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Absolute minimal styles for your unstyled site

matt — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:22:15 +0000

Among the elite hacker community it is sometimes considered cool to have an unstyled website. I’m not certain what makes this cool, but I respect it none-the-less. However a few absolutely minimal styles can make your site easier to read. Here they are:

iPhone app? I'd rather not

matt — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:50:01 +0000

The latest craze is to write an iPhone app. I’ve been preaching for a while that mobile apps are the way of the future but I don’t like the idea of iPhone apps and here’s why.

Four grids

matt — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 21:20:31 +0000

Designers have been using grids for a long time in the world of print and advanced layout. Websites have kind of used grids in the form of tables but this become unpopular with the rise of the semantic web and css based layouts (for good reason). Modern CSS frameworks give you a powerful grid for laying out your web pages and often bundle in a multitude of extra features. I’ve now reviewed four grid systems and thought I’d quickly summarize them.

Some books I'm interested in

matt — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:03:57 +0000

Amazon sent me some recommendations and they are good. 7 out of 9 look like something I want to read. Kind of for my own future reference here are the books they recommended:

Even Faster Web Sites: Performance Best Practices for Web Developers by Steve Souders

For web dev, a great monitor is critical

matt — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:57:55 +0000

I’ve been using my new computer for a little over a week now. I bought the Mac Book Pro 13. One of its features that may not jump off the page to you when looking at the tech specs is how great the screen is. To my horror I’ve gone to some websites and realized I’ve made some serious errors in optimizing my images. Things that look fine on a typical computer screen but look retarded on a really good quality monitor.

because of twitter I blog less

matt — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:23:47 +0000

Well, blame it on Twitter. I’ve been blogging much less lately (I’m @newz2000 on twitter and identi.ca). I’m going to resume writing soon and have some great material to start out with.

Mac cheaper than Dell

matt — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:13:10 +0000

I’m getting ready to replace my Dell Latitude D420 laptop. I love it. It’s very light, very portable, has an extended battery that gets 3-5 hours of life. If I could change only two things it would be a slightly larger screen (or more specifically, a slightly lower DPI) and a standard dual core cpu rather than the ultra-low voltage (ULV) dual core cpu. Dell and Apple both offer a computer that meets my requirements but to my surprise, the Apple is ~~cheaper~~ almost identical (corrected, see below) .

Two essential books every web dev should read

matt — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:54:01 +0000

My brother is applying for a jr. web-dev position so I was thinking about what tips to give him. That thought process lead from one thing to another and I realized that two of the most influential web-dev books I’ve read are not ones that would normally jump out at you. These are not replacements for a good HTML or JavaScript book, these are a bit more high-level. No matter what your development expertise (front-end, java, php, ruby, etc) these books will each take you up a significant notch in your web-dev skills and will set your web-applications way above the norm.

Cutting Pizza Asymmetriclly

matt — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 02:54:28 +0000

I’ve invested a non-trivial amount of thought and research into the optimal way to cut a pizza for a small family and have come to the firm conclusion that in most cases cutting asymmetrically is the best.

By this I mean that I now deliberately try to cut the pieces so that they are not the same size. There are some instances where this is not the best route but for a typical family dinner it works out ideally.

Can ads boost your credibility?

matt — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 03:14:39 +0000

OK, the previous blog post was on site credibility, lets continue on that theme for another post. This may seem off-key but follow with me. If you see a woman join a group of attractive women you will formulate an opinion of her. If you see a man join a group of other men who look like they are of ill repute you will probably hold him in a similar low regard.

We have a tendency to make assumptions based on association. I’m no psychologist but I’ve seen enough sitcoms to know that it’s true. The saying is that birds of a feather flock together, right? But how does this relate to your website and what does it have to do with ads? I’m glad you asked.