Kazimariusz

Skill Set & Technical Information

Everything on this website unless stated otherwise has been hand coded by me. The first section, On this site, details how I put this site together. Any libraries and tools I've used are listed in the aptly named Libraries and Tools section.

I'm not in on all the programming lingo, so I hope this list is clear, even if some of the terms are wrong. Questions and corrections are encouraged ([email protected])

On this site

Index
• cron
• CSS
• .htaccess
• HTML
• Javascript
• JSON
• MySQL
• PHP
• XML

• About compression & loading speed
• Libraries and Tools

cron

• I use cronjobs to retrieve information and save it to a JSON file. What prompted me to use cron is YouTube Data API's quota limit (10,000 tokens a day - since a search call uses 100 tokens, after 100 visits the API wouldn't return a search result anymore), and I schedule tasks that only need to be updated every so often.

• Currently scheduled tasks using cron:

  • Song of the Day, every day around midnight
  • Top Artists, every 5 days before midnight
  • Graphic of the Day, every day around midnight

CSS

CSS is the language I've used the longest, and the language I am most confident in. My journey started with modifying stylesheets on websites like wikia (now fandom.com), so I'd say I'm savvy with so-called CSS hacks.

• I make a lot of use of pseudo-elements and selectors.
• I use CSS variables (var(--variable-name-here)) for consistent sizes and colours. To achieve an unique look for every page I override these variables per page.
• To keep my styles flexible and responsive, I use CSS calculations and media queries.
• Here's a little titbit: I use drop-shadow sometimes, but when I learned multiple drop shadows grow exponentially, causing some browsers to crash, I cut back on using them.
• I mean, what else is there - chances are if it exists in CSS, I've used it before.

.htaccess

This one's a doozy. Yes, I made my .htaccess work for my site, but it took a lot of experimenting and faulty redirections before I got there.

Using .htaccess, I:

• Redirect any urls to it's HTTPS and www version,
• Internally redirect for query tags, as seen on artwork and any pages that make use of my "blog-post" format (Geoventures, code snippets),
• Remove the .php extension on pages,
• Remove trailing slashes accordingly. Together with a canonical tag on every page, I make sure every page has only 1 URL for SEO purposes,
• Redirect to a general error page that displays whatever error the site ran into. This page doesn't exist, for example,
• Do cache control on my static resources.

During testing I may have use permanent redirect R=301 sometimes, but I learned not to do that unless absolutely sure.

HTML

I didn't know where else to put this, but I use Google's "hidden" Shared Stuff API, as detailed in this article on DEV Community, to get favicons for outgoing links without having to save them to my webhost.

JavaScript

I know how to use JQuery, though I usually stick to vanilla JavaScript.

JSON

• The YouTube Data API returns requests in JSON format on default.
• I save the information I get from my scheduled cronjobs in JSON format. I use PHP to parse the information.

MySQL

• In combination with PHP I use MySQL for database retrievals, updates, inserts, and entry deletion. I use CASE statements, subqueries, limits...

PHP

My language of choice to make my pages dynamic.

• I make use of the Last.fm API and the YouTube Data API on the music lair. To get a "song of the day" I get a random entry from my list of songs I have "loved" on Last.fm, and use that information to perform a YouTube search to get a link to the song in question.
  • For now I marked the link to the YouTube video as "experimental", since there's no guarantee the search call will actually return the song (and it may return a link to the entire album, for example.)
  • My API calls send a user-agent header per Last.fm's terms of service.
• On Geoventures, I parse the content of one random post to get one random image with a link to its original website (using a regular expression) to display as a "graphic of the day".
• I make use of $_SERVER variables on pages and in my cronjob scripts.
• Reoccurring elements like the navigation and the footer are included on each page with PHP, though the navigation may look different accordingly.
• I make use of a database for information about my artwork, content in "blog" posts, site updates, ...
• I have used cURL requests in PHP before. (examples pending - I didn't need cURL in the end.)
• I made a rudimentary CMS for myself to edit whatever is in my database.

XML

• The Last.fm API returns requests in XML format on default.
• I have a sitemap in XML format for SEO purposes, generated through XML-Sitemaps.com.

About compression & loading speed

• My artwork, when enlarged, is accessible in it's original format (PNG, and sometimes JPG or GIF), though the thumbnails make use of WebP, with fallback for unsupported browsers.
• This server uses brotli compression.

Libraries and Tools

Libraries, APIs

• 98.css (GitHub), for styling some of the elements on this site (most noticeably the scrollbar!)
• Last.fm API, as seen on the music lair
• YouTube Data API, as seen on the music lair

Hosting

• Cloudflare, in an effort to improve the site's loading time
• FileZilla, my FTP client
• TransIP, the webhost I use

URL & SEO control

• Google Search Console, shows you what pages have been found and indexed by google, and if it fails, the reason why. Works as a .htaccess debugger in a way, though it does take a few days for Google to index a page and for requests to re-index to go through.
• Htaccess Tester , I couldn't have written my .htaccess file without this tool! You do need to know how the basics of .htaccess to use it, and it can't check certain variables.
• XML-Sitemaps.com, the site I use to generate my website's sitemap

Miscellaneous

• PageSpeed Insights, a site that details which elements of a page take up the most loading time. I use this site in combination with the Network panel in DevTools to optimize my site.
• picresize, my preferred tool to make thumbnails for my artwork
• Notepad++, though I only use it sporadically, because it's a good program I'd like to mention it regardless
• Visual Studio Code, my code editor of choice - I like it's simplicity and catalogue of extensions

Other programming

C

I have used ROBOTC before. (examples pending)

C++

I have used C++ and Arduino's C++ dialect before. (examples pending)

C#

(examples pending)

Excel

I have done calculations and stuff like that in Excel before. (examples pending - I admit, it's been a while)

Gamemaker, GameMaker Language

(examples pending)

Java

(examples pending)

JavaScript

• I have used Phaser in the past. (examples pending)

Node.js

(examples pending)

Artwork

My preferred program for digital art is Procreate, and for pixelart specifically I use Aseprite.

In the past I've used Autodesk Sketchbook, and before that PaintTool SAI. I use Microsoft Paint sometimes, then more than now, for both regular art and pixelart.

I have experience in Illustrator and Indesign.