Side Blog: https://somethingdifferent.wordpress.com/
Software Projects (Fallen Star/Marxist Furry)
Completed Projects
Reddit
A simple picture posting reddit iphone app. A Computer Science University Project at Weber State University for an ios/iphone development class. It uses the reddit api for logging into an account to upload a photo to imgur and posting it to a user defined subredit. It also finds all the images on a subreddit and displays them in a list where the user can click ont one of the items in the list and it will display the image
https://github.com/ballju/iReddit
In Progress
Fallen Star
Converting Gamemaker School Project from Gamemaker 8 to Godot
Playlist Transfer
Transfers Playlists from streaming apps from one service to another. Using C# and .Net framework. It will be a console application.
Mood Tracker
Open-source daily journal and daily tracking of both mood and other important things.
Avatar Sim
Choose your own adventure based on JC’s Avatar
ADHD Tracker
(Private Github Repo for now) An time tracker that using Android TTS to help those with poor time management to keep on track storing tasks by priority
DBT Diary Card
(Private Github Repo for now) An application for generating dbt diary cards for thearpy and personal tracking
videowyrm
A fork of a decentralized movie/tv/anime social tracker based on a book tracking app
Frequently Used Tags
For most of the posts the were posted by me its #original post
#journal #tattoos
#history #socialism
#song lyrics #song of the day #metal #music #Bandcamp
#Spotify
#hg wells #old movies #colorized #youtube movies #Youtube
Right click Guild Wars in your Steam library, choose Properties and in the launch options enter "-provider Portal". No quotes, capital P. And that's it, now you will be able to play on Steam with your existing ANET account.
DO KEEP IN MIND, however, that any expansions you purchase, you must get them from the website and not from the Steam Store.
How to Enable the VS Code Marketplace in VSCodium and Trae IDE
While Microsoft positions Visual Studio Code as an open-source editor, the binaries distributed by Microsoft operate under a proprietary license. Furthermore, Microsoft restricts access to the official Visual Studio Code Marketplace strictly to its own product family. This decision leaves privacy-focused open-source forks like VSCodium, as well as next-generation AI editors such as Trae, Cursor, and Windsurf, reliant on alternative registries like Open VSX.
While Open VSX is an excellent community initiative, I frequently encounter situations where specific extensions are outdated, missing, or exclusive to Microsoft's gallery. In this guide, I will demonstrate how I re-enable the official Visual Studio Code Marketplace within VSCodium and Trae.
Important Legal Disclaimer: Before proceeding, please note that configuring non-Microsoft editors to access the Visual Studio Code Marketplace may violate Microsoft's Marketplace Terms of Use. These terms state that extensions accessed through the service are intended solely for use with Microsoft Visual Studio products. I present these technical methods strictly for educational and research purposes; proceed at your own discretion after reviewing the terms.
Method 1: Enabling the VS Code Marketplace in VSCodium
Default installations of VSCodium use the Open VSX Registry. To point VSCodium directly to Microsoft’s Extension Gallery, I rely on two primary methods: setting system environment variables or overriding the application’s internal product.json configuration file.
Option A: Using Environment Variables
If you prefer not to modify application files directly, you can pass custom environment variables to VSCodium upon launch.
For Linux and macOS
I add the following exports to my shell configuration file (such as ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc):
Restart VSCodium after running these commands to ensure the updated environment variables take effect.
Option B: Creating a Custom product.json File (Recommended)
Modifying the product.json file is my preferred approach because it provides consistent configuration across system reboots without cluttering my environment variables.
Step 1: Locate Your Configuration Directory
Depending on your operating system, locate the configuration path listed below:
Windows: %APPDATA%\VSCodium or %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\VSCodium
macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/VSCodium
Linux (Standard): $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/VSCodium or ~/.config/VSCodium
Linux (Flatpak): ~/.var/app/com.vscodium.codium/config/VSCodium
VSCodium Insiders: Replace VSCodium with VSCodium - Insiders in any of the above paths.
Step 2: Configure product.json
During my testing, I inspected outgoing network requests using mitmproxy to analyze how extension download requests are handled. I noticed that Open VSX connection endpoints typically end with a .../latest structure. I recalled seeing a similar pattern handled in VSCodium patches via the latestUrlTemplate key.
To ensure full compatibility with resolution endpoints and prevent extension lookup errors, I include this template explicitly in my configuration.
Create or edit the product.json file within your target directory and insert the following JSON structure:
Save the file and restart VSCodium. The extension sidebar will now fetch and install packages directly from the Microsoft VS Code Marketplace.
Method 2: Enabling the VS Code Marketplace in Trae IDE
Trae is an emerging, AI-driven development environment built on top of the VS Code open-source core. Fortunately, configuring Trae to access the official marketplace is straightforward because the developers included native settings to override the marketplace service URL directly through the user interface.
To update this setting in Trae, I follow these steps:
Open the Application Menu: Click on Trae in the top navigation bar.
Access Online Service Settings: Select Settings, then click Online Service Settings.
Modify the Service URL:
Locate the field labeled Marketplace Extension Gallery Service URL.
Clear the existing default entry.
Enter the official gallery endpoint:
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/_apis/public/gallery
Apply and Restart: Click Apply to save your changes, then restart Trae to reload the extension manager.
Once restarted, searching for extensions in Trae will display the complete extension catalog available on the Visual Studio Code Marketplace.
Key Considerations Regarding Licenses and Telemetry
While using the official marketplace provides access to a much broader selection of tools, I recommend keeping a few operational points in mind:
Proprietary Extension Licenses: Certain popular extensions (such as the official Microsoft C/C++ extension, Pylance, or Remote Development tools) contain proprietary license agreements that restrict their usage exclusively to official Microsoft Visual Studio products.
Telemetry and Tracking: One of the main reasons I use VSCodium is to avoid built-in telemetry. Be aware that downloading proprietary extensions from the Microsoft Marketplace may reintroduce extension-level telemetry and tracking into your environment, even if your host editor is open-source.
Configuration Overrides: Major updates to VSCodium or Trae can occasionally reset or override custom product properties. If your extension searches revert to Open VSX after a major application upgrade, simply re-verify your product.json or environment setting paths.
