From my web design portfolio:
Websites & identity that tell your story: web design, development, content, strategy, SEO // See what I do »
The Caravelle Resort (www.thecaravelle.com)*
The Slater Company (www.theslatercompany.com)
GoCashiers (www.gocashiers.com)
Southern Tide College Ambassador Program (ambassador.southerntide.com)*
ShootoutGoals.com (www.shootoutgoals.com)
Capt. Adam's Bar Harbor Birthday Boat Race // JavaScript game I made for my nephew—breaks in IE :(
Chucktown Deals (www.chucktowndeals.com)
Strand Management Group (www.leasemyrtlebeach.com)*
For your reading pleasure
“It’s not about being different or difficult. It’s about being memorable”
--John Fogerty on Merle Haggard
Subtraction by addition: Thumbnail design in 37signals’ Sortfolio and Google Chrome
After updating my Sortfolio entry and browsing around a bit, I noticed that thumbnails for Sortfolio listings looked a whole lot like my Google Chrome home screen. Just better. Here are some screenshots:
Sortfolio
Chrome
The 4-column layouts echo each other. There is more information in the Sortfolio thumbs, which would seem like a greater challenge for the designer.
But this section of Sortfolio still reads lighter and richer than the similar Chrome screenshot. The use of white space, shadow and rounded corners in Sortfolio’s layout creates more shape and legibility for the eye. Comparing the two, Chrome looks more like a quilt made up of tightly bordering tiles. Sortfolio’s thumbs actually read like individual objects.
At first, the two layouts seem remarkably similar. But Sortfolio’s design shows what can happen with some very subtle additions that actually serve to simplify the layout and lighten the cognitive load. Subtraction by addition.
Image quality in Plupload using Flash, Gears, Silverlight and HTML5 runtimes
Plupload is a well endowed, highly configurable multiple image uploader that provides client-side resizing and file-size limiting with either a simple jQuery implementation ready to go out of the box or a custom build-your-own implementation that interacts with Plupload’s API. Read more about Plupload here.
For image-heavy sites like shopping carts, backends, etc., the idea of client-size resizing to cut 4MB+ images down to under 100KB before the upload even begins is incredibly appealling.
Plupload provides a lot of power in a simple install. Your script can loop through several runtimes in your prefered order looking for Flash, Gears, HTML5 and Silverlight. The form defaults to a regular form submission if none of the runtimes are present.
Sounds close to perfect, right?
I installed Plupload to test its image resizing powers in a project I’m working on. I chose a photo I shot a few years ago that had three critical elements that tend to degrade during resizing: texture, line and smooth gradient.
There were some obvious differences between runtimes.
Here it is resized in Photoshop using regular bicubic resampling:
There is some jagged line on the mast, but most of the original is preserved. There is a nice, smooth gradient. You can see the seams in the sails and some patches. There aren’t any artifacts or halo around the boat.
Read on for the Plupload demos.
Trust your employees and they’ll give you their best
I’m building a custom CMS for a client. On the page where you add blog users to the account (no admin privileges, just blog for the company), I included the following paragraph:
Some general advice about blogging for business: choose staff you trust, define their limits and let them write. Don’t create an approval process. Just let them write. Many companies find this intimidating — “What will they write?!” — “How can I trust them to show the best face of the company?!” Many companies are surprised by the quality and insight that occurs when they allow an open dialog. If there are issues that emerge, then you can deal with them or revoke their blogging privileges if need be.
I really believe in this. And most business owners have the screws so tight, they would really be uncomfortable with employees posting to the blog without approval. At my old job, we were all supposed to write for the company blog. I wrote a good piece about usability. It never saw the light of day because the slackers I submitted it to never got around to reading it and posting it. if I could have just posted it myself, there would have been a new voice on the blog, a new idea, inspiration for other employees to write and everyone would have been happy. But the review process—instead of encouraging trust and openness—brought about resentment and apathy.
Trust your employees to carry the company flag until they prove they aren’t trustworthy. You’ll find out you have some great talent you kept in the well.
Sunset on Charleston Harbor
I was playing around with some new Photoshop actions and applied pseudonymfreak’s Retro Love action to a shot I took last fall of a silhouetted palmetto tree on Charleston Harbor from the Pitt St. Bridge in Mt. Pleasant. I found the actions in this Smashing Magazine post.
Unlike a lot of Photoshop freebies out there, this really preserves the character of the original photo but adds some nice lomo funk. Interesting and subtle.
How many of my visitors are using IE6?
After a conversation yesterday about browser compatibility, I decided to dive into Analytics and see how many visitors to my most popular website, GoCashiers.com (a guide to Cashiers, NC) are using IE6 and other browsers. Here’s the data from the lasts 60 days.
| IE6 | IE7 | IE8 | Total IE | Firefox | Safari | Chrome | Total | |
| 60 days | 145 | 343 | 597 | 1085 | 381 | 258 | 96 | 1832 |
| %IE | 13.4% | 31.6% | 55.0% | 100.0% | ||||
| %TO | 7.9% | 18.7% | 32.6% | 59.2% | 20.8% | 14.1% | 5.2% | 100.0% |
That was two months worth of visits and 1832 samples. I checked the approximate percentage of IE6 users on some of my other sites to see if there were any vast differences, but it was just about 10% across the board.
I did this same bit of number crunching and IE6 sniffing about a year-and-a-half ago. Back then, IE6 users made up about 1 in 5 visitors. I’m happy to report it appears that half of IE6 users have either died, upgraded or stopped using computers entirely because of their utter frustration with IE6. Kudos to them.
I’d be interested if anyone else out there has any recent data to confirm or dispute my findings.
Airplanes at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago
I went to the Museum of Science and Industry in Hyde Park, Chicago last week during one of their free days (Charleston Museums take note) and took this cool shot of old airplanes hanging from the ceiling. The museum is really incredible with some neat exhibits for kids but some AMAZING collections of old vehicles—like a German U-boat from WWII and an old streamlined Zephyr train. Definitely worth a visit if you’re ever in Chicago.
Here’s the museum from the lake shore:
Wind farm on Cape Cod: a classic drama
Goodbye, web design. Here marks the official fork in the road where my web development blog becomes my everything-I’m-interested-in blog.
The wind farm project off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard gets a lot of media attention—way more than it deserves. But we all love a feisty scandal. And the two (or more) sides in the fight represent a quintessential foaming-at-the-mouth not-in-my-back-yard panic. It’s just a ball to watch. Each stakeholding group manages to craft an attorney-stamped sound bite for the twenty seconds of attention the average media consumer can manage.
I understand how those with unbridled ocean views would not want their treasured vista littered with a dinosaur cage of wind turbines. It’s really a shame. Of course, this is America. So for most of the stakeholders this is about money.
I’m not a lawyer. (Remember, I’m a web designer.) I don’t know how the rights to an area of ocean are purchased. I always thought the ocean belonged to all of us even within our “national waters,” which extend some 20 or 50 or 100 miles out to sea. These waters are public domain. How can someone purchase the rights to farm the wind on a given mile of sea?
The idea that we can jam some towers in the ocean floor and attach giant propellers to create power is very appealing. The idea that we have to ruin the ocean view to achieve that is not very appealing. Why can’t those turbines be installed far enough out to shore so they’re invisible—or nearly invisible?
My web life story, or How I became a web developer
In the winter of 1999 I bought a copy of HTML Goodies by Joe Burns at a local Barnes & Noble at the recommendation of the geekiest-seeming (and therefore most trustworthy) employee at the store. I built my first website that weekend—an homage to Tyler, my family’s harlequin great dane. Just a few months later, I launched a dog trainer’s website for $250 complete with animated gifs, table-based layout, images sliced in Paint Shop Pro and HTML written in Notepad. My first web job—I was proud.
These were the old days. There was no such thing as a case of DIV-itis. JavaScript hadn’t yet gone out of (and back in) style. DHTML was cutting edge. I was about to buy books on JAVA and VBScript and later regret it. I had never heard the term usability. Google had a very ugly logo.
See all entries
* refers to site designed as full-time employee of Fuel Interactive
Random Links
Innovation in surfing: Meyerhoffer surfboard | Thomas Meyerhoffer / Global Surf Industries
Biggest contraction of thermosphere in 43 years | Derrick Ho / CNN.com
Backyard Kayaking | freeski151 / YouTube
I hate you bike thief! | IHATEYOUBIKETHIEF / Blogger
The chicken came first | British Scientists / MSNBC
Basic bread recipe | S. John Ross / io.com
Best client ever (Mick Jagger / Rolling Stones 1969) | Mick Jagger / www.nosotroshq.com/blog
Franklin Gothic: Too literal | Julia Segal (I think) / www.nosotroshq.com/blog
My friend Emily is giving away an octopus on her fashion blog! | Emily D. Crews / sartoriography
VERY cool HTML5 (canvas)/JavaScript 3D tetris tower game | Ben Joffe / benjoffe.com/code
The League of Moveable Type’s manifesto | Carolina and Micah / We Are a Good Company
10 elements every company blog should have | Mack Collier / Marketing Profs
Great design and instructions for building a user-friendly picnic table | Rod Nussbaumer / shaw.ca
Better user experience with storytelling | Francisco Inchauste / Smashing Magazine
Beat Wal Mart bloody with a blog in 5 steps | Michael Martine / remarkablogger
Mad-Men yourself -The end of productivity as we know it | Emily Crews / Sartoriography
The best execution of a horizontally-scrolled website I’ve seen to date | Eric Johansson / ericj.se
Single bluefin tuna nabs $177,000 | Shino Yuasa / AP/Yahoo
Branding Yourself and sharpening your image | Alastaire Allday / allday.cc
Inspiration for restaurant websites | Jack Herbert / inspirationti.me
Wild claims by politicians in 2009 | Bill Adair / PolitiFact.com
Dolphin intelligence | Jonathan Leake / Times Online (UK)
The Design Police are watching you | unknown / Design Police
A plethora of SEO resources | unknown / SEOmoz
Invoice like a pro: examples and best practices for designers | Kat Neville / Smashing Magazine
25 Ways to promote your website or blog | anonymous / YouTheDesigner
5 free ways to promote your website | anonymous / MakeUseOf.com
Recommended cameras | Ken Rockwell / KenRockwell.com
Amazing Berlin giants street theater (photo montage) | various / Boston.com
Myth of the “fold” in web design | Joe Leech / cx partners
How to promote your Facebook fan page | Mari Smith / Why Facebook?
Design Charts | various / Toxic Design
Video: RSS feeds in plain English | Lee LeFever / Common Craft
How to get free books to review on your blog | Nick Evans / Problogger/Macheesmo
The Principles of Successful Freelancing | Miles Burke / Sitepoint
Project Honeypot | Fighting spam and comment spam / Unspam Technologies
Pure Imagination: An interview with stop-motion filmmaker PES | Marc Ostrick / eGuiders
Build your own social home | Chris Coyier / CSS Tricks
Facebook faces furor over content rights | Carolina McCarthy / CNN/CNET
10 Harsh Truths About Corporate Websites | Paul Boag / Smashing Magazine
How to use Twitter as a Twool [Flash presentation] | Guy Kawasaki / VizEdu
Perfection is pointless: Tips to help the creative perfectionist | Matt / Spoonfed Design
Interesting article about coworking for freelancers | Alex Hillman / Mashable
Dogs on the job: corporate canines | Career Hell / www.careerhell.com
Obesessions - €2500 in pennies | Sagmeister / ministryoftype.co.uk
Innovate or die | Randy McClain / The Tennessean
Retro web design examples | various / Smashing Magazine
Around the world in 42 days and $5,312 | Strange Maps / Wordpress
Rothkography - abstract photography contest | Bryan Bedell / Coudal Partners
Logo mashups | Mario Amaya / Different Thinker
Gotta love eduardo recife’s work | Recife / misprintedtype.com
Six new directors who are making music video cool again | Jake Swearingen / Wired
When did modern art begin? | Jonathan Jones / The Guardian, UK
Russian Poster Set | various / Flickr
25 beautiful macro photography shots | various / Smashing Magazine
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Twitter: @mccambridge
A LOT OF PEOPLE HAVE ASKED about the background photo on this site. It was taken on the beach by Fort Moultrie on the harbor side of Sullivan's Island, SC. The old, wooden sea wall has been there as long as I've lived in Charleston. The beach is a great place to watch the ships and shrimpers come in and has one of the best views of downtown Charleston.