Be Good Not Bad : Web Design :: Brian Warren : Denver, Colorado

I’ve been spending a lot of time in Coda lately. Coda is Panic’s new all-in-one application for building and editing websites.

Web designers are pretty picky about their tools. When Coda came out, lots of people were critical because it didn’t have some of the features on which many of us depend daily. I absolutely understand that. Nobody wants to use a tool that is going to make you less efficient. CSSEdit, for instance, is hands-down the best CSS Editor on the market. And Textmate is a really powerful text editor with lots of bundles that save people tons of time and makes us all better programmers. It’s like the Photoshop of text editors.

But sometimes you don’t need Photoshop. Coda’s power lies in its apparent simplicity. Because Coda is an all-in-one application, I never have to switch applications when moving from editing an XHTML file, to tweaking a CSS file, previewing in the browser and then uploading said files. There’s zero mental overhead. You never leave the single Coda window.

Of course you can pull …

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Refresh Denver is having their first event this Monday. Refresh Denver is “a community of designers and developers working to refresh the creative, technical, and professional culture of Internet developers in the Denver Metro area.”

I love this kind of stuff. I’ve long been a little gripey about how it seems like the Denver design/development scene is weak in this area. I know there are plenty of us around, yet it seems like none of us get together and hang out. I’m really hoping that Refresh takes off and I can meet and collaborate with local web folk.

The first meetup in Denver is at The Hive. We’ll have drinks and stuff there so feel free to stop by! It’s this Monday, May 21st at 5:30pm. Call me if you have any questions: 303-997-2529

Refresh is in other cities too. Check out the Refresh website to get involved in shaping the creative community near you.

I just purchased a new mouse, the Logitech MX Revolution. It’s definitely a power user’s mouse, with lots of wheels and buttons. It goes to eleven. I had a few false starts getting it to work. Eventually I had to fire up bootcamp and pair the mouse with the receiver using Logitech’s application. I hope it’s worth it. I’ve never really had technical difficulties with a mouse before. I chalk the problem up to being that I bought it refurbished off of ebay.

So, now that the mouse works, I still cannot really use the thing. Why? Because my right arm is in a sling. I injured it in a cycling accident on my way into town on Friday. It’s not broken and yes, I was wearing my helmet (why does everyone always ask that? It was my arm!).

I’m healing fast and will have two usable arms early next week. In the meantime, I’m pursuing the challenges of typing one-handed.

When I started freelancing, I decided to make a go of it working from home and see how that went before jumping into some office space. I’m really glad I did. I found that I work well alone and enjoy the (lack of a) commute. Nonetheless, my ears did perk up when I found out that Andrew Luter was putting together a coworking place in Denver called The Hive Cooperative.

The Hive just opened this past week and I’m trying it out as an experiment to see if it jives with my working style. So far I’m loving it. I have a pretty nice little work area, and I’ve met some great people who are working there. The location is nice, just a fifteen minute bike ride away. It’s in a pretty groovy area of town – right on the platte river on the edge of downtown with lots of restaurants and pubs.

We’ll see how things feel once the place fills up. I’m really hoping it’s a good vibe in the …

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