One of the nifty new features of HTML5 is the placeholder for forms which is added by putting in a placeholder value.

<input type="email" placeholder="example@kamikazemusic.com" />

So I can use this everywhere I’ve just written a quick bit of jQuery to replicate the placeholder functionality in browser that don’t support. It also uses Modernizr to check if the browser already supports the placeholder technique.

To use this make sure you’ve included the jQuery and Modernizr files and then pop in the bit of code below or download and include the file.
(This is only tested so far with Modernizr v1.1 and jQuery v1.4.2)


$(document).ready(function() {

if(!Modernizr.input.placeholder){

$("input").each(
function(){
if($(this).val()=="" && $(this).attr("placeholder")!=""){
$(this).val($(this).attr("placeholder"));
$(this).focus(function(){
if($(this).val()==$(this).attr("placeholder")) $(this).val("");
});
$(this).blur(function(){
if($(this).val()=="") $(this).val($(this).attr("placeholder"));
});
}
});

}

});


This weeks interviewee for the randomiser is the designer behind the great blog Web Designer Notebook, Inayaili De León.

Random email interview number 8 – Inayaili De Leó
With lucky numbers
13, 6, 26, 18, 5, 22, 1, 17, 11 and 25
Lets get started!
First things first describe yourself in a tweet – 140 characters – Go!
I’m a web designer. I’m from Portugal. I live in London. I like chocolate, pizza and cats, and I order too much delivery food.

1.(Question 13) – What are the best presents you’ve given and received?

I remember receiving a guitar when I was like 11. I was totally overwhelmed when I got it — I loved it! I like to think every present that I give is good — I’ve given a few trips to London to my sister recently and concert tickets, I think that’s a cool present to give, right? Oh, and spa days, people like that because they often forget to treat themselves.

2.(Question 6) – What’s your favourite TV series?

Ooh, wrong question, my friend. The best TV show of all times is the Sopranos. My top 5 would also include Arrested Development (very close first, and I’ve watched it like 3 times already), Lost, Curb Your Enthusiasm and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

3.(Question 26) – You know how sometimes you get a tune you don’t really care for stuck in your head and you can’t get rid of it and it drives you nuts – what tune is it?

(Added by Sneh Roy)

It depends, I usually have very depressing, sad songs stuck in my head, but I have none today.

4.(Question 18) – What is your favourite book?

Every book by José Saramago. He’s a Portuguese writer, won the Nobel Prize, etc. I love him because he’s so subversive, you have to adapt to his way of writing — he uses almost no punctuation, you have to guess what’s a question, what’s an exclamation — it’s not easy at first, but after one or two books you just realise what a genius he is. Every time he has a new book I run to the closest bookstore to buy it and read it, he’s that good.

5.(Question 5) – Are you a sports fan and who do follow/support?

Yes, I like football (soccer?…). My team is Sporting Clube de Portugal (or Sporting Lisbon, for people outside Portugal).

6.(Question 22) – If you had to ‘become’ an application for the day on your Mac or PC, which would you be and why? And what would you spend the day doing?

(Added by Grace Smith)

This is a very strange question! I’d be Firefox, of course. I would want to see what you’re seeing and doing on the web.

7.(Question 1) – What’s your favourite movie?

Se7en. It’s dark, it’s clever, it’s timeless, and for me it’s a classic. I’ve watched it too many times — it’s sad actually.

8.(Question 17) – Can you play any musical instruments? If you can’t what would you like to play?

I started playing the violin when I was very young, but I couldn’t properly hold it, and I quit. Then I tried the guitar for a few years, but I got bored of it. I guess I prefer to listen to music than to actually make it. If I could play anything, I’d probably pick the guitar.

9.(Question 11) – What’s the longest you’ve been without a shower?

Assuming my parents bathed me everyday when I was a kid, probably a whole weekend, just staying at home being lazy…

10.(Question 25) – Who was your first kiss, in what circumstances?

(Added by Bruce Lawson)

Can I have another question? Or is it really depressing if I confess I don’t remember?

And the all important final question – what question do you want to add to thequestion bank?

If you could have a super-power, what would it be?

A big thanks to Yaili for taking part, you can of course visit the Web Designer Notebook or head over to her site http://yaili.com/ if you don’t think you’ve read enough about her!

There are some very interesting things going on recently in terms of how we put together our sites and it’s leading to quite a few interesting discussions, mostly between those who aren’t ready to even consider using new web technologies until IE offer support for them and those who have whole heartedly embraced the ideas of progressive enhancement and graceful degradation. Personally I fall into the latter category, using HTML5 to code up sites and using CSS3 all over the place.

I’ve been using CSS3 in plenty of places (yes even client projects!) and trying to code in HTML5 where possible, but it occurred to me when putting together some stuff with CSS3 animations for my new project StatShare (open up something webkit and have a little look round for it), especially after making a mess of various things and trying out new ideas, it isn’t about getting it right. In the end I did get what I wanted done, and I’m pleased with that, but even if I hadn’t I would have learned plenty more about CSS3 anyway, things that I can take on with me future projects.

As CSS3 isn’t a finished draft either if in my experiments I find that things don’t work as I expect, well then I can write about it, see if other people have similar problems even submit a bug report to the W3 if I want to go that far. Essentially we are the test bed for this new stuff and it’s only by trying new things that we’ll learn how it works and what the limits are.

It’s about learning and testing and helping to move the web forward to better and easier coding methods and techniques, so what if what you try doesn’t work, at least you’ll learn something and you’ll be a few steps ahead of those who aren’t using new coding methods.

Head over to Six Revisions for my new guest article on Google Analytics Goals and Funnels, the start of a series of posts digging into some more advanced Google Analytics set-ups.

If you’re interested in Analytics you may also want to check out my new side project StatShare.

Well I have a new project I’ve been looking to start putting together for a while but I’ve got as far as a domain and a holding page. The project is called StatShare and is at http://www.statshare.net. The aim is for people to share their website analytic reports via the site, anonymously, and they will then be collected together and analysed to produce useful data on bounce rates, visitor numbers and conversion rates amongst other things. By giving sites profiles the site will hopefully deliver reports on bounce rates for blogs in various traffic bands for example.

If you’re interested head over to http://www.statshare.net and pop in your email address and be sure to follow the official StatShare twitter account @statshare.

Oh and there’s a bit of webkit animation in there if you can find it! – enjoy.

The randomiser makes it way to number 7 after a little break, and it’s web designer and developer Sam Brown who joins in those all ready randomised.

Random email interview number 7 – Sam Brown

With lucky numbers 23, 5, 3, 13, 18, 16, 21, 11, 10 and 2.
Lets get started!

First things first describe yourself in a tweet – 140 characters – Go!
Sam Brown is a freelance interface designer and web standards developer from Edinburgh Scotland who is passionate about great code & design.

1. (Question 23) – Which celebrity do you most look like?

(added by Chris Spooner)

According to my friends, Eminem. Thus I turned up to our annual New Year fancy dress party sporting a grey cotton tracksuit, red baseball cap, bandanna and some bling. I’m trying my hardest to keep the photos under wraps!

2. (Question 5) – Are you a sports fan and who do you follow/support?

I’m a big Formula 1 fan and have a particular fancy for McLaren but I’m not religious about supporting the team – I just genuinely love the sport. Really looking forward to the forthcoming season. I also enjoy Champions League Football and International Rugby.

3. (Question 3) – Who’s your favourite movie star?

Probably someone like Denzel Washington, he has starred in a lot of movies that I have really enjoyed. I like a vast array of movie genres, picking a single movie star is rather difficult.

4. (Question 13) – What are the best presents you’ve ever given and received?

My Dad bought me my first MacBook Pro which was easily the best I have received, I like giving people presents that involve activities such as helicopter rides or a an abseiling adventure – one of those I’d imagine.

5. (Question 18) – What is your favourite book?

Not sure I have one to be honest, I tend to buy books and read them once. Actually, to tell the truth, I tend to buy books just to stock my bookshelves – I rarely find the time to read them.

6. (Question 16) – If there was a film of your life who should play you?

Matt Damon, but not Bourne Matt, more like Good Will Hunting Matt.

7.(Question 21) – When you were little who was your favourite super hero and why? (added by Jacob Gube)

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and I have absolutely no idea why! I was a little obsessed with them for a few years.

8. (Question 11) – What’s the longest you’ve ever been without a shower?

Only a few days, but it was rather unpleasant. We checked out of our Vegas hotel room in the morning – spent the day on the strip in the blazing heat before leaving Las Vegas in the evening but due to bad weather over New York we had to land in Philadelphia where we spent the night sleeping at the airport. We then flew the 15 minute flight from Philly to JFK the next morning and our flight back to Edinburgh didn’t leave until 2200, so we got the train into NYC and spent the day in the summer heat before flying the 6 hours back to the UK. All in all it was a solid 2 days in the same clothes and without a shower!

9. (Question 10) – If you had an elephant where would you hide it?

Probably at Tim Van Damme’s House.

10. (Question 2) – Where are you from and what’s the best thing about it?

Edinburgh, Scotland and easily the city itself particularly the old town.

And the all important final question – what question do you want to add to the question bank? Do you have a vice or bad habit, what is it and do you wish you could change it?

A big thank you to Sam for taking part you can catch up with him at his blog http://sam.brown.tc or on Twitter @sambrown

Being rather busy I completely forgot to post the link to this last week, but I wrote an article for the great tutorial site NetTuts about CSS3 transitions.

It is a introduction for those who haven’t used the transitions before and goes on to a little more advanced usage within CSS3 animations – so go check it out at http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/html-css-techniques/css-fundametals-css-3-transitions/

As you may have noticed about a week ago I gave the blog a spring clean and changed to a new theme I’ve been working on for a little while. I’ve felt for a while that the old site was rushed out a little back in October when I wasn’t 100% sure what was going to be the main focus on here and only a few months down the line I wanted a refresh for various reasons.
Using the great WordPress theme test drive plugin I worked away in the background with the site live putting together my new theme.

So what’s changed?

The Layout

I’ve shifted the main blog column over to the left for, well no real reason I just did. I’ve also tidied the pages up in areas I thought it was looking a little messy, the blog post footer for example and I’ve added an accordion on to the pingback section so these are hidden by default and people don’t have to scroll through them to get to the comment form.
The addition of a border on the comments hopefully indicates comment replies quite well and I’ve kept the grey background on admin comments.

Fonts

I’ve been really pleased with using TypeKit so far so I quickly got to work with it and changed a few fonts, the headings over most of the site are now in the great Museo Slab, a popular font which I’m sure will be popping up all over the place soon enough. I’ve also been quite cautious about the use of @fontface for body text but I had a little play around and decided to use it opting for FF meta web pro.

Links

I also changed the link styling, it’s something I often struggle with trying to decide how far to go away from standard text underline styling but I’m happen with the effect of a background and changed colour text which also uses -webkit-transitions for browser that support them.
The change to a solid background is becoming starting to get quite widespread usage and I spent a while fiddling with the hover states on here. Once I was happy with them I took a step back and realised they are quite similar to the mouse over effects on Sam Brown’s site and I hope he sees it as creative inspiration on his part more than anything else!

Portfolio

The main reason for changing the header and footer to their new top and bottom strip styles was to accommodate some changes with my portfolio. I do like the idea of having a bit of variety in posts etc on a blog but I often post small thoughts and snippets that wouldn’t get done if I had to style then up everytime. However I saw my portfolio as an opportunity to inject a bit of the projects style onto the page. I’m hoping that as time goes on I can have a bit more fun with the elements of a project when it comes to adding them to the portfolio.

Things still to do

The code has mostly been changed over to HTML5 however there are a few bits still outstanding and in need of change so they need to be looked at. There are also a few little details to take care of and the footer still looks rubbish, just a collection of lists so I need to get around to sorting that out. The tweetme button needs to be added to some pages but that will be done via the manual code and the main portfolio overview page also needs changing, but no doubt once I get around to doing all that I’ll be all ready for a brand new look all together!

Me and @aarmitage had a little discussion about screen resolution in the office the other day and it’s kind of left me thinking – are we ever going to consistently design websites for screens larger then 1024×768 pixels?

Conventional wisdom as we progressed from 800×600 to 1024×768 was that as bigger screens became affordable and PC usage more common place home users would eventually gravitate to a 1920px width screen and so on so forth. However whilst all your designer mates might have large 1920px screens most home PCs are still 1024×768 and as such web designs are generally fitted to a 960px width to sit comfortably on this size screen. Add into the mix the growth of mobile internet and the announcement of the iPad and we’ve come full circle and are right back designing for smaller screens than ever.

So whilst you may design for designers on larger monitors and we will still have to consider where our background goes beyond the 1024px width will we ever find that a commonplace width for client sites or have we reached our widest “normal” width with our 960px wide site?
Will the transition of internet access from the desktop simply mean that we design more fluid sites and mobile alternatives instead, whilst still sticking to conventional widths?

Hello there everybody, so we enter the 6th edition of wonderful random questions asked to anyone I can badger into answering. This time it is Sneh Roy the creative force behind Little Box of Ideas.

Random email interview number 6 – Sneh Roy

With lucky numbers 16, 18, 13, 25, 10, 3, 12, 17, 21 and 23.
Lets get started!

First things first describe yourself in a tweet – 140 characters – Go!

Designer, Wife, Mum, Cook, Simple, Compulsive Creator of Wacky Worlds and Characters, Fun, Funny, Coffee Chugger, Nutty, Laughs Loud, Cries Hard!

1. (Question 16) If there was a film of your life who should play you?

Drew Barrymore? Coz she is sweet, fun and quirky on screen.

2. (Question 18) – What is your favourite book?

The Harry Potter Series .. all of them. I have read each book at least 6 times.  Out of the seven if I had to absolutely pick one, it would be Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire.

3. (Question  13) – What are the best presents you’ve given and received?

Oh boy! I love to give! The best present I’ve given would probably be a 3D train cake I toiled over for 13 hours for my son’s 4th birthday. He wanted one! And it was so worth the effort hearing his squeals of joy when it was ready! One of the best presents I’ve received was on my 5th anniversary. Nick sent me on a treasure hunt with clues, letters and small presents hidden along the way till I reached the grand prize of a spa treatment. There was even a CD I had to play to figure out a clue and I had so much fun playing this game that was unexpectedly sprung on me ?

4. (Question  25) – Who was your first kiss, in what circumstances? (added by Bruce Lawson)

My first kiss was Nicky [my husband and best friend of 15 years]. It was on our first date, we were 18.

5. (Question  10) – If you had an elephant where would you hide it?

In my gym bag! You will not believe it but it has a blackhole and can seriously fit an entire elephant in it. Then when I was too tired to walk back from the gym, I’d pull him out of the bag and ride him with splendour, like a Maharajah all the way home!!

6. (Question  3) – Who’s your favourite movie star?

I am a huge Denzel Washington and Leonardo DiCaprio fan! Those guys are so versatile and they make every single movie they act in, worth watching!

7. (Question 12) – What couldn’t you live without?

My Family and Internet, in that order.

8. (Question 17) – Can you play any musical instruments? If you can’t, what would you like to play?

I experimented with the guitar when I was younger and although I can’t play a single tune right now, I think I might like to play the guitar.

9. (Question 21) – When you were little who was your favourite super hero and why? (added by Jacob Gube)

Superman!! Coz he was noble and strong and he could fly. I remember tying a soft blanket around my neck and jumping off beds, short trees and reasonably safe heights watching the blankie flutter behind me, willing myself to fly! Plus the red and blue has to be the coolest color combination ever. And don’t even get me started on the Superman crest logo *drools* and the whole mystery surrounding his transformation from Clark Kent to Man Of Steel *sighs*

10. (Question 23 ) – Which celebrity do you most look like? (added by Chris Spooner)

This is a tough one. No one has ever told me that I look like any celebrity. So I went to Myheritage.com and ran a few photos of mine through their software. It was a blast. Some celebrity look-alikes that popped up a number of times were Ashley Tisdale, Alicia Silverstone, Rachel McAdams, Vanessa Marcil, Rachel Stevens and even Billy Crystal! Lol.

And the all important final question – what question do you want to add to the question bank?

You know how sometimes you get a tune you don’t really care for, stuck in your head and you can’t get rid of it and it drives you nuts, what tune is that??

A huge thanks to Sneh, you can keep track of her on her blog Little Box of Ideas where you will find her doing the crazy task of creating a new vector character everyday of 2010!