The name I went by growing up in school.
IDEA REACTOR ONLINE
IDEAS DON'T STAY IDEAS.
Zickin is where random thoughts become real things — software, websites, games, tools, visuals, video and experiments. It is also part of my history: I’m Jason Sickles, known online as Teck in the 90s and 2000s and today as Csyfer. Zickin is the bridge between those eras.
CURRENT OUTPUT
SOFTWARE
BUILDING...
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ORIGIN / IDENTITY
Jason Sickles:
Jason Sickles:
Teck → Zickin → Csyfer.
Zickin is not a separate person or a disconnected brand. It is one chapter in the same story — the project identity that grew out of my Teck years and eventually led to Csyfer.
The name family and friends knew me by.
The handle people knew from my AOL, Yahoo!, software and web years.
Zickin became the identity behind what I made. Csyfer is where that same path continues today.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, people online knew me as Teck. I built AOL and Yahoo! programs, booters, mass mailers, crackers, Y! multi-tools, protocol experiments, websites, graphics and a variety of other utilities — mostly while teaching myself how software really worked.
Zickin came later as the website identity for the things I made. It gave those programs, websites, experiments and ideas a home. The Vault below preserves a lot of that original work.
As the work grew beyond those early tools, I wanted a name that fit programming, scripting, hacking, design and the habit of pulling code apart until I understood it. Someone told me I should just be “Cipher” because of the way I could decrypt and pick apart code.
I tried variations including Sypher, Sifer and Psyfer before landing on Csyfer. That became the name that fit the bigger picture — software, design, music, gaming, streaming, business and everything else I create now.
BUILD LOG / THINGS THAT ESCAPED
Not a portfolio.
Not a portfolio.
A trail of ideas.
Some became full systems. Some became experiments. Some are still evolving. The point is simple: they became something.
001
BuildSuite
BUSINESS SYSTEM / SOFTWARE
A connected work platform built around real operational workflows from sales through production and delivery.
↗
002
Game Project
GAMING / TOOLS / EXPERIMENT
A modern take on game helpers, cheat-code style experimentation, and player-focused tools.
↗
003
Plant Care
WEB APP / PHOTO TOOL
A simple photo-first plant tool designed to turn “what is wrong with this?” into a useful next step.
↗
004
The Playground
ODD BUILDS / PROTOTYPES / TESTS
The stuff that does not need a category: prototypes, little tools, bad ideas that became good ones, and things built just to find out.
↗
NO SINGLE LANE
I build across categories.
Zickin is intentionally broad. The subject changes. The process does not: take the idea seriously enough to make it real.
Software & Systems
Business tools, dashboards, workflow systems, automation, databases, and utilities.Games & Gaming Tools
Player utilities, concepts, stats, experiments, mods, and things built around play.Websites & Interfaces
Sites, layouts, product experiences, interfaces, and the systems behind them.Design & Visual Work
Branding, graphics, UI, artwork, layouts, and visual experiments.Video & Streaming
Gaming, clips, streams, editing, visual ideas, and whatever happens when the camera is on.Whatever Comes Next
If it starts as a thought and turns into something real, it belongs here.VAULT
ARCHIVE ACCESS GRANTED
56 RECOVERED ITEMS
ORIGINAL PROGRAM SCREENSHOTS
YAHOO! • AOL • MSN • ICQ • WINDOWS • VB6
THE VAULT / 90s + 2000s
THE VAULT90s + 2000s
Before GitHub. Before App Stores. Before the cloud. I was already building stuff.
YAHOO!
AOL
MSN
ICQ
A recovered collection of programs, utilities, websites, graphics, experiments, and tools from my 90s and 2000s Yahoo!, AOL, MSN, ICQ, Windows, and Visual Basic 6 years as Teck — the work that became part of Zickin and eventually led to Csyfer. Some were popular. Some were personal. Some were chaotic. Some were the first pieces of ideas that eventually grew into much larger projects. These are screenshots from the original programs.
ARCHIVE
SOURCE CODES
Coming soon. Recovered source code releases, project snapshots, and older development work will be added here as they are organized for the archive.
ARCHIVE 001
YAHOO
Nemesis
A popular Yahoo! chat-room tool I made for kicking, locking, and a ton of other tools designed to make a chatter's day a nightmare.
ARCHIVE 002
YAHOO
Y! Automation 2.0
Log in, enter a chat room, and send mass messages to the people inside it. I mainly used it to promote programs and websites.
ARCHIVE 003
YAHOO
ProBlock v3
Built originally to block my own bots, then turned into a way to enjoy Yahoo! chat rooms without getting buried in chat spam or IMs.
ARCHIVE 004
YAHOO
ProBlock v1.2
The beginning of ProBlock — a simpler version focused on blocking messages while letting selected people through.
ARCHIVE 005
YAHOO
Spy Checker
Yahoo! users could hide by appearing invisible. Spy Checker let you see whether someone was actually online even when they were hiding.
ARCHIVE 006
COMMUNICATION
Track Vox 1.2
Pretty much my own version of Discord before Discord existed — a way to talk with friends without relying on a normal chat room.
ARCHIVE 007
YAHOO
T-S Alienation
A Yahoo! room spammer that could target every room or selected rooms, send chat and IM messages, show who responded, and even boot users from the Yahoo! server.
ARCHIVE 008
YAHOO
Mass Massacre
Before Nemesis, there was Mass Massacre. It was the earlier heavy-hitter that eventually led into what Nemesis became.
ARCHIVE 009
YAHOO
zProfile Beta
Look up a Yahoo! username and pull back a huge amount of profile information about that user, including details they may have hidden.
ARCHIVE 010
MEDIA
AmpPro
Remember WinAmp? AmpPro was my lightweight bootleg version so you didn't have to use all the resources WinAmp required.
ARCHIVE 011
MEDIA
AmpStat
This would show the status you wanted on Yahoo! Messenger while music was playing — kind of like the music status features people expect now.
ARCHIVE 012
MEDIA
Cam-Action 1.2
A way to record videos and send them. It took me a while to get it working right, but once I did, it actually started to take off.
ARCHIVE 013
MEDIA
Multi-Slide
A boredom project that let me move through an image library faster than clicking through pictures one at a time.
ARCHIVE 014
PERSONAL
Zickin Movies
A project I made for myself to keep track of all the movies I owned. I've always been a big movie buff.
ARCHIVE 015
YAHOO
Bot Delimiter Fix
A fun Yahoo! bot utility that Shane helped with. You could load a large bot list and create new Yahoo! accounts from it extremely quickly.
ARCHIVE 016
BUSINESS
Data Binding
The beginning of BuildSuite. This was one of the early projects where I started working with structured customer data and business-style software.
ARCHIVE 017
YAHOO
Pass Generator
Enter a word and it would keep randomizing variations of it. Back in the Yahoo! days, tools like this were popular with people experimenting with usernames and passwords.
ARCHIVE 018
YAHOO
Pass Proto Suite
One a lot of people loved: single and multi password changing plus bot conversion, making it possible to update large batches of bot or username passwords quickly.
ARCHIVE 019
YAHOO
E-C Password Changer
A simple shortcut for changing a Yahoo! password without going through all the extra steps Yahoo required back then.
ARCHIVE 020
TOOLS
Screen Capture
Capture whatever you wanted from the screen and save it. It sounds basic now, but you'd be amazed what people would pay for something like this back then.
ARCHIVE 021
PERSONAL
TrackInfo
A more personal program I made to keep track of people I was associated with and the information I wanted to remember about them.
ARCHIVE 022
NETWORKING
Zickin Server
A networking project I had fun with: connect to another computer using its IP and port and send files directly to it.
ARCHIVE 023
WEB
Crackin-Warez
Not going to say too much about this one — let's just say programs were a lot easier to get back then.
ARCHIVE 024
WEB
Crazy-Coder Voter
Pick a website, load a proxy list, and automate huge numbers of votes. Website-ranking and 'best site' voting contests were a big thing back then.
ARCHIVE 025
WEB
MySpace Tweaker
I got tired of constantly changing my MySpace profile, so I made a program that built the changes for me and let me copy and paste them.
ARCHIVE 026
YAHOO
DreamChat
There was Y! Chat, Cheetah Chat, then there was DreamChat — my own Yahoo! chat client. You didn't need the Yahoo client, and it included booting, spam tools, and other room controls.
ARCHIVE 027
GAMING
Lotro Toon
A personal Lord of the Rings Online character tool I made before Plugin Condeminium. It let me see everything my character had in one place.
ARCHIVE 028
YAHOO
Y! Archive
Yahoo! didn't make old conversations easy to revisit. Y! Archive let me browse the full message history so I could go back and see what had been said without hunting through old files.
ARCHIVE 029
BACKGROUNDS
AlienBoard
Original background artwork preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 030
BACKGROUNDS
AT-WP
Original background artwork preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 031
BACKGROUNDS
MatrixHand
Original background artwork preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 032
BACKGROUNDS
TecknoGrren
Original background artwork preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 033
LOGOS
AlieNator-Logo
Original logo artwork preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 034
LOGOS
NakcLogo
Original logo artwork preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 035
LOGOS
Soothing Sentuals
Original logo artwork preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 036
SIGNATURES
Ammunition
Original signature/banner artwork preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 037
SIGNATURES
calypso
Original signature/banner artwork preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 038
SIGNATURES
gary
Original signature/banner artwork preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 039
SIGNATURES
generator3
Original signature/banner artwork preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 040
SIGNATURES
mia2
Original signature/banner artwork preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 041
SIGNATURES
mia3
Original signature/banner artwork preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 042
SIGNATURES
MSig
Original signature/banner artwork preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 043
SIGNATURES
newcurrentgreencreep3pt
Original signature/banner artwork preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 044
SIGNATURES
PsyferSig
Original signature/banner artwork preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 045
SIGNATURES
pv2
Original signature/banner artwork preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 046
SIGNATURES
tea
Original signature/banner artwork preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 047
SIGNATURES
teck
Original signature/banner artwork preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 048
SIGNATURES
viper
Original signature/banner artwork preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 049
WEBSITES
0reo Site
Original website design or site screenshot preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 050
WEBSITES
Buildsuite
Original website design or site screenshot preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 051
WEBSITES
ElderCare
Original website design or site screenshot preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 052
WEBSITES
PlantLife
Original website design or site screenshot preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 053
WEBSITES
Respline Splash
Original website design or site screenshot preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 054
WEBSITES
Zickin
Original website design or site screenshot preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 055
WEBSITES
Xfactor Gaming
Original website design or site screenshot preserved from the archive.
ARCHIVE 056
WEBSITES
Zickin-Splash
Original website design or site screenshot preserved from the archive.
END OF RECOVERED INDEX
MORE HISTORY TO COME
Z
ZICKIN / PRINCIPLE 01
THOUGHTS ARE CHEAP.
BUILDING CHANGES THEM.
THOUGHTS ARE CHEAP.
BUILDING CHANGES THEM.
Most ideas disappear because they stay ideas. Zickin exists for the ones that make it out.
01 / THINK
What if?
02 / TEST
Can it work?
03 / BUILD
Make it real.
04 / SHIP
Put it out there.
NEXT SIGNAL
GOT AN IDEA?
Good. That is usually where the interesting stuff starts.