your

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

your

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.




your

25 Best Freelance Tools to Enhance Your Business for Free

Freelancing can be a tough gig, but there is no better time than a new year to begin building (or rebuilding) a fantastic new business where you can do what you love. Being successful has a lot to do with your drive and passion, but depends largely on your efficiency, workflow and presentation. In this […]


The post 25 Best Freelance Tools to Enhance Your Business for Free appeared first on Web Designer Wall.




your

Level Up Your CSS Skills With These 20 Pro CSS Tips

Front-end development is quickly becoming more and more focused on efficiency – faster loading and rendering through selector choice and minimizing code. Pre-processors like Less and SCSS go a long way in doing some of the work for us, but there are plenty of ways to write minimal, quick CSS the native way. This guide […]


The post Level Up Your CSS Skills With These 20 Pro CSS Tips appeared first on Web Designer Wall.




your

Blog Project: Your Best Photos From 2017

It’s that time of year again and if you’re a regular JMG-Galleries reader that means one thing… it is time to kick off the 11th annual best photos of the year blog project. This is by far my most popular blog project with hundreds of photographers taking part last year (see Best Photos of 2016,  2015, 2014, 2013,  2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008 and 2007).  It’s great to see the community of photographers that have developed around this blog project. As always I hope the exercise of picking your best photos helps improve your photography (10 Ways to Top Your Best 20xx Photographs). So without any further delay here is how you take part to submit your best photos of 2016. How to Participate (Read Carefully) Review & select your best photos from 2017. Note: Photo edit carefully narrowing down your results to your best 10 or 5 photos. Reference Pro Tips: Photo Editing with Gary Crabbe for pointers. Create a blog post on your website or a Flickr/500px set containing your best photos from 2017. Complete the form below by Tuesday JANUARY 2rd at 11:59PM PST to take part. The following Tuesday, or thereabout, I’ll post a link to all submitted sites and photos on my blog. Throughout the week I’ll also share the results across all my social media accounts. Spread the Word! Feel free to spread the word of this project on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, photo forums you frequent and/or your blogs. All who are interested in taking part are invited. Loading…




your

Blog Project: Your Best Photos From 2018

It’s that time of year again, it is time to kick off the 12th annual best photos of the year blog project. I’m proud to say over the years that hundreds of photographers have taken part (see Best Photos of 2017, 2016,  2015, 2014, 2013,  2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008 and 2007).  It’s great to see the community of photographers that have developed around this blog project. As always I hope the exercise of picking your best photos helps improve your photography (10 Ways to Top Your Best 20xx Photographs). So without any further delay here is how you take part to submit your best photos of 2018. How to Participate (Read Carefully) Review & select your best photos from 2018. Note: Photo edit carefully narrowing down your results to your best 10 or 5 photos. Reference Pro Tips: Photo Editing with Gary Crabbe for pointers. Create a blog post on your website or a Flickr set containing your best photos from 2018. Complete the form below by Friday JANUARY 4th at 11:59PM PST to take part. The following Tuesday, or thereabout, I’ll post a link to all submitted sites and photos on my blog. Throughout the week I’ll also share the results across all my social media accounts. Spread the Word! Feel free to spread the word of this project on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, Google+ (even if it is about to die), photo forums you frequent and/or your blogs. All who are interested in taking part are invited. Loading…




your

Blog Project: Your Best Photos From 2019

It is time to kick off the 13th annual best photos of the year blog project! I’m proud to say over the years that hundreds of photographers have taken part (see Best Photos of 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008 and 2007).  It’s great to see the community of photographers that have developed around this blog project. As always I hope the exercise of picking your best photos helps improve your photography (10 Ways to Top Your Best 20xx Photographs). So without any further delay here is how you take part to submit your best photos of 2019. How to Participate (Read Carefully) Review & select your best photos from 2019. Note: Photo edit carefully narrowing down your results to your best 10 or 5 photos. Reference Pro Tips: Photo Editing with Gary Crabbe for pointers. Create a blog post on your website or a Flickr set containing your best photos from 2019. Complete the form below by Sunday JANUARY 5th at 11:59PM PST to take part. The following Tuesday, or thereabout, I’ll post a link to all submitted sites and photos on my blog. Throughout the week I’ll also share the results across all my social media accounts. Spread the Word! Feel free to spread the word of this project on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, photo forums you frequent and/or your blogs. All who are interested in taking part are invited. Loading…




your

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.




your

9 Ways To Start Promoting Your Content Now

Your ability to create and promote content is critical to your business' success. Here are 9 ways to set up a framework for content promotion immediately.




your

How To Build a Website That Your Users Will Love

Find out what users love and hate and how to build the best website for your audience. From content and navigation to design and hosting, use our 5 top tips.




your

How to Grow Your Sales and Leads During the Coronavirus Pandemic

Try these 10 actionable steps for streamlined, cost-effective marketing during the lockdown. Shed costs and embrace innovation to drive leads and conversions.




your

How To Get Effective Help With Writing Tasks That Will Boost Your Own Writing Skills

Writing is a quite ambivalent word. For some students, it causes their worst nightmares to come to mind (or it is just a boring assignment) and for some, it’s the fun way to express their thoughts to...




your

How Important Is A Domain Name For Your Business?

Online representation has a crucial role in planning a business. Today, people turn to the internet whenever they need help, but especially when they want to find certain products or specific...




your

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...




your

The Best Way To Improve Your Business Skills

Are you thinking about running a business after getting a degree? This article will help you find the best ways to make your business skills more efficient and useful. The Best Way To Improve Your...




your

How Can SEO Help Market Your Designing Agency?

It's unusual, as indeed Google says that in case you've got to enlist an SEO strategy, you ought to do so early instead of late, like when you're appropriate arranging to launch a new site. Because...




your

6 Ways To Step Up Your Instagram Stories Game

Instagram Stories are an integral part of the platform. Though Instagram copied Snapchat’s concept a few years ago, over 500 million accounts use the Stories feature on a daily basis. Some users...




your

Why Choosing The Best Web Hosting Is Crucial For Your Business

Not many business owners think about hosting when building a new website for their business. But failing to choose the right web hosting can have a great impact on your website and, of course, your...




your

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

your

5 Essentials To Create Your Own Website Presence

Only a website that has a well-established presence can stand out on the internet. Business owners and individuals hire web designers like yourself to create website presences for them. In order to prove yourself, you need to establish your own presence online first. Get to the point where you can showcase your own website during […]

The post 5 Essentials To Create Your Own Website Presence appeared first on Bittbox.




your

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...







your

The Best Free Zoom Backgrounds to Make Your Video Conferencing More Fun

If you’re a remote worker, you may have plenty of experience with video conferencing as a way to communicate with clients, team members, or other colleagues. But with millions of additional...

Click through to read the rest of the story on the Vandelay Design Blog.




your

How Much Does It Really Cost To Produce Your Favorite TV Show?

How Much Does It Really Cost To Produce Your Favorite TV Show? infographic compares the cost to make the show to their ratings on IMDb. Cashnetusa.com comes to the conclusion that, while Game of Thrones paid out the big bucks and received the huge ratings, it isn’t always necessary. Peaky blinders received great reviews and spent 10 million less per episode!

Our new guide to the cost of producing the best and worst rated shows on TV in 2019 reiterates this sense that it’s not always the size of your production budget that counts, but what you do with it. The costly robots of Westworld are rivalled in ratings by the non-union zombies of The Walking Dead for a third of the price; Lost In Space was just as mediocre as the decidedly more earthbound NCIS: New Orleans.

And in the short-term, with the complete series rating hovering around 9.5 on IMDb, Game of Thrones still manages to top our new table as both the highest rated and highest costing show. But when you consider the bitter taste on the tongues of millions of disappointed HBO subscribers, would a more thought-through finale have been a better investment than all that extra cash? Or are GoT fans just sour because (as experts suggest) they’re going through an end-of-show ‘break-up’?

This infographic design does a lot of things right:

  • Good scatterplot data visualization to illustrate their data

  • Data points are clearly identified with data titles using proximity, not connecting lines necessary. This can often be a design challenge!

  • Sources clearly identified with links so anyone can look into the data

  • Use of Creative Commons to protect the infographic and encourage sharing

  • The text on the infographic landing page includes the clickable data source links and a methodology description.

Found on Geekologie.com




your

Fight or Flight: Which Emotion Does Your Website Evoke?

Are you a logical individual? Do you carefully consider all options before making a decision? Are opinions shaped primarily through facts and reasoning? If you answered yes to these questions, you’d be wrong. We are all emotional beings, and our emotions are the root cause of our thoughts and behaviors. Our logical, conscious thoughts simply […]

The post Fight or Flight: Which Emotion Does Your Website Evoke? appeared first on Psychology of Web Design | 3.7 Blog.




your

Does your website need to be beautiful?

When I first started designing websites in the 1990s, I focused most of my attention on creating striking visuals. In my defense, I was typically designing gaming website with only the occasional local business… but my goal was always to design a site that looked “cool.” In the early 2000s I stumbled across a website […]

The post Does your website need to be beautiful? appeared first on Psychology of Web Design | 3.7 Blog.




your

Why Your Website Doesn’t Generate Leads (and how to fix it)

You’re homepage is beautifully designed. It’s clear all the ways you can help. You’ve articulated why someone should hire you. You’ve validated your claims through case studies and testimonials, yet… You’re not getting the volume of leads you need. Sure they trickle in every month, but it’s not enough to grow your business. What are […]

The post Why Your Website Doesn’t Generate Leads (and how to fix it) appeared first on Psychology of Web Design | 3.7 Blog.




your

Hooked: How to engage your website audience in one second or less

You have less than one second to make the right impression. Almost immediately after landing on your website users will make an uninformed, mostly subconscious judgment about what type of organization they’re interacting with. This initial judgment will largely be influenced by layout, design, and visual tone. It will not only influence the rest of […]

The post Hooked: How to engage your website audience in one second or less appeared first on Psychology of Web Design | 3.7 Blog.




your

10 Ways to Get More From Your Website in 2020

It’s a new year, a time of reflection and goal setting. Whether you subscribe to new years resolutions or not, 2020 should be the year you stop neglecting your website. Regardless of how performant your website currently is, it can be do better. You might already know this. You probably realize you should dedicate more […]

The post 10 Ways to Get More From Your Website in 2020 appeared first on Psychology of Web Design | 3.7 Blog.




your

9 Best Staging Plugins for Your WordPress Website (Compared)

Are you looking for a good staging plugin to test your experiments before it goes live? A staging site is a replica of your website where you can experiment with new features, plugins, and updates before you push them to your live website. That way you can find and fix bugs without having to worry […]

The post 9 Best Staging Plugins for Your WordPress Website (Compared) appeared first on IsItWP - Free WordPress Theme Detector.




your

For Veterans with TBI and PTSD, Finding Your Best Path in College

Whether taking classes online or finding a seat in a lecture hall that makes you feel safe, Adam shares ideas for vets with TBI and PTSD returning to school.




your

Managing Your Money After a Brain Injury

Managing money is complicated, especially for people with a brain injury who may have trouble remembering what they spent or creating a budget. Adam shares some tips from online banking to keeping a spending journal.




your

Don't Let Your Diagnosis of TBI and/or PTSD Define You

Adam shares a message of hope to those diagnosed with TBI and/or PTSD: Your life may be different, but you are still the driver and in control.




your

Turning Your Life Around After TBI and PTSD

Adam shares an inspiring story about a friend with TBI and PTSD who almost ended his life but instead found the courage to ask for help — even though at the time he may not have known what that help looked like.




your

Create your own bulk actions

Including version 4.6 it was quite difficult to add custom bulk actions to the WordPress admin pages. In version 4.7 […]




your

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.




your

When Your Veteran Spouse Battles More Than PTSD

For many veterans’ spouses, we’ve watched our partners struggle not only with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but with other mental health conditions, as well. Around 80 percent of people with PTSD wrestle with at least one other co-occurring mental health condition in their lifetime.What many people don’t see is the impact PTSD and comorbidity have on vets’ spouses.




your

You Know Clean Air is Good for Your Health. It’s Good for the Economy, Too.

By Rachel Cernansky Ensia When the Clean Air Act of 1970 became law, members of the business community in the United States responded with opposition. Such regulations are a drag on growth, some economists say, for individual businesses and for … Continue reading




your

Elizabeth Gilbert: The Art of Being Yourself

Brace yourself for a TRULY powerful episode with the bestselling author and creative genius, Elizabeth Gilbert. Although best known for her memoir Eat, Pray, Love–which went on to sell over 12 million copies and became a film staring Julia Roberts—she’s also one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world… The whole world. Spend some time with her in your ears on today’s podcast and you’ll know why in under a minute…   In this episode, we cover How Liz considers mental health her full time job, and writing / being a professional creator is a hobby.  How the only way out of pain is through honesty. Liz shares her experiences working through the loss of her partner to cancer. The things we won’t even admit to ourselves will cause us pain, even to the point of mental and physical breakdown Her latest INCREDIBLE novel called City of Girls (…a “delicious novel of glamour, sex, and adventure, about a young woman discovering that you don’t have to be a good girl to be a good person”) Why mercy is the foundation to any creative endeavor. How creativity and writing can be a tool to slow the mind during hard times. And […]

The post Elizabeth Gilbert: The Art of Being Yourself appeared first on Chase Jarvis Photography.




your

How to Build Your Brand /w Ben Von Wong

Back in 2012, budding photographer Ben Von Wong stopped by my photo studio in Seattle to say hello. Fast forward to present day and he’s making headlines working with some of the world’s largest brands like Nike and IBM, create work that combines art & activism. His work has been featured numerous times on Buzzfeed, Gizmodo, Mashable and the Huffington Post to name a few. So when he stopped by the CreativeLive studios not too long ago, I wanted to pick his brain one of the most common questions I get on how to stand out and build a personal brand. In this episode: Put work in your portfolio you want to be hired to do. If you shoot weddings and also muscle cars, consider separate sites. One of Ben’s main considerations for helping his project spread? Create with the headline in mind. Ben shares a little about his process to discover his unique style and thumbprint to his work. Enjoy! FOLLOW BEN: instagram | twitter | website Listen to the Podcast Subscribe   Watch the Episode  This podcast is brought to you by CreativeLive. CreativeLive is the world’s largest hub for online creative education in photo/video, art/design, music/audio, […]

The post How to Build Your Brand /w Ben Von Wong appeared first on Chase Jarvis Photography.




your

Design Your Life with Creative Calling + Debbie Millman

Debbie Millman is one of my dear friends, a powerhouse creative and someone who inspires me every day. When I was developing my online companion class to the Creative Calling book, of course I had to ask Debbie to join me on stage for a conversation around designing our life with intention. Debbie’s insight is pure gold. AND – this is just one of the segments from the class. If you already have my book, you can access the entire class for free. All you need to do is visit www.creativelive.com/creativecalling and sign up there. Enjoy! FOLLOW DEBBIE: instagram | twitter | website Listen to the Podcast Subscribe   This podcast is brought to you by CreativeLive. CreativeLive is the world’s largest hub for online creative education in photo/video, art/design, music/audio, craft/maker, money/life and the ability to make a living in any of those disciplines. They are high quality, highly curated classes taught by the world’s top experts — Pulitzer, Oscar, Grammy Award winners, New York Times best selling authors and the best entrepreneurs of our times.

The post Design Your Life with Creative Calling + Debbie Millman appeared first on Chase Jarvis Photography.




your

You Are Not Your Ego with Cheri Huber and Ashwini Narayanan

Cheri has been a student and teacher of Zen for over 35 years. She is the author of over 20 books on Zen, and founded the Mountain View Zen Center and the Zen Monastery Peace Center. Cheri also founded a non-profit dedicated to transforming lives and ending suffering, Living Compassion, whose primary work is the Africa Vulnerable Children Project in Zambia. Ashwini co-facilitates and creates workshops with Cheri. She runs the operations of the two nonprofits that Cheri founded. Her eclectic background includes degrees in physics, business, and computer science to working in advertising, an investment bank, a social enterprise, and several technology startups in the Silicon Valley. Cheri and Ashwini have co-written multiple books, including their latest Don’t Suffer, Communicate. Today’s episode isn’t just about awareness practice, it’s about a framework for navigating life. A few highlights: Zen isn’t just the practice of keeping things nicely organized, it’s also a spiritual practice largely focused on awareness and where you direct attention. Self-improvement is an endless diss. The very nature of saying we need improvement implies we’re not enough. Cheri and Ashwini share some useful tools to redirect the attention, such as using a recorder to access the wisdom, love, and compassion that is […]

The post You Are Not Your Ego with Cheri Huber and Ashwini Narayanan appeared first on Chase Jarvis Photography.




your

How to Find Yourself with Glennon Doyle

Very excited to have my friend, truth-teller, and Bestselling Author, Glennon Doyle back on the show. Her newly released book, UNTAMED, is a powerful memoir and wake-up call about being forged in the fire of anger, heartbreak, and discontent to finally finding yourself. In this episode, we’re coming to you LIVE from our living rooms to chat about how to listen to the inner voice and take control of your life. If you’re not familiar with Glennon’s work, she is the bestselling author of many books including LOVE WARRIOR, which was selected as an Oprah’s Book Club pick, as well as the New York Times bestseller CARRY ON, WARRIOR. An activist and thought leader, Glennon was named among SuperSoul100’s inaugural group of “awakened leaders who are using their voices and talent to elevate humanity.” She is the founder and president of Together Rising, an all-women led nonprofit organization that has revolutionized grassroots philanthropy – raising over $20 Million for women, families and children in crisis. She lives in Florida with her wife and three children. Enjoy! FOLLOW GLENNON: instagram | twitter | website Listen to the Podcast Subscribe   Watch the Episode This podcast is brought to you by CreativeLive. CreativeLive […]

The post How to Find Yourself with Glennon Doyle appeared first on Chase Jarvis Photography.




your

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

your

Building Your Website All Alone

Whether you have created a brand new company, or you’ve been around for a long time, if you do not already have a website, you are going to have to put one up as soon as humanly possible. According to the website Mashable, online shopping accounted for $231 billion in sales in 2012. This means …

Building Your Website All Alone Read More »




your

Limiting your options on purpose

Being a photographer with some spending money and a bad habit of lusting after gear, I have amassed a lot of photo gear. Due to that I am often carrying at least two lenses and also prefer zoom lenses versus […]




your

Google Lens now copies handwritten text and pastes it straight to your computer

Are there still folks among you who, like me, prefer handwriting to typing? If you’re in this group, you’ll love this new feature on Google Lens. The app now lets you scan your handwritten notes, copy them, and paste them straight to your computer. I gave it a spin, and I bring you my impressions […]

The post Google Lens now copies handwritten text and pastes it straight to your computer appeared first on DIY Photography.




your

How Personalized Landing Pages Can Make Your Site More Profitable

Personalization is one of the most effective marketing techniques to connect with customers online. While the exact methods are different for every business, adding personalized elements to landing pages is a proven method of driving conversions on your site. But why is it so successful? The simple answer is that personalization shows customers that you […]

The post How Personalized Landing Pages Can Make Your Site More Profitable appeared first on WebFX Blog.