The “Plusification” of Google’s various products is evident in the subtle user interface tweaks that get rolled out without any fanfare such as this little tweak to the contact info dropdown, which appears when you hover your cursor over a sender’s name in Gmail. Continue reading
We’ve just about come up on a year since my first free web-based design and development tools round-up, so it’s high time for a refresh/reload. The tools listed below (in no particular order) are freely available to anyone with a web browsers and internet connection and have proven themselves to be indispensable to me in my workflow. These are not merely code libraries like jQuery or said libraries’ plugins, but full-fledged utilities that help me get the job at hand done. I plug them here as a form of gratitude to the folks who’ve made them available. I hope you find them as useful as I have. Continue reading
We all design and redesign in public, but the public rarely cares unless we’re Jeffrey Zeldman. His recent redesign of zeldman.com would not have garnered as earth-shattering a response if it were done by anyone else. And, response received, Mr. Zeldman was duly moved to issue yet another ‘manifesto‘ defending the choices he made. It’s an unnecessary manifesto, in my opinion, one that takes the form of an open letter response to one of his bemused readers. Continue reading
First, let me state that I semi-agree with the sentiment that “vendor prefixes are hurting the web” though I’ve yet to form a more solid opinion—a situation that’s recently been made worse in the wake of news that Opera will introduce support for WebKit CSS prefixes. The argument for this support is that, allegedly, several “lazy” web developers are rampantly using only WebKit CSS prefixes (minus even unprefixed versions!), which renders some content ugly and/or unreadable on non-WebKit browsers, which could in turn make it seem like those browsers don’t work as well as WebKit browsers.
So, let me get this straight, the lazy practices of what are essentially sloppy coders are determining browser feature development? Bring on the zombie apocalypse.
I’ve shared this info via email and Twitter, but have yet to blog about it, so here goes:
First, I LOVE using and finding comments in HTML and CSS markup. Since 1993, I’ve learned almost all that I know about web development by viewing source and then later inspecting elements of other peoples pages. While the detective work required by uncommented code proved a great teacher, those comments proved a great time-saver. Not to mention the fact that they’re critical in a multi-user work environment. Nevertheless, there can definitely be too much of a good thing.
Below are my slides from the “HTML Email: Coding Like It’s 1999″ presentation I gave at Refresh Austin in February of 2011:
We web folks are using web-based design and development tools within our workflow more and more each day. Working in this often challenging and dynamic environment is frequently made easier by the kindness of strangers in the form of freely-available tools and resources. Well, as a small way of saying “thanks for making today easier,” I’d personally like to tout some extremely helpful web-based tools I use on a weekly, if not daily, basis. Below are my current top 5—in no particular order (since they’re all #1).
Here’s something peculiar I came across recently:
On the left is what I saw in Chrome and on the right is what I saw in Chrome after I’d deleted ‘Gotham-Light’ from the beginning of that page’s <body> font stack within the Chrome Web Inspector. Actually, there were a couple of linked CSS files on this page competing for control over which font the browser should use to display text. Here’s what I saw:
[First, don't yell at me—I know HTML is a markup language. But, until a better term/phrase comes along than "marking-up" this is what you're getting. Anyway, on to the topic at hand...]
Since publishing my tome, HTML Email: Coding Like It’s 1999, and subsequently presenting the same topic at Refresh Austin I’ve been jotting down notes and tips about specific issues that I encounter daily while working on eblasts and newsletters. I thought I’d post them here in no particular order and keep doing so over time as a sort of repository. Since the best way to find anything on the web these days is search, I thought merely posting them was enough. Everyone knows how to ctrl-F or cmd-F, right? Well, if this list gets too long, perhaps then I’ll address its structure and order. In the meantime, here we go!
SXSW Interactive 2011 is finally over and I’m once again sifting through a stack of biz cards, stickers and miscellaneous scraps of paper with email addresses and twitter handles scribbled on them. Once again I’m weighing the cost of entrance, the interruption of several days of work and the physical toll of all-day conferences followed by all-night schmoozing. My overall gut reaction is that SXSW 2011 felt like a much better organized experience than last year’s conference. Perhaps it’s because the organizers managed to keep related panels and speakers closer to one another to minimize the amount of walking one had to do. Perhaps it’s because I was more diligent in planning my days. Either way, this year was MUCH more “worth it” than last.
One caveat here is that I’m not going to mention the panels that I missed because there were easily twice the number of folks wishing to hear them than could fit into the tiny rooms in which they were held. SXSW conference organizers need to do a better job of anticipating what we attendees want to know. Too many interesting topics overflowed while other, less exciting ones looked silly in those cavernous halls only a quarter-full.
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