Journal Update 021

What’s New

As was planned since my last journal entry back in May, I polished up the hugo-theme-nicksphere repository.

Among the improvements are:

• Anonymous links (noreferrer).
• Faster capsule generation.
• Bold and italics support for Web.
• Improved Web accessibility for mobile and screen readers.
• Improved site HTML and CSS.
• Improved site and capsule navigability.
• Made it easier to add a logo.
• Added emojis.
• Added useful metadata to each entry.

I also made some improvements to the nicksphere repository:

• Improved glossary linkability.
• Simplified relative links.
• Made text on non-entry pages less long-winded.

And finally, some other improvements were made independent of any repository:

• Added nicksphere.ch to the HSTS preload list.
• Updated the CGit instance and improved code readability.
• Mirrored all my Git repositories on Sourcehut for redundancy.
• Made the Tor onions faster.
• Fixed the HTTP headers for nicksphere.ch.

Future Plans

I hope to get around to fixing known bugs and adding more features to hugo-theme-nicksphere. The basic challenge is to make the Web output featureful without breaking Gemini. For instance, I want to add inline images and links for the Web whilst also making those images and links accessible on Gemini.

I still plan on eliminating the promoted links page over time.

I need to use a tool to scan for link rot and fix any broken links. This is relatively easy.

I’ve been considering removing the branding “nicksphere” from my journal and replacing it with just my name. Here are my reasons:

• Everything on the domain “nicksphere.ch” and its subdomains is specific to me: my journal, my email, and my Git repositories. My name alone is sufficient branding. “nicksphere” is erroneous.
• “nicksphere” in spoken English is unclear. I always have to spell it to people.
• Searching “nicksphere” on any major search engine yields my journal. I like being high in the search results, but I’d rather this journal be found by word of mouth and links from other small blogs. Also, I think search engines wield too much power and I’m not willing to let SEO dictate things about my journal.

Rebranding isn’t a high priority and I haven’t decided on it for certain. In any case, I’ll be sure to provide ample notice if the domain is changed.

I’ve spent a lot of time on server-side configurations that make nicksphere.ch work, but they’re not documented anywhere. I’d like to create a Git repository automating those setups and configurations with Ansible scripts.

Another reason server-side automation is useful is for transitioning to a new VPS. I need to switch because my current VPS only accepts digital tulips, which I oppose. Since this domain is associated with my real legal name, I don’t benefit from anonymous payment anyways. And my VPS provider is quite expensive.

There’s a lot to be done, but luckily the only time-sensitive todo item is switching my VPS provider so I don’t need to use cryptocurrency. Everything else can wait.