Links from 2010

A bundle of TextMate tips.

TextMate macro to convert multi-line CSS to single-line (or vice versa).

These pieces provided by Dojo — or any other comprehensive toolkit, for that matter — are but starter patterns, and thread, and scissors, and pins, and a sewing machine, and OK I’m stretching the metaphor, now, but my point is they’re definitely not finished one-size-fits-nobody garments. On the other hand, if I decide to use jQuery in a large application, it can feel like I’ve been given a black marker and some of that crinkly brown paper, and now it’s up to me to draw a pattern and then come up with all those other pieces, too. Intellectually interesting and pleasingly crafty, perhaps, but not particularly efficient, sustainable, repeatable, or maintainable.

This is a land where HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are almost all you need, and I like it. I’ve become a firm believer in moving giant hunks of functionality that used to belong to the server over to the client. For a variety of reasons, I think it’s clear that this is where most interesting web development is headed, to the extent it’s not already there.

A riposte from PPK. Sounds like it's feasible but bloody hard work.

Much more beyond this quote... "When you actually need to travel, your personal devices will keep you on track. For example something the “JITwatch“, or that iPhone app that triggers an alarm when GPS indicates you’re within a particular distance from your destination."... but everything has been done already.

Usually, objections to this plan [requiring JavaScript] do not equate to predictions that we’re going to screw that up or that it won’t be sufficient; rather, they represent an opinion that requiring Javascript for a web application is an automatic accessibility violation. This might be partly a historical feeling, as some older accessibility standards contained language that said (or could be taken to imply) that in order to be accessible, a site had to work with Javascript turned off. I don’t know what motivated the inclusion of those clauses at the time, but would note that most modern accessibility standards merely say that one’s site must be accessible (regardless of whether or not it uses or requires client-side scripting).

"That is the new way to build companies, College degrees don’t matter much IMHO anymore, for developers anyway. It’s more how you interact with the open source community and what you release yourself. Your github account has become your new resume and what you say on Twitter and in various IRC channels are more likely to get you the best jobs then any recruiters ever will." Although only if you're working for people who've actually heard of github i.e. not adland.

Time for a man in desperate need of a pint for @ohskylab

"So which companies need to have a hacker-centric culture? Which companies are "in the software business" in this respect? As Yahoo discovered, the area covered by this rule is bigger than most people realize. The answer is: any company that needs to have good software."

Spiffing!" After more than two years in iterative development, you get the best of the best practices baked in: cross-browser normalization, performance optimizations, even optional features like cross-domain ajax and flash. A starter apache .htaccess config file hooks you the eff up with caching rules and preps your site to serve HTML5 video, use @font-face, and get your gzip zipple on."

All the tools you need for Screen Scraping & Data Mining.

The key idea here that most entrepreneurs miss is that you really need to vet your own ideas. Many aspiring entrepreneurs dream up an idea, and then stick to it doggedly, either because its the only idea they have, or they find it technically interesting. They don't want to discover that it won't work, so they don't try to figure it out! This is a bit like writing some code, and then not testing it because you really don't want to discover that its buggy.

A web based code review system, facilitating online code reviews for projects using the Git version control system.

Some light info about designing the Tesco groceries API.

I created a CSS test page, which started out as a crude way to figure out if there was a noticeable performance difference between SASS’s @extend and OOCSS’s method of CSS.

Rawr! Be the machine! Another version of "stop faffing about and just get on with it".

Well done, Ribot.

Answer: no. Clever hack with security implications. "In effect, this is taking the old phishing trick of homoglyph attacks—an attack consisting of using confusing look-a-like URLs like paypa1.com with the numeral one replacing the letter ell—and adding a dash of cross-site scripting but where you become the agent of infection: the supposed “censorship” may be shocking enough to cause you to forward the link."

This summer, on a Southwark playground in the heart of London, award-winning Berlin-based architects Köbberling and Kaltwasser will work alongside volunteers to create The Jellyfish Theatre, London’s first fully-functioning theatre made entirely from recycled and reclaimed materials.

This directory of Linux commands is from Linux in a Nutshell, 5th Edition.

Damn you, Firefox Web Developer toolbar! </fistshake>

“Based on the classic educational computer game”.

From Derek Sivers: "assistants to do your uncreative dirty work, so you can do what only you can do".

At An Event Apart in Minneapolis, MN Dan Cederholm illustrated the potential of CSS3 to enhance the user experience in modern Web browsers by walking through The CSS3 Experience. Dan used a showcase site he created to illustrate CSS3 in action at: Things We Left on the Moon.

How to find and safeguard all the hidden code you don’t know your business relies on.

Automated site testing based on Selenium.

New eye-tracking system using webcams. Clever!

"Here’s a pricing technique that sounds, at first, like the dumbest newbie move of all time. Call it ‘fill-in-the-blank’ invoicing. Or ‘pay what you want’ pricing. The notion is, you do the work first, then let the client decide how much to pay for it." Heavy caveats.

Not totally convinced by the results shown here but potentially a useful starting point.

Most customers these days demonstrate a huge — and increasing — appetite for self-service, yet most companies run their operations as if customers prefer to interact with them live.

A readable git reference.

Despite marketers' embrace of the medium, brands are finding themselves on the outside of the conversation. Of the 90% of Twitter messages sent by real people -- the other 10% come from businesses -- only 12% ever mention a brand, and most of those mentions are of Twitter itself. Further, only 1% of consumer tweets that mention a brand are part of an active conversation with that brand, meaning marketers are, for the most part, conducting one-way conversations -- the opposite of the way consumers often use Twitter.

Techno mix from and interview with Russ. "I think with Uncharted it's a lot to do with the people. I refuse to work with anyone who isn't on my wavelength. I do this because I love it so why would I want to spend time arguing with someone or being suspicious of them or they of me? It's a very honest and down-to-earth bunch of people, they are all a pleasure to know and to work with and of course they're all extremely talented." Yes.