I’m unsubscribing from the AI discourse 🔗
I’m bored of hearing about it, bored of seeing people I respect(ed) fawn over it and it’s really not doing my mental health any good. I’m going wait f [...]
Andy Bell
Posts
I listen to a lot of I Prevail 🔗
I only discovered them in July 2025 and I’ll let this last.fm chart do the rest to illustrate the point. I think this chart sums me up as: An [...]
Fun shadow coding challenge 🔗
Timehop just reminded me of this prototype I made 8 years ago. Scroll it and you’ll see that the central light source (orange line) affects the shadow [...]
It really is the year of the website 🔗
I keep talking about it so I’m finally doing it. You might be looking at my website right now, thinking “this looks a bit basic m8″ and you’d be right [...]
Wrapping up 2025 (sort of) 🔗
I’m doing my annual wrap up post early this year because I’m really tired and want to completely switch off for a couple of weeks. It’s time to spend [...]
It’s been a very hard year 🔗
Unlike a lot of places in tech, my company, Set Studio/Piccalilli has no outside funding. Bootstrapped is what the LinkedIn people say, I think. It’s [...]
Happy one year anniversary to Complete CSS! 🔗
It was one year to the day that Complete CSS went live. It was Piccalilli’s debut course at the time. Now we have three courses. Anyway, I just wante [...]
Get the core right and the resilient code will follow 🔗
I delivered my talk for the last time at beyond tellerrand last week, so I thought I’d just mark it on my blog. I did it first at ffconf in response t [...]
Complete CSS vs JavaScript for Everyone 🔗
Alright, we recently launched our second course on Piccalilli and it’s completely different to my course, Complete CSS. I just want to break down why [...]
Why bother learning JavaScript now that we have generative AI? 🔗
We, at Piccalilli, launched JavaScript for Everyone this week and a response to that from parts of the community could be paraphrased as “why bother l [...]
I tell you what I want, what I really, really want 🔗
I just want an app for iPhone and Mac that: Connects to Bluesky Connects to Mastodon Lets me post to both Looks and feels good Finds a way of not s [...]
Choice is important with stuff like highlighting 🔗
I’m making some demos for an article and I wanted one of those smooth gradients. It’s still not quite possible with standard CSS, so I used this trust [...]
I deleted Bluesky, Mastodon and LinkedIn off my phone 🔗
I’ve just come back from a nice week away in Cyprus with my family and to ensure I had a proper break I deleted Bluesky, Mastodon and LinkedIn off my [...]
We’re aiming to run Piccalilli full time 🔗
Recently we ran a survey that turned out some interesting results. We decided to do the survey off the back of the success of redesigning Piccalilli l [...]
This generous donation fills me with positivity and hope 🔗
It’s bloody scary setting up an Open Collective and hoping people will back you when you’re trying to do something tangibly good. Stuff like this rea [...]
Enabling open working on Piccalilli with content collections 🔗
I said we’d work in the open and I mean it. This content is on my blog for now because I’m literally building the infrastructure on Piccalilli as we s [...]
We launched a community supporters system for Piccalilli today 🔗
I’ve been talking about being fed up making the rich, richer on this blog recently. We’ve started doing something about it, which I blogged about over [...]
Specifically for people that want to listen to vinyl on AirPlay/HomePods 🔗
This is a niche post for the dozens of us that listen to vinyl via AirPlay/HomePods. I used Airchord for ages. It’s fantastic and very clever. I do f [...]
We’re looking for advertisers on Piccalilli 🔗
We quite recently set up advertising on Piccalilli, but explicitly not in the tracking users and polluting the reading experience sense. I was (and am [...]
I think I need to change my attitude towards webrings 🔗
I’ve always been a bit meh about webrings but I’ve noticed they’ve evolved a bit, like this one. I clicked through to Ariel’s site because I knew she [...]
Thanks for the positive responses 🔗
I’m absolutely blown away by the response to I’m getting fed up of making the rich, richer. It’s brought some real positive vibes my way, so thanks fo [...]
I’m getting fed up of making the rich, richer 🔗
That heading is a perfect summary of where I’m at right now. I’ve been in a bit of a turmoil-driven thinking period recently and I can’t shake the tho [...]
Cool bridging thing 🔗
There’s a cool service that bridges bluesky and mastodon accounts together called Bridgy Fed. It’s pretty cool because you can interact with accounts [...]
Am I missing your country with our Purchasing Power Parity system 🔗
If you head over to Complete CSS and you’re in a country that we support for Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), you should see a discount code. I think w [...]
Shoptalk show 🔗
I was lucky enough to appear on the legendary Shoptalk Show podcast to talk client work, courses and Piccalilli. It’s been 5 years since I was last on [...]
Alright, let me tell you how to make good Yorkshire puddings 🔗
I’m from Yorkshire so this recipe is right, but so is yours if your Yorkshire puddings are good. There’s so many different ways and ratios. This one w [...]
5 years since the .NET Mag article 🔗
Man, I remembering this being a big deal for me. I was lucky enough to be in the last (I think) .NET Mag (pour one out) 5 years ago. Timehop reminded [...]
I like having a links page 🔗
You can do what you want with your website and that’s what I (try) to do, that’s for sure. I stuck a music collection in here because why not? Yeh I’v [...]
Severance s2 finale 🔗
I’ve finally watched the finale of season 2 of Severance. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, but I’ve got two sentences here that may or may not bre [...]
We redesigned the Set Studio website and refreshed The Index 🔗
I am bad at posting on my website, admittedly so I thought I’d just acknowledge some work we’ve done that I’m really proud of. First up, we’ve co [...]
Love newsletters? You’re gonna love RSS 🔗
I love newsletters. They feel intimate, focused and I love reading them, especially on a weekend like today. The problem with newsletters is they can [...]
Just a big ol’ markdown file 🔗
Do you know what I want — what I really really want? A little shortcut on my phone and Mac on the share sheet that does the following: prompt me for a [...]
Wrapping up 2024 🔗
I’ve just read last year’s wrap up and it made me quite sad. I really was in a rough spot, mentally. What makes me the most sad though is I couldn’t h [...]
I wrote a course, but it’s so much more than that 🔗
This week, I published Complete CSS. After 15+ years of teaching, architecting and delivering CSS for global organisations and startups, I’ve collated [...]
Just use fucking paper, man 🔗
I’ve tried Notion, Obsidian, Things, Apple Reminders, Apple Notes, Jotter and endless other tools to keep me organised and sure, Notion has stuck arou [...]
Hi everyone I messed up my social accounts again 🔗
I am not good actually at this social media thing so messed up my accounts, moving stuff around for piccalilli. Anywho, this is where we’re at. My mas [...]
Wrapping up 2023 🔗
2023 has been as I predicted: unsettled and tense. It’s why I set this as my only resolution: Focus on building foundations and going slow. Move delib [...]
I’m looking for CUBE CSS quotes, logos and showcase 🔗
We’re redesigning the CUBE CSS site in the studio and I’m on a data gathering mission! I’d love to hear from you if: You’ve ever posted about CUBE CS [...]
My Company is 5 today! 🔗
Half a decade ago today, I incorporated my business. I thought it would be rude not to acknowledge it on the ol’ blog. So much has happened in the la [...]
2024, the year of CSS education 🔗
I’ve had [checks notes] around a year off from writing CSS education stuff. In fact, Learn CSS is over 2 years old at this point. Every Layout is over [...]
New CSS workshop coming in May 2024 🔗
I’m delighted to share that I’m going to be joining my good friends at Smashing to deliver a new workshop: Scalable CSS Masterclass. CSS doesn’t scale [...]
How I’m using the fragments of social media now 🔗
It’s been over a year since Elon Musk started the process of dismantling Twitter, which has resulted in lots of fragmentation. It’s also resulted in n [...]
Half a decade since I went independent again 🔗
It’s a special milestone for me today. After months of being ground down by hiring processes — thanks to the agency I was working for, going out of bu [...]
A (more) Modern CSS Reset 🔗
I wrote A Modern CSS Reset almost 4 years ago and, yeh, it’s not aged overly well. I spotted it being linked up again a few days ago and thought it’s [...]
Rhodes wildfires 🔗
You’ve probably already seen that Rhodes is currently being hammered with wildfires on the news. We’re currently, at the time of writing, in Rhodes on [...]
I’m doing a new talk and looking to do it at more events 🔗
I’m well under way writing my new talk for this year called “Iteration: a strategy for optimising UX for everyone”. It’s a much different talk than wh [...]
Viewport logger research tool 🔗
I made this little viewport logger: https://viewport-logger.netlify.app/ I’d really appreciate it if you could visit it on your devices — especially s [...]
The holy trinity 🔗
I think I’ve found the optimal experience for each of the main three social networks I use: Bluesky: lols and shitposts Mastodon: tech stuff Twitter: [...]
I broke my RSS feed 🔗
Sorry to everyone that got my last few posts in their RSS reader again. I broke my RSS feed with the latest update to this site. Should be all fixed n [...]
I hooked up Eleventy to WordPress API 🔗
I’ve got some plans for this site. The main thing I want to do is bring my music collection into my main site, instead of having a subdomain. That thi [...]
Happy 10th birthday to these weird little guys 🔗
10 years since we rescued Dora and Delilah. They’ve been the best and weirdest little guys. [...]
Identity theft 🔗
I listened to a terrifying episode of Darknet Diaries this week where a developer, Connor Tumbleson explained how their identity was stolen by some fo [...]
I don’t hate it though 🔗
Something I really don’t like is how “hate” is used so lightly — especially by tech folks. Same for “dead” too (tech doesn’t die it’s just sand that c [...]
Some Bluesky, Twitter and Mastodon predictions for 6 months time 🔗
Predictions are fun and social networks seem to be in a period of turbulence, excitement and of course, decline. This is what I reckon it might look l [...]
Why pay $8 for a checkmark when you can get one for free? 🔗
Elon Musk has removed checkmarks from everyone now on Twitter, so I thought I’d make a web component so you can add one wherever you want! CodePen Emb [...]
last.fm + “AI” 🔗
Do you know what I’d love? An “AI” that’s constantly trained on my last.fm listening data that at any point in the day can recommend me something to l [...]
New side project: owning my music 🔗
Folks that have been following along for a while will probably remember that over the last couple of years, I’ve been building up a music collection a [...]
I think I’m not alone that Mastodon is giving me the ick 🔗
I first joined Mastodon in 2018 (even though my old profile says 2016?), so I’d say I’ve seen a lot of its evolution. I’m on my second private instanc [...]
Sitting ducks for AI automation 🔗
I tell you what, with so-called “AI” getting better and better at slinging code, I’d certainly be concerned if I was all-in on UI frameworks, because [...]
Thank you for my $0.01, Coil 🔗
After Coil decided to sunset, I got my “final balance” today: a whopping $0.01. I’m a bit disappointed that the interledger thing never really took of [...]
“AI” should be doing our boring work, not the fun stuff 🔗
I’ll give “AI” credit: it’s bloody good at boring menial stuff I can’t be arsed with. That’s what it should do: save time wasted on stuff that grinds [...]
Set Studio in 2nd place in carbon footprint table 🔗
Ecoping have these handy indexes of websites, ranked by their carbon footprint. They’ve added our new Set Studio site and it’s in second place! https [...]
How AI and Crypto combined, are the future of the web 🔗
Ha ha no they’re not. Got ya! [...]
One in, two out 🔗
As I posted earlier, I’m half letting Twitter back in. I have a policy though: a new potentially addictive thing means another has to go. Because Twit [...]
How I’m dealing with Twitter in a hands-off manner 🔗
You might have noticed I’ve spent more time on Twitter recently. I was chatting to a new client for my agency recently and — as I always do — I asked [...]
Help the good folks of Tweetbot out 🔗
In January, petulant man-child, Elon Musk kneecapped Tweetbot (and others) by removing their API access. Because of this, it looks like Apple will be [...]
My favourite 3 lines of CSS, now in Japanese 🔗
Big thanks to コリス for translating my post about my favourite 3 lines of CSS into Japanese 🙌 Link: https://coliss.com/articles/build-websites/operatio [...]
Learn Eleventy From Scratch could really do with an update 🔗
Our Junior developer is currently running through Learn Eleventy From Scratch and I’m chiming in every now and then to help them out. Thanks to Eleve [...]
Quest For Fire – Skrillex 🔗
I’ve always been a fan of Skrillex, even in the nastiest dubstep era. What I also like about Skrillex (A.K.A Sonny Moore) is that he is (or was) the f [...]
Added an about page 🔗
I can’t believe that I didn’t have one already, but I’ve actually made an about page: https://andy-bell.co.uk/about/ [...]
Check your CSS source code order before shovelling on more CSS 🔗
I’ve been writing a new issue of The Index today and came across a bit of a spacing issue in our prose CSS rules. The image is bunched up against thi [...]
This Is Why – Paramore 🔗
Look, there’s bias here because I was extremely emo in the mid-2000s, so Paramore is always going to get a good review. But, my god, I’m in to “This I [...]
Just post 🔗
[starts stopwatch] I see a lot of folks want to write more but struggle with how long it takes. I get it, a super detailed post takes hours of work. E [...]
Always aim high 🔗
I was doing a bit of tweaking on our agency site the other day. I introduced a <del> element to one of the headings in a new post. It looked pretty ru [...]
Eleventy Excellent truly is excellent 🔗
I’ve probably already shared this before, but the Eleventy Excellent starter kit by Lene Saile (@lene@front-end.social) is bloody fantastic. It’s ba [...]
The (extremely) loud minority 🔗
Often on Twitter, we’ll hear stuff like this: Best practices don’t actually work Or: TypeScript has won, and it’s only a matter of time you’re using [...]
This is why performance matters 🔗
I just had a power cut and wanted to check how long it would be out for. The UK Power Networks power outage tool is handy for that, but there’s a prob [...]
The Index is launching next week 🔗
On Monday, the first issue of the Set Studio newsletter: The Index will be going live! You may remember the newsletter that I used to run a few years [...]
One day left 🔗
There’s only one day left to find your pals on Mastodon via Twitter before the free Twitter API gets shut down. Even if you’re not planning on leaving [...]
Buttondown is pretty cool 🔗
I’m researching email stuff for the incoming Set Studio newsletter: The Index. What I’m after is something that just does email and can be operated f [...]
My favourite 3 lines of CSS 🔗
Read this post in Japanese. In Every Layout, we wrote about The Stack. It’s a marriage of Heydon’s Lobotomised Owl selector and my method of managing [...]
Twitter API unknowns 🔗
You may or may not have realised that I post only via my blog to Twitter now because that place is hell, but I recently started using Front again so I [...]
How the CSS box-sizing property works 🔗
To celebrate International Box Sizing day—first celebrated by Chris Coyier—I thought I’d write a run-down of how the box-sizing property works. It’s o [...]
The Artist In The Ambulance – Revisited 🔗
My favourite band, Thrice, have revisited my all time favourite album, The Artist In The Ambulance. It’s bloody marvellous! It’s so good to hear this [...]
Speed for who? 🔗
Frameworks are often touted as something like “a lightning fast development experience” and that’s fine I guess, but the speed is in the wrong hands. [...]
Animated Set Studio Logo 🔗
Amit Sheen made this amazing animated version of my agency‘s logo. It’s cool as hell! You should check out their other stuff too. They’re super talen [...]
Jotter 🔗
Nearly 3 years ago, I made a little Progressive Web App (PWA) with a simple goal. I wanted a web-based version of Tyke. It’s the simplest Mac app ever [...]
Don’t snark on people who are learning 🔗
I saw a post on mastodon snarking at “the current state of web development” and it was a screenshot of a forum where someone was asking why nested <h1 [...]
Update to Build Excellent Websites 🔗
I’ve just added a little update to our Build Excellent Websites site: https://buildexcellentwebsit.es. It now has a link to one of the versions of th [...]
Looking for a small project for our Junior Developer 🔗
I don’t know if you know already, but at my agency—Set Studio—we hired a junior developer—Liridon—who we are training from scratch. They’d never writt [...]
Improving “likes” on my site 🔗
I recently published an article that got quite a bit of attention and it resulted in a lot of “likes” at the bottom of the page. I pull likes from Mas [...]
“Most of our users are on Desktop” 🔗
Whenever someone says “our analytics tell us most users are on desktop”, I always think of this diagram. Back in WW2 they wanted to work out why p [...]
Tinkering 🔗
The thing I love the most about my personal site is just tinkering away at it over time. I wanted to put a little box at the end of proper posts—y’kno [...]
I’ve decided to let this blog post to Twitter 🔗
I’ve bailed on Twitter since Elon Musk took over and have no plans to return there as an active user. I do genuinely believe it is in decline, but I’v [...]
Front-end is so much more than building designs 🔗
I was unfortunately made aware of this tweet today and it felt like a blast from the past. Y’know what I’m talking about: the old days when you’d get [...]
Dear email marketers 🔗
Dear email marketers, I can confirm that I didn’t “unsubscribe by mistake” when I clicked your 8px, low contrast unsubscribe link, buried at the bott [...]
Line heights in CSS work better with ratios 🔗
Say you’ve got this CSS and you need to set a nice, compact line height: h1 { font-size: 40px; } You open up the designer’s static design and it s [...]
Careful what you click 🔗
Rickrolling is educational because it teaches you not to click on suspicious links. [...]
I wired up my Feedbin likes to auto-post to Mastodon 🔗
A cool feature about Feedbin is you can get an RSS feed of posts you like. You can see my feed here: https://feedbin.com/starred/91894d3eb1e306646 [...]
Looking to expand my Mastodon feeds 🔗
Having a private Mastodon instance is great—I love it—but my federated timeline is quiet as hell. I’ve heard of relays, but I’m not sure I understand [...]
For when someone asks if I’ve written about my Tailwind setup 🔗
I forgot that I’d written a pretty in-depth article about how I use Tailwind—as a utility class generator—not as an all-encompassing framework. A coup [...]
Be The Browser’s Mentor, Not Its Micromanager 🔗
I started last year with “I’m not going to bother speaking at conferences this year” and ended up speaking at 4… I switched up my attitude because Jos [...]
Last.fm 2022 summary 🔗
My 2022 Last.fm year in music dropped on New Year’s day and I’ve finally gotten around to giving it a look today. I made a conscious effort to scrobb [...]
Wrapping up 2022 🔗
I was very harsh on myself in last year’s review. I think it was because I published it almost immediately after finishing work, whereas this year, I’ [...]
My top 5 albums released in 2022 🔗
2022 has been a damn good year for good new album releases, so I thought I’d recommend my top 5 for you. 5. Actual Life 3 (January 1 – September 9 202 [...]
Bring Back Blogging 🔗
I really like this post by Chris Coyier (@chriscoyier@front-end.social): https://chriscoyier.net/2022/12/26/bring-back-blogging/ This part specificall [...]
2023, the year of websites 🔗
2023 is going to be the year of websites—specifically personal websites—and I’m here for it. It seems like the momentum for people to hyper-focus (or [...]
Elon, the accidental revolutionary 🔗
One thing I’ll give Elon Musk credit for is how he’s inadvertently demonstrating how terrible and fragile centralisation is—especially with online com [...]
Adam Kuhn’s top 10 albums of 2022 🔗
This summary of Adam Kuhn’s top 10 albums of 2022 is incredible: https://codepen.io/cobra_winfrey/full/yLEwKKg. It’s making me think what I should add [...]
The Daunting Prospect Of Writing Again 🔗
Getting the blog running how I like it has definitely got me writing more again. There was something about mucking around with markdown files and buil [...]
A New Day, A New “CSS” Thing 🔗
So there’s this new CSS thing called Stylify which is getting people hot under the collar again. It’s been a while since a white dude re-invented CSS, [...]
Last speaking engagement 🔗
I’m doing my last speaking engagement of the year today: a best man’s speech. [...]
I got a new Studio Display 🔗
Check out my new Studio Display! I’ve had my eye on them for ages and I finally went for it. It’s so good to have a nice big Apple Display again. It’ [...]
Working on my personal site is fun actually 🔗
I mostly spend my days in spreadsheets or working on important projects™ so actually making things is a treat. Should I have been doing client work t [...]
Webmention support 🔗
I don’t know if this will work, but I think I’ve got Webmentions set up on this site now. [...]
Toots are gonna be lit 🔗
Now I’ve got this nice markdown-style look and feel to my site, the auto-posting to Mastodon setup is going to be awesome. I just need to find a way t [...]
My Company is 4 today! 🔗
Today is my company’s 4th anniversary 🎉 Over the last 4 years, it’s evolved from me being a freelancer and consultant, to selling educational materia [...]
I’m genuinely enjoying social media again 🔗
I used to really enjoy Twitter, even if it is a complete hell zone. Almost certainly, amongst all the hell, there would be one tweet that would have m [...]
Mastodon is a gateway 🔗
I’ve been thinking about this for the last couple of days: I see Mastodon as a sort of gateway, rather than the final destination. All this ActivityPu [...]
An impromptu quiet week 🔗
I’ve been hammered with an OG cold of sorts this week (not COVID, thankfully) and it’s completely sapped me of any energy. I’ve mostly done…well…nothi [...]
CSS refactor 🔗
With a view to doing some more work on my site, I’ve just replaced the Sass setup with PostCSS, Tailwind (gasp) and CUBE CSS. It’s the setup I’ve bee [...]
Testing toots 🔗
If all goes well, this should have auto-posted to Mastodon via my RSS feed. [...]
Free of the bird 🔗
I want my last post on Twitter to be a blog post as one last middle finger to centralised, algorithmic social media. If you’re still on Twitter, you’r [...]
Warnings About The Disastrous Modern Frontends Live 🔗
I just want to boost a couple of posts written by speakers at Modern Frontends Live. I’ve been astounded at how that event has gone down and personal [...]
Time for a redesign 🔗
Does the day end in a Y if a designer doesn’t want to redesign their site? I’ve got a bit of a hodgepodge of personal content and also tech stuff dot [...]
Don’t rob yourself of a good thing 🔗
Back when I was a teenager, I was super into punk, grunge and metal (I still am to be fair). With that, I had a natural tendency to reject the mainstr [...]
A Celebration Of Endings – Biffy Clyro 🔗
I’ll prefix this recommendation with the fact that I am a Biffy super fan. Infinity Land is in my top 10 albums of all time, after all. I’ve also seen [...]
That’s The Joint – Funky 4 + 1 🔗
This is absolute funk-tastic rap. Turn it up loud and really listen. I’ve got a real soft-spot for live-feel hip hop and this album does not disappoin [...]
Power 🔗
The only thing keeping my Netflix subscription was the kids stuff. My kids love it and it reduces the amount of annoying spoiled American kids opening [...]
It’s finally come home 🔗
Never in my 35 years did I think I’d watch England lift a major title. I’m so proud and my kids, they’re so inspired. Thank you, Lionesses 💜 [...]
Getting into music recommendations again 🔗
I’m trying this whole music recommendation thing again and giving it a silly name: redrobotzoo. What does that mean, you wonder? Who knows—I’ve just h [...]
Bye bye, Boris Johnson 🔗
938 days after winning a landslide election after promising to “get Brexit done” and “level up the north”, Boris Johnson will finally resign today. A [...]
Added Spotify to my music collection site 🔗
I’ve got a pet project, my music collection site: https://music.andy-bell.co.uk/ I mess around with it every now and then for fun. It’s powered by Ele [...]
Who knew? Blogging is helpful 🔗
I wrote a blog post: https://piccalil.li/blog/a-cls-punishment-for-progressive-enhancement/ Then smart people responded with smart solutions: Scott: h [...]
FFConf 2022 🔗
I just bought an early bird ticket for FFConf 2022 https://2022.ffconf.org/. My first real conference as an attendee since the last FFConf in [checks [...]
Defensive CSS 🔗
The one and only, Ahmad Shadeed has launched defensive CSS—an outrageously detailed compendium of excellent CSS techniques to help you build resilient [...]
I hope Johnson doesn’t resign 🔗
I really don’t want Boris Johnson to resign after being thumped in by-elections. There’s a massive window of opportunity for a progressive alliance to [...]
Learn Eleventy From Scratch Turns 2 🔗
Two years ago today, I published Learn Eleventy From Scratch. It was the first course I made and it blew me away how popular it ended up being. I jus [...]
EL-P uses my stuff 🔗
You’d think my proudest achievement from working in tech would be working with some of the largest organisations in the world, right? Nah, it’s EL-P [...]
Twice Thrice 🔗
I’m seeing Thrice twice in one year. What a treat! For Father’s Day, my kids got me tickets for 2000 Trees in July to see them headline the Friday an [...]
Just read: I Should Be Able To Mute America 🔗
https://www.gawker.com/culture/i-should-be-able-to-mute-america A lot of nodding from me and belly laughing too. Fav quotes: Instead, we caused the tw [...]
Some holiday resolutions 🔗
I got back from a nice week in Greece today. It was a much needed break with some much needed time to slow down and think. Because of that, I came bac [...]
I think “Raw Data Feel” by Everything Everything is my favourite album of 2022 🔗
Closely followed by Plosivs’ self-titled album. Still got 6 months to go for the year yet though, so plenty of chances for someone to pip them to the [...]
Desktop-down design is so painfully dated and damaging to user experience 🔗
There’s of course, some cases where design for desktop-first is essential, but friends, when you’re designing a responsive website, you have to give m [...]
The tech tool carousel 🔗
I recently described what I call “the carousel” to some fellow nerds so I thought I’d write about it. I’m a lot of years into this web thing and I’ve [...]
He’ll get away with it 🔗
Our system is built so people like Boris Johnson get away with it. The only way to remove him is via his Conservative party. The same conservative par [...]
Give me a design tool that supports responsive design 🔗
Tools like Figma are coming on leaps and bounds, but we’re still producing pictures of designs in them. I’ve been playing with Webflow a bit recently, [...]
I Deleted TikTok 🔗
It’s fun and always provides me with LOLs, but my god, it eats time. Like, a lot of time. [...]
Blog more, Andy 🔗
Probably gonna have to blog more on here. Luckily I’ve got some syndication stuff set up already so could post out to a couple of places if we all bai [...]
Buying random albums 🔗
I’m doing a new thing. Now that I’m back working from a co working space once or twice a week, I’m back in town again. This means I’m back browsing re [...]
A letter to my MP 🔗
Today, the Metropolitan Police are issuing fines in relation to the illegal gatherings in-and-around Number 10 in 2020 and 2021. I’ve written a letter [...]
Taking it slow 🔗
Since January I’ve done back-to-back projects with no breather and bloody hell, I’m tired. The last one that ended on Friday was especially—shall we s [...]
Moving streaming services 🔗
In light of the recent Spotify stuff—including their predictably poor response: people are rightly looking to move streaming services. I’ve not been o [...]
I used Tailwind for the U in CUBE CSS and I liked it 🔗
A client project requirement meant I made a CUBE CSS with Tailwind prototype that actually turned out really well. I’ve recently started a new client [...]
The five levels of hype 🔗
This is bloody brilliant: https://johannesklingebiel.de/2022/01/12/hype-as-a-scale.html You can link this to so much, but especially in the present, [...]
Week 2 notes – 2022 🔗
Another week and I’m still on this weeknotes biz, so I’ll give myself a pat on the back. Yes, it might well only be week 2, but whatever. I’ve spent [...]
Week 1 notes – 2022 🔗
I’m getting back on this week notes biz, because I think it’ll be good for the ol’ brain. I’m making it easier for myself now though and setting 5 min [...]
First ever filling 🔗
I’m 34 years old and today, I’m getting my first ever tooth filling. It’s a miracle I’ve made it this far without getting one to be honest. [...]
Very handy HTML boilerplate 🔗
I’m a big believer in styling as much with CSS, as high as possible. Heck, I even made that the leading principle of CUBE CSS! I have been thinking a [...]
Last.fm 2021 summary 🔗
I got back into last.fm in the spring and they just sent me my 2021 summary. It’s quite interesting to look back on. Last.fm is really good—albeit not [...]
Listen outside of your usual tastes 🔗
A bit of advice for the new year with music. Try to listen to stuff outside of your usual music tastes—don’t let the streaming app algorithm dictate t [...]
2022 Work Resolutions 🔗
I’m fully rested now after having 2 weeks off from working, so I’ve sat and put together my work resolutions for next year, which compliment my main, [...]
Joining Meta 🔗
As if I’d commit such a heinous, ethical crime! Joining Meta (aka Facebook) or a company that does very high levels of harm—lets say, Coinbase, for c [...]
LEGO advent calendar done 🔗
I’ve always wanted one of those LEGO advent calendars and always missed out before they sold out. I managed to get my hands on one this year and it’s [...]
Wrapping up 2021 🔗
It’s safe to say I completely failed at everything I set out in last year’s post, but after how this year has gone with [gestures wildly] everything, [...]
WordPress app is good 🔗
A big reason I put this site back on WordPress was that the iOS app is bloody excellent. It’s definitely helping with the aim of making writing a pers [...]
Yorkshire top-up 🔗
I’ve just come back from a lush couple of days back in my hometown, near Bradford. My accent has had a top-up, as has my heart for seeing family I hav [...]
Importing Eleventy content into WordPress 🔗
Related to redoing this blog, I thought I’d quickly share how I exported all of my 11ty content and imported it into WordPress. Steps First up, I ins [...]
Boosted 💉💉💉 🔗
I’m fully boosted! I just popped into my local doctor’s surgery, got a jab and walked back out again. Easy peasy. Let’s hope that gives not just me, [...]
Going for a haircut 🔗
I used to work in this horrible, toxic agency, years ago and one of the folks that worked with me was looking for a new job, on the sly. To sneak off [...]
New Blog, who dis? 🔗
It’s that time of year again: personal sites getting a new lick of paint to close out the year. My personal site has been limping along for a few year [...]
1st November 2021 at 10:18 🔗
Three years ago today, I started my second stint as a freelancer. It’s still my best career move to date. After the company I worked for went under—ma [...]
18th October 2021 at 10:14 🔗
Some things that have had nothing but an overall positive impact recently: Removing my work email from my phone (turns out you can actually do this if [...]
9th October 2021 at 10:35 🔗
Our eldest kid is 5 years old today. We’ve been parents for half a decade. To say I’m proud of our little family is an understatement. Happy Birthday, [...]
What Andy Listened To – Issue #4 🔗
This issue is teeming with emo and and heavy goodness to fill your ear-holes with. Thanks to the recent new Thrice album, I’ve done a full hand-brake [...]
5th October 2021 at 10:47 🔗
It’s been over a month now since I stopped looking at the Twitter timeline and my mental health has improved drastically—so much more so than I though [...]
What Andy Listened To – Issue #3 🔗
I’ve had my head down a lot this week, so not listened to loads of music, but I have listened to a lot of hip hop (no surprises). We also have a new r [...]
17th September 2021 at 11:45 🔗
I shared yesterday that I’ve been using Front to manage my Twitter replies and DMs and Sara asked me to write about how I have Twitter stuff setup at [...]
10th September 2021 at 18:40 🔗
You’d think the fastest thing is y’know, light, but it’s actually me muting a new channel in a community Discord. [...]
What Andy Listened To – Issue #2 🔗
It’s been a heavy hip hop week for me this week with a large portion of alternative/party rock, featuring a long overdue listen of a band that continu [...]
9th September 2021 at 10:40 🔗
I got the best sentence in an email today: “You were due to start jury service soon but you have now been excused” I got a call yesterday and didn’t w [...]
8th September 2021 at 09:38 🔗
It’s our kid’s first day at school today. It literally feels like yesterday that I was driving her and her mum home at 20mph from the hospital. That w [...]
7th September 2021 at 16:02 🔗
It’s been a while since I’ve posted on this blog. If you’re reading this on Twitter, I’ve gone back to syndicating these articles with IFTTT. It auto- [...]
What Andy Listened To – Issue #1 🔗
This is the first ever issue of this feature and we have some top notch albums this week. The Exquisite Death Of Saxon Shore Saxon Shore – 2005 | post [...]
Getting started with CSS Custom Properties 🔗
Custom properties in CSS are exceptionally useful, not just for tokenising your CSS, but also for abstracting complexity and interactivity into smalle [...]
14th April 2021 at 12:21 🔗
I’ve been working way too hard recently so I’m treating myself to starting a fun, personal project I’ve been meaning to start for a long time. I’m cre [...]
2nd April 2021 at 08:49 🔗
I just got that glorious feeling of opening a physical record—a vinyl. It was Led Zeppelin’s first album. I was a fanatical music collector, once upon [...]
28th March 2021 at 21:03 🔗
I’ve decided that the @hankchizljaw Twitter account is work-only now and I’ll only use and interact with it during work hours. I took a little step aw [...]
26th March 2021 at 13:28 🔗
Imagine if someone said: “You have to be passionate about clearing sewerage drains. You can’t just do it for the money.” Sounds pretty ridiculous, rig [...]
26th March 2021 at 11:17 🔗
I’ve just seen someone refer to their job as “boring money internet”. The endless tech “debates” like whether one programming language is actually a p [...]
25th March 2021 at 08:39 🔗
I’m glad I’m stepping away from tech and design twitter for a bit. If you’ve sent a message or reply, I’ll get to it when I come back. I’m still on my [...]
24th March 2021 at 10:47 🔗
8 years ago, we had a pretty grim electrical fire with our dishwasher and every year, timehop reminds me of it with this grim resulting plug. If I wa [...]
18th March 2021 at 20:27 🔗
Let me introduce a couple of terms that we coined in my old agency days because they still make me laugh. A wanklet is a completely useless element on [...]
18th March 2021 at 09:14 🔗
I’ve just discovered Lake Street Dive and holy shit, they are good as hell. They’re smoother than butter. https://album.link/t/165710133 [...]
16th March 2021 at 08:32 🔗
My partner and I are the complete opposite to each other. I carefully and methodically maintain a backed-up, collection of plans and notes, to stay or [...]
15th March 2021 at 15:19 🔗
This is absolutely essential reading. Accessibility overlays are snake oil that provide nothing but an awful experience for those that they claim to h [...]
15th March 2021 at 10:06 🔗
My hearing is finally level again. I’ve had a pretty severe, double ear infection with a perforated ear drum over the last 10 days or so. The pain was [...]
14th March 2021 at 22:24 🔗
“I hate all of this. To me, the hunger in the crypto world illustrates all the worst things about people: Our greed, our need to "own" things, and our [...]
8th March 2021 at 09:33 🔗
A very apt song for our times: https://song.link/i/1207471421 I remember, after waiting for ever for At The Drive-In to release a new album (17 years! [...]
8th March 2021 at 09:06 🔗
It’s a big day in our house today. Our eldest kid goes back to pre-school. Sure, we’re nervous—there’s still a lot of COVID-19 cases—but locally, thin [...]
6th March 2021 at 08:50 🔗
An oldie but a goodie here from Jeremy Keith: If one drink feels good, then ten drinks must be better, right? The context is this 2017 article in resp [...]
1st March 2021 at 10:39 🔗
It’s easy to look smart and dunk on NFT from the ivory tower of Twitter and it’s a real societal failing if creatives have to lean into technology tha [...]
28th February 2021 at 08:56 🔗
One thing I can’t help but notice is how efficiently I get through Twitter after abstracting it to Feedbin. I’m usually done and dusted with the lates [...]
25th February 2021 at 14:58 🔗
I’ve been building up to running a 10k for a while now and today, I finally did it! I used to run a lot as a kid but bad knees and years of smoking we [...]
24th February 2021 at 10:06 🔗
I’m really happy to see Dispo coming out of beta. It’s such a nice, fun little app. The only “social network” apps that bring me any sort of joy these [...]
23rd February 2021 at 20:55 🔗
I’ve got a personal site again! It’s the old microblog, back doing all the auto-posting to Twitter and stuff, which is cool. It’s nice to have somewhe [...]
23rd February 2021 at 12:12 🔗
Just posting a lil’ test tweet from the ol’ microblog to see if it’s all wired up right again. [...]
23rd February 2021 at 11:37 🔗
I’m gonna use this micro blog again I reckon. It’s been a while… [...]
5th July 2020 at 10:04 🔗
I feel incredibly demoralised today. I’ve been super careful about COVID since February and after seeing scenes in Soho, Bradford and elsewhere, yeste [...]
9th June 2020 at 10:33 🔗
This Eleventy course has been by far the most challenging writing project I’ve ever done. It’s been way over 20,000 words at this point, over—at the t [...]
27th May 2020 at 14:24 🔗
I’ve written 0 lessons for the eleventy course today. I planned to Having 37 lessons to write is a real mountain, I must say. I’m into I’m just gonna [...]
CUBE CSS 🔗
A CSS methodology oriented towards simplicity and consistency with a heavy dosage of pragmatism. If there’s one thing you can guarantee in tech, it’s [...]
26th May 2020 at 11:24 🔗
I’m re-working a section of my talk “Keeping It Simple With CSS That I see composition as a really important aspect of keeping things I’ll blog about [...]
24th May 2020 at 16:52 🔗
One thing I’m getting sick of hearing is "the government did a good job with the hand they were dealt". They didn’t. They fucked up. Every other gover [...]
27th April 2020 at 08:33 🔗
If you write to get lots of views, your posts will probably never be great. If you write really good content, though, you’ll achieve the former by [...]
22nd April 2020 at 11:10 🔗
I’ve de-clamshelled my MacBook Pro and because I only use one screen, I wanted to keep it occupied. I came across this: https://www.kaleidosync.com/vi [...]
21st April 2020 at 16:19 🔗
There is no faster (pun intended) way to slow down a site than to use a bunch of JavaScript. https://timkadlec.com/remembers/2020-04-21-the-cost-of-ja [...]
21st April 2020 at 10:12 🔗
Tip for Firefox users on Mac. By default, you can’t tab to links. To fix it: Go to “about:config” Search for “accessibility.tabfocus” It won’t show up [...]
8th April 2020 at 12:07 🔗
I’m doing some print CSS stuff for Piccalilli invoices. It’s not something I do very often! Luckily, Rachel Andrew has written this excellent guide ov [...]
8th April 2020 at 10:43 🔗
After a ridiculously stressful few weeks, I’m finally slowing down a bit today. We’ve been in self isolation (which isn’t that different to lockdown) [...]
6th April 2020 at 13:51 🔗
? Listening to my favourite hip hop album of all time today. https://open.spotify.com/album/6fquTSHubECT65PJdRiMk1?si=fw5GtKL-RpqY6WUjB1rvyw It’s a ma [...]
29th March 2020 at 12:13 🔗
I keep hearing “when this blows over, we can go back to normal”. We should never go back to normal. “Normal” has failed us miserably. Everything—espec [...]
28th March 2020 at 09:57 🔗
Pro tip: American Pancakes don’t require many ingredients and are easy to make. Perfect quarantine cooking. All you need: 135g/4¾oz plain flour Method [...]
25th March 2020 at 16:53 🔗
I’ve finally managed to produce some proper complex client work today. I’ve found the last few weeks really tough and have been dragging myself throug [...]
23rd March 2020 at 09:42 🔗
? The Body Coach, AKA Joe Wicks has started doing a PE Lessons for kids (or anyone) at 9AM, GMT, Monday to Friday. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz0 [...]
16th March 2020 at 14:17 🔗
? This is not a drill: Four Tet has a new album! https://open.spotify.com/album/5gIa8hTQGPwVeNYjDwrraZ?si=RK7d56O0Ty-hjGmY3dXnPg “Teenage Birdsong” is [...]
16th March 2020 at 12:57 🔗
? The little one and I went and did a bit of social distancing earlier. We’re so lucky to live in the middle of nowhere and have places like this on o [...]
CSS Logical Properties 🔗
Create spacing that works regardless of the direction of your content or the environment of your users. Say you want to put some space between two inl [...]
12th March 2020 at 06:58 🔗
This coronavirus news cycle is brutal. It’s so fast paced. We’re used to it in the U.K. with the Brexit situation, so I really feel for y’all who are [...]
11th March 2020 at 09:35 🔗
This self-hosted photo stream project looks great, by Max Voltar: https://github.com/maxvoltar/photo-stream. Publish (on your) It’s good to see Jekyll [...]
11th March 2020 at 08:36 🔗
A lot of people are suddenly going to experience the benefit of working from home, and companies that force staff to work in their noisy, open-plan of [...]
10th March 2020 at 11:30 🔗
? It’s Launch Day!! I’m super chuffed to finally launch the brand new Piccalilli site!! I’ve put so much work into it, so I couldn’t be happier right [...]
5th March 2020 at 12:09 🔗
? I’m back working from home now, which is making me v happy indeed. My cat is certainly happy about it. [...]
3rd March 2020 at 17:09 🔗
Maybe, separate dev and design teams are a bit like government and opposition. There’s an important relationship there that keeps things flowing nice. [...]
3rd March 2020 at 14:07 🔗
? I discovered this via the fabulous Flow State (https://flowstate.substack.com/). It’s super good working music: https://open.spotify.com/album/7B6rB [...]
3rd March 2020 at 08:48 🔗
Chris and Dave said on ShopTalk Show that we should have a like party by sharing your “liked” articles from your RSS reader. Here’s mine from Feedbin [...]
2nd March 2020 at 13:57 🔗
It’s pretty likely I won’t be doing any streaming this week, pals. I’m heads-down trying to get content for the new https://piccalil.li done before I [...]
2nd March 2020 at 10:00 🔗
? I’m leaving Patreon Big thanks to everyone that has supported me on Patreon, but I’m calling it a day on there. To those that I support on there: I’ [...]
2nd March 2020 at 09:30 🔗
? This is a really interesting podcast episode on burnout and our often unhealthy relationship with work and identity. https://overcast.fm/+QLhUwQ_QQ [...]
1st March 2020 at 10:38 🔗
“Some webshits have managed to completely remove any advantage of CSS while simultaneously making it an even bigger percentage of a given web page” ? [...]
1st March 2020 at 09:52 🔗
? I absolutely love the packaging that comes with GHG coffee. The coffee is rad, too. https://www.girlswhogrindcoffee.com/ [...]
29th February 2020 at 18:47 🔗
I have an obsessive condition about cleanliness and hand washing. It’s been the case for probably about 10 years but has gotten much worse over the la [...]
28th February 2020 at 21:10 🔗
? The bullet journal cover is getting there with a couple of my new stickers on it. I’m gonna have to start overlapping soon. [...]
28th February 2020 at 19:40 🔗
I do love sitting and catching up with my RSS feeds on a Friday. Cat on lap, kids in bed, red wine in hand. Lush. [...]
27th February 2020 at 21:47 🔗
I’ve gone back to using a paper bullet journal. The Notion setup I had was cool, but I just wasn’t using it, and being the obsessive organiser that I [...]
27th February 2020 at 14:53 🔗
I’ve been doing client services for a very long time now and there’s one thing that never changes: stakeholders going rogue. You can plan projects to [...]
27th February 2020 at 14:24 🔗
? Aphex Time. https://open.spotify.com/album/1maoQPAmw44bbkNOxKlwsx?si=3Or3Ki6rQMe6M3KjZ_ytIg This is my second favourite Aphex album. Richard D James [...]
27th February 2020 at 06:49 🔗
“The web is in bad shape – we need to readjust our understanding of what quality means and what we can expect our users to put up with.” This is a fan [...]
26th February 2020 at 12:56 🔗
I’m going to stream some work on the https://piccalil.li site today. Starts at: 15:15 UTC 16:15 Central Europe 10:15 US Eastern 07:15 US Pacific See y [...]
24th February 2020 at 21:32 🔗
? Real Scenes: London I really enjoyed this documentary about London’s legendary underground music scene and its battle for survival. https://youtu.be [...]
24th February 2020 at 13:20 🔗
I’m going to stream in about 2 hours. Today, I’m going to work on RSS stuff for the new https://piccalil.li site. Starts at: 15:15 UTC 16:15 Central E [...]
24th February 2020 at 10:48 🔗
? Pro-tip When you are writing a step-by-step tutorial, build along with your writeup to test that it works how you think it does. When I write up tut [...]
23rd February 2020 at 09:43 🔗
A pro tip for companies. Remember that candidates will almost certainly not just be interviewing with you. Remember that when you set your “challenges [...]
23rd February 2020 at 09:36 🔗
I binged “Don’t F**k With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer” on Netflix last night and I’m still angry. https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/81031373 It’s [...]
22nd February 2020 at 18:29 🔗
? Join my Slack? Uhm Nah. https://email-is-good.com/2020/02/21/join-my-slack-uhm-nah/ "Oh, sure, of course, would you like to crawl inside my shirt wi [...]
22nd February 2020 at 16:20 🔗
? I’m slow cooking a chicken, chick pea and lentil curry. [...]
21st February 2020 at 13:35 🔗
? How to overlap images in CSS This is a great, concise and practical tutorial by Bri Camp Gomez. https://bricampgomez.com/blog/how-to-overlap-images- [...]
21st February 2020 at 10:01 🔗
I don’t often work from my house now, but when I do, Delilah loves it. I really should just work from home full-time again ? [...]
20th February 2020 at 09:56 🔗
My minimal CSS reset is super close to hitting 1000 stars on Github. It’d be great if you gave it a little star to get it over the line ⭐️ https://git [...]
20th February 2020 at 09:36 🔗
? The Postal Service: they’ll make your ears smile. It’s making me want to make some electronica again. https://open.spotify.com/album/4ssF0ppdJnMTtL2 [...]
19th February 2020 at 13:29 🔗
Today’s stream will be some more https://piccalil.li post/tutorial view work. Starts at about 15:15 UTC https://www.twitch.tv/hankchizljaw [...]
19th February 2020 at 09:41 🔗
I run a little Telegram group called freelance pals. If you’re a freelancer (or contractor), you’re more than welcome to come along and hang with us: [...]
19th February 2020 at 08:28 🔗
? “Some Imaginary CSS” This is a great article about CSS features that don’t exist, but would be great. I especially love the optical margin and point [...]
18th February 2020 at 21:41 🔗
? New on the blog: Jamstack, IFTTT and Netlify: a power trio It’s about time I wrote about this Micro Blog, so I go into how it works and importantly, [...]
18th February 2020 at 14:18 🔗
I’m going to do a stream this afternoon of some client work, working on a big ol Vue component with some Vuex action, within a prototype. I’ll start a [...]
18th February 2020 at 14:02 🔗
? I’ve always been fond of Echo Park by Feeder. Such a beautiful album: https://open.spotify.com/album/2AqgHBVRkki14FLTOK2eU7?si=vH66nqcDRAuiQmlS0LBAx [...]
18th February 2020 at 13:11 🔗
My Bonsai Tree is no longer. The poor little tree boi died. I am a terrible plant parent. [...]
18th February 2020 at 10:57 🔗
I’m super digging people creating feed of their Feedbin likes, so I’ve jumped on the bandwagon. Here’s mine: https://microblog.hankchizljaw.com/likes/ [...]
18th February 2020 at 09:47 🔗
This Google Fonts subsetting thing is cool. Append your url with &text= with the characters you want. Tests: With subsetting (~21k): https://cdpn.io/a [...]
17th February 2020 at 21:50 🔗
A slice of apple pie is $2.50 in Jamaica and $3 in The Bahamas. These are the pie rates of the Caribbean. [...]
17th February 2020 at 10:39 🔗
I’m going to do a stream this afternoon of me starting the post/tutorial template on the new https://piccalil.li site. I’m also giving Firefox another [...]
17th February 2020 at 08:45 🔗
Some advice for both designers and devs. Your first pass at something will almost always not be optimal, but you’ve got something to work with and ite [...]
16th February 2020 at 19:31 🔗
“A Reply Guy expertly advised front-end developers to leave out HTML and CSS from their CVs as they’re just there to fill space. This leaves more room [...]
15th February 2020 at 23:30 🔗
“Turns out, a character-limited platform that aggressively promotes hot takes is not suitable for a nuanced discussion about salaries.” https://paroc [...]
15th February 2020 at 19:56 🔗
This is a lovely post, by Robin Sloan about creating an app just for his family. https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/home-cooked-app/ [...]
15th February 2020 at 14:45 🔗
I had psyched myself up to go to the gym on a Saturday and then when I got there, it was closed. I’m having a nice biscuit and a cup of tea instead no [...]
15th February 2020 at 13:49 🔗
I really want to hear more underrepresented voices. Please send me links to your blogs and RSS feeds! [...]
15th February 2020 at 10:10 🔗
When you say "enjoy your weekend", it’s a nice thing to say. When you say "enjoy the rest of your life", it sounds sinister. [...]
14th February 2020 at 20:45 🔗
? I have glorious cats. [...]
14th February 2020 at 16:45 🔗
? Thanks, everyone for stopping by to watch me re-design this Micro Blog live today. It was great fun. You can catch the whole video, here: https://ww [...]
14th February 2020 at 16:31 🔗
This little Micro Blog has had a face-lift ? [...]
14th February 2020 at 11:27 🔗
The Flow State subscription has really hit the nail on the head today. Really enjoying listening to Against All Logic. This is seriously a good curate [...]
14th February 2020 at 11:18 🔗
Today’s stream is going to be a bit different. I’m going to fire up this Micro Blog and make it look good, because at the moment, it looks a bit rubbi [...]
14th February 2020 at 06:43 🔗
“…if Instagram gets deleted tomorrow- goodbye to all the content I carefully created for it! At least here on my own website, I have a bit more contro [...]
13th February 2020 at 09:55 🔗
? One of my favourite albums: Entroducing is on the speakers today. Super good working music. https://open.spotify.com/album/4wvqGLk1HThPA0b5lzRK2l?si [...]
12th February 2020 at 09:47 🔗
? I treated myself to one of those dark, full size magic keyboards. Desk is looking pretty sharp now. [...]
11th February 2020 at 15:24 🔗
I like going to the dentist because I get to lie down for a bit. [...]
11th February 2020 at 14:02 🔗
Days since I last got mad about white-space: nowrap: 0 [...]
11th February 2020 at 13:59 🔗
Something I can’t decide on for https://piccalil.li is wether to have comments or not. On the vast majority of sites, they’re just spam and “well actu [...]
9th February 2020 at 13:18 🔗
“I do not know about you, but if I have to fight a tool that is supposed to help me, I do not think this is a good tool” https://everyday.codes/javasc [...]
8th February 2020 at 17:24 🔗
I absolutely love this weekly “newsletter”. It‘s one of my favourite things in my Feeedbin. http://n-gate.com/hackernews/2020/02/07/0/ It’s my favouri [...]
7th February 2020 at 13:56 🔗
? New on the blog: “Fluid scale and tokens: a match made in heaven” https://hankchizljaw.com/wrote/fluid-scale-and-tokens:-a-match-made-in-heaven/ The [...]
7th February 2020 at 11:16 🔗
Do you want a zero-width, non-breaking space? Here’s the HTML: ⁠ I’ve just used it to make sure that front-end never breaks on to separate lines [...]
7th February 2020 at 09:51 🔗
Utopia, by Trys Mudford and James Gilyead is right up my street! This is the sort of algorithmic approach we use at Every Layout, and fluid type (as T [...]
6th February 2020 at 16:30 🔗
I’m seeing very few blog posts on Medium or DEV and a lot more on personal sites and that is great and it makes me happy. Send me your RSS feeds. [...]
6th February 2020 at 14:20 🔗
“This use of server-side rendering followed by hydration feels like progressive enhancement, because it separates out the delivery of markup and scrip [...]
6th February 2020 at 13:34 🔗
? The fine folks at Faculty sent me some goodies, including this lush cup, which now has the important job of holding pens. [...]
6th February 2020 at 13:24 🔗
This is a fascinating and harrowing deep-dive into the accessibility of the native HTML video element. https://scottvinkle.me/blogs/blog/how-accessibl [...]
6th February 2020 at 10:15 🔗
Just in case you needed a boost: I’ve been banging my head on my desk for about half an hour because my elements were refusing to push out to the end, [...]
5th February 2020 at 16:58 🔗
? Extremely emo time as I finally get to write some HTML, CSS and JS after spending nearly all of January in static design tools: https://open.spotify [...]
5th February 2020 at 15:31 🔗
? New article on the blog: “Honesty is the best policy” The Gatsby team compared JavaScript size to image size, so it’s time to get into why that is c [...]
5th February 2020 at 14:13 🔗
Days since I’ve needed container queries: 0 [...]
4th February 2020 at 13:26 🔗
? Pro git tip If you want to remove already committed stuff from your repo, run the following: git rm -r --cached path/to/your/stuff Make sure you al [...]
4th February 2020 at 09:54 🔗
Remembering the web’s past is really important—especially in terms of how and why web standards came about. We must not obsess over nostalgia, though. [...]
3rd February 2020 at 13:21 🔗
One thing I would like to see with client-side routers is feedback, like when you click a link, a browser shows something is happening. You don’t get [...]
1st February 2020 at 14:10 🔗
? We popped to Gloucester Cathedral today. As a massive fan of architecture and art, it’s lush. The religious bit isn’t my bag at all, though. [...]
31st January 2020 at 22:46 🔗
This is my last post on this blog before we leave the European Union at 11pm. Thanks for being so good to us, European pals—even as we, the tiny, insi [...]
31st January 2020 at 18:30 🔗
I can’t stress enough how literally any real success I’ve had in this industry has had a direct link to my blog: https://hankchizljaw.com Coding and d [...]
31st January 2020 at 10:41 🔗
I really need to listen to pretty music today, so it’s Maccabees time: https://open.spotify.com/album/7hRcDIP5CKDlCnjHVPb9qd?si=upl8DdhQQ6qnD5elykQdXA [...]
30th January 2020 at 16:30 🔗
Web share API supported on Safari (inc iOS) makes me think it’s well worth looking into: https://caniuse.com/#feat=web-share A solid pattern that lets [...]
29th January 2020 at 13:43 🔗
I absolutely love Eleventy (https://11ty.dev). It enables me to make so many things. Please, if you can, support it: Become an Open Collective backer [...]
29th January 2020 at 08:35 🔗
This is such a good article by Uncle Bruce about favouring <article> over <section> more often than not. I’ll be stealing the <section aria-label="Qui [...]
28th January 2020 at 09:49 🔗
Static design tools like Figma or Sketch certainly aid with creative ideation, but when it gets to the meat ‘n’ taters of design, I much prefer HTML a [...]
27th January 2020 at 17:27 🔗
I finally moved “CSS From Scratch” and “Let’s Build a Landing Page” into https://piccalil.li. If you go to https://cssfromscratch.com or https://landi [...]
27th January 2020 at 17:11 🔗
? CSS pro tip If you want to select SVG elements, use this CSS. Super handy as SVG won’t fill the width if they’ve just got max-width: 100% on them. [...]
26th January 2020 at 12:46 🔗
“The scrum board and the sprints and the inane meetings each and every day are not how you build another Super Mario 64” A great piece by Robin. He’s [...]
25th January 2020 at 21:32 🔗
Seriously, this video by Marie Poulin is incredible https://youtu.be/CgxPTff_pQ4. I’m already obsessed with Notion, but this might well make me more o [...]
24th January 2020 at 15:26 🔗
? Another new article on the blog: “Making the new Piccalilli logo” You get to see my methodology, process and crap drawings I made during the design [...]
24th January 2020 at 15:19 🔗
? New article on the blog: “Piccalilli: the future” There’s a lot of change going on with Piccalilli, so I thought it would be a good idea to write ab [...]
24th January 2020 at 13:38 🔗
Holy moly. Setting Netlify to look after my nameservers has completely eradicated the time to first byte issues I was having on my site. Just look at [...]
24th January 2020 at 10:16 🔗
“Making it impossible to do something specific can often mean that people will do something far more destructive as their ways around your defences ge [...]
24th January 2020 at 09:45 🔗
Today I learned that you can push your existing domain’s nameservers at Netlify. I just did that for https://piccalil.li and the resolve time seems to [...]
23rd January 2020 at 13:25 🔗
I’m offering a new service: “Reply Guy For Hire”. I provide drive-by reactive feedback with absolutely no context, consideration of constraints or act [...]
22nd January 2020 at 13:48 🔗
It’s not very often that I declare an article as perfect, but this one certainly is. The cascade and specificity are so often labelled as the reason w [...]
22nd January 2020 at 12:44 🔗
I found this site and it’s had me giggling all day https://sendyourfriendapenisdrawing.com/ CW: dicks (that CW should just be on Twitter all the time) [...]
21st January 2020 at 17:59 🔗
I’m sure it’s coincidental, but ever since I’ve put https://front-end-challenges.club on a Digital Ocean Droplet, it’s been ridiculously fast on a col [...]
21st January 2020 at 14:18 🔗
“It should never be the burden of a single individual to ensure accessibility” A fantastic post by my pal, Nic. Super duper detailed! https://www.nicc [...]
21st January 2020 at 13:45 🔗
I also updated my “Now” page: https://hankchizljaw.com/now/ [...]
21st January 2020 at 13:27 🔗
I made one of those “uses” pages for y’all to see my setup: https://hankchizljaw.com/uses/ I’ll put a PR into Wes Bos’ cool project, too: https://uses [...]
21st January 2020 at 09:46 🔗
? Emo day today with Story Of The Year: Emo: https://open.spotify.com/album/0Qk9nVlmC49ZNo9j14khzF?si=DB1oMegLQRamGuax0gRL5Q So Emo, it hurts: https:/ [...]
21st January 2020 at 09:34 🔗
Try not to get hung up on the language or framework you’re currently grokking. You learn so many transferable skills. E.G. I picked up JavaScript and [...]
20th January 2020 at 21:26 🔗
? The start of the new Piccalilli includes sketching out logo ideas in a Field Notes, of course. Some fun concepts so far. [...]
20th January 2020 at 18:49 🔗
It’s been 0 days since I got mad that HTML imports will probably never be an actual thing. (cheers, Firefox) [...]
20th January 2020 at 15:43 🔗
Remember LimeWire? A piece of software that would give your computer a terminal illness so that you could get a cracked copy of Photoshop. [...]
20th January 2020 at 11:35 🔗
Did you know that Figma auto-saves your work?!?! [...]
20th January 2020 at 11:09 🔗
This is a fantastic post by my pal, Chris Burnell. The lobotomised owl is a staple of my CSS (thanks, Heydon) and this handy Sass mixin will undoubted [...]
19th January 2020 at 19:55 🔗
It looks like Eleventy and Service Workers are an absolute power couple and I am very much on board with that. [...]
19th January 2020 at 19:10 🔗
? We had a very foggy (and cold af) visit to Warwick Castle today. [...]
18th January 2020 at 10:50 🔗
“We still track that someone visited our page, but it’s really only the basics that interest us.” This is excellent to read and very much on my radar [...]
17th January 2020 at 15:43 🔗
Right, I’m done for the week. Have a good weekend, pals ♥️ [...]
16th January 2020 at 15:16 🔗
This is a super handy mailto: link generator https://mailtolink.me/ As always, I love a simple tool that does one job well. [...]
16th January 2020 at 14:42 🔗
? New article: "Piccalilli is changing" TL;DR The newsletter is on hiatus because it’s turning into something really awesome and I’m very excited to s [...]
16th January 2020 at 07:40 🔗
Now that Web Components are supported across all major browsers, you might want to use them but are still held back by IE. Here’s some progressive enh [...]
16th January 2020 at 06:29 🔗
I really like Chris Coyier’s https://email-is-good.com/. I’m a big email fan and the content in there might help you get better at email and you might [...]
15th January 2020 at 20:36 🔗
? Oh hai there, Edge, with your Web Component support ? [...]
15th January 2020 at 11:07 🔗
Fellow Mac users: I couldn’t recommend this app enough. It tells you when your next meeting is and that’s it. It does one job and does it well. My fav [...]
15th January 2020 at 10:02 🔗
?? Static design tool pro tip. Create an “Annotation” component that you can use as a sticky note to provide context for certain design elements. It h [...]
15th January 2020 at 07:32 🔗
I think I’ll celebrate today by making Edge my default browser rather than Chrome. (I still like Firefox, I just prefer chromium dev tools) [...]
14th January 2020 at 15:29 🔗
Just a periodic reminder that I’ve got a Patreon and if you support me on there, I will love you forever and ever: https://www.patreon.com/andybelldes [...]
14th January 2020 at 15:16 🔗
I’m really struggling with design work today. I’ve got no drive whatsoever. If that’s how you’re feeling, too: don’t beat yourself up—there’s always t [...]
14th January 2020 at 12:16 🔗
Folks who make incredible articles like this: https://wattenberger.com/blog/react-hooks. How y’all doing it? One-off static HTML jobs or are you doing [...]
14th January 2020 at 10:49 🔗
A dream setup for this microblog would be a Notion-powered setup that converts that content into 11ty content. This thing has certainly provided food [...]
13th January 2020 at 18:43 🔗
I’ve handed the keys for https://personalsit.es over to the endlessly talented Henry Desroches. That project means so much to me and it’s in great han [...]
13th January 2020 at 16:20 🔗
A huge career milestone for me today. I was incredibly lucky to be invited to go on Shop Talk Show ? I’ve been listening to this podcast for years, so [...]
12th January 2020 at 18:09 🔗
? First roast of the year: part deux. [...]
12th January 2020 at 16:56 🔗
? First roast of the year looking pretty good. [...]
12th January 2020 at 14:54 🔗
"Don’t be a clean code zealot. Clean code is not a goal. It’s an attempt to make some sense out of the immense complexity of systems we’re dealing wit [...]
12th January 2020 at 13:25 🔗
⏱ Some time tracking stats. You can read why I’m doing it here. I spent 16 hours doing client production this week with only 1 hour spent in client me [...]
12th January 2020 at 07:52 🔗
I was going to put lots of effort into getting images from here to show on Twitter but that defeats the object of a low tech, platform-agnostic micro [...]
11th January 2020 at 19:30 🔗
? My kid trying to get a group of duck’s attention. It was not successful as she had no bread. [...]
11th January 2020 at 19:26 🔗
Ignore me; I’m just testing IFTTT and its image detection, so I can blog about how this microblog thing works. [...]
11th January 2020 at 19:18 🔗
Hot-damn this is a world class article by Sarah Drasner (their work always is, let’s be honest). Async/Await can be hella confusing, so if that’s the [...]
11th January 2020 at 18:07 🔗
? The finished pizza with a crust so thin, you could smoke it. (it was super nice and fiery as heck) [...]
11th January 2020 at 17:09 🔗
? Homemade pizza ready to go in. [...]
11th January 2020 at 14:40 🔗
This JavaScript course by Dan Abramov (React and Redux) looks fantastic: https://justjavascript.com/ He very much knows his stuff, so worth a look. [...]
11th January 2020 at 14:15 🔗
? Trying out some Girls Who Grind coffee. I love the packaging ? They do a good subscription, so check them out: https://www.girlswhogrindcoffee.com/ [...]
11th January 2020 at 07:40 🔗
Email pro tips: Don’t send long ones. The receiver doesn’t have time to read an essay. Don’t say "hope you’re well". Don’t apologise for a late respon [...]
10th January 2020 at 16:24 🔗
The moon is looking stunning as it rises up this evening. It’s so orange! [...]
10th January 2020 at 16:00 🔗
? New article: “Screencasting – the secret sauce for less time wasted in meetings” I let you peak behind the curtain at how I present work to clients [...]
10th January 2020 at 14:03 🔗
I’m so glad my good pal, Heydon wrote this article. I have been having the same thoughts, but can’t articulate them as well as Heydon has. His new sit [...]
10th January 2020 at 13:32 🔗
Currently listening to: “Golden Hour”, by Kasey Musgraves. Lovely background music for some nice design work, this afternoon. https://album.link/s/7f6 [...]
10th January 2020 at 10:29 🔗
Dear @figmadesign, I know you like to remind me that you save my work every damn time I do it, but please, for the love of everything, stop. Your quir [...]
9th January 2020 at 21:28 🔗
I’ll be frank: the Royal Family are dated, elitist and completely irrelevant in modern society. This whole Harry and Meghan situation should be the st [...]
9th January 2020 at 20:43 🔗
“Lost in the basement” by Canterbury is goddamn masterpiece. The harmonies are outrageous. It’s been a top track of mine for a good few years now: htt [...]
9th January 2020 at 18:51 🔗
I can’t stop thinking about an embarrassing moment today. I was working in a coffee shop and decided to listen to the Frozen 2 soundtrack. I got about [...]
9th January 2020 at 16:36 🔗
I can’t believe I’m asking this, but who has made a good beginner’s course about Docker? [...]
9th January 2020 at 13:56 🔗
My prototype of the Moscow hotel slippers has escalated in me buying some goddamn SPACE JAM SLIPPERS instead!!! [...]
9th January 2020 at 13:37 🔗
Micro blog update: fixed my silly time stamp issues and set a nice limit on the RSS feed (15). I should get on with client work now… [...]
9th January 2020 at 12:43 🔗
The "statement" mode on the new Twitter "@" settings will be great for dudes telling people that CSS isn’t a programming language. [...]
9th January 2020 at 11:42 🔗
Microblog updates: Added pagination Tweaked post list [...]
9th January 2020 at 10:46 🔗
I’m working from my favourite coffee shop this morning: The Coffee Dispensary. The make the best Cortado. [...]
9th January 2020 at 10:29 🔗
I created a little PWA for myself, which is like https://jotter.space for creating these posts for my little micro blog. You might find it useful: htt [...]
8th January 2020 at 22:33 🔗
? Yesterday, I spent way too much time making a tiny React base project spit out the tinest bundle I could: https://hankchizljaw.com/wrote/a-minimal-r [...]
8th January 2020 at 22:00 🔗
I need to test links, so here’s a couple of plugs. Buy Every Layout: https://every-layout.dev/ Subscribe to Front-End Challenges Club: https://front-e [...]
8th January 2020 at 21:50 🔗
Standup: just casually posting on my new eleventy blog from my phone. Sent from my iPhone ? [...]
8th January 2020 at 21:38 🔗
Let’s try again. Welcome to my new micro blog. This should post to Twitter! (pls work) [...]
8th January 2020 at 21:35 🔗
Hello, world. This is the first post on my brand new micro blog ? With any luck, it should have posted to my Twitter, too. [...]
A Modern CSS Reset 🔗
This post is 4+ years old now, so I’d recommend reading this more up to date version! I think about and enjoy very boring CSS stuff—probably much [...]