cdharrison.com

Blog

  • Back to Basics

    I haven’t given up on Tersus. I’m trying to get into the habit of posting more and I felt like having an incomplete theme was too much of a distraction for me (and for anyone else who might stumble across my site). In the meantime, I’ve switched to using the wonderfully designed, Twenty Eleven Twenty Twelve theme. Will it stay this way for long? I hope not. If it encourages me to write more, maybe.

    Speaking of habits, I’m working on becoming more productive. How am I hoping to accomplish that? I’ve installed RescueTime on my Mac and it tracks my web browsing and app usage and has a running dashboard available that I can view and see exactly how productive I’ve been each day. The other thing I’m doing is using an app called SelfControl. SelfControl lets you create a blacklist of distracting sites. Once its running, you can’t turn it off.

    I’m hoping  these two changes will help me stay more focused and, in turn, I’ll get more shit done.

  • An Afternoon in Charlotte

    Web Afternoon

    A Web Afternoon is making its way to Charlotte, NC next month. Registration is now open for this mini-event, and if you act fast (before August 25) you can snag a ticket for around $30.

    Why go to A Web Afternoon? It’s a half-day of awesomeness. The half-day format won’t kill your weekend or keep you away from work. You’ll see high-quality speakers for less than it’d cost to take a date to the movies.

  • CSS Preprocessing Resources

    A few weeks ago, I posted a link to Chris Coyier’s “Get Yourself Pre-Processing in a Few Minutes.” If you haven’t watched it yet, it’s well worth the five minutes of your time. Why should you use a CSS Pre-Processor? For me, it’s simple: it saves time and reduces the effort it takes for me to write lots of complex CSS. Below are some links to help you get started. If you know of any links, applications, etc that ought to be added, let me know!

    CSS Pre-Processing Languages

    • Sass is an extension of CSS3, adding nested rules, variables, mixins, selector inheritance, and more. It’s translated to well-formatted, standard CSS using the command line tool or a web-framework plugin.
    • LESS “extends CSS with dynamic behavior such as variables, mixins, operations and functions. LESS runs on both the client-side (Chrome, Safari, Firefox) and server-side, with Node.js and Rhino.”
    • xCSS – an object-oriented CSS Framework.

    Applications

    • Codekit – (Mac) – Use for Less, Sass/SCSS, HAML, Jade, Optimizing Images, etc. (My personal favorite.)
    • Scout.app – (PC/Mac)
    • Compass.app – (PC/Mac/Linux)
    • WinLESS – (PC)
    • SimpLESS – (PC)
    • .less – (PC) – Less CSS for .Net

    Further Reading

    Frameworks

  • Meet Link

    You may have seen on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram or Path… But we rescued a puppy on Friday and adopted him into our family.

    20120617-093023.jpg

    This is Link. Link has a Twitter: @LinkTheHeroic. We’re not 100% sure what he is, but we know his mom was a boxer. We’re thinking he might be part Lab, which would make him a Boxador.)

    Our other dog, Mighty Diego, is not happy about the addition. He’s tolerating Link but just barely.

    Diego was an easy pup, relatively speaking. Link, on the other hand, is way more mischievous. We’ll make it work though. :)

  • Get yourself preprocessing in just a few minutes.

    Get yourself preprocessing in just a few minutes. I was hesitant to use Sass until I saw this. (Oh, you’re going to want to grab CodeKit, too.) Seriously. This type of workflow will change your life.

  • Comic Book Movies

    I created this playlist on Rdio that features soundtracks and scores from movies based on comic books. (By the way: collaboration is enabled. Help make it better!)

    Comic Book Movies

  • gmaps.js

    gmaps.js – an easier way to work with Google Maps.

  • Panic Releases Coda and Diet Coda

    Panic released Coda 2 and Diet Coda.

  • The New Adobe CS6 Branding

    The New Adobe CS6 Branding.

  • New ItemBrowser Released

    I appreciate everyone who put up with me teasing ItemBrowser for most of the month of April. Yesterday, it launched.

    (Because WallaBee is an iPhone game, the site was optimized for use on that device. We’re planning to make the layout more responsive over the next coming weeks. It’ll work fine in modern browsers and on the iPad, but we can and will deliver a better experience for both soon.)

    We love WallaBee. We want people to play the game. We want to help new players find the items they’re missing. We wanted tools that would help us find what we’re missing as well. I think ItemBrowser delivers.

    We’re not done with the site. We know it can get better. We’re using it to learn and to push ourselves. It’s been amazingly fun to work on.

    If you have a chance, I’d love it if you’d check it out.