Opinion
- 27.Dec
- The place that’s halfway between blogging and microblogging
140 characters can often be too short. A blog post can often be too long. Have a genius idea that fills up the space somewhere in the middle of those two? Posterous might be for you. It’s definitely for me.
- 07.Dec
- Why I won’t be buying the Rage Against The Machine single before Christmas
There is a big campaign to get Rage Against The Machine to be the top of the charts for Christmas. It’s just not right. I
don’t want them to be Christmas number one – and for good reason. - 06.Dec
- Why this post has a cheesy image in it
Freebie images is a plugin for WordPress which lets you quickly and easily add free imagery to your posts.
Scary server side
- 16.Mar
- Using a for loop, print the numbers from 0 to 5
I’ve been training for a ZCE certification, and found myself getting quite annoyed with some of the more obvious questions. One of the questions in the beginning of the test was which of the pieces of code would output the numbers 0 to 5 using a for loop. I mean, come on! I present some of my more creative and twisted ways of completing said task.
- 22.Feb
- Operator precedence – what does
(i=1)*i-- - --i*(i=-3)*i++ + ++iequal and why? I was looking at some code from a number of years ago and was horrified by the amount of ‘clever code’ in there. After decoding it, I immediately rewrote it. Then I set myself a challenge. Write the dirtiest expression ever to besmirch a hard-drive, then decode it in a blog post. I present to you with the fruit of my labour.
- 09.Feb
- How to stop pesky spam by blocking IP addresses from visiting your blog
I had a lot of spam from a particular IP *cough* 194.8.75.149 *cough* so I wanted to stop access to the site from the IP. Using only 3 lines in my htaccess file, I managed to cut down my spam by 4 an hour!
Cool client side
- 22.Sep
- Google Chrome Frame. Saviour of the internet?
It’s a simple and brilliant concept. Get people to install a plugin on internet explorer, add a meta tag to your source code, then Google Chrome Frame will render the page using Webkit and its Javascript engine instead. It sounds like it could save the internet. But will it work?
- 22.Jul
- WebAIM: Screen reader survey results
Web accessiblity in mind (WebAIM) have published results of their screen reader survey. While reports are often boring, they are often very useful, and this is one of those reports. Screen reader use is often forgotten during the build of a website in the jungle of SEO and the like. The report graphs things like how people browse sites (i.e. whether headings are useful), how often they find skip links and how often other usability good-practices are encountered. Give it a read and improve your web build process.
- 05.Jul
- Defenders in tights
I’ve just stumbled across a fine advert for Google’s Chrome browser. I’ve never seen any ads for it before other than text links suggesting that you might possibly at some point maybe want to try a different browser. I hope that you enjoy the Defenders in tights ad as much as I did.
Other bloggery
- 25.Oct
- Redesigning slightlymore and a fun side project
My close friends will know two facts about me (probably more, too): I work a lot and I love roller coasters. I’ve already confessed to the near death of slightlymore in its current incarnation and after getting back from a holiday to Spain to a theme park, I have decided to write a book to give me something to do in the evenings instead of work.
- 12.Oct
- slightlymore is dead – long live slightlymore!
So it appears that my blogging activity at slightlymore has slowly but very surely ground to a halt. This wasn’t intentional – I set up the site with very specific goals; to own a website which was a great resource for developers with some great tutorials on it. I just don’t have the time to [...]
- 15.Aug
- Learn to cook in your hotel room
Comedian George Egg gives us a lesson in how to cook an impressive looking meal in your hotel room.
Elsewhere
- 22.Jul
- WebAIM: Screen reader survey results
Web accessiblity in mind (WebAIM) have published results of their screen reader survey. While reports are often boring, they are often very useful, and this is one of those reports. Screen reader use is often forgotten during the build of a website in the jungle of SEO and the like. The report graphs things like how people browse sites (i.e. whether headings are useful), how often they find skip links and how often other usability good-practices are encountered. Give it a read and improve your web build process.
- 02.Jun
- Useful glossaries for web designers and developers
Another glossary I’m afraid, but you can never have too many of them. This one on Smashing Magazine covers everything from typography to marketing, CSS to print design and Twitter to even higher level things such as software development. There are loads of links to all over the intertubes, so if you’ve got a spare moment, head over to this article and get reading!
- 02.Jun
- 8 Tips for Maintaining a User Friendly Site in One Hour a Month
I’m sure it’s happened to you. It’s always happening to me. How easy is it to build ‘My awesome website’ which is beautifully SEO’d, completely accessible to everyone and everything only to find that after launch, it quickly turns into ‘My messy website 3.0′. It could be broken links or images, spelling mistakes or pages which somehow magically stop working. The UX Booth has written a brilliant article with suggestions as to what to check for and why it’s important. And hey, an hour a month isn’t that much time, is it.
