Developing a good portfolio is an absolutely indispensable part of building a client base, or getting a good job for that matter. And developing a good portfolio can be a very difficult thing to do if you don't know all the little tricks. Fortunately I know a few, and I am here to teach them to you. Bear in mind that when I say tricks, I don't mean hacks that help you do less work. In fact, these 'tricks' may have you doing much more work than you were...

Ah, Ruby on Rails. The champion of the startup hustle, and the side project. That in essence describes a lot of why I think people enjoy the community as a whole, because they all appreciate those two facts. It surely has done a lot for the startup world, and for developer communities alike. It is very similar to languages such as JavaScript in the affects it has had on the web world. I know quite a few people that have gotten into development solely...

Responsive design isn't just a change in layout or the use of media queries here and there, it is a mind-state and an action that has clear meaning. Responsive design is essentially saying that we care more about the content than we have in the past. In fact, we care so much that we will even optimize content to be read and viewed on devices that haven't been launched yet. In essence, we are trying to present information as clearly as possible and be...

A startup, by definition, is an entity with limited resources. Those resources could be budget, time, talent, or anything related, but what is certain is that there is indeed some form of limitation on resources - otherwise it wouldn’t be a start-up. It is because of this that a lot of management styles have been tried and battle tested to tackle the challenge that is launching, and running, one of these beasts of time and energy. And over the...

UI is the saddle, the stirrups, and the reins. UX is the feeling you get being able to ride the horse, and rope your cattle. At least that's what they used to say in the olden days. Rather, that is what I wished they'd say. Despite how simple that may have sounded, there are many complications and misconceptions when it comes to the differences between UI and UX design, and they cause the design community to go into quite a stir whenever they are brought...

Site speed is one of the most important things about creating web content, and web applications. In fact, it has been noted by various analysts at Google that people don’t often sit through the first 30 seconds of a video, much less the first 15, so it would be wise of you to get the content of your site loaded as fast as you can so that people can make a judgement and agree to either use it or not. It may be a bit superficial that people judge sites that...

HTML5 and CSS3 are great languages to start off learning with, and I've always thought that one of the best ways to start learning is to just dive in and manipulate the code. As you could probably tell, this is where generators step in. They are a great way to generate some code, play with it, and learn. Not only that, they are incredibly useful because often times as a developer or designer we find we are doing things over and over again. Well, generators...

Optimization and organization can mean many things, but what does it mean to you? Doing things faster, better, or more efficient? Does it mean doing things more programmatically, simplistically, or using tools that are more suited to the job? Well, in all likelihood it means a little bit of all of these. You probably are a person who works as a developer or designer, and are constantly trying to optimize your workflow — and well, these things...

Modal windows are most commonly described as anything that captures the user's attention, and doesn’t allow them to return to the previous state until they interact with the object in question. Now, that is a bit convoluted and I think it is better addressed with a few examples of websites that use the technique really well. One of those is Build It With Me which does it really well. If you head on over to their site and click on Sign Up, you will...

Markup is a beautiful thing, and it certainly has changed over the years. What was effectively HTML1, has certainly progressed to an amazing semantic markup language, to which we can largely thank the W3C. And, what do ya know, the next thing to thank them for has come about - HTML5. Unlike previous version of HTML, where the code was mostly a limited structure that was determined by how you made use of the class and ID elements, html5 really attempts...

We all know it and we all love it, and of course by now you probably already know I am talking about CSS and CSS3. Actually, we should probably take a moment to thank CSS3 before going any further for speeding up the load times for all of your favorite sites.  They, if they know what they are doing, are more than likely using CSS3 in place of a ton of images to enhance user load times, which is pretty awesome. It is a pretty accepted fact by now that we simply...

Blogs can often be left out in the cold when it comes to design. A lot of us discount the need for intensive design when it comes to our blogs—whether for our companies, or ourselves. But it is important that we realize every aspect of our identity online should be designed in a clean and intuitive way with whatever style you prefer.  This elusive aspect of web work is something we should constantly strive for. And yes, that includes the time...