Brad Dielman, Cleveland area web designer and developer

My Default Apps

2024-04-13T00:00:00Z

I'm a little late to the game, but a lot of folks have been posting their default apps so I here's my current list as of April 2024.

NOTE: There are a lot of standard Apple apps in the list, but after trying a lot of alternatives I went back to them. Usually the case was that the alternative was way more than I needed and I didn't see the benefit of paying for a subscription. Not saying those apps aren't great (Fantastical, Mimestream, etc), they just weren't for me.

📨 Mail Client: Apple Mail
📮 Mail Server: Gmail
📝 Notes: Craft
✅ To-Do: Things
🌅 Photo Library: iCloud
📷 Photo Management: Apple Photos
📆 Calendar: Apple Calendar
☁️ Cloud File Storage: iCloud
📖 RSS: Readwise Reader
📇 Contacts: Apple Contacts
🌐 Browser: Mac: Arc, iOS: Safari (I do switch back to Safari on the Mac for certain things)
💬 Chat: iMessage, Discord
📑 Read It Later: Readwise Reader
📜 Word Processing: Apple Pages
📈 Spreadsheets: Apple Numbers
📊 Presentations: Apple Keynote
🛒 Shopping Lists: Apple Reminders
🍴 Meal Planning: Mela
🎵 Music: Apple Music (sometimes YouTube music)
🎤 Podcasts: Apple Podcasts (formerly Overcast)
🔐 Password Management: 1Password
🍿 Media Tracking: Sequel
💻 Terminal: iTerm
⌨️ Code Editor: Neovim, (though I do use VS Code at times)
🖼️ Screenshots: CleanShot X
📦 Package Tracking: Parcel

Finally

2023-02-11T00:00:00Z

As the title says... Finally! Yep. It's been (checks watch), about 10 years since my last post on this site. I could make excuses like these:

Blogging was really slowing down around that time
I mostly communicated through Twitter and Facebook so what did I need a blog for?
I was busy with local meetup groups and kicking off a new front-end developer conference
I didn't have anything important or new to say

But I won't. Their really isn't any reason other than neglect and laziness. Well I'm happy to say I'm back. I've been meaning to dust off this ol' blog for months now and have had a few ideas, but honestly the things that really motivated me were the latest developments at Twitter (I have nothing new to say that hasn't already been said), moving to Mastodon, and really wanting a reason to check out Eleventy.

Joining Mastodon

Why would the move from one social media property to another be a motivating factor to resurrect this site? Once I joined Mastodon and followed many of the same folks I followed on Twitter I discovered that it had a completely different vibe. I guess the best way to describe it is that it felt like the Twitter of 2008-2012. Meaningful conversations. People supporting and encouraging each other. Less politics and more about what people were doing and exploring. It just feels better. The more I read, the more excited I got to work on my site and start posting again.

Migrating to Eleventy

I've been wanting to migrate this site to Eleventy for a while. This is not to say that Jekyll isn't a great SSG. It is, but Eleventy has the community and momentum Jekyll seems to be lacking. Plus, as someone who likes to tinker with this site (rather than actually posting articles) it was the perfect project for me.

The migration went fairly smooth. The only learning curve was getting my head around the Eleventy config. Jekyll's config was fairly hands off and Sass was simple to setup. For Eleventy I had to include things like Luxon for date formatting, figure out how to use addPassthroughCopy to pull in things like images and fonts, and how to properly use filters to display tags the way I preferred. Getting Sass configured was more complicated than I initialy thought, but I eventually got it working using an NPM package to compile things concurrently.

Getting everything configured to my liking took a little longer than I would have liked, but in the end I'm very happy with Eleventy and can't wait to learn more.

TODO

Now that the new version of the site is up and running I have some time to relax and start posting again. That said, there are still some things I want to do to make things even better:

Move from Sass to CSS - CSS variables and using PostCSS imports covers about 90% of the reason I use Sass in the first place
Add an accent color switcher
Add a dark theme
Add a page for tags
Add a /uses page - like the cool kids are doing these days
Use the Eleventy images plugin and host the images on this site rather than pulling them in from Flickr (yes, I still have images on Flickr)
Pull in info from other sites - latest tracks from Last.fm or movies from Letterboxd

All that being said, it's good to be back and I'm looking forward to spending more time on this site.

Front End Questions

2013-09-07T00:00:00Z

Back in June a friend of mine sent a list of questions asking about my front-end development process. He has been focusing on the back-end and hasn't spent much time on HTML and CSS. Initially I replied to his questions via email, but my friend, Dan Ott responded with a blog post so I thought it would be fun to share my answers as well.

Do you still use clearfixes, and if so which one?

As long as there are floats, there will be need to clear them. I no longer use the old method from Position is Everything, but instead use Nicolas Gallagher's micro clearfix.
Do you use any polyfills/shims? If so, what do you recommend?

I try to avoid using polyfills, but occasionally I use Scott Jehl's Picturefill. As for shims, I don't start projects without the HTML5 shiv. Luckily the browser landscape is maturing fast enough that I'll be able to drop it altogether.
Are you still working with Sass these days?

Absolutely. I resisted moving to Sass in the beginning because I didn't see the need. I started using it for a project a little over a year ago and haven't looked back since. The variables are okay, but once you start writing your own mixins and functions, that's where you really see the power. Just be sure to keep the nesting to a minimum.
Have any organization tips for CSS3 support and such?

For organizing my CSS I turn to Jonathan Snook's SMACSS. I've been doing this approach for about a year and it's changed the way I look at setting up my stylesheets. If you're using Sass and are interested in using SMACSS I suggest taking a look at MVCSS. It doesn't follow Jonathan's approach to the letter, but it's a good jumping off point.
Are you still a Typekit fan? What's your recommended way for embedding fonts in this fashion?

For the moment, Typekit is still my tool-of-choice for web fonts, but there are other alternatives if Typekit (or Adobe) aren't your thing. Fontdeck by the wonderful folks at Clearleft and OmniTI is a great contender and the new offering by the guys at HF&J, Cloud.typography, looks incredible. I mean, who wouldn't want to use Knockout in their next project?
Is there anything else you are dying to tell me about what you are loving with HTML and CSS these days?

What's really changed the game for me of late is adding Yeoman, Grunt, and Bower to my workflow. What these tools do and how I use them is a bit too much for this post, so that will have to wait for another time.
What does your browser support landscape look like these days?

Luckily, most of the projects I work on these days require support for IE9+ and the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera. On those rare instances I have to test for “less capable” browser I will fire up Browser Stack or VMware.
Do you still use a reset stylesheet, and if so, what do you use?

I used to employ a reset, but have switched to Normalize. The problem with a reset is that it is a sledgehammer when all you really need is a scalpel. You end up spending time (and lines of code) adding back the styles that the reset took away (margins, padding, list styles, etc.). Using a tool like Normalize will get you the browser consistency without he hassle of reimplementing what the browser includes by default.

Thinking Too Much About Chalk

2012-12-09T00:00:00Z

But I'm charmed by the idea that when a school teacher writes her name on a blackboard on the first day of class, what she's really doing is crushing the skeletons of terribly ancient earthlings into a form that spells out the name...

A fascinating article from NPR on the origins of chalk.

A Settler of Catan

2012-12-02T00:00:00Z

What is it with cats and boxes?

Mental Model Diagrams

2012-04-23T00:00:00Z

So good.

Mental Model Diagrams

Skype Menubar Icons

2012-04-18T00:00:00Z

Latest Skype update brings monochrome menubar icons. Finally.

Delivery from SimpleBits

2011-10-02T00:00:00Z

As is usually the case, when you order something from SimpleBits you get a lot of nice extras.

David Karp on adding new product features

2011-06-05T00:00:00Z

Every feature has some maintenance cost, and having fewer features lets us focus on the ones we care about and make sure they work very well. For every new feature we add, we take an old one out. A lot of big sites don't do that, and it's a problem. Twitter started as a beautifully simple product, but it's now going the same route as Facebook. The drive to innovate can overencumber and destroy a product. My goal is to keep Tumblr very focused.

A bit of wisdom from Tumblr's David Karp in the latest issue of Inc. Magazine.

An Event Apart: Boston

2011-05-16T00:00:00Z

It's been nearly a week and a half since returning home from An Event Apart Boston. It may be a little late to post a retrospective, and I'm surely not the first to post my thoughts on my time at the event, but here goes.

Like most attendees, a big part of the allure of the conference is the caliber of speakers and the quality of the talks. It's impossible to make the voyage home without your head buzzing with excitement over the ideas, stories and new techniques. Jeffrey and Eric created something truly exceptional and it's now become an annual tradition for me... Not to be missed.

As with past events, it's always a pleasure to sit back and listen to the words of some of the web's best minds. A lot of the speakers I've had the opportunity to listen to before, but this year I got a chance to see some of my heroes for the first time. Veerle Pieters taught us to push our boundaries and experiment. Ethan Marcotte discussed adapting our workflows to responsive design. Jeremy Keith talked of preserving our digital culture (an amazing presentation that needs to be heard by everyone). Mark Boulton changed the way I look at grid-based layout forever. And then there was this guy... Jeff Veen I think his name was? All kidding aside, I heard it said that if Jeff is on the speaker list then his is the last presentation because no one can follow. I couldn't agree more.

Since it has taken me a while to put my thoughts down digitally my words will sound very familiar to those of Anton and Jeremy, but they are no less sincere. This AEA, was even more special than in years past because of the amazing people. There were friends I've known for some time, Brad, Bridget, Jared and Eric. There were people I met in person for the first time, but who I'm honored to count among my friends and hope to see them more in coming years. Anton, Petra, Candi (Fellow Eddie Izzard fan), Jen, Landon, Isil, Gerardo, Kreshnik, Geri, Chloe, Matthew, Jesse, Chris, Jay and Jeremy (with whom I hope to have the opportunity to further debate the merits of the Star Wars prequels over a pint). All of them made my time at this AEA memorable and something I will truly cherish.

I hope that I didn't miss anyone in the long list of friends old and new. If I did, please feel free to send me an email and demand a beer when next we meet. If there is one bad thing to say about An Event Apart, it is that it always goes by so fast. It seemed like forever for the day to arrive and when it did it was over in an instant. I look forward to next year when I will again meet up with my friends over a nice dinner, gather with new acquaintances at one of the sponsored parties and enjoy the knowledge imparted during the two days of presentations.

See you all again in 2012 (and maybe, hopefully, some of you much sooner).

For more info on the talks and other AEA Boston related links you should read Jeffrey's summary of the event.

Ryan Sarver on the future of Twitter clients

2011-03-12T00:00:00Z

Still, our user research shows that consumers continue to be confused by the different ways that a fractured landscape of third-party Twitter clients display tweets and let users interact with core Twitter functions.

File that under the "Don't Bite the Hand that Feeds You".

You can read more of Sarver's backlash against third party developers in his post on Google Groups.

Update: Wonderfully insightful response by Drew McLellan.

Our job as designers

2010-11-18T00:00:00Z

Our job as designers is not to simply dress up the bottle and make it look pretty, but rather to find ways to enrich the story and enhance the message. CSS3 can help us do that today.

Dan Cederholm in CSS3 for Web Designers

New Book

2010-10-09T00:00:00Z

After a great recommendation from a friend I picked up the ePub version from Peach Pit. Loving it so far.

A Feed Apart

2010-09-17T00:00:00Z

For those of us who not lucky enough to be attending An Event Apart in DC, a gentle reminder that you can keep up with the action by visiting A Feed Apart. Beautifully executed and horribly addictive.

Visit A Feed Apart

Lost World's Fairs

2010-09-16T00:00:00Z

What happens when you get five designers and developers together to test the limits of IE9's support for the Web Open Font Format?

Something amazing.

Visit Lost World's Fairs

Lazy Sunday

2010-08-25T00:00:00Z

Went for a short Sunday hike with my wife and daughter. Nice to get away from the desk every once in a while.

Table Striping with jQuery

2009-11-01T00:00:00Z

Adding zebra stripes to a table adds a nice touch of usability for your audience and a bit of style to something, more often than not, visually boring. Doing this manually by adding classes of odd and even to alternate rows is a tedious task, especially if the data is constantly changing. As if this wasn't an issue for one familiar with markup, try to ask a client to do this when you hand a site off to them.

Enter JavaScript (well… jQuery)

Why do these things manually when you have a perfect tool with which to manipulate the DOM and do this for you? With JavaScript you can add the classes necessary for adding alternate classes to your table without touching the markup yourself. If you happen to be using jQuery then the task is as simple as adding a few short lines of code:

$(document).ready(function () {
  $("table tbody tr:odd").addClass("odd");
  $("table tbody tr:even").addClass("even");
});

Voila! You know have a class on every other table row with which to style to your heart's content. This is the code I usually implemented for the sites I worked on and for the most part this worked beautifully. With a recent project, however, this method proved inadequate.

The Problem

The problem arose when the design called for two tables to be displayed side by side. They were both just about the same length in the comp, and when I applied the usual method to achieve the striped effect, it worked without a hitch. When the code was passed along to the client, it all fell apart when they added another row to the table. Now when the striping was applied we got this:

The Solution

Two solutions actually. Google once again proved that you can find the answer to any question in a matter of seconds. By typing in "jQuery table striping issues" I came across an article by Trevor Davis regarding the issue was having with my tables. Trevor offered up an alternative to the usual method of striping by using nth-child:

$(document).ready(function () {
  $("table tbody tr:nth-child(odd)").addClass("odd");
  $("table tbody tr:nth-child(even)").addClass("even");
});

It worked like a charm and I could have stopped there, but reading the comments to the article I found that it wasn't really an issue with the method I was using rather that I wasn't resetting the striping for each new table on the page. This next bit of code was offered by Andy Couch and also achieves the desired results:

$(document).ready(function () {
  $("table").each(function () {
    $("table tbody tr:odd").addClass("odd");
    $("table tbody tr:even").addClass("even");
  });
});

Both solutions by Trevor and Andy work well, and as was noted in the comments of the article there are probably a hundred different ways to fix the problem.

Long Time Coming

2009-10-25T00:00:00Z

It's been a while since this site has seen some action. The last post was November of 2008, and while that's pretty horrible, I'm sure this isn't the first site to fall victim to neglect. Now, many months, a fresh coat of paint and a new CMS later I have to say it's good to be back.

The itch to redesign started last fall, and after many iterations (you're looking at version six) it was time to build out the templates. That was the easy part. In the midst of the redesign I got it in my head that I needed to graduate from WordPress to a more robust and flexible platform. I'd been working with ExpressionEngine for a while and found it easy to implement and a breeze to adapt to whatever configuration I wanted to throw at it. With that thrown into the equation, I shelved the idea of a quick launch as I didn't have the time to work on the back-end with a full time job and freelance gigs (not to mention being the father of a three year old).

So the clock ticked on, but eventually I found myself with enough time to start a local build out of EE and began the process of setting up my site, piece by piece. Slowly but surely the site began to take form and after a couple of months tweaking here and there it was ready for prime time. Again I have to give props to the ExpressionEngine team for making a CMS that is not only simple to get up and running, but is also rather easy to move from a local environment to remote server. Just a few configuration changes later and it was good to go. I'd also like to add that the excellent ExpressionEngine screencasts by Ryan Irelan and the wonderful support of the EE community made the process of building and migrating a painless endeavor.

As for the design itself, I tried my best to adhere to a simple grid layout (fluid that is) while adding some nice, progressively enhanced touches: rounded corners via border-radius, subtle use of text-shadow and box-shadow, use of nth child to style the appearance of the posts on the home page, as well as a little jQuery thrown in here and there for good measure.

As is the case for any redesign, this is and will always be a work in progress. I'm not finished with it by any means, but to finally have it live is a great feeling.

URL ABC

2008-11-28T00:00:00Z

A simple game: Go to the address bar in your favorite browser, and type one letter. Start with "a", end with "z".

Fun game via Tim Van Damme. Good way to spend a few minutes on a Friday morning.

Thankful

2008-11-28T00:00:00Z

Even though it is something most everybody does this time of year, I usually skip the tradition of giving thanks. Not that I'm ungrateful for the blessings in my life, just that it's not something I think to do as I'm always caught up in the other traditions of the day: making fun of the lip-synching during the Macy's parade, catching up with family that I haven't seen since the previous year, anticipating gorging on turkey and assorted side dishes, gorging on turkey and assorted side dishes, regretting gorging on turkey and assorted side dishes and so on.

This year, however, I would like to take a bit of time to give thanks to all of the great things that have happened over this past year. Why this year? Why do I take the time now when I didn't bother in the past? The last 365 days have been very good to me. Probably one of the best years I can remember to be honest and I would regret having it pass by without some acknowledgement.

So without further adieu, here is my list of things that have made this past year wonderful and for which I am truly grateful (in no particular order):

My daughter saying "I love you" for the first time.
My wife and I celebrating a decade of marriage.
With great and brilliant friends, taking a simple meetup and turning it into something much bigger.
Collaborating on some amazing projects and building up my freelance business.
Finally getting a chance to go to An Event Apart at which I spent time with good friends and made a few new ones along the way.
Finally changing jobs after nearly ten years.
For all of the support from my family with all of my endeavors over the year.
Feeling hopeful about the direction of my country for the first time in ages.
Finally getting back to world of Macs with my first purchase of one since the mid 90's.

Obviously this list isn't exhaustive, and I'm positive I've left out some items that should have been mentioned, but with a belly full of turkey that is best I could come up with at the moment.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

A List Apart 2008 Survey

2008-07-30T00:00:00Z

It's that time of the year again. The staff at A List Apart have released their second annual Survey for People Who Make Websites.

I highly recommend that anyone in the industry from designers to developers take a few minutes and head over to ALA and participate. It took me five minutes to complete and the information gained from the survey will benefit everyone.

So stop what you're doing, click on the link and take the survey already. You'll get a nice badge to display on your site when you finish. Who wouldn't want that?

Recap

2008-05-18T00:00:00Z

It's been a busy few weeks so instead of trying to think of some new clever article I'm going to recap the events of the last fourteen days.

Work has been very steady. New client work coming as well as collaborative efforts with local freelancers and agencies are keeping me busy. In spite of all the new projects coming my way I have found the time to get out, do a little socializing and learn a few new things.

The May meeting of Cleveland Web Standards Association was held in our usual location at Tri-C West Campus. For this meeting we were honored to have our own Joe Fiorini give an overview of Ruby programming with an emphasis on the Rails framework. The talk was wonderful and Joe really explained everything in terms even a layperson would understand. Excellent job, Joe!

This past Wednesday I was honored to be part of a panel of CWSA members presenting for the Northeast Ohio Chapter of the Usability Professionals' Association. Beth Dean, Bridget Stewart, Brad Colbow, Brendan Cullen, Julie Cousins and yours truly gave a talk on Web Standards. I was very happy with how well the talk was received. Beth and Bridget covered the basics of web standards with an excellent opening presentation. The question and answer session was great and my fellow panelists were brilliant. I do hope I didn't bore people to tears when spoke at length on microformats. Once I get started on that subject I can't seem to stop talking.

On Thursday, a few other CWSA peeps and I made a trip to Ohio City for Cleveland's first Startup Drinks event held at the Bier Markt. Beth, Bridget, Brad and I met the organizer, Andrew Kavanaugh, for a delicious dinner at Phnom Penh across the street. The Pad Thai was amazing.

Once we got to the Bier Markt, we met some others in the local Cleveland tech scene. People discussed their new projects, their passions and of course beer. During all of the hand shaking and glass tipping I found time to embarrass myself by playing a game of pool with Andrew. Had he not scratched the eight ball it would have been a humiliating defeat. In addition to seeing all of the new faces we also ran into some old friends. Chris Miller, lead developer of Mahalo, stopped by as well as fellow CWSA member, Joe Fiorini who revealed some details about his super secret project FS15. It will be quite exciting, but I won't say any more about it. Keep checking the site for updates.

That sums up the more major events of the past two weeks. Some exciting things are in store for the near future, but I'll save those for other posts.

CSS Off Returns

2008-04-04T00:00:00Z

In a little over 12 hours the latest CSS Off contest will be underway! For those of you unfamiliar with the CSS Off, it is a contest that puts a .psd in your hands and asks that you turn it into a semantic, standards-based site in 24 hours. I participated in the last one and had a great time. I highly recommend that everyone reading this take part.

This time around the comp has been designed by the amazing Brad Colbow who did a fantastic job. I can't wait to see how people approach the design. Additionally, I have been asked to be a part of the contest as a judge for which I am truly honored. I will be judging the entries along side some incredibly talented people including former Clevelander and fellow CWSA member Dan Ott who left our fair city for the bright lights of Bloomington, Indiana last year.

As I said before, download the files and throw your hat into the ring. Not only is it a lot of fun, but its a great learning experience. I found all of the comments by the judges incredibly informative and I feel they have helped me become better at my profession by forcing me to rethink some of my practices and methods.

CWSA March Meeting: Making the Case for Standards

2008-02-27T00:00:00Z

The first Tuesday of March is fast approaching and that can only mean one thing. It is time for another meeting of Cleveland Web Standards Association. Oh, yeah. There is some talk about an important primary in Ohio taking place on the same day or something, but I'm sure it isn't a big deal.

The meetup in March will focus on making the case for web standards which will be split into two separate presentations. Joseph Frantz will be covering the benefits of using web standards from a developer's perspective. Alexis Li will discuss making the case to the business community.

As always there will be a question and answer session after the presentations are finished. One thing I would like to request from attendees is that you stay after the Q & A for an "impromptu" social hour. It is always great to meet new people and share thoughts and ideas about what is going on in the web industry. So if your schedule permits, please stay and get to know your fellow geeks.

You can RSVP for the meeting on either Meetup.com or Upcoming.org.

The New Home of Cleveland Web Standards

2008-01-24T00:00:00Z

I am very proud to announce the launch of the new Cleveland Web Standards Association site. I had the pleasure of working with Brendan Cullen on getting this first iteration of our little corner of the web online. I say first iteration because from the beginning this site is meant to be a collaborative effort by members of the CWSA. However, being an association whose stated goal is to spread the word of web standards to the Cleveland area, we thought that is was crucial to get something up quickly.

Keeping in mind that the finished design will be a CWSA Core team collaboration, I wanted to make sure that version 1.0 was very simple and clean. I kept it to one font, minimal color and practically no embellishment. Save for the great photo in the header of the Hope Memorial Bridge. Thanks to Allyson Newell for letting us use the image.

Along with Brendan's help, fellow member Bridget Stewart took the time to work on the content for the about page. She summarized perfectly the goals of our group and outlined what steps we will be taking for the next version.

With all of that said, I am very happy with what we have accomplished in less than a year's time. We began a year ago with two web nerds comparing sites in a bar and have grown into something that I believe will change the web community in Cleveland for the better.

Now head on over to our site to see what's coming up on the calendar and sign up!

What's Going On

2008-01-19T00:00:00Z

This has to be the fourth blog post in as many weeks that I have started to write. The others have been banished to the back of my mind with a little help from the delete key. Half-hearted attempts to be witty, insightful, or (heaven forbid) instructional have been relegated to the nether regions of my brain where, as is the fate of most of my thoughts, will be summarily forgotten never to be spoken of again. Which in all three cases is probably a good thing.

So instead of writing about some CSS tip that has been posted by others with more skill than myself, I will briefly mention a few things that I've been excited about recently.

My New MacBook Pro

Of course I was going to write about this. I have been wanting a Mac for quite some time and I can finally say that I am now a proud owner of one. It really is a wonderful machine and the software available is truly amazing. Two apps that I have been dying to use, TextMate and Coda, are simply incredible and I've been putting them to the test this past week. It makes developing websites so much easier and a hell of a lot of fun. I highly recommend both.

I have been bugging my Mac owning friends lately on which apps I need to install. I have received some great recommendations so far, although I haven't had time to install or try out all of them yet. I plan to and will post a list of my favorites here at a later time.

CWSA and BarCamp

There's probably enough I could write here to be a post on its own, but I will just touch briefly on the subject. I and many fellow members of the Cleveland Web Standards Association have been discussing the idea of organizing a conference on Web Standards in the Northeast Ohio region. Taking into consideration that our group is still relatively small with little in the way of resources (and following the sage advice of Eric Meyer), I have been reading up on how to organize a BarCamp for Cleveland.

For those of you that aren't familiar with BarCamp, here is a short description from Wikipedia:

BarCamp is an international network of user generated conferences, open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants, often focusing on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies, social protocols, and open data formats.

It will take some time to get this organized but I am excited about the possibilities. A night of great talks, great people and ideas. I'm really looking forward to getting this underway. Cleveland needs events like this.

Coworking Space in Cleveland

Listening to the frustrations of a fellow web developer in the area has me thinking a lot about setting up a coworking space in Cleveland. Something along the lines of Citizen Space and Independents Hall. There are a lot of freelancers in the area, working in their home offices, basements and kitchens. While working at home does have some advantages there are always the inevitable distractions: television, children, spouses, chores, and so on. In addition to those distractions you lose the opportunity to collaborate and network face to face with your industry peers.

That being said I have begun to look into what is involved in setting something like this up in the Cleveland area. Mind you, I have absolutely no experience as to what it takes to get something like this established, but I believe it is something that could really benefit a lot of people in the region.

Well, there you have it. Just a few things that have my attention lately. BarCamp is definitely something that I can see happening in the next several months. The coworking idea, well, for now its a pipe-dream, but with a little effort and some help it could be a possibility. Who knows?

Time for a Change

2007-12-18T00:00:00Z

Finally. I've been boring my friends and family with talk of this redesign since September. Well, I can now proudly say that it's finished.

I had the site mocked up back at the end of September, and the basic coding finished by early October. A few projects, birthdays, colds and one holiday later and I'm able to say, "Here it is."

As with anything I do, I'm never satisfied with the finished product. I'll be scrutinizing every detail again and again over the next few months. Be prepared to see some minor changes from time to time. Ultimately though, I'm pretty happy with the overall look and feel of it, so I won't be doing a major update for a while.

Now that this is finally (mostly) finished I can put my focus back on client work, a little reading and enjoying the holidays.

CWSA 12.4.2007

2007-12-06T00:00:00Z

Another meeting of the Cleveland Web Standards Association has come and gone, and my what a busy night it was. The night was filled with wonderful presentations, good food and great discussions. As always, the real fun begins when the presentations end and the socializing begins. For those not able to attend here is a brief run down of the night's activities.

The Presentations

We were lucky to have not one, not two, not three, but four superb "mini" presentations on Tuesday.

First was Eric Wiley's presentation outlining how to create accessible image maps. Using the oft underused definition list, he demonstrated a technique put forth by Seth Duffey from an article he wrote on A List Apart.

Next up was David Mead who focussed not on one, but many topics. From tips on how to better organize your style sheets, to previewing some of the great things we can expect from CSS3.

Beth Dean reviewed the popular technique by Douglas Bowman, the Sliding Doors of CSS. She demonstrated this bit of CSS trickery using tabbed navigation. Nice. Clean. Bulletproof.

Lastly, Julie gave a quick presentation regarding Flash and how to make it respect the z-index property.

Post-Presentation Announcements

Joseph Frantz had a few announcements to make after the presentations had wrapped up. In brief, he went over the current state of the CWSA web site. We have a mock up of the main page ready and will hopefully be able to launch the site within a week to two weeks time. Some of our members have been working on logos which we will reveal and vote on at a later date. He also introduced a core team of association members who will oversee the direction of the site and help move the process along more quickly.

Also due to the holidays, our room at Tri-C West Campus will not be available until after January 12. We haven't yet decided on a date for the next meeting, but rest assured there will be one. We all want to keep the momentum going.

It's Been a While

2007-11-20T00:00:00Z

Since I've posted anything on this site. Save for the occasional picture pulled in from Flickr or a bookmark from Del.icio.us, it has been ghost town around here.

Needless to say, I've been very busy. Between collaborating on projects, catching up on some light reading and working on a redesign of this site, I've hardly had a moment to relax. I did manage to steal a few hours to watch the Transformers movie last night and catch up on some TiVo'd shows. Other than that it has been non-stop since mid-October.

Now that I have a long weekend coming up the thought of a few days of family, food and hours of Guitar Hero with my cousins and nephews is most welcome.

Once the holiday respite has passed I will dive head first back into my redesign. I'm really eager to get it launched already as the current design has outlived its usefullness to me.

So Happy Thanksgiving everybody! I sincerely hope you all have a safe and happy holiday weekend.

CSS Off Update

2007-10-11T00:00:00Z

I was away from my computer most of the day and upon returning to my desk I found out that I won the latest round of the CSS Off!

As I have said before, I had a great time participating in the contest. The pressure of the deadline coupled with the challenge presented by the design made this a lot of fun. Everyone should participate at least once, if for no other reason than the excellent feedback you receive from the judges as they will help you recognize your weakness and improve your skills as a result.

Thanks to everyone involved with the CSS Off. The news was a surprise and really made my day!

Pink for October

2007-10-04T00:00:00Z

My friend Brendan Cullen has inspired me to go Pink for October. For the next 28 days this site will shed its usual dreary grayish tones in support of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

CSS Off

2007-09-16T00:00:00Z

First of all, let me start this by saying thanks to Dan Ott. It was his persistance that prompted me to give this round of the CSS Off competition a go. Now here I sit, nearly 45 minutes after the final bell. Damn I'm tired.

I submitted my entry two minutes before the end of the contest. After spending nearly the entire day on this, I must say it was a lot of fun. I've always enjoyed working under pressure (to some extent) so this was right up my alley.

I can say that after having gone through it, I've learned a few things. I would now like to take the time to impart my new found wisdom:

Make sure that you close any comment tags in your CSS properly.

I had fifteen minutes to go and so I thought I would upload the folder to my server in order to validate the CSS file. Much to my chagrin I found that I didn't close a comment tag. Upon doing so it broke the layout of my entry. I had fifteen minutes to fix it, but I made it. Barely.
Find better ways to clear floats than me.

I cannot stress this one enough. Please, PLEASE stop what you're doing and read this article on clearing floats. Actually read anything you can on the subject. It is one of my weak spots and cost me a ton of time bug fixing when I could have been testing in more than one browser.
Test in more than one browser.

Actually, I always do this. Except in those cases when I have 24 hours to complete a design and have spent far too much time focusing on little details.
Don't spend too much time focussing on little details.

I was so worried about trying to use the include pattern that I ended up wasting two hours of time that could have been better spent with tasks like cross-browser testing. In the end I went ahead and marked up my hReviews without it.
Internet Explorer has been and will continue to be the bane of my existence.

At least for the foreseeable future anyhow. Although I can't really take all of my anger out on IE. Opera did a poor job of rendering my review table. I was a bit surprised.

Well, that's all I have for now. If the judges at CSS Off decide that they are only going to test my entry in Firefox and Safari, then I should be okay. If they break out Opera and IE (which I'm sure they will do, it is only fair) then I probably won't make the cut. Oh, well. I had a great time participating and encourage anyone reading this to do the same.

I will most likely participate in the next one (barring any unforeseen family events). Thanks for telling me about the contest, Dan. As you are one of the judges now, please show mercy on a fellow Clevelander.

Cleveland Web Standards Association

2007-09-14T00:00:00Z

This past Tuesday I attended the most recent meetup of the Cleveland Web Standards Association. I have to say that it was without a doubt our best ever. Apparently I am not the only one who feels this way. Chris Miller gave the meetup a great review on Refresh Cleveland's site. Brad Colbow discussed how the meetup has grown these past few months, from a simple meeting with five web geeks to an association made up of web professionals from all over the area.

I have always had a great time at these events. Meeting others in area who share a love for working on the internets. Learning new things. Socializing over a pint of Guinness.

Tuesday's meetup, however, really moved everything to the next level. Starting off with a great microformats presentation by none other than the esteemed Eric Meyer. The evening then moved on to socializing and networking with friends both old and new.

In addition to setting a standard for the format of future meetups (pun intended), we also have some new digs. Through the efforts of James Golden and Al Wasco, we now have a home at Cuyahoga Community College's West Campus (Tri-C West for you locals). This space lends itself to the kind of format we are looking for which will include presentations, workshops and round table discussions. Oh, I can't forget the free coffee (thanks, Al).

Like I said, it really was a great time and I'm looking forward to many more. For those in the area who were not able to make it on Tuesday.

POSH Your Site Up!

2007-08-29T00:00:00Z

There has been some talk around the Cleveland web scene of late asking the question: What standards should we be promoting?

The consensus in the comments of the Refresh Cleveland article, mine included, was that there is a real need to focus on the basics. By "basics" I mean Plain Old Semantic HTML or simply POSH. The idea of POSH was born from the Microformats movement as a way of promoting best practices in markup. By implementing POSH practices when designing or developing your sites, you are ensuring that the foundation is standards compliant. And that is what we are all striving for here, right?

In his article on the Clear Function blog entitled Applying progressive enhancements to your website, Nate Klaiber makes some POSH points:

HyperText Markup Language is the core of how web pages are constructed. HTML is used to define structure and give semantic meaning to your content layer. It is important to understand the tags you have available to you and when and where they should be properly used. Get your content structured and in place. Here you are building the foundation for the rest of your website. Be sure to keep your HTML clean of any presentational tags or attributes.

Nate's got it right. Make sure the foundation of your site, the content, is properly contructed. Only after you have a semantically rich site that validates should you then move on to enhancing it with CSS, JavaScript and Microformats.

How does one make sure that their website is POSH? I'm glad you asked. On the POSH section of the Microformats wiki, there is a checklist:

The first rule of POSH is that you must validate your POSH.
Second, drop the use of TABLEs for purely presentational purposes, spacer GIFs, and presentational-html in general.
Next, fix your Bed and BReakfast markup.
Eliminate Anorexic Anchors.
Use good semantic-class-names.

By following these suggestions, and implementing best practices in your HTML authoring, you will be well on your way to creating semantically rich, standards based websites. You really should visit the POSH wiki for more information on the subject. It has a wealth of resources that will help you in your efforts to make the web a better place.

A little nip here, a little tuck there.

2007-07-31T00:00:00Z

I was a bit bored with some of the elements of my site so I decided it needed a little facelift. No major surgery, just a quick update of the logo and some new background images for the titles. Although I think next time I will use sIFR.

This site is due for some major updates and changes, but sadly other projects are forcing me to put those changes off for a while. Hopefully I can get the ball rolling this fall, but I hesitate to make any promises.

TextMate for Windows?

2007-07-06T00:00:00Z

By now, everyone I know is aware that I plan on getting a Mac. I'm sure I've bored my poor wife to tears over the subject.

Well, until that day arrives I'll have to endure using my PC. There is, however, something that may make the situation a bit more bearable. I've just learned of a new text editor for Windows that mimics TextMate for the Mac. Its called E -TextEditor (or simply 'E') and it looks great. Not only does it work like TextMate, but it supports the bundles as well. In fact, when you try to view the documentation for E it redirects you to the TextMate site.

I'm going to give this software a spin since they offer a free trial. If it turns out to be all that they say it is, its only $34.95 to purchase a license. If there is anyone out there wishing they had an advanced text editor for Windows with all of the bells and whistles of TextMate, this may be what you're looking for.

Revisionist History

2007-05-16T00:00:00Z

I have just learned about the departure of Derek Powazek and Heather Champ from JPG Magazine via Naz Hamid.

The blatant rewriting of the history of JPG and the subsequent removal of any mention of Heather Champ's contributions have prompted me to delete my account.

I had not been a part of JPG Magazine's community for very long, so I am sure that getting rid of my account means absolutely nothing. It's the principle. I don't want to have any association with an organization that will treat its founders, the ones who really made the magazine what it was, with such disrespect.

Web Design Survey

2007-04-24T00:00:00Z

A List Apart is conducting a survey of the web design industry. Take some time to fill it out. Its quick, easy and there is a random drawing for prizes.

It asks the questions:

Who are we? Where do we live? What are our titles, our skills, our educational backgrounds? Where and with whom do we work? What do we earn? What do we value?

Go ahead and take it already!

Day in the Park

2007-04-24T00:00:00Z

With Spring finally making itself known in the Cleveland area, we decided to take Madeline on her first trip to the local park. Its a nice little place about half a mile from our house with a great trail winding through the woods. It was a great day to get out of the house so we packed up the car with her stroller, some toys, diaper bag, water, a hat (for the baby), and scooters for my nephews who were staying with us for the weekend. It took us about a half hour to get out of the house.

She seemed to have fun, at least when the sun wasn't in her eyes. After a stroll around the trail we ended up back at the pavilion where Nick and Anthony played on the jungle gym. As soon as Kathy and I sat down on the bench we had to move to a new location because of all of the bees that decided we were more interesting than the nearby garbage can.

Speaking of Spring and insects, I had decided to fire up the grill and cook some salmon for dinner. Upon opening the lid two wasps flew into my face. I ran to the other side of the deck and they went back to the grill. With the lid now open I could see a wasp nest about the size of my fist. Perfect. I guess the salmon would have to wait for now.

Best. Movie. Ever.

2006-09-06T00:00:00Z

I just recently re-watched my all-time favorite movie, Chinatown. I love this movie, but when I forget how absolutely brilliant it is if I let too much time lapse between viewings.

From the opening credits which hearken back to the early days of cinema to the final depressing scene, this movie masterfully captures the look and feel of classic film noir.

The mystery surrounding the story is compelling and believable. It takes place in Los Angeles during the 30's and touches on the politics and intrigue surrounding its early days and potential growth into a major metropolis. This plot is interweaved into the lives of the main characters J.J. "Jake" Gittes (Jack Nicholson), Evelyn Cross Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) and Noah Cross (John Huston). While Jack Nicholson is amazing in just about every movie he's in, John Huston definitely steals the show.

I don't want to give too much of the plot away, just trust me. Add this to your Netflix queue or go to your local video store and rent it. You will not be sorry. Its been my top movie for as long as I can remember, and will probably be number one on my list for the foreseeable future.

Enjoy!

A Great Show, Sad Turn of Events

2006-04-10T00:00:00Z

I know I'm posting this quite late in game, but oh well. So be it.

Toward the end of the second season of Arrested Development, my wife and I got hooked. It has to be one of the funniest shows that I've seen on TV in quite some time. After watching the end of the second season, we were able to watch it in its entirety during a marathon rebroadcast over the course of a week. Absolutely hilarious! That Christmas Kathy picked up the first two seasons on DVD which we began watching immediately.

By now, of course, the third season is done and sadly the series may be done as well. Fox in their stupidity is canceling the show. There is hope that another network will pick it up (Showtime has shown some interest). But, alas, I haven't heard anything solid.

My advice is for you to do yourself a favor and rent the first two seasons (the third hasn't been released yet). You won't be disappointed. Unless of course you consider a show like Freddie to be the pinnacle of television comedies.

Weekend Out East

2005-07-23T00:00:00Z

I know, its been a while since I've posted. But, hey, its been busy. I know, I know, that's no excuse, but I'm using it anyway.

So here I am trying to play catch up. A hell of a lot has happened since the last post so I guess I'll be updating this quite frequently to get this thing current.

Back around the end of May, my wife, nephews and I went to Maryland to visit her cousin Tamara, her husband Ron and their two children Kaley and Alina. We went a few years back and had a great time and really wanted to get there. We figured we should bring the boys since it would be their first out of state trip, their first plane ride and their first look at the ocean (that's a lot of firsts).

We arrived late on Thursday the 26th, hungry, tired and very much in need of a drink. Kathy and me, of course, not the kids. It was quite a packed weekend as we visited Sandy Point State Park (right off Chesapeake Bay), some little town that was having some crazy festival (basically an excuse for the locals to band together in the center of town and get piss drunk), and topped it off with a trip to Ocean City.

Ocean City is quite an experience. We had a great spot right near the water. Soft sand. Cool ocean breeze. Relatively quiet and peaceful. Then about fifty yards away you have the boardwalk which I can only describe as a cross between an amusement park, a row of fraternity houses, and a place some people still think the mullet is the coiffure du jour. All kidding aside it was a blast and I am happy to have had the experience.

As always, spending time with Ron and Tamara is great. They are a lot of fun (although very busy these days). Even with all of the commotion of having four children to look after we all managed to have a wonderful time. Now that they are moving back to the Midwest, we can enjoy more times like this trip.

Okay, okay... Enough of my insipid writing. I posted some photos of the trip which are much more entertaining.

Summer Project

2005-06-07T00:00:00Z

Let me preface this by saying that if it wasn't for the vision and expertise of my father-in-law, Mark Stevenson, our new deck would be a complete and utter mess if it existed at all. I also have to give many thanks to my father and brother for driving in from Bowling Green and Bryan, Ohio respectively to help. It couldn't have been done without their efforts and I thank them profusely. That being said I posted some photos on Flickr that show the progress from mere posts to a completed deck.

It's one of those projects that start out as a pain in the ass and just goes downhill from there. First, I had very little sleep the night before and people started showing up way too early for a Saturday. Add to that a lack of coffee (or any caffeinated beverage for that matter) and you can imagine how the day was going to play out.

Let me just say that while my experiences with Home Depot are generally positive; they were really trying my patience that day. From mixing up our lumber order to having to wait an hour and a half to get a rental truck I was ready to just say to hell with this deck and go back to sleep.

Long story short, once we got back to the house with the supplies; building the deck went surprisingly fast and by the next day it was nearly complete. The only thing we didn't get to was the railing which my father-in-law took care of while Kathy and I were on vacation.

Now I have a beautiful deck overlooking the woods in my backyard. All that's left is to grab a beer, a chair, a good book and relax.