Linkatopia.com Blog

2023 Year in Review

2023-12-31

What have I been doing for the past year? Well, its been an interesting journey with some ups and downs.

JAN
I became a Twitch Affiliate streamer on Jan 30, 2023. You can watch my live streams 3 times a week on Twitch.tv/rob215x. Why am I streaming on Twitch? That's a great question! Besides playing some amazing games like Elden Ring, and building my own IRL CAM that fits in a small shoulder bag and runs OBS, I wanted to connect with other streamers to see how Linkatopia could benefit the streaming community. I'll probably write a detailed post about that in the near future.

FEB
One of our biggest clients switched credit card processors and I had to become an certified developer for Shift4. This involved some thorough testing and it took most of my time during February and March to complete the process. The good news is I am now a certified Shift4 developer and that means I can integrate credit card payments directly into Linkatopia once I'm ready!

DON'T WORRY, Linkatopia will always remain free but I am adopting the same business model as Discord where you will be able to purchase a-la-cart upgrades to your account as you need them.

MAY
We implemented the Shift4 payment system to our existing clients with shopping carts and I built a couple of new modules for my system to track suspicious credit card activity. This just adds another layer of protection to a system that's already fairly secure.

JUL
I created a detailed page about our new shopping cart here. Again, the shopping cart is important because it lets our clients do hundreds on online sales every day, but it will also become part of Linkatopia!

One thing to note about that page I linked is- it should print nicely. Lately I've seen so many websites that just do not print well. You try to print a page and it comes out all weird. Sometimes it uses extra pieces of paper while parts of the page are missing! Why are so few sites using a printer stylesheet in 2023?

SEP
Our own website, Design215.com is always the last to get updated and it had been neglected for the past few years. It was still fully functional but I spent most of the month updating a bunch of the HTML5, JS, and backend code. I added some new security features and a Content Security Policy. All of these things will be applied to our client sites and Linkatopia.

As always, I'm looking ahead to new features and options I can add to Linkatopia as another year rolls along...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Robert Giordano

The World of SVG

2022-01-31

Along with everything else, I've spent the past month replacing all of the old PNG icons and graphics with SVG files. What's SVG you ask? It's another graphic file format like JPG, GIF, or PNG and it stands for Scalable Vector Graphics. If you really want to dive in, here's the Wikipedia page.

Like you can probably guess from the acronym, SVG files can scale to any size and are made of vector shapes instead of pixels. They are much smaller than PNG or even JPG so they load fast! SVG 1.1 has been around since 2011 but, as usual, there were significant differences in how various browsers handled SVG files.

Welcome to 2022. You would think all of that browser stuff would be ironed out by now right? Well, kind of but as usual, its complicated. As long as you don't need to support Internet Explorer 11 (which no one should be) then SVG files will work in just about every browser. However, if you want to be able to use cool SVG features, like being able to change the colors of an icon on the fly or use CSS for rollover effects without needing separate images, then it gets tricky.

Many of the tutorials I found online for using SVG features in all modern browsers, were from 7 to 10 years old, and some of those techniques no longer work. I did manage to learn how to do some cool things, just using trial and error.

For Linkatopia, one of the most important SVG features I wanted to use, is the ability to make a single icon and change its color on the fly with CSS. This would allow me to create ONE SET of icons that could change colors to match 100 different layout themes. I could even give users the ability to change the icons to match their own color schemes.

New Help Pages

2022-01-22

All of the help pages are currently being rewritten and updated for the 2022 site. Many of the old help pages were outdated and had the wrong information. While the functionality of the original 2007 site has remained, the interface has gone through many updates and there are many new features.

I've also switched from static pages to the same new blogging system where I write these posts. This allows me to work on help pages from anywhere.

Today, I completed these 2 pages:
Getting Started
Privacy Settings

I have many, many more help pages to write but I'm also still building the site and adding features. Sometimes it's hard to write documentation about a feature you haven't finished yet. I'm trying to make the site super easy to use but if you can't figure something out, just ask me.

I think proper documentation for any app or platform is super important, so I'll be constantly editing and improving these pages. As always, if you have any suggestions, please let me know. If you see any typos, let me know. If anything is confusing, let me know. I really want Linkatopia to be user friendly and convenient.

thanks!

Larger Website Icons

2022-01-14

Linkatopia now displays larger 32x32 favicons for all sites when they are available. If a site provides an SVG favicon, it will be favored over other types. Linkatopia has its own way of caching favicons and I developed this method to speed up page loading times, especially when most people are using the same set of popular social media and content sharing sites.

Sort Links per Tag

2022-01-12

You can now sort your links differently for each one of your tags. For example, your links tagged with MUSIC can be sorted by name, while all of your links tagged with NEWS can be sorted by date. Each time you change the sort method for any of your tags, the setting is remembered across sessions, and for anyone who visits your page!!

Friends List Upgrade

2022-01-06

I just rolled out a big update for friends lists and a couple of minor bug fixes for other parts of the site. A BIG thank you to everyone who gave me suggestions!! I may not be able to implement every idea but please keep them coming. As I've said before, I want Linkatopia to be driven by its members, and not some arbitrary decisions made in a board meeting, behind closed doors.

2021 Year in Review

2021-12-31

For many of us, 2021 was a rough year. While it wasn't as bad as 2020, it was still a struggle. I certainly thought I was going to be a lot further along with the development and public re-launch of Linkatopia. But it just didn't happen.

JAN
I was off to a good start, developing a gibberish detector as part of a series of "intelligent" algorithms that will be used to help moderators on Linkatopia. I spent the entire month writing and testing this code, and you can see the results here.

FEB
My company, Design215, has a number of corporate clients. We produce their product / advertising photography, and we maintain their web sites. We built a complete online ordering system for restaurants and we made a number of improvements to it in 2020. This year, I had to focus on security because hackers and scammers had become a huge problem for everyone. Credit card companies were tightening their security protocols and I had to do a number of updates to my ordering system. I was working on these updates all month and into the next.

MAR
On March 10, I released v2.5.4 of my web site management software and updated all of our client web sites. There was still a LOT more to do for full compliance with the credit card companies so I didn't have much time for Linkatopia yet.

While working on updates for 80,000+ lines of code, some of our clients were complaining about the volume of spam coming from the contact forms or registration forms on their web sites. Google CAPTCHA and other methods weren't working. I decided to investigate this and add it to my list. Once I started running some tests, I was amazed at how much spam comes through web forms!

APR
The first week of April was spent resolving a credit card issue with our online ordering system. Unlike most other systems, when you pay for an order on our system, the money goes directly to that restaurant's bank account and NOT to a third party vendor!! I just had to ensure the orders were getting to the store along a secure path. Some restaurants were still using Windows 7 and we had to get them updated to Windows 10.

MAY
The last 2 weeks of April and all of May were spent building a new module to fight "Contact Form Spam". Another 170,000 lines of code later, I'm proud to say my module blocks 99.9% of all contact form spam WITHOUT any annoying "I'm not a robot" tests. I hate those damn things. My code is literally blocking hundreds of spam messages per month on each client's site, while allowing 100% of valid messages through!! The module has a bunch of configurable options, including custom keyword filters, automatic IP blocking over a set threshold, and a ton of other stuff. I've seen many claims but I've found no other product that works as well, and works on ANY existing web site form, not just contact forms.

While I wasn't exactly working on Linkatopia, ALL OF THIS CODE will be used there!! And, I was keeping the lights on in our office.

Jun
On June 1, I released v2.5.5 of my web site management software and updated all of our client web sites. It had a number new security updates and the latest version of the Contact Form Manager.

The rest of June was an adventure. A family friend had died over a year ago and I was tasked with taking the ashes to their family cemetery plot in Savannah, GA. COVID had prevented the trip until now. Without going into a lot of detail, it was a bit somber, but it was a good trip. I explored Savannah for a few days then attended a small service at the cemetery. On the way back, I explored Cumberland Island.

Once I returned, I spent the rest of the month looking for a new dedicated server host.

JUL
As I explained in this blog post, I purchased new servers for Linkatopia, as well as our client sites and the Design215 site. What I didn't mention in that post is HOW LONG it took to move all of our client web sites. Some clients use GoDaddy, some use Register.com, some use NetworkSolutions, some HAVE NO IDEA. ***OMG*** It took all month to set up the new servers, install all of the software, and get everyone moved. The new servers are really nice though!!

AUG
Sometimes life happens. My mom fell and was badly hurt. She needed an operation and had no use of her right arm for the next 2 months. She lives alone. I packed my things and moved to mom's house. In the beginning, I had to help dress her, feed her, and get her in and out of bed. I cleaned, took care of her dogs, did all the shopping, made meals. At the end of the day I was exhausted. Everything else was on hold.

SEP
I'm still living at mom's house. She's getting better little by little. I took her to physical therapy 3 times a week. Once I finished with the chores, I struggled to get internet speeds better than dial-up. Finally, I just bought a new modem and router. That gave me a somewhat stable connection.

Near the end of the month I did a little work on Linkatopia but I also had to catch up with clients.

OCT
I'm still living at mom's house. She can dress herself but she won't be able to drive for at least another 30 days. I'm trying to get caught up with clients and work on v2.5.6 of my site management software. One of my clients needed a new server and I was able to help them remotely. Most of my clients have been with me for 10 years or more and they understand what I've been dealing with. Everyone is very happy with the latest versions of my software.

On October 29, I made some updates to the Linkatopia homepage and posted about it.

NOV
I'm still living at mom's house. She's doing well and can do most things on her own, except drive. I've had a little more time to get back to Linkatopia and I've been optimizing the site for speed. My own page on Linkatopia has over 3000 links so I've been using it as a benchmark. I was able to get some pretty good results and I made this post about it.

On November 17, I moved back home. Mom is doing well.

DEC
Well I obviously didn't get Linkatopia ready for public launch this year. But I wanted to detail these past months so you can see why. I DID accomplish a lot. I wrote hundreds of thousands of lines of new code! I've been adapting that code for Linkatopia all this month.

I just pushed out some major updates and I'll be continuing to do that over the next few weeks. Starting Monday, January 3, I will be devoting full time hours (40 hours a week, or more) to Linkatopia! Design215 will be maintaining its current clients but we will not be taking on new clients for the next 3 to 6 months. That being said, if you are a potential client, I am always happy to talk to you!! You can contact me here.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Robert Giordano

New Navigation

2021-12-24

It's Christmas Eve and I just finished a new navigation system for user pages. I've been trying to come up with the best way to navigate between your links, tags, and friends. I've looked at all of the major social media platforms and I use several of them constantly. The interface on each site varies, but most of the time, it just isn't the best. Nothing is consistent and sometimes getting back to a certain screen is confusing. I don't want that for Linkatopia.

Speed Improvements

2021-11-04

Over the past few days, I've made some adjustments to our servers and I've updated a bunch of code on the web site. This has resulted in much faster load times across all of Linkatopia.

My page, https://linkatopia.com/rob215, is one of the largest pages on the site. I've saved 3,600+ links since I built the first version of this site! When you go to my page, you are loading the data for ALL 3,600 LINKS (except for my private links!)

And yet, here's my Google PageSpeed result for Desktop:

Homepage Updates

2021-10-29

I just updated the homepage with shorter, simpler paragraphs and an updated list of core features. I feel like most people don't want to read a lot of text so the first few sentences should give you a good idea of Linkatopia's purpose.

If you want more details, you can just keep reading the rest of the homepage.