in most skinning transactions I know of. First off, unlike the real world, we often don't know each other's irl identities. This makes a situation rife for scammers on both ends of the transaction- from skinners not getting paid for delivered work, and customers not getting the product they asked for, if they get it at all. This rightfully affects both parties' feelings on how to adjust pricing to account for risk. If you're a coder, prices should be higher, if you're an admin, prices should be lower. This has been more or less solved for multisales with payhip etc, but custom skins are still fraught, and in a world where plenty of players won't consider a site if they've seen the skin too much, that is still a significant chunk of the activity at play.

So do I think skinners should be paid fully professional rates? No. From what I have seen and learned, absolutely not. It didn't occur to me to track the time spent on my skin until quite late in the process, but if I had to guess I'd put it at about 40 hours worth of work. I'll talk more about this in the product section if that seems like a lot of time to you. I'll throw out a very loose figure and say that $50/hr is about right as a figure for what a professional developer would make doing this kind of work, after tax etc. If you're being responsible about the IRS, it would bump significantly higher. If you multiply that by the 40 hours I spent on my skin, we're getting into multiple thousands of dollars for a custom skin if people were charging professional rates. Now it's very possible that if I made skinning My Thing, that I'd build up a library of components I could pull on to make skins much more quickly. I know for a fact that many skinners do. But even if we say I halve my time on my second skin (optimistic but v possible), we're at $1000 if I was charging the prices I charge my employer to keep me on board. That is CLEARLY unsustainable for a hobby centric community where money never gets involved. So what should pricing look like? I really think that depends on the product.

Product

So. I think there's some room for honest reflection in jcink skinning communities about what is being sold. To contextualize this, I have to lay out the basics of what my general mindset is around what makes a website good for its users.

The obvious one, and the one that I think gets the most attention in jcink skinning is aesthetics. How a site looks, whether it's pretty, etc. I think this is important, I care about things looking good, but out of these five concerns, this one is frankly last on my list of what's important.

UX Design/Functionality. No, this is not the same as aesthetics. Is a site easy to understand, use and navigate. Does it make it seamless for a user to get where they want. Does it provide the contextual information they expect from the page they're visiting. These questions are fundamental for me, and I'd rather have a well designed user experience, than a well designed asethetic experience on a site.

Accessibility. Is a site readable. IS A SITE READABLE. IS A SITE READABLE. Is there enough contrast on a page that a colorblind user could read it? Can you navigate it with a keyboard? How about a screenreader? Is the text large enough for standard screen sizes. Does it stay large enough across devices?

Responsiveness. If someone on a phone visits my site, will they have a good experience in every view? Will they have the functionality they need? What about a tablet? What about someone with a small desktop screen, or a huge one? If I have hovers somewhere on my site, is it still navigable on mobile, or is it now an unintuitive situation? Phones take way longer to load than most computers, do all the assets (gifs, images, multiple fonts, etc) on my site make it frustrating for a mobile user to visit my pages?

Performance. When I said jcink is bugged earlier, performance was one my complaints. The base page load time of jcink is shitty. However, what's worse is when a skin takes a baseline of 2 seconds for pages to load, and bumps it up to 5, 8 or (the worst I've seen) 13 seconds to load after someone tries to visit a page. I have not seen a single jcink skin (aside from my own), which adds less than a second of loadtime to jcink's default performance. Again, in an industry where the basic standard is under half a second, jcink skins do not perform to a professional level.

If a website fails along these metrics, it cannot be considered professional for general public consumption. The problem is, everything except aesthetics requires a considerable baseline of knowledge and practice to do well. These are problems that many fortune 500 companies have not figured out (that's because their execs are dumb dinosaurs, but still). So when it comes to the question of 'how much should a skin cost', I think a skinner is obligated to consider their product. Is it aesthetically pleasing? Is it functional? Is it accessible? Is it responsive? Is it performant? For most skins, the answer to at least three of these questions is NO, and I think that pricing should reflect that. In my opinion, I think most skinners do well with asethetics, some skinners do well with functionality, and I have yet to see any truly accessible, responsive, or performant skins in the wild. When it came to writing mine, I think I needed about 5 hours to get familiar with how jcink worked, and then if I only wanted my site to look good on a desktop monitor, I probably could have spent 10-15 hours to write my skin as a noob having to look up every php variable John uses in jcink's terrible docs. That is not what I did. My skin is fully responsive, it is fully accessible, it is to my personal taste aesthetically, and is very performant (on average .25-.35 added seconds to my load time) despite having piles of functional scripts (all of which i wrote myself) on several pages. I also wrote several things that make my life and my member's lives easier. I have a member directory and face claim that require no work on my end past sorting an accepted character into the right member group. I have an autotracker built into member profiles so people can keep track of their threads. I have a button which allows members with lower end computers to turn off most graphics on the site so their computers don't sound like airplanes taking off. I have a light mode/dark mode switch that guests and members can both use. Personally, I would not feel like a freak for charging $1000 for a custom skin of this caliber. It's half what I would earn normally (using the $50/hr figure from earlier), and it lives up to all my standards for what professional code ought to do for its users vs. one or two. The css is not my best work, but I can say without undue arrogance that it's far and away easier to touch without breaking things than any other skin I've looked at, and the actual interface that people see and interact with is great. Again, the aesthetics are simple and to my taste, but it makes sense and has lots of quality of life bits and bobs in it. I'm proud of it. I understand if that entire paragraph read wildly, but I don't say any of it lightly or with the intention to belittle anyone. I'm trying to contextualize how I think about how price relates to what is actually being delivered. But even though I genuinely feel $1000 would be an excellent deal for the work I have done on my skin, I could not possibly stomach charging that much money to a single person for this skin, which (in addition to me using it on my own site) is why it is not going on sale.

To be honest, I have NO idea how much time a typical skinner spends on a custom skin. My approach is different from most people who do this for the community, and I also do adjacent work professionally and have for many years. I suspect that if asked to achieve all 5 of the above criteria, I would be able to do that significantly faster than most skinners. That said, I have no library of components I can turn to, and I hate a lot of the standard choices in building skins and would rather write my own. Isotope, cfs, etc can burn, they're bad code. There's tradeoffs to how I'd do things and how others would, which have significant impacts on time spent, but also on the outcome. Generally however, when it comes to jcink pricing, and how much people should charge or spend on a skin, I think the above 5 things should be the primary metrics. I made my own because I couldn't find a single skin that was truly accessible or responsive, and because I know how the sausage is made I simply couldn't stomach it. I can't really tell you how much you SHOULD pay for a skin that only does Aesthetics and Function, or only Function and Accessibility or any other combination. It's really not my place. I have thoughts on what I would charge, trying to be fair to myself and others if I were to make a multisale. But that's for a different post.

People

And then there's people. I touched on this earlier with some talk about scamming. I have heard horror stories on both ends of this interaction, and I think, simply speaking, it has created a lot of distrust around something which is a core decision for a lot of boards- which skinner to work with, what standards to set, how much things should cost, how to arrange payment. Payment structure has to take care of both you and the commissioner, but it also has to take into account that lots of people are gonna drive you up a wall, go ten rounds on their requirements, and then expect finished work two weeks after they finally got back to you about a core feature. With all due respect, clients who know NOTHING about tech and still have a lot of opinions on exactly how things should be done are my personal nightmare. I have not figured out any good way to account for this. I think custom commissions can be great for both the coder and the customer, but it's a total crapshoot as far as I can tell with no solve that I know of. I think there is also greater than average honesty and flexibility required from both parties in a non-professional setting(like jcink coding is) where money is still being exchanged. I think skinners have to be honest about their capabilities, their timeline, and how they want to work with customers. I think customers have to be honest about their expectations, their priorities and their consistency (are they going to change their mind frequently). I think both people need to be willing to find compromise. Since NO ONE is producing professional products and NO ONE is paying professional prices, there needs to be an understanding that sometimes things need to adjust. But, with custom skinning, it's often a lot of money for people. 250+ is a significant chunk of change. It feels wild to pay that much and not get exactly what you want. However, exactly what you want may be outside the skillset of a hobbyist, or it may simply be difficult or tedious or finicky, even for a professional. You want me to do custom svg clipping all over a skin? I'd rather die than do that during my free time. Furthermore, no skinner is being paid to do EVERYTHING that a professional site might demand. Being unhappy that you didn't get every concern addressed is not reasonable with the rates getting paid right now. There's ground to give on both sides. Flexibility is key, and it gets hard when there's money on the line.

Okay but so what?

Bish i don't know!!! Skinning is difficult niche stuff, especially if you're actually meeting any kind of professional standard. It's really easy to do badly. Paying for products where there is literally no professional available is always complicated. Idk what to tell you man. I'm just saying that I don't think anyone is getting paid a rate they deserve relative to the time they put in (probably), and simultaneously people don't get a product that lives up to the rest of the web right now because there's no real industry level professionalism available. And what's worst is that it's nobody's fault!! It's a tough spot to be in as a community! As for me, I'll probably do multisales in the future, and I'll probably charge significantly more than others because I'll be delivering significantly more. I am simply incapable of coding something that isn't responsive and accessible and performant if I'm going to charge money for it. It simply shan't happen, which means my time and skill will be reflected in the work and ergo the price. As for commissions, other people's taste irritates me too much to willingly get into typical freelancing in any capacity (affectionately, i will never be doing certain aesthetics unless people are willing to pay me my full rate, which no one should lol). I will almost certainly never do fully custom commission work. It is simultaneously not worth my time to do it for the rates offered by the jcink rpc, and it's not worth a commissioners money to pay for my skills when people are well used to skins that don't rise to professional standards anyway. Since I've finished my skin I've started posting some of the scripts I whipped up on caution. You can scroll back in this blog and find some of them. I'll probably continue to do that with anything I think another skinner could use. I will probably also start posting tutorials for discrete components so people have some examples of what responsive coding looks like. It's a tough nut to crack if you've never seen it up close before! If I'm really going to be a good member of the community I should probably start posting those here too more regularly. I basically just really want to help people out with their coding and contribute to the overall health of jcink skinning without undervaluing myself or gatekeeping good code. I will probably post my thoughts on how I'll be structuring the pricing for upcoming work in the next week or so. Expect updates after the holidays on upcoming skin ideas. Most of them have to do with implementing fun design stuff I never get to do at work- parallax effects, color manipulations, funky shapes, abusing css filter rules. I'd love to hear what kinds of things people would be excited to see first!

[dawnfelagund]

Independent Archive Survey

What skills do you already have in web design, web development, or site-building?

Competence Exists (>50% of respondents have this skill)

HTML

CSS

Wordpress

Competence Developing (25-49% of respondents have this skill)

Python

Other coding language

MySQL

Graphics design

Area of Need (<25% of respondents have this skill)

Drupal

Other content management system

PHP

Analysis

I debated about how best to visualize these data, which are perhaps the most complex in the survey. Being an educator and therefore used to thinking in terms of proficiency, I decided to represent the data in that way: which technical skills are most needed among potential archivists.

And, to be clear, everything on this survey is not required to run an archive. I am emphatically not a coder but have run a successful archive for many years now using first eFiction and now Drupal. I had two purposes in asking this question. First: if I make tutorial materials, where is my effort best spent? You don't have to know HTML and CSS to use Drupal, but it sure makes things (especially theming!) easier if you have at least some understanding of them. Second: where are efforts to expand options for building independent archives best directed?

On the second question, Wordpress surfaces and not for the first time. There have been various efforts and making a fanfic archive plugin for Wordpress over the years. My SWG co-admin Russandol and I even tinkered with Wordpress last year, trying to build an archive using existing plugins. From what we can find of supported plugins, it doesn't seem possible at this time.

But the data here suggest that it would be ideal if it were possible. Many fans have at least some experience with Wordpress, and some have quite a bit. The ability to provide an archive option that builds on existing competence is ideal.

I do think it's likely that respondents were underestimating their skills. I do not think that only one respondent had an expert knowledge of HTML. Unfortunately, it is difficult to define what is meant by beginner, intermediate, and expert without getting bogged down, and we fandom people are very good at imposter syndrome. ("I can't possibly be an expert in this useful thing!") I'd define "expert" as "able to do what is needed using this tool or knowing how to find information to do what is needed," and I'm guessing more than a few of the "intermediates" can in fact do this for HTML, which makes me think that all of the graphs may see an upward shift in terms of expertise levels.

What is the independent archive survey?

The independent archive survey ran from 23 June through 7 July 2023. Eighty-two respondents took the survey during that time. The survey asked about interest in independent archives and included a section for participants interested in building or volunteering for an independent archive. The survey was open to all creators and readers/viewers of fanworks.

What is an independent archive?

The survey defined an independent archive as "a website where creators can share their fanworks. What makes it 'independent' is that it is run by fans but unaffiliated with any for-profit or nonprofit corporations or organizations. Historically, independent archives have grown out of fan communities that create fanworks."

Follow the tag #independent archives for more survey results and ongoing work to restore independent archives to fandoms that want them.

Independent Archives Survey Masterpost