Maxvoltar

Marco Arment on Firefox 3.5

Tim Van Damme — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:53:34 GMT

They keep making things Awesome™ for the fringe of uber-power-users instead of fixing the common issues that frustrate everyone else and drive average users away from Firefox every day.

Interviewing Mark Jardine

Tim Van Damme — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:31:55 GMT

I’m the Mario in the Super Mario Bros. world. I’m not great at one thing, but average at a lot.

Rogie King interviews Mark Jardine, designer at Tapbots.

Tasty Little Cupcakes

Tim Van Damme — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:10:36 GMT

Every iteration in a project must deliver value, both to the customer and to the business. There is no value in icing, or a cake base as a standalone product.

Are you ready to freelance?

Tim Van Damme — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:40:40 GMT

Great list of tips on freelancing from Cindy Li.

Thinking Small

Tim Van Damme — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:27:58 GMT

Jeremy Keith’s transcription of Jason Santa Maria’s talk at An Event Apart in Boston.

¶ Sneak peek

Tim Van Damme — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:07:46 GMT

I’m currently working at multiple projects at the same time (yeah I know, apparently, that’s not done), and just wanted to show a preview/sneak peek/teaser of one of them:

Coming soon!

Update: Adii just posted a more detailed preview on the WooThemes blog.

What is a Browser?

Tim Van Damme — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:20:48 GMT

What is a browser? was the question we (Google) asked over 50 passersby of different ages and backgrounds in the Times Square in New York. Watch the many responses people came up with.

When I’m talking to non-technical people, I just tell them to “open their internet”. (via)

¶ Experiences that make us who we are today

Tim Van Damme — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:49:03 GMT

I don’t keep it a secret that I’ve been bullied around quite a lot when I went to school. You had the typical group of bullies existing out of 1 “leader”, and a couple of brainless followers looking for a place to fit in.

Last week I was catching up with an old friend, and he send me a link to a self help group for people who lost one of their relatives. It was a forum thread started by the sister of the “leader”. He killed himself last year.

If you read something like this, a lot of feelings and emotions run through you at once. I felt confused, felt bad for his sister, parents and friends, but I did not feel glad or happy or relieved at all, although I had all the reasons for it.

What he put me through might have left some scars on me (took me a couple of years before I regained my self-confidence), but it also made me who I am today.

Emotionally, it made me very strong. I learned how to take a lot of criticism, how to stand up for my opinion and for the opinion of others, and how to think twice before forming a preconception about someone or something.

Professionally, well, let’s just say that I had a lot of spare time after school, and not a lot of people to spend it with. I spend hours and hours at night learning about things called “HTML” and “CSS” (after someone told me Frontpage was a no-go if you wanted to create decent websites).

My point here is that everything what happened in your life before today, no matter how negative they are, made you into who you are.

smd_canonical

Tim Van Damme — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:12:26 GMT

Wonderful little Textpattern plugin that allows you to easily implement canonical URL’s to your site by just adding <txp:smd_canonical /> in the <head> of your site. Example.

Fearful

Tim Van Damme — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:11:44 GMT

Smashing Magazine published an excellent primer for CSS3 properties by Inayaili de Leon today which referenced a little of my work. I was pleased, but as today as gone on and I’ve watched the comments roll, my heart started to sink.

(I don’t want to brag, but 2 websites made by me are also in that article ;)

Dog and Pony Show Design

Tim Van Damme — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:43:13 GMT

As the professional, you have an obligation to define the project process. In this effort there is no substitute for directness and clarity.

Andy Rutledge on why 1 design comp is better than 4. Completely agree.

Uniform

Tim Van Damme — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 20:36:45 GMT

Introducing Uniform, a plugin for jQuery that lets you style select, radio, and checkboxes however you desire.

Cool little plugin by Josh Pyles!

Safari 4 CSS Video Effects

Tim Van Damme — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 18:47:06 GMT

Wouldn’t it be something if there was only one browser in the world.

Mind = blown. (via)

Instapaper Restyled

Tim Van Damme — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:27:16 GMT

“Instapaper restyled” is a userscript that applies a new interface to the Instapaper service. It was inspired by Helvetireader and Instapaper Fluid.

Instantaneous Inspiration

Tim Van Damme — Fri, 29 May 2009 14:30:50 GMT

Fact of the matter is, if I did not come into the office right now to record this episode about instantaneous inspiration, I would not only be hypocrite, but I would not be as fired up as I am right now.

Great little video of Adii talking about how inspiration can suddenly hit you. Act first, clean up later.

Burnout

Tim Van Damme — Wed, 27 May 2009 10:01:02 GMT

Web professionals are often expected to be “always on”—always working, absorbing information, and honing new skills.

Great article. They should’ve named it “Make your life last longer”.

Universal Internet Explorer 6 CSS

Tim Van Damme — Thu, 21 May 2009 10:23:12 GMT

When I asked myself why people visit my sites, and the ones that I make for other people, the answer was always “for the content”. Content that is almost always written words and that means type.

Andy Clarke on why you should serve a basic typographic CSS-file instead of fixing all kinds of layout bugs in Internet Explorer 6.

¶ Why you can’t teach webdesign

Tim Van Damme — Wed, 20 May 2009 00:16:41 GMT

I often get emails from people asking me how they can learn webdesign. Which books they should read, which studies they should choose or even which schools they should attend. I honestly have no idea what they should do.

With “webdesign”, I mean the ability to design a website with the drawing tool of your choice, and then slice it up and write the HTML and CSS yourself. Basically: Design + front-end coding.

I used to think that it should be all self-study, as the techniques and tricks change so fast. That it’s impossible for teachers to keep their curriculum up to date with what’s moving in the online world.

The advice I would give was: Quit school and go work at a company for a couple of years. Work hard, don’t expect to do A+ projects, and ask a lot of questions.

I was wrong, but not completely. There is a better way.

How many books have you read on the subject of webdesign? Wild guess: 3 or more. And you’ve probable read one or more of these (my favorites, preferable in this order):

Web Standards Solutions by Dan Cederholm
Bulletproof Web Design also by Dan Cederholm
CSS Mastery by Andy Budd, Cameron Moll and Simon Collison
CSS Artistry by Andy Clarke

Although not recent (Web Standards Solutions was first available in 2004), these books still provide an invaluable foundation and support in learning webdesign.

So that got me thinking: What if teachers could educate what is inside these books, and after they’ve covered the basics (although CSS Mastery already is pretty advanced), let their students decide what to specialize in?

It’s like parents raising kids (not that I know anything of that, just that my parents did a wonderful job). They can teach them a lot, but at a certain age, they need to let the kids go and learn on their own. The only thing parents can do from there on is supporting the kids, and guiding them through life.

Same goes for the teachers. The curriculum only gets you halfway. The only way you can learn the other half, is by learning it yourself. By guiding their students, teachers themselves will also stay on top of all the latest. It’s basically a win-win.

I know the subject of education in webdesign is a bit like a can of worms. Feel free to comment here, or write your own blogpost about it (I’ll link to it here).

Would love to know your opinions!

¶ #fixreplies

Tim Van Damme — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:33:22 GMT

Recently, Twitter has made some changes to how replies appear in your timeline. This caused a lot of commotion (#fixreplies even made it to the trending topics list). Impulsive as I am, I joined the “Let’s burn Twitter down for these hellish changes!”-group, but there’s a bit more to it…

Like I said, my first reaction was to hate these changes. I was missing half of what people were saying. After a good night of sleep, I changed my opinion. The change had made Twitter a less noisy place.

But then…

A couple of days went by, and now I’m starting to miss all the replies. I like following conversations between people I follow and people I don’t follow. It’s the bit of voyeurism that is inside all of us, and a great way of discovering new people to follow.

Just because a tweet isn’t aimed at me, doesn’t mean it isn’t interesting for me.

Twitter is like a ghost town right now. It’s lost its social aspect. You’re listening to monologues instead of dialogues (or group discussions).

But I want to reply to everybody

I completely understand. You have 2 options, from which neither will clutter what your followers are seeing. The big question you have to ask yourself is: Is my answer to this user of any value for my followers?

If the answer is yes, feel free to use a public reply to answer. If not, send them a direct message. If people ask you a question on Twitter, there’s a big chance they’re following you, which means you are able to send them a direct message.

Conclusion

You are the one responsible for the amount noise in your timeline (which is Twitter’s biggest strength). If you want less noise in your timeline, just unfollow the loudest people. I don’t know why, but it seems like people have a hard time unfollowing others. Hey, we’re still friends, but you’re just too loud. Beers on Wednesday?

¶ The Mightiest Mighty Mouse

Tim Van Damme — Sat, 16 May 2009 23:38:17 GMT

Even before I bought my first Apple (a 17” MacBook Pro), I knew I was going to switch to the Mac platform, and already started buying Apple peripherals. Besides an Apple Keyboard and an Airport Express, I bought myself a wired Mighty Mouse.

By the time I actually had a Mac, the mouse had already worn down completely. The “nipple” was unresponsive, and the bottom glider-part was flat instead of curvy.

“No problem, I just buy a new one. Maybe I’ll buy the upgraded wireless version of the Mighty Mouse!”

That was a bad idea. The new Mighty Mouse responded with a delay (Bluetooth issues?), the sensor freaked out on glossy surfaces, and weighted a ton (compared to the original one). I tried it for like 2 weeks, gave up, bought myself a Logitech VX Nano, and never looked back.

Today, while we were out shopping, I remembered I still had a gift-card from the in-laws I had to spend in an electronic store. There wasn’t really anything I was interested in, until I saw an original, wired, Mighty Mouse. Since I didn’t have anything to loose, I bought it.

I’m in love again.

Although it’s inferior on paper, the wired version beats the wireless version. Now let’s hope the nipple will endure my intensive, all day long rubbing.