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30 Dec 2025: Simple little bash script wishing everyone a Happy New Year↗ Safe to run, just a bunch of echo commands to stdout.
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nf (netfinger) is a netcat-based finger client. Features include support for the two major finger formats: user@domain.com and finger://domain.com/user.
Additional features include smart wrapping, HTML rendering, custom shortcuts, blocklists, auto CR/LF detection for server compatibility, protocol validation and error handling.
Author's Note: I'm really enjoying working with this new addition. I want to keep the script small but feature-rich. That is... add only (subjectively) useful features.
License: Blue Oak Model License↗ Script: nf.txt
Compatibility: Linux, macOS and *BSD Status: updated 04 Dec 2025
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fm: The Multi-Server Finger Monitor. A simple little Finger server checker. Checks 3 core servers for recent user activity in one glance.
Author's Note: This simple little thing is probably my most used finger utility. So useful for checking in on the core servers running finger. See the screenshot below for a sample output.
License: Blue Oak License↗ Script: fm.txt Screenshot: fm.png
Compatibility: Linux and macOS Status: updated 07 Dec 2025
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weather and ww (worldweather) are personal tools I built to scratch a weather itch - polished in case others find them useful.
weather is the core utility that fetches and displays a concise set of essential weather information in just two lines. It uses OpenStreetMap to resolve locations to latitude/longitude (an improvement over open-meteo's own geocoding) and Open-Meteo for weather retrieval.
ww is a convenience wrapper that runs the weather script sequentially for multiple predefined locations, allowing you to check conditions in several cities at once. See the screenshot below.
License: Blue Oak↗
Script: weather.txt
Script: ww.txt
Screenshots: World Weather and Help Screen
Compatibility: Linux, macOS, Windows Status: new 23 Dec 2025
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An in-house ASCII Template that I use to post on happynetbox.com↗. I have fun adding a little ASCII flair to the posts there. This htmlApp works similarly to cowsay↗ and boxes↗ (but uses only a single template). It takes data and inserts it into a fixed-size ASCII Template.
Author's Note: It's in-house - so... maybe it could look nicer (I think it looks perfect:-) but it gets the job done for me. I plan on adding another template/htmlApp (for example: this one is next). Others may follow after that.
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nview is a Bash wrapper that captures finger client output and displays it in NFO Viewer. Features include a CLIENT_NAME variable (currently set to 'finger'), automated temporary file cleanup and a user-friendly help section.
Author's Note: I enjoy reading .plan files with terminal-based clients but I go through phases where I route everything through 'NFO Viewer'. Requires both NFO Viewer and this script. The "install" is simple. The rewards...? see the screenshots below.
License: Blue Oak↗ Script: nview.txt Screenshots: Light, Dark
Compatibility: Linux and macOS Status: updated 10 Oct 2025
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sv (Spartan Viewer) is a Python CLI tool that fetches and renders single spartan:// protocol gemtext content or local .gmi files with ANSI-styled formatting, smart word-wrapping and redirect support for terminal viewing.
Author's Note: This standalone script requires the user to enter "sv {URL}" which may be an issue for some. The sbl file below (a companion bookmark/launcher to sv) fixes that. It links to some great sites on spartan in an easy to access way.
License: Blue Oak License↗ Script: sv.txt Screens: Rendered & Help
Compatibility: Linux, macOS and Windows Status: updated 10 Oct 2025
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sbl (Spartan Bookmark Launcher) is a companion script to sv (Spartan Viewer) above. Running 'sbl' will launch URLs embedded in the script as:
"sv {URL} | less -R".
Author's Note: I use this to easily visit core spartan sites and great ascii art pages available using the spartan:// protocol. Requires sv (above) in order to retrieve and render the pages (it's just a single, portable script like this one). 12 pages are currently listed and it's easy to add your own (sbl --edit).
License: Blue Oak License↗ Script: sbl.txt Screens: Main & Help
Compatibility: Linux/macOS. Windows: 95% Status: updated 06 Oct 2025
05 Nov 2025: Minor Windows fixes coming soon.
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bfinger is a bash-based Finger client (RFC 1288) using /dev/tcp for socket connections to query remote Finger servers, with full 8-bit character and ASCII art support.
Author's Note: I haven't seen this method used in other finger clients, likely because it's slower and OS-centric (Bash, Linux mostly) but I wanted to see how it performed. I think it works great! It's just a few lines of Linux compatible code (when you remove the comments/help section) and serves as yet another way to add finger support.
License: Blue Oak License↗ Script: bfinger.txt
Compatibility: Linux and macOS Status: updated 14 Nov 2025
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get-news is an in-house two-line script written to render and reformat the output of a finger account that uses github actions to auto-create a news site. This script is specific to the account: "finger bot@happynetbox.com" and requires nf (netfinger) to function.
Other ways to render and make the links clickable are via lynx, email (see fingerverse), nview and portal.mozz.us↗.
License: n/a
Screenshot: get-news.png script: get-news.txt
Compatibility: Linux only Status: updated 01 Dec 2025
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Binary Markdown Killer has one primary job: it strips out all binary (word-processing) characters from a Markdown file, converting them to their 7-bit ASCII counterparts. This is its core purpose.
As a secondary function, it converts the cleaned Markdown into HTML 3.2.
The resulting HTML is available in its own Text Area window. Optionally, you can copy the rendered 7-bit ASCII text (sans HTML tags) from the [Preview] tab.
License: Blue Oak License↗
htmlApp: Binary Markdown Killer
Compatibility: All platforms Status: Last update 20 Sept 2025
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Simple HTML 3.2 Editor: A lightweight, browser-based HTML editor for classic HTML 3.2 tags. Highlight text and select a tag from the dropdown to wrap it - or insert tags and entities at the cursor position.
Author's Note: You can also paste modern html (a complete page or snippets) to preview quickly.
License: Blue Oak License↗
htmlApp: Simple HTML 3.2 Editor
Compatibility: All platforms Status: minor update 20 Oct 2025
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Scream into the Void is a privacy-friendly alternative to hbo's data-slurping web page of the same name. Sometimes you need the cathartic release of primal expression - where the id and ego collide in a place that can contain the explosion. This portable htmlApp is such a place.
License: Blue Oak↗
htmlApp: Scream into the Void
Status: new 12 Dec 2025
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World Clocks is a simple htmlApp that displays the current time of 12 cities around the world. Adding or editing cities requires some light modification to the HTML and JavaScript - which is documented on the page itself.
License: Blue Oak↗
htmlApp: World Clocks
Status: new 28 Dec 2025
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quotes is a lightweight cross-platform Python-based random quote generator. Both the script (quotes) and a quotes file (quotes.txt) are needed.
License: Blue Oak License↗
File: Quotes File
Script: quotes.py.txt
Compatibility: Linux, macOS and Windows Status: updated 15 Dec 2025
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codepage437 is a UTF-8 friendly version of the original code page for DOS. Includes conversion information (linux) to make it compatible with code pages used on other operating systems.
Author's Note: I didn't know where to put this and this page seemed like the current best fit.
License: CC0: No Rights Reserved↗ Page: cpage437
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The Random Dog Facts page is a fully working minimalist template with developer notes. It uses the free Dog API by kinduff↗ to retrieve delectable morsels of dog facts.
License: Blue Oak↗ Page: Dog Facts Status: new 27 Dec 2025
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The Random Stoicism Quotes page is a fully working minimalist template with developer notes. It uses the free Stoicism Quote Public API↗ to retrieve random quotes.
Author's Note: There are strong similarities between Stoicism and the Tao Te Ching. If you find value in one, I think you'll find value in the other.
License: Blue Oak↗ Page: Stoicism Quotes Status: new 19 Dec 2025
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Tao Te Ching "is a Chinese classic text and foundational work of ancient Taoism. The Tao Te Ching is central to both philosophical and religious Taoism and has been highly influential on Chinese philosophy and religious practice in general." (wikipedia↗)
Author's Note: Below are two translations/interpretations by different authors. The first is by Ursula K Le Guin and is well received (and very approachable). The other, by Stephen Mitchell, is more controversial.
I actually started with Mitchell's version first - many years ago. Because of the language and delivery - it made general concepts approachable and put the "grand scheme of things" into perspective in an eye-opening and lucid way. He's here because he got me started and I think I owe others the same kind of intro.
The more accurate Le Guin version will do the same and is the recommended first read.
: Ursula K Le Guin :
Stephen Mitchell :
Dao De Jing↗ :
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txt2bin is a script that takes a text file and converts it into a self-displaying, portable binary. It uses musl-gcc to create the smallest possible size. Great for short text and ASCII Art.
Author's Note: This is a fun program that was created as a prop to the short story: The Council of Linux Greybeards. Its existence in the real world feels like fourth wall stuff. Details are here.
License: Blue Oak License↗ Script: txt2bin.txt Status: new 14 Dec 2025
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Third-party/tweak: Text Calendar is a really nice looking (mostly ASCII) 12-month calendar. It was not created by me. It's from Anastasios Gogos↗. I made only two tweaks: (1) the weeks now run from Sun-Sat and (2) edited the footer.
Note: You can opt for the 100% 7-bit ASCII version without the Unicode line characters (U+2500 and U+2501).
License: MIT↗
Author: github↗
htmlApp (tweaked): Text Calendar
Compatibility: All platforms Status: new 05 Oct 2025
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Textnet is a Python-based finger client supporting additional text-only
protocols. Features smart wrapping, HTML rendering and quick script editing.
16 Dec 2025: I will be retiring this app - removing it from this list soon. It has already been removed from the fingerverse file. Transitioning to nf (netfinger) which already has an improved HTML renderer over textnet and a few additional cool features textnet does not have.
License: Blue Oak License↗
Doc: HTML Doc↗
Script: textnet.txt↗
Compatibility: Linux, macOS. Windows 99% Status: archived, wayback
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