It was really pretty easy. I submitted it. Lord knows if they'll accept it, but even if they don't it won't stop me from doing another one 
Interested in doing one yourself? Google has an excellent developer's guide.
I made the image in my gallery pages "hot" today. Each gallery image now points to the next image in the gallery flow. It'll be interesting to see if that increases the average number of page views per user. I'm thinking it will as a lot of people use that technique so I'll hopefully be leveraging that learned behavior. Logically it just makes sense as those back, home and next buttons are way too small. I'll report the results in a couple of weeks…
I'm actually in the process of recoding all the gallery pages (with the exception of the alphabet I posted yesterday, which was built that way from the beginning) to have an actual anchor tag wrapped around the image. For now I'm doing it with a little bit of JavaScript:
var imgs = $("artimg").getElementsByTagName("img");
for (var i=0; i< imgs.length; i++) {
imgs[0].onclick= function() {
document.location.href=$("next").href;
}
}
where "next" is the existing ID applied to the next link in gallery pages. I love being able to use such simple JavaScript to enhance the user experience in such a (potentially) large way.
I really like the idea, especially for "skinnable" apps and sites. We have a few ongoing concerns here that would immediately benefit from an @variables declaration after the reset section. Coding certain large changes, of course, would also be greatly simplified. Count me as a +1.
Initially, I do wonder about rendering performance since there are issues with IE's CSS Expressions and this seems like it could run into similar issues- then again I'm not a browser developer, so what the hell do I know?
Since the release of CSS Level 2 Recommendation ten years ago in may 1998, the Web authors' community has been requesting a way of defining variables in CSS. Variables allow to define stylesheet-wide values identified by a token and usable in all CSS declarations. If a value is often used in a stylesheet - a common example is the value of the color or background-color properties - it's then easy to update the whole stylesheet statically or dynamically modifying just one variable instead of modifying all style rules applying the property/value pair. We expect CSS Variables to receive a very positive feedback from both the Web authors' community and browser vendors.
Being the cycling nerd that I am I added the Lance Armstrong one, but there are a ton of great new themes.
Here's the Livestrong one in action:
Some on-topic options:
Os Gemeos:
Shepard Fairey:
Check out the whole list:
Check it out.
Invesra | Invest in your Future
The company is called Invesra. It's a financial services startup with backing from Village Ventures. I did a quick site for them to get their new brand* out the door for the FinovateStartup even in San Francisco this week. They've got a great team** and an interesting product so it's been a pleasure helping them out during a crunch period. As it always does, working with a startup makes me miss those startup days myself.
Then I think back to what working for two at once was like (Boston's Weekly Dig and Advisortech) and I like the agency life just that little bit more
**My lovely and talented girlfriend is Director of User Experience
I've been trying to figure out who the Web 2.0 bubble's Henry Blodget is* over the past few days and then along comes Fake Steve Jobs to remind me that Blodget himself has a chance to keep the crown. The following quote is brilliant stuff:
Folks, if you're working at any of these "digital startups" you really don't need Henry Blodget's Silicon Alley Insider index to tell you what your options are worth right now. I'll tell you the answer right now. They're worth nothing. That's for most of you anyway. Because one day very soon this whole crazy mess is going to blow up and you'll be looking for work at Starbucks again, just like you were after the last bubble burst.
My advice? Print out this crazy list and pin it to your wall and wait for the crash. Then you'll have a wonderful keepsake by which to remember Bubble 2.0.
Because if there's any sure sign that the end is near, it's the fact that Henry Blodget is publishing an index with ridiculously high valuations for companies that don't actually make products and don't have revenues. What drives this ridiculous man? Why the obsessive need to hype and tout? Is he not satisfied to have played a starring role in the greatest financial mess of our lifetime? Now he needs to do it again? It's like a real-life version of Groundhog Day. Or one of those rings of hell in Dante's Inferno where people are condemned to keep performing the same sinful acts over and over again into eternity.
Read the rest:
The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: Alley Insider creates Bubble 2.0 keepsake
*since we've clearly transitioned into a world that parallels the "irrational exuberance" of the late 90s. I knew something bizarre was afoot when Facebook's "$15,000,000″ valuation was actually swallowed wholesale by people who should know better. That feeling has been furthered by the idea that it's a good thing for apps like Twitter just grow and grow and grow only to "figure out how to make money later." I like Twitter a lot and am impressed by Facebook's core application and API, but I look at these and other services and just don't see big $$. At the end of the day, real money (cash flow) is what's going to keep this euphoric wave going. Without some real cash for some of these services, things have the potential to go south in a big way and if they do people are going to be hurting again. We went through that once already and I'd like to see this valley be a little less painful than the last time we were in a downturn. I survived the early part of this decade and came out stronger (unlike many people I was able to stay in the industry during that period,) but that doesn't mean I want to go through that again any time soon.
…could fill a book.
No. Really. And it's a big book too.
It's true. While I have a basic grasp of regular expressions and can repurpose/edit other people's more complicated ones to fit my needs, I'm actually pretty crap at writing anything beyond the most basic on my own. Being an irrepressible geek, that's kind of embarrassing. I'm a code nerd. I should know this stuff.
What am I going to do about it? I'm not going to buy tha book, I know that for certain My reading list is already too long and that's one big-ass book.
What I'm going to do instead is practice, practice, practice and write up my results here for all the world to see (and hopefully critique?) Lord knows when this will actually happen as this April is the busiest month of my life, but it's coming at some point. There are just too many times where I have this nagging suspicion that, were I just a regexp ninja, I could do something really fancy/efficient/wizardlike.
The panel was a lot of fun.
Not surprisingly, considering the the smart folks I was paired with, I learned a few things myself, the two biggest:
Thanks to everyone that came out!
Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition
I'd never read this web usability classic before and my to-the-point review is this:
There's a reason this book is a classic in the field. It's smart, well written, funny and damned easy to read through*.
Quick hit reviews aside, I was surprised to learn that this book was at least partially written in a Bruegger's that I frequent. It's true. Steve Krug lives in the next town over and tapped out at least some of the book in a Bruegger's just a couple of miles from here. I feel just that much smarter by association
*It's a perfect book for a plane trip, so if you work on the web and haven't read this book pick it up before the next coast-to-coast or transatlantic (or pacific) flight. You'll be a better designer/developer/manager when you land on the other side.
For those of you that don't use the site, they have this "People you may know" feature on LinkedIn, which basically suggests people who you might know and, presumably, want to connect with. It's occasionally spot on and I've connected with a couple of people by scanning their list of suggestions. Thing is, there's this one guy that keeps showing up on the list that I absolutely hate (one of the two people I've ever worked with in the field that I actually hate) and none of the "no, I don't want to connect with this guy" options are strong enough for my liking. I'm tempted to use firebug to edit the HTML add my own and see what happens:
Names blocked out to protect the innocent
