11-21-2012
em and rem have slowly become the new standard for sizing font sizes on webpages and even for things like margin and padding.
As an avid listener of the Shop Talk Show, I’ve been itching to start using em’s and rem’s in my work to see how cool these are (Chris Coyier described this as “spine tinkly hot“). But I was never certain of the right way to use either of them. The biggest mental block for me was distinguishing between using em and just regular percentage (%).
I’ve finally found a great article that clearly explain the pros and cons of using em’s and rem’s, and how to use them correctly in your code. In fact, I got so excited by this “Aha!” moment that I decided to write this blog post to commemorate this article and use it as a resource for me to refer back to in the future.
So if you’re just like me, sitting on the fence about moving to Ems and Rems from good ole px, reading this article might help give you that final nudge to explore it yourself.
11-18-2012
The debate between which strategy to approach for a responsive site is alive and well. The growing support for Responsive Web Design strongly indicates that many designers and developers truly think that designing for all viewport sizes at the same time, while a very challenging task, is the way to go (the view that I share).
This debate is all the more relevant with the two very well-run US presidential campaign adopting these very different strategies.
I just found another benefit of responsive design – it works much better with Google Chrome’s synced tabs across devices.
If you’re like me, you will browse your Twitter feed on the go and click on interesting articles to read on your phone. If an article is too long or is something you’d like to read later, you will just leave that tab open. Once back on desktop, you would fire up Chrome and go to “Other Devices” to bring up the article on the larger screen.
This is an amazing way to save time as I no longer have to email myself the article or even use Pocket.
This is where responsive design really trumps mobile site. I’ll use The Atlantic as the example here. As I initially opened an article on my phone, I am redirected to its mobile site, http://m.theatlantic.com. As a user, I’m happy as the content are laid out beautifully and neatly. This is all fine and good until I open the site up with Chrome on my desktop. Chrome simply grabs the URL from its mobile cousin browser and display that. As a result, the mobile version is displayed on my 23″ screen in all its glory (or lack thereof). I am less happy now because I feel that my experience has been reduced because I don’t have the beautiful typeface or layout that is designed for a larger viewport.
If The Atlantic had used the responsive design strategy however, it will be the same URL on any device and my browser will just magically know which layout it needs to adapt to for the most optimized reading experience that had been intended by the designers.
I am still surprised at how many big news websites that still do not have responsive design. While it is true that a separate mobile site approach has its merits, I think that it is an approach that was based on the past when responsive design was not a thing. To stay ahead with the web though, we need to made some real efforts to make our content responsive. I am sure the people at the NYTimes or The Atlantic already know this and probably are spending a lot of money trying to concert their content to be responsive. Meanwhile, we now have another argument to make for responsive design.
11-06-2012
Steph Yiu wrote a fantastic blog post about what she considers The Little Privileges You Get By Living In The USA, some of which I whole-heartedly agree with. These are the thoughts that go in my mind daily and I’m happy someone has so well articulated and published it on the web.
Here’s Steph’s list of 10 perks, check out the post for her full description of each perk, which I thought were light-hearted, honest and insightful observations.
- You can Amazon Prime stuff
- You can watch TV on Hulu, and movies on Netflix
- You can use the iTunes store
- You don’t need to worry about spoilers
- Brands in magazines? They’re real.
- You can buy Reese’s Pieces
- Have stuff to do over the holidays
- Britney Spears concerts
- The best media the world has to offer.
- Vote in the biggest election on the planet.
To this list, I would only add Listening to Spotify and Pandora, which have become my staples for music for quite a while now, and Getting first dibs at product releases (think Apple and Android phones, Amazon Kindles etc.), though the latter has been improved with every release cycle.
I don’t really get the Birtney Spear concerts, but I do think that there are just a whole lot more concerts here in general, not just big name ones, but even small little ones around the community neighborhoods. And unfortunately I can’t share Steph’s joy in being a part of the election, but I share the sentiment nonetheless.
10-31-2012
If there were an Oscar for Best Line in a Movie which line would win it?
This is why I love Quora – questions like this. Questions that make you go, I’ve wondered the same thing too!. And when you read the answers, you don’t just satisfy your itch, get entertained, but you also learn a whole lot!
I really love the Joker quotes in the top answer (as of today). After reading a few, I came up with my own answer too. This is a quote not from a movie, but a TV show. However, I thought it is still worth mentioning. It spoke to my heart when I first heard it more than two years ago, it still resonates with me now and gives me chills every time I listen to it.
(I wish there was a better quality video).
Hey! What did you just call him? You use that word, you’re talking about him. Yeah that’s because you’re still sixteen and you assume the best in people. You live a few years, you start seeing the hate in people’s hearts. Even the best people. You use the ‘N’ word? How about “retard”? You call that nice girl on the Cheerios with Kurt a retard? But you think it’s okay to come into my house and say faggy? I know what you meant! You think I didn’t use that word when I was your age? Some kid gets clocked in practice, we’d tell him to stop being such a fag: shake it off. We meant it exactly the way that you meant it: that being gay is wrong, that it’s some kind of punishable offence. I really thought you were different Finn. I thought that being in glee club and being raised by your mom, meant that you were some new generation of dude who saw things differently- you just kind of came into the world knowing what it’s taken me years of struggling to figure out. I guess I was wrong; I’m sorry Finn but you can’t stay here, I love your mom and maybe this is gonna cost me her, but my family comes first and I can’t have that kind of poison around. This is our home, Kurt. He is my son. Out in the world you do what you want. but not under my roof.
