Nils Binder’s Website
The “Adjust CSS” slider on this delightful homepage is an effective (and cute) illustration of progressive enhancement in action.
Tags: personal
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Tuesday, October 6th, 2020
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2020
Indexing My Blog’s Links - Jim Nielsen’s Weblog
You might not think this is a big deal, and maybe it’s not, but I love the idea behind the indie web: a people-focused alternative to the corporate web. Seeing everything you’ve ever linked to in one place really drives home how much of the web’s content, made by individuals, is under corporate control and identity.
Tuesday, September 1st, 2020
100words — 🐙 woohooctopus
Well, this is impressive (and brave)—competing a 100 words for 100 days during lockdown …with a baby.
And remember, this isn’t writing and publishing at least 100 words every day; it’s writing and publishing exactly 100 words (that’s the hard part).
Thursday, August 27th, 2020
Autonomy Online: A Case For The IndieWeb — Smashing Magazine
A wonderful introduction to the indie web—Ana really conveys her sense of excitement!
Saturday, July 4th, 2020
Feeds
A little while back, Marcus Herrmann wrote about making RSS more visible again with a /feeds page. Here’s his feeds page. Here’s Remy’s.
Seems like a good idea to me. I’ve made mine:
As well as linking to the usual RSS feeds (blog posts, links, notes), it’s also got an explanation of how you can subscribe to a customised RSS feed using tags.
Then, earlier today, I was chatting with Matt on Twitter and he asked:
btw do you share your blogroll anywhere?
So now I’ve added another URL:
adactio.com/feeds/subscriptions
That’s got a link to my OPML file, exported from my feed reader, and a list of the (current) RSS feeds that I’m subscribed to.
I like the idea of blogrolls making a comeback. And webrings.
Wednesday, July 1st, 2020
Fussy Web, True Meaning. · Matthias Ott – User Experience Designer
Websites are primarily seen as functional software, built to fulfill a business objective and to reach quantifiable goals. The field of user experience is obsessed with KPIs, jobs-to-be-done, optimized user flows, and conversion rates. And in quest of ever more efficient processes – and in the spirit of true modernists –, design and development teams try to standardize solutions into reusable templates and components, streamlined pattern libraries, and scalable design systems.
Tuesday, June 30th, 2020
Weird Wide Webring
More of the whimsical web!
The Whimsical Web
A collection of truly personal sites.
This site is meant to showcase how a more personal web could look like, and hopefully give you some inspiration to make your own corner of the web a bit weirder.
Of course Cassie’s site is included!
Thursday, June 25th, 2020
Cassie Evans’s Blog
Cassie’s redesign is gorgeous—so much attention to detail! (And performant too)
Friday, June 19th, 2020
Quotebacks and hypertexts (Interconnected)
What I love about the web is that it’s a hypertext. (Though in recent years it has mostly been used as a janky app delivery platform.)
I am very much enjoying Matt’s thoughts on linking, quoting, transclusion, and associative trails.
My blog is my laboratory workbench where I go through the ideas and paragraphs I’ve picked up along my way, and I twist them and turn them and I see if they fit together. I do that by narrating my way between them. And if they do fit, I try to add another piece, and then another. Writing a post is a process of experimental construction.
And then I follow the trail, and see where it takes me.
Friday, June 12th, 2020
What was it like? (Phil Gyford’s website)
Congratulations and kudos to Phil for twenty years of blogging!
Here he describes what it was like online in the year 2000. Yes, it was very different to today, but…
Anyone who thinks blogging died at some point in the past twenty years presumably just lost interest themselves, because there have always been plenty of blogs to read. Some slow down, some die, new ones appear. It’s as easy as it’s ever been to write and read blogs.
Though Phil does note:
Some of the posts I read were very personal in a way that’s less common now, in general. … Even “personal” websites (like mine) often have an awareness about them, about what’s being shared, the impression it gives to strangers, presenting a public face, maybe a feeling of, “I’m just writing personal nonsense but, why, yes, I am available for hire”.
Maybe that’s why I’m enjoying Robin’s writing so much.
Robin Rendle ･ 2D Websites
When I log onto someone’s website I want them to tell me why they’re weird. Where’s the journal or scrapbook? Where’s your stamp collection? Or the works-in-progress, the failed attempts, the clunky unfinished things?
Friday, May 29th, 2020
Reading in the dark
I keep coming back to this remarkable piece of writing by Cassie. Honest, resonant, and open, centred around a perfect analogy.
Tuesday, April 28th, 2020
Late weeknotes 024 - Attitude of Ingratitude
This might be the most insightful thing that Dan has written since his seminal 2013 Medium article:
The problem with Scrappy Doo, isn’t that he’s annoying, which he is, but that the ghosts suddenly became real, which is an afront to science.
I know this hot-take is about 40 years old, but I’ve been bottling it up.
Friday, March 27th, 2020
Let a website be a worry stone
I find myself thinking about writing more than usual at the moment. This is partially because I am inspired by more people sharing their own thoughts and stories, but also because I want to record how I’m feeling, and what’s happening on a day-to-day basis.
Thursday, March 26th, 2020
Let a website be a worry stone. — Ethan Marcotte
It was a few years before I realized that worry stones had a name, that they were borrowed from cultures other and older than mine. Heck, it’s been more than a few years since I’ve even held one. But in the last few weeks, before and after launching the redesign, I’ve kept working away at this website, much as I’d distractedly run my fingers over a smooth, flat stone.
Tuesday, March 24th, 2020
Monday, March 23rd, 2020
Outlet
We’re all hunkering down in our homes. That seems to be true of our online homes too.
People are sharing their day-to-day realities on their websites and I’m here for it. Like, I’m literally here for it. I can’t go anywhere.
On an episode of the Design Observer podcast, Jessica Helfand puts this into context:
During times of crisis, people want to make things. There’s a surge in the keeping of journals when there’s a war… it’s a response to the feeling of vulnerability, like corporeal vulnerability. My life is under attack. I am imprisoned in my house. I have to make something to say I was here, to say I mattered, to say this day happened… It’s like visual graphic reassurance.
It’s not just about crisis though. Scott Kelly talks about the value of keeping a journal during prolonged periods of repitition. And he should know—he spent a year in space:
NASA has been studying the effects of isolation on humans for decades, and one surprising finding they have made is the value of keeping a journal. Throughout my yearlong mission, I took the time to write about my experiences almost every day. If you find yourself just chronicling the days’ events (which, under the circumstances, might get repetitive) instead try describing what you are experiencing through your five senses or write about memories. Even if you don’t wind up writing a book based on your journal like I did, writing about your days will help put your experiences in perspective and let you look back later on what this unique time in history has meant.
That said, just stringing a coherent sentence together can seem like too much during The Situation. That’s okay. Your online home can also provide relief and distraction through tidying up. As Ethan puts it:
let a website be a worry stone
It can be comforting to get into the zone doing housekeeping on your website. How about a bit of a performance audit? Or maybe look into more fluid typography? Or perhaps now is the time to tinker about with that dark mode you’ve been planning?
Whatever you end up doing, my point is that your website is quite literally an outlet. While you’re stuck inside, your website is not just a place you can go to, it’s a place you can control, a place you can maintain, a place you can tidy up, a place you can expand. Most of all, it’s a place you can lose yourself in, even if it’s just for a little while.
Wednesday, March 18th, 2020
Cameron Moll | Don’t call it a comeback. I been here for years.
Cameron’s blog is back, and very nicely redesigned/aligned it is too!