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The one year anniversary of Homebrew Website Club - Philadelphia was a blast! This thing has been a joy to host - very grateful to Steve at Iffy Books for letting us host out of his wonderful space, and to every attendee, some of which have been attending almost every one! Love u all :')

Also big thanks to my very talented and brilliant wife for making vegan cupcakes for the event <3

This article goes over the contact form on my Cloudflare Pages static site using Cloudflare Workers and Cloudflare Email Routing. You get all this for the cost of one non-user-facing domain name - you can currently get a ~$0.85/yr <random-string-of-numbers>.xyz from most domain registrars (thanks to Graham Vasquez for the tip!!)

You can see the example-ified Cloudflare worker at https://github.com/zazzyzeph/contact_form_cloudflare_worker_example, but for further details - read on!

Contact forms are common features of websites, which let users contact the the website owner without exposing the website owner’s email address. They frequently include fields like ‘Name’, ‘Email Address’, and ‘Message’. They’ll also usually include some spam prevention measures like a ReCaptcha or Turnstile, and possibly a hidden ‘honeypot’ field (more on those later!)

Also posted on IndieNews

Homebrew Website Club - Philadelphia, 11th edition was an unexpected success! We were in the throes of a Philadelphia heatwave so I wasn’t expecting many attendees, but we actually had more than usual! Thanks everyone for coming out :^)

And thanks as always to Iffy Books for hosting!

Notes are archived at https://indieweb.org/events/2026-07-11-hwc-philly

== Participants ==

• Zephyr - https://zephnet.biz
• Andrii http://city.vaku.la/
• Tim - https://writingofftheworld.neocities.org
• ryelle - https://ryelle.codes/
• Graham - https://gvasquez.dev/ - https://phlcode.club/
• Christina https://cbtalia.com/ - https://phlcode.club/ <3
• Benjamin https://benjamincorey.net/
• Sara https://saras-art.neocities.org/

== Notes ==

Also posted on IndieNews

Homebrew Website Club - Philadelphia, 10th edition was a hoot! Many thanks to everyone who came out - we had a few new faces and it’s always a pleasure to see our regulars! Big shout out to PHL Code Club, I’m so glad Graham came out to one of the first Philly HWC events and introduced me to his community, they’re all great people and they run really fun events!

Also posted on IndieNews

I had the honor of being interviewed by Milan Parker for her report on Philadelphians bringing back ’the old web'.

I got to talk about the Philly Homebrew Website Club, Steve McLaughlin of Iffy Books talked about digital identity and the optimism of the old web, and Richard Green discussed introducing folks to the web through his Build Your First Website workshop.

The interview was a segment on Block by Block, a radio news program focused on people, communities, and events in the Philadelphia area. You can listen to the whole show on Soundcloud, or just listen to the segment below!

Version two of my hydroponic planter setup is a go! It’s an AutoPot 2 pot rig, and I reinforced my pvc enclosure’s joints with duct tape and tied the whole thing to a metal pole in the back patio. Lessons learned from last time - the plants got too big and when it got too windy the pipes separated from the joints and the whole thing toppled over many times 😅

Also posted on IndieNews

Homebrew Website Club - Philadelphia, 9th edition is in the books! Thanks everyone once again for coming out, especially my dad!!! (pictured above my profoundly greasy head)

Thanks as always to Iffy Books for hosting!

Notes are archived at https://indieweb.org/events/2026-05-03-hwc-philly

Here they are again anyway:

== Participants ==

• Zephyr https://zephnet.biz
• Tim https://writingofftheworld.neocities.org
• ryelle https://ryelle.codes
• Graham https://gvasquez.dev/ (https://phlcode.club/)
• AJ https://ajstensland.github.io (not updated since 2019)
• John https://drmaybe.net/
• Ben
• Chris
• Inessa

== Notes ==

• nsf.gov
• CSS Box Model - https://wizardzines.com/comics/box-model/
• Flexbox (1D) and (my personal preference) Grid (2D)
  • https://wizardzines.com/comics/css-grid-areas/ (excerpt from the CSS zine, worthwhile purchase!)
  • https://css-tricks.com/complete-guide-css-grid-layout/
  • https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/a-guide-to-flexbox/
• squoosh.app and compress.lol for image/video
• old html emails and outlook 2003 - 2015 using IE 6 at first (actually good) and later MS Word (a plague)
• upcoming plans for Philly Tech Week and the Code Club CTF
• Graham and Ben talking at Break Point at Indy Hall about Ergonomic Keyboards and Code/CAD respectively - https://luma.com/9ikw4plb
• IRC servers and WeeChat

Looking forward to the next one on 2026-06-07!

Also posted on IndieNews

Homebrew Website Club - Philadelphia, 8th edition is in the books! Thanks everyone once again for coming out, on Easter AND passover no less!

Thanks as always to Iffy Books for hosting!

Notes are archived at https://indieweb.org/events/2026-04-05-hwc-philly

Here they are again anyway:

== Participants ==

• Zephyr https://zephnet.biz
• Tim https://writingofftheworld.neocities.org
• Graham https://gvasquez.dev/ (https://phlcode.club/)
• Andrii
• Sierra

== Notes ==

• https://www.openmhz.com/
• wikitext - the markdownish-format used by indieweb.org and wikipedia https://indieweb.org/MediaWiki
• getting off of Discord via IRC, Mumble, MediaWiki, and something for screencasting
• hardtime - a neovim plugin that yells at you if you’re not efficient: https://github.com/m4xshen/hardtime.nvim
• neovim and emulators
• git explainers - wizard zines are super helpful!
  • Julia Evans is the shit: https://jvns.ca/
  • Wizard Zines: https://store.wizardzines.com/
• Sorting tables
  • Don’t do it via CSS, but maybe possible
  • Sortable: https://github.hubspot.com/sortable/docs/welcome/
• CSS
  • Grid - start from the grid-container section (to save some headaches lol) https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Guides/Grid_layout/Basic_concepts#grid_container
  • https://store.wizardzines.com/products/hell-yes-css
• Static site generators - https://gohugo.io https://astro.build https://11ty.dev (Potentially a custom one from Graham???)
• Making websites for web serials

Looking forward to the next one on 2026-05-03!

The Problem

I use NeoVim for my coding tasks [and you should too ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)], but an issue i’ve been having is keeping two versions going for my init.lua config file - one for my personal webdev work and livecoding stuff, and another specifically for my day job, which I generally do inside a virtual machine.

Both of these configs share a lot of features / keymaps (I always need HTML/CSS/JS features), but I don’t need SuperCollider language support for work, and conversely don’t need PHP debugger configs cluttering up my personal NeoVim config.

Also posted on IndieNews

Homebrew Website Club - Philadelphia, 7th edition is in the books! Many thanks to everyone who came out, love having this group. My heart is full. :^)

Thanks as always to Iffy Books for hosting!

Notes are archived at https://indieweb.org/events/2026-03-01-hwc-philly

Here they are again anyway:

== Participants ==

• Zephyr https://zephnet.biz
• Quigley https://quig.info
• Graham https://gvasquez.dev/ https://phlcode.club/
• ryelle https://ryelle.codes
• Tim https://writingofftheworld.neocities.org
• Christina https://cbtalia.com
• Sierrah (making book/art project website, migrating from wordpress)
• AJ Stensland https://ajstensland.github.io (i havent touched this in uhhh 7 years lmao)

== Notes ==

Been a while since I made anything hardware-related, and I’ve wanted to learn Rust specifically for microcontrollers, so here’s my first step towards becoming a Rustacean - an led blinking from an esp32-c3 supermini I picked up at iffy books 😄

I mostly followed Espressif’s documentation for programming ESP boards using Rust, and adapting the ‘hello world’ example that comes from their esp-generate crate so it uses the GPIO bits from this example for turning on an LED from the BOOT button on the board.

Also posted on IndieNews

Homebrew Website Club - Philadelphia, 6th edition, was a great time! Thanks everyone for coming out again, love that we have a solid core group now and great newcomers alike! :^)

Thanks as always to Iffy Books for hosting!

Notes are archived at https://indieweb.org/events/2026-02-01-hwc-philly

Here they are again anyway:

== Participants ==

• Zephyr https://zephnet.biz
• Graham https://gvasquez.dev/ and https://phlcode.club/
• AJ https://ajstensland.github.io (i have not touched this in years)
• Inessa https://thingsforworms.neocities.org/ (its a mess but its my special mess) haydenshuker.com: https://haydenshuker.com
• Emily https://www.fauxtrots.com/ and https://www.emilykrose.com/
• Andy https://blog.andylu.dev
• Claude (don’t have a website yet oop)
• Benjamin https://benjamincorey.net (https://themitzvahmagician.com/) (https://bencorey.com) https://tv.benjamincorey.net (press a/b) for: https://photos.app.goo.gl/5nQq2H2MNfJVpwD4A https://photos.app.goo.gl/7nTSSPX69ZUDiaKy9
• Nathan http://localhost:8080

== Notes ==

Also posted on IndieNews

Homebrew Website Club - Philadelphia, 5th edition, was arguably the best one yet! Thanks everyone for coming out - really fun conversations and I think we all learned a lot :^)

Thanks as always to Iffy Books for hosting!

Notes are archived at https://indieweb.org/events/2026-01-04-hwc-philly

Here they are again anyway:

== Participants ==

• Zephyr https://zephnet.biz
• Ragman (Richard) https://ragman.net
• ryelle https://ryelle.codes
• Quigley https://quig.info
• Graham https://gvasquez.dev (https://phlcode.club)
• Chris https://cbtalia.com
• Taj (websiteless and sad for it)
• Richard

== Notes ==

Also posted on IndieNews

Homebrew Website Club - Philadelphia was packed! 12 people ended up coming out, and it was a bit chaotic but a good time nonetheless :)

Thanks as always to Iffy Books for hosting!

Notes this time weren’t as exhaustive as usual but here’s what we talked about:

• Michael’s website builder (WIP): https://pluribus.me
• Intro to web development
  • https://neocities.org is a great free website platform
  • Like neocities just smaller and more graphically focused https://nekoweb.org/
  • https://neocities.org/tutorials is their tutorials section, including their official tutorial, and also links to the MDN tutorial which is also good!
  • https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn_web_development
• WiFi extension
• Web Accessibility + the importance of manual testing
• The 1MB club (websites weighing 1 megabyte or less) - https://1mb.club/
• WordPress and BDFLs (Benevolent Dictators For Life) in open source

Next one is on 2026-01-04. See you in the new year!

Intro

For a long time I used Sass in conjunction with a bundler like Webpack in order to make up for CSS’ shortcomings, the most important of which (for me) was the ability to assign and use variables, or, as CSS calls them - custom properties.

You generally assign these to your :root selector so they are available throughout the rest of your CSS:

:root {
  --color1: #f00;
}

You can also assign them to more specific selectors for… greater specificity as needed. After the variables are assigned, you can use them as values in your CSS like so:

Iffy Books hosts a recurring event called ‘Model Internet Club’, which of course usually takes place in the bookshop, but this time we took it out to Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia for a beautiful fall morning of hosting and connecting to our own local 20-ish square meter internet.

Also posted on IndieNews

The third edition of Homebrew Website Club - Philadelphia is in the books! Thanks for coming Ruben! and thanks again to Iffy Books for hosting. Turnout was slim, probably because of the All Saints Day parties (if not the Halloween ones). Anywho, we still had a great hang.

Topics:

• Drupal & WordPress dev
• p5.js
• Intro to the IndieWeb
• Framework churn
• Bookmark strategies
• CSS and JavaScript options for honoring user preferences for light/dark themes
• Variant sudoku puzzles (Cracking the Cryptic youtube)

Next one is on 12-07-2025. See you there!

A great time was had by all at Philly Homebrew Website Club 2! Thanks for coming everyone, and thanks again to Iffy Books

Also shout out to PHL Code Club! - go to their events if you’re in town.

Etherpad notes from the meet!

Micropub test of creating a photo referenced by URL. This post should include a photo of a sunset.

The first Philly Homebrew Website Club went great! Thanks everyone for coming and many thanks to Iffy Books for hosting!

There’s me in the bottom right, unaware that I had e. coli at the time 😩 Feeling better now!

Unfortunately, the next one (scheduled for September 7th) is cancelled for related reasons. We’ll pick back up in October!

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