rgxjournal — Musings by @rg

Better fonts improve Web reading experience

Sun, 13 Dec 2020 15:41:11 +0000

Verdana Pro — why use 'Arial'

...when something much nicer is freely available?

Verdana is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft Corporation. This typeface was originally release with Windows 98 as part of our vision to significantly improve on screen reading time. Verdana Pro adds light, semibold and black styles with italics, as well as condensed styles with italics across all weights.

-source: Microsoft

Why is Verdana better for screen reading?

Bearing similarities to humanist sans-serif typefaces such as Frutiger, Verdana was designed to be readable at small sizes on the low-resolution computer screens of the period.
Like many designs of this type, Verdana has a large x-height (tall lower-case characters), with wider proportions and looser letter-spacing than on print-orientated designs like Helvetica.
The counters and apertures are wide, to keep strokes clearly separate from one another, and similarly-shaped letters are designed to appear clearly different to increase legibility for body text.
The bold weight is thicker than would be normal with fonts for print use, suiting the limitations of onscreen display.

-source: Wikipedia

20 different styles on the Windows Store download pack, Free. Verdana and Georgia were specially developed for on-screen reading.

Verdana typeface info, Wikipedia

And it's a FREE Download from :

Georgia is also a better on-screen font

...designed to replace a serif font like Times New Roman.

Georgia is a serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft Corporation in the mid-1990s. This typeface was designed as a serif companion to the Verdana font family with a goal to appear elegant but legible on low-resolution screens as well as when printed at small sizes.

-source: Microsoft

Georgia was intended as a serif typeface that would appear elegant but legible when printed small or on low-resolution screens. The typeface is inspired by Scotch Roman designs of the 19th century.

As a transitional serif design, Georgia shows a number of traditional features of “rational” serif typefaces from around the early 19th century, such as alternating thick and thin strokes, ball terminals and a vertical axis.

Closer inspection shows how Georgia was designed for clarity on a computer monitor even at small sizes. It features:
a large x-height (tall lower-case letters);
its thin strokes are thicker than would be common on a typeface designed for display use or the greater sharpness possible in print.
Its reduced contrast and thickened serifs make it somewhat resemble Clarendon designs from the 19th century.

-source: Wikipedia

Also a FREE Download from :

Improve your on-screen Browser reading

...by selecting custom fonts which were developed for this exact task. Professional work, skilled designers. All for no cost and a minimal effort.

Install the better fonts (if not in your system yet) and :

Go into your web browser's 'Settings' (or 'Options') panel.
Locate the 'Fonts' control. Screenshot shows Firefox's :

Select the 'Advanced' button to access all the font options.
For Serif – replace 'Times New Roman' with much smoother 'Georgia'. ✔
For Sans – replace 'Arial' or 'Sans' with 'Verdana Pro'. ✔

Press the 'Ok' button to save our selections. And voilá. Enjoy. Repeat this customization for other systems you use regularly as well. 😉👍

#FediReporter tips for better web reading experience #rgxJournal #Typefaces #Design are important

@rgx@write.tedomum.net

This page created entirely in MarkDown language. Thank you for reading, feel free to comment about this post – reach me at my Writer's Lounge.

R.G. @rgx@muensterland.social ^—top of page

Image Hosting Services with Zonelets Blogs

Sat, 12 Dec 2020 21:03:26 +0000

Many times we need a place to store our Images, online

Finding some free Image Hosting for Forum, Mastodon and Blog Posts — it's something needed by many of us, when we get active in Forums, etc.

I had to find a place to host images for my Blog pages, as my usual WriteFreely platform does not offer the option of uploading an image to the server.

Have used different ones over the years, and back in December 2019, when I was starting the new Blog, went and spent a day looking for what's available, their features, etc.

A good image host recommendation

Found PostImage.org — and since then, that's what I use, very happy. I can upload a file right from my machine's File manager window. They have a nice Windows 10 client app, and it works really well.

Right-Click — Send To — PostImage and it takes it, uploads and gives me the URL for that image. Copy/Paste into Blog text window.

Made two screenshots, visual is always helpful — and I will use these for my new Blogger's toolkit post when I write it.

And you soon get a direct image link/URL

This smaller second image, btw — there's even a super handy “Copy”button right beside the URL after the upload is done. Here's the URL copied from it :

https://i.postimg.cc/NFmsyz5y/Post-Image-URL-Copy-529x173p.jpg

Lovely and very productive. Simple as can be.

Highly recommend this host — PostImage.org

Larger image and smaller ones ?

A larger image can also be stored easily for reference – like this 1280x668 pixels, 292 kB screenshot

We can create a smaller size version for the blog page, and use 'nested code' — so the smaller image is actually hot linked to the larger version. One click and the user can see it. (the half sized image is only 38 kB !)

Not hard to do, specially as you practice more, and its a lot of fun. The HTML code for the nested image above is :

But do we really need this with NeoCities.org hosting?

It's not essential – as Neocities does allow you to store your image on their servers. There's a maximum quota of 1 GigaByte for ALL of your files, for a free account user.

But the main reason I think this is a good idea for Neocities Blog users is for our own organization. We can keep our files stored locally in folders for each page or project.

Ease of Use – organize our files by page folders

By default, Zonelets expects all images to be in the '../images/' folder, right under the Blog's install folder.

As we add a lot of new pages, the images, posts folders will get crowded. And with the handy right click shortcut in the Windows PostImage client, I find it MUCH simpler to store my files locally in separate folders.

I can upload and get the URL I need for the blog page code, paste it in and not need to worry about uploading the image. Done!

#rgxJournal #writers #blog #newusers #xp

Banner image, a photo by Sigmund on Unsplash

@rgx@write.tedomum.net

This page created entirely in MarkDown language. Thank you for reading, feel free to comment about this post – reach me at my Writer's Lounge.

R.G. @rgx@muensterland.social ^—top of page

Mastodon - Options for Moving an Account ?

Mon, 22 Jun 2020 17:25:55 +0000

“Take your information and do what you want with it.”

That suggestive text sounds like Freedom of movement is granted and important, doesn't it? That is directly copied from Documents at JoinMastodon.org.

The truth is less rosy though. There are easy and reliable ways to :

Export the list of people you Follow.
Export lists of people you Mute (hiding their posts from your view)
Export lists of people and instances you Blocked (barring their content reaching you).

This is done by creating small text files, with the '.csv' (comma-separated values) extensions. In some cases you might not have any data in one or more of them (zero Blocked Domains, or blocked instances, for example). In those cases, exporting the data is NOT needed, as it would be a Blank, empty file.

At any time you want, you can go to Settings > Export and download a CSV file for your current followed accounts, your currently created lists, your currently blocked accounts, your currently muted accounts, and your currently blocked domains.

Backups are important :

Creating these files regularly gives you a personal backup — if the instance you are using disappears suddenly (which DOES happen), having the files means you recover much easier that starting from scratch.

So, consider creating these, and update them once a month or so!

Once you have the files, what can be done ? At any other Mastodon, Pleroma, Glitch-Social instance, the files can be easily Imported :

Your following, blocking, muting, and domain-blocking lists can be imported at Settings > Import, where they can either be merged or overwritten.

Clarifying Words is important, as they have very different results :

Merging the backup files means any new data in them is ADDED to the existing lists (Following, Muted, etc.)
Overwriting means existing data is LOST — and likely not what you are aiming for. So select carefully.

Importing works well, and the .csv files are a big help in restoring some of your normal work environment in a new account.

These Export options DO NOT offer you a copy of your Followers list.

Facebook Does It !

Facebook HAS a new tool that allows an Export of an user's photos and videos — and it works wonderfully in my experience.

all photos were exported successfully.
it does NOT require any user effort (try downloading, 100 albums or more!)
Albums are created in the new destination (for the moment, supports exporting to Google Photos, only; others expected soon)
Albums have the same names as the originals, with the addition of “Copy of [user's original title]”

And even each photo goes with the poster's comment attached to it.

Completely automated, reliable, full featured. I am impressed, kudos to Facebook for this.

#FediReporter thinks it's time we got something BETTER here too ?

Full details on Facebook Data Exporting in this Android Police post.

Mastodon Account — Personal Data Archive

Don't think there's much we can do, sadly. Just searched and there's a good page but the news are NOT good.

You CAN request a zipped archive, of all your posts, images included. But :

Mastodon currently does not support importing toots or media due to technical limitations, but your archive can be viewed by any software that understands how to parse ActivityPub documents.

“Any Software” capable of handling that, even in a personal, offline, non-federated way — I haven't seen any yet. If you know, let me know, thank you.

Sadly needed, at least for personal references!

Asked in Fediverse for “Any Software” :

To complement this article, I decided to post a question to some admin friends — to see if anyone knew of a possible tool to view a user's personal backup archive.

Some responses came back, negative. Then one, by fluffy, offered a possibility :

you can use JSON.awk

Sadly, this is a command line, Unix / Linux tool; and I wonder how useful it could be with a large archive. We need a Graphical User Interface, a GUI tool, for productivity.

Maique suggested contacting Eugen R, the lead Mastodon developer, and sent a Toot. I joined in as well.

Fingers crossed, hopefully the idea will germinate and some usable solution might appear.

Moving House — Your Options, not great.

There are a couple of choices, and they are well explained in this page — but beware that both will cripple the existing account's posting ability.

So, READ the fine print, understand it, and DECIDE if this is a good option, or not.

The alternative is to leave the old account and simply communicate to your followers that you are relocating.

Mastodon Moving Options – Choice 1 :

Redirect your Profile.

Redirecting your account disables posting from that account and displays a “profile moved” notice indicating your new account. Anyone viewing your profile can see this notice and will know to follow you at your new account. Following redirected accounts is not possible. The redirect can be cancelled at any time.

My take on this ?

it's a reversible option, can be cancelled if desired.
You can cancel and resume posting to the account after that.
Not harmful to your data, which stays there.
Not very Useful either; as it's simply a Notice, posted in the old profile.

You might do better by contacting people yourself, with a nicely made post — and sent with “Followers Only” privacy setting.

Choice 2 :

Move your Profile

Moving your account is the same as redirecting your account, but it will also irreversibly force everyone to un-follow your current account and follow your new account, if their software supports the Move activity. Your toots will not be moved, due to technical limitations. There is also a very heavy cool-down period in which you cannot migrate again, so be very careful before using this option!

My take on this ?

This is effective, will switch Followers to the new account automatically.
But it's also a 'Goodbye Johnny' to the older account, you get locked out of it.
This is pretty much a 'Sayonara option', you don't plan to use the older account anymore.

...most of those points are not great from my user's perspective.

But there are those two official and documented options.

Plus the common practices of people, sending mass DMs being one of them (there seems to be some software allowing that; DMs are sent to followers, one copy per person, nobody sees the full mail list).

Aliases are Needed :

Profile moves can only be initiated when your two accounts have been aliased. Account aliases are currently not used for anything other than profile moves, where you will need to set your old account as an alias of your new account before initiating the move. Setting aliases is harmless and reversible on its own.

This is a necessary step, and it's not damaging at all, reversible.

#FediReporter on options for consideration when you plan to re-settle.

#rgxJournal for reference #NewUsers #Tips #Mastodon

Follow Blog via your Fediverse/Mastodon account :

@rgx@write.tedomum.net

This page created entirely in MarkDown language. Thank you for reading, feel free to comment about this post – reach me at my Writer's Lounge.

R.G. @rgx@muensterland.social ^—top of page

Community Building and Leadership - Ideas

Sun, 14 Jun 2020 16:17:07 +0000

We are always looking for Talent.

A transcription of a Long Form Toot earlier this morning, fully composed on the fly, in my toot Editor at my main Mastodon instance.

Very lightly edited for Blog publishing, adding links and references only, content was ready. The views in the post are my own, but I believe they reflect the values which make our instance a vibrant and pleasant place to be in.

Leadership :

We at Qoto are always scouting for new Talent, and open to suggestions, comments.

Adding new Staff members is good for all communities — it's a labour of love, we do it for the fun, the pleasure of seeing things growing up, a nice social climate growing.

I would like to invite any Active user here at Qoto (or in the Fediverse at large, if you decided to join us) to consider if they would like to help.

Collaborators are one of the levels I see as important in user's participation in any community. While not in a formal administrative role, Collaborators are recognized for the quality of their posts, interactions.

All communities depend on users participation — otherwise you would be building static web pages and publishing your own content, like a Blog for example.

The Role of Moderators :

Moderation staff, in my opinion, should be active members, who personally produce content and interact with the local membership to enhance a positive climate.

It's not a Cop on the Beat job, although sometimes we have to perform the duties of judging content and deciding what action if could require, or not.

iv. What makes a good Moderator? Ideally a stable and pondered person, capable of communicating clearly and actively present in the community.

The job of a Moderator is, in my personal view, more than simply keeping an eye out for unacceptable behaviour or content. But any Staff member in a site should be interested in it, a content producer and community builder him/herself.”

Any user can contribute to the site

...through their posts and added content, thru their interaction with others. I find the size of the community ideal, we don't have a huge crowd or overwhelming numbers of new posts.

We all can help:

say hello to a new user, when they post that first toot. I remember it, mine was just a month ago, this mastodon thing totally new to me. And I also remember receiving a welcome message from the administrator, which is not something you see in many larger places.
keep an eye out for unwanted posts (for example, as per site rules, porn, open advertising, any spamming, etc). Use the Report button at the bottom of the post, and send in a report to Staff.
respond to other user threads, even a small comment is encouraging. It's sad to see someone put the effort to create a nice post, well written, with additional info link(s), maybe image(s) —– and see that post sit, ignored. It's disheartening but sadly common.
make the place feel like a collegial, friendly place to be, which we enjoy spending our time in.

Additional Reflections :

I wrote my own personal reflections back in late November, 2019, about the role of an active user and aspiring leadership candidate. At the time, I was being nominated to the December 2019 Moderator Nominations at Qoto.org.

It's a Long Form page, of course; (1,023 words 6,374 characters). I don't post bare URLs or video links much, Words are my passion.

If interested, take a look at :

Moderator Nomination – My Personal Views

#rgxJournal #QotoJournal #Qoto #Leadership

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