Blog

I have finally switched codespeak.org over to SSL using Let’s Encrypt! I have had this domain for over 10 years without SSL so it’s about time. I also set this as a requirement for myself in order to release the distribution system. I’m also aware that it’s standard practice to use SSL on a website. Google will rank my site higher now because it’s using SSL, so that’s a bonus in addition to this change.

Let’s Encrypt was actually enabled on my domain as a free service from my webhost so I didn’t have to purchase a certificate in order to do this. However, I had to acquire a certificate for the VPS that hosts some of the files linked on this site.

This is not something I’ve really consciously thought of until now. With the Code Speak Distribution System, part of the web frontend includes a changelog section for each program. I want to take a similar approach to a project I had done before to track version changes, although not everything on this page will be a part of the web frontend changelog section.

In wanting to get things right, I thought about the URL structure for the pages on my own site. I like the lack of a trailing slash better than I do a slash to end a URL. It is for this reason that the URLs on this site will no longer automatically include the trailing slash.

When it comes to the design of my site, the previous theme worked but it wasn’t good enough. The main reason why I chose to go with a new theme was that I wanted to emphasize programming a bit more. To accomplish this I wanted a theme with a header image containing some code from one of my projects. I looked at so many themes trying to find one that worked for me and finally stumbled upon the one you’re looking at now.

Another change I have decided to make is the inclusion of the Contact and Donate pages to the main menu section. They were previously located in the footer on the left-hand side. This doesn’t really help things as someone may wish to get in contact with me or want to donate. The visibility of these links was a necessary part of this theme change.

Another change is that the archives page is now a child of the links page and can be found by hovering over the links item in the top menu.

The social media buttons are now no longer part of the footer but in the header area as smaller buttons.

And as always, do enjoy your stay on my site!

Widgetbot, which is what powers the web chat widget on this website, unfortunately has never been truly stable and because of this, the reliability of the chat experience hasn’t been guaranteed. However, that was version 1 of the software. Earlier today I went to the discord server for the project and asked for support. They told me to sign up for their beta version which I did. They also said that the beta version, also known as version 2, is much more reliable and is recommended. So,  I have decided to go ahead with that.

Another change you’ll notice is that I’ve removed the live chat page. Previously, I was using the embedded version and it was provided on the live chat page. Now, there is a button to the lower right that when clicked will open up the web chat interface. Much more user-friendly because it appears on all the pages, so you can chat from whatever page you’re on!

At the bottom of my website in the footer section there used to be a link called Services. This went to a small page that listed the location of my JBLS server, JBLS statistics, and a link to Battle.Net Hashes. That link changed to go directly to the Battle.Net Hashes page (it changed rather recently so I doubt anyone noticed). I’ve since changed the name to Battle.Net Resources. It goes to https://davnit.net/battle-net-resources/. I primarily made this change because I don’t want to manage the distribution of Battle.Net hashes anymore.

I have also removed the sub-domain jbls.codespeak.org as I don’t wish to have that as a service anymore. I actually stopped hosting a public JBLS awhile ago and it was simply a redirect to bnls.bnetdocs.org. As I decide where I want to focus development on I want to focus less on Battle.Net development and more on other things.