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There is No Normal
12.12.2020
This year I learned, or relearned maybe, that “normal” is subjective at best, and pretty misleading otherwise. If this forsaken year has taught us anything, it’s that there is no such thing as normal. Things change. People adapt. Everything is relative to everything else.
Besides being quite...
Let’s Create a Lightweight Native Event Bus in JavaScript
11.12.2020
An event bus is a design pattern (and while we’ll be talking about JavaScript here, it’s a design pattern in any language) that can be used to simplify communications between different components. It can also be thought of as publish/subscribe or pubsub.
The idea is that components can listen...
Why I love Tailwind
11.12.2020
Max Stoiber wrote some interesting notes about why he loves Tailwind. (Max created styled-components, so he has some skin in the styling methodology game.) There’s a lot of great history in this post about how Tailwind emerged and became a valuable tool for designers and engineers alike, but...
Chainlink Price Loses Momentum; Trades Close to Immediate Support
11.12.2020
Chainlink traded amongst the market’s top lucrative cryptos after having traded sideways for the past three years. It had hit an All-Time High just in the previous quarter when Bitcoin price boomed sideways for the first time in the ongoing year. However, Chainlink came into the limelight...
Unconventional Stock Image Sources
10.12.2020
This year, I learned that there is a wide world of free stock imagery available beyond Unsplash and Pexels. You see, I’ve been working on designing WordPress themes this year, and all images need to be compatible with the GPL. Unsplash and Pexels both have free and open licenses, but unfortunately...
It’s all relative.
10.12.2020
I remember sitting in the back seat of our family’s Subaru station wagon. I was six and this was long before child carseats were a thing. My dad was at the wheel and my mom played 20 Questions with me while we drove to some vacation spot I can’t even remember.
It was my mom’s turn...
Optimize Images According to Network and Device Constraints in React
10.12.2020
Connectivity has evolved beyond recognition since the beginning of the internet. We are lightyears past dial up, these days, and can watch a video in high resolution on our smartphone while being connected to a mobile network. But not all mobile connections are created equal – older...
Using CSS Custom Properties to Adjust Variable Font Weights in Dark Mode
10.12.2020
Black isn’t always slimming.
When recently testing a dark mode option for one of my sites, I experienced first-hand the issue that Robin Rendle addresses in this article. All of my page text — headings and body copy — appeared to bulk up when I switched to dark mode. And it didn’t matter what fonts...
2020 was not a good year for learning
10.12.2020
There, I said it.
What did I learn about building websites in 2020? A lot. But what I learned is not nearly as important as how I learned it. So instead, I want to share a couple of strategies I used to unblock learning in less-than-ideal times.
I spent almost a decade teaching design and, let...
The PS5’s Limited Controller Support Is An Issue For Gamers Who Need Accessibility Options
9.12.2020
The PlayStation 5 is in many ways a fantastic machine, but it’s far from perfect. Games take up more space than indicated, the dashboard’s newsfeed can get needlessly cluttered, and the simplest way to power the thing down is a departure from the hold-the-big-center-button norm. Beyond that, nearly...
npm ruin dev
9.12.2020
In 2020, I rediscovered the enjoyment of building a website with plain ol’ HTML, CSS, and JavaScript — no transpilin’, no compilin’, no build tools other than my hands on the keyboard.
Seeing as my personal brand could be summed up “so late to the game that the stadium has been demolished,”...
How to Create a Favicon That Changes Automatically
9.12.2020
I found this Free Favicon Maker the other day. It’s a nice tool to make a favicon (true to its name), but unlike other favicon generators, this one lets you create one from scratch starting with a character or an emoji. Naturally, I was curious to look at the code to see how it works and, while...
Very Extremely Practical CSS Art
9.12.2020
I’ve always enjoyed the CSS art people create, but I’ve never ventured into it much myself. I’m familiar with many of the tricks involved, but still find it surprising every time: the way people are able to make such fluid and beautiful images out of little boxes. I always end...
TypeScript & Relevance
8.12.2020
In our wide world of building for the web, we have every opportunity to talk about tools. We lunge to fill every gap we find in our projects with a definitive technological approach. Some of us are given “a seat at the table” feasting on even the most minuscule of technological debates. This...
Overlaying Video With Transparency While Wrangling Cross-Browser Support
8.12.2020
As websites are becoming more and more dynamic when it comes to design, there is sometimes a need to incorporate complex, animated elements. There are many ways to do that from CSS transitions to 3D rendering on canvas, and animated SVG. But it is often easier to use a <video> since they...
Creating websites with prefers-reduced-data
8.12.2020
Spoiler alert: There is no support for it yet. But it is defined in the Media Queries Level 5 spec that includes other recent, but more familiar user preference features, like prefers-color-scheme and prefers-reduced-motion.
The Polypane blog goes into incredible depth on prefers-reduced-data...
Square to Support Greener Bitcoin Mining as Part of Zero-Carbon Pledge
8.12.2020
Square will dedicate $10 million to the development of clean bitcoin mining technologies
Nimera Swap Offers DeFi Exchange Platform With Low Fees and Support for Any Blockchain
8.12.2020
The Defi revolution has brought about a new world of opportunities for crypto investors, but major improvements are still needed in the current ecosystem. For example, the most popular coin swapping service today is dependent on ethererum and its ridiculously high gas prices. Nimera Swap offers...
The Power of Web Development Outside Tech
7.12.2020
In 2020, I learned about the power of web development for organizations and nonprofits outside of tech. I learned that you can leverage your skills to affect change and build long-lasting partnerships.
This year, I joined the Board of Directors of the League of Women Voters San Francisco (LWVSF)...
Late to Logical
7.12.2020
2020 brought another wave of logical property features to major browsers and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my investment into logical, rather than physical, web styling. I feel like I’ve learned a new way to speak about the box model that results in less written code with more global coverage.
p {
...