Neopets HTML Guide • Hacker News Board

Re: Neopets HTML Guide

#31

Post by krapp » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 6:13 PM UTC

wjoe wrote: post #30

erikrothoff wrote: post #13

This got me into programming as well! The biggest problem I had was when I wanted to expand and build a forum, and tried to understand why Geocities didn't run my .php file (which was from a tutorial). Answer: PHP support was paid option AFAIK

Yep, back then it was very hard to get any free hosting that supported any sort of scripting language. Of course, as a 12 year old on the internet, paying for anything was unheard of. I remember wanting to set up some forum that required CGI. I had some sort of hosting account that required using their own dialup service to connect to their FTP. Probably cost more on the phone bill than some cheap hosting service, bu…

Tripod offered Perl CGI scripting on their free service at one point.

I wrote a terrible "messageboard" that only one other person ever used.

Re: Neopets HTML Guide

#32

Post by yclept » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 6:38 PM UTC

fenwick67 wrote: post #21

zoba wrote: post #17

Neopets is the reason I’m a software engineer. Along the way looking for “cheat codes” for Neopets, I discovered some people hacking the games. I eventually ran a forum on hacking Neopets, made money from ads, got into PC World Magazine, and had a great time along the way. Sorry to Adam and Donna for any headaches I caused during my teenage years. <3

Neopets was where I first discovered hacking. There was a user named "blueyoshi82" or something, I wanted to see if I could get into their account (I don't remember why). So I tried guessing their password, and lo and behold, it was just "yoshi"! Being the white-hat that I was, I tried to PM them a message saying "hey you really need to change your password, it's too easy to guess", but the word "password" was blackl…

I remember during school showing my Math teacher (who was a big Ultima gamer but also played Neopets) how I set up a fake neopets shop that prompted you for login. When you submitted the login form it sent the form inputs in an email to a hotmail address :D. One of my first experiences with HTML. I had no idea there were so many shared Neopets experiences in this community.

Re: Neopets HTML Guide

#33

Post by pmulv » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 6:53 PM UTC

zoba wrote: post #17

Neopets is the reason I’m a software engineer. Along the way looking for “cheat codes” for Neopets, I discovered some people hacking the games. I eventually ran a forum on hacking Neopets, made money from ads, got into PC World Magazine, and had a great time along the way. Sorry to Adam and Donna for any headaches I caused during my teenage years. <3

Similarly, Runescape private servers and bots got me interested in programming and computer science from an early age. Young me viewed Runescape as an immutable truth that couldn't be manipulated, but teenage me got involved in botting, hacking, and even the development of a Runescape private server that had it's own rules and code. It was magical to see that technology could be tinkered with. It introduced me to java and configuring tools, collaboration, and most of all how to spot a scam and the intricacies of a (granted, fake) economy. It's amazing what that addictive game gave to me.

Re: Neopets HTML Guide

#34

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 6:58 PM UTC

fenwick67 wrote: post #21

zoba wrote: post #17

Neopets is the reason I’m a software engineer. Along the way looking for “cheat codes” for Neopets, I discovered some people hacking the games. I eventually ran a forum on hacking Neopets, made money from ads, got into PC World Magazine, and had a great time along the way. Sorry to Adam and Donna for any headaches I caused during my teenage years. <3

Neopets was where I first discovered hacking. There was a user named "blueyoshi82" or something, I wanted to see if I could get into their account (I don't remember why). So I tried guessing their password, and lo and behold, it was just "yoshi"! Being the white-hat that I was, I tried to PM them a message saying "hey you really need to change your password, it's too easy to guess", but the word "password" was blackl…

[deleted]

Re: Neopets HTML Guide

#35

Post by mcx » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 7:01 PM UTC

I got introduced to HTML through Neopets as well. I remember joining a Legend of Zelda guild. Another member and I decided to start our own guild. He showed me how to use an image tag so we hotlinked a bunch of sweet images and created a bunch of new accounts to boost our member count and that helped us organically get members. Good times!

Re: Neopets HTML Guide

#36

Post by dreaminvm » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 7:05 PM UTC

pmulv wrote: post #33

zoba wrote: post #17

Neopets is the reason I’m a software engineer. Along the way looking for “cheat codes” for Neopets, I discovered some people hacking the games. I eventually ran a forum on hacking Neopets, made money from ads, got into PC World Magazine, and had a great time along the way. Sorry to Adam and Donna for any headaches I caused during my teenage years. <3

Similarly, Runescape private servers and bots got me interested in programming and computer science from an early age. Young me viewed Runescape as an immutable truth that couldn't be manipulated, but teenage me got involved in botting, hacking, and even the development of a Runescape private server that had it's own rules and code. It was magical to see that technology could be tinkered with. It introduced me to jav…

Amazingly this summarizes my teenage years with Runescape.

Not only did I pick up botting and development of a private server, but I learn a lot about how virtual economies worked and how to maximize value buying small quantities and sell in bulk in Varrock.

Re: Neopets HTML Guide

#37

Post by Raphmedia » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 8:16 PM UTC

I know a handful of developers started to code thanks to Neopets. Personally it was bbcode that got me interested in what was going on behind the scenes.

Re: Neopets HTML Guide

#38

Post by 52-6F-62 » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 8:23 PM UTC

uremog wrote: post #22

52-6F-62 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never saw the Neopets guide. For me, it was Joe Burns' site: HTMLGoodies[0]. It was indispensable for me. That and a lot of help from FrontPage Express[1] & viewing the source code of whatever I'd just made. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/19990429010831/http://www.htmlgo... [1] http://www.jegsworks.com/lessons/web/html/fpx/fpx.htm

HTMLGoodies helped me make terrible Geocities sites.

You and me both

Re: Neopets HTML Guide

#39

Post by 5ilv3r » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 8:28 PM UTC

Ah neopets.... your character limits forced me to ditch frontpage and actually learn how to make html with notepad.

Re: Neopets HTML Guide

#40

Post by Lxr » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 9:24 PM UTC

dreaminvm wrote: post #36

pmulv wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, Runescape private servers and bots got me interested in programming and computer science from an early age. Young me viewed Runescape as an immutable truth that couldn't be manipulated, but teenage me got involved in botting, hacking, and even the development of a Runescape private server that had it's own rules and code. It was magical to see that technology could be tinkered with. It introduced me to jav…

Amazingly this summarizes my teenage years with Runescape. Not only did I pick up botting and development of a private server, but I learn a lot about how virtual economies worked and how to maximize value buying small quantities and sell in bulk in Varrock.

It taught me so many things as well. One that comes to mind is after they introduced the Grand Exchange, “merch clans” became popular running pump and dump schemes on random items. Unsurprisingly the only people to actually get rich were the people who bought before the next item was announced, i.e. the insiders who actually decided the items. This has many parallels in the real world!