The Virtual Tea Party

SOPA Protest tomorrow. See you on Thursday.

hattersworkshop — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 01:38:41 +0000

This website will be “blacked out” in solidarity with the SOPA Protest for Thursday, January 18th, 2012. The internet needs to be protected in the same way as the press, and for the same reason.

If you’re just now learning about SOPA and Protect IP – scheduled to be voted on by the senate in the near future then you might want to do your research quickly – as over 30,000 websites will be down tomorrow to protest this ineffective, business killing, nanny-state, double speaking bill.

In the name of “internet security” aka (profit protection) the MPAA, RIAA, along with the Chamber of Commerce want to change the way the internet works from the router up. They want to be able to remove ANY website’s DNS listing because someone might have posted a link to a copyrighted material SOMEWHERE on the website. No court hearing to see if the plaintiff actually controls the rights, no appeal if they are wrong, no recourse for you to claim damages… just another way to frighten and kill competition from the same people who were VERY willing to sue single moms and students for downloading music and movies instead of adapting their business models to a new medium.

In case you didn’t already know Im talking about RIAA, MPAA, Chamber of Commerce, and an evil gang of media thugs (CBS, ABC, FOX, COMCAST, DISNEY, etc). These media thugs claim that there is a culture of thievery on the internet, and that may or may not be true, but what the forget to mention is that THEY CREATED THIS CULTURE – and whats more they PROFITED FROM IT.

CBS, for example, owns C|net, which was the exclusive distributer of Kazaa and Limewire in the mid 1990s and 2000s. C|net makes money every time someone downloads an application from them from referrals and advertising, sometimes up to $5 a download. With over 500 million downloads between just these two applications it’s safe to say they might have made more than a billion dollars creating this online culture. Now that phase I is complete they want to use this online community WHICH THEY FOSTERED AND PROFITED FROM as justification to rewire the internet in a way that coincidentally will make them even more money while creating unknown security and architectural problems for the rest of us.(http://www.filmon.com/cbsyousuck/)

Book Review: Responsive Web Design by Ethan Marcotte

hattersworkshop — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 02:19:23 +0000

In a short 140 pages Ethan Marcotte shows the future of designing for an internet which is device agnostic and platform independent. Gone are the days where you create a whole new markup for every new browser and screen type. Instead Ethan shows how we can leverage semantic code, screen types, and queries to overwrite rules for different CSS classes based on screen size.

My favorite passage relates to the assumption most designers and developers currently make about the device giving context to the needs of user. Research has shown that more and more people are using “the mobile web” while in their home space instead of just while on the road and while the needs and capabilities of these users and devices may be different there is no golden rule. You and your users will know the priorities unique to your business or service better than anyone else. Keeping these priorities in mind while you create the site is very important to making the site responsive to the device being used to view it.
Also important to the book are the first four chapters which deal with how to create a truly flexible template based on percentages and ems instead of fixed px and min/max width tags (there is still a place for those tags, but use them only when you truly need them).

The book contains many classroom examples and real life websites currently using this methodology and is presented with a light geek humor making it easy to read and understand these revolutionary concepts. Every web developer and designer should read this book to understand the challenges and opportunities that losing control of the screen size presents.

I cant wait to read the rest of the series and redo my website (again).
Score: 5/5
Summary: Its concise and well written; important and creative. if you work online you need to read about this concept. It is the next evolution of the internet and its time to start future-proofing your websites.

Work on paper by Michael Madore

hattersworkshop — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 04:15:32 +0000

I stopped by the art gallery at 100 Pearl St to see the artwork of Michael Maddadore. The gallery is located within the lobby of 100 Pearl Street next to the Greater Hartford Welcome Center. No doubt some of the people who work in the building, some of which I know must have also seen some of this art, and other too, even if just in passing. I wish there was more traveling art in the corporate world.

Some of the work is marked as sold– bravo. Below is a shot of one of Mike’s pieces. Im glad to see other local artists working and living downtown.

Gallery Hours: Mon-Fri, 8am-7pm.

Personally, I like it. Sure, Im his friend, but this shows a serious dedication and attention to detail. Its not a sprint, this is a marathon. Those lines are precise in their perspective and perfectly straight. Sure, use a ruler and you get the same effect – but this is a relatively large scale work, about 32 or 36″ tall, so a large amount of time went into this. There is a certain style to this that’s working and I like it. It rigidly adhering to rules of perspective in the foreground and center and throws it all those same rules out the window along the edge.

Goodbye 2011. You were a very good year.

hattersworkshop — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:44:09 +0000

To the tune of “It Was a Very Good Year” by Frank Sinartra.
Things I’m happy for from 2011 in no particular order.

1. Going to Burningman
2. Starting a new job at a great company
3. Seeing new opportunity because of what I thought were hardships
4. A lot of new viewers to the site.
5. Learning a ton about jQuery
6. Seeing my first show at the Bushnell Theater.
7. Successful exit from a startup company.
8. Great books: Collapse by Jared Diamond; Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Portman
9. Getting paid for spinning flame dart.
10 Last, but not least – Meeting my girlfriend Melissa.

New Posts Coming Soon

hattersworkshop — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 00:41:07 +0000

I was burred with work from my business, teaching classes, starting a new full time job, and co-founding a startup. School is over and I sold my stake in the startup so I’m back to just 2 full time jobs again. The dream will be to trim down my current client load a bit more to enable to me to concentrate on a few things and do them well instead of the smorgasbord of skills I’ve been culturing so far.

I want to stay involved code, but I want to be more involved with people than most coders are. I think this means I want to get more into project management vs actually doing a majority of the code in the future assignments.

Stay tuned for future developments, and yes, I’d like to continue teaching for as long as I can.

Use Underscore and !important to defeat IE6 bugs

hattersworkshop — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 17:06:39 +0000

http://modxcms.com/about/team/rthrash/css-hacking-important.html

http://www.wellstyled.com/css-underscore-hack.html

Starting at Travelers Insurance as a UI developer

hattersworkshop — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 20:01:24 +0000

Im delighted to be starting at Travelers Insurance next week as a UI Developer. I hope the job will bring me into contact with a wide range of intelligent developer minded people which I can share with and learn from.

I’m really excited to be getting more into Javascript and app development. These are both things I have wanted to peruse in the past, but being a small business owner has meant that the time I want to be doing research is instead used to acquire new clients and giving presentations, which pay the bills, but do not enhance me as a programmer.

I wont be spilling the beans on any corporate trade secrets, but you can be sure that I will be sharing some of the best practices I learn while doing great work for a fantastic company.

HTML5 and CSS 3 Cheat Sheets

hattersworkshop — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 19:06:36 +0000

You won’t be been playing with HTML5 and CSS3 for too long before you start looking for cheat sheets. Below are the best I have found to date. Thank you very much, Smashing Magazine and Chris Hanscom! We appreciate your efforts. Below the cheat sheets is a GREAT tutorial from Tutsplus on some of the newst best practices when using HTML 5 in a world that still uses IE 6.

CSS3 Cheat Sheet:
Preview:CSS 3 Preview
Pdf File:CSS 3 Cheat Sheet

HTML 5 Cheat Sheet:
Preview:HTML5 Preview
Pdf File:HTML 5 Cheat Sheet

Background on how to use HTML 5
How to use HTML5 and CSS3 together: Techniques you’ll soon be using

Embed WordPress Headlines into another website using Simplepie for free

hattersworkshop — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 18:03:28 +0000

I spent almost a week looking for a non applet solution for syndicating RSS feeds. I knew it could be done, but finding the code proved to be a major pain. Eventually I found this gents page, which is GREAT. Hes got an awesome tutorial on how to use the code and plenty of images to show you what you’re supposed to be doing.

Simplepie (I love the names of open source software) is a free solution to get the job of syndicating rss feeds done. I use it on my site (Blog headlines).

http://www.corvidworks.com/articles/easy-feed-reading-with-simplepie

Happy 2011!

hattersworkshop — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 01:32:40 +0000

Welcome to the year 2011! Every day is the start of what could be a new beginning. In the coming year I hope to turn this blog into a better resource for my students in various classes and schools. I want to include a lot more from my lectures about emerging technology, social media, and best practices on the web. I’d like to think of it as on online notebook I can refer to in order to catalogue all the links I use from semester to semester. By being electronic I can keep it up to date and anyone can access it from anywhere they want. Ideally I may never have to print another handout again as it will all be available online in one form or another.

As for myself my personal goals for this year include:

• Begin working with Adobe After Effects and Adobe Air
• Learn more about Javascript to being to use it to control hardware devices
• Configure a Midi controller to work with Resolume (a VJ program)
• Launch Crowdboard.com
• Continue Capoeria training and earn a belt
• Burningman 2011
• Brush up on my Spanish
• Prepare for a 6 month trip to Peru starting January 2012