robbie's really cool blog (⌐ ⊡_ ⊡) ☢︎ ⌖☣︎𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

5/24/2026 - furlandia

Sun, 24 May 2026 22:04:58 GMT

well, furlandia was a bust (sort of). i volunteered for about 5 hours on friday but i wasn't too impressed by their communication and so decided to pull out for the rest of the weekend. i won't go into detail about why since idk who reads my blog and i don't want to start any trouble, but it became pretty clear to me pretty fast that the con was being held together by string and elmer's glue. i'm a little disappointed since i was looking forward to helping out, but that's neither here nor there... if i DO go next year, i probably won't volunteer unless they make dramatic improvements to their management.... oh well. i got a free staff t-shirt at least x)

it wasn't all bad though! it was nice to see so many cool fursuits, i got to say hi to a few of my friends and most of the other volunteers were really nice. it made me realize how badly i want to start working on Thing's partial suit!!! i'm thinking i'll probably make his head + tail myself and commission someone else to make the paws. i just need to get some hot glue and clear off some space in my room and then i can really start making progress on his head :-D

speaking of that, i'm thinking my next project will be trying to find a bigger desk for my room since it would give me a lottttt more room to make various different kinds of art and would just be nicer to have in general. i do love my current desk but i've really outgrown it... my pc and monitor take up 80% of the room on it and i'm lucky to fit my drawing tablet if there's nothing else in the way. ikea lowkey scares me but maybe this week calls for a venture into its labyrinthine depths.

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5/18/2026

Mon, 18 May 2026 20:26:08 GMT

uuughhhhhhh i have so much homework this week kill me D,X to be honest i'm only writing this entry right now to procrastinate LMAO. i have a presentation due tonight and the first draft of a big essay due tomorrow..... all i wanna do right now is work on my website and draw but i gotta lock the fuck in first </3

also i showed my new tattoo to my mom yesterday and she loved it!!!! i don't know why i was so nervous about telling her lel. i still have yet to show my dad but i'm not too worried about him since he usually doesnt care what i do anyway.

im excited for furlandia next week!!!!! if i can just get all my work done before then i can actually relax. i'm gonna force myself to get it done now but ill write again when it's all over

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5/16/2026

Sun, 17 May 2026 04:58:42 GMT

okay i KNOW i said on wednesday that i would show my tattoos the following day, and obviously that did not happen LOL T__T good thing i just remembered to do my entry today!

this is my newest one, done by stardog.tats on ig :3 it was a flash piece that really resonated with me and i'm so happy with how it turned out!!! it's so nice to look down at my arm and remember Oh yeah i have a sick piece of art on my arm. Awesome...

aaaaand the long-awaited one of a pangolin - my favorite animal - wrapped around a tree branch that i got in january!!!!!! my first ever tattoo and i'm so insanely happy with it. it was a custom piece where i gave them a rough concept sketch (see above) but otherwise handed full artistic liberty to them. fernwhisker's work is deeply inspiring to me so to have their art on me is so meaningful :,3

on the topic of tattoos i'd honestly love to become a tattoo artist one day, not for a career but just for fun. i have a feeling i'd have a great time with it and the thought of people having my art on their body forever makes me really happy... it'd definitely also be an opportunity to branch out and creatively challenge myself in ways i hadn't before! although it seems like oregon is one of the hardest states to get a tattooing license in :( hopefully one day when i have the monay to enroll in tattoo school.

i guess not much else is new other than that i'm enjoying the cold weather still! it's supposed to warm up this week but at the very least that means i can wear short sleeves and show off my new tat HAHA

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5/13/2026: second tattoo eva + top surgery

Wed, 13 May 2026 19:40:40 GMT

trying to get in a more regular habit of writing here instead of going months without updating LMFAO. twitter is so bad for my mental health but dumping my every arbitrary thought there has me in a vice </3 i need to learn to do that here instead

last night we got a thunderstorm despite it being really hot during the day, and today it's really wet and cold..... i'm enjoying it while i can cuz it won't be long until we're having 90+ degree days here. i'm at my favorite coffee shop as i write this, something about being at a cafe while it's raining outside is really peaceful :-)

AND... i'm getting my second tattoo ever today!!! i'm really excited!!!! i'm a little nervous about how i'll tell my parents about it because my adhd brain made me procrastinate it until now but i'm thinking it can just be a surprise... whatever lol.... earlier this year i drafted an entry where i showed my first tattoo but i think it got lost to time sadly. in my next entry i'll show them both!

also omg in that same entry that i never posted i wrote that i'd gotten top surgery O__O all my friends know already but i'll say it here anyway, i'm now 4 months post-op and it's healing amazingly!!!! the area is mostly numb but i've been getting tingling sensations like someone poured a soda in there. i think that's a good sign the severed nerves are reconnecting. it's really weird not being able to feel anything in certain places but i'm insanely happy with the result!!!

finn and i had such a funny aggie sesh last night it made me laugh really hard. i was feeling really cruddy like i usually do past 10pm, but after we got on call and giggled i felt way better. i dunno what i'd do without that boy i'm so lucky to have him.. lalalala i love my gongeous husband...

ummmm how do even you conclude entries like this. "rob signing off"??? that works as well as anything i think. rob signing off! i'll try to update again tomorrow and show my tats if i remember #yay

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12/31/25 - new year’s eve

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 06:37:29 GMT

happy 2026 everyone!!! （＾＿＾)🎉🎉🎉

it’s hard to believe this year is already over….. i feel like the past five years have zoomed by at the speed of light. a lot happened in my life this year, but it still felt like a weird blur and i’m struggling to come to terms with 2030 now being closer than 2020. (oh god let’s take a second for that to sink in LMFAO)

2026 is the year i officially say goodbye to my teens 0___0 the passage of time keeps hitting me like a semitruck…nothing i can do about that though so i’m gonna do my best to take it in stride.
regardless, i have an exciting january coming up - i have my first tattoo this friday and then top surgery on the 9th. i’m going through all the emotions you’d expect for something as big as the latter, but i’ve been extremely lucky to have a supportive family and boyfriend at my side through all of it :,) i’m so overwhelmed with emotion that i’ve circled around to feeling almost nothing at all HAHA i’m mostly insanely excited though.

this year i want to branch out creatively and work on shifting my online presence from social media to my neocities site. as grateful as i am to have such a big audience on twitter and ig, they’re both corporate ai-infested hellscapes and i’d much rather pour my time into something genuinely gratifying instead of wasting it with fleeting dopamine rushes. every second i spend doomscrolling is one that i could have spent drawing or coding or doing something worthwhile instead, so i reeeeaallyyyy want to work on bettering that this year.

i guess my other new year’s resolutions are to keep fostering self acceptance and healing and to get involved with my local community more :-J and to get….oh god… um...a… a j*b…… throws up in my mouth a little

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Using Dreamwidth’s RSS feed to make a blog on your webpage

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 20:01:25 GMT

I’ve been asked how I made a self-updating blog on my static website before, so I figured I’d make a short tutorial for anyone wanting to make their own!

Blogs like these are possible with RSS, which stands for “Really Simple Syndication”. In layman’s terms, it allows viewers of a website to be notified of updates without needing to subscribe via email. An RSS feed checks for updates from its source and allows these updates to be seen on the webpage.

In this tutorial, I’ll give you a brief on how I use Dreamwidth (a free blog-hosting service in the ilk of Livejournal) to make a blog on your site using RSS feeds.

Why use RSS feeds for blogs, as opposed to just updating the site itself?

You can keep a blog in your site by simply writing it there like you would anything else. However, this gets very tedious very quickly. Your HTML file will bloat in size as you add entries, making it very hard to maintain if you ever want to make changes to your page. (Don’t ask me how I know this.) With RSS feeds though, all you need is a few lines of Javascript code where you want your blog to be! It’s much easier to keep track of in the long run, and any edits you make to your entries will show up on your site within minutes.

Additionally, many RSS readers have built-in accessibility features for people using screenreaders. It’s a great way to make your site friendlier for websurfers of all abilities.

Why use Dreamwidth for blog hosting?

Dreamwidth is open-source and makes it easy to obtain an RSS feed of your blog to plug into your reader of choice. All you need to do is write the entries, and your reader will do the rest of the heavy lifting!

1.) Make a Dreamwidth account (if you haven’t already)

You can do this on their front page by hitting the “Create” button, and then selecting “Create Account”.

2.) Write an entry (or two or three)

This is the fun part!

It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. Write about a yummy sandwich you had or your favorite obscure band no one but you cares about or just keysmash to your heart’s content.

3.) Grab the RSS feed for your blog

In your browser’s search bar, type “https://typeyouraccountnamehere.dreamwidth.org/data/rss”. You should see a big scary-looking text file devoid of formatting. Copy this link; we’re going to paste it somewhere in a second.

4.) Find an RSS reader

I personally use and recommend rssdog.com, but there are plenty out there. For convenience, I’ll be writing this tutorial under the assumption that you’re using it.

5.) Paste your feed URL where your reader tells you to and customize it from there

You should see a box to paste your feed URL. Once you’ve done that, there are a bunch of toggles to customize how your feed will appear on your site. You don’t need to change much, but I recommend turning on “Decode from UTF8” and selecting “Javascript Mode”.

Once you’re satisfied, click “Make the code” and then “Get the code”. Your Javascript code will be available to copy there.

6.) Go back to your site’s HTML file and paste the code where you want your blog to appear

This is pretty straightforward. It doesn’t really matter where you put it as long as it’s between your <body></body> tags.

7.) Click “Save” and view your webpage

If it worked, you should see a little version of your blog with your entries there. You did it! You’re now all set to blog as freely as you’d like.

Conclusion

I am not an expert by any means, just an overambitious nerd, but I hope this tutorial has helped. It’s also worth mentioning that this is not the only way to implement RSS feeds into your site! I love this tutorial by caffeineandlasers.neocities.org that explains another way to do it in-depth.

Sources

Nps.gov, 2025, www.nps.gov/feeds/rss-help.htm.
My beautiful sexy mind

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Test Entry

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 18:39:35 GMT

Testing if my RSS still works.

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Cool Links Directory

Thu, 12 Oct 2023 06:25:13 GMT

ROBBIE'S REALLY COOL LINK DIRECTORY

(updated whenever I feel like it, probably.)

The Internet is a strange place, to put it lightly. How could it not be? It's used by billions worldwide every day, hosting unfathomable volumes of information at a blinding rate of constant growth. It reflects every facet of human creativity, intelligence, community, and more often than not, downright weirdness.

But how often do most people surf the web? And no, I don't mean doomscrolling on Instagram. I mean really surfing the web?

Most of us use the internet every day, but thanks to the algorithm-based infrastructure of social media, we rarely see more than a small fraction of it. It can be frustrating trying to escape it all, because if you're always getting stuck in a constant feedback loop, how are you supposed to know where to start?

Enter link directories!

Link directories are just what it says on the tin! That is, assortments of links gathered in one place that tend to be organized in some manner, or tied together by a theme. If you're sick of seeing the same things regurgitated over and over, and yearn to experience the net in all of its unhinged glory, this is a fantastic way to start! If that's not you, I hope you'll still stick around, since it's a lot of fun.

Here's a collection of neat sites I've encountered along my webventures. Some of them are useful, some of them aren't, but if it captured my attention it's on this list.

Unfortunately, the document got too long for me to store on Dreamwidth, so I jammed it all in a google doc. Click here to view the directory.

Enjoy your websurfing!

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7/15/23: CD+vinyl collection (and some misc rambling)

Sun, 16 Jul 2023 04:30:18 GMT

I don't talk about it often, but one of my biggest hobbies is collecting vinyl and CDs! I've been collecting for about two years (since I was fifteenish), and throughout that time I think I've gotten some pretty neat stuff. Nothing I have is crazy rare or anything, it just makes me happy to tangibly own music I love, and I'm quite enthralled with the craftsmanship of colorful vinyl.

Digital files can also be unreliable, so my collection doubles as an archive! Should anything happen to my files, or if they get taken off streaming, I won't have a reason to worry since I own the music physically. I wanted to archive my collection here for funsies :-)

Devo - De-evolutionary Nascent Artifact
Devo - Freedom Of Choice
Devo - New Traditionalists
Devo - Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!

I've loved DEVO since I was a kid. My favorite album of theirs is actually one I don't have on vinyl yet.

Electric Light Orchestra - Eldorado
Electric Light Orchestra - ELO's Greatest Hits
Electric Light Orchestra - Olé ELO
Electric Light Orchestra - Out Of The Blue
Electric Light Orchestra/Olivia Newton-John - Xanadu

I don't listen to ELO too regularly, but I do like their music. Most of these were passed down from my mom to me.

Kraftwerk - Radio-Activity

I really need to listen to more Kraftwerk. I used to think their stuff wasn't really for me, but I've really warmed up to it since and their sound is undeniably unique.

Wall Of Voodoo - Call Of The West

I haven't actually listened to Wall of Voodoo much, other than their song "Call Box (1-2-3)", which features on their album Dark Continent. I don't know why, but I remember being reminded of Talking Heads as I listened? The only attributor to this I can think of is the nervous vocal style the singer shares with David Byrne.
Unfortunately, some of their music seems to have been removed from streaming. Vinyls of it still seem pretty easy to find though.

Lemon Demon - Spirit Phone
Lemon Demon - View-Monster
Lemon Demon - Dinosaurchestra
Lemon Demon - I Am Become Christmas
Lemon Demon - Nature Tapes
Lemon Demon - Acrobat Unstable Record
Lemon Demon - Something Glowing

This isn't even counting the cassettes and CDs I have. Lemon Demon is, no doubt, my favorite artist of all time. I've been a fan of Neil's work since roughly early 2020 (although his work has been speckled throughout my entire life in one way or another), and ever since, his music has been there for me more than I can describe. I'm especially partial to his earlier music; I would love some of his earliest work to be given a proper vinyl release, but I can completely understand why that might not be something he'd want. As this is being written, though, there's currently a Damn Skippy (and possibly HTTJB) vinyl release on the horizon -- so I'm super hyped for that. I'll update this list once I have them!

Fun fact: I actually have 2 Spirit Phone vinyls. One is the glow-in-the-dark variant, which I keep in my shelf for actually spinning on the turntable. The other is the Half-Human Half-Machine variant, which I've hung on my wall because it's gorgeous and I love looking at it.

Logan Whitehurst & the Jr. Science Club - Goodbye, My 4-Track
Logan Whitehurst & the Jr. Science Club - The Mini-Album of Luv

Logan Whitehurst is an obscure gem of geek-rock. Originally a drummer for bands The Velvet Teen and Little Tin Frog, he later went on to make music independently under the name "Logan Whitehurst & the Jr. Science Club" -- with a plastic lawn snowman, Vanilla, as his sole bandmate. Logan passed away due to brain cancer complications in 2006, but the album that many fans consider to be his magnum-opus, Goodbye, My 4-Track, continues to be his greatest musical legacy.
I discovered Logan's music through a friend of mine late last year, and have been a massive fan ever since. As this is being written, a documentary about his music and life is being produced, which is set to release around September this year. If you want to keep up with its development, check out @yourfriendlogan on Twitter and Instagram! I sincerely hope his music can get the recognition and love it deserves one day.

Of Montreal - Paralytic Stalks
Of Montreal - The Sunlandic Twins

Of Montreal is a band that takes me back to my early preteen years. I'm slightly abashed to admit this is because their music featured prominently in the edgy Warriors animation memes I was so obsessed with at that age. That being said though, now that I'm almost an adult, I've found their experimental indie-pop musical style to be much easier to dissect and appreciate. I'm especially partial to their 1997 magnum-opus of melancholy psychedelia, Cherry Peel (which I don't yet own on vinyl, but am keeping my eyes peeled).

Oingo Boingo - Dead Man's Party

Oingo Boingo is easily in my top favorite bands of all time. Much like the other musical acts mentioned, Danny Elfman has a distinct musical presence and eccentric singing style that deeply captivates me. For whatever reason, I haven't been able to find many OB vinyls laying around in record stores... maybe I'm just not looking hard enough though.

Anyways, to say Oingo Boingo has influenced my music taste and my art would be an understatement. I owe a lot of the music I've discovered, the friends I've made and things I've drawn to this one zany little new-wave act. I know Danny Elfman has veered towards independent music in recent years -- good for him, honestly -- but his work as the main vocalist and composer for OB will always hold a special place in my heart.

Talking Heads - Remain In Light
Talking Heads - Speaking In Tongues
Talking Heads - 77
Talking Heads - Chicago, August 28, 1978

As a person with autism, David Byrne has inspired me in countless ways. Usually I dislike repetitive music, but there's something profoundly different about Talking Heads to me that I can't quite find the words to describe. Maybe it's the detached, nervous energy of Byrne's vocals? The groovy basslines? The stream-of-consciousness commentary on the strangeness of the world, often from a confused, paranoid-sounding narrator? The general complex, lush-funk novelty of it all? Whatever it is, I keep finding myself coming back to Talking Heads, and it's no surprise that many consider it to be one of the greatest bands of all time. I sure do!

They Might Be Giants - Apollo 18
They Might Be Giants - Self-Titled

TMBG is another band that I grew up with, and has consequently helped foster my love for geek-rock. With lyrics that lightheartedly explore topics ranging from the fall of Constantinople to cursed statues and space travel, this Brooklyn-based alternative rock duo is proof that music doesn't always have to take itself seriously to be good. I'm convinced that if the world was ending, the Johns could (and would) riff a catchy tune out of it. TMBG has remained one of my favorite bands since I was a little kid, and I can't ever see that changing.

Toby Fox - Deltarune Chapter 1 OST
Toby Fox - Undertale
Toby Fox - Complete Undertale OST

What can I say about Toby Fox's music that hasn't been said already? Any game he touches is bound to have a soundtrack that bangs.

Brad Breeck - Gravity Falls Soundtrack
"Weird Al" Yankovic -- Dare To Be Stupid
"Weird Al" Yankovic -- Bad Hair Day
Richard Band - H.P. Lovecraft's Re-Animator
Jerry Goldsmith - Logan's Run
Jeff Wayne - The War Of The Worlds
The Cars - Self-Titled

These are some extraneous records I wasn't sure how to fit into their own individual sections. I'm not entirely familiar with the last three (I think I was gifted them by a family member???) but I'm always willing to take on new music and add it to my array of tastes.

That's the extent of my vinyl/CD collection so far. I'm super happy with what I've collected over this past 2 years <:-) I'll probably update whenever I get new additions, but don't count on it... my memory is less-than-stellar when it comes to these sorts of things. I do have a discogs page, though, so feel free to follow me there if you have one too. Us shitty-music-taste-havers have got to stick together, after all...

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weeeeell, that was a whole lot of talking about music. the actual blog section of this entry starts now, I suppose. i could honestly write for days about the artists I love, but for the sake of anyone reading this, I'll ramble about a few other things for a change...

i'm gonna be honest, i've been kind of anxious about my online presence as of late. the existence of a centralized, monolithic Internet has made having a public persona increasingly scary for me: at best, I don't feel fulfilled by any of the interactions I get from people outside of my close friend group; at worst, i feel outright unsafe and embarrassed for having information about myself so readily available. being autistic has also made it wildly harder to maintain a digital footprint that feels habitable, especially on sites like Twitter that heavily encourage masking of autistic traits.

all that said, I'm now finding myself at a bit of a crossroads. The idea of limiting my online presence to my private accounts and my website has become very appealing, but it would mean severing the platform my art has almost entirely. I would basically be going back to square one, in terms of how comfortable I am putting my original artwork online.
On the other hand, I could keep posting on my public accounts like normal, but the anxiety of having to mask online would continue, likely at the same (or an even worse) rate.

I guess the best way to put it is this: i don't feel fulfilled by the empty dopamine rush social media gives me. It feels good for a second, sure -- but it ultimately never amounts to anything genuine, at least not in my own experience. the format of 280-character snippets or short 7-second stories, by nature of them, make authentic human connections much harder to form; especially in the constant stream of consciousness embodying the centralized Internet we've become so overexposed to. The only reason I want to stay on social media nowadays is so I can keep up with my friends, and maaayybee to post my original art... although to be honest I've gotten a little insecure about that too LOL.

And all of this isn't even considering the stuff happening with Melon Husk on Twitter right now. At this rate, the site is going to go under in a matter of years, and I'm not really sure if a site run by a multibillionaire idiot, whose idea of running an entire social media is just shoving cables up his ass and calling it "innovation", is where I'd want to spend a good chunk of my time online...

All things considered, I will still probably end up keeping my public social medias active (albeit possibly to a lesser degree). What I reaaaallyyy want to focus on is getting my Neocities site back up to full speed, so I can focus the majority of my online energy on something that makes me genuinely happy. My site is a labor of love, and it's the only place in the World Wide Web that I can fully control. If I'm gonna be a part of the Internet, I might as well try to have a good time on it!

Anyways, that was a whooooole lot of rambling. I don't mean to sound like a downer or anything -- I'm actually extremely grateful for the connections I have made on social media, and I wouldn't give up my online friends for the world. It's just that I want to start using social media more mindfully, and focus more of my energy on creative expression rather than be forced to curate myself a specific way on a centralized platform.

In other news, I'm still working on ArtFight attacks for my friends! It's halfway through the month, and I've gotten a little burnt out (thanks, summer school), but I'm going to do my best to at least get all my friends. I'll try to revenge everyone who's already attacked me if I have the time and energy after that.

I think I've rambled enough for today. I might try to keep this 'half-something fun/unrelated, half-actual blogging' format in my blog entries and see how it goes!

Yours untruly,
--Rotginald

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Rottie’s really cool (amateur) tips for website creation and upkeep

Tue, 16 May 2023 04:30:37 GMT

Some tips for website creation and upkeep
This is a small list of things I've learned from my time maintaining a website. These aren't rules by any means; just tips and tricks here and there that beginner HTML coders might find useful.

1.) Don't hotlink images.
If you're anything like me, you might have started out with sourcing images by linking directly from other sites. This is called 'hotlinking', and while it might make sense to do at first, it’s generally something you want to avoid doing. Here's why:

- You have virtually no control over the file. If anything happens to the source you linked from, that failure will cascade to your site and make the image come up blank; making your image’s shelf life much shorter, and by extension, your site will be much harder to preserve. This also means if an image is modified on the host’s site, that change will show up on your site, too.
- It’s unkind to other website owners. The owner of the site you hotlink from has to deal with the increased server traffic from having something from their site directly linked to, which can cost them extra money and bandwidth. In general, it’s bad practice and pretty inconsiderate.

How can I avoid hotlinking? Simply save the file to your computer and upload it to your site’s directory! That way, you have full control over the file you upload; it won’t disappear or be modified without your input, and you’re not placing any strain on fellow site owners. If you want to credit someone for a file they created, link to their site somewhere external from the source file rather than hotlinking.

2.) Separate CSS stylesheets from your HTML files.
Fun fact: HTML was never intended to store formatting information — it was only designed to tell a computer what to display on a page, and where. Everything having to do with fancy div boxes and rainbow sparkly fonts is the CSS stylesheet’s job. Technically, you can have CSS and HTML stored in the same file, but doing simple things like changing the font of a page or having multiple pages with the same theme becomes far more tedious.

When I was starting out, I made the mistake of having CSS in the same file as my HTML. It really cluttered the file and made it a lot harder to navigate, and if I wanted to change the way a page was laid out in any way, I had a difficult time. Having to fine-tooth comb through everything gets old fast, and eventually I learned to just create a separate stylesheet and link it directly to my HTML file. The difference was night and day!

Applying a stylesheet to an HTML file is easy. All you have to do is paste the following code at the top of your file, in between <head></head> tags:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="yourstylesheethere.css">

Of course, you’d replace the ‘href’ value with your own CSS stylesheet.

At the end of the day, having a clean, organized HTML file at the cost of switching between files sometimes is very worth it. I think most people probably got this way sooner than I did, but I figured I couldn’t be the only one who was doing this for so long. I hope it makes your life easier, too.

3.) Compress, compress, compress!
A lot of people get turned off when they hear “compressing” in the context of digital files — understandably so, since it can reduce a file’s visible quality. However, file compression has some benefits worth considering. Downsizing a file helps compact your site; increasing loading speeds and freeing up extra storage, while also making it easier to archive. To top it off, online tools make it quite easy to do.

The two main forms of compression are lossy and lossless. Both have their benefits and their drawbacks, so you may be interested in learning what kind of compression works best for your site.

- Lossy compression is utilized by JPEGs. It significantly reduces the size of a file, but has some noticeable quality reduction; the severity of which can depend.
- Lossless compression is utilized by PNGs. It retains the visible quality of a file, but only slightly reduces the size.

How can I compress my files? There’s a plethora of resources out there for you to choose from. I’ll go over a few:

- Use online tools. Probably the most accessible option; you can just search for “online image compressor” and you’ll get page after page of resources. You can also use online tools to…

- Convert your images to WebP. WebP is a specialized image format created by Google, made to be 26% smaller than PNGs. It’s optimized for both lossless and lossy compression, which means you’ll get a better result from both. The only drawback is that not all hosts/browsers support it -- make sure to double-check whatever you're using allows the format first.

- Use JPEG instead of PNG files when you can. JPEG files can get pretty blurry, but they generally take up a lot less space than PNGs do. What’s nice about this is that you can usually save images as JPEG from the get-go, meaning you won’t have to convert it later.

4.) Archive your site.
In an age where the Internet is constantly shedding old versions of itself, it’s safe to say nothing on it truly lasts forever. Everything in cyberspace exists on a server somewhere, which are hosted on physical hard drives; thereby subjected to the possibilities of failure. Hardware fades out of relevancy, old file types become unsupported, websites with outdated software become obsolete -- and that’s only a fraction of how the internet poses continual tests of time!

All of this is to say: the notion that “everything on the Internet is permanent” couldn’t be farther from the truth. This is why it’s more important than ever to archive your site, so you’ll never lose access against your will.

How can I archive my site? What’s neat about archival is that there’s more than one way to do it, and they’re all fairly easy. However, you may find some methods more accessible than others, depending on the resources you have available.

- Submit it to The Internet Archive. Founded in 1996, the Internet Archive (also known as The Wayback Machine) is a nonprofit library of over 808 billion webpages, digital books, photos, videos, mp3s, and more. You can submit pretty much anything to be archived, including your own site. You have to create an account to upload, but it’s super worth it in my opinion. Submit your site here -- it only takes a few minutes, and lasts a lifetime after!

- Save it on a physical hard drive. If you have any USB drives laying around, consider downloading your site and uploading it to one of those. If you don’t, you can find some inexpensive ones at most tech stores, so consider investing in one or two! It’s up to you to not lose the drive, so consider buying a backup or finding a special place to store it. Make sure to get one that isn’t likely to malfunction, too.

Digital footprints are a lot like real-life footprints: they get rained on, dried out by the sun, and buried and subjected to time and weather until -- eventually -- nothing remains of it. Archiving, meanwhile, is sort of like footprints on the moon: there’s no wind or atmosphere up there, so they last far, far longer. Similarly, you can prolong your site’s lifetime by making sure it’s backed up in a stable environment.

Why limit it to just your site, though? Archive other people’s sites, too. Archive sites you love, and ones your friends love. Hell, archive anything and everything that’s ever brought you joy on the Internet, because one day, you might find it defunct or disappeared forever. Archiving is a form of rebellion. The internet is only a capitalist hellscape if we let it, so do your part and retain the things you love about it!

5.) Seek help from other coders.
Throughout my time as a coder, I’ve found that the HTML community is full of genuinely nice people who are happy to provide resources for beginners. In fact, lots of people have resources listed directly on their site, so don’t be afraid to take advantage of them. They’re there for a reason, after all!

Here are some great websites you can go to for HTML help:
- W3schools - One of, if not the most useful resource for learning to code out there. Almost everything I know about HTML came from here! If you're looking to build a site, I'd start out with the basic HTML course, but it has a class for pretty much every coding language you can think of.
- HTML Cheatsheet - An EXTREMELY useful resource that compiles HTML/CSS assets, generates layouts, codes and more. Everything is laid out in a very easy-to-understand way.
- Sadgrl.online is among my top favorites. Built on Neocities, it’s filled with all kinds of great resources, many of which have helped me personally. Layout builders, tutorials, code snippets, graphics and guides... the list goes on. If you’re looking for resources, or just want to surf the web a bit, I highly recommend giving it a look sometime.

In conclusion…

I, of course, am not an HTML professional by any means. I’ve only had a website for around 2 years (as of May 2023, when this is being written), and I still have quite a bit to learn. Among the things I have learned, however, is that the best thing I can do for other beginner coders is to share the knowledge. If this list helps even one person, I’ll be satisfied.

If you’d like to share this guide with other people, feel free to do so. Thanks for reading!

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