音時雨 ~Regentropfen~

2023-May-14 (Sun), 22:20@GMT-7

✯ 念願のメーディアサーバー

I had a vague idea a few years ago about accessing my EHD of music over my home network, but the search result at that moment was that a NAS would be necessary and that was too expensive and didn't sound flexible -- you don't want to spend a lot but gain no control over my entire CUE army.
Then suddenly a few years after, with a trigger I don't remember exactly, I returned to this topic. At least I got a quick answer that you can surely DIY your own media server, and there is free software around for this purpose.
Maybe I was simply annoyed by how I lacked control over my whole music library, which I'm not sure by how much it has expanded since getting my Jupiter laptop. Plus I've got more toys powered with AIMP to deal with the long-hated CUE on mobile devices, I wished I could play whatever was in my library without many tiresome delete/copy/paste processes.
The first try, the universal media server software, was actually a good one -- free and multi-OS support at least. However, my first impression was rather poor, mainly because I only tested its performance by accessing its IP. The built-in player was horribly lagging and totally rubbish at reading CUE. I'd accept the fact as the drawback of freeware, but other solutions I found, sadly, were worse and none had CUE support, even the paid version.
Since I don't hate DIY, I somehow imagined playing a music file -- at this point I already gave in that I'd lose CUE handling and would just play the whole track -- directly from its URL, assuming there's no internet speed issue.
This actually led me to a crazy weekend trying to find a solution to sharing my localhost across my network.
It did work eventually, so I'll have to put some records here for the next time.
○ ☆゜+.*.+゜☆゜+.*.+゜☆゜+.*.+゜☆ ○゜+.*.+゜☆ ○

Set up two websites on localhost and access within the local network

1. in "httpd.conf" use ports 80 and 801 for my main and subsites.
Listen 80
Listen 801
2. in "httpd-vhosts.conf", set up servername for easy access. For some reason, the sub-site must have port 80.
<VirtualHost *:80>
	DocumentRoot "${POCCHONG}"
	ServerName pocchong.local
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80 *:801>
	DocumentRoot "D:/local/sandbox"
	ServerName sand.box
	<Directory />
		Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
		AllowOverride All
		Require all granted
	</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
3. in "C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts", link the custom servernames to localhost.
127.0.0.1 pocchong.local
127.0.0.1 sand.box
After this, both servernames should be accessible by typing localhost:PORT, 127.0.0.1:PORT, 10.0.0.203:PORT (which is the current device IP within my network) or the custom server name.
To make it accessible within the local network, ensure there's no device-based security block:
Windows settings -> windows security -> firewall & network protection -> advanced settings -> local computer security drop down -> rules for receiving -> add new -> type: Port -> specific port: 80, 801 -> allow access/connection -> profile: check all -> add name/description
Now, from other devices, by typing 10.0.0.203:PORT should open corresponding website. Note that the IP may change over time.
○ ☆゜+.*.+゜☆゜+.*.+゜☆゜+.*.+゜☆ ○゜+.*.+゜☆ ○
Although this did NOT go well with my URL-based media server idea, it would be nice to use this for sharing large files without a USB.
Meanwhile, I searched for further alternative solutions, like using foobar2000 plugin to build a media server, but it didn't work as expected.
Eventually, I returned to UMS and gladly noticed fb2k did find it as a local server.
Problem solved. ┐(・__・)┌
The next task would be getting a budget computer + a decent hard drive to officially build up the server. Would be very interesting but that does mean another round of search, in the area of hardware and $$!.
○ ☆゜+.*.+゜☆゜+.*.+゜☆゜+.*.+゜☆ ○゜+.*.+゜☆ ○
End with tonight's entertainment:
2023-Apr-02 (Sun), 13:13@GMT-7

❆ surprisingly 2/78

It would definitely go much faster at this pace, but I also know this is definitely nothing but a temporary boost. However, this still shrank the total time by one whole month, which is great.
XVIII. Der MOND

The moon. The draft was quickly finalised when I was still working on the previous one, which fastened its finishing-up. Then, for this one, there were no big changes from the on-paper draft, and everything went smoothly as initially planned. The lake stage plus red moon plus the bride and plus the kris. It was at quite a late stage when I noticed there is a fairly large decorative thing for the bride dress around the neck, but that looks visually unclear, and also because I was lazy to meet her in game at the moment, I decided to omit that part -- I'm never aiming to be a precious cosplayer.
New things I tried this time, different brushes, splitting outline/base fills to layers by parts, and colour-tinted shadow effect. The trickiest part was rather the moon, as I couldn't find a good brush at first, and it's huge which ate up some of the resources.
I've just heard clipstudio got 2.0. May update to that version soon (maybe not?).
Again, the next card has been decided -- 10 swords + some maliketh touch (even the card after the next one! 7 cups + powder dust (??)), though I don't think I can get it done as quick as this one -- the background requires some time to figure out.
●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・
Another surprise was I gradually got used to first-person games. Having been playing Ghostwire for a week and now I'm able to handle hard mode. Still, I'm never a fan of 1st person and I doubt my brain can fit in any 1st person game. If they release a 3rd person patch (why have they got so many costumes in a 1st person game??) I might just buy the game in full but for now, I'll just enjoy my ps+ free offer.
2023-Mar-26 (Sun), 11:07@GMT-7

✾ 1/78 done

Site updates

Made quite many changes in the past week, and counting changes I've been planning since last October (maybe November), that added up to about 90 commits, either major or minor. First, I decided to use the traditional format of query strings. I'm using many htaccess rewrite rules for this currently, but it's not flexible and once I wanted to add new features, I have to deal with more rewrite rules. It's simply much more convenient to just redirect the desired link for each script, and thus multiple queries can then be linked by "&" without much headache. So why from the beginning I ever wanted to use so many redirect rules? It's not possible that I did it because I think the "?x=y" format isn't pretty, but I couldn't think of any other reasons. It might remain as a riddle, which isn't important anyway.
Updating php codes was straightforward enough. The only trouble I had with this was updating existing links I put in my journals. Not a hard task. But since the total number of them was not so large that I chose to do it manually, which saved the time of debugging but also reduced much of my patience.
Second and more importantly, I implemented the long-wanted CSS switcher. This idea came out last year when I was browsing Iroshizuku inks (but still just bought from another brand due to their price), so I wanted to make a set of themes and switch them periodically. Then the StackOverflow's once fun-to-try CSS switcher came into my mind again. This would be fun to change the CSS with one click. Although I've considered both the server side and client side, the former is easier to code since I don't have to worry about CSS file updates in situ (while I also considered using a query string, like theme=xxx, to call up for certain themes, which indirectly contributed my returning-to-traditional-query-format task), which is the most likely preferred to be done in javascript, the latter is more challenging but more flexible.
With the former as my backup plan, I luckily found some nice online snippets and eventually (don't want to spend more on this record) got the latter plan to work. My past experience with Perl/CGI cookies was bad, but this time, PHP handled most of it without any issues I could notice.
Finally, I just noticed using PHP's http response code function to call 404 and then die can't bring up the browser's built-in error message like how it used to. The reason was unknown. Maybe it means it's time to make my own error page, but I'm not motivated (yet).
☆゚・*:.。.☆゚・*:.。.☆☆.。.:*・゚☆.。.:*・゚☆☆.。.:*・゚☆.。.:*・゚☆

A tiny step, some progress

Another good thing, I made forward my CST -- which stands for Cute Souls Tarotkarten -- project and it's finally 1/78 done, including only the final works!
Maybe I should say 1/79 done, since I also need to work on a card back design, regardless of how simple it might be.

No. 9, the Hermit, the first card I got.
Just at the moment when I wrote its number in regular digits, I realised it's actually the mighty No.9, nice to have it as the very first card! (*´∀`)
The design stage came rather quick. The traditional Hermit card shows one holding a lantern --> skull lantern --> somewhere dark --> New Londo + some ghosts --> the crimson sealer's costume.
I did spend some time thinking about the location. Originally wanted to go near the water but the pillar zone looked more fun -- not fun to draw though.
The ghosts were not initially there, and I simply found it fun to have them, in a non-harmful cute form.
Learning a few from Saito-sensei's channel. Even though it's not a lot, I do find I'm making more use of my tablet's full potential. That's progress and I'm self-satisfied. Will watch his shadowing technique, in the future when I have time. But until then, I guess I won't change my current shadowing style, which may be physically off. ┐(・ω・)┌
Maybe the final card should be of a simpler look? But I won't change it at this point.
I just wish I can work faster on this since I definitely don't want to spend 6.5 years on the whole project. (つд⊂)
☆゚・*:.。.☆゚・*:.。.☆☆.。.:*・゚☆.。.:*・゚☆☆.。.:*・゚☆.。.:*・゚☆
Time to add some tagging system to my site. (・д☆)キラッ