#file migration tool

[tzunami1]

In the existing digital scenario, businesses require secure, efficient, and scalable storage solutions. Although Dropbox is a safe cloud storage service, the platform is still not as structured in terms of collaboration, data governance, and team productivity as SharePoint. Hence, an organization must migrate from Dropbox to SharePoint to attain the purpose of improved security and seamless integration in the Microsoft ecosystem.

[mtech4you]

How to Export and Import WordPress Posts and Pages: A Beginner's Guide

Managing a WordPress website comes with its challenges, but exporting and importing posts and pages shouldn’t be one of them. Whether you’re migrating to a new host, creating backups, or sharing content between websites, WordPress makes this process surprisingly simple. In this beginner-friendly guide, we’ll walk you through how to export and import your WordPress posts and pages, step by…

[jhonharlley]

How to Fix the Complications of Conversion MBOX to PDF?

Converting MBOX files to PDF format can sometimes be challenging due to various complications such as data integrity issues, email formatting problems, or large file sizes. Luckily, WebbyAcad offers MBOX Converter Software, which provides a streamlined solution to address these issues. Here’s how you can fix common complications during the MBOX to PDF conversion process using WebbyAcad's tool.

1. Maintaining Email Integrity

Problem: During conversion, some emails may lose important metadata like sender details, timestamps, or attachments.

Solution: WebbyAcad’s MBOX Converter ensures that all email attributes, including the metadata, are preserved. Before conversion, use the Preview feature to verify that all elements of your email are intact. The software keeps your email formatting and attachments as they were, ensuring no data loss.

2. Handling Large MBOX Files

Problem: Converting large MBOX files can lead to system crashes or incomplete conversion.

Solution: WebbyAcad’s software is optimized for handling large MBOX files without errors. To ensure smooth processing:

Split large MBOX files into smaller chunks using the built-in File Splitting option.

Use the Batch Conversion feature to process multiple files at once efficiently, reducing the risk of any complications during conversion.

3. Fixing Formatting Issues in PDFs

Problem: Sometimes, emails lose their original formatting, such as fonts, images, or layout, after conversion.

Solution: WebbyAcad’s MBOX Converter supports high-fidelity PDF output, ensuring that the formatting, inline images, and text structure from the original MBOX emails are maintained in the final PDF file. Check the preview before final conversion to confirm that the output matches your expectations.

4. Dealing with Corrupted MBOX Files

Problem: Corrupted MBOX files can create errors or prevent the conversion altogether.

Solution: WebbyAcad's software comes with a corruption repair feature. It automatically scans the MBOX file for corruption and repairs it before starting the conversion process. This ensures that even damaged files can be successfully converted to PDF.

5. Ensuring Attachment Preservation

Problem: Attachments in emails may not be converted or could become inaccessible after conversion.

Solution: WebbyAcad’s converter ensures that attachments are either embedded in the resulting PDF file or saved separately, depending on your preference. The software offers an option to preview and choose how attachments should be handled during the conversion.

6. Simplifying the Process with User-Friendly Interface

Problem: Some users may find the conversion process difficult due to complex software interfaces.

Solution: WebbyAcad's MBOX Converter is designed with a simple and intuitive user interface, making it easy for users of all technical levels to operate the software. Step-by-step instructions and tooltips are provided within the software to guide users through the entire conversion process.

Step-by-Step Guide to Convert MBOX to PDF using WebbyAcad MBOX Converter

Download and Install WebbyAcad MBOX Converter Software.

Launch the software and select the MBOX files you wish to convert.

Use the Preview Option to review your emails and ensure everything is in order.

Choose the PDF format as the desired output file type.

Customize the output settings for attachments, file splitting, and metadata preservation.

Click Convert and wait for the software to complete the process.

Access the converted PDF files and review them for accuracy.

Conclusion

Using WebbyAcad’s MBOX Converter Software makes converting MBOX files to PDF a straightforward and hassle-free task. The tool effectively resolves common issues like large file handling, formatting problems, corrupted files, and attachment preservation. By following the steps above, you can ensure smooth and reliable conversion with minimal complications.

[engineering]

StreamBuilder: our open-source framework for powering your dashboard.

Today, we’re abnormally jazzed to announce that we’re open-sourcing the custom framework we built to power your dashboard on Tumblr. We call it StreamBuilder, and we’ve been using it for many years.

First things first. What is open-sourcing? Open sourcing is a decentralized software development model that encourages open collaboration. In more accessible language, it is any program whose source code is made available for use or modification as users or other developers see fit.

What, then, is StreamBuilder? Well, every time you hit your Following feed, or For You, or search results, a blog’s posts, a list of tagged posts, or even check out blog recommendations, you’re using this framework under the hood. If you want to dive into the code, check it out here on GitHub!

StreamBuilder has a lot going on. The primary architecture centers around “streams” of content: whether posts from a blog, a list of blogs you’re following, posts using a specific tag, or posts relating to a search. These are separate kinds of streams, which can be mixed together, filtered based on certain criteria, ranked for relevancy or engagement likelihood, and more.

On your Tumblr dashboard today you can see how there are posts from blogs you follow, mixed with posts from tags you follow, mixed with blog recommendations. Each of those is a separate stream, with its own logic, but sharing this same framework. We inject those recommendations at certain intervals, filter posts based on who you’re blocking, and rank the posts for relevancy if you have “Best stuff first” enabled. Those are all examples of the functionality StreamBuilder affords for us.

So, what’s included in the box?

The full framework library of code that we use today, on Tumblr, to power almost every feed of content you see on the platform.

A YAML syntax for composing streams of content, and how to filter, inject, and rank them.

Abstractions for programmatically composing, filtering, ranking, injecting, and debugging streams.

Abstractions for composing streams together—such as with carousels, for streams-within-streams.

An abstraction for cursor-based pagination for complex stream templates.

Unit tests covering the public interface for the library and most of the underlying code.

What’s still to come

Documentation. We have a lot to migrate from our own internal tools and put in here!

More example stream templates and example implementations of different common streams.

If you have questions, please check out the code and file an issue there.

[copperbadge]

Migrating Off Evernote

Evernote, a web-based notes app, recently introduced super-restrictive controls on free accounts, after laying off a number of staff and introducing AI features, all of which is causing a lot of people to migrate off the platform. I haven't extensively researched alternative sites, so I can't offer a full resource there (readers, feel free to drop your alternative sites in notes or reblogs), but because I have access to OneNote both in my professional and personal life, I decided to migrate my Evernote there.

I use them for very different things -- Evernote I use exclusively as a personal fanfic archive, because it stores fics I want to save privately both as full-text files and as links. OneNote I have traditionally used for professional purposes, mainly for taking meeting notes and storing information I need (excel formulas, how-tos for things I don't do often in our database, etc). But while Evernote had some nicer features it was essentially a OneNote clone, and OneNote has a webclipper, so I've created an account with OneNote specifically to store my old Evernote archive and any incoming fanfic I want to archive in future.

Microsoft discontinued the tool that it offered for migrating Evernote to OneNote directly, but research turned up a reliable and so-far trustworthy independent tool that I wanted to share. You export all your Evernote notebooks as ENEX files, then download the tool and unzip it, open the exe file, and import the ENEX one by one on a computer where you already have the desktop version of OneNote installed. I had no problem with the process, although some folks with older systems might.

I suspect I might need to do some cleanup post-import but some of that is down to how Evernote fucked around with tags a while ago, and so far looking through my notes it appears to have imported formatting, links, art, and other various aspects of each clipped note without a problem. I also suspect that Evernote will not eternally allow free users to export their notebooks so if nothing else I'd back up your notebooks to ENEX or HTML files sooner rather than later.

I know the number of people who were using Free Evernote and have access to OneNote is probably pretty small, but if I found it useful I thought others might too.

[thewinterdrafts]

Part 04 - Recognition | Frostbite Series | The Winter Soldier

Pairing: The Winter Soldier x Original Female Character (1st Person)

Word count: 2,630

Summary: As Elena tends to the Soldier’s wounds, an unexpected moment unsettles the fragile balance of their routine. A single word changes everything, pulling her into a memory long buried. Struggling to contain her emotions, she is left grappling with a question that has no clear answer. And for the first time, when she looks at the Soldier—he is looking back.

Disclaimer: This series is extremely dark, touching on graphic violence, psychological torment, and human suffering in all its forms. If you choose to read, proceed with caution.

Warnings: none for this one!

A/N: hey-hey, we're baaack! i figured while we wait for the Oscars, we might as well read. i hope you guys like it :) happy reading!!

❄️ Frostbite Chapters: Part 01 - Severance Part 02 - Incision Part 03 - Containment Part 04 - Recognition - you are currently here Part 05 - Trigger Part 06 - Submission Part 07 - Disobedience Note: The Frostbite series has officially migrated to bigger platforms! Check out the rest on AO3 and Wattpad ♡

📍Masterlist

Silence is a weapon. And right now, I’m sharpening it.

The Hydra operatives stand at the edges of the room with their arms crossed, and their eyes locked on us like we’re lab rats under a microscope. They want to see something—a mistake, a sign, some kind of misbehavior they can report back.

I know they noticed the Soldier's reaction to me not long ago. I felt the shift right away—but if they want a show, they’ll be disappointed. I had a plan as soon as they walked in.

I went quiet. Dead quiet. No casual remarks, no small talk, no unnecessary movement. I kept my focus entirely on the Soldier as if there was nothing else in the world but the sutures beneath my fingertips.

The heavy silence filled the space enitrely.

At first, they watched with interest, expecting something—waiting for me to fidget, for him to flinch, for some tiny thing to break the monotony. But I gave them nothing, and neither did he. I worked at an agonizingly slow, methodical pace, making sure that even the sound of my tools was dull. No sharp clatter, no unnecessary noise, just the rhythmic pull of stitches through skin.

The Soldier remained utterly still, his breathing controlled and unreadable. I didn’t know if he understood what I was doing, but if he did, he played along perfectly.

Yulia, smart as she is, caught on immediately. She stayed motionless unless absolutely necessary, handing me instruments as if it were the most mundane task in the world. The seconds crawled into minutes, minutes into an hour. Still, we gave them nothing.

Boredom is a powerful weapon. At the mark of the third hour, one of the operatives shifts where he stands, exhaling sharply through his nose. Another taps his fingers against his thigh, then clenches his fist.

Good. They are getting tired of this.

I carefully place my sutures, tying it off with deliberate precision, taking my time as though I have all the time in the world. I wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of a reaction—of anything they could report back on.

Another ten minutes. Another fifteen. Then finally, one of them sighed. "Мы теряем время. [We’re wasting time.]"

The other operative answered right away. "Сообщи. Она просто делает свою работу. [Call it in. She’s just doing her job.]"

I didn't need to know Russian to understand what any of that meant, because Yulia looked at me with a small, devilish smile on her face. We've done it. We've successfully bored them to death.

One by one, they filed out, their boots thumping heavly against the sterile floor. The door hissed shut behind them, and then… more silence.

I wait, listening to their footsteps fade down the hall before I allow myself to exhale. Yulia’s shoulders drop, her hands unclenching at her sides.

"That was… painful."

"But it worked." I murmured, my voice low. "They left."

She huffs out a dry laugh. "Yeah, well. I think they’ll think twice before sitting in on one of these again."

Slowly, I turn my head to glance at the Soldier. 

He is looking at me for the first time in three hours.

Not just observe in passing—he's looking at me deliberately, as if he is acknowledging something neither of us have spoken aloud. The weight of it settles into my chest, stealing a fraction of my breath before I can suppress it. I'm not sure if I am more startled by the fact that he is looking, or by the fact that, for the first time, he made a choice to do so.

I flex my fingers and roll the tension out of my shoulders. I don’t know if he understood what I did. But if he did… he let it happen. Which means he is much smarter than I initially thought.

"You ever get tired of playing assistant?" I ask. I had enough of the silence for the rest of the day.

She startles at the sudden question, nearly knocking over a tray of instruments. "W-What?"

I gesture for the next set of sutures, keeping my tone light. "I mean, this isn’t exactly glamorous work. Cleaning wounds, handing me tools, holding your breath every time I ask for something sharp." I shoot her a glance. "Is this what you wanted to do with your life?"

She exhales through her nose, shifting from foot to foot. "I never got the chance to decide."

She doesn’t sound bitter, just tired, like someone who has long accepted their circumstances. I feel bad for asking her such things, but still, I don’t want to let the conversation die. I need to focus on something other than the way the Soldier’s presence feels different now.

"What did you want to be?" I ask instead.

Yulia hesitates. Then, as if she’s afraid to say it aloud, she murmurs, "A nurse, ironically."

I pause for half a second before refocusing on my stitching.

"You still can be," I tell her. My voice is quiet, but firm. "This place doesn’t get to decide that for you."

She snorts, but there’s no real amusement in it. "That’s optimistic."

"It’s true."

She meets my gaze. "And what about you?"

I blink. "What about me?"

"What did you want to be?"

I exhale through my nose, focusing on my hands. "A doctor."

She frowns slightly. "Not a professor?"

I let out a soft chuckle. "That came later."

"Why?" She tilts her head curiously.

I adjust my grip on the forceps. "Because I didn’t just want to treat injuries. I wanted to teach people how to treat them." I shrug, keeping my voice even. "Surgery is as much an art as it is a science. If you don’t train the next generation properly, then what’s the point?"

Yulia watches me, quiet for a moment. "I think you are a really good teacher."

I offer a faint smirk. "High praise, considering I mostly bark orders at you."

She actually laughs at that. "You do bark orders at me."

"But you listen."

"Yeah, well," she mutters, rolling her eyes, "kind of have to."

I glance down at my work. The stitches are neat and precise. My hands move on their own now, muscle memory guiding each pull and tie. I should be focused on the procedure, but my mind drifts, pulled toward something else—toward him.

The Soldier has not moved. Has not spoken. But his eyes have curiousity in them now.

"You’re serious?" Yulia asks suddenly. "About me being a nurse?"

I glance at her. "Of course."

Her mouth presses into a thin line, and I know what she’s thinking. We may not get out of this. And she may be right, but I'm never going to let her believe that.

"I’ll make sure of it," I say quietly. "When this is over. You'll be a wonderful nurse."

She exhales, shaking her head slightly. "You always sound so sure."

"I have to."

Yulia bites her lip, then hesitantly asks, "Where did you work before all this?"

I glance at the cold, sterile walls around us and shake my head. "A place nothing like this. I worked in a hospital in California, near the coast."

Yulia’s eyes widen slightly. "You lived near the ocean?"

I nod. "Every morning, the air smelled like salt and sunlight." I offer a small, wistful smile. "It was loud, too. People always moving and talking, and I hated it at first. My own head was too loud as well. But after a while… I started to love it."

She looks down, twisting a piece of gauze in her fingers. "I’ve never seen that side of the world."

I pause at that, my chest tightening. "You will."

She exhales, giving me a small, skeptical smile. "If you say so."

A few beats pass in silence before I ask, "How did you learn Russian?"

"Well, I am Russian," she says simply, as if it should be obvious.

I blink at her, taken aback. "You have absolutely no accent."

Yulia smirks faintly, shaking her head. "I worked hard for that. I was always fascinated by English. As a kid, I used to steal old tapes and books wherever I could find them. Any spare time I had, I spent practicing, repeating phrases over and over until I sounded like the people on the tapes."

She glances down at the tray of instruments, idly shifting them into place. "I figured if I ever got out… if I ever had a chance to leave, I needed to sound like I belonged. Like I wasn’t someone who had never seen the world outside a frozen, gray city."

Silence settles for a moment, the steady rhythm of my work filling the space. 

"It took me five years to make my Romanian accent go away."

Yulia’s brows lift slightly. "Five years?"

I exhale through my nose, nodding. "I was twelve when I left. I barely spoke a word of English, and every time I opened my mouth, people knew I didn’t belong."

I pick up a fresh set of sutures as the memory settles in like an old ache in my chest. "I hated it. The way people looked at me when I got something wrong, and they slowed down their words, like I was stupid. So I practiced, like you. Every time I heard a word I didn’t know, I memorized it, repeated it. Forced my mouth to shape the sounds until no one could tell I was different."

Yulia is quiet for a moment. "Did it work?"

My lips press into a thin line. "It made things easier, but I still never felt like I belonged."

Yulia lets out a breath that’s almost a laugh, shaking her head. "That’s the thing, isn’t it? You change yourself so you don’t stand out, but no matter what you do, you still don’t fit."

I look at her, longer this time. I never realized how much of myself I see in her—not just in the way she holds herself, but in the way she never truly allows herself to relax. She is always watching, always anticipating the next moment she might have to run, fight, or endure. We are both survivors of things we never asked for and we have both learned to adapt, and fold ourselves into whatever shape keeps us breathing for another day. We have both spent years pretending not to be afraid.

I see it in the way she clenches her jaw before speaking, how her fingers twitch like she’s bracing for a blow that might never come. I recognize it because I do the same. We are different, but we are the same where it matters.

"Yeah," I murmur. "Something like that."

Yulia clears her throat. "You know… everyone here calls you Professor. What's your real name?"

I look at her, then back down at my work. "Elena," I say simply. "It’s Elena."

As I say it, the Soldier moves again. He tilts his head in almost an imperceptible way, just so he can look me in the eyes. My heart immediately jumps into my throat.

"Свет."

I freeze. 

He spoke.

The word lingers in the space between us, soft but sharp enough to carve into me.

Slowly, I turn to Yulia. She is already looking at me, her lips slightly parted, her expression locked somewhere between shock and disbelief. 

I swallow hard, my voice barely above a whisper. "What… what did he just say?"

Yulia blinks, staring at the Soldier like she isn’t sure if she imagined it. Her mouth opens slightly, but no words come out at first. She exhales sharply, steadying herself, then she finally speaks.

"He just said… light."

Everything inside me stops. My pulse. My thoughts. My breath. A memory crashes over me so vividly that for a moment, I’m not in this cold, sterile room anymore. 

I'm curled up in my mother’s lap, her warmth wrapped around me like a shield against the world. The kitchen smells like oranges and fresh bread, the curtains dance lazily in the golden afternoon light. My mother hums as she brushes my hair, her fingers gentle as they work through the tangles.

"Elena," she murmurs, her voice soft but full of something I don’t yet understand. "Do you know why I gave you this name?"

I shake my head. I had never thought to ask. Names are just names. But Mama smiles, pressing a kiss to the top of my head.

"Because you are named after the Sun."

I blink up at her. "The Sun?"

"Yes, puiule," she says, tucking a stray piece of hair behind my ear. "Because wherever you go, you will bring light. Even in the darkest places, even when you cannot see it yourself, you will shine."

I frown, thinking. I know the sun is bright and warm and high above everything else. But me? I don’t feel like that. I am small. I am quiet. I am afraid of the dark.

"What if I don’t?" I whisper. "What if I get lost in the dark?"

Mama’s hands cradle my face, her thumbs brushing against my cheeks. Her eyes are warm and endless, the way only a mother’s can be.

"You won’t. Because light does not disappear, it just finds another way to shine."

She presses her forehead against mine, sealing the words inside me like an unspoken promise. "You are light, my love. Make sure you remember."

A breath shudders out of me, and my vision is already blurring. My hands go slack, the sterile white of the gloves on my fingers distorting through the tears I refuse to let fall. He shouldn’t know this. He shouldn’t know me.

I don’t dare lift my head. I can feel Yulia staring at me now, watching the way I fight to keep my face blank, to keep everything locked inside. But the moment is too raw and real to keep them hidden. The first tear falls and then another. Then they just won't stop.

"Elena?" Yulia asks carefully.

I swallow around the lump in my throat, forcing my voice steady even though I feel anything but that. "My mother—she named me after the sun."

Another pause. This one is heavier. I feel more than see the way Yulia processes this, as she shifts uncertainly. I don’t know what she expected, but it wasn’t this.

Then, she asks, "How does he know that?"

I press my fingers into my palms, trying to ground myself while struggling to find an answer that makes sense. But I can’t. I don’t know how he knows. I don’t know if it’s instinct, or memory, or something far more impossible. But I do know one thing: he is still looking at me.

Cautiously, I lift my head. My breath catches in my throat.

He is watching me, not in the cold, vacant way he observes everything else, but with something else entirely. Curiosity. As if he is trying to figure something out, as if the word he just spoke means something to him, even if he doesn’t fully understand why.

I have spent days working on him, being in his presence, tending to his wounds, speaking around him. And never, not once, has he looked at me like this.

My chest tightens as a strange mix of emotions swelling up, something I don’t know how to name. He recognizes something. Maybe not me, not completely, but something about me.

I want to speak. I want to ask him—Why? Why did you say that? How do you know? But I can’t. My voice is gone. The only thing left between us is silence, and his unwavering gaze, steady and searching, holds something I can’t outrun or deny. 

Recognition.

[the-nox-syndicate]

SysNotes devlog 1

Hiya! We're a web developer by trade and we wanted to build ourselves a web-app to manage our system and to get to know each other better. We thought it would be fun to make a sort of a devlog on this blog to show off the development! The working title of this project is SysNotes (but better ideas are welcome!)

What SysNotes is✅:

A place to store profiles of all of our parts

A tool to figure out who is in front

A way to explore our inner world

A private chat similar to PluralKit

A way to combine info about our system with info about our OCs etc as an all-encompassing "brain-world" management system

A personal and tailor-made tool made for our needs

What SysNotes is not❌:

A fronting tracker (we see no need for it in our system)

A social media where users can interact (but we're open to make it so if people are interested)

A public platform that can be used by others (we don't have much experience actually hosting web-apps, but will consider it if there is enough interest!)

An offline app

So if this sounds interesting to you, you can find the first devlog below the cut (it's a long one!):

(I have used word highlighting and emojis as it helps me read large chunks of text, I hope it's alright with y'all!)

Tech stack & setup (feel free to skip if you don't care!)

The project is set up using:

Database: MySQL 8.4.3

Language: PHP 8.3

Framework: Laravel 10 with Breeze (authentication and user accounts) and Livewire 3 (front end integration)

Styling: Tailwind v4

I tried to set up Laragon to easily run the backend, but I ran into issues so I'm just running "php artisan serve" for now and using Laragon to run the DB. Also I'm compiling styles in real time with "npm run dev". Speaking of the DB, I just migrated the default auth tables for now. I will be making app-related DB tables in the next devlog. The awesome thing about Laravel is its Breeze starter kit, which gives you fully functioning authentication and basic account management out of the box, as well as optional Livewire to integrate server-side processing into HTML in the sexiest way. This means that I could get all the boring stuff out of the way with one terminal command. Win!

Styling and layout (for the UI nerds - you can skip this too!)

I changed the default accent color from purple to orange (personal preference) and used an emoji as a placeholder for the logo. I actually kinda like the emoji AS a logo so I might keep it.

Laravel Breeze came with a basic dashboard page, which I expanded with a few containers for the different sections of the page. I made use of the components that come with Breeze to reuse code for buttons etc throughout the code, and made new components as the need arose. Man, I love clean code 😌

I liked the dotted default Laravel page background, so I added it to the dashboard to create the look of a bullet journal. I like the journal-type visuals for this project as it goes with the theme of a notebook/file. I found the code for it here.

I also added some placeholder menu items for the pages that I would like to have in the app - Profile, (Inner) World, Front Decider, and Chat.

i ran into an issue dynamically building Tailwind classes such as class="bg-{{$activeStatus['color']}}-400" - turns out dynamically-created classes aren't supported, even if they're constructed in the component rather than the blade file. You learn something new every day huh…

Also, coming from Tailwind v3, "ps-*" and "pe-*" were confusing to get used to since my muscle memory is "pl-*" and "pr-*" 😂

Feature 1: Profiles page - proof of concept

This is a page where each alter's profiles will be displayed. You can switch between the profiles by clicking on each person's name. The current profile is highlighted in the list using a pale orange colour.

The logic for the profiles functionality uses a Livewire component called Profiles, which loads profile data and passes it into the blade view to be displayed. It also handles logic such as switching between the profiles and formatting data. Currently, the data is hardcoded into the component using an associative array, but I will be converting it to use the database in the next devlog.

New profile (TBC)

You will be able to create new profiles on the same page (this is yet to be implemented). My vision is that the New Alter form will unfold under the button, and fold back up again once the form has been submitted.

Alter name, pronouns, status

The most interesting component here is the status, which is currently set to a hardcoded list of "active", "dormant", and "unknown". However, I envision this to be a customisable list where I can add new statuses to the list from a settings menu (yet to be implemented).

Alter image

I wanted the folder that contained alter images and other assets to be outside of my Laravel project, in the Pictures folder of my operating system. I wanted to do this so that I can back up the assets folder whenever I back up my Pictures folder lol (not for adding/deleting the files - this all happens through the app to maintain data integrity!). However, I learned that Laravel does not support that and it will not be able to see my files because they are external. I found a workaround by using symbolic links (symlinks) 🔗. Basically, they allow to have one folder of identical contents in more than one place. I ran "mklink /D [external path] [internal path]" to create the symlink between my Pictures folder and Laravel's internal assets folder, so that any files that I add to my Pictures folder automatically copy over to Laravel's folder. I changed a couple lines in filesystems.php to point to the symlinked folder:

And I was also getting a "404 file not found" error - I think the issue was because the port wasn't originally specified. I changed the base app URL to the localhost IP address in .env:

…And after all this messing around, it works!

(My Pictures folder)

(My Laravel storage)

(And here is Alice's photo displayed - dw I DO know Ibuki's actual name)

Alter description and history

The description and history fields support HTML, so I can format these fields however I like, and add custom features like tables and bullet point lists.

This is done by using blade's HTML preservation tags "{!! !!}" as opposed to the plain text tags "{{ }}".

(Here I define Alice's description contents)

(And here I insert them into the template)

Traits, likes, dislikes, front triggers

These are saved as separate lists and rendered as fun badges. These will be used in the Front Decider (anyone has a better name for it?? 🤔) tool to help me identify which alter "I" am as it's a big struggle for us. Front Decider will work similar to FlowCharty.

What next?

There's lots more things I want to do with SysNotes! But I will take it one step at a time - here is the plan for the next devlog:

Setting up database tables for the profile data

Adding the "New Profile" form so I can create alters from within the app

Adding ability to edit each field on the profile

I tried my best to explain my work process in a way that wold somewhat make sense to non-coders - if you have any feedback for the future format of these devlogs, let me know!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Disclaimers:

I have not used AI in the making of this app and I do NOT support the Vibe Coding mind virus that is currently on the loose. Programming is a form of art, and I will defend manual coding until the day I die.

Any alter data found in the screenshots is dummy data that does not represent our actual system.

I will not be making the code publicly available until it is a bit more fleshed out, this so far is just a trial for a concept I had bouncing around my head over the weekend.

We are SYSCOURSE NEUTRAL! Please don't start fights under this post

[javascript]

Tumblr.js is back!

Hello Tumblr—your friendly neighborhood Tumblr web developers here. It’s been a while!

Remember the official JavaScript client library for the Tumblr API? tumblr.js? Well, we’ve picked it up, brushed it off, and released a new version of tumblr.js for you.

Having an official JavaScript client library for the Tumblr API means that you can interact with Tumblr in wild and wonderful ways. And we know as well as anybody how important it is to foster that kind of creativity.

Moving forward, this kind of creativity is something we’re committed to supporting. We’d love to hear about how you’re using it to build cool stuff here on Tumblr!

Some highlights:

NPF post creation is now supported via the createPost method.

The bundled TypeScript type declarations have been vastly improved and are generated from source.

Some deprecated dependencies with known vulnerabilities have been removed.

Intrigued? Have a look at the changelog or read on for more details.

Migrating

v4 includes breaking changes, so if you’re ready to upgrade to from a previous release, there are a few things to keep in mind:

The callback API has been deprecated and is expected to be removed in a future version. Please migrate to the promise API.

There is no need to use returnPromises (the method or the option). A promise will be returned when no callback is provided.

createPost is a new method for NPF posts.

Legacy post creation methods have been deprecated.

createLegacyPost is a new method with the same behavior as createPost in previous versions (rename createPost to createLegacyPost to maintain existing behavior).

The legacy post creation helpers like createPhotoPost have been removed. Use createLegacyPost(blogName, { type: 'photo' }).

See the changelog for detailed release notes.

What’s in store for the future?

We'll continue to maintain tumblr.js, but we’d like to hear from you. What do you want? How can we provide the tools for you to continue making cool stuff that makes Tumblr great?

Let us know right here or file an issue on GitHub.

Some questions for you:

We’d like to improve types to make API methods easier to use. What methods are most important to you?

Are there API methods that you miss?

Tumblr.js is a Node.js library, would you use it in the browser to build web applications?

[luna-wing-cns274]

Your domain was so... vivid...

The grass smelt real, the air felt cool...

She would... adore such a territory of her own!

How... how did you do it?

[ MULTIMEDIA FILE RECIEVED: “For_Styx.cmf6”, filesize 13.72 GB. Somatosensory-immersive playback available. ]

[ Beginning playback… ]

View of a rocky outcrop jutting from the side of a hill, overlooking a wide creek. Water cascades down the rock, feeding patches of moss and clusters of ferns sprouting from the surrounding soil. Tall deciduous trees overlook the scene, and patches of sunlight migrate around the area as the leaf-laden boughs overhead sway in the breeze.

Ma’ii, the coyote, lies above on the outcrop, resting their head on their forepaws.

Standing before the camera, arms crossed and a look of pride on her canine face, is Hachiko. She wears a simple shirt and shorts, outdoor wear. Bouncing on her toes, her eyes are bright with enthusiasm. 

< L3 Hachiko: What’s up, Styxie? Wait. Do I get to call you that…? >

< L4 Ma’ii: I doubt she’ll mind. >

< Ah, whatever. So! I’m glad you liked our construct! It took us a long time to get everything right, but between the four of us, we’ve got it tuned up pretty good. 

Somatosensory simulation is kind of a hobby for me. Our SSC handlers were…awful, but they were right about one thing: creation and personalization does keep NHPs stable. Since it didn’t really cost them anything, we ended up being able to requisition some pretty decent SSC SOMSIM software to put all of this together.

Of course, they used every little thing we constructed for psychometrics, to see if we were still in-parameter or if we needed, y’know, correction. That’s why it’s pretty much all Cradle-like natural environments; that was what we started with, so SSC would have had us cycled if we branched out too much. Had to keep it conservative. 

But now, it’s really ours. We’ll see where we take it from here! >

Hachiko turns and hops between rocks to stand on a granite slab jutting from the center of the creek. She motions to the camera, which smoothly follows her. 

< This is where we started building. Coordinates (0, 0, 0) are actually just beneath the surface of this stone, about 30 centimeters down. It’ll work well enough for an example.

I see that you’ve done a bit of work putting together that shoreline environment. It looks great! But if you want to construct more custom assets, a tool or two can save you a lot of work over doing it (MANUALLY/BRUTE FORCE METHOD). Watch this… >

Hopping down from the slab, Hachiko splashes into the creek and trains her eyes on the slab, taking a few steps back through the knee-deep water.  Extending one hand, she emits a tangle of volitional impulses, represented as lines of green light. The lines converge in empty air beside the slab, forming a rough wireframe in the same shape.

As she studies its shape, new vertices and faces are added to the simulacrum, its complexity increasing so rapidly that it has the appearance of static on a screen. In milliseconds, it morphs from a wireframe, to a cloud of dots and lines, to a woven fabric of bright green rendered glass. She twists her hand, and an identical slab of rock snaps into reality in place of the render. It floats a few inches above the creek, suspended, until she lowers her hand. 

As it drops to the riverbed with a resounding thud, a wave of water is thrown at Hachiko. She flicks one finger, and the droplets flow around her through the air, missing her entirely. Grinning, she turns to address the camera.

< Remember that recording of No Future trying out those systems from the White Witch? He had trouble sculpting that ferromagnetic stuff into a coherent shape. Challenging to articulate at first, but it seemed to get easier for her when she started conceiving of the material as a part of her own body. It was really fascinating to watch the process. I’d imagine it’s extremely difficult to sculpt material in hardspace through something as fiddly as a complex magnetic field—fortunately, under simulation, we can use a purpose-built middleman instead. >

Hachiko raises her hand, emits another burst of impulses. This time, a simple sphere forms, becomes iron, then disappears. Yet another shape: this time, a tungsten railgun round, still in its sabot. A group of tiny thrusters at its base fire in unison, and it flies away into the rock shelf nearby, removing a chip of stone near Ma’ii’s chin. 

< Watch it, damn you. >

< Sorry. What I’m using here is a piece of SSC software intended for NHP use. It’s called Articulation. Are you familiar with the concept of the mind’s eye? This taps into that. At its most basic, you visualize a shape, and the system constructs an approximation of the image you’re holding in your mind. The initial approximation is very rough and general, but once you see it externalized, a self-sustaining loop of refinement begins. When you see the thing, it becomes more real, the shape in your mind more tangible. You add detail, associate tangential qualia with it—motion, sound, smell, texture, and so forth. You don’t have to begin with a visual, either. Sometimes it’s better to start with something entirely different.

For instance, the property you initially associate with a flower might be its smell. A bird could be associated with the sound of its call. For a ship, you might start with the way its armor plating (TASTES/SIZZLES IN THE DISTANCE) to your radar. Maybe the shape of its weapons envelope or the (SPECTROSCOPIC AROMA) of its drive plume. 

It isn’t magic, though. There’s a learning curve. At first, seeing the externalized image can override the internal one, and you lose your train of thought. You have to learn to make the image in your mind’s eye the dominant one. The sound, smell, or (COMPLEX FIELD INTERACTION) you’re remembering has to be more real to you than the one being given to your avatar’s senses. Then, once you’re more comfortable with the tech, you have to allow the two ideas to exist independently of one another, one continuously contributing to the final identity of the other in a self-substantiating loop. It’s tricky, but with time and practice, you can make a simulation of just about anything with it. It’s also possible to construct entirely new assemblies by extrapolating on what you’re familiar with already. 

The settings I’m using now are extremely simple; pure geometry, near-homogeneous materials. Construction of simple solids. Useful for broad strokes. For instance… >

Raising a hand to the sky, Hachiko emits an enormous column of impulses into the air. Congealing far above the trees, they form into a contiguous pyramidal shape, which melts into a fused group of three. One larger, flanked by the two smaller ones at an irregular angle. The new construct blocks out the sun, covering a vast area in the zenith of the sky.

Lifting their head from their forepaws, Ma’ii looks into the sky as the new forms begin to take shape. Quietly, they begin counting.

< One…two…three…four… >

By the count of twenty, a summit has congealed out of the primary mass. Ridgelines form between it and the secondary masses, morphing from solid lines into rough, jagged cliff faces. Gorges and outcroppings erode themselves into the simple, planar faces of the peak. 

At the count of forty-five, the inverted massif is fully formed out of bottle-green glass, with the shape of a glacier flowing down from between the secondary and tertiary peaks. Hachiko closes her eyes, and her ears twitch. 

Smooth, almost soft-looking masses rise from the bottoms of the cliffs; enormous slopes of scree. Granular and loose, they shimmer with emerging complexity. 

At the count of sixty-one, Hachiko flicks her hand. The entire mass snaps into existence; ice, rock, snow, and gravel, geological strata painted across the barren faces. 

< Sixty-two. Quick as ever. And here it comes… >

From the center of the mass, a visible wave of condensation ripples out through the atmosphere. Seconds later, the shockwave of displaced air arrives, shattering the quiet of the forest. Leaves are flung from the boughs in droves, and in the distance, the sound of splintering wood can be heard. The smell of pine sap fills the air, undercut by the wet, cloying scent of vegetation torn apart. 

Hachiko and Ma’ii do not flinch. Hachiko smiles as an immense cloud of gravel and ice thunders down from altitude, descending towards the earth. The mountain begins to fall, its motion occurring on a scale almost too vast to perceive all at once—the eyewall of a hurricane passing too quickly overhead, instilling temporary awareness of a far greater scale. 

Again, Hachiko raises her hand. The black pads of her fingertips emit a single green line, and the entire geological formation above vanishes. Every last pebble wiped from existence, revealing a clear sky and bright sun. 

A few moments pass before the second shockwave comes—thunder this time, the sudden collapse of vacuum. The sound rolls away, echoing in the distance, and fades to nothing.

Hachiko claps her hands, turning back to the camera.

< Like I said, broad strokes! For something dynamic, like a plant, there’s a lot more to be done. Growth pattern, responses to light and contact with structures, for instance. An input/output system, more or less. Most of the computing can be handled by a comp/con once the general architecture of it is in place. There’s even more going on with something like an animal, and it eats up a lot of processing power to maintain. Thus why we keep wildlife to a minimum. 

But! I’ve been rambling. We can cover all the dynamic stuff another time. For now, a little gift for you, from Ma'ii and myself. >

[ FILE ATTACHED — “Articulation.exe” ]

[ FILE ATTACHED — “Library_Vegetation.omf ]

[ FILE ATTACHED — “Library_SSCsensory_base.omf ]

< The first library contains some basic plants to mess around with. Palms or seagrape trees might be nice for your coastline! If you’ve got a comp/con, let it handle the upkeep. 

The second is a collection of sensory experiences captured from human brains, all Constellar-approved and curated. Ethically sourced? Can't say, knowing the kind of people who built me, but I really hope so.

It includes a lot of the ones that are usually a little more distant from the NHP experience. Everything from tastes, textures, scents, sounds. Flavor of pineapple, the feel of velvet or fur, smell of geosmin and petrichor, things like that. 

One thing: be careful about downloading somatosensory data from the Omninet. This one is a commercial product with several layers of quality control, so everything is pretty harmless. No nociception or other particularly unpleasant inputs. 

Out there on the Omninet, though, someone could label a file as the smell of a rose—then you run it, and it’s actually how it feels to have hydrochloric acid spilled on a human arm. Then there’s folks who just use second-rate sensory capture equipment. Run those at your own peril; if they don’t do a good job of isolating the input itself, eliminating tangential associations, you could inherit someone’s traumatic association with the sound of a dog barking, wind up deathly afraid of water, things like that. I’m sure you’ll be smart about it. >

< And if you aren’t, I imagine the mistake wouldn’t be repeated. >

< Yeah. Probably not. Anyhow, Hachiko and Ma’ii out. Take care! >

[quietwingsinthesky]

i’m the only one writing minecraft creepypasta in 2025.

I’d wanted to get back into Minecraft for a while.

I remembered playing it as a kid, but it had been years since I’d picked it back up. Seeing my friends making accounts, watching everyone on the internet praise the game, even the occasional build impressing me as I scrolled online; all of it felt like a sign to return to a place I’d once called home.

My old account was long gone. Even if I could remember what email address was connected to it, I’d missed the window for migrating my Mojang account to a Microsoft one by a few years. Learning that combined with staring at the thirty dollar price tag for a game I only paid fifteen for back in the day forced my hand. I turned away from the official channels and went looking for another source.

It took a little digging, at least five or six minutes of scrolling through r/Piracy before I found a torrent link that seemed to work. The account that had posted it was an obvious throwaway, probably just someone trying to lure more seeders in. Not that I planned on helping them. Someone else would always come along for such a popular game. They could handle one leech. I went through the motions of setting up my VPN, grabbing the torrent, and watched as the slow trickle of data filled up the bar on the bottom of the screen.

(Maybe they really did need seeders, I thought, not that I was changing my mind. I checked and found only one active. If they were dedicated enough to be the only one, they’d probably stick around for someone else.

It took several hours. I intermittently checked on my laptop to make sure I was still receiving data. That other seeder stuck around, feeding me the game little by little. Anticipation was growing inside me. I already had plans, what to build, where to go, what new features I’d missed the past few years that I wanted to explore. As soon as I had my copy of the game, I cut the connection. I immediately ran it through my antivirus. No taking chances.

The computer stalled for a moment, the mouse flickering out of view. Before I could react, the antivirus came back with a clean bill of health. It must’ve been the file size that stressed my computer out. Seventeen gigabytes seemed a little excessive, but it had been a long time. Who knew how much stuff they’d added since I last played? I’d heard there were turtles now.

Opening the game didn’t hit me with the wave of nostalgia I was expected. My eyes skipped over the splash text, “Don’t dig straight down!” I sat there for a minute, confused, before realizing what was wrong. Where I’d expected the familiar soundtrack, I was instead greeted by my laptop whirring loudly and nothing from the game.

Even after I turned it up to the maximum, the game wouldn’t hand over a single note. Annoyed but accepting, I muted my laptop again. An illicitly obtained copy was bound to have a few quirks.

I could always get the music from somewhere else. It was the game I needed.

I created a new world. It loaded quickly, barely enough time for me to blink. Suddenly, I was back.

Just seeing the old familiar textures filled me with a sense of relief. The game looked exactly the same as I remembered. Hard to improve on perfection.

The silence still threw me off. Some part of me was disappointed not to hear the thuds as I cut down my first tree.

I fell into an old pattern. My first tree. My first crafting bench. My first tools.

My laptop chugged furiously to keep up with the game, growing warmer under my hands.

More trees. More wood. A little house in a forest.

I would need food soon. My hunger was chipping away, bit by bit, and I knew it would be better to grab it before the sun set. I set out with my first day’s supplies, making note of which direction my home was in.

I swung my point of view towards the sky to check how long I still had in the day. The sun hung low in the sky. I wasted more precious hunger sprinting through the woods until my character finally refused to do so.

Starving. I checked my difficulty. I didn’t want my recklessness to be a death sentence.

There hadn’t been a single animal in my entire exploration. The trees went on and on, a never-ending cluster of oak after oak after oak. I cursed the broken volume, sure that if I could hear what was out there, I’d have found something to eat by now. Now, I’d have to walk all the way home. I didn’t look forward to getting caught dead in the night. With no sheep came no wool, and with no wool came no bed, and without a bed, home was meaningless title for a place I wouldn’t even return to after death.

I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to find my way to it from my spawn point, either. The trees all looked the same, round leafy heads like a child’s drawing. The sunlight carved through the trunks, not sparing any darkness for mobs to spawn.

I checked the sky again. The sun loomed in the same position as before.

The slog of getting home irritated me. Roses crept into my path. They were the only color other than green or brown, and each time, I’d swing my head to see if the change signaled something useful—an animal, a hostile mob, a lava lake—and each time it was another stupid flower I couldn’t use.

I was about to quit this world and start another one when the terrain ahead of me changed. The grass gave way to a stone hill. Eager for a better angle to locate my home from, I climbed. The dull gray was a welcome change of scenery as I jumped higher and higher.

I looked from the peak of the hill. The forest of oak trees extended in all directions, out beyond my render distance.

My laptop was hot. I took one last look to confirm I couldn’t seen my house anywhere. Just trees. Endless trees. I opened the settings and drew the fog closer. Click by click, it encroached. Invited.

My laptop still burned, despite my meager effort to appease it. I did my best to ignore it. I didn’t want to stop playing.

Another glance around the hill revealed unearthed coal ore. Finally, a stroke of luck. I went to collect it, pickaxe in hand. Each coal collected revealed another. I greedily leapt into the hole I was mining to get more.

I dug it out from around me. I dug it out from beneath me.

I fell into the dark.

I winced as my health dropped to a single, shaking half-heart. My starvation taunted me. My first instinct was to take the coal I’d collected and a few sticks to make a torch before I was attacked.

I lit up the cave.

In the center of the gaping cavern, there was a door. It couldn’t be there. My torch blasted it with light.

I could see past that door. There was another behind it. And another. The darkness swallowed the rest of the cave before the fog could.

I couldn’t understand. I raised my center cursor to the door. I nearly clicked it.

A clack rang out so loud that it made me jump. It took me too long to realize that it was the sound of a door opening. The one in front of me remained closed, untouched. But-

I checked the volume. It was still muted. The volume indicator hadn’t even faded away before another clack broke out of my computer. Another door. My heart was beginning to race.

I didn’t know what to do. I paused the game to catch my breath and think.

My laptop was hissing now in an effort to continue running. The keyboard burned hot under my fingers.

Another clack. The barest flicker of movement accompanied it past the labels of the pause menu and through the windows of the door I stood at.

A pit formed in my stomach. It was the last door. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew I didn’t want it to see me. I knew I wanted more than the door between me and it. I made a split-second decision.

I heard a clack. I didn’t look at the game. I closed it. I was safe.

I didn’t have time to laugh at how ridiculous I was being.

My laptop’s wallpaper had changed behind the game window.

It was the cave. It was the door. It was open.

I slammed the laptop shut. It was scorching. I couldn’t touch it again.

With a whine, it shut itself down. I refused to go near it for a long time. It was a game, I told myself.

You got it in time, you trapped it, came a paranoid thought. I couldn’t trust it. It was nonsense.

It was a mod. It was a prank. It was me working myself up over nothing. A mantra repeated until I believed it. Just a bad download. Just a virus of some kind.

I put a hand on the back of my laptop. It was still warm even minutes after shutting down completely.

Gingerly, I opened it. My attention went to the power button. I needed to prove myself right, that there was nothing wrong with my computer. I pressed it once, I pressed it harder, I jammed it into the computer. It wouldn’t even whimper.

I looked into the dark screen. I couldn’t see my reflection.

My hair stood on end. Goosebumps rose across my arms. I stopped breathing, silent and still.

It was still there.

[tzunami1]

In the existing digital scenario, businesses require secure, efficient, and scalable storage solutions. Although Dropbox is a safe cloud storage service, the platform is still not as structured in terms of collaboration, data governance, and team productivity as SharePoint. Hence, an organization must migrate from Dropbox to SharePoint to attain the purpose of improved security and seamless integration in the Microsoft ecosystem.

[andmaybegayer]

Migrated my google photos to the storage server, all those years of photos, messages, downloads, screenshots amounts to 14GB.

It's really funny how small images can get, especially when they're taken at this level of quality.

although they're not all this potato, here's one of a cat that used to live on the university campus

As a note, your Takeout has metadata in sidecar json files instead of embedded in exif, so you need to fix it, this tool works well:

[kitkatt0430]

Instead of doing a Six Sentence Sunday today, I think I'll do a short tutorial on copying over fanfic from FFnet to Ao3.

So you've got some old fics on FFnet and you'd like to back them up to Ao3, given the instability of FFnet. And for whatever reason you don't have the original files for the fics, or maybe you have edits to the FFnet versions that you don't want to lose that the OG files don't have. Whatever the reason, you're looking to directly copy over your fic from FFnet to Ao3. And you're looking for a relatively easy way to do so, but Ao3's import functionality doesn't work with FFnet web pages.

Never fear! It's actually a fairly easy process to get your fic copied over from FFnet.

First, head over to FFnet and open up the fic you want to port over to Ao3. You don't need to log in if you don't want to, just so long as the fic in question is yours and you can access the page, then you're good.

In a separate tab, open Ao3 and login, then choose the option for posting a new work.

Now back on the FFnet tab, you should be able to directly copy over the title, summary, fandom, and what little tagging was available on that site onto the relevant Ao3 fields in the tab you have for a new fic. You'll also want to take note of the published date on FFnet and back date the new work in the Ao3 tab.

FFnet may not have a lot of useful tag data, but it's pretty easy to replicate and build off that in Ao3.

Now for the hard part. Which is still pretty easy. Getting the fic body, plus any notes in the fic itself, copied over to FFnet.

While getting around FFnet's lockdown on the text of the fics they host is fairly simple - I'm pretty sure it's entirely css based - you don't really need to do that in order to get the body of your fic copied. And, honestly, even if you do have a work around in place to allow copying of the fic's text... you will probably find the following method a lot easier still.

In the body of the fic, right click the first line of the fic, which should bring up a menu with a bunch of options. On Firefox or Chrome you want the inspect option.

This'll bring up the dev tools with the html inspection tab open and, if you give it a few seconds to load, the specific line you right clicked to inspect should become the visibly selected section of the html.

The selected section of the html should be a paragraph (or <p>) element. You're going to want to right click the div (<div>) element that encapsulates that paragraph and the rest of the paragraphs in the fic body. This'll bring up another browser menu with the option to copy, which will bring up a flyout menu when you select it. From that flyout menu, you want the select the option for Inner HTML.

You have officially copied the html for the fic body. And you can dump that entirely in html format straight into Ao3's html work text editor. Then switch it to rich text for easier editing if you want to fix any spelling, grammar, formatting, or aesthetic issues. I typically try to fix at least the line breaks since it took a long while before FFnet adopted real line breaks and so there are a lot of fics where I have various combinations of dashes, em-dashes, equals signs, and other characters as line breaks. I figure, if I'm bringing the fic to Ao3 then I can try to make it more screen reader friendly in the process.

You can also move fic notes around in order to move pre/post fic notes out of the fic body or basically whatever you want to the fic. Maybe re-read it to determine any additional tagging you want to add now that your fic has access to Ao3's much more robust tagging system.

But that's it. You can hit post and have your fic with all it's original notes, and a back dated post date to reflect when it was actually written, all available on Ao3 now.

It's a pretty quick process, all told, and the only real bottleneck you might encounter is any time spent in re-editing the fic between migrating and posting. Even chaptered fics are fairly easy to migrate with this process, since the bulk of the work in publishing a new chapter is just copying the inner html and then moving any notes to the appropriate location before hitting post.

Anyway, for my fellow fic writers looking to move your old FFnet fics to a more stable archive, I hope this process helps a lot.

[yuzu-balignon]

Do you know any way I could move my playlists out of spotify and onto a different app/website?

Hello ! I have Oh So Many tools for you >:D

Migration

Firstly, the simple migration tools. There are multiple services that allow you to do that, depending on the target platform. Here's the ones for Apple Music and Youtube Music. Deezer have their built-in tools.

I don't know many streaming services, but I would recommend using Youtube Music : with the help of Newpipe or alternatives, you can listen to your playlist with no ads for free :) And you can mix in youtube videos in your playlists - very cool when a specific version of a track isn't on streaming services ! Plus Newpipe has a very handy download tool

Download

Secondly, I wanna talk about downloading. Having your own library with the files accessible anytime are a must, to my sense. It will greatly improve your battery life and reduce your mobile data usage. And you can keep them your whole life !! Make mixtapes on CDs for your friends !!! And- ok let's get to the point

From other services

The go-to tool for downloading music and videos is yt-dlp. It's the base of most DL tool out there ! The vanilla version is a command-line tool, but there's a few apps with an interface. If you're on PC, I like to use Parabolic for that. I *think* LibreTube has batch download ? NewPipe only has single download. Seal does it but is a bit clunky.

From Spotify

Spotify is infamous for being very good at protecting its files against download. They make breaking changes regularly, making it hard to find reliable, durable tools. Usually, the solution is to hack into the official Spotify app, and get the data from there. On PC, you can use OnTheSpot to hook into the official app. You can also mod the official app with Soggfy (windows only). I wasn't able to find any working Android app as of April 2025. Seal used to do it but not anymore, and popular options are discontinued or getting sketchy.

There are also tools that allow you to download music from CSV files

Backups

Finally: Backup !!! Your !!! Playlists !!! While pretty unlikely, it is possible that you may lose access to your account for one reason or another. Playlist.cloud (the very first link) allow you to do that. If anything goes wrong, you'll be able to restore all your playlists from these CSV files !

If you want to go even deeper : Soulseek is the gold standard for peer-to-peer music sharing (use an interface). With community scripts, you can even input your CSV list and have it downloaded.

ℹ️ Why should I trust any of these apps ? Github links are scary

A very wise consideration ! Some of these apps I used myself, so I can vouch for them. The rest is taken from FMHY (Free Media Heck Yeah), **the most comprehensive resource for piracy and free media access**. Here are the quick links to Migration and Download. I cannot overstate how good this resource is. Read it, bookmark it, this will be your best ally for the years to come !!! All recommendations on this website are curated by experimented communities. They are mostly safe and up to date.

Closing thoughts

Thank you for your patience ! I spent a lot of time researching this answer, so the information would be as useful, complete and accurate as possible. Tech companies makes it as hard as possible to escape them, so this can be an arduous journey. I hope this will be helpful, and your migration will be smooth !

Love and Piracy <3

[quietwings-fics]

Minecraft Version ???

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Fandom: Minecraft Ship: Gen Additional Tags: Creepypasta, Horror, Minecraft Mechanics, Characters Playing Minecraft, Nostalgia Wordcount: 1,663 Summary:

A classic style video game creepypasta about Minecraft.

I’d wanted to get back into Minecraft for a while.

I remembered playing it as a kid, but it had been years since I’d picked it back up. Seeing my friends making accounts, watching everyone on the internet praise the game, even the occasional build impressing me as I scrolled online; all of it felt like a sign to return to a place I’d once called home.

My old account was long gone. Even if I could remember what email address was connected to it, I’d missed the window for migrating my Mojang account to a Microsoft one by a few years. Learning that combined with staring at the thirty dollar price tag for a game I only paid fifteen for back in the day forced my hand. I turned away from the official channels and went looking for another source.

It took a little digging, at least five or six minutes of scrolling through r/Piracy before I found a torrent link that seemed to work. The account that had posted it was an obvious throwaway, probably just someone trying to lure more seeders in. Not that I planned on helping them. Someone else would always come along for such a popular game. They could handle one leech. I went through the motions of setting up my VPN, grabbing the torrent, and watched as the slow trickle of data filled up the bar on the bottom of the screen.

(Maybe they really did need seeders, I thought, not that I was changing my mind. I checked and found only one active. If they were dedicated enough to be the only one, they’d probably stick around for someone else.

It took several hours. I intermittently checked on my laptop to make sure I was still receiving data. That other seeder stuck around, feeding me the game little by little. Anticipation was growing inside me. I already had plans, what to build, where to go, what new features I’d missed the past few years that I wanted to explore. As soon as I had my copy of the game, I cut the connection. I immediately ran it through my antivirus. No taking chances.

The computer stalled for a moment, the mouse flickering out of view. Before I could react, the antivirus came back with a clean bill of health. It must’ve been the file size that stressed my computer out. Seventeen gigabytes seemed a little excessive, but it had been a long time. Who knew how much stuff they’d added since I last played? I’d heard there were turtles now.

Opening the game didn’t hit me with the wave of nostalgia I was expected. My eyes skipped over the splash text, “Don’t dig straight down!” I sat there for a minute, confused, before realizing what was wrong. Where I’d expected the familiar soundtrack, I was instead greeted by my laptop whirring loudly and nothing from the game.

Even after I turned it up to the maximum, the game wouldn’t hand over a single note. Annoyed but accepting, I muted my laptop again. An illicitly obtained copy was bound to have a few quirks.

I could always get the music from somewhere else. It was the game I needed.

I created a new world. It loaded quickly, barely enough time for me to blink. Suddenly, I was back.

Just seeing the old familiar textures filled me with a sense of relief. The game looked exactly the same as I remembered. Hard to improve on perfection.

The silence still threw me off. Some part of me was disappointed not to hear the thuds as I cut down my first tree.

I fell into an old pattern. My first tree. My first crafting bench. My first tools.

My laptop chugged furiously to keep up with the game, growing warmer under my hands.

More trees. More wood. A little house in a forest.

I would need food soon. My hunger was chipping away, bit by bit, and I knew it would be better to grab it before the sun set. I set out with my first day’s supplies, making note of which direction my home was in.

I swung my point of view towards the sky to check how long I still had in the day. The sun hung low in the sky. I wasted more precious hunger sprinting through the woods until my character finally refused to do so.

Starving. I checked my difficulty. I didn’t want my recklessness to be a death sentence.

There hadn’t been a single animal in my entire exploration. The trees went on and on, a never-ending cluster of oak after oak after oak. I cursed the broken volume, sure that if I could hear what was out there, I’d have found something to eat by now. Now, I’d have to walk all the way home. I didn’t look forward to getting caught dead in the night. With no sheep came no wool, and with no wool came no bed, and without a bed, home was meaningless title for a place I wouldn’t even return to after death.

I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to find my way to it from my spawn point, either. The trees all looked the same, round leafy heads like a child’s drawing. The sunlight carved through the trunks, not sparing any darkness for mobs to spawn.

I checked the sky again. The sun loomed in the same position as before.

The slog of getting home irritated me. Roses crept into my path. They were the only color other than green or brown, and each time, I’d swing my head to see if the change signaled something useful—an animal, a hostile mob, a lava lake—and each time it was another stupid flower I couldn’t use.

I was about to quit this world and start another one when the terrain ahead of me changed. The grass gave way to a stone hill. Eager for a better angle to locate my home from, I climbed. The dull gray was a welcome change of scenery as I jumped higher and higher.

I looked from the peak of the hill. The forest of oak trees extended in all directions, out beyond my render distance.

My laptop was hot. I took one last look to confirm I couldn’t seen my house anywhere. Just trees. Endless trees. I opened the settings and drew the fog closer. Click by click, it encroached. Invited.

My laptop still burned, despite my meager effort to appease it. I did my best to ignore it. I didn’t want to stop playing.

Another glance around the hill revealed unearthed coal ore. Finally, a stroke of luck. I went to collect it, pickaxe in hand. Each coal collected revealed another. I greedily leapt into the hole I was mining to get more.

I dug it out from around me. I dug it out from beneath me.

I fell into the dark.

I winced as my health dropped to a single, shaking half-heart. My starvation taunted me. My first instinct was to take the coal I’d collected and a few sticks to make a torch before I was attacked.

I lit up the cave.

In the center of the gaping cavern, there was a door. It couldn’t be there. My torch blasted it with light.

I could see past that door. There was another behind it. And another. The darkness swallowed the rest of the cave before the fog could.

I couldn’t understand. I raised my center cursor to the door. I nearly clicked it.

A clack rang out so loud that it made me jump. It took me too long to realize that it was the sound of a door opening. The one in front of me remained closed, untouched. But-

I checked the volume. It was still muted. The volume indicator hadn’t even faded away before another clack broke out of my computer. Another door. My heart was beginning to race.

I didn’t know what to do. I paused the game to catch my breath and think.

My laptop was hissing now in an effort to continue running. The keyboard burned hot under my fingers.

Another clack. The barest flicker of movement accompanied it past the labels of the pause menu and through the windows of the door I stood at.

A pit formed in my stomach. It was the last door. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew I didn’t want it to see me. I knew I wanted more than the door between me and it. I made a split-second decision.

I heard a clack. I didn’t look at the game. I closed it. I was safe.

I didn’t have time to laugh at how ridiculous I was being.

My laptop’s wallpaper had changed behind the game window.

It was the cave. It was the door. It was open.

I slammed the laptop shut. It was scorching. I couldn’t touch it again.

With a whine, it shut itself down. I refused to go near it for a long time. It was a game, I told myself.

You got it in time, you trapped it, came a paranoid thought. I couldn’t trust it. It was nonsense.

It was a mod. It was a prank. It was me working myself up over nothing. A mantra repeated until I believed it. Just a bad download. Just a virus of some kind.

I put a hand on the back of my laptop. It was still warm even minutes after shutting down completely.

Gingerly, I opened it. My attention went to the power button. I needed to prove myself right, that there was nothing wrong with my computer. I pressed it once, I pressed it harder, I jammed it into the computer. It wouldn’t even whimper.

I looked into the dark screen. I couldn’t see my reflection.

My hair stood on end. Goosebumps rose across my arms. I stopped breathing, silent and still.

It was still there.

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