Blog

Again here with another blog post.

So at the end, I fixed the subdomain problem by just removing it and moving back to the old style. Codeberg probably have problems with subdomains, because I then made also a one much, much smaller repo for another subdomain with just 2 files, and it also got stuck. So now only subdomain I have is gallery.wencesbyte.net, which is still set up on the legacy v2 pages. (That's probably why this one works fine)

Next I also did some updates on the page, like adding status indicator if I'm online or offline. It works over Lanyard API, and I'll share the code soon. Also I added mindspace to the blog page, which is a place for my like ideas, todos, and this kind of stuff. I'm also rewriting the about page a bit, like adding more info about me. Hopefully I didn't leaked too much. As you may noticed, I added the site to some more webrings, and "WebAds" how I like to call them. I also added a pet. He is a penguin named Pingu :happy:. And I also added Censorship Panda rating of my site. I think it fits.

From now thanks to the mindspace you can see what all I need to do when I'm not making blog posts. I still need to optimise the main script. Probably I'll separate the smileys to separate script if I ever needed to use them on site without the main script.

Also, I would like to add FAQ. (Frequently Asked Questions) So if you have any questions regardles of me or the site, or anything else, just send me an e-mail with the question(s).

That will be probably all for this blog post.

See ya in the next one! :hi:

-WB

Hello everyone.

So this blog post is here a bit sooner for a specific reason. As you may have seen on my Mastodon, I'm working on moving all assets like images, videos, sound effects, JSONs, and all that kind of stuff to the subdomain assets.wencesbyte.net. It's really been a struggle for me and it still doesn't work properly.

I'd like to tell you a short story about it. So first I started by creating a repository called assets and setting up the DNS, and I thought this would be pretty easy since I'd already done it for the gallery (that one doesn't exist anymore). Because my PC has a dead GPU right now and I don't had my laptop with me, I tried to push all the files (like 1GB) over git run in Termux. That wasn't a big problem. Worse was that I'd already made the gallery subdomain on the old v2 pages system, but Codeberg switched to the new git-pages, which works a bit differently. First of all, you don't need a .domains file anymore since it now uses a TXT record in DNS to verify, and I also think they changed something with the webhooks, because after about 4 more fails I found that the problem was probably a stuck cached webhook because of my gallery photos. Since I pushed them all at once, git needed to compress them, then send them to Codeberg, where they needed to be decompressed again and pushed. But because there was something wrong with the webhook, and I didn't know about this issue beforehand, I kept trying again and again and still wasn't able to push all the files properly. I made multiple URLs like data.wencesbyte.net, dat.wencesbyte.net, pub.wencesbyte.net, and multiple repos, but eventually I moved back to the assets subdomain. I found out the repo's cache clears over time when is deleted, so I used that to switch back to assets.wencesbyte.net. This was the point where I'd been working on this issue for like 4 days and only then realized what it was. So I tried pushing it in smaller parts, which worked from the start, until I got to the gallery photos. I was pushing 5 files at a time, and at the end there were 6 photos left, so I thought they'd just push through fine — but no. Instead, on those last 6 files, I got the webhook stuck again. 6 FILES were all it took to break it! I was really pissed off about it. I tried waiting for like 30 minutes, but that didn't work. So I did some more research and found out about Git LFS, which stands for Large File Storage. It's a git plugin by GitHub for storing large binary files outside the repository, with only text links to the raw files kept inside the repo. This didn't work for me either, so I gave up on that idea and tried creating a few more repos, but still no luck. So I decided to at least push the assets without the 6 photos and hope it fixes itself over time. But because I'm dumb, I forgot to push the JSON files, so now Codeberg Pages Webring, WPlayer, Reversi, Shared Cursors, and Chat don't work. Doodle still works, but only for you. So hopefully it'll fix itself.

I hope some of you have tips on how to fix this issue. I'm not an advanced git user, so don't expect much from me on that front. So as always, if you know anything or have any tips, let me know. Peace.

-WB

Hello again!

Since last time, I’ve been experimenting a bit with themes. I didn't like how the day theme looked, and it felt pretty useless since most people just used the night theme anyway, which looked much better. So I decided to completely remove it and stick only to dark colors. I also changed the background to one from the Windows NT 4.0 boot screen and added a loading screen (WIP). I just didn't like how the website looked while loading. I might also move it into a separate file since maze.html is having some issues with the CSS.

I've also moved away from status.cafe and now use Mastodon for my "status." I added small icons to the buttons at the top of the homepage, and I decided to remove the forum because it probably wouldn't get used, bringing the atabook (guestbook) back instead. So feel free to leave something there! (Link on the home page)

I also added the control panel and doodle mode to every page via floating buttons, and also chat. It uses sounds from AOL Instant Messenger, and the Skype smileys.

Next, I was tinkering a bit with the PeerJS connection and added a TURN server, so the connection now works over mobile data as well. However, I found out what was causing some issues. Some routers don't like the PeerJS server connection, so it occasionally fails. But most of the time, it works fine. I still need to fix the reconnection handling when switching networks, hopefully that will be an easy fix.

Oh, and I also changed the background particles from meadow particles to falling stars. I'll share the code for both with you if you ever want to use them on your site. Feel free to use it once it will be added under Other soon.

I'm still planning to make an archive of web memes, but I haven't started working on it yet.

And as always, if you have any suggestions or feedback, let me know!

-WB

Hi everyone again! Today I added smileys! It's nothing super special, BUT... I finally found all the emojis from Wretch.cc (a Taiwanese blogging service)!

I once saw one of these emojis and really liked the design. It had nice glossy style that I really liked and it was different than standard round smileys. So, I started searching. I first asked an AI, which told me they were emojis from Wretch.cc. I also put it into Tineye that gave me links to two Chinese sites that had them from one taiwaneese site that still hosted them. The problem was that the site didn't said anything about them anywhere. All I had was a link to a single .gif file. https://pic.sopili.net/move/yahoo_smiley/y17.gif I tried modifying the URL numbers to grab as many as I could, but I still wasn't sure if I had found them all (though I got pretty close).

After setting the search aside for a bit, I started digging again today. I tried searching Archive.org's Wayback Machine, but came up empty. Then I found a Reddit post with a few more images of the smileys, but running them through Google Lens didn't bring up anything new either.

Finally, I tried searching specific Chinese keywords and found a screenshot of the Wretch desktop client with the emoji dialog open, and the page actually had a working download link!

I installed it and initially tried extracting the icons using Resource Hacker from the .exe and .dll files, but found nothing. Then I tried opening the .exe directly in a text editor, and bingo! I found direct web URLs for the emojis! I extracted those links, put them into the Wayback Machine, and I had them all!

I also discovered that Wretch used a mix of these smileys alongside standard MSN Messenger smileys, but not all of them.

I also added Skype 5.8.x smileys, which were thankfully much easier to find, but I still had a small problem with them. They were made for black or white background. So I used small Python script to see the different pixels between the two versions, and make them transparent. Anyway, I'll use those on the website, mostly in the blog.

It also have flags!

As for other updates, I fixed some bugs with WPlayer, added Error 404 page, and started working on archiving some classic web memes. That should be hopefully finished soon, and I'll be adding the smileys in the archive as well. And Codeberg Pages Webring is now full working so you can join in if you want.

If you know anything more about the Skype or Wretch.cc smileys or their real origin, let me know!

-WB

I apologize for the delay in this update. I haven't had much time lately. While not much has visibly changed since my last post, I do have some updates to share. Over the past month, I’ve mainly focused on improving the main page script and moving to the new Git Codeberg Pages, replacing the old version.

The migration was a bit frustrating, but I’m working hard to ensure everything runs smoothly. The new Git Pages deploy updates much faster, though they handle URLs differently. On the Legacy Pages, typing https://wencesbyte.net/blog would automatically load blog.html. Now, Git Pages sees the URL as a directory, so you need to add .html to the end of the link to access the page.

I’ve been playing around with the main script, which is still a bit messy and needs more optimatization, and I also added a new feature. A screensaver! By default, it turns on after 10 minutes of inactivity, but you can change this timer in the control panel on the home page. The screensaver is the famous DVD bouncing logo, but with my own logo. It’s still a bit buggy right now. Sometimes textures don’t load, and I suspect it’s currently impossible to hit a corner, though I’m not completely sure. I’m working on fixing that.

I’ve completely rebuilt the WPlayer in the sidebar. It used to play song files stored directly in the repository. Now, it streams music from YouTube. The playlist is still hosted here on Codeberg and comes from my personal YouTube Music library. This change means I no longer have to worry about legal issues regarding the music, but sadly I had to sacrifice the VU Meter because it's not possible to analyse music that is streamed.

I also moved all gallery photos from the main repository to a separate one. The images are now hosted at gallery.wencesbyte.net (e.g., gallery.wencesbyte.net/photos/photo1.jpg). I’ve added thumbnails, which really improved the gallery load times.

Currently, I’m working on a new game and trying to fix the Codeberg Pages webring. The biggest challenge right now is my hardware. My main PC GPU has died, so I’m stuck using my potato Sony VAIO laptop and my mobile device.

If you have any suggestions for the site, I would really appreciate them. I’m not sure how many people actually read my blog, but I hope at least a few of you do. Please don’t suggest making the page fully responsive or "mobile-friendly." My site is mainly designed for PC. I do have some features for basic interaction on mobile, like playing games, but that isn’t my main focus. Thank you.

-WB

Hi again. I'm with new post. Nothing much has been happening lately, but I still have something.

First of all, I added one of my old programs to the site and made a repository for it with the source code. The other ones I just scrapped. I plan to remake some, but not all of them. Also I finished a 3D Maze game where you can go through the maze and find the smiley yourself. There is also the map that could be toggled in the original screensaver, but it's hidden behind secret combination of key presses. Now I'm working on another game, specifically a Tetris, but I want to add ideally multiplayer, and use the original scoring from the first version from 1984.

Also I got my friend into making personal site. right now it's very WIP, but I'll soon add his button into the friends on the sidebar.

And also the latest change, I added status to the home page, where you can see status from status.cafe and also song that is playing secret combination from last.fm.

And that's pretty much it. Anyway, have a nice day!

-WB

Hi everyone. I'm here with another blog. Today it's 2 years from my first site, and I think this will be probably one of the final versions how the website will look. Of course I'll still add new content and probably also fix some bugs, but I think this design fits the most for me.

Also I touday found out, that Codeberg have a repository size limit. My repo is right now 1.2GB, and from what I found normal repo limit is 750MB, and for some sort of attachments repositories it's 1.5GB, so I'm worried they will take my site down. I you have any info, let me know.

Right now I'm working on 3 programs at once, and I'll also add Tetris, and one another game simmilar to Ruby Dung. I don't how long will it take, but hopefully not long.

And this will probably be everything for this post. Stay tuned!

-WB

Hi everyone, this is my first blog post! Well, it's more of an introduction to my website than a regular blog post, but whatever.

First, a quick info about the blog itself: I don't plan to post on a strict schedule like once a month, but rather just whenever I feel like it. Also, you can subscribe to my blog via RSS Feed (you can find the link at the top of the page).

As for the website, it's pretty much complete, though I'm still missing a few features. The main challenge is that my site is static-only. Since I don't have a backend to process files, I have to rely on third-party services like Atabook or Pollcode. The thing I miss the most is some sort of embeddable comment box or rating system. I suppose I could use Pollcode with a stars to make rating system, but having actual comments would be great for real discussions.

Right now, if you want to contact me, you'll need to send me an E-mail or hang out in the IRC channel until I connect. So, if you have any suggestions for a privacy-focused, free backend host or a nice free comment box widget, please let me know!

-WB