You'll rarely find me discussing or even caring about politics because, quite frankly, they seldom affect me. SOPA is a little different. It affects everyone and anyone who uses the web—let alone those who work on it—regardless of geographic location, USA or otherwise.
Yesterday's blackout strike is something I can admire. It's not often you see major players like Google, WIkipedia and WordPress actively protesting something at the expense of their own users.
Clearly, it's a big deal. I wish it were a joke.
If you're still after a proper explanation of what SOPA is, this video is the best layman's summary I've come across.
I stopped supporting IE6 about three years ago. I simply refused to work with any client that wanted to support it. Many thought it was an arrogant move, but the truth is I was just doing my part to help the web move forward.
Last week, IE6 usage dropped below 1% in USA, with Australia, the UK and New Zealand all following close by.
Unless you've been working on the web for some time, you have no idea just how good this news is.
No one says it better than Mike Monteiro. This article is, quite simply, perfect. Though, a more appropriate title may have been "10 New Year's Resolutions for People who Work on the Web."
This year's gonna be a goddamned golden age. Last year we trained. This year we fight.
2012: The Future
2012 has a great ring to it. At last, it feels like we're in the future.
In 2011, I travelled to the other side of the globe, got engaged to the best person I've ever met, purchased our first home in the greatest city in the world and helped launch a handful of startups and fascinating projects.
I'm not much of a gamer anymore, but every once in a while a title comes around that holds my attention. The Max Payne franchise—excluding the film—is one of the greatest of it's kind. It was among the first to be marketed not as a video game, but an interactive film; 'A film noir love story'. The original was one of the first games that, at least to me, truly felt like art.
2011 has been a revolutionary year for web design. Responsive design, advanced typographic control and, finally, content and mobile-focused design getting the attention they deserve. This post sums it all up nicely.
I have just pushed the button on version 1.2 of my website. It's been redesigned and rebuilt—front-end and back—from the ground up, though much of the brand aesthetic and functionality has remained relatively intact.
The codebase has been reduced by 30% and the overall weight by roughly 70%.
I have this theory; anything Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and/or Rob Sheridan touch inevitably turns to gold. This soundtrack has been no exception. 39 tracks of incredible music.
With options for a £9 high-quality digital copy right up to a £191 'deluxe' vinyl edition, how can you go wrong?
An article I wrote for this year's 24ways series has just gone live. The subject matter is something I'm very passionate about; attention to detail and designing at a deeper level of the user experience. I hope you like it.
Ubisoft recently announced they wouldn't be shipping Ghost Recon: Future Soldier to PC users—arguably their 'original' and hardest of fans— due to 'piracy concerns'.
For reasons like this, I've lost a lot of respect for Ubisoft in recent years. Where they have failed, Valve have excelled and as Gabe Newell so intelligently puts it:
In general, we think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem.
Today I pushed live a series of placeholders for three side-projects I'm planning to launch next year. Subscribe to each project for more information in the coming months. I hope to reveal more very soon.
.me
I decided to publish a little journal of notes and bookmarks so that I could quickly and easily document anything I ship and make short announcements and links public at will. An idea I've been toying with for years, but never allocated enough time to.