Tue 25 August 2026

Graphviz Viewer: Just Render the Graphviz, Please

Posted by Al Sweigart in misc   

A minimal, offline Graphviz renderer contained in a single HTML file. It has the dot, neato, fdp, sfdp, twopi, circo, osage, and patchwork tools just the command line version. I generated this because I wanted a simple Graphviz editor without ads. Think of it as a text editor with a Graphviz preview, along with some examples to help remember Graphviz syntax. Paste the Graphviz source, open or drop an .dot file, inspect the result in a sandboxed preview, pan and zoom, tidy the source, and export the image again as SVG, PNG, or WebP. Run the app in your browser. This app works offline and you own it forever. No ads. No registration. No subscriptions. No trackers. Just right-click and save the .html page.
screenshot:

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Mon 24 August 2026

The Obscure Origins of the Ghostscript SVG Tiger

Posted by Al Sweigart in misc   

That familiar SVG (scalar vector graphics) image of a tiger is the Ghostscript tiger: a vector image that has shipped with the Ghostscript PostScript interpreter for decades. The artwork itself predates its Ghostscript fame. The original tiger.ps / tiger.eps file says it was created in Adobe Illustrator 1.2d4 for OpenWindows 2 on April 12, 1990. The file does not identify the artist, and its exact origin is still unclear. (source)

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Mon 24 August 2026

Mermaid Diagram Viewer: Just Render the Mermaid Diagram, Please

Posted by Al Sweigart in misc   

A minimal, offline mermaid diagram renderer contained in a single HTML file. I generated this because I wanted a simple mermaid diagram editor without ads. Think of it as a text editor with a mermaid diagram preview, along with some examples to help remember mermaid diagram syntax. Paste the mermaid diagram source, open or drop an .mmd file, inspect the result in a sandboxed preview, pan and zoom, tidy the source, and export the image again as SVG, PNG, or WebP. Run the app in your browser. This app works offline and you own it forever. No ads. No registration. No subscriptions. No trackers. Just right-click and save the .html page.
screenshot:

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Sun 23 August 2026

SVG Viewer: Just View the SVG, Please

Posted by Al Sweigart in misc   

A minimal, offline SVG viewer contained in a single HTML file. I generated this because I needed a quick app to view, zomm in on, and make minor edits to SVGs without having to launch InkScape. Think of it as a text editor with an SVG preview, but it also has some basic SVG examples to refresh your memory on SVG syntax. Paste SVG source, open or drop an .svg file, inspect the result in a sandboxed preview, pan and zoom, tidy the source, and export the image again as SVG, PNG, or WebP. Run the app in your browser. This app works offline and you own it forever. No ads. No registration. No subscriptions. No trackers. Just right-click and save the .html page.
screenshot

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Tue 11 August 2026

Intriguing Stories in Computer Science

Posted by Al Sweigart in misc   

I am now... of a certain age... and there's a ton of anecdotes in the history of computer science and software development that I've heard, but I wondered if there's more. I had an LLM compiler a list (though I've carefully reviewed and fixed a bunch of the links). Many of these I had heard before but some were new to me. Click through them if you're interested. Most of the links go to Wikipedia; I've made sure the links at least don't go to slop content farm websites.

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Tue 04 August 2026

Python Package Comparison for Webcrawlers and Website Mirroring, August 2026

Posted by Al Sweigart in misc   

I wanted to get a local mirror copy of a website, but there's a lot of Python packages (as of August 2026) to do this. I decided to test 21 of them. This blog post is a human-written report of my experience using each one of these packages (as of August 2026). After reviewing them, I recommend website-downloader because it's a simple tool that does a simple task simply.

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Thu 30 July 2026

Mars Globe App

Posted by Al Sweigart in misc   

Try out Mars Globe in your browser. This is an browser app that gives you a Mars globe with several labelled landmarks. The landmarks have links to their respective Wikipedia pages. The app has several customizations for what to display, and you could simply have it as a full screen rotating Mars globe for science displays. There is no registration or subscriptions. It just works. Git repo.

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Thu 30 July 2026

Make It Tiny - An image optimizer

Posted by Al Sweigart in misc   

Try out Make It Tiny in your browser. This is an browser app that shrinks the file sizes of images. You can optimize png, webp, jpg, and avif images in your browser without having to upload them to somebody else's server. Your images stay on your machine. There is no registration or subscriptions. It just works. Git repo. To run on your machine, you'll need to download make-it-tiny-offline.html and the other support .wasm and .js files from the git repo.

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Sun 19 July 2026

Zine Fests and Book Fairs 2026

Posted by Al Sweigart in misc   

I've been getting more interest in making zines and short-run DIY publishing since using Python to make my Choose Your Own Adventure Tic-Tac-Toe zine.. I've been trying to find local zine fests and book fairs but had trouble finding an entire list. ChatGPT came up with the following 2026 events (mostly in Japan, England, and New York) but I wanted to repost the results here. The primary sources seem to be mostly ArtBookFairs.com, Zindies.co, and Distromat.co.uk which likely have more events than the ones here. I've human-reviewed the links to make sure they go to the correct event page and the event still looks current.

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