Caught a bug over the holidays so I’m mostly resting, feeling sorry for myself, and taking the time to at least carry out some mindless housekeeping tasks (updating dependencies, etc.) on some of my Node modules.

Released updates to the following packages yesterday:

Tape-based Node.js testing:

• Tap monkey (https://codeberg.org/small-tech/tap-monkey)
• tap-out (https://codeberg.org/small-tech/tap-out)
• esm-tape-runner (no changes; just migrated to Codeberg: https://codeberg.org/small-tech/esm-tape-runner)

Let’s Encrypt:

• Node Pebble (https://codeberg.org/small-tech/node-pebble)

Enjoy! 💕

#NodeJS #SmallTech #tape #testing #tapMonkey #tapOut #esmTapeRunner #LetsEncrypt #NodePebble #npm #modules

An interview I gave to Euronews six years ago. Interview is in English with Turkish subtitles.

You decide how it has aged.

https://tr.euronews.com/2019/03/08/teknoloji-sirketleri-insan-varligini-tehdit-ediyor-dijital-haklar-aktivisti-aral-balkan

#BigTech #SiliconValley #PeopleFarming #fascism #SmallTech #tech #HumanRights #democracy #peerocracy

Just added Web Reachability API (at least that’s what I’m calling it) support to https://ip.small-web.org.

It’s for testing the reachability of your Small Web servers (using a domain or, more importantly, an IPv4/IPv6 address). I’m using it to implement Web Numbers¹ support in Auto Encrypt² and Kitten³.

Protocol:

• At http://<endpoint> return an empty HTTP 200 response that includes the following custom header: 'web-reachability-id': ‘<uuid>'
• Hit: https://ip.small-web.org/reach/<endpoint>/<uuid>/
• If you get a 200 response back, your endpoint is reachable. Anything else signals an error.

Enjoy! 💕

¹ https://ar.al/2025/06/25/web-numbers/
² https://codeberg.org/small-tech/auto-encrypt
³ https://kitten.small-web.org

#WebReachabilityAPI #WebNumbers #IpAddresses #reachability #Kitten #AutoEncrypt #SmallWeb #peerToPeerWeb #SmallTech

So I’m teaching a friend who doesn’t have any development knowledge how to get started with Small Web development and I thought it would be a good opportunity to start creating and sharing the course on the Kitten web site, one lesson at a time.

Here’s the link:

https://kitten.small-web.org/course

It’s a work in progress that I’ll be adding to along with our lessons but the draft of the first one, on setting up your development environment (which I whipped up in the pub last night, so expect typos) is here:

https://kitten.small-web.org/course/setting-up/

Please feel free to follow along and file issues if you have thoughts for improvements, etc.

The Setting Up lesson will actually likely end up being the second one with the first being a theoretical one on Small (peer-to-peer) Web development and how it is similar to and differs from Big (centralised) Web development.

Enjoy!

💕

#SmallWeb #Kitten #SmallTech #web #dev #course #education #HTML #CSS #JavaScript #NodeJS

🥳 New Kitten Release

• Reduces minimum Bash version requirement for installing Kitten to Bash 3.2+ (was previously Bash 5+). This removes the requirement for people on macOS to upgrade the ancient version of Bash that Apple ships with their desktop operating system. (If you’re on Linux none of this was ever an issue for you.)¹

• Updates runtime to Node 24.12.0, the latest long-term support (LTS) version.

https://kitten.small-web.org

¹ While it’s easy enough to update your version of Bash on macOS using Homebrew, that only works (as we discovered on Friday https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/115706233541301655) if you’re running one of the latest three versions of macOS and thus excludes people with perfectly functional older computers. (Don’t get me started on why Apple ships an ancient version of Bash as we’ll go down the rabbit hole of open as in “open for business” vs “free as in freedom” and corporate capture and how capitalism will happily be the end of us if we let it. Aren’t you glad you didn’t get me started?) ;)

#Kitten #KittenRelease #SmallWeb #SmallTech #bash #NodeJS

Because “Free and Open Source Software isn’t about freedom/privacy/human rights/democracy” is one helluva take.

(And yes, you’re right, “open source” isn’t about any of those things. It’s just about the source being openly available. Not about protecting its openness or anything. It’s open as in “open for business.” But free (as in freedom) software/technology…? Well, I guess some of us would beg to differ.)

Oh, and if you want a philosophy/movement that isn’t shy or apologetic about being about freedom/privacy/human rights/democracy, see Small Tech:

https://small-tech.org/about/#small-technology

#FOSDEM #openSource #freeSoftware #SmallTech #freedom #privacy #humanRights #democracy

So I’m teaching a friend who doesn’t have any development knowledge how to get started with Small Web development and I thought it would be a good opportunity to start creating and sharing the course on the Kitten web site, one lesson at a time.

Here’s the link:

https://kitten.small-web.org/course

It’s a work in progress that I’ll be adding to along with our lessons but the draft of the first one, on setting up your development environment (which I whipped up in the pub last night, so expect typos) is here:

https://kitten.small-web.org/course/setting-up/

Please feel free to follow along and file issues if you have thoughts for improvements, etc.

The Setting Up lesson will actually likely end up being the second one with the first being a theoretical one on Small (peer-to-peer) Web development and how it is similar to and differs from Big (centralised) Web development.

Enjoy!

💕

#SmallWeb #Kitten #SmallTech #web #dev #course #education #HTML #CSS #JavaScript #NodeJS

Folks: Aral, you’re all about free and open technology, why won’t you speak at #FOSDEM?

Me: https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/115697202966701085

Also, I’m actually all about this: https://small-tech.org/about/#small-technology

#freeSoftware #openSource #freedom #humanRights #democracy #SmallTech

Because “Free and Open Source Software isn’t about freedom/privacy/human rights/democracy” is one helluva take.

(And yes, you’re right, “open source” isn’t about any of those things. It’s just about the source being openly available. Not about protecting its openness or anything. It’s open as in “open for business.” But free (as in freedom) software/technology…? Well, I guess some of us would beg to differ.)

Oh, and if you want a philosophy/movement that isn’t shy or apologetic about being about freedom/privacy/human rights/democracy, see Small Tech:

https://small-tech.org/about/#small-technology

#FOSDEM #openSource #freeSoftware #SmallTech #freedom #privacy #humanRights #democracy

Another quick release, this one adds Alpine.js support for shorthand event handlers.

Just add a `@` before your shorthand event handler names to have them expanded as inline Alpine.js event handlers.

e.g., `on:connect` → `@on:connect`

Enjoy!

:kitten:💕

#Kitten #AlpineJS #HTMX #SmallWeb #peerToPeerWeb #web #dev #JavaScript #nodeJS #SmallTech #KittenRelease

🥳 New Kitten Release

https://kitten.small-web.org

You can now use the simple `on:` prefix instead of `hx-on:htmx:` to define inline event handlers for HTMX events¹.

Also, there are three new event shorthands for responding to your Kitten page’s connection lifecycle:

• on:connecting
• on:connect
• on:disconnect

(These expand during render to `hx-on:htmx:ws-connecting.window`, `hx-on:htmx:ws-open.window`, and `hx-on:htmx:ws-close.window`, respectively.)

These are useful when using Kitten’s Streaming HTML workflow.

Full change log:
https://codeberg.org/kitten/app/src/branch/main/CHANGELOG.md#2025-12-10

Enjoy!

:kitten:💕

¹ https://htmx.org/events/
² https://kitten.small-web.org/tutorials/streaming-html/

#Kitten #SmallWeb #peerToPeerWeb #web #dev #SmallTech #KittenRelease

Yours truly speaking at Defuse Dublin (IxDA) last month, where I presented on Gaza Verified and Small Tech/Small Web.

All photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/irq95gn1ncUJtL4W7 (apologies for Google/Alphabet, Inc. link)

All talks: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsaoWzR87FsUvLEI7xjThSdIB5TqMrOc0 (apologies for YouTube/Alphabet, Inc. link)

#DefuseDublin #IxDA #design #SmallTech #SmallWeb

Yours truly speaking at Defuse Dublin (IxDA) last month, where I presented on Gaza Verified and Small Tech/Small Web.

All photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/irq95gn1ncUJtL4W7 (apologies for Google/Alphabet, Inc. link)

All talks: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsaoWzR87FsUvLEI7xjThSdIB5TqMrOc0 (apologies for YouTube/Alphabet, Inc. link)

#DefuseDublin #IxDA #design #SmallTech #SmallWeb

So it didn’t go exactly to script but the video of my talk from Defuse Dublin is now out. It’s a short one.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rLD-uii0fbY

#DefuseDublin #GazaVerified #design #IxDA #SmallTech

@ardentengender @gert

Totally with you. That is also one of those protection mechanisms. I did not mean in it in the sense of 'shielding' it, though that may be in order in some ocassions. And creating software on a #SmallTech paradigm, less interesting for BigCorp™, and such.

I like @tastapod definition of CUPID Joyful coding, see https://cupid.dev

The "U" stands for Unix philosophy here.

(The site is offline due to an error, see: https://web.archive.org/web/20250420210147/https://cupid.dev )

Looking forward to seeing some of you at Defuse Dublin tonight at The Sugar Club.

Event is not ticketed (first come, first serve) and doors open at 7PM.

https://defuse.ixd.ie

#DefuseDublin #Dublin #Ireland #talks #events #design #IxDA #technology #SmallTech #SmallWeb #Gaza #Palestine #GazaVerified

Every time I hear anything about DHH these days I feel I have to apologise for inviting him to Small Is Beautiful in 2021.

https://small-tech.org/small-is-beautiful/07/

I’m sorry, I didn’t know he was a dollar-store Elon Musk at the time.

What can I say? He duped me with his “small tech” talk, making me think we were talking about the same thing. Which, clearly, we weren’t, because Small Tech is all about inclusivity and a non-colonial approach to designing and developing human-scale technology:

“Small Tech is political through and through. It stands with both middle fingers raised high against Big Tech and capitalism. It’s proudly progressive. Small Tech is the opposite of Big Tech, not Big Tech Light.”

Learn more about Small Technology here: https://small-tech.org/about/#small-technology

#SmallTech #BigTech #DHH #apologies #SmallIsBeautiful https://mastodon.neilzone.co.uk/@neil/115502864868912851

Every time I hear anything about DHH these days I feel I have to apologise for inviting him to Small Is Beautiful in 2021.

https://small-tech.org/small-is-beautiful/07/

I’m sorry, I didn’t know he was a dollar-store Elon Musk at the time.

What can I say? He duped me with his “small tech” talk, making me think we were talking about the same thing. Which, clearly, we weren’t, because Small Tech is all about inclusivity and a non-colonial approach to designing and developing human-scale technology:

“Small Tech is political through and through. It stands with both middle fingers raised high against Big Tech and capitalism. It’s proudly progressive. Small Tech is the opposite of Big Tech, not Big Tech Light.”

Learn more about Small Technology here: https://small-tech.org/about/#small-technology

#SmallTech #BigTech #DHH #apologies #SmallIsBeautiful https://mastodon.neilzone.co.uk/@neil/115502864868912851