Fluid, Adaptive, or Responsive?

As a web developer, I'm starting to have more and more conversations about responsive websites. The term is being used as a catch all similar to how same people are using the term html5. Some people mean a fluid layout, others mean an adaptive layout, and (I think just by chance) some people really do mean a responsive layout. There are plenty of blog entries out there already that talk about these, so my thoughts after the jump are more about crystallising my own understanding rather than adding anything new to the definitions.

The Pie Guy (CSS Keyframe animations)

I've had a few quiet days at work and have taken the opportunity to play around with some new toys that no one has wanted me to use professionally yet. I've seen a few examples of keyframe animations recently, but the most I've ever done is move a div around the screen, changing it's colour, and resizing it. I was showing this off to a colleague who then (jokingly) said that I should create a man who eats pie and then gets fat. So that's just what I did...

Problematic Install of Ruby (for Sass) on Windows 7 (UPDATED)

I'm between projects at work at the moment so I'm taking the opportunity to have a look at a few things that I haven't had a chance to but have been meaning to for a while. CSS and HTML preprocessors are gradually being talked about more and more in the web dev community. I've had a look a couple of times at the site for Sass, but always been a bit intimidated. This week I watched a video by Chris Coyier talking about Sass (and he also touched on Jade a little), and I was smitten by it right away. Next morning at work I set to installing Sass...

Scategories Letter Generator

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to a M's brother's girlfriend, C, about board games. She told me about a game she used to play called Scategories. The idea is that you have a list of categories and come up with a word for each one beginning with a certain letter. The letter is determined by rolling dice and a corresponding letter is referenced by the number rolled. C no longer has a copy of this game, but likes playing it. I thought that this a perfect opportunity to play around with some JavaScript. Demo here.

html5 Geolocation

I'm quite fascinated by the geolocation API that is contained within html5. One thing I love about my iPhone is that I can find things around me quickly, even if I don't where I am. I've used the Google Maps API a couple of times for Contact Us pages. I love that I can make a JavaScript call to produce an interactive map and insert it into a containing div, and have a static image of the area so that if the user doesn't have JavaScript (or has it disabled) they can still have an experience comparable to the JavaScript user. I thought it would be quite cool to use the JavaScript API to produce a map based the user's current location. Take a look at the finished result here. Details after the jump.

Web Forms, and How Not to Do It

I'm absolutely passionate about web design. It is more than just a job to me. In fact, it became a job for me because I was so annoyed by the poor quality of interface design that I was confronted by day after day. I think of myself as an internet citizen. All the major events of my life have happened whilst I've been online, and have been broadcast online moments later. The first thing I do in the morning and the last thing I do at night is go online. If there's some effect on a site that I think is cool I dig into the client side code until I understand what's going on.

html5

Recently the first book on html5 (that I can find anyway) was published. I'm about half way through it and really enjoying having everything that I need to know in one place finally. I've clearly learnt a lot as most of what has been covered so far I have at the very least heard of, if not played with. The stuff that I haven't yet seen is blowing my mind! I'm absolutely in love with this new version of our beloved language, and really glad to see the new tags such as article and section. I can't wait to use these in reality, but for the time being I'll just have to settle with test scripts.