Building a Better Web - One Site at a Time.
Here’s a short video demonstrating just one way Firebug can help in Web design. I really don’t remember what I did before Firebug.
(Hat tip to compadre Mickey Mellen who inadvertently shamed me into upgrading to Snagit 11, which I used with glee to produce and upload this screencast.)
If you’ve got your own screencasts showcasing ways you use Firebug, please feel free to post them as video responses on my YouTube channel.
In December of 2012, in anticipation of school closings, late openings, or early dismissals due to extreme weather, the head of Eaton Academy asked me to implement an emergency announcement banner that would appear on all pages of Eaton’s Web site. The challenge was that the Web site is a hybrid: the main section of the site was custom built, while the blog section was built on WordPress. This case study describes the approach we took to solve the problem. I think this project is a good example of how easily WordPress can be hooked into.
In yet another attempt to discover Twitter’s value, I started following more people yesterday. Then I spent time lurking and trolling, reading and scrolling. My dominant impression: there’s a whole lot of huckstering going on.
If you’re scratching your head over Vine and Instagram video, Mitch Joel offers an interesting perspective in last week’s Short(er) Form Video blog article on Six Pixels of Separation. Money quote: Who knows if Vine or Instagram will win this short-form social sharing video war? We just need to be asking better questions. For every […]
CSS3 supports multiple backgrounds for an element. There are lots of resources on the Web that tell you how to do it. It’s actually remarkably easy and intuitive. And most modern browsers support multiple CSS backgrounds.
What I want to do here is show you why and when you might want to try this.
Much of Day #3 in my 14 days exploring Pinterest involved more academic/meta activity: reading about Pinterest. Suddenly struck by the realization that I wasn’t following the very advice I give to every client who has ever asked me how to get started on social networks, I closed most of my browser windows and took actual, concrete (an odd term to use for something on the Internet, no?) steps to end the hypocrisy.
Day #2 of my Pinterest exploration. Some assumptions are verified. Searching yields unexpected results. The Help Center is nowhere to be found. “Popular” takes on a new meaning. Don’t surf Pinterest if you’re hungry.
Despite the many enthusiastic testimonials I’ve heard and read (or at least seen headlines for in my newsreader) about the power of Pinterest to grow one’s business, I haven’t gotten it yet.
So I’ve decided to embark on a 14-day journey into Pinterest Land. I plan spend at least 24 minutes a day exploring and/or pinning to Pinterest. And I plan to post a daily update documenting my findings and my evolution as a Pinner (is that the right way to say it?). This is my post for Day 1.
In the spring of my senior year at Harvard, I was awarded the contract to make passport photos for any of my fellow Quincy House residents who needed them. By "awarded the contract" I mean that the assistant to the House Master was a friend of mine who knew I knew my way around a darkroom (that may have come out wrong…), and so she gave the project to me. This is the story of a brief encounter with one of my customers — and what it still means to me 40 years later.
Scanning my newsfeeds tonight and finding way too many salesey, hypey headlines linking to boringly bland blog posts, I was overcome by a sudden and strong visceral dislike for the formulaic, overly-clever blog titles that are everywhere on the Web these days and which, admittedly, until tonight, I have been all too inclined to emulate (and recommend to others).
It’s got to stop. And stopping has to start with me.
