web design & development
I write about useful tools I find, design and development methodologies I experiment with, and other stuff I learn as I pursue my passion for building first-class, modern websites.
life stuff too
Though I love web design, there’s a lot more to life than that. I hope you’ll share with me as I learn to build a higher quality life for myself and for others.
recent articles
February 11, 2012
Creating a modern AJAX contact form in ExpressionEngine
Through the magic of JQuery and AJAX, you can AJAX-ify EE's built-in contact form to get a more responsive user experience. And you can do it with a minimum of hassle. All you'll need is some fresh JQuery and CSS to go with your ordinary EE contact form in your template. Here's how.
November 04, 2011
Faster page loads part two: automating minification with Phing
In part two of the series, I'll show you how to harness the power of a Phing build.xml script to automate your Javascript and CSS minification.
August 31, 2011
Faster page loads part one: installing Phing and YUI Compressor
If you are building modern websites like me, you're probably using plenty of Javascript and CSS. It can take a significant chunk of time to load these resources. So is there an easy way to reduce the load time on all those scripts and CSS? And will it really make a difference? Yes, and Yes!
July 11, 2011
Equally spaced horizontal navigation links that align with their container : a JQuery script
Have you ever wanted a list of equally-spaced navigation links that line up with the left and right edges of their container? I don't think CSS can do that, so I wrote a JQuery script.
April 29, 2011
Mountain bike shopping part two - secrets to great customer service
With just a few simple techniques we can create great customer experiences. We just have to think about the customer throughout every interaction. Here's how.
March 31, 2011
The Caption-ator - image captions in HTML5 using figcaption and JQuery
I wanted to automatically generate HTML5 image captions from an image element, using figure and figcaption. Here's how I did it.
March 20, 2011
Mountain bike shopping for short people - lessons in economics and design
I've been shopping for a mountain bike recently. I'm short, and it was hard to find a bike that fits. The experience really made me think about economics and design, and how that relates to web design.
March 12, 2011
Building a modern website part two - how I used HTML5
There are a ton of new features in HTML5. I chose just a few in building this site. Here are the features I used and why.
March 02, 2011
Building a modern website part one - should you use HTML5?
I built this website using HTML5 and CSS3. Many of the new HTML5 features work in browsers right now. Here's what I learned about HTML5 and why I chose to use it.
February 04, 2011
Sitting down all day can kill you, but it doesn’t have to
New research shows harsh evidence that sitting down all day has serious negative effects on your health...but you can do something about it.