Nov 232011
It’s been a while since I’ve written here, partly because I feel like anything I might want to say has been said already by people who could say it better! However, I’ve been promising some friends that I would make a list of some of my favorite blogs and websites I use for front-end dev and design resources, and I’ve been slacking off. Since these are the resources I’ve gathered over time, this is finally something I can write that someone else cannot ;)
Hopefully I’ll be able to get back into the swing of things and write here more often. But in the meantime at least, here’s a list of the web dev/design blogs that I try to keep up with.
- 24 Ways – The best description is right off the front page of the website: “24 ways is the advent calendar for web geeks. Each day throughout December we publish a daily dose of web design and development goodness to bring you all a little Christmas cheer.”
- A List Apart – I’m pretty sure that everyone knows about this, but you can’t just leave it out :) really fantastic articles from really smart people.
- CSS Tricks – Lots of neat CSS tricks to be learned here.
- Finch Fresh Thinking – Thought-provoking articles on design
- Jens Meiert – “Jens O. Meiert (Google, W3C, O’Reilly) on professional web design, web development, accessibility, and usability.”
- jQuery for Designers – I’m ashamed to admit it, but I like to just have things work in JS and not have to play with it forever. jQuery makes my life easy for this, so this site is kind of perfect.
- Just Creative Design – Fun to read articles on web and logo design
- Kimili – Pretty sure this is a friend of an old coworker of mine. I’ve enjoyed reading the seldom blog posts though and have used some of the techniques he has written about.
- Pro Blog Design – Many helpful WordPress tips here.
- SitePoint – Lots of assorted articles that are generally helpful for web development. They also sell books if you are so inclined to buy some.
- Smashing Magazine – Yet another site with lots of helpful articles about a wide variety of topics relevant to web designers/devs.
- Spyre Studios – Web design/dev magazine. Lots of list type posts (ie “6 amazing things you can do with wordpress”) but I’ve enjoyed reading the articles.
- The Designer’s Review of Books – I’ve added way too many books (is there such a thing?) to my amazon wishlist because of this site.
- Vandelay Website Design – Nice blog with list posts, inspiration, etc.
- Web Designer Wall – Inspiration for design and development, and tips!
- Web Designer Depot – Articles on design and development
- WP Recipes – More WordPress tips and tricks.
People in the web design/development world I like to follow. I think these are all pretty obvious :)
Not updated but I still keep an eye on it and may use old articles for reference:
I think that hits the majority of them. Of course, there are also some sites I don’t follow regularly but still grab some articles off of them that I like. You can always find a list of the web dev related bookmarks I’ve made on delicious.
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May 52011
Today I attended A Day Apart in Boston! My only regret is that I was unable to attend for Monday and Tuesday due to not realizing how early in the year the conference was this time around.
The last time I attended An Event Apart, it was 2008 and the conference was in June. So I’m just glad I was able to get a ticket, even if it was only for A Day Apart!
A Day Apart is the HTML5/CSS3 workshop that is tacked on to the end of the standard An Event Apart conference. In the first half of the day, Jeremy Keith, author of HTML5 for Web Designers spoke to us about HTML5. We started with an overview of the history of HTML and then went over the syntax and what has changed (or hasn’t changed) since HTML 4, as well as a kind of quiz on the new elements. It was a lot of fun and gave me high hopes for the rest of the day.
I was at first a little unsure of what the CSS3 portion of the day would be like. After all, I’ve already been using some aspects of CSS3 quite regularly, and others I’ve known about for some time even if I haven’t used them in a real website so far. However this portion of the day was really surprising to me! It was Ethan Marcotte’s turn to talk, and he went over a variety of CSS3… some of it I knew already and it was nice to get an overview, but some I hadn’t ever used or really noticed being used before. I learned a lot and also got even more excited than I already was for the new emerging technologies. I was a little disappointed that his talk ran a bit long and had to be cut short in order for the conference to end in a timely fashion, because I was particularly interested in hearing what he had to say on responsive web design. However, he does have a book coming out next month called Responsive Web Design, so perhaps I’ll get some of my answers there!
By the end of the day I was pretty sure I was going to go home and spend all night changing all of my personal sites over to full HTML5 and CSS3 support. That is… unrealistic, to say the least. However, it’s great when a conference/workshop can give you so much excitement and hope for your industry! I am looking forward to converting this site and perhaps my other, geeky non-web dev blog into HTML5 and also to include more CSS3, but somehow I don’t think that will all be done in the next two hours… :)
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Apr 72011
I just read an article today by 37 Signals’ Jason Fried, Why I Run a Flat Company.
It really struck a chord with me because this idea of horizontal ambition does not seem to be widely practiced, or at least not talked about. When I started my first job in web development, starting as the person who hand edited the front page of csmonitor.com, I had this in my head and I still have it now. I have little desire to “rise up the ranks” as it were, to become a manager or anything higher than that. I don’t doubt that I could manage people if it were needed but… why? I look at managers around me and managers who I’ve had in the past, and I see people who are stuck in meetings all day and hardly get any time to do anything else. Even people who are supposed to be managers and programmers rarely have any time to actually program (and if they do, they don’t seem to be doing a whole lot of management).
I understand that some people like that; some people enjoy the money and power that comes with management and perhaps even the act of managing itself, whether it is a project or a small group of people. Things may change for me in the future, but as far as I can tell, I’m not one of those people, at least as far as life in the work force goes. I started at the Monitor knowing basic CSS and HTML and I thirsted for more knowledge, to learn more so I could do more and be better at my job. When I compare myself now, almost 4 years later, to the person I was back then, I am so proud at how much I’ve grown and I can only hope that in 4 more years I can say the same in a comparison to the person I am today.
I always want to learn more – I want to become a JavaScript expert. I want to learn more about web design and someday feel confident enough to call myself a designer, not just a developer (though I do really love design). I want to dive into the new technologies and use them in my everyday work. I don’t want to become a manager and get stuck in meetings all day and have to worry about passing out tasks to other people. The only career move I can think of maybe coming after a front end developer or designer is… full time freelancer – but I don’t see that happening for some time. That’s a really scary decision to make! But in the meantime I am reading blogs and books and trying my best to keep up with my industry, because I want to be the best at my job that I can be.
I hope that more companies adopt this policy or at least just give it some more thought. I realize that some people want to progress vertically, to be promoted to higher positions in the company, but I think there are also a lot of people out there like me, and it’s nice to see a businessman actually acknowledge us!
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