web – S-Config

Self-hosting.

May 27, 2023 by S-Config

Inspiration to self-host is…..

As some are aware we decided to participate in this ancient practice known as webrings. This technique occurred because social networks didn’t really exist in the 90s. You can’t really blast your site out on IRC without someone bitching at best; Or, getting K-lined by an Op at worst. Finally, search engines back in the day were not elegant and often missed a lot of personal sites (Very much like they do today but for different reasons.) Usually to join a webring can be as simple as submitting a site and hoping the other side believes you are human enough to enter. Other webrings tend to go through forums in which people get support and offer commentaries on a thread.

One of those comments we found interesting was one that criticized the overall quality of self-hosting within the Webring community. That there are some that put up a website with some graphics, have one “Hello World” blog and if they have other categories leave construction gif icons everywhere and call it a day. It’s ironically very Geocities of them and fits the 90’s website aesthetic to a tee! But we’ve also heard of comments from people who build websites asking for help that they aren’t even sure what to talk about once they got the site going.

Perhaps this is a good opportunity to help. So read on if you wish to listen to our diatribes further!

“No JavaScript” Brutalisim.

May 22, 2023May 13, 2023 by S-Config

S-Config.com – Now with No JavaScript.

I’m not sure how exactly I ended up at this point. Or to rephrase this question:

Why didn’t we do this sooner? – S

But after about 3 days of fucking around with WordPress functions. We’ve now disabled JQuery on the front end which is responsible for running the mass majority of WordPress-related JavaScript. What does that mean to you the average reader? Well! Outside of dropping our payload by half which will result in faster load times. Those rocking the No-Script plugin will have the exact same experience as those NOT rocking the No-Script plugin. Neat huh?

A website devoid of all JavaScript is certainly an aesthetic.

The diatribes continue. Would you like to know more?

2nd try at the Fediverse.

February 23, 2023December 28, 2022 by S-Config

Twitter is a shit show. So let’s try the Fediverse… Again!

It’s no surprise to anyone who has read my previous articles that we had a bad taste in our mouths during our first Fediverse run. So much so that we took down our pro-mastodon post when individuals within the instance we were on decided to shout out their communist manifesto stating sites like mine should be destroyed (we’re already dancing madly on a lip of a volcano, we really don’t need help in downing the server.) We published, much like Facebook, Twitter, and every other major corporate site out there. We are a centralized model. Just without a spaceman with a child-like temper throwing billions of dollars at us.

We decided to give the Fediverse another spin because of the infinite popcorn machine known as Twitter. We’ll discuss that one too. Why the fuck not?

Proceed if you wish to read on about our diatribes.

I2P Service is online.

March 14, 2023October 28, 2022 by S-Config

Welcome to our site I2P protocol users.

In a similar vein to Tor; I2P (Invisible Internet Project) is another style of encrypted network designed to communicate between machines in a private and anonymous way. It was originally brought to our attention via the many sites within the webring folders that as many of them are running their webpage on raspberry pi’s they too are also running their site with Tor and I2P protocols enabled. It was high time we got our shit together and did it too!

If you want to know more about I2P as a client you can always go to https://geti2p.net/ and go from there.

If interested in my own diatribes: Read on if you want to hear me ramble about our experiences with this.

AVIF animation vs. FireFox.

May 17, 2023September 11, 2022 by S-Config

Quick blog article about the subject of animated images.

When designing my web-ring integration in the cellar door. We noticed something when our cron.job went to work by converting old standards of jpg png and gifs into newer standards. Simply put it stopped firefox from processing animations.

The short story is, that Firefox is aware of it. Here’s the bug report. 2 years since the report. Not much progress. Read on if you want to know more.

The OTHER search engines.

May 12, 2023August 23, 2022 by S-Config

Wait, there’s more than Google?

Yes, there’s Bing. Just saved you from going to a large tech site and thumbing through 5-10 pages of ad-sponsor hell while they divide up the list to 10 pages in a desperate attempt to improve clicks. You’re welcome.

Seriously; We can’t tell you how many times we’ve seen the article “Top 10 Search Engines” from countless bloggers only to find out that if you are in an English-speaking country. You pretty much have different flavors of Google dominating %80 of the market (Duckduckgo, Presearch, SearX, AskJeeves, and the list goes on where they mindlessly accept either a Google or Microsoft aggregate instead of doing the hard work themselves.) Beyond that, there is Microsoft Bing with their %8 and finally, Yahoo is still hanging in there with their %2 of total internet searches. Where do these percentiles come from? Like other bloggers, we pulled those percentiles out of thin air!

But it sure as hell feels that way!

Would you like to know more? Read onward

Web 3.0

June 22, 2022January 16, 2022 by S-Config

What is “Web 3.0”

Sometimes it’s also referred to as “Web3.” This subject was actually hard to really pin down. As we are living in the screaming ’20s where the world is fast-tracking itself for CostCo levels of stupid it’s impossible to really find a pure example of Web 3.0. So, the quick and dirty answer to how we feel about Web 3.0?

We’ve come to the conclusion that Web3 or Web 3.0 is pretty much unproven marketing hype and vaporware made up my crypto-bros that want to put a price tag on the internet.

Read on if you wish to hear our diatribes.

Clarification time!

July 31, 2022November 13, 2021 by S-Config

It’s time to shed some light and clarification on some of the things we do here.

Lately, we’ve gotten some feedback that people are getting our message and wanting to start a website which is excellent. The more people that start their own website means less centralization underneath the banner of a major conglomerate. Especially to those who choose a local or small web provider that gives you superior service versus the complete ambivalence of sites such as GoDaddy. Now for those who are interested in how we got into the blogging business, we have an article talking about how trials and tribulations from a shared hosting provider that only gave us 25MB of web space to the present time. We even have another article talking about how to start a blog right. This article mostly discusses the time frame and research it took to get where we are today.

Read on if you wish to know more.

The Dark-Web: Hidden Wiki Edition!

May 22, 2021February 14, 2021 by S-Config

The Hidden Wiki – Now with V3 onion goodness!

For anyone who has read articles in the past, this should come as no surprise of us reviewing a service such as the Hidden Wiki as they are on the “Spooky scary Dank-Web!”.

However, know that we are big fans of the Dark-Web services. In the age of “Big Tech” attempting to delegitimize the mass of the Clear-Net as a whole in taking unique websites and burying them in an SEO-hellscape. The dark web to us is a fresh start. Almost a reset button to the earlier years of the internet. Where concepts like “Web-Rings” would pass you the reader along to like-minded websites. The dark-web by its very design cannot be tracked and cataloged by major corporations (At least not yet!) This means that the Dark-Web for those who want to be vocal about their services can post their links to people who may not want to be tracked on their day-to-day usage of their computers.

Read on if you want to know more.