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Web Tools

23 posts

Tools you run directly in the browser, plus networking demos for learning. The write-ups explain how inputs relate to results, how each was built, and what has been simplified away.

What this subject covers

01

Tools you can use right now

Turn a photo into pixel art, use the screen as a mood light, work out an air conditioner's share of an electricity bill. Anything that handles a file does the work inside the browser and never uploads it.

02

The parts you never see

DNS lookup, TCP connection setup, recovery from packet loss, HTTPS encryption, RAID parity, network drive sharing: processes where normally only the result is visible, followed step by step in simulation.

03

Sequences read in order

Networking, NAS, and sockets run as multi-part sequences. Each part stands alone, but read in order each one picks up the idea the last one established. The group list below is that order.

Groups in this topic

How to read these

  • A post starts from its conclusion, and explains one concept at a time.
  • Demo screens state that a simulation is neither real traffic nor a real measurement, and say what has been left out.
  • Posts covering a specification link to the relevant RFC or official document.

Posts

1–9 of 23

Problems Met in ProductionDemo

From the name you typed to an IP, in four steps

Press through a domain lookup, its cache, and its TTL, and watch the path to an IP across a recursive resolver and the DNS hierarchy. A simplified simulation, not a real lookup or real latency.

2026.07.268 min
Power and BillsDemo

Same cold air, very different bill

Air conditioning stacks on top of what you already use. Give it the bill from a month with the unit off and it works out what this month adds, from a wall unit to a ceiling cassette.

2026.07.258 min
Socket Patterns in 5 StepsPart 1Demo

A successful send does not mean it arrived

Safely retrying a request whose ACK went missing, and using message IDs and deduplication so the real work happens exactly once.

2026.07.206 min
Socket Patterns in 5 StepsPart 2Demo

When the receiver is slow, the sender has to stop

Splitting a file into chunks, pausing under backpressure in front of a slow receiver, resuming from where it broke, and verifying with a checksum.

2026.07.206 min
Socket Patterns in 5 StepsPart 3Demo

Instead of replaying every missed event, receive the current state

How a screen that missed live events compares versions with the server, receives the latest snapshot, and returns to the same state.

2026.07.206 min
Socket Patterns in 5 StepsPart 4Demo

The moment there are two servers, one room splits in half

Fanning out to users connected across servers A and B through a broker, and recovering what was missed from stored events and offsets.

2026.07.206 min
Socket Patterns in 5 StepsPart 5Demo

A stale coordinate that arrives late is better discarded

On an unordered WebRTC position channel, dropping a late-arriving past coordinate and interpolating between the newest positions instead.

2026.07.206 min
Socket Theory in 3 StepsPart 1Demo

Know the IP and the port and you are half way to a socket

Starting from what a socket even is. Following one TCP conversation: a server waiting on a port, a client connecting by IP and port, and bytes moving both ways.

2026.07.198 min
Socket Theory in 3 StepsPart 2Demo

Outbound describes who started the connection, not which way data goes

Outbound does not mean data only travels one way. A program on the inside starts the connection, and once established the socket is used in both directions.

2026.07.197 min