Blog

2024

Dec 3 Links #11
Nov 19 Unusual Git IDs
Nov 2 Setting up your /now page with an RSS feed
Oct 25 Before you buy a domain name, first check to see if it's haunted
Aug 10 One Million Checkboxes and the fear of viral success
Aug 2 Links #10
Jul 31 Capability makes your life simpler
Jun 10 Goodbye Evernote, Hello Obsidian
Apr 27 The flood of AI website builders
Mar 8 Why we prefer computers over consoles when introducing kids to gaming
Jan 27 There's never going to be time
Jan 7 Links #9
Jan 1 Made in 2023

2023

Nov 29 Everyone has a Substack and it's great
Nov 28 Doubling down on RSS
Nov 27 Rejecting the algorithm
Nov 26 I needed to be happier
Oct 10 Let's Get Creative
Sep 11 Links #8
Aug 26 200 lbs
Aug 22 Good eating habits
Aug 10 Things I wish someone would have told me about configuring VSCode
Jun 8 Daily inspiration for iOS users
Jun 6 The stories we tell ourselves
May 17 Augmented Development with AI
May 11 Links #7
May 9 Microcontributions
Apr 14 AIs can write for us but will we actually want them to?
Apr 7 Afraid of AI
Mar 17 There's a lot to like about the Web Share API
Jan 3 Made in 2022

2022

Dec 31 The best part of pair-programming is when things go wrong
Dec 30 Six Years of Jekyll
Dec 29 Links #6
Aug 14 Lunch Lessons
Jul 16 Scratch is a big deal
Jun 2 Bill Watterson on creating a meaningful life
May 11 From Sparkbox to Formidable
Apr 28 Links #5
Apr 25 Web developers don't use enough spreadsheets
Feb 18 ReactJS refs and third-party libraries
Feb 10 My first program
Jan 11 Made in 2021
Jan 10 Lessons learned from Advent of Code

2021

Nov 17 The right kind of thing
Sep 21 I keep making things out of checkboxes
Sep 1 Links #4
Aug 27 A minimalist development workflow using ES modules and esinstall
Aug 10 Allowing inline scripts in your Content Security Policy using a hash
Aug 7 Summer updates
May 21 The rivers we swim in
May 13 Links #3
Apr 15 A ripple animation in JavaScript
Mar 24 Infinitely nested iFrames
Mar 18 How I boosted my domain authority on accident
Feb 19 Links #2
Jan 18 The Powder Toy
Jan 4 Made in 2020

2020

Dec 23 When reading stops helping
Dec 15 Always be designing
Nov 9 Links #1
Nov 6 Using the shrug emoticon in markdown
Oct 23 ES modules in production: my experience so far
Oct 3 The Power of a Link
Sep 8 Gridmaster: Closing Thoughts
Aug 31 How searching for a bundle-free React led me to web components
Aug 28 A minimalist development workflow using ES6 modules and Snowpack
Aug 25 I wrote something for CSS-Tricks
Jul 28 "We don't miss layups"
Jul 25 The secondary effects of your work
Jul 21 What are you paying for, to live where you live?
Jul 18 Nothing speaks like a demo
Jul 17 A world of imaginary boundaries
Jun 6 Checkboxland
May 7 I wish you bad luck
Apr 24 Drawing git branching diagrams
Apr 18 Side-projects as a confidence hack
Mar 25 Online Tools for Creative Kids
Feb 18 Better vertical spacing with :not(:last-child)
Feb 17 Recent Readings
Jan 2 Made in 2019

2019

Dec 7 Using the URL to build database-free web apps
Nov 2 Music Box Fun
Oct 14 Climbing the right mountain
Sep 17 Using Tagged Template Literals to escape embedded HTML
Sep 11 Alt-React
Aug 21 The best conference I ever attended
Aug 1 The incentives of business ownership
Jul 16 Daily Demos: a ritual for raising kids that create
Jun 27 How to meet great people at tech conferences
Jun 11 Why do we use "git checkout" to discard file changes?
Jun 2 The unfairness of doing what you love
May 13 Connect Four: a case-study in invisible interface design
May 1 400 terrible blog posts
Apr 16 Nonsense
Mar 28 The unique power of games in building intuition
Mar 1 Hacking my brain with podcasts
Feb 23 Editing a commit in an interactive rebase
Feb 13 Working for the side-effects
Feb 8 How I'm making changes in 2019
Jan 27 Thank you
Jan 21 A super-underrated skill

2018

Dec 31 Made in 2018
Dec 26 We don't control outcomes
Dec 6 Two Types of Work
Nov 9 It's your fault they aren't listening
Oct 24 I can't believe they gave me an "A" for this garbage
Sep 30 Youth Group Activity: The Game of Life
Sep 24 4 Takeaways from Learning Futuristic JS with Wes Bos
Sep 13 How to ask for help
Aug 1 I'm working part-time now
Jul 20 A Brief Overview of Docker Tags
Jun 20 When NOT to Use a Design System
Jun 4 Putting your Learning on Autopilot
Jun 1 On Building Capital
May 13 It's an Energy Problem
Apr 17 5 Takeaways from Learning CSS Grid
Apr 17 Selective Ignorance in the Name of Specialization
Apr 13 Jonathon Harris on Attention
Apr 8 The Three Phases of Understanding
Apr 1 Several Ways to Hide Easter Eggs on your Website
Mar 15 Favorite Web Podcasts (2018 Update)
Mar 2 Made in 2017
Feb 18 The Cure for Boredom is Superpowers
Feb 15 Never Count on Willpower
Jan 7 Why new developers shouldn't hesitate to learn Rails in 2018

2017

Dec 26 Really good, but not quite "landmark" articles
Dec 26 Web Development with Python or PHP?
Dec 17 What is Github?
Dec 7 What I've Learned As A Designer and A Front-End Developer
Nov 28 What Websites Know About You
Nov 22 Modern web project learnings
Nov 19 Hacktoberfesting my Personal Website
Nov 12 Moved
Oct 1 Why I like to spend my time in core web technologies
Aug 29 How I Organize the Code Folder on my Computer
Jul 27 Do Something Small
Jul 5 The Unglamorous Work that Nobody Sees
May 25 Snowboarding and Quitting
Apr 22 Linking to your Javascript Library from Inside the Github Pages Docs Folder
Apr 13 On Writing Something Every Day
Mar 8 Beginner Syndrome
Feb 24 Your site is slower than you think it is
Feb 9 Made in 2016
Feb 7 Fixing the Blank Space in Feedburner to Mailchimp RSS Newsletters
Jan 31 Constraints and Focus

2016

Dec 30 Embedding SVG Logos that Contain Text
Dec 29 New Year, New Website
Dec 13 Get your stuff out there
Nov 13 The Perils of Sounding Smart
Nov 13 How I choose a side project
Oct 9 Farnam Street: what post-education education should look like
Sep 21 It's about the Miles
Sep 5 Let's Get. Stuff. Done.
Sep 4 Every Possible Way
Aug 26 Github's opportunity to increase open-source collaboration
Aug 1 Introducing Bouncy Ball: A TodoMVC for Web Animation
Jul 27 Design your Default
Jul 23 Hamilton and the unsettling sense of urgency
Jun 16 Constraint-based Learning
May 14 Underdogs
Apr 29 5 Takeaways from 5 Years of Teaching Myself Web Programming
Apr 26 How Virtual Reality Works on Websites Today
Apr 17 Abstraction and Mental Models
Apr 16 I don't know where to start
Apr 15 Model your code like the real world
Mar 27 Immerse Yourself
Mar 7 Asking Questions
Feb 8 Don Hertzfeldt on Creative Work
Jan 28 The Art of the Analogy
Jan 17 A Degree is an Abstraction
Jan 4 The News Wasteland

2015

Dec 6 Study under your Dream Team
Nov 17 Compounding Benefits
Oct 20 We are just seeing the beginning of interactive online learning
Oct 20 Bitbooks: Closing Thoughts
Sep 25 No Smarter than You
Sep 19 On keeping your gh-pages and master branch in sync
Sep 11 Daily Inspiration for Android Users
Sep 2 Musk Hacks the Economy
Aug 4 Sparkbox Apprenticeships
Jul 16 Broken Windows in your Code
Jun 27 Always use a Server for Local Development
Jun 16 No Sidebars
May 25 Good documentation is a signal
May 21 Medium, and Design Details
May 17 Setting up automated testing for a small client-side Javascript project
Apr 17 git checkout -b sparkbox
Apr 12 Circle of Concern vs Circle of Control
Mar 18 An Opinionated Guide to Getting Help with Drupal
Feb 16 On Designing Great Systems
Feb 9 On project constraints and immovable deadlines
Jan 2 User Experience and Driver's License Photos

2014

Dec 29 Share what's working for you
Dec 24 Think before you put up a sign
Dec 13 How to Set Up a Simple Javascript Twitter Bot
Nov 27 Every Possible Way to Define a Javascript Function
Nov 26 Go Online
Nov 9 Technology isn't the thing…
Nov 9 How to make maps with Raphael.js
Oct 24 Dumb Little Things
Oct 19 An Overview of Javascript's try-catch
Oct 1 EMs vs PX: A succinct history lesson
Sep 10 On Students Solving "Real World" Problems
Aug 30 Using !important for good, not evil
Aug 28 If you are going to read, then comment
Aug 6 Our Excuses
Jul 31 Duplos and Constraints
Jul 30 The Expectation of Transparency
Jul 21 The relentless increase in opportunity costs
Jul 15 The Frontend Developer's Guide to Docker
Jul 5 Teachers and raising the bar
Jun 21 What I've been working on
Jun 5 The Open Internet is at Risk (and here's what you can do about it)
May 31 Takedown requests, and the right to privacy
May 22 Loving What I Do
May 12 Leaping into a whole new world
May 6 Connecting to the Github API using Octokit and Sinatra
May 5 CSS Transitions VS Keyframe Animations
May 3 Doing What You're Told
May 1 Good Documentation Delivers Value
Apr 26 It's time, again, for our education to move up the stack
Apr 22 Using Metrics to Drive User Behavior
Apr 17 Make Things Simple
Apr 10 Don't Optimize Performance Prematurely
Apr 7 Making Targeted Drupal Cache Clears using Drush
Apr 2 Publishing Books to Github pages with Bitbooks
Mar 31 Web Authentication is Broken
Mar 29 Gumption
Mar 23 How can Homework Make the World a Better Place?
Mar 16 Persistence [Quote]
Mar 15 How I rebuilt "Flying Toasters" using only CSS animations
Mar 15 Platforms are powerful
Mar 13 How do we free information?
Mar 6 If you Free Information, you Improve Education
Feb 27 Two Principles for 2014
Feb 14 TLDR
Feb 8 When Google Can't Help You Anymore
Feb 2 It's Hard Being New
Jan 25 Template Picker Now Supports Entities
Jan 19 AnchorJS
Jan 1 There's more than one way to save a node

2013

Dec 30 Unconventional Github Projects
Dec 19 On Finding Problems
Dec 18 Packaging
Dec 14 Always be Translating
Dec 7 Interview Questions
Dec 4 Open Source and the Critical Path
Nov 25 Making Art [Quote]
Nov 20 Blog the answers to questions that people ask you
Nov 18 Front-end Style Guides
Nov 9 If Gmail were built with Drupal
Nov 1 Put the Hours in
Oct 30 Open source and autonomy
Oct 24 What IS Working?
Oct 22 Junior Developers and Taking Correction
Oct 19 Installing npm with homebrew
Oct 12 Learning Drupal with the Janki Method
Oct 10 Tough Mindedness [Quote]
Oct 8 Being taught vs teaching yourself
Oct 7 Pause javascript in the browser using the "debugger" command
Oct 5 The Fermi Paradox and the Great Filter
Oct 4 Earn our trust.
Oct 2 Learned Helplessness
Sep 30 Take the stage but share the credit
Sep 28 Purging Life of Maintenance Costs
Sep 26 Best of the Web Podcasts
Sep 25 The costs of high-level vs low-level frameworks
Sep 23 Sitting on the front row
Sep 21 Please, stop stewing, and start blogging about Drupal
Sep 20 3 reasons I leave your website
Sep 19 Making something customizable vs. making it smart
Sep 18 5 settings you didn't know you could control in Drupal
Sep 18 Can I get a volunteer?
Sep 17 Humility Hurts
Sep 16 Err on the side of generosity
Sep 15 Don't get frustrated. Get smarter.
Sep 14 Share Everything
Sep 12 Talk less, say more
Sep 11 Shipping early doesn't mean shipping broken
Sep 10 The Best in the World
Sep 9 Acting Big
Sep 8 I Trust You
Sep 7 Procrastination: The future-you cannot be trusted
Sep 6 I complain because...
Sep 5 How I find open source resources
Sep 4 Don't do everything custom
Sep 3 My 3rd place
Sep 2 Online Storytelling
Sep 1 Taught by Machines
Aug 31 Job security for knowledge workers
Aug 31 8 ways to take the pain out of Drupal's admin forms
Aug 30 Visual attention is a zero-sum game
Aug 29 Six weeks of Getting Things Done
Aug 28 Can you believe this is the web?
Aug 27 The costs of a high-maintenance lifestyle
Aug 26 The Fogg Behavior Model
Aug 25 Reflections on the Open Source Culture and Economy
Aug 24 The World is Flatter
Aug 23 The Formula for Stress
Aug 22 Brands, listen up: actions speak louder than words
Aug 21 We're on Drupal 8!
Aug 21 Build it before you need it
Aug 20 5 (free) tools I am really digging right now
Aug 19 Everybody's Weird
Aug 18 Thinking Long Term
Aug 17 Using hook_form_BASE_FORM_ID_alter()
Aug 17 On Uni-tasking
Aug 16 How to Email Busy People
Aug 15 My Funny Little Guy
Aug 14 Analyze, Filter, Deliver
Aug 13 Killing Rumors
Aug 12 The side-effects of sharing your work
Aug 11 Obstacles to sharing your work
Aug 10 Change the world with 5% more effort
Aug 9 The Botched Interface Market
Aug 8 90% of everything is crap
Aug 7 Writer Block Regions
Aug 7 Absorb the Negative. Reflect the Positive.
Aug 6 Drupal Tutorials: Exposed Filters with Views
Aug 6 Learn by Doing
Aug 5 Join the Conversation
Aug 4 The interface IS the software
Aug 3 Technical Myopia
Aug 2 I am turning into everything I swore I wouldn't become
Aug 1 Who is going to care, if you don't?
Jul 31 Everybody's bad at new things
Jul 30 Help Someone Move
Jul 29 Kinds of Time
Jul 28 Get 1 percent better, every day
Jul 27 Design decisions are happening in the code
Jul 26 Training is a Band-aid
Jul 25 Adapting to change itself
Jul 24 Drawing the line on feature requests
Jul 23 Turn off the News
Jul 22 Five basic principles for Drupal UIs that anyone can follow
Jul 22 Changing your Environment
Jul 21 Dabbling in Design
Jul 20 Get Enough Rest
Jul 19 Temporary vs. Forever
Jul 18 Writing for the Web
Jul 17 Find People who Care
Jul 16 Friction is a Tool
Jul 15 OK isn't
Jul 14 Tetris
Jul 13 Err on the side of simplicity
Jul 12 Which is worse?
Jul 11 Jargon
Jul 10 On Obstacles
Jul 8 Ideas
Jul 8 Why we need emoticons
Jul 7 Don't ship early if you aren't going to ship often
Jul 6 Where is the limit?
Jul 5 A web developer who cannot use photoshop
Jul 4 Take control of what you consume
Jul 3 Recording "Lessons Learned the Hard Way"
Jul 2 Simplicity Takes Restraint
Jul 1 Nail your Focus First
Jun 28 The Training Sequence
Jun 27 Is this an investment?
Jun 26 You're not a genius, but it doesn't matter
Jun 25 You don't have to be amazing… you just have to be consistent
Jun 24 Nobody will teach you anything
Jun 23 Everything gets harder
Jun 22 Leaving it unfinished
Jun 21 Constraints are Fun
Jun 20 Fundamental Attribution Error and the User
Jun 19 So you're bad at public speaking.
Jun 18 You're going to screw up
Jun 17 Manage Fields Wisely
Jun 17 Looking for the bright spots
Jun 14 Be Real
May 25 Empowering Content Creators with the Template Picker Module
May 20 How do I "see" my contributed code on Drupal.org?
May 20 A New Version of Writer
May 18 New in Writer 2.1
Apr 27 Focus
Apr 14 Preparation
Mar 30 White Screen of Death
Mar 20 Web Design for the Artistically Inept
Mar 16 Writer: Customizing the default front page
Mar 9 Can you make a sub-theme of a sub-theme?
Mar 8 The Cost of Stuff
Mar 2 Africa map using Raphael.js
Feb 23 Exformation
Feb 16 The End of Decay
Feb 9 Let's make software that's easy to extend.
Feb 2 Order the Octopus
Jan 24 Usability 2.0
Jan 19 This is an Amazing World
Jan 19 Writer: A Blogging Theme for Developers
Jan 12 What does RTBC mean?
Jan 6 2012 Retrospective

2012

Dec 29 Understanding the Command Line
Dec 28 Tips for Setting up Writer
Dec 25 In Defense of Scrooge
Dec 22 History
Dec 15 Happy Holidays 2012
Dec 11 Touchscreen
Dec 9 Writing a Letter
Dec 3 A Drupal 7 Image Gallery Tutorial
Nov 25 Vim Color Schemes: A Call for Designers
Nov 18 Open Source in the Government
Nov 11 The Ulysses Contract
Nov 5 The Command Line is a Terrifying Thing
Oct 28 Perspectives of a Child
Oct 25 The open source community that embraces designers most, wins.
Oct 14 Family of Four
Oct 4 How could I have ever forgotten
Sep 18 Changes
Sep 3 Why I Run
Aug 5 17 States in 14 Days
Jul 7 In which I explain how I got my dream job
Jun 30 Turning our challenges into our assets
Jun 25 Multitasking and Context Switching
Jun 19 Hey there Delilah, what's it like in Alpine Village?
Jun 10 Optimism
May 29 Manliness
May 20 Jeqe Recipe
May 13 Commitments
May 5 Heidi Grows
Apr 30 In the Press
Apr 8 Remain Curious
Apr 8 Climbing walls like Batman
Apr 2 The Curse of Knowledge
Mar 25 Drupalcon Denver Retrospective
Mar 19 Never Settle for Being Mediocre
Mar 11 Catching things before they hit the floor
Mar 4 Try Hard Things
Feb 26 Be Bold
Feb 19 It's Not About You
Feb 12 You Only Live Once
Feb 5 StartUp Weekend Salt Lake City
Jan 29 Form IS Function
Jan 22 Generalizing vs Specializing
Jan 1 Looking back. Looking forward.

2011

Dec 25 Happy Holidays 2011
Dec 18 Dichotomous Thinking
Dec 11 Consider ALL the Options
Dec 4 Fermi Estimations
Nov 27 The eBook Enigma
Nov 20 Spare Time
Nov 13 There IS such a thing as a free lunch
Nov 6 Winning Systems
Oct 30 Turning traditional education upside down
Oct 23 Do we really need to know all this stuff?
Oct 16 Locus of Control
Oct 9 I Like Statistics
Oct 3 How to get people to do what you want them to do
Sep 21 The Future is Mobile
Sep 11 What do Mormons believe?
Aug 28 Just Ask
Aug 21 The Fall of Internet Privacy
Aug 16 A Tribute to YouTube
Aug 8 Opportunity Costs
Jul 31 5 must-have Firefox add-ons for the every day person
Jul 24 6 Ways to do Good on the Internet
Jul 18 The Growth Mindset
Jul 10 The 10 best Google search tricks
Jul 5 Nothing Bad Ever Happens
Jun 20 Bryan vs the Testing Center
Jun 12 Things Worth Thinking About [Videos]
Jun 5 The New York Times and The Sticky Platform
May 29 Living Deliberately
May 22 "I don't have time"
May 9 10 websites that you didn't know you couldn't live without
May 1 My Book of Impossible Ideas
Apr 25 5 Awesome Books (that are FREE online)
Apr 18 Location, Location, Location (putting yourself in the right spot)
Apr 10 Bryan vs the Sunk Cost Fallacy
Apr 3 The Future of Educational Games
Mar 28 5 Reasons You Should Be on Twitter
Mar 21 Voting with your Dollar
Mar 13 A Very Long Race
Mar 6 A Whack on the Side of the Head
Feb 27 Fear and the Critical Moment
Feb 20 TED
Feb 20 Checking In
Feb 14 Heidi
Feb 6 Jolly Ranchers
Jan 30 Planning my 100th Birthday Party
Jan 23 The Most Important Image ever Taken
Jan 16 Get a Booklist ASAP!
Jan 10 The Power of Infographics
Jan 2 $uccess

2010

Dec 27 The Dvorak Keyboard: Should I learn it?
Dec 18 How Big is the Internet?
Dec 12 How to Play the Wikipedia Game
Dec 5 How to Lose Friends
Nov 28 6 Online Sources for Free Learning
Nov 21 Defining your Grand Challenges
Nov 15 Kickoff to "Good Attitude Week"
Nov 4 Bryan vs the Internet