Links

The good old links page. Here you'll eventually find all the links from my blog posts and more. I try to sort them into categories that make sense to me. The way I do that can change over time. Please bear in mind that currently this list is only the beginning. I will probably add to it frequently in the coming weeks as I sort through my bookmarks and open browser tabs. And even after that I will add more links as I find them.

I have subscribed to a lot of podcasts. So many that I can't even listen to them all. I am listing here only my absolute favourites. There are so many more good ones out there.

If you find a dead link, please drop me a line. You can find me in the fediverse (@theresmiling@ibe.social) or write me an e-mail (hello [-at-] theresmiling [dot] eu).

Links I added since the last update are now marked with a hotpink New! so that frequent visitors can make them out easily.

Learning HTML and CSS

  • Codecademy -- I started out with the free HTML course.
  • Learning Web Design by Jennifer Niederst Robbins -- While still on the Codecademy course in HTML I bought this book and started to work through it. The latest edition is the 5th, already published in 2018. That means that some things in there are not up to date anymore.
  • CSS-Tricks -- A website full of articles about CSS.
  • MDN Web Docs -- A great resource for all things web development, including HTML, CSS, etc.
  • W3C, World Wide Web Consortium -- They develop web standards, one of which is HTML.
  • HTML for People -- A great guide to build your first website, made by Blake Watson.
  • Kevin Powell -- He's got some fantastic videos on his YouTube for beginners.
  • Make Your Own Website by Shannon Kay -- She has built this great and easy to follow guide for her daughter, so she could make her own website.
  • Roll your own RSS -- A tutorial about how to manually set up an RSS feed, including having it display the full text of your blogs.
  • Grow Your Own -- Not about HTML and CSS, but adjacent enough to live here for the time being. This site is all about making your own corner of the internet, be it through a website, e-mail, messenger, social media, etc. A good starting point for when you are very new to all this.

Personal Web/ Small Web/ Indie Web/ Old Web

These names are pretty much interchangeable. In this section I'll list community sites/ forums, directories, websites, and newsletters that are by, for, and about people in the personal web community.

Community spaces and website directories

  • 32-Bit Café forum -- A lovely community is coming together there. It's the forum for the 32-Bit Café website, which intself is full of information and resources.
  • IndieWeb.org -- a Wiki style page full of information about what the indie web is, how to get startet, and how to take it further. There are also events and meet ups, both online and in person, happening around the world. There's a lot on there. Don't let yourself be overwhelmed by it. Take what resonates and leave the rest. Really, you do not need to do everything they list what an indie web site should have!
  • Neocities directory -- All the sites that are hosted on neocities.org
  • Indieseek -- A webdirectory of indie websites that is curated by hand.
  • Ye Olde Blogroll -- A hand curated list of blogs.

Personal websites and blogs

If you go and have a look at the community spaces and directories I mention above, you'll realise immediately that there are tons of personal websites around. The list below therefore is, obviously, only a very tiny snippet of a snippet. These websites are those of people I personally connected with online on some level, or ones that stood out to me especially. Not being on that list does NOT mean the site's not worthy of being mentioned. See it more as a starting point to your exploration of the wonderful world of personal websites.

  • Lost Letters -- A beautiful personal website by Lost, who's living in Japan. They write about their life and hobbies.
  • DeathKitten -- Amy blogs, makes glitch art (which she also sells), and runs a Star Trek RPG (whose adventures you can read on its own website).
  • Shannon Kay -- I have linked to her above, but a link to her site should also be here. Shannon shares photos, blogs about her life, and writes about other projects as well.

Newsletters and e-zines

These are some great newsletters regarding the web, particularly the personal web.

  • Own your Web by Matthias Ott -- He is a UX designer from Germany. This newsletter is all about starting, building, and maintaining your own personal website. He does not so much teach how to actually code, but rather takes a broader approach. Expect lots of links to great websites. It currently does not have a fixed schedule.
  • Scrolls by Shellsharks -- It's a newsetter that you can only subscribe to by RSS. It's about the indie web, the Fediverse, and cybersecurity. Lots and lots of links that have sent me surfing the net like it's 1999. Good stuff! A new edition comes out every Friday.
  • From the Superhighway by ajazz -- This one is about getting to know the indie web. It's published monthly.
  • ELPiS by downgrade -- A monthly e-zine not only about the small web, but also about retro computing. What's special is that it autotranslates into the language of your system. For the German translation I can say that it reads really well.

Fun & Games

  • Floor 796 -- Loose yourself in the details of this amazing ever growing animated scene set on the 796th floor of a space station. Many characters are clickable. Read the About on the site for more info.
  • New! Arkadia -- A zoomquilt that pulls you into a colourful magical -alien?- landscape.
  • New! Infinite Flowers -- Another zoomquilt made by the same artist as the one above. This time you're exploring a world full of flowers. Tip: tap/ click the screen for info about the artist and more zoomquilts.
  • Neal.fun -- A collection of fun games and information pages. They are designed beautifully.
  • Internet Archive -- A huge archive of websites, software, books, videos, etc.
  • ISFDB -- The Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase. What it says on the tin. Amazing resource.
  • IndieWeb Carnival -- A monthly writing prompt, hosted by members of the IndieWeb community.
  • IPA Reader -- This tool reads international phonetic alphabet (IPA) notation out loud. You can hear if your notations sound right, and even how it sounds in various languages and accents. I used it to test the notation for my name and internet name.
  • IPA picker -- Another IPA tool. This is for writing text in IPA. I used it to type the notation for my name and internet name.
  • New! Make WordArt -- Yes, a site where you can make WordArt like back in the day. Have fun!

Star Trek

News & Infos

  • TrekMovie -- Great news site about Star Trek.
  • StarTrek.com -- Lots of great articles by fans, as well as official news.

Literature & Lore

I love the novels, both old and new. The catalogue is huge. Here are links to help find our way around it. There are also links to fun literary fan projects.

Shrines & Fun

While the links above are more... formal, I want to list some lighter sites here. Think shrines and fun stuff.

Podcasts

  • All Access Star Trek -- The flagship podcast from TrekMovie.
  • Trek Ranks -- A fun podcast where the host and his guests rank their top 5 Trek episodes depending on a topic.
  • It's Got Star Trek -- Three friends talk about Trek episodes, either the current new episode or a not so random random old one. They are hilarious, go on a lot of tangents, and have good conversations.
  • The Delta Flyers -- Robert Duncan McNeill and Garrett Wang watch Star Trek and talk about it. They started with Voyager (obviously) and now go through DS9 together with Armin Shimerman and Terry Farrell. Great conversations and insight to making the shows. There's a free version, which is already worth listening. But they also have payed content on Patreon.
  • SyFySistas -- 4 Black women talk about Trek and other Science Fiction. They are great to listen to as they talk about episodes, books, or do interviews.
  • Positively Trek -- Two friends talk about Star Trek in a positive manner. They cover every medium.
  • Literary Treks -- A podcast all about Trek books and comics. Lots of interviews with authors.
  • The Pod Directive -- The official Star Trek podcast hosted by Tawny Newsome and Paul F. Tompkins. Great interviews.
  • Gates McFadden InvestiGates -- Gates McFadden talks to fellow Trek actors. Very intimate and always great.
  • All The Asians in Star Trek -- Phil Yu interviews all the Asians on Star Trek, from the stunt person, to the background actor, to producers, to the main cast.

Authors

Fiction

  • Susan Kaye Quinn -- SciFi and hopepunk climate fiction writer. I love her 4 book series "Nothing is Promised".
  • Carrie Vaughn -- LOVED her urban fantasy "Kitty Norville" series.
  • Una McCormack -- She writes some of my favourite Star Trek tie-in novels, among many other things.
  • David Mack -- He writes fantastic Star Trek tie-in fiction. I have yet to read his other stuff, but eventually will.

Non-Fiction

  • Tansy E. Hoskins -- She is a journalist and author writing about the global fashion industry. Her latest book "The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion" made me interested in that topic. She has written another book called "Footwork. What Your Shoes Tell You About Globalisation", as well as a number of articles. She has an amazing newsletter too.

Software & services I use

  • Tuta -- E-Mail; secure, no tracking, encrypted within Tuta, encrpyption outside Tuta possible. There's a free basic version, but for 3€ per month you get a lot of more options, like more storage, aliases, custom domain e-mail, etc.
  • libro.fm -- Audiobooks; you can support a local bookstore of your choice by buying audiobooks through libro.fm. They also offer a subscription just like Audible.
  • SongLink -- Share a song or album with links to all the platforms.
  • Folding At Home -- Help fight desease by offering your computer power to run simulations of proteins. Like Seti@home, only for medicine.
  • Neocities -- This is where this website lives.
  • VSCodium -- A tracking free version of VS Code, which I use to write the code for this site.
  • Squoosh -- A browser based service that reduces the file size of images and lets you save them in various formats. According to them, it all happens locally on your machine.

... and have used

  • Visual Studio Code -- I wrote my website in it. Before that I used Notepad++.
  • Notepad++ -- I wrote a good portion of my website in it before switching to VS Code.

Link Graveyard

This is a list of links that do not work anymore, the sites behind them have shut down. I'll add to it whenever I learn that one of the links above has met this fate. Should you become aware of a dead link in my list, please contact me.

  • Songwhip -- The site itself is still up, however the function for which I used it does not work anymore: sharing links to songs for all platforms. Already generated links seem to still work though. Instead, I am using SongLink now.