Not seen a lot of @dconstruct chatter today; presumably the wifi is the usual web conference quality.

Links & Thoughts

1. 24 August

   Justin Bieber 800% slower #

   Reminiscent of Blade Runner-era Vangelis, and surprisingly listenable.

2. Periodic Table of the Elements #

   Finally, a genuinely useful piece of information design.

3. 23 July

   Using URL rewrites to make ExpressionEngine, Campaign Monitor & Google Analytics play nice #

   Bookmarking this article so I don’t have to keep searching for it when this problem bites me every time.

4. 14 June

   EECI2010 Round-Up #

   Bookmarking for future reference back to the various Erskine presentations from EECI2010.

5. 19 May

   So you’re moving to Hollywood #

   A great, great article on the experiences of a 20-something aspiring screenwriter working a series of soul-destroying PA jobs in Los Angeles.

6. 9 April

   Google Maps API Tutorials #

   An enormous collection of tutorials and links relating to Google’s Maps API.

7. 30 March

   3 CodeIgniter libraries that will make your life easier #

   The Ocular templating library looks interesting.

8. 23 March

   Placehold.it - Quick and simple image placeholders #

   An actually useful single-serving site. I’m bound to forget about it when I actually need it, though…

9. 19 March

   JavaScript Module Pattern: In-Depth #

   This is a great, detailed look at the Module Pattern in JavaScript. I’d really like to convert all our code to use the loosely-coupled version of this with lazy-loading of scripts to speed up our…

10. 19 February

    FPDF Library - PDF Generator #

    Via @drewm, a handy PDF library for PHP.

11. 10 February

    1000 Free “Farm-Fresh Web Icons” #

    Larger versions of famfamfam by the look of it.

12. The Missing Google Analytics Manual #

    A helpful collection of links and tutorials on Google Analytics - always nice if someone else does the hard work and finds the best results for you.

13. Revised Font Stack #

    My new go-to resource for deciding on a decent font stack in those important first few CSS rules of each new site.

14. 15 January

    Automatic data URI embedding in CSS files #

    Details and link to a tool that automatically converts your CSS background images into data URIs.

15. How to reduce the number of HTTP requests #

    This is brilliant, and deserves a lot more attention. A command line script that can convert all your CSS background-images into data URIs - the result is a much larger CSS file, but only one HTTP request!

Featured Videos

Featured Quotes

1. A general rule of thumb is that if you look at a section of code and think “Wow, I don’t want to try and describe that”, you need to comment it before you forget how it works.

   From Drupal’s coding standards

2. If a film’s selling point is that when you watch it with special glasses on then some objects that were formerly on the screen are now sort-of hovering in front of the screen if you’re at the right angle then it doesn’t bode well. When a film trailer triumphantly announces that the film is in 3D, all I take from that is is that the film’s story, the characters and performances weren’t good enough to sell the film. It marks the film out as one to miss.

   I am already bored with 3D | Joeblade

3. If you are running require()-esque loader code in the browser you want to avoid blocking calls else Steve Souders will come over and beat you up.

   RequireJS: Asynchronous JavaScript loading

4. As the proverb suggests, sometimes you can’t jump a twenty foot chasm in two ten foot leaps. Cherry-picking only those design elements that are “proven” by an A/B test can be a route to fragmented, incoherent design. It may earn marginally more money in the short term, but it becomes hard to avoid a descent into poor UX and the long-term harm this causes.

   Statistical significance & other A/B test pitfalls

5. …my attempts to impress in the kitchen generally just mean using more pans than she would and throwing some fresh herbs on top of the dish.

   Pete Lambert takes his turn in the kitchen