I know I have blogged (ranted) on the subject of web literacy before (here), however that particular thought was aimed more at ‘thought-leaders’ and the like. This post is aimed more at thinking about people (regardless of sector) who have to use the web on a day to day basis. For these people I believe that some basic level of coding should be a mandatory skill. You wouldn’t let someone who didn’t have basic literacy skills draft and send a press release or write copy for a brochure so why isn’t the same basic level of ‘digital literacy’ required of people who output content on/for the web on an almost daily basis?

I’m not talking about the ability to juggle python, ruby, php and asp simultaneously, what I’m trying to describe is a better understanding of things like basic … Read More »

I had intended these to be far more regular than this, must try harder. A mixture of tips/tools/reviews/articles that you’ll hopefully find useful, I did.

20 cheatsheets for designers and developers http://designshack.co.uk/articles/freebies/weekly-freebies-20-awesome-cheatsheets-for-designers-and-developers/
Review of cross-browser testing tools http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/08/07/a-dozen-cross-browser-testing-tools/
3 rules of thumb for web development http://my.opera.com/karlcow/blog/3-rules-of-thumb-for-web-development
How loading times affect your bottom line http://blog.kissmetrics.com/loading-time/
How to make users scroll down your page http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/scrolling-tips/
50+ useful CSS tools and generators http://www.noupe.com/css/50-useful-css-tools-and-generators-for-developers.html

Right, I’ve realised that I spend a lot of time reading ‘interesting stuff’ and thought it might be useful if I share some of the best things here on a semi-regular basis.

To start off with are some useful CSS things;

Nth-child CSS selector: http://css-tricks.com/useful-nth-child-recipies/
Check to see if things like nth-child CSS selectors are supported in a particular browser: http://caniuse.com/
Provides feedback on your CSS code: http://csslint.net/

A bit of house-keeping (for wont of a better word) first, I’ll be moving this blog in the next couple of weeks to integrate with my website www.bigthingsandlittlethings.co.uk. When I first set this blog up I wasn’t entirely sure what form it was going to take but I’ve managed to keep it quite web-relevant (thus far) so it seems silly to keep two separate identities running when really they are parts of the same thing….

Now, boring stuff over, on with the blog.

This isn’t a hugely technical blog this time but covers a few CSS-related things that I have found make a big difference to workflow and just generally making things a bit easier to organise and manage.

I came across the notion of CSS ‘global resets’ a few years ago, to me they make a great deal of sense, … Read More »