I started edgeofmyseat.com in September 2001. I was a young single mother with a background as a dancer, staggering out of the dotcom meltdown, with a tiny grant from The Prince’s Trust and a belief that my ability to sniff out and fix problems in code might just pay the bills. I didn’t know what … Closing time
Facebook reminds me that it’s been 11 years since I went for an ill-advised run in the snow, fell, and shattered my elbow. I’ve had four surgeries since—the initial one to reconstruct it, with a bunch of metal. Two to remove the metal, and one in 2016 to scrape out scar tissue. The final procedure … 11 years
Here we are again, with another year completed. I’ve now been at Google for over two years, I’ve managed to avoid collecting any additional cats or new broken bones, but I have gained a son-in-law! Work 2023 was the most challenging year of my career to date. Previous downturns in the industry haven’t posed much … 2023 in review
My daughter came to stay for a few days at Christmas, and we pulled out a box of old photographs. I found this photo of me, taken in December of 1996. I was 21 and pregnant, and had just been let go from my backstage job in the theatre. The computer—a Packard Bell 486 “all … 1996
Despite what you might read in some corners of the internet, it’s been possible to vertically centre an element inside a parent for a very long time now. The align-content property from the Box Alignment spec does the job, however browsers require that you make the parent element either a flex or a grid layout. … align-content in block layout
I was chatting with a couple of long-time web folk today. As often happens when those of us who lived through the browser wars get together, the talk turned to old browsers, and old hacks to get round the issues in those browsers. I was thinking through the timeframe of CSS becoming usable at all … Why are we not still using tables-for-layout?
I don’t remember being taught to cook. Cooking was just something that happened in my vicinity. Growing up in the 1970s and 80s in the UK, people didn’t go out to eat. I can remember the few occasions that we did—the deep pan pizzas near Trafalgar Square, a meal in an Indian restaurant because some … Cooking
I delivered a talk at the Google Developers Experts Summit in Berlin this week, covering some tips for writing technical content. I gathered a collection of resources to share, and whether you are interested in technical writing as a career, or just want to be able document your code, or communicate better, this list might … Technical writing resources
There is much to be unhappy about as we close out another year. The news seems relentlessly dark, with a cost of living crisis, looming recession, a collapsing health service, war in Ukraine, and a pandemic that is very much not over, while everyone pretends it is. I am a generally positive person, but that … 2022 in review
It’s Christmas Eve Eve, and I was adding the last of my expenses into Concur, when my work email account received a message. My colleagues, being more sensible than me, have vanished, so I checked just in case there was some actual content-related emergency. It was an email from Eric Meyer, informing me that An … Thank you An Event Apart