I have something of a tendency to do stuff and move on, straight into whatever is next. I thought in 2018 I would have a bit of an experiment and write these weekly notes. Here is the first one, covering a little more than a week due to the weird Christmas getting back to work thing that happens.
MDN Flexbox Guides
Before Christmas I finished the work I had been doing on the guides for Flexbox over at MDN. I wrapped all that up with a blog post introducing the guides. MDN is the place I use for reference, so I’m very happy to be able to contribute to the Grid and Flexbox references.
The Pursuit Podcast
Published this week was my episode of The Pursuit Podcast, I talked about getting things done, and all the things I find myself doing and enjoying.
The Pastry Box returns
Some of my personal favourites in terms of things I have written were on previous seasons of The Pastry Box, so when I was asked to be part of the 2018 season I jumped at the chance. You can expect some non-technical writing from me over there, and my first post is about Starting Over.
Perch and Runway updates
Out this week is a new update to Perch and Perch Runway, Drew also published the first of some new video we are doing for Runway which you can watch here.
Notist update
Drew and I are working on a new project for public speakers called Notist. That is coming along nicely and I’ve been working on some of the CSS for forms and other UI bits and bobs.
Planning CSS Workshop revisions
I have a number of in-person workshops booked in already this year, plus a new workshop aimed at designers and UX professionals on all that is new in CSS Layout.
Much of that material is also published in my online workshop. This week I planned out the revisions and additions to that material. Existing subscribers to the online workshop will be getting all those updates as they come out.
Smashing Magazine
At Smashing Magazine we’ve been moving the editorial workflow from Trello to a new tool called Notion. There are always some teething pains to work out moving to a new tool, but Notion is really good and allows much more structure than we could have with Trello. It’s essentially a wiki, just not a terrible one!
The team published some excellent articles since the beginning of January, covering a huge range of subjects:
- Introducing Web Payments: Easier Online Purchases with the Payment Request API
- The Front-End Performance Checklist
- The Rise of the State Machines
- Dwelling on the Past: The Importance of Self Reflection
- Ghost Button Design: Is This Really Still A Thing (And Why)?
- Visual Studio Code Can Do That?
- Designing Friction for a Better User Experience
- Learning Elm From A Drum Sequencer
- Universal Principles Of User Experience Design
- Air Lookout Is The Side Project That Changed My Design Process Forever
We are always looking for great writers to write for us, find out more about what we are looking for and what we offer.
Upcoming conferences
I already had a pretty busy speaking schedule lined up for 2018 by the end of last year, now we are well into January I’m getting a lot of email about my availability, which is a finite thing until I work out how to clone myself. This all means if you are thinking of asking me to come speak, run a workshop or similar doing so sooner rather than later would be a good thing!
All the rest
I’m writing a chapter for the Smashing Book 6, and submitted my first draft this week. CSS Layout News 128 went out. I’ve been working on a new section of this site to pull together all my CSS work, hopefully get that live next week. There was an epic (and still ongoing) thread on Twitter, which highlighted how many of the women who were fundamental in the early web have been almost forgotten. I’m glad that this thread highlighted those names and many others I didn’t know about.
I’ve also been doing the quarterly accounts, having all of the fun of the VAT Return, the EC Sales List and the VAT MOSS mini one-stop shop. Got to make sure Slovakia get the 60p we owe them.
The weather in Bristol has been shocking, so no flying lessons but I’ve been out for various damp runs. I’ll leave you with a photo from Thursday morning of local tall ship The Matthew, out of the water in the dock at Underfall Yard, spotted while on my run.
