August 13, 2023

Here’s what’s open in my tabs right now:

archive.is: Sort of like the Wayback Machine, archive.is downloads and stores a full copy of whatever URL you happen to put in its search bar (if it isn’t already there). The interesting thing about it is that you can put in a link to a paywalled article and read it immediately. It has a Firefox extension, too, for adding pages with one little click.

CodeWord Conf 2023: A free virtual conference focusing on content, taking place on Sept. 21. Looks interesting.

21 Best GoodReads Alternatives for Ethical Book Tracking: I found this list while looking for a simple app to manage my To Be Read list. I use GoodReads and like it well enough, but I mainly use it to find recommendations from people I actually know (IRL or online). I want something without the social component that lets me just make a list of books I want to read and then links to places where I can buy them. Once I get a link to Amazon (or Bookshop, or BN.com, or GoodReads), the Library Extension helps me order them from the library. This list focuses more on social reading, with some solid entries, but I didn’t find exactly what I’m looking for (other than LibraryThing, which I know well and love, but I’d probably need to start over with a new account to do what I want to in this case).

The Golden Age of Web Design: This area of the Web Design Museum covers the early 2000s, which I do consider a kind of Golden Age. Around 2004 CSS got to the point where we could quit using tables for layout, and make horizontal lists for navigation, and it was just lovely and exciting.

Ask a Manager – Our website is being held hostage by an abusive volunteer: The volunteer developed the website IN A LANGUAGE HE CREATED. I’ve seen a lot of problems with volunteers working on websites, but this one absolutely takes the cake. I have been on both sides of this issue, and I have a ton of advice, but to put it very simply: if your nonprofit needs a website and doesn’t have the money to hire a pro, please use SquareSpace or Wix, and make sure more than one person can access your domain host.

June 8, 2021

Top Ten Git Tips and Tricks

Useful tips for using Git, by Julie Kent. I agree with Julie: “Git is not fun. Git is not friendly. No. It’s just infuriatingly useful, so we’re stuck with it.” (There’s an intro article too: How Does Git Work?)

The right tag for the job: why you should use semantic HTML

This is a great explanation of why to use semantic HTML. It covers some of the ways that screen readers read your HTML. I’ve been using semantic HTML for a long time, but there were things in here that I did not know.

The Ablegamers Pride Heart T-shirt

I was going to add a photo of it here, but my CSS and WordPress’s defaults are still battling it out. So until I can figure out where those mysterious auto-added classes are coming from and how to override them, trust me that this is an AMAZING shirt featuring a rainbow heart made up of game controllers, and click on through to see it. Proceeds benefit AbleGamers and GaymerX, two very worthy causes.

A Cornucopia of Container Queries

CSS-Tricks has rounded up all the articles you could want to read (this week, anyway) about CSS container queries.

Who Pays for Open Source?

Mostly… nobody. Morten Rand-Hendrickson (the instructor of some excellent classes I’ve taken on LinkedIn Learning) explains how the dependencies we–and more importantly, huge corporations that make tons of money off those dependencies–are often developed and maintained for free, by the open source community.