2014
November
- So you want to organise a hack day?
These are based on my experience of organising SusHack in 2013 and 2014. For more information about SusHack, check out https://sushack.github.io
- Better link underlines with Sass
There has been some talk lately about how iOS 8 has started to handle typography descenders when text is underlined. They’ve done away with the usual overlapping line intersect in favour of a more aesthetically pleasing line crop.
August
- The Tronsmart Mars G01 Game Pad
A different sort of review today, the Mars G01 Game Pad from Tronsmart. Geekbuying provided me with this G01 to review, so first of all a thanks to them for that. I’ll mention where you can purchase the G01 at the end of the review.
July
- The GPD G5A Portable Android Games Console
I’ve got another Android gaming handheld to review, the GPD G5A from GamePad Digital. I’ve had this device for a little while now, and have played with it loads. This device was sent to my directly from GPD back in February, but I’ve been too busy with life to write up a review.
- SusHack #2
This past weekend was the second SusHack. Following on from the success of the first SusHack there was some demand for a second one, so a little later than planned (I had promised an April SusHack!), on the 28th of June SusHack #2 happened.
June
- jQuery Conference 2014
Another year, another jQuery UK conference. I wrote previously about the jQuery UK conferences that I attended in 2012 and 2013, now I’ve finally gotten around to writing up my notes from the 2014 conference.
- Why your reasons for no-longer using a CSS pre-processor are wrong, and you're wrong, and you should feel bad.
I read an article recently that explained why a web design agency had stopped using CSS pre-processing as part of their development process, as a means to “optimise [their] internal workflow”. CSS pre-processors aren’t for everyone, but what I found particularly grating about this article was the mis-information, and the bad reasoning for ceasing to use a CSS pre-processor such as Sass.
May
- Some approaches for creating diagonal section separators for your website
In their simplest form, web pages are made of stacked rectangles. Every block-level element takes up as much vertical space as the content requires, and fills as much horizontal space as is available. Additionally, block-level elements can have their width/height specified. When you have absolutely positioned, or floated elements this changes a bit but the rule pretty much sticks.
- Max Glenister Uses This
This is a Q/A article in the style of “The Setup”.
April
- Making suspend on lid-close work with Arch Linux on the HP Chromebook 11
The more time that I spend using Arch Linux on my HP Chromebook 11, the more things I find to tweak and tinker with. The latest thing I’ve addressed is making suspend work when the lid is closed. After speaking to my resident Arch guru about it, he pointed me to a blog post that he wrote on the subject, before actually showing me how to make it work.
- Using the Zed editor with Arch Linux ARM on your Chromebook
I’ve been using Arch Linux on my HP Chromebook 11 for a little while now. One of the problems I’ve had with the setup has been that Sublime Text is not available for the ARM architecture.
March
- Compressing PDF files from your Mac or Linux terminal with Ghostscript
I arrived at this solution recently when looking to compress a massive print-quality PDF for the web. If you search for “compressing pdf files on mac” you’ll get lots of bad results. There are lots of paid applications out there that claim to be able to do this, but they’re (obviously) not free.
- Using "jekyll-redirect-from" with GitHub Pages
Last week GitHub finally added support for some useful plugins to their implementation of Jekyll used for GitHub Pages. The most notable of these is the support for the jekyll-redirect-from plugin.
- Jekyll for dummies
2014 has been heralded as “the year of flat-file websites”. This blog in fact uses Jekyll to generate the very blog post you are reading. I’ve been using Jekyll in some form since early 2012, and for me it works perfectly as a means to publish content.
February
- Video: Installing Arch Linux ARM on the HP Chromebook 11
Just to follow up from my earlier post about Installing Arch Linux on the HP Chromebook 11, I’ve put together a video of the process to show how simple it really is.
- The GPD G7 Portable Android Games Console
Hot on the heels of my last Android device review I’m back with another device: The GPD G7 Quad-core from GamePad Digital. The G7 is very similar to the JXD 7800B, but with a more ergonomic game-controller shape to it.
- Installing Arch Linux ARM on the HP Chromebook 11
I concluded in my previous post about the HP Chromebook 11 that it’s a good device for casually browsing the internet, but it’s no replacement for a regular laptop or desktop for getting stuff done. Since that post I’ve not used the Chromebook very much, so with a vacant weekend I’ve decided to blow the dust off of the Chromebook and try to squeeze some more functionality out of it.
January
- Getting started with using Sass in your existing website
Sass is a CSS-compatible preprocessor for CSS. It allows you to reduce the amount of duplication and complexity in your CSS by using variables, mixins (functions), nesting, and other cool things that should have existed in the CSS spec from the beginning.
- On the subject of "Pixel-perfect PSD to HTML/CSS"
I read an article on the subject of implementing a PSD design of a website perfectly in HTML/CSS, and without wanting to spend my time writing a lengthy response in the comment form of a blog for it to disappear in to the depths of a blog that I don’t visit very regularly, I figured I’d write my thoughts up as a blog post.
- So, I've got all of these Raspberry Pi accessories... now what?
I wrote back in May about having a Raspberry Pi, and very few ideas about what to do with it. Here’s an update on the subject.