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Exploring Global Styles

Global Styles is an aspect of full site editing that will have a major impact on theme development. To further my understanding of this feature, I explored adding support for it to the block-based version of Twenty Twenty that Jeff Ong recently shared. Some background: Global Styles aims to bring site-wide controls for things like … Continue reading "Exploring Global Styles"




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I’m a Sex Geek — deal with it.

It says it right there in my Twitter bio, I am a Sex Geek. It’s a term that was coined and made popular by renowned sex educator Reid Mihalko and I’ve been one since before there even WAS a term for it. A Sex Geek is much like a geek of any other flavor. Geekiness […]




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Faster Nuxt sites on Netlify

https://www.voorhoede.nl/en/blog/faster-nuxt-sites-on-netlify/




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Recovery From Mild Brain Trauma Takes Longer Than Expected: Study

"This study challenges current perceptions that most people with a sports-related mTBI recover within 10 to 14 days," said lead author Dr. Stephen Kara, from Axis Sports Medicine in Auckland, New Zealand.




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Even Light Exercise Can Speed Stroke Recovery

Even light exercise can counter the damage of stroke in survivors, a new study suggests.




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Could you get PTSD from your pandemic experience? The long-term mental health effects of coronavirus

Experiencing intense flashbacks, nightmares, irritability, anger, and fear? In the face of a traumatic event like the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s common to feel this way.




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Own This Extensive Font Library Worth $4265 for Just $29

High-quality fonts can be really expensive and are often the most costly tool a designer needs, so when a massive saving like this comes along it’s hard to let it pass by! This brand new bundle contains 16 hand-picked typefaces, containing hundreds of individual fonts, chosen specifically for their quality and versatility. These fonts are […]

The post Own This Extensive Font Library Worth $4265 for Just $29 appeared first on Spoon Graphics.




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20 Free Old Paper Textures with Creases, Folds and Stains

Old paper textures are one of my most commonly used design resources, as you may have noticed from my tutorials! I have always just downloaded whatever third-party assets I could find, so I thought it was about time I made a collection of my own old paper textures to keep handy in my digital toolbox. […]

The post 20 Free Old Paper Textures with Creases, Folds and Stains appeared first on Spoon Graphics.




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Could you get PTSD from your pandemic experience? The long-term mental health effects of coronavirus

Experiencing intense flashbacks, nightmares, irritability, anger, and fear? In the face of a traumatic event like the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s common to feel this way.




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How to Improve User Experience Design: Tips to Increase Conversion Rates

No one can deny that UX (user experience) is the foundation of any website. This is the main reason why many website owners always look for ways to improve it. Some even spend a lot of money on design because of it. So, what is UX design exactly? And what is the difference between user […]




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How to personalize the mobile experience for app users

Mobile user experience somehow ‘imposed itself’ with all the development and improvement of mobile communication devices. In fact, it is the quality of user experience that divides outstanding apps from their less outstanding counterparts. The same factor enables startups to learn from big brands and to improve their products. User experience for mobile applications – […]




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Hex Opacity Table

We’ve used hex colors for years but 8-digit hexadecimal is still relatively new. While rgba is simple to understand, 8-digit hex is more difficult, as you need to provide a hex representation of a numeric value. The following is a hexadecimal chart of opacity! Opacity Value Hex Code 100 FF 99 FC 98 FA 97 […]

The post Hex Opacity Table appeared first on David Walsh Blog.




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How to Fix ESLint Errors Upon Save in VS Code

Two of the most prominent utilities in web development today are ESLint and Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code. I enjoy using both, and I love the integration between both tools, but warnings from ESLint inside Visual Studio Code aren’t fulfilling — I’d rather lint errors be fixed each time I save. Complete the following steps to […]

The post How to Fix ESLint Errors Upon Save in VS Code appeared first on David Walsh Blog.




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6 Causes of Pixelated Text in Photoshop and Their Fixes

You’re working on some text in Photoshop for your photo. Things are going along great…until you realize that your text is horribly pixelated! Why? You may have even created this exact type of file before and not had this problem. Why is the text pixelated now? There are a few things that can cause pixelated text in Photoshop. The good Continue Reading

The post 6 Causes of Pixelated Text in Photoshop and Their Fixes appeared first on Photodoto.




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How to Make Money With Photography and How Much Can You Expect

Live your passion. That’s what you’d like to do, right? Spend your days doing what you enjoy? Unfortunately, you gotta eat and do adulting things like paying bills. For that, you need money and your passion might not be good enough. Or is it? There are many ways to turn your passion for photography into an income stream. None of Continue Reading

The post How to Make Money With Photography and How Much Can You Expect appeared first on Photodoto.




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20 Minute Tut! Create Your Own Customized Chalkboard Text Vector

In this Chalkboard Text Vector tutorial, I’ll show you how to create a chalkboard vector effect with some gradients, a bristle brush, and some freebies from Vector Mill! This chalkboard text vector effect tutorial is relatively simple and can be applied to many other Illustrator projects. Use this effect for logo creation, back to school backgrounds, […]

The post 20 Minute Tut! Create Your Own Customized Chalkboard Text Vector appeared first on Vectips.



  • Tutorials
  • chalkboard text effect
  • chalkboard text vector
  • chalkboard text vector effect
  • chalkboard vector
  • how to create a chalkboard text
  • how to create a chalkboard text vector
  • how to create a chalkboard vector

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How to Create a Wood Block Printing Text Effect

Let’s go old school with recreating a time honored printing technique in Adobe Illustrator. With a modified photo texture, we’ll quickly edit any text to look like a wood block printing text effect, ready for whatever your digital needs may be! Tutorial Details: Wood Block Printing Text Effect Program: Adobe Illustrator CS6 – CC 2015 […]

The post How to Create a Wood Block Printing Text Effect appeared first on Vectips.




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Unforgettable Road Trips in the UK-A new of enjoying your next travel

Scenic Road Trips in the UK that are Worth Capturing by Camera Some people like hiking. Some people like cycling. But, after chatting with online car dealership Carspring, it seems you can have just as much fun exploring your next trip in the complete, climate-controlled comfort of your car. Here we go through the most unforgettable road trips in England, Scotland and Wales. Drives that offer driving heaven, stunning scenery and plenty of fun along the way. All you need is the right company and you are all set to enjoy! England: Road from Glastonbury to Cheddar Gorge – Check out the route here. This route gives you a proper feel of medieval England. Begin deep in England’s spiritual realm on the outskirts of the hallowed town on Glastonbury (Therefore avoid at a certain summer weekend). Start at the Tor on the edge of town, where hippies will tell you ... Read more

The post Unforgettable Road Trips in the UK-A new of enjoying your next travel appeared first on Digital Photography Tutorials.





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Design Trends in 2016 & What to Expect in 2017

The year ahead should be a really exciting one for design, with the introduction of wider support for SVG and a host of new things we can do with CSS as CSS4 gains broader acceptance. In taking a look back at what made a big splash this year, I hope you will be inspired to […]


The post Design Trends in 2016 & What to Expect in 2017 appeared first on Web Designer Wall.




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Master CSS Flexbox in 5 Simple Steps

CSS flexbox is an incredibly useful tool for layout without using floats or positioning. Currently almost all current browser version support flexbox, making it a go-to standard for web design. It can solve a number of problems efficiently, such as vertical alignment, space distribution, ordering of elements and sizing. It offers more freedom to arrange […]


The post Master CSS Flexbox in 5 Simple Steps appeared first on Web Designer Wall.




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Common WordPress Errors & How to Fix Them

WordPress is an amazingly stable platform thanks to the dedication and talent of the hundreds of professionals contributing to it, and the strict code standards they follow. Even so, the huge variety of themes, plugins and server environments out there make it difficult to guarantee nothing will ever go wrong. This guide will help you […]


The post Common WordPress Errors & How to Fix Them appeared first on Web Designer Wall.




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Sony Xperia Z1 Compact Complete Guide

Have you got yourself a Sony Xperia Z1 Compact but not sure how to do something on it? Don’t worry, we’ve come up with a comprehensive guide for all the things your handset is capable of. Navigate the various sections using the links below. If you can’t find what you’re looking for just leave a … Continue reading Sony Xperia Z1 Compact Complete Guide




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Motorola Moto X complete guide

Got a brand new Motorola Moto X but not sure how to do something on it? Fear not as we’ve put together a comprehensive guide to get your started. Scroll through or navigate using the links below, and if you’ve got a query and we havne’t covered it, let us know. Leave us a comment … Continue reading Motorola Moto X complete guide





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7 Steps to Landing Your First UI/UX Job

UI/UX design careers are on fire, with plenty of competition for jobs. Here's how to differentiate yourself, save time and succeed in your job search.




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Creative Ways To Earn Extra Money In Your Downtime

Many people have regular jobs that they love, and which enable them to use their creative skills to make money. This could be anything from coding video games to being an expert in SEO or designing...




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Top 5 Best Internet Live Support Extension To Increase Customers Interactions

Creative interactions call for creative measures - numerous extensions reduce, minimize or dilute the frustration of the customers and resolve issues quickly without the customer support team need....





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Remix and make music with audio from the Library of Congress

Brian Foo is the current Innovator-in-Residence at the Library of Congress. His latest…

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A Viget Exploration: How Tech Can Help in a Pandemic

Viget Explorations have always been the result of our shared curiosities. They’re usually a spontaneous outcome of team downtime and a shared problem we’ve experienced. We use our Explorations to pursue our diverse interests and contribute to the conversations about building a better digital world.

As the COVID-19 crisis emerged, we were certainly experiencing a shared problem. As a way to keep busy and manage our anxieties, a small team came together to dive into how technology has helped, and, unfortunately, hindered the community response to the current pandemic.

We started by researching the challenges we saw: information overload, a lack of clarity, individual responsibility, and change. Then we brainstormed possible technical solutions that could further improve how communities respond to a pandemic. Click here to see our Exploration on some possible ways to take the panic out of pandemics.

While we aren’t currently pursuing the solutions outlined in the Exploration, we’d love to hear what you think about these approaches, as well as any ideas you have for how technology can help address the outlined challenges.

Please note, this Exploration doesn’t provide medical information. Visit the Center for Disease Control’s website for current information and COVID-19, its symptoms, and treatments.

At Viget, we’re adjusting to this crisis for the safety of our clients, our staff, and our communities. If you’d like to hear from Viget's co-founder, Brian Williams, you can read his article on our response to the situation.



  • News & Culture

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5 things to Note in a New Phoenix 1.5 App

Yesterday (Apr 22, 2020) Phoenix 1.5 was officially released ????

There’s a long list of changes and improvements, but the big feature is better integration with LiveView. I’ve previously written about why LiveView interests me, so I was quite excited to dive into this release. After watching this awesome Twitter clone in 15 minutes demo from Chris McCord, I had to try out some of the new features. I generated a new phoenix app with the —live flag, installed dependencies and started a server. Here are five new features I noticed.

1. Database actions in browser

Oops! Looks like I forgot to configure the database before starting the server. There’s now a helpful message and a button in the browser that can run the command for me. There’s a similar button when migrations are pending. This is a really smooth UX to fix a very common error while developing.

2. New Tagline!

Peace-of-mind from prototype to production

This phrase looked unfamiliar, so I went digging. Turns out that the old tagline was “A productive web framework that does not compromise speed or maintainability.” (I also noticed that it was previously “speed and maintainability” until this PR from 2019 was opened on a dare to clarify the language.)

Chris McCord updated the language while adding phx.new —live. I love this framing, particularly for LiveView. I am very excited about the progressive enhancement path for LiveView apps. A project can start out with regular, server rendered HTML templates. This is a very productive way to work, and a great way to start a prototype for just about any website. Updating those templates to work with LiveView is an easier lift than a full rebuild in React. And finally, when you’re in production you have the peace-of-mind that the reliable BEAM provides.

3. Live dependency search

There’s now a big search bar right in the middle of the page. You can search through the dependencies in your app and navigate to the hexdocs for them. This doesn’t seem terribly useful, but is a cool demo of LiveView. The implementation is a good illustration of how compact a feature like this can be using LiveView.

4. LiveDashboard

This is the really cool one. In the top right of that page you see a link to LiveDashboard. Clicking it will take you to a page that looks like this.

This page is built with LiveView, and gives you a ton of information about your running system. This landing page has version numbers, memory usage, and atom count.

Clicking over to metrics brings you to this page.

By default it will tell you how long average queries are taking, but the metrics are configurable so you can define your own custom telemetry options.

The other tabs include process info, so you can monitor specific processes in your system:

And ETS tables, the in memory storage that many apps use for caching:

The dashboard is a really nice thing to get out of the box and makes it free for application developers to monitor their running system. It’s also developing very quickly. I tried an earlier version a week ago which didn’t support ETS tables, ports or sockets. I made a note to look into adding them, but it's already done! I’m excited to follow along and see where this project goes.

5. New LiveView generators

1.5 introduces a new generator mix phx.gen.live.. Like other generators, it will create all the code you need for a basic resource in your app, including the LiveView modules. The interesting part here is that it introduces patterns for organizing LiveView code, which is something I have previously been unsure about. At first glance, the new organization makes sense and feels like a good approach. I look forward to seeing how this works on a real project.

Conclusion

The 1.5 release brings more changes under the hood of course, but these are the first five differences you’ll notice after generating a new Phoenix 1.5 app with LiveView. Congratulations to the entire Phoenix team, but particularly José Valim and Chris McCord for getting this work released.



  • Code
  • Back-end Engineering

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Should you use Userbase for your next static site?

During the winter 2020 Pointless Weekend, we built TrailBuddy (working app coming soon). Our team consisted of four developers, two project managers, two front-end developers, a digital-analyst, a UXer, and a designer. In about 48 hours, we took an idea from Jeremy Field’s head to a (mostly) working app. We broke up the project in two parts:. First, a back-end that crunches trail, weather, and soil data. That data is exposed via a GraphQL API for a web app to consume.

While developers built the API, I built a static front end using Next.js. Famously, static front-ends don’t have a database, or a concept of “users.” A bit of functionality I wanted to add was saving favorite trails. I didn’t want to be hacky about it, I needed some way to add users and a database. I knew it’d be hard for the developers to set this up as part of the API, they had their hands full with all the #soil-soil-soil-soil-soil (a slack channel dedicated solely to figuring out our soil data problem—those were plentiful.) I had been looking for an excuse to use Userbase, and this seemed like as good a time as any.

A textbook Userbase use case

“When would I use it?” The Usebase site lists these reasons:

  • If you want to build a web app without writing any backend code.
  • If you never want to see your users' data.
  • If you're tired of dealing with databases.
  • If you want to radically simplify your GDPR compliance.
  • And if you want to keep things really simple.

This was a perfect fit for my problem. I didn’t want to write any more backend code for this. I didn’t want to see our user’s data, I don’t care to know anyone’s favorite trails.* A nice bonus to not having users in our backend was not having to worry about keeping their data safe. We don’t have their data at all, it’s end-to-end encrypted by Userbase. We can offer a reasonable amount of privacy for free (well for the price of using Userbase: $49 a year.) I am not tired of dealing with databases, but I’d rather not. I don’t think anyone doesn’t want to simplify their GDPR compliance. Finally, given our tight timeline I wanted nothing more than to keep things really simple.

A sign up form that I didn't have to write a back-end for

Using Userbase

Userbase can be tried for free, so I set aside thirty minutes or so to do a quick proof of concept to make sure this would work out for us. I made an account and followed their Quickstart. Userbase is a fundamentally easy tool to use, but their quickstart is everything I’d want out of a quickstart:

  • Written in the most vanilla way possible (just HTML and vanilla JS). This means I can adapt it to my needs, in this case React using Next.js
  • Easy to follow, it does the most barebones tour of the functionality you can expect to get out of the SDK (software development kit.) In other words it is quick and it is a start
  • It has a live demo and code samples you can download and run yourself

It didn’t take long after that to integrate Userbase into our app with more help from their great docs. I debated whether to add code samples of what we did here, and I didn’t because any reader would be better off using the great quickstart and docs Userbase provides—they are that clear, and that good. Depending on your use case you’ll need to adapt the examples to your needs, for us the trickiest things were creating a top level authentication context to manage users in the app, and a custom hook to encapsulate all the logic for setting, updating, and deleting favourite trails in the app. Userbase’s SDK worked seamlessly for us.

A log in form that I didn't have to write a back-end for

Is Userbase for you?

Maybe. I am definitely a fan, so much so that this blog post probably reads like an advert. Userbase saved me a ton of time in this project. It reminded me of “The All Powerful Front End Developer” talk by Chris Coyer. I don’t fully subscribe to all the ideas in that talk, but it is nice to have “serverless” tools like Userbase, and all the new JAMstacky things. There are limits to the Userbase serverless experience in terms of scale, and control. Obviously relying on a third party for something always carries some (probably small) risk—it’s worth noting Usebase includes a note on their pricing page that says “You can host it yourself always under your control, or we can run it for you for a full serverless experience”—Still, I wouldn’t hesitate this to use in future projects.

One of the great things about Viget and Pointless Weekend is the opportunity to try new things. For me that was Next.js and Userbase for Trailbuddy. It doesn’t always work out (in fact this is my first pointless weekend where a risk hasn’t blown up in my face) but it is always fun. Getting to try out Userbase and beginning to think about how we may use it in the future made the weekend worthwhile for me, and it made my job on this project much more enjoyable.

*I will write a future post about privacy conscious analytics in TrailBuddy when I’ve figured that out. I am looking into Fathom Analytics for that.



  • Code
  • Front-end Engineering

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Intel’s Parallel Extensions for JavaScript

Intel’s Parallel Extensions for JavaScript, code named River Trail, hooks into on-chip vector extensions to improve performance of Web applications. Details of Intel’s attempt to get on the JavaScript juggernaut emerged last month at its developer event. The prototype JavaScript extension offered by Intel is intended to allow JavaScript apps to take advantage of modern parallel Read the rest...




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Rails cache sweeper redux

Michael Mahemoff writes: To be effective, Rails cache sweepers need to be more fully understood.  They know no standard, so you must employ art. He goes on: Sweepers observe both your models and your controllers, but most workarounds focus on their controller nature.  Importantly: the sweeper must be explicitly added as an observer. Even more Read the rest...




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Vert.x ramblings: Asynchronous network, your time has come

With the debut of Vert.x, the asynchronous framework is reaching an inflection point, suggests Andrew Cholakian. With Vert.x, the software is packaged together in such a way as to be extremely practical, he states. For some JVM zealots, Vert.x may meet needs recently and apparently addressed by node.js. Vert.x is an asynchronous application server – Read the rest...




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Mobile Proxies: A New Era Dawns

This week, Chrome For Android M26 was announced. It has the literally-awesome ability to record video via `getUserMedia()`, but enough about making Skype irrelevant. What’s even more interesting is the new data compression feature. Which, to be clear, is experimental, has to be switched on, doesn’t apply to secure (SSL) sites, and it’s only running Read the rest...













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Punxsutawney Phil vs. the U.S. National Weather Service

Punxsutawney Phil’s predictions for the coming of Spring on Groundhog Day haven’t been that accurate, and the U.S. National Weather Service is here to prove it with an infographic!

Every February 2, a crowd of thousands gathers at Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, to await a special forecast from a groundhog named Phil. If the 20-pound groundhog emerges and sees his shadow, the United States can expect six more weeks of winter weather according to legend. But, if Phil doesn’t see his shadow, we can expect warmer temperatures and the arrival of an early spring.

Even though he’s been forecasting since 1887, Phil’s track record for the entire country isn’t perfect. To determine just how accurate he is, we’ve compared U.S. national temperatures with Phil’s forecasts. On average, Phil has gotten it right 40% of the time over the past 10 years.

Using real data wins!

For what it’s worth, Phil didn’t see his shadow in 2020, and predicted that Spring would be coming soon!




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‘Coming Mass Extinction’ Caused by Human Destruction Could Wipe Out 1 Million Species, Warns UN Draft Report

By Jessica Corbett Common Dreams Far-reaching global assessment details how humanity is undermining the very foundations of the natural world     On the heels of an Earth Day that featured calls for radical action to address the current “age … Continue reading




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‘Coming Mass Extinction’ Caused by Human Destruction Could Wipe Out 1 Million Species, Warns UN Draft Report

By Jessica Corbett Common Dreams Far-reaching global assessment details how humanity is undermining the very foundations of the natural world     On the heels of an Earth Day that featured calls for radical action to address the current “age … Continue reading




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10 diagrams to help you think straight about UX Research

Some of the problems we work on as UX researchers are simple and are easily solved by getting users in front of our product. But other problems can be complex and it's hard to know how to start solving them. In situations like that, a simple 2x2 diagram can cut through the 'what ifs', the 'how abouts' and the edge cases and provide a simple way of looking at the problem. Here are 10 examples of 2x2 diagrams to simplify UX research discussions.