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ShopTalk Show
By ShopTalkTechnology
ShopTalk Show episodes
- 104: With Leslie Jensen-Inman
This week we were joined by Dr. Leslie Jensen-Inman, headmaster of Hogwarts the Unicorn Institute (aka Center Centre) in Chattanooga, TN.
We talked about (roughly in order):
- 26:50 Firefox 26 now supporting audio decoding
Q & A:
- 29:20 Will Center Centre have online classes?
- 30:34 Do you guys have any experience with the WordPress plug-in WP Migrate DB Pro?
- 33:40 For Center Centre: are all prospective 30 courses mandatory, or are there electives? Are all courses consecutive or is summer open to intern/work with partner companies?Also, what’s the target size for the first cohort, what’s the cost of the program, who are the partner companies, and when can I apply?
- 43:10 I totally hate my job. I’m therefore trying to turn myself into a freelance developer/designer. Can I acquire the skills I need purely by online and book based learning?
- 46:48 I’ve been lucky enough to be working as a Community Manager for an advertising agency taking care of social media and web development. Recently the job has grown too large and is being split in two and I am opting to stay with the development side and we will bring in a new social person. I have been asked to provide a possible job title. Do you have any more suggestions?
- 52:29 I have owned a small web design company for a few years now. I have reached a point where I just need more of a challenge. I would really love to work with a new start up, or maybe just a larger web firm with more exciting clients, but I really have no clue of how to get my foot in the door. Any suggestions?
Sponsors:
- WP DB Migrate Pro Premium wordpress plugin for migrating and syncing databases back and forth from local and remote sites. Chris uses it on CSS-Tricks. Boom.
- 50:40 E4H: Responsive Web Design Summit April 1-3, online: lots of great speakers talking about performance, techniques/tips, and strategy when dealing with RWD and workflows. Topics include Sass tips, grunt, tool automation, responsive HTML emails, content strategy for designers, responsive wire framing, with speakers like Dan Mall, Brad Frost, Trent Walton, Jenn Lukas, and more. The code SHOPTALKSHOW gets 20% off any ticket combo.
Enter to win a ticket to RWS Summit: send in an audio question and tag your email “RWD”.
Show Links:
- Leslie on Twitter
- Leslie’s Website
- The Unicorn Institute Kickstarter
- Martin Duran on being a minority
- Codepen Radio Podcast
- Give Shoptalk a .Net award!
1 hr 2 min - 103: With Louis Lazaris
This week we were joined by Louis Lazeris. Louis is the curator of the Web Tools Weekly email newsletter, co-author of HTML5 & CSS3 for the Real World and author of Jump Start CSS.
We talked about (roughly in order):
News’n’Links’n’Drama:
- 8:54 w3schools: The Ugly, the Bad, and the Good
Q & A:
- 20:54 Is there any good solution on how to run page specific javascript functions?
- 28:50 Question for Louis: Read your recent article on w3schools, but the question remains why their site still loads fast despite that many javascript file requests. Could you try to elaborate on this a bit more?
- 35:35 I’m interested in finding out what you think of “mobiledetect” a php class for device detection: http://mobiledetect.net/. I’m looking into solutions for swapping out/removing blocks of content (beyond what can be achieved with media queries) on small screen devices and this seems like it could do the job nicely. My main question is, how reliable are solutions like this?
- 48:15 Have you come across any solutions to the Windows font icon problem or font smoothing in general?
- 55:40 I’m enjoying learning Sass, but one of those things I can’t wrap my head around is use cases for lists. What would you stuff in a Sass list?
Sponsors:
- 27:09 Media Temple – For years, Media Temple’s Grid service has been the web hosting choice of more designers, developers, and creative professionals than any other platform. That’s because a single Grid account can host anything from your portfolio site to 100 different client projects. Special discount for The ShopTalk listeners, use promo code shoptalk for 25% off your first month of web hosting. Go to mediatemple.net and enter your promo code upon signup.
- 45:35 E4H – Responsive Web Design Summit April 1-3, online – Lot of great speakers talking about performance, techniques/tips, and strategy when dealing with RWD and workflows. Topics include Sass tips, grunt, tool automation, responsive HTML emails, content strategy for designers, responsive wire framing, and much more. Speakers like Dan Mall, Brad Frost, Trent Walton, Jenn Lukas, and more. The code SHOPTALKSHOW gets 20% off any ticket combo.
Show Links:
- Louis on Twitter
- Louis’ Website
- Web Tools Weekly
- HTML5 & CSS3 for the Real World
- HTML9Responsiveboilerstrapjs.com
- CSS Conf, Australia
- CSS Conf, Florida
- What’s with putting the CSS in the head?
- Mod Pagespeed
- Go Vote For Shoptalk (.net award)
1 hr 1 min - 102: Rapidfire 23
This week it’s another RAPIDFIRE!!! We take listener questions and try to answer them as best we can within a 3 minute time constraint.
We talked about (roughly in order):
Q & A:
- 3:07 HTML email is super fun to design for, so I’m a little surprised that you guys aren’t all about it, and kinda put it down in show 12. The demographic I design for love their email and I’m sure they will until they retire (obviously older crowd, but still relevant).
- 6:39 How do you know when to scale up and get bigger clients and start charging more? Do I need to look like an agency? Do I need a team?
- 9:52 In my mind, CMS’s are too often an annoying, unnecessary layer between the developer/designer and the code, making it harder instead of easier to optimize and maintain. What are some good alternatives for sites that aren’t e-commerce or blogs?
- 16:08 Flexible grid vs multiple fixed width layouts. Pros, cons, love, hate?
- 21:05 Do you think there will ever come a day when the browser makers agree to standardize so we could not have to worry about putting all the browser prefixes in, then for IE, change how we write it completely? Also if this day ever came, how big would the party be?
- 25:17 My questions are: 1. Is Code Ignitor a good solution for learning the proper PHP way to import images and data from external sources? 2. What’s the best way to do this without dozens of server requests for each site view? 3. I’m planning on just reformatting the data with CSS. I want to make compelling infographics from the data. Recommendations?
- 32:37 Are there any really good introductions out there to CSS preprocessors?
- 36:28 How do you work with Boilerplate?
- 40:34 Now that Retina is officially coming to the laptop experience, I’m bracing myself for dealing with having to output design and development mockups at twice the resolution. How do you guys streamline production when taking differing scale resolutions?
- 47:02 Which responsive grid system do you prefer?
- 50:07 How do you center a responsive website?
- 55:17 What effect is the template market having on young developers who are trying to go it alone? Is it lowering client cost expectations but raising their deliverable requirement?
Sponsors:
13:38 lynda.com The best online learning resource: a huge library of courses covering all kinds of techy topics. Some examples:
- Design the Web: From Illustrator to HTML5 Canvas
- Building Confidence
- Sculpting and Painting a Head in CINEMA 4D
- Tethered Shooting Fundamentals
- Visit lynda.com/shoptalk for a free 7 day trial!
30:21 Environments for Humans: Artifact Conf May 5-7, 2014 in Austin, Texas. An amazing list of speakers that includes: Jeremy Keith, Brad Frost, Val Head, Todd Parker, Eileen Webb, and Stephen Hay. Go sign up!
Show Links :
- Timer-tab.com
- Autoprefixer: solving the vendor prefix problem
- Code Igniter
- SASS
- Codekit
- PrePros
- 24 Ways: Grunt article
- Dan Cederholm’s SASS For Web Designers
- HTML5 Boilerplate
- 1140px CSS Grid
- Skeleton
- Foundation
- Bourbon/Neat
1 hr 3 min - 101: With John Resig
This week we were joined by John Resig. John is the Dean of Computer Science at Khan Academy and the creator of the jQuery JavaScript library. He’s also the author of the books Pro JavaScript Techniques and Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja.
We talked about (roughly in order):
Q & A:
- 42:08 Is it worth it for me to start investing my time into learning all these new frameworks (such as backbone, angular, ember)?
- 46:50 I work as a front-end developer at Hiplogiq. We are looking to fill a couple of front-end dev internships. We would like to offer more opportunities to women in our field, but I have found that is extremely hard to find candidates. Do you guys have any ideas where else can I find students that may want to be part of our internship program? (check out: Women Who Code)
- 58:00 Should I learn Javascript or JQuery?
- 61:45 Minigames with canvas?
Sponsors:
- 38:38 Perch – Perch is a content management system designed to help freelancers and design agencies deliver great sites that their clients will really love. Get 50% off a Perch site now!
- 56:15 E4H: Responsive Web Design Summit – Lots of great speakers talking about performance, techniques/tips, and strategy when dealing with RWD and workflows.
Topics include Sass tips, Grunt, tool automation, responsive HTML emails, content strategy for designers, responsive wire framing, and much more, with speakers Dan Mall, Brad Frost, Trent Walton, Jenn Lukas, and more. Use code SHOPTALKSHOW and get 20% off any ticket combo!
Show Links:
- John’s Website
- John on Twitter
- Donate to John on Gittip
- Ukiyo-e.org
- Go Vote For Shoptalk (.net award)
- Women Who Code
- Pixi.js
- Impact.js
- Ejecta
- Node-Webkit
1 hr 8 min - 100: With Rachel Andrew
This week we were joined by Rachel Andrew, author and purveyor of Perch, a lightweight PHP content management system.
We talked about (roughly in order):
News’n’Links’n’Drama:
- 10:23 CSS Regions Considered Harmful
- 16:40 Squarespace Logo
- 21:06 Google Webfonts: The Spy Inside
Q & A:
- 26:55 One thing that’s not very well known is that Perch actually pre-renders it’s PHP into static pages. How does Perch compare to static site generators like Jekyll?
- 35:30 Do you have suggestions or best practices for creating a website search?
- 41:24 I was wondering what ratio of new comers to Perch CMS are new to CMS (in general or migrating from another CMS)?
- 44:00 Is it easier to start coding into static html files, or just start building the template files (includes, etc)?
- 49:49 What are the best books for people who are thinking of starting up a small web shop or agency?
- 50:55 I’ve been working for a few years now and I’m thinking about hiring some help. How do I go about making sites from a local computer, and start making websites as a team?
- 54:10 If you have a big image carousel or just lots of images, do you ever think about implementing the webp image format in your site or is it really not worth the time?
Sponsors:
25:08 Media Temple For years, Media Temple’s Grid service has been the web hosting choice of more designers, developers, and creative professionals than any other platform. Use promo code “shoptalk” for 25% off your first month of web hosting.
39:30 Environments For Humans: Artifact Conf ARTIFACT is an intimate two-day, single-track conference that helps DESIGNERS and DEVELOPERS adapt their tools and processes to the challenges of designing for a MULTI-DEVICE world. Check it out!
Show Links:
- Rachel’s Website
- Rachel on Twitter
- Perch
- The Business of Digital Products
- Brennan Dunn: Freelance Advice
- Design is a Job by Mike Montiero
- Github
- Beanstalk
- Tower (Github App)
- PerfPlanet
- Breaking the PageSpeed Barrier with Bootstrap
- The Profitable Side Project E-book
1 hr 1 min - 1 min
- 098: With Lyza Danger Gardner
This week we were joined by Lyza Danger Gardner.
We talked about (roughly in order):
News’n’Links’n’Drama:
- 12:33 Web Standards Killed The HTML Star, and Is Web Design Dead?
- 21:40 Grunt is dead? What about Gulp?
Q & A:
- 27:04 I’m curious to know how we as a community are handling touch events on mobile devices at the moment? Specifically referring to dropdown/fly-out menus. Is there a popular jQuery/JS library you’d recommend?
- 35:15 Every now and then, my job requires me to code an html email template. I usually have to look online to see what email clients can and can’t handle, but lately I’ve been getting a lot of contradictory answers. Is there a CanIUse.com for emails?
- 40:05 Is it possible to (and how can one) avoid code redundancy / DRY violations when supporting non-media query browsers like IE8 and below during responsive design implementation?
- 50:37 Can you explain a bit about what Compass is, how to use it, and what makes it so great?
- 58:34 What are the benefits of having a responsive design vs a separate mobile site?
Sponsors:
- 24:45 Digital Ocean Cloud Hosting Provider. Plans starting at $5/month, everything is on SSDs, so it’s SUPER FAST. Go get it. Use “SHOPTALK10″ for $10 off 2 months.
- 48:18 InCTRL Conf Orlando, FL, Feb 17-19. Use “SHOPTALK” — it’s good for $100 off. Using that code, it’s early bird prices! Dave will be there talking about awesome stuff you should know about. You should totally go!
Show Links:
- Never Heard Of It – List Apart Column
- Lyza’s Website
- Lyza on Twitter
- Cloud Four
- Simple Slide View on Github
- Jquery Mobile Touch
- Hammer.js
- Fastclick.js
- Top 100 Codepen’s of 2013
- Mailchimp Email CSS Inlines Tool
- Campaign Monitor CSS Inline Tool
- Ink from Zurb
- Understanding Comics
1 hr 4 min - 097: With Mina Markham
This week we were joined by Mina Markham, a Sass-lovin’ designer and developer from Dallas, Texas. She’s a Syracuse University alum, part-time freelancer, full-time Parago employee, and soon-to-be Girl Develop It teacher.
We talked about (roughly in order):
News’n’Links’n’Drama
- Myth.io: “CSS Level 4 kind of stuff”
Q & A
- 17:01 I’ve just started using Compass mixins and helpers, but I’ve found that it doesn’t directly solve all of the prefix problems. Should I write my own mixins, or should I try to choose from one of the gazillion or so community mixins available?
- 22:53 Do you feel any isolation in being a black woman in the dev and coding community?
- 29:10 I’m primarily a front-end coder. I’d like to do more design work for my company. How do I convince them to take a chance on me?
- 35:23 With today’s advancements in HTML and CSS, how much of a site is image based? What parts should be displayed with images and what should be CSS3 coding?
- 41:27 I’m a front end developer that works with a team of talented back end devs. How would you hand off CSS that has been compiled by a preprocessor to a back end developer?
- 48:00 How do I trademark my personal brand?
- 54:41 I have fallen in love in how easy CodeKit makes developing websites. But when I work with other people, often in Rails, they just use the terminal to compile the Sass. But I really miss the compiling + minifying of JavaScript. Is there a way to do this without CodeKit?
Sponsors
- 21:15 Discover Meteor The best way to learn how to build real-time Javascript web apps. Get 20% off the awesome book now!
- 39:49 InCTRL Conf 2 Day conference in Orlando, FL. Fantastic speaker line up. Use code “SHOPTALK” for $100 off!
Show Links
- Mina’s Website
- Mina on Twitter
- Parago
- Pink Pixels Creative
- Ladies in Tech Podcast
- AutoPrefixer
- Meteor.js
- Sidebar.io
- Black Girls Code
- Chris’s 24 Ways Article: Grunt
- AIGA
- Girl Develop It
1 hr 3 min - 096: Rapidfire #22
This week is another RAPIDFIRE!!!
We talked about (roughly in order):
Q & A:
- 2:02 Should I use “.mainNav” or “nav.main”? Do you see any issues with using either?
- 4:54 I’m looking to find a new job. How should I approach employers when I’m not proud of the sites I’ve been working on?
- 7:18 I am developing locally and pushing out to a live site but is there an easy way to handle databases (WordPress mainly). Is there a more automated way to do this?
- 12:00 How do you design for touch? Do you use something jQuery.finger?
- 18:46 Google really likes blogs for SEO, are there any lightweight solutions to adding blog functionality to a pre-existing site?
- 22:59 Do you think that in the future someone could create program like Photoshop with an export function that compiles everything into cutting-edge code that works on all browsers?
- 27:20 What do you guys think of working with coffeescript, less, etc. along with task runners like grunt? Do you find these tedious or too confusing?
- 38:00 How do you handle spam comments on a WordPress blog?
- 44:28 I’m doing a web presentation at work in front of some non-technical people. I want to discuss 3 hot web design trends in 2013, what would you recommend?
Sponsors:
- WP DB Migrate Pro A fantastic wordpress plugin that makes syncing wp databases super easy. You can push or pull your databases from one site wordpress site to another.
- 34:48 Evironments for Humans: InCtrl Conference FEB. 17-19 in Orlando, FL. A single track conference, with 1.5 hour long deep-dives into awesome topics. Check it out.
Show Links :
- Filament Group: Tappy
- Hammer JS
- Jeckyl Blog Generator
- Macaw: Code-savvy Web Design Tool
- Time to buy a ShopTalk tshirt for Christmas!
53 min - 095: With Daniel Mall
This week we were joined by super-designer Dan Mall. Dan currently runs Superfriend.ly, is a co-host of the Businessology podcast, and previously worked at Happy Cog and Big Spaceship.
We talked about (roughly in order):
News’n’Links’n’Drama:
- 17:10 CSSOff #hotdrama: Dan made a PSD that was too good.
Q & A:
- 33:02 In defense of AMPPS…
- 34:45 Can you guys rant about the different scenarios on how and/or when and/or why to use javascript on text/typography?
- 46:21 How much testing and compatibility is enough? Should we just stick to the big 5 browsers on desktops, Android browsers, Safari on mobile devices?
- 51:48 I’ve been trying a couple of CSS/JS frameworks lately (Bourbon+Neat, Foundation) and I’m struggling to choose which better suits my purposes. What do you suggest? What frameworks/libraries do you guys use for your projects?
Sponsors:
- 30:11 Media Temple: web hosting for web designers and web developers since 1998. Special discount for ShopTalk listeners, use promo code “shoptalk” for 25% off your first month!.
- 40:35 Evironments For Humans: In Control Conf 2014. Speakers include Brad Frost, Dave Rupert, Tim Kadlec, Estelle Weyl, Louis Rosenfeld, and more! Use “Shoptalk” for $100 off your ticket!
Show Links:
- Dan on Twitter
- Dan’s Website
- Businessology Show Podcast
- The East Wing Podcast
- OpenSourceDesign.is
- Lettering.js
- Foundation Framework
- Neat
- Bourbon
- Autoprefixer
1 hr 3 min
About ShopTalk Show
From the publisher's feed
ShopTalk is a podcast about front end web design, development and UX. Each week Chris Coyier and Dave Rupert are joined by a special guest to talk shop and answer listener submitted questions.