[Jeromy]

1 – Ease up on that <div> tag soldier!

HTML now includes new tags, solely for the purpose of making your page outline more logical, and structured better, with less markup.  Now, rather that <div id=”header”> or <div id=”nav”> we have the tags <header> and <nav>, respectively.  Lets go through some of the more useful sectioning tags now:

1. The <header> tag.  Useful for enclosing just that, the header of your document — or section for that matter. This tag delineates the beginning of a new area of content.
2. The <nav> tag.  Here is where links are collected, and the document structure lays out your navigation.
3. The <article> tag. There is some confusion with this and the <section> tag.  Use <article> when you are enclosing content that could potentially be republished as it’s own entity.  A blog post for example.
4. The <section> tag.  This is more of a generic content enclosing mechanism.  Using a section tag says: this is an area of related content.  Treat me as such.
5. The <footer> tag.  Use this in a similar manner to the <header> tag.

2 – Have your <h1> tags your way!

Someone told me once recently, “You can’t have more than one H1 tag on a page!”.  While he was right in the old way of doing things, he is wrong with the new specification. Basically, with each section of content you define in your document, you can start a whole new hierarchy of heading tags and still be semantically correct.  The <h1> thru <h6> tags will still establish page structure if you leave them out on their own in the document, but as a best practice, use them to establish the heading of a new section of content.

3 – Self closing tags? What self closing tags?

If you’re like me, you’ve been adding the / to close all those <br />, <hr />,  and other void tags.  No more.  HTML 5 in all it’s loose goodness no longer requires it (in fact, adding the / has always been poor HTML, added only to conform to XML standards).  So don’t do it. It’s really hard.  I’ve made so many <br /> that making a <br> seems unnatural and uncomfortable. I’m learning.

That’s my beginning to HTML5 markup.  For more information please see the W3C HTML5 standards page . I’ll be adding more HTML5 stuff here soon, so check back.

[Jeromy]

[Jeromy]

[Jeromy]

1 – The great outdoors.

Nothing beats being close to nature when the cold shoulder of design block strikes. I love to hike out deep into the woods and find some nice photos to take or some interesting bugs or critters to catch and examine. You can never get too much outside time.  Especially when you spend the majority of your days looking at functions, variables, arrays and other associated data.

2 – Abduzeedo.com

If there is one place to go first when I need inspiration, abduzeedo is it.  For as long as I can remember it seems, they have been putting out a list of inspiring works daily, as well as interesting typography, logos, and design assets.  99% of the time, the work viewable here is top notch and a great starting point when looking for design ideas.

3 – My sketchbook(s).

I keep a sketchbook. Actually a bunch of sketchbooks.  I’ve been sketching most of my life, and those books are like a chronology of my ideas and thoughts all the way back to my pre-teens. Thumbing through the old sketchbooks has got to be one of the most inspiring things I do. If you don’t keep a sketchbook or journal, I highly recommend doing so.

4 – The treadmill.

It’s surprising how a little exercise gets the blood pumpin and the ideas flowin.  I’m pretty certain there is some sort of connection between fitness and creativity because most of my best stuff comes when I’m at my physical best as well.

[Jeromy]

//INCLUDE LATEST VERSION OF JQUERY
<script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
$(document).ready(function(){
var device = navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase();
var ios = device.match(/(iphone|ipod|ipad)/);
if (ios) {
     //ADD CLASSES HERE THAT WILL ONLY APPLY TO IOS
     $("some-element").addClass("some-class");
     }
});

Well, that’s it for today.  Hopefully that’s useful for someone!

[Jeromy]

Properly structured code is a thing of beauty. The W3C has a validation service that you should visit regularly when developing a website, to make sure that there are no errors in your HTML.  Please everyone, utilize this fantastic tool.  It will save you many headaches down the road.  For all you PHP devs out there, other than commenting the crap out of your code, check out this post about PHP best practices to start. Seriously – nobody wants to deal with someone elses 5 year old PHP spaghetti.

And to anyone who might be interested in hiring me, rest assured that the site you get will contain nothing less than the cleanest, leanest, most next-developer friendly code this side of the mountains.  It’s my gift to the world.

[Jeromy]

1. Ease of use
2. Features
3. Support
4. Price

Not necessarily in that order. Without further ado, the list:

Photoshop.

Seriously, who doesn’t use Photoshop these days? Sure there are open source alternatives such as GIMP and Aviary, but really when it comes down to it, there’s no substitute for the orignial.  The powerhouse.  Sometimes you have to splurge and this is one of those apps no designer should be without.

Komodo Edit.

For anyone who writes a lot of code, and doesn’t need a bloated IDE full of features they’ll never use, I can’t recommend Komodo Edit enough. It has syntax highlighting, support for snippets, code hinting, FTP, pretty much everything you need short of serving coffee. And did I mention that you get all that and more for the everyday low price of FREE? I used to use Dreamweaver, but sometimes you don’t need to wash your dishes with a belt sander.  Honorable mention: Notepad++

Lynda.com.

In an industry where you must constantly learn new skills and techniques, having access to tutorials on just about any piece of software or subject is utterly invaluable. For as little as $25 bucks a month there’s no excuse not to be current on the latest stuff.  Lynda.com is darn near a replacement for years of school.  If you’re motivated to learn.

Font Squirrel.

Remember back when you could really only use Times, Georgia, Arial ect.. on your websites?  Thank the good Lord those days are over.  Nowadays there is little excuse to use images to display text on your pages.  It sucks for SEO, and adds a lot of page weight. Check out font squirrel today, they even package up your fonts in @font-face kits for easy integration with your site.

Codeigniter.

Thinking of starting a PHP project? The only way to go for me is with the codeigniter framework. It has full MVC structure, a fantastic library of functions and assets, and it’s super light and fast. Use codeigniter and never re-invent the wheel again. For some great codeigniter based CMS’s, check out PyroCMS or if you have deep pockets I hear Expression Engine is pretty good.

WordPress.

I’ve written CMS software, I’ve used the alternatives, and when it really comes down to it I always come back to WordPress. Once you really settle into a work flow with WordPress, I’m sure you’ll see how great it is too. And if you’ve ever tried to teach a client to use garbage like JOOMLA!, you’ll marvel at how intuitive the WordPress back end is.

jQuery.

If you haven’t taken the time to learn the jQuery library you’re really missing out. JQuery is like adding magic elves to your page.  Elves that fix browser incompatibilities, and add niceties like transitions and special effects, all while being cross browser compliant. Yippee!

Well, thats my little list. Of course those aren’t all the wrenches in my toolbag, but they’re some of the ones I use most.  If you haven’t checked some of them out, get to it!

[Jeromy]

It seems to me that the social aspect of a business facebook page should be to drive traffic to your website, where conversions take place, and where you control what your users see.  But in many of the websites I see these days, the most prominent element on them is a giant “facebook” or “twitter” button staring at you like a horrible zit.  Do you want your brand to be confined to the standard blue and gray of a facebook page?  What if they change those colors to pink and yellow?  What happens when the next facebook, or myspace, or whatever comes along and it’s not fashionable to be on facebook anymore?  Without a real web presence in addition to facebook, you’re just spinning your wheels.  Use social media as a tool to generate traffic and interest to your website.  Stop letting facebook use your content to display their ads to your customers.

[Jeromy]