There is nothing worse than spending weeks designing and developing the perfect website, only to have the client send you a bug report with the screenshot clearly showing they are in compatibility mode. Floats don’t work right, transparent pngs are partially broken, and all that fancy CSS3 stuff that (sort-of) works in IE9/10? Yep. That’s broken too. So how do you fix it? Continue reading…
I’ve decided to start something new here. I am going to (attempt to) post one short and simple trick I’ve learned that I use every day in my code. I am going to call them, Quick Fix. I know… not really creative. Welcome to my life. What I am going to do is start with fixing a problem I think everyone has when they combine responsive web design and floats or inline-block. Continue reading…
And with a fun Saturday, OpenWest 2013 finished the same way as it started, with me sitting in my hotel room, excited to implement what I have learned (or will learn) at OpenWest. Even more impressive than the knowledge shared during the sessions was the warmth and openness of the people I met this weekend. Continue reading…
Minneapolis WordCamp 2013 is over. As fast as it started, it finished. The chairs are stacked, the desks are moved back to their places, and the classrooms at MCTC are full of design students again today. I want to thank all of the organizers and sponsors who made this event possible. I know that your experience wasn’t nearly as quick. It took a ton of work to put something like this on, and I am glad I was able to take part.
I walked away from the day with an overall positive opinion about the day. There’s nothing harder than trying to put something like WordCamp together, and the organizers did well with it. Continue reading…
Why I’m talking about this: http://www.tsa.gov/tsa-pre✓™
Those two unicode characters have to be typed like this: %E2%9C%93%E2%84%A2
Screw that. I’ll show myself out.
Over at Branch.com, there’s a great discussion going on about Redesigning the Save Icon. A few interaction design experts are all weighing in on the topic. Some ideas are awesome, and some aren’t much better than what we have now. The reason for the discussion? My daughter is now two years old. She’ll never see a floppy disk in real life. Kids that were born in the late 90′s have probably never seen one either (or at least used one). Apple released an iMac in 1998 without a floppy disk. By 2007, only 2% of computers sold still contained a floppy drive.
Sure, even kids who’ve never seen a floppy disk know what the save icon is for. They understand that when you click it (or touch it… from now one, I’m just saying press it), your computer will save your work. But as we get further from the days when floppy disks were actually a thing, the association becomes weaker. That’s the issue with skeuomorphic icons, no matter what their purpose. Eventually those items are no longer relevant. That means boxes, folders, vices, zippers or file cabinets are not really viable alternatives to the floppy disk.
The other issue arises when it’s no longer your computer saving your work, or the entire save paradigm changes as we move more toward local AND cloud storage of all documents. Today, the idea of saving a static copy of a document is almost foreign. New versions of Word, Google Apps, and other productivity packages do a great job of offering a versioning environment much like git or other VCS. So the question is, does “save” still work when describing what that icon does? In my opinion, no, it doesn’t. Continue reading…
So, I’m at Midwest PHP. That’s right. A front-end developer for a .NET shop at a conference filled to the brim with open-source developers, talk about Linux, and beards… so many beards. That being said, I’ve never met a group of people so kind, accepting, and open. They are a credit not only to the PHP community, but the developer community as a whole.
The talks have also been awesome. It’s been a nice collection of topic overviews that I’ve enjoyed learning from and being inspired by. I already have a long list of to-do’s that I’m taking back with me to both try and use, and we’re only half-way done. I’m really excited for day two.
Anyway, enough fawning over my new-found friends. Let’s get to what you’re all hear for… slides. Here are my Rocking the Responsive Web Slides and the simple responsive demo. Steal them, use them, convince your boss and clients that responsive is the future AND the present. Do responsive, and make the web better. And if you’d leave me your feedback on joind.in, that would be great!
Need a place to start? Fork and contribute to Squeaky Clean, my fast and clean WordPress boilerplate. Even if you’re not a WordPress guy, the SASS file is a great place to start on your project.
Here are the slides for my second presentation, “Embrace Your Inner Designer.” I’m sorry they are so delayed. My brain decided it was a good idea to leave my laptop power cord somewhere other than in my bag.
Oh, if you use these slides to make something awesome, PLEASE put a link to it in the comments below. I love hearing about amazing new things.
UPDATE: If you missed my talks at Midwest PHP, or you want to watch them again, MJG Intl. was kind enough to host a meeting, “An Evening of Web Development,” during which I presented very similar (and very nervous) versions of my two talks. The videos are available on YouTube: Embrace Your Inner Designer and Rocking t he Responsive Web.
Thank you to everyone that came to my presentation in Lincoln last night. Your city is my adopted 2nd City. If I wasn’t a SD-lifer, I wouldn’t even look anywhere else. You guys are awesome. Without more delay, here they are! My presentation project files from the Lincoln .NET Users Group.
Let me know what you think. Ask questions in the comments. Discuss. Add. Build.
Hey you! Yeah, you! The guy in the Affliction Tee laughing at the couple jamming out to Bella Ruse and arguing about art. I’m judging you right now. Why? Here’s why…
This morning sucks. It’s cold out. It’s raining. I forgot my glasses at home so all the fonts on my monitors are 40px. There’s a FREAKING HURRICANE hitting New York City.
There’s nothing I can do about any of it, so I decided I needed some better music to listen to as I coded today. I popped open Spotify and grabbed a CD I don’t listen to as much as I should.
This is my normal progression when I find a new CD I like involves:
This one is different. I really, really like it. Going on my short list for album of the year.
I present to you, “The Peace of Wild Things” by Paper Route.
(You’ll need Spotify to get this to work. It’s free and awesome. Get it here. Don’t want Spotify? Check out the album playlist on YouTube.)
Let me know what you’re listening to in the comments below.