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Eric Meyer Go to the source

I recently stumbled over a subtle interaction between cookie policies and localStorage in Firefox. Herewith, I document it for anyone who might run into the same problem (all four of you) as well as for you JS developers who are using, or thinking about using, locally stored data. Also, there’s a Bugzilla report , so either it’ll get fixed and then this won’t be a problem or else it will get resolved WONTFIX and I’ll have to figure out what to do next. The basic problem is, every newfangled “try code out for yourself” site I hit is just failing in Firefox 11 and 12. Dabblet , for example, just returns a big blank page with the toolbar across the top, and none of the top-right buttons work except for the Help (“?”) button. … Read the rest here

Snook Go to the source

Zielun asks of managing projects: It often happens in projects that based on one, large system with tons of modules that can be enabled or disabled, and documentation is often not up-to-date or doesn`t exist at all. At least I have such experience. I know that real problem lies elsewhere like in project management but such things often plays main role when you or team decides which coding standard to pick for a project to solve such issues. This project detritus can definitely be frustrating. Big projects that go on for extended periods of time begin looking like sediment layers of a rock formation… Read the rest here

Eric Meyer Go to the source

I’ve been messing around with native calculated values in CSS, and there’s something a bit surprising buried in the value format. To quote the CSS3 Values and Units specification : Note that the grammar requires spaces around binary ‘+’ and ‘-’ operators. The ‘*’ and ‘/’ operators do not require spaces. In other words, two out of four calculation operators require whitespace around them, and for the other two it doesn’t matter. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

“Creativity is a Verb” : Milton Glaser, as quoted in Jonah Lehrer’s Imagine : There’s no such thing as a creative type. As if creative people can just show up and make stuff up. As if it were that easy. I think people need to be reminded that creativity is a verb , and very time-consuming verb. It’s about taking an idea in your head, and transforming that idea into something real. And that’s always going to be a long and difficult process… Read the rest here

Eric Meyer Go to the source

Right in the middle of AEA Atlanta—which was awesome , I really must say—there were two announcements that stand to invalidate (or at least greatly alter) portions of the talk I delivered. One, which I believe came out as I was on stage, was the publication of the latest draft of the CSS3 Positioned Layout Module . We’ll see if it triggers change or not; I haven’t read it yet. The other was the publication of the minutes of the CSS Working Group meeting in Paris , where it was revealed that several vendors are about to support the -webkit- vendor prefix in their own very non-WebKit browsers. Thus, to pick but a single random example, Firefox would throw a drop shadow on a heading whose entire author CSS is h1 {-webkit-box-shadow: 2px 5px 3px gray;} . As an author, it sounds good as long as you haven’t really thought about it very hard, or if perhaps you have a very weak sense of the history of web standards and browser development… Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

I’m getting a lot of ‘Are you still using Fireworks?’ questions recently, and my answer is ‘Not for almost 2 years now…’. I’ve been using Illustrator CS5 solidly ever since, but part of the transition is going from Fireworks Pages/States to Illustrators multiple artboards. Artboards are more flexible, and allow you to have see everything at once, but the built-in options for exporting artboards are limited. I use this wonderful script, which provides all the settings I could desire, from format to filenaming. Top work! Comment on this … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

There are a few apps that I’m particularly enjoying using at the moment, so I thought I’d share in case any of them are news to you: Choosy Choosy does a seemingly simple task, and does it very well. For a start, it provides a central preference pane to choose your default browser, but its main thrust is letting you choose which browser to open a link in. You can do this either manually via a chooser display (right), or automatically depending on order of preference. My favourite feature is ‘behaviour rules’. For example, I get emails from Opera’s internal bug tracking system, and I always want to open these in Opera, no matter what my default browser is at the time. … Read the rest here

Andy Budd Go to the source

First off let me apologise for the laboured metaphor I’m about to inflict on you, but I thought it could be entertaining to try and describe the web design industry using a medium I’m sure you’re all familiar with—Dungeons & Dragons. However I should point out that I’m no D&D expert, having played it last when I was 13. So please don’t leave comments to the line of “you got that all wrong as those character classes were changed in AD&D 2nd Edition, Unearthed Arcana.” or I’ll pull out my +2 broadsword and go Berserker on your ass. In the world of Dungeons & Dragons, characters could have a variety of professions such as Fighter, Thief or Magic-User. These professions were loosely related to a characters natural abilities. So if you were intelligent you’d be well suited to becoming a magic-user, whereas if you were dexterous, becoming a thief was a good option. … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Gridiron League : Wes Kull: This is not an exercise in nostalgia but an interpretation of the league’s founding principles through the symbols that we, as football fans, identify with most. Many NFL franchises — Patriots, Broncos, Rams, Lions — have updated their uniforms and logos to a swooshed-out, dropped-shadowed, and more commercial-ready image, ignoring a good deal of their team’s heritage and the original rough-and-tumble character that the league stood for. … Read the rest here

Eric Meyer Go to the source

Though I certainly do not support SOPA or the PROTECT IP Act (the complete, rather contrived acronym of PIPA), I will not be blacking out meyerweb. This is largely because the vast majority of my readers already know about these bills, and very likely oppose them; as for anyone who visits but does not know about these bills, I feel I’ll do better to speak out than to black out. (Which is not a criticism of those who do black out. We all fight in our own ways.) Instead, I will reproduce here the letter I attempted to send via contact form to my state Senator this morning, and which I will print out and send by regular postal service later today. Senator Brown: I grew up in Lexington, Ohio. I moved to Cleveland in pursuit of a career, and found success. … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

2011 was the year that cycling replaced the “search for the right media centre” as the main blog topic at The Hickensian. I’ve been pretty much starting from scratch in terms of knowledge, and gleaning information from all sorts of sources. Here are just some of things I’ve learnt this year: There are Rules . 87 of them in fact. … Read the rest here

Snook Go to the source

I hesitate putting this information out there as I’m not sure what its relevance is. I merely note it as interesting, especially in light of gender inequality in our field. In number crunching the people who have purchased a SMACSS e-book or site membership, I’ve noticed that the numbers are heavily skewed in one direction: 94.5% of the purchases are by men. That means only 5.5% of purchases were by women. I wonder if there is anything in the way that I’ve presented the information that has turned women off from buying the book. Since I market the book under my personal ‘brand’, especially via Twitter, I wonder if my particular following is also heavily skewed towards men (I suspect it is). … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

The Icon Handbook is now available to buy . Here’s what it looks like: This is a book that I’ve been wanting to write for a long time. Whenever I’ve looked for a book on this subject, the only available publications are reference guides that simply reproduce as many symbols as possible. Where books have gone into theory, they were published decades before desktop computers, and therefore miss the most relevant and active context of icon use. … Read the rest here

Hicksdesign Go to the source

Todays 24ways article is Displaying Icons with Fonts and Data- Attributes , taken partly from Chapter 6 of the upcoming Icon Handbook , but rewritten to fit to the 24ways format. Instead of using the traditional route of PNG s, web fonts offer a scalable and resolution independent solution. Combined with HTML5 data attributes, you can create one CSS rule to style them all in one go. This article covers both the advantages and disadvantages of the technique. Thanks must go to Drew Wilson who helped me understand how to use data attributes. He created Pictos the excellent icon font used in the article, and his experience in making Pictos was a valuable source of research… Read the rest here

Eric Meyer Go to the source

Back on Tuesday, A List Apart opened the 2011 edition of The Survey for People Who Make Web Sites , the fifth annual effort to learn more about the people who work in the web industry. If you haven’t taken it yet, please do so! It should take about ten minutes I’m proud to have been a part of this effort since its inaugural launch back in 2007. It’s a major undertaking, mostly in analyzing the data and turning that into a detailed report, but it’s more than worth the time and effort. Before the Survey, we really didn’t know very much about who we were as a field of practice, and without it we wouldn’t have as clear a picture of who we are today. There have been growing pains, of course, chief among them UCCASS , the survey software we’ve been using since the outset. Its limitations and lack of updates finally pushed us to find another platform, and we chose to move over to Polldaddy . … Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

It’s clear by now dust is gathering at this domain. I’ve been okay with that, and will continue to be okay with it, but only a little longer. I’ve been swamped with obligations on my current projects and have traveled much more than usual. I’ll visit NYC for the third time in a month starting next week, for example. More importantly, I’ve realized I need to realign the focus of this site. The tumblog, light-narrative format is definitely enjoyable, and it’s helped me blog more frequently, as well. … Read the rest here

Jason Santa Maria Go to the source

Just in case you were under the impression that type design or typography are easy, I suggest you try out Kern Type and Shape Type , two fun game from Mark MacKay for Method of Action . Each game tasks you with correcting default and malformed spacing, and then ranks you against the correct solution. It’s instructive and humbling! Hug your designer today. … Read the rest here

Jason Santa Maria Go to the source

We’re very excited to release not one, but two, new A Book Apart titles today. We’re finishing up our publishing year with a big splash; first with Designing for Emotion by Aarron Walter , and next with Mobile First by Luke Wroblewski . These guys are both personal UX/design heroes of mine and their books really hit home. Here’s an appetizer from the back cover of Aarron’s book: Make your users fall in love with your site via the precepts packed into this brief, charming book by MailChimp user experience design lead Aarron Walter. From classic psychology to case studies, highbrow concepts to common sense, Designing for Emotion demonstrates accessible strategies and memorable methods to help you make a human connection through design… Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

Recently I pulled this form letter out of storage. It’s one of my favorite mementos of Grandpa Moll. An independent contractor later in life, he probably sent this to companies in the surrounding area, most likely larger cities such as Reno, Nevada, as his quaint home town of Markleeville, California had only about 150 residents at the time. Back when I did client work as a freelancer, I would often describe myself as a pinch-hitter . In baseball, a pinch-hitter substitutes for another player when the coach feels the substitute player may perform a specific duty, such as bunting or base running, better than the player he replaces. Not that the pinch-hitter is better overall than the other player, just that he might have a better shot at succeeding in a specific scenario or critical play in a close game… Read the rest here

Andy Budd Go to the source

Over the last few years I’ve noticed a strange and disturbing trend amongst web practitioners. There was a time—not so long ago—when passionate individuals would blog about their work for no other reason than to share their discoveries. The more prolific of these individuals built up an online reputation and became seen as experts. Some of the more articulate ones were asked to write books or present their thoughts at conferences, and received a modicum of success. After years of sharing their knowledge freely, some were able to capitalise on their notoriety by securing jobs at interesting companies or setting up small agencies. A few even managed to make a living off publishing books and speaking at conferences, although how they managed this is anybodies guess… Read the rest here