Now available at the shop. Delicious typography. A super-soft, “Tri-Blend” t-shirt in espresso brown from American Apparel, printed with everyone’s favorite logogram (set in Knockout ’s Ultra Sumo weight). Peanut butter? Mustard? … Read the rest here
Well, after 6+ years on an ancient and highly customized install of Movable Type 3.15, and 4+ years on various homegrown CMS solutions, I’ve finally upgraded the guts of this site. I chose WordPress. Sure, there are several other excellent options out there to power the blogs of 2010 and beyond, but the familarity of WP, its plugins, pricetag and other factors all fed into the decision. Plus, I told Matt in the halls of SWSW in 2003 that I’d try his little weblog project. … Read the rest here
I’m pleased to announce the super excellent folks at Carsonified are bringing the Handcrafted CSS workshop to London ! Carson Workshops will be presenting Ethan Marcotte and myself in a reprise of the one-day course we organized last month here in Salem, MA. And it’s surely going to be a blast. Just like last time, each attendee will get a copy of the book ( Video Edition including the DVD ) and we’ll spend the day walking through much of its content and more. This event was a great success here in New England, and we’re thrilled to bring it to the UK. Thanks to Carson Workshops for making this happen! So join us on November 23rd at Wallspace St Pancras in London. For more info on the event and to book a place (there’s a max of 70 spots), visit the Carson Workshops site . … Read the rest here
I know, this feels like a Facebook meme or something like that. But in the absence of having time to post something more substantial, this will have to do. I go in for knee surgery tomorrow, hence a large part of the reason things have been relatively silent around here. This is due to a severe injury playing soccer (football) and several weeks of physical therapy since, consuming a lot of my spare time. This will be surgery #5 for me, the continuation of a history of knee problems since I was 16. The most ridiculous injury so far… Read the rest here
View on flick r Author copies of Handcrafted CSS arrived today. I took some pictures of it. Related: just 7 more days of early-bird pricing for the Handcrafted CSS workshop on September 14th here in Salem, Massachusetts. Book now. Book often… Read the rest here
We’ve printed up a new version of the popular Charge Tee . This time around, it’s a rusted battery on a Navy Blue, 100% cotton shirt from American Apparel. It’s also the first item in our newly relaunched shop.simplebits.com . The fine folks at AcmePrints have been printing SimpleBits tees for us for years, and they’re now handling the order fulfillment as well. This will allow us to concentrate on more important stuff, like offering more designs, rather than packing and shipping shirts (even though we enjoyed that). … Read the rest here
Now that we’ve announced the book , we can also announce another exciting thing: Handcrafted CSS: A Day of Markup & Style will be a unique, one-day workshop presented by Ethan Marcotte and myself on September 14, 2009 at the Hawthorne Hotel here in Salem, Massachusetts . You’ll get a copy of the book (the Video Edition , including the DVD ), and we’ll present the content live, throughout four takeway-packed sessions, followed by Q&A. Breakfast, lunch and two snack breaks are also provided. And we’ll cap off the day with an after party at an awesome location to be determined. The Hawthorne Hotel is located in downtown Salem, just 16 miles north of Boston. It’s also just a 10-minute walk from the MBTA Commuter Rail station which connects Salem to Boston in about 25 minutes… Read the rest here
I wrote another book. It’s called Handcrafted CSS: More Bulletproof Web Design , and it’ll be published by New Riders next month. I had help this time. The unstoppable Ethan Marcotte contributed an absolute gem of a chapter on the fluid grid. And I think it’s worth the cover price for the pages he authored alone… Read the rest here
It’s been a long five years since it was orginally published, but last month month a new Web Standards Solutions, Special Edition was released by Friends of ED . Late last year, I gave the manuscript a little freshening up, mostly reviewing things in the crop of browsers that have been released since the initial version. I’ll stress that this was not a large overhaul of the book (hence Special Edition rather than Second Edition), so if you’ve already read the original, or own it, you’re better off spending your dime on another book. But while it wasn’t a giant update, it was nice to give it some extra attention, and pass it through through tech editing, copy editing, compositing and proofreading cycles once again. In the end, I’m really happy it just made the book that much more solid for folks that haven’t read it—and hopefully still a good introduction for those getting started with semantic markup and CSS . In other book news, I’ve been toiling away on something brand new, and look forward to sharing much more about that very soon… Read the rest here
Back by popular demand, we’ve just printed a fresh batch of Charge tees , and they’re now once again available in all sizes. Just in time for Summer, the Charge tee is printed on heather gray “Tri-Blend” shirts by American Apparel, which is a soft, lightweight, super-comfortable shirt. We also think @wrycoder said it best when he declared : Softest shirt ever. Like being hugged by kittens. Couldn’t agree more… Read the rest here
The Bitcave was temporarily transformed into a video studio this week, while shooting a DVD for New Riders . I’ll have much more info on the video and other fun stuff related to it, soon. After seeing all the work that goes into setting up a simple shoot like this (lighting, sound, rigging, data transfers) I have newfound respect to those that produce motion stuff for a living. There were parts of the taping where I felt comfortable (when presenting against familiar material) and other times where it was downright grueling (talking directly to the camera for 30 takes in a row). Major props to those that can do this kind of thing on a regular basis, and make it look effortless… Read the rest here
I’ve always loved the constraint of a 4-track cassette recorder. So when I first came across FourTrack , a simple recording app for the iPhone, I figured I’d give it a whirl. I grabbed my trusty ukulele and laid down a little tune I often play to the kids. The audio records right from the iPhone’s built-in mic. The quality is impressive. Then I grabbed my three year old son Jack’s toy percussion kit, and banged along to the uke track… Read the rest here
We’ve rolled out some changes over here at SimpleBits that have been chipped away at for months. Visually, it’s not a drastic difference, but lots of adjustments and polishing were done in other areas. Chunks of copy were chopped, multiple pages combined into one, things simplified. More care and attention was given to the internal layout of pages that aren’t weblog pages. Finally. Also, the idea of fluid grid layouts has intrigued me since I heard Ethan talk about them at a Markup & Style Society event we threw a year ago… Read the rest here
We’ve rolled out some changes over here at SimpleBits that have been chipped away at for months. Visually, it’s not a drastic difference, but lots of adjustments and polishing were done in other areas. Chunks of copy were chopped, multiple pages combined into one, things simplified. More care and attention was given to the internal layout of pages that aren’t weblog pages. Finally. … Read the rest here
Eight years ago (almost to the day), Jeffrey Zeldman wrote, To Hell With Bad Browsers , signaling the dawning of “The CSS Age”. Explaining how the use of @import for referencing stylesheets is ignored by Netscape 4, was an important step in shedding away the problems related to supporting an ancient browser. Eight. Years. Completely ignoring a browser in terms of CSS is a wonderfully freeing thing… Read the rest here
We’re once again happy to announce a new icon set for sale over at our IconShoppe . It’s called Boxtrot , and it’s a simple little set of perfectly square icons that come in 7 colors, 3 sizes and 2 formats ( GIF and PNG ). It’s also reasonably priced at just thirty-nine bucks. The new set is based off the previously released Disco and Square Dance sets. Also released today is the Ballroom SuperPack , which includes all three sets at a discount of over 30% (and similar to our Chameleon SuperPack which is another way of getting multiple sets in one discounted purchase). … Read the rest here
Apparently there’s a market for battery-adorned garments! Our Charge Tee (released earlier this month) was a hit, and the first batch sold out quickly. We’re expecting a new shipment tomorrow, and will be shipping any remaining orders as fast as possible. We’ve also opened up ordering for all sizes again — we just can’t guarantee a pre-Christmas delivery on new orders from today forward. Then again, a battery-adorned t-shirt really makes a great New Year’s gift, doesn’t it? Also, it seems our initial batch is starting to make its way into the wild. … Read the rest here
It’s been awhile since we designed a t-shirt, and today we’re happy to announce the fresh-off-the-presses and just-in-time-for-the-holidays Charge Tee : a simple black battery icon screen-printed on an athletic grey Tri-Blend shirt from American Apparel. The Tri-Blend is the softest, most comfortable shirt I’ve owned. And you’ll love it too. Wear it to the gym, coffeeshop, pub—or wherever you recharge. The shirts (like previous designs) were printed by Acme Prints in Arizona, and will be hand-packed by myself, Meagan, or anyone else we can coax into helping. … Read the rest here
