Back in January, I got to spend some quality time talking shop over coffee with my good friend Dan Cederholm. He mentioned to me he was writing a new book. No more than a handshake and a latte later I had the honor of being on board as technical editor for the book. It is called Handcrafted CSS: More Bulletproof Web Design and comes out next month. No comment on the rumors that Dan’s latte might have been spiked.
I’ve been reading Dan’s books for years. I bought both Web Standards Solutions & Bulletproof Web Design right when each came out, and each has been extremely influential in my work. Dan doesn’t just tell you how to implement a solution, but also why we might consider doing it that particular way, and what are the pitfalls of some of the other methods. That kind of stuff is hard to do, but Dan does it so extremely well.
This new book is a little different in that it jumps right into details of how we can …
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These are gorgeous. Probably too awesome to ever get adopted, but it’s great to see people really re-thinking how things should look. I also love that he ditched the $1 bill and upgraded most of the president’s denominations. Bonus: They’re usable for the blind.
Again, over 30,000 people responded to the A List Apart Survey and now the findings have been published.
If we, the people who make websites, want the world to know who we are and what we do, it’s up to each of us to stand up and represent.
They improved the survey this year with better questions, making the findings clearer and more relevant for full-time independent web professionals. I’m glad to see the A List Apart crew is making this a regular thing. This data will only become more important as add on the years of results.
Last year the findings were presented in PDF form, but this year we get a special treat. It’s all on the web and Eric Meyer did some serious elite ninja work taking regular table data and turning it into beautiful graphs. If you want to dive deep into the technical details, check out his post about his process. Well done sir!
I implore you, go check out the results. Even if all you read is the first page, I guarantee you will get something good out of it.
A huge thanks to all who came out to Refresh Denver this week for the talk on Freelancing. We had a bit of a hiccup as Josh wasn’t able to make it. He sent me a text about an hour before I left the house saying that he would have to cancel since he was at the doctor finding out the gender of their baby (due this summer). Sounds like his priorities are right where they should be.
I sweated a bit while I reworked our presentation into notes on my moleskine, since I also found out, just then, that we might not have a projector.
Thankfully there was a fantastic turnout and you guys were extremely gracious, chiming in with lots of questions and comments. We got into a nice lively discussion, and it seemed like most everybody enjoyed themselves. I mentioned a few of the thoughts and points that Josh wanted to bring up, so he was there in spirit too (by the way, it’s a girl). So thank’s again, I had a great time!
I’m speaking this Wednesday at Refresh Denver on the topic of Freelancing. Josh Pigford of Sabotage Media will be joining me. We hear a lot about people who are considering leaving their day jobs, already have given notice, or possibly have been laid off. Lots of those people are considering making a go of it as a freelancer, so we thought we’d tell a bit about our experiences and field some questions about it.
We don’t want to sound like we know all there is to know about this, so if you’re a seasoned indie, then by all means come and chime in with your expertise.
Either way, if you’re in the area, I hope you can make it. It should be a fun time.
Refresh Denver is at Forest Room 5 @ 6pm this Wednesday, 25 March 2009.
We’ve been busy this year so far. Not just a little bit busy, but crazy-go-nuts busy. It’s been fun and we’ve had some great opportunities to work on some fun projects. There is also a half-finished redesign for this site sitting there, taunting yours truly, begging me to find some free time to work on it. “Soon enough, little guy,” I say.
Busy is good. We like busy. But at some point I realized that something needed to give if I was going to stay moderately this side of sane, as well as get to spend time working on the business and other internal and side projects.
Enter Derek Balmer. It’s no secret we like collaborating with other freelancers. For as long as Be Good Not Bad has been around, we’ve been doing just that. With Derek we hit a sweet spot. We work great together and his skills blend nicely.
So we made it official and the big news for us is that we’ve brought on Mr. Balmer to work with us on a part-time basis. Derek recently left his day job to go indie, so …
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A few months ago Devin Reams asked me to speak at WordCamp Denver and I heartily accepted. WordCamp is a one-day conference held at the Denver Art Museum in Downtown Denver on February 28th 2009. The topics cover all sorts of issues, from design to development, and not exclusively Wordpress stuff either.
I’m super-excited to be a part of it and it should be a really great time! I’ll be sharing the stage with Kevin Menzie, Jeremy Harrington and the very same aforementioned Devin Reams for the Design Panel. Our topics won’t be super Wordpress-heavy, more about design issues in general, client relationships, and designing outside the box with publishing systems.
I’m told there are only a small handful of registration slots left, so if you’re interested in coming, make sure to sign up now. Check out the schedule, speaker line up and how to register at the WordCamp Denver site.
Our good friend Jason Santa Maria is leaving Happy Cog to do full-time freelancing. Did I not just say that 2009 was the year of the indie? Congrats Jason!
I spent December of 2008 in mixed states of both reflection and eager anticipation. I realize our economy is in shambles, and optimistic may not be the most popular word these days, but it’s hard for me not to be excited about things to come.
Just days before sticking a fork in 2007, my daughter was born, and a month previous, my wife quit her day job for good. What was to follow was both the most awesome year of my life both personally and professionally.
I was a little nervous with Mrs. Warren quitting her job. The main question on our minds was: How were we going to replace her income? We just bought a new house that year, and one income disappearing did make things feel a little more tenuous. Amazingly enough, just a couple weeks before she stopped working, some really good opportunities came in the door. I started working with Happy Cog on some projects followed by a fantastic project with the fine chaps at Airbag Industries. …
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Be Good Not Bad is all about really good web design, based on the utmost respect for web standards, accessibility and respect for the user. Based in Denver, Colorado, Be Good Not Bad is run by Brian Warren, freelance designer, blogger, homebrewer and coffee nut.
