April 30, 2025 Newsletter

Already a third of the way through the year! Time sure does fly by. April has been a relatively quiet month, but there are still a few updates to share around the Cafe!

 

Our 2025 Spring Tea Party has kicked off! Naturally, the theme is coffee and tea. Participants are tasked with designing a layout to be used by your fellow webweavers that evokes the vibe of enjoying a fresh cup of coffee or tea. Submissions are due May 11. Check out the event link below to get involved!

 

Events are put together by our event planning team, which is one of our project teams. If you are interested in getting more involved with the Cafe, take a look at our project teams and reach out to join!

 

Have a great May, y'all!

Our spring event for 2025 has kicked off! Flex your creativity and create a layout related to coffee and tea for others to use. Submissions close on May 11.

 

 

88x31 Buttons are widespread across the small web. If you're looking to fill out your button wall or show off your tiny graphics skills, come browse the forum thread.

 

 

To celebrate hitting 1,000 members, we threw an information demographic survey to get a pulse of who Cafe members are! While the final count was only about 10% of our members, still gives you a rough idea of what our forum membership is like.

 

 

Have you seen the 32-Bit Cafe Banner Exchange? Submit a 728x90 leaderboard and a 320x50 mobile ad to advertise your personal site, your project, anything you might want to promote on this side of the web! Be sure to disable your ad blocker when browsing the 32-Bit Cafe. The only ads we'll ever have are independent!

Coby's website has a delightful Aero aesthetic, making heavy use of glossy gradients and rounded corners. He also writes incredible articles taking a deep dive into a variety of interesting topics.

 

 

Every third Sunday, James, Jay, or both of them, are hosting our Webweaving Workshops. You can always take a look at our Events Calendar to see the specific date of upcoming events. Our next workshop will be April 18. See you there!

 

Every month, we showcase a few blog posts from members of the 32-Bit Cafe. Sometimes around a theme, sometimes not. This month, these posts give us a glimpse into the lives of our community members, a snapshot in time of them. These blog entries have been submitted to our community blogroll.

Lars-Christian muses over the process and effects of quitting caffeine has had on his daily life.

Has microblogging always been flawed since the beginning? Coyote analyzes the features of popular microblog platforms.

Guin defends cozy fantasy from the haters in this short and sweet post.

 

DarylSun's entry for the month's IndieWeb Carnival talks about how and why she renewed the joy she found in her old interests and hobbies.

 

Dr Molly Tov writes about why she gardens, and why she doesn't write about gardening.

 

 

CaffeineAndLasers vents some frustration about how much worse Reddit is for online hobby groups than forums.

The 32bitCafe Webring?

A discussion started by CaffeineAndLasers that dives into webrings and whether an official cafe webring makes sense.

Where'd your avatar/icon/pfp/whatever come from?

Jay kicks off a casual thread discussing the background of everyone's profile pictures.

Websites for yourself only

Inspired by his current project, PiusQBird asks the community about developing webpages that are not intended to be shared.

The Person Above Me

xandra kicks off one of the classic forum games where you lightheartedly post a brief description of what the poster above you is like.

This newsletter is meant to be helpful and engaging. If you think we're missing the mark, reach out to xandra@32bit.cafe. We'd love your feedback.

Thank you for being here. The world is better with you in it.

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March 31, 2025 Newsletter

Happy spring, websurfers! Thanks for your patience while we had some technical difficulties with our mail software. At least we skipped April Fool's!

The weather is warming, our projects are fleshing out, and every day, the independent web grows. We've officially passed 1,000 members on the forums and Discord! We've somewhat reached a phase of outreach. Between our Bluesky account, Mastodon postings, and interacting with other groups in their events and blog carnivals, we've been able to foster amazing discussions and culture on the Discourse, especially, with a really solid group of kind website owners.

 

New folks are joining us in Discourse and Discord every week, and we're so grateful for you being here! If you're new to the Cafe, take a look around and see how you can get involved.

We're always looking for folks to write guides or tutorials to put on the 32-Bit Cafe website, so please email xandra if you're interested: xandra@32bit.cafe.

 

Have a great April, y'all!

Frugal Gamer has launched a prompt generator for those of us who have a hard time thinking of blog topics consistently! There's almost 1,500 blog prompts!

 

To celebrate hitting 1,000 members, we threw an information demographic survey to get a pulse of who Cafe members are! While the final count was only about 10% of our members, still gives you a rough idea of what our forum membership is like.

We've recently added some additional channels to our forum in order to promote folks chatting there in case they want a more immediate, short form of conversation. New users will see the chat after being active on the forum for a bit.

 

 

Have you seen the 32-Bit Cafe Banner Exchange? Submit a 728x90 leaderboard and a 320x50 mobile ad to advertise your personal site, your project, anything you might want to promote on this side of the web! Be sure to disable your ad blocker when browsing the 32-Bit Cafe. The only ads we'll ever have are independent!

Rosaria's website is a treasure trove of personal website staples: blog, media log, trivia, fun facts, dream journal--so much to read to take a peek into their world.

 

Check out their My Melody-inspired layout and read more about Rosaria!

Every third Sunday, James, Jay, or both of them, are hosting our Webweaving Workshops. You can always take a look at our Events Calendar to see the specific date of upcoming events. Our next workshop will be March 16. See you there!

 

Every month, we showcase a few blog posts from members of the 32-Bit Cafe. Sometimes around a theme, sometimes not. This month, these posts give us a glimpse into the lives of our community members, a snapshot in time of them. These blog entries have been submitted to our community blogroll.

Sanguine Royal ties in her personal, lived experience with redesigning her website -- from a place of love.

Semper gives us a peek behind the curtain of how they finished their novel in just over a year, writing 500 words a day! (Congratulations, what an achievement!)

convexer tried something difficult and lived to tell the tale; this short blog post details what they've learned from observing and trying something new.

Basus weighs the concept of ownership in a world of licensing, streaming, and digital "ownership."

CaffeineandLasers shares what he does for work in multiple reading levels to help anyone understand.

Joe gives this nugget of wisdom as he not only compares Neocities to Geocities and rails against a type of ad.

deleted youtube and insta….

tabi asks for advice after breaking free from social media and learning how to be bored again, and lots of folks had opinions!

What have you been up to?

yequari kicks off a casual discussion on the forum. You don't have to only post long-form topics! Lots of folks chime in.

A Reflection on Leaving Discord

Spots shares his experience removing Discord from his life and discovering new aspects of himself without chatrooms.

Algorithms are breaking how we think

 tabi shares a video: "All i say about this video is 'I want to think for myself and I think you should too.'"

This newsletter is meant to be helpful and engaging. If you think we're missing the mark, reach out to xandra@32bit.cafe. We'd love your feedback.

Thank you for being here. The world is better with you in it.

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February 28, 2025 Newsletter

Can you believe it's already almost spring? It's around this time that we start to see activity pick back up on websites after the holidays as folks begin to see the sun peeking out once more and seasonal sadness falls away.

 

In case you missed it, our Valentine's Day event had 25 submissions of expressing self-love, which was the theme this year. Seeing everyone take the time out to give themselves some love was so inspiring and lovely to read. I hope you'll take the time out to go through the entries and reflect on what folks wrote!

 

We had quite a few community projects kick off in February, so this is a pretty project-heavy newsletter. Amazing! We'll be announcing an upcoming code jam and event soon, so keep an eye out on the Announcements forum.

 

Have a great March, y'all!

KingPoss has a software solution for folks who are trying to make galleries on Neocities! This has been a big ask from many artists and photographers on different forums and communities. KP's NeoGallery manages image uploads, thumbnail generation, tagging, and synchronizing these assets to your Neocities site via the Neocities API.

After the Google announcement that they were removing inclusive holidays from Google Calendar's default settings, Stefan leapt into action and created a crowdsourced list that can be implemented into most calendar software.

 

Anyone can contribute to increase the scope of the calendar.

Good Internet Magazine, born from a 32-Bit Cafe Discourse thread, will be launching in May 2025. With a professional printer set up and articles being laid into the magazine layout, this magazine will be a culmination of journalism, personal essays, and personal web-related hobby celebration.

Some progress has been made on the fundraising zine, but Eladnarra is still looking for volunteers to help.

If you enjoy the Internet Archive, this would be a good chance to get involved for a good cause. Otherwise, hold on to your wallets for April!

Divergent Rays' website is a nostalgic bomb with so much soul. Between her adorable pixel clubs Kitty Friends as well as a Pocket Town revival and wide swath of feel-good content, visiting Divergent Rays' website is like a cozy hug. Give her a visit!

Every third Sunday, James, Jay, or both of them, are hosting our Webweaving Workshops. You can always take a look at our Events Calendar to see the specific date of upcoming events. Our next workshop will be March 16. See you there!

Every month, we showcase a few blog posts from members of the 32-Bit Cafe. Sometimes around a theme, sometimes not. This month, these posts give us a glimpse into the lives of our community members, a snapshot in time of them. These blog entries have been submitted to our community blogroll.

ConcreteLunch's blog normally talks about skateboarding, coding, and slices of life, but couldn't help but include this adorable post in which he gushes about his beautiful Sheltie, Riley.

After another 32-Bit Cafe member inspired him to do so, fLaMEd discusses what it feels like to blog just because rather than blogging with expectations of long essays or specific theming.

Frankie vents about the hold that computers have over his life and how he wants to incorporate more nature and meaningful work into his life as a regular occurrence.

Dr. Molly Tov talks about how, after writing professionally and personally for 25 years, the personal web has changed her writing.

Rosaria celebrates their acceptance into grad school and reflects on therapy, their brother's traumatic injury, and faith.

Cassiterite has a new favorite food and she is obsessed! They center around understanding herself better while light-heartedly raving about ramen.

What does "walled garden" mean?

xixxii poses a question that helped kick off a better understanding around social media and platform silos.

Is JavaScript that "bad"?

Grubdog poses a question that centers around the use of JavaScript, often discouraged in "old web" circles.

Testing Free Web Hosts

Shannon writes honest reviews about all of the free web hosts out there so folks can properly recommend platforms.

Collecting weird internet radio sites

Molly asks the community for weird internet radio stations that are still around these days.

This newsletter is meant to be helpful and engaging. If you think we're missing the mark, reach out to xandra@32bit.cafe. We'd love your feedback.

Thank you for being here. The world is better with you in it.

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January 31, 2025 Newsletter

Already a month into the new year—where does the time go? Updating our websites is kind of like a time capsule, and it's nice to have something to reference throughout the year to know exactly where it has gone.

 

The New Year's event was our biggest event yet with over 42 submissions! It was really wonderful to go through everyone's reflections and projections of the last year and the one ahead. It's important in uncertain times to ground yourself in community, remember where you've been, and look forward to where you're going. Check out the submissions if you missed them!

 

Our next event is running right now! For Valentine's Day, the 32-Bit Cafe is asking for everyone to illustrate self-love, whether that be a webpage, a microsite, a blog post, pixel art, poem, short story, anything you like! As always, feel free to post in the Discourse thread to brainstorm, collaborate with others, or announce what you're doing.

 

This is a bit of a departure from what normally goes into these newsletters, but January was a tough month for a lot of Americans, and the past year hasn't been great for a lot of folks around the globe. It shouldn't have to be said, but we will anyway: our community is safe for everyone. Bigots and fascists are not welcome here, and they are swiftly dealt with by our Barista team. We aim for this community to be forward-thinking, collaborative, and thoughtful specifically because that is the kind of energy we need around us in order to be happy and healthy in our lives. Regardless of how you've been affected, know that our hearts are with you, we stand with you, and we will continue to be the change we want to see in the world.

 

I hope you'll join us in being that change.

ajazz has been working hard on a guide for how to leave corporate social media platforms, and it's come out beautifully! There's three components: the guide itself, the database of recommendations to help "unplatform" yourself (or your friends!), and the library full of links.

Our Valentine's Day event this year is focused on a very special person in your life, your lifelong companion. This year's theme is about self-love! Make a digital Valentine's Day gift or card dedicated to yourself. You don't necessarily need a website to participate!

We've been seeing an influx of folks join the 32-Bit Cafe in the past few months, so be sure to extend a quick introduction for us to get to know you and officially welcome you into our community!

 

Eladnarrra is organizing a fundraising zine for the Internet Archive during the week of April 27th to May 3rd. She's put the call out for help by community members for our favorite web archiving organization.

Loren's website is like jumping into a pool of art projects and science beakers. In addition to a deep love of the web, they combine their incredible knowledge of biology with an artistic form that is completely unique and exciting to see on this side of the web. Check out their free layouts, too!

Every third Sunday, James, Jay, or both of them, are hosting our Webweaving Workshops. You can always take a look at our Events Calendar to see the specific date of upcoming events. Our next workshop will be February 16. See you there!

 

Every month, we showcase a few blog posts from members of the 32-Bit Cafe. Sometimes around a theme, sometimes not. This month, these posts give us a glimpse into the lives of our community members, a snapshot in time of them. These blog entries have been submitted to our community blogroll.

Courtney dissects the flaws and multifaceted fractals of who we are as human in this thoughtful post, navigating through the concepts of "good" and "bad" in who we are.

Asher dives into the world of liminal spaces and muses on the idea of transitional spaces, especially in the internet's collective memory.

Finel reviews a gifted copy of The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification, a serious analysis of shopping cart categorization.

Folkmoss observes the writing and blogging landscape after taking a deep dive into the many blogs that make up the personal web.

Grave believes the independent web is how it should've always been after discovering and moving through this side of the web.

Moxie extends a first-hand account of an immigrant for Americans who are considering emigrating, highlighting similarities.

dealing with rage bait in the indie web

xandra shares a blog post from Ava who strategizes how to approach indie web ragebait.

unfucking your phone thread!

xo creates a one-stop thread for folks to ask for recommendations and give tips for making your phone less bloated.

What's a place you'd love to visit?

Manu's in Tuscany and wants to know where everyone else in the community wants to visit in the real world!

How do you make webweaving a habit?

sxrb3amz asks for advice on how they can stay consistent with updating their website.

This newsletter is meant to be helpful and engaging. If you think we're missing the mark, reach out to xandra@32bit.cafe. We'd love your feedback.

Thank you for being here. The world is better with you in it.

Changed your mind? Unsubscribe

The Last Newsletter of 2024

Happy new year!

 

Thank you for allowing this newsletter to be a bit late so we could celebrate the New Year. We are a week into 2025!

 

Our year-end event officially kicked off in December, thanks to our event planners! Thank you so much to them. They work so hard to organize, pull these events off, keep track of submissions, and display them with care. If you see a 32-Bit Cafe Event Planner in the wild, be sure to say hello and tell them how much you've enjoyed the events! ❤️

 

Thankfully, the New Year's event is our longest-running event, so you can still submit an entry by January 15th. You can also check out the event thread to see how others are doing. Can't wait to see what you do!

 

This newsletter is meant to be helpful and engaging. If you think we're missing the mark, reach out to xandra@32bit.cafe. We'd love your feedback.

 

Thank you for being here. The world is better with you in it.

While brainstorming community ideas on the 32-Bit Cafe Discord server, Varve took up the mantle of creating a modernized and easy-to-use layout maker for new coders. This code generator has been on the to-do list for a long time, so thank you to Varve for working so hard on this resource!

Join us in celebrating the ending of 2024 and the beginning of 2025 with the New Years '25 event! The year has been long but as it's coming to a close we'd like to reflect on where we've been, what we've done, and where we're going.

 

 

If you have 5 minutes to spare, we'd love your thoughts! In our annual anonymous feedback survey, we like to get ratings and comments about our community as we move into 2025. Tell us what we're doing right and what we're doing wrong!

Our Bluesky account is now officially @32bit.cafe. Give us a follow and share the good word about our account! We'll be opening up posts to be submitted by the community to get some social media help, so stay tuned!

Bytemoth's website is a treasure trove of good  vibes, nostalgia, and 1990s website design. He includes a wealth of information on a variety of topics, including saving money and technology. Check out his amazing and prolific links collection!

Every third Sunday, James, Jay, or both of them, are hosting our Webweaving Workshops. You can always take a look at our Events Calendar to see the specific date of upcoming events. Our next workshop will be January 19. See you there!

Every month, we showcase a few blog posts from members of the 32-Bit Cafe. Sometimes around a theme, sometimes not. This month, these posts give us a glimpse into the lives of our community members, a snapshot in time of them. These blog entries have been submitted to our community blogroll.

Memo observes the conundrum of the Free Software Foundation that, in the midst of a remote legal battle, refuses to use proprietary Zoom.

Max reflects on his late diagnosis of ADHD at age 40. He considers the blog entry as a way to archive the beginning of his journey in being medicated.

Manu asks himself about a site owner's responsibility in where a sudden surge of popularity might bring more eyes to websites linked on the site.

Lucio dissects how different games, and types of games, utilize the act of waiting within their game worlds and how players might feel about it.

Westley, in an effort to kickstart his journey again, explains his journaling system and how he manages to have the discipline to journal effectively.

DivergentRays gives us some media recommendations and shares her unique Christmas tradition: visiting Las Vegas.

Making a Website is Hard

starbreaker shares a blog post written by someone frustrated with contemporary website building.

New Year's Hangout Thread

Manatee throws a virtual party on the forums to include everyone across the globe!

QOTW: Why did you decide to make a website?

For one of our questions of the week, Luxe wants to know why you--yes, you--made a website.

Beyond Manual HTML Editing

Melvian asks how folks are building their sites if not coding by hand, like using a CMS or SSG.

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November 30, 2024 Newsletter

Reporting live from the inside of a blanket!

 

November is cooling us down here in the Northern Hemisphere, but those of you in the community going into summer in the Southern Hemisphere are definitely envied. Despite the temperatures, it feels so nice to cozy up in front of a computer, coding away on a cold day.

 

It turns out November is a wonderful time to work on your website. It's the perfect time to reflect at the end of the year, finishing up projects or putting more yearly wrap-ups and other content on your website centered around 2024. What was a big theme for you? How can you incorporate that into your personal website?

 

December will include the annual end-of-year event, so stay tuned for that. We also have members around the Cafe participating in the Advent of Code 2024, starting December 1st. You can always catch any announcements on the Discourse forum or subscribe via RSS.

 

This newsletter is meant to be helpful and engaging. If you think we're missing the mark, reach out to xandra@32bit.cafe. We'd love your feedback.

 

Thank you for being here. The world is better with you in it.

In an effort to get more things done, an Accountability Club has been started to help us keep track of tasks, projects, and allow each other to hold one another accountable. The club is open to anyone as long as you continue to post in the thread.

Every third Sunday, James, Jay, or both of them, are hosting our Webweaving Workshops. You can always take a look at our Events Calendar to see the specific date of upcoming events. Our next workshop will be December 22. See you there!

If you haven't seen our Ko-Fi yet, be sure to check out the cool stickers and pins we have available to purchase. Your support means so much to us, and we can only continue to expand and add services for the personal web thanks to your donations!

In an effort to do effective outreach, we've made a Bluesky account at @32bit.cafe.bsky.social.

 

We'll be moving over to our domain name soon, but until then, feel free to follow our account for community updates and sharing more information about the personal web.

Xo's website is a case study in using code to express yourself. There's so much to click around, explore, and discover on Xo's site. Use the star to navigate to different "realms" and then travel through the door to visit that page!

Project teams are a cool way to get involved in the community alongside other members, who are all working towards common goals to better this side of the web: Event Planners, Scribes, Technomancers, and Artists. Interested in helping out?

Every month, we showcase a few blog posts from members of the 32-Bit Cafe. Sometimes around a theme, sometimes not. This month, these posts give us a glimpse into the lives of our community members, a snapshot in time of them. These blog entries have been submitted to our community blogroll.

Loren gives an overview of how their October went creatively, making quirky web projects to submit for the community project Weird Web October.

Lars-Christian reflects on the web's ability to surface inspiring people when browsing this side of the web, people who are on similar journeys as him.

Matthew discusses community blogs and blogging with others, including drawing boundaries for how his own writing is shared.

In Manatee's very first blog post, she relates how a My Little Pony concept aptly described parts of her in finding direction in her life.

str六tch has a virtual conversation with himself in the wake of meeting someone new, a person reaching out via email.

Alberto contemplates how Poe's four conditions for happiness coincides with his innate beliefs about how to live life.

Pixel Cats' End

Some community members are playing a browser-based virtual pet site. Velvet started this post. Nostalgic!

Finding the Authentic Web

starbreaker shared this blog entry that discussed the difficulty of finding this side of the web.

Yesterweb?

n3verm0re asked for folks' perspectives on what happened to a former retroweb/web revival community no longer around.

The Earth is Better with More People

Manu shared an article making the rounds online about overpopulation.

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October 31, 2024 Newsletter

The excitement for Halloween is infectious around this side of the web, and we're no exception in the 32-Bit Cafe. We're coming to your inbox with this special Spooky Edition of the 32-Bit Bytes.

 

The 32-Bit Cafe's Halloween event was a smashing success! With four different ways to participate, folks of all skill levels were able to submit an entry. View the participants below in the Community Bulletins.

 

Our next planned event is our annual year-end holidays event in December, so be sure to join in the festivities! Be sure to follow along on our Announcements forum (which also has an RSS feed!) for any community announcements.

 

This month, we also held our first Webweaving Workshop, a Zoom call made up of many webweavers, web design hobbyists, of all skill levels. Thank you again to Jay and James for running this one! Keep an eye out for the next workshop, which will be announced soon.

 

This newsletter is meant to be helpful and engaging. If you think we're missing the mark, reach out to xandra@32bit.cafe. We'd love your feedback.

 

Thank you for being here. The world is better with you in it.

Our Halloween event this year was organized by one of our Event Planners, Xo. Thank you so much to it for building the amazing page, the gazette, and wrangling all of the submissions. Amazing job to everyone!

Manuel asked the community to help brainstorm feature or experience ideas for something he's calling Blogkit as an easy starter kit for folks to set up self-hosted blogs. Have any ideas? He's all ears!

James and Jay hosted our first workshop on October 6. It lasted about an hour to talk all things personal websites. These notes were taken from that workshop, in case you're interested! There are links that were shared and discussed in the workshop.

 

In the future, we hope to have more of these at various time zones to accommodate others all over the globe with smaller groups.

Stickers are available to purchase in our Ko-fi shop, with more coming, as a way to raise funds for our self-hosted projects and services for our community and the personal web at large. We also have pins coming soon!

We want to raise money to be able to offer more services, do more projects, and give more things to this side of the web. Thanks to folks already donating, we've been able to prioritize some upcoming guides and services.

Moxie's personal site is a mix of Lisa Frank and Xena, both visually and characteristically. Her experience as a New Zealander in The Netherlands intersects with her identity as an outspoken bisexual and disabled woman to give a bit of personality and refreshing perspective in all she does. Moxie is unapologetically herself, and her rants are entertaining to read. Check out her Kvetch! section.

Project teams are a cool way to get involved in the community alongside other members, who are all working towards common goals to better this side of the web: Event Planners, Scribes, Technomancers, and Artists. Interested in helping out?

Every month, we showcase a few blog posts from members of the 32-Bit Cafe. Sometimes around a theme, sometimes not. This month, these posts give us a glimpse into the hobbies and lives of our community members, a snapshot in time of them. These blog entries have been submitted to our community blogroll.

Emma shares her interest in birding with us to inspire others to take up the hobby.

Manu discusses the role of curation after a web promoting the act of creation for so long.

Courtney tells us what's in a name; how he's learned to accept and love himself.

Lucio dissects how modern filmmaking differs from older media, especially in length and narrative.

Yordi explains the concept of "rubber duck debugging," and how it. can help anyone learning something new.

Krish gives us a life update, detailing a recent diagnosis that has changed her perspective and how she looks at herself.

Accountability Club

xandra is looking for accountability buddies that can hold each other to tasks and hobby things we want to do!

Annual Halloween Art Collab

sunpop put out a call for collaborators in an artist-driven Halloween event that happens every year!

What feeling are you trying to evoke?

Xo's QOTW to the community was: "What feeling are you trying to evoke with your website?"

Publish Once, Syndicate Nowhere

manuelmorale shared a blog post discussing the often-repeated "POSSE" system within the indieweb.

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September 30, 2024 Newsletter

Thanks for signing up to the 32-Bit Cafe newsletter!

 

Our community has been buzzing away during the month of September. We're also holding our first Webweaving Workshop, a Zoom call we plan to expand into different time zones (depending on volunteers!) in the beginning of October. Read more about it below in Community Bulletins.

 

While folks have been working on their sites over September, next month will definitely be the star of Autumn. Folks all over the personal web are waiting for Halloween, which tends to be a big deal around these parts. So many website owners get excited, all a-buzz with Halloween themes, blog posts, events, and quirky projects springing up. We'll be announcing our October event earlier in the month, so be sure to follow along on our Announcements forum (which also has an RSS feed!). Next newsletter, you'll see some featured event participants since it will be a special Spooky Edition!

 

This newsletter is meant to be helpful and engaging. If you think we're missing the mark, reach out to xandra@32bit.cafe. We'd love your feedback.

 

Thank you for being here. The world is better with you in it.

Gus has built a unique webring that's modeled after subway systems. From Gus: "Each line represents a themed webring and each station is a different webpage in that theme." He has 6 lines at the moment, but he's grown so much since it started in June! Congratulations, Gus!

 

Check out this cool project and visit the stations on the Smallweb Subway.

James and Jay are hosting our very first Webweaving Workshop on Sunday, October 6. From Jay: "Come join this hour-long meeting to talk all things personal websites: what you’re making, what you need help with, and what you want to explore."

 

We hope to have more of these at various time zones to accommodate others all over the globe with smaller groups.

Thanks to generous members asking, our Ko-fi is now open for donations if you'd like to support our community and web services. There's no obligation to donate, and donations do not give anyone any perks in any capacity. In the future, we hope to sell stickers to support our server costs and upkeep. We'll be making a detailed announcement later with server costs, expectations around funds, and what cosmetic rewards members might get.

One of the best things about our community is our ability to crowdsource information and compile it in a centralized space. The Resources List for the Personal Web has been a great help to many folks around the web of all skill levels, so we should come together to maintain it since new projects and services are being found all the time. If you know of any resources that aren't listed, edit the post and add your username under the Contributors list.

Clover's site, SweetCharm.net, feels like both a nostalgia trip to the 2000s and a curation of so many adorable pieces of art. Clover has a lot to offer for the visitor, and there's so much on her site to explore! Check out the new Pegasus Maker she built.

Project teams are a cool way to get involved in the community alongside other members, who are all working towards common goals to better this side of the web: Event Planners, Scribes, Technomancers, and Artists. Interested in helping out?

Every month, we showcase a few blog posts from members of the 32-Bit Cafe. Sometimes around a theme, sometimes not. This month, these posts give us a glimpse into the hobbies and lives of our community members, a snapshot in time of them. These blog entries have been submitted to our community blogroll.

Mishi gives us a glimpse into her life in Japan during a rice shortage earlier this month.

Semper kicks off their indoor gardening journey, talking about their inspiration for taking care of plants.

Eladnarra shares her living web design principles document, establishing the values she has a passion for.

Patrick walks us through his thought processes and steps to become more focused on writing on his site.

Yequari gives his take on what's unfolding from Mozilla and his relationship with the browser.

Frankie began sharing his website with folks and putting himself out there, so he reviews his own blog so far.

How to Monetize a Blog

This satirical post shared by arevakhach almost fooled a lot of us around the web!

Sticker Bombing

fLaMEd asked the community, "Do you sticker bomb things you own?"

Worst part of your website?

Xo's QOTW to the community was: "What is the worst part of your website?"

What RSS reader do you use?

SenFlyer asked, "I’m new to RSS, and was wondering what RSS readers do you use?"

August 31, 2024 Newsletter

 Welcome!

Thanks for signing up to the 32-Bit Cafe newsletter, 32-Bit Cafe Bytes.

 

In our inaugural email, we're kicking things off with updates about the 32-Bit Cafe, the small web at large (get it?), and various ways to get involved with the community. If you've been unsure how to keep up with us, this is a great introduction!

 

This newsletter is meant to be helpful and engaging. If you think we're missing the mark, reach out to xandra@32bit.cafe. We'd love your feedback. The next newsletter might look a little different as we catch our stride!

 

Thank you for being here. Now that we're back in autumn, lots of our community members are going back to school for the semester, so good luck to those of you heading back to hit the books!

We have an awesome group of volunteers who organize our web events, and we're looking for some input on some ideas that have cropped up over the past year! Chime into the poll, make your  voice heard, and determine the future of 32-Bit Cafe events.

For a few months, we maintained the QOTW on the forum, but this has fallen by the wayside and could use some volunteers! If you have a discussion question centered around the personal web, post a new topic in the General forum on Discourse using the tag qotw. If someone's already posted that week, save it for the next week!

Folks have been asking for this since we opened the Discourse forum, and we've finally implemented it! An entire forum category is now dedicated to sharing links you think the community might be interested in. Just drop the link in the title of the new topic, and Discourse does the rest for you (if it has the metadata!).

Our last event in August was an awesome display with 30 participants: our biggest code jam yet! Check out all of the entries from community members and folks all over the web. There's so many topics that were covered, there's bound to be something you're interested in learning about.

In an effort to branch out of Big Tech platforms, we are now offering a Pixelfed instance. Pixelfed is an open-source, federated way of sharing photos, much like Instagram. Sign up with an account and start sharing your photos with us!

Project teams are a cool way to get involved in the community alongside other members, who are all working towards common goals to better this side of the web: Event Planners, Scribes, Technomancers, and Artists. Interested in helping out?

Every month, we'll showcase a few blog posts from members of the 32-Bit Cafe. Sometimes around a theme, sometimes not. This month, these posts are all talking about the independent web, the personal web, the small web—whatever you call it, we like to talk about it and what it means to us. These blog entries have been submitted to our community blogroll.

fLaMEd shares how we can "help rebuild the connections that made the web diverse and fun to surf again."

James discusses how optimistic he is about the future of the web, thanks to personal websites.

Rina makes the case for everyone to blog and bring back creativity and passion to the web.

Velvet gives their personal take on their relationship with the internet and how it's changed.

Leilukin channels their passion for her hobby into a career pivot after being inspired by others.

Fyr makes a case for joining the indie web without any of the technical know-how of protocols or standards.

32-Bit Cafe Joins the Fediverse!

we’re so stoked to announce that the 32-bit cafe is joining the fediverse with our own pixelfed instance!

The Importance of Inconvenience

The ritual of engaging with something is as important as the thing itself ...

microscopic graphics by ribose

hello! i have a lot of fun making very tiny graphics, so i’m taking requests!

Custom Startpage!!

I recommend everyone to make their own custom startpage ...

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