Triptych

I recently listened to a talk given by someone who proposed the idea that your life is driven by two forces. One is Fear, and the other Love. Fear arises when you anticipate a punishment for some course of action. Love however exists apart from fear. With love, your actions are completely accepted, you are free to be who you are, free to take risks, and free to be completely happy, healthy, and alive. Fear restricts, confines, and walls you in. This person proposed that these two forces are in constant conflict inside you – fighting for dominion over your life. You, however, can make the choice as to which force you will allow to have dominion over you. Does this sound too lofty and whoo-hoo? It doesnt have to be. Fear could make you not check in that code change because you think it might not be good enough. Fear might make you anxious and upset over little things all day, and effect your concentration. It can have a very real, tangible, and poisonous effect on your life. Love is “fearless”. Being fearless doesnt mean you jump in front of a train (that’s stupidity) it just means that if you live in “Love” you will find that things you thought were hard, or impossible to do will become much easier.

So, the task for today is to look at your life and find places where fear is guiding you — even unconsciously (I can’t go to that restaurant, I always eat at that other place) and replace it with “love”.

I was talking to someone I respect highly about a group of people who are doing some interesting things online. They are working on a interesting project, and I mentioned it to this person as a way to say “you should reach out to them and talk”. Instead of the response I expected, this person encouraged me to talk to them myself. If I was interested in what they were doing, then I should take it on myself to chat with them and find out what they were doing. I was at first surprised at this, then I realized just how wise this advice is. Do you find yourself bringing other people together, but never really get involved yourself? I can see now that its a bit of a lazy way to try to move things forward, if you expect other folks to do it for you. Instead, make a decision right now to seek out people and situations you are interested in, and DO things. Instead of telling your friend about some charity work, YOU go do it. Instead of talking about some new programming language to a friend, YOU go learn it! It’s fine to bring other folks together, or to share interests, but it is easy to fall into the habit of just passing the bucket forward to someone else. It’s time for you to be in the front of the bucket brigade for a change

HTML5Rocks – Best Practices for a Faster Web App with HTML5.

Ajaxian » The march to a more client-centric Web; Will the mobile Web, HTML5, and Chrome Web Apps be the tipping point?.

It would be a good thing to spend more time writing blog posts. For a while it seemed to make a difference in people’s lives a bit. Today I want to talk about freedom. How many little things do you do every day, that by themselves seem to have little consequence, but added up really keep you from having the time and space you need to really build something cool? Do you spend a few extra minutes checking your email? Do you have an elaborate lunch routine that leaves you only a few minutes to actually eat? I encourage you today to look at all the little extra things you may be doing that eat away at your free time. What if you did a little spring cleaning, only instead of your house or apartment you do it for your time? Why? because you will gain freedom. Freedom to work on the things you really want to. Freedom to choose how you spend your time. So, take a few minutes or hours, and do some spring cleaning of your time today.

Interesting article about embedding icons in a font and using them instead of images.
http://somerandomdude.com/articles/design-technology/font-embedding-icons/

It mentions the fact that you cannot use multi-colored icons, but I have an idea about that.

Imagine that you have a 4 color icon. You break that into “layers” where you have 4 icons with pixels where each color should correspond.
In the markup you create 4 divs that overlap. Each div contains one of the “layer” icons. In CSS you color the font for each layer to match the color of the intended layer in the icon. If you make sure the pixels overlap, then bam you get a 4 color icon!

It’s really little more than a saved page, but I am always hunting around for it, that I thought I’d spend some time and create a little extension for it. I plan to add more things like saving your own schedule, other links, perhaps the @caltrain tweets, and more. I’m following my own “start small and revise” strategy. Will update the plugin as often as I can

Caltrain Schedule

The web is facing an unprecedented challenge in the form of small, single usage applications on mobile devices. With the proliferation of closed, proprietary “app stores” which provide a small revenue stream in exchange for creative and programmatic freedom, we are facing a situation where a single vendor or handful of vendors control every aspect of a application’s life cycle. While it is easy to rail against “the machine” and make efforts to crack open those walled gardens, there is another approach that is by far superior in many ways – not the least of which is that you can begin to practice it today with great success!

What many folks fail to realize is that there is a fairly big “window” into these walled gardens called the web. Virtually every mobile device carries with it a web browser which contains enough features to create pretty sophisticated applications, all without any need for a TOS, a style guide, or even a yearly dues (rent) payment to the mobile service (angry landlord).

I tend to have a nose for technologies that spend time developing steadily under the radar, until they are ready to spring forth into the mainstream. While I’m not right 100% of the time, I tend to hit more than I miss, and in my sights now are “offline web apps”. Given the many features of html5, including canvas and localstorage, you can create web applications that approach “real” apps in sophistication, utility, and speed.

Given the ability to create these offline web apps – or html5apps as PPK says – I say we declare a W. A. R. on closed, proprietary application development. This W. A. R. – or Web Application Revolution – means that you commit to building an offline-capable web app instead of (or in addition to) making plans to create a different flavor of your app for all the various engines, browsers, platforms, and operating systems.

Isn’t it ironic that the very “walled gardens” that folks seek to tear down usually carry with them the means to build applications that rival in many ways the “native” apps? I’m fully aware that in some ways, web apps fall short. Filesystem access, hardware accelleration, and other features are not easily obtainable by apps running in a browser, but if the engineering community focuses its time and energy on building web apps, this attention will in turn force an evolution in web technologies that will make web apps virtually indistinguishable from “native apps”.

So, in short, I’m proposing nothing short of an all-out W. A. R. on closed, appstore-based worlds, a Web Application Revolution.

To put my time/money where my mouth is, I’m creating a site to highlight efforts to build this open web app ecosystem at http://webapprev.com

If you know of stories, links, specs, or other tidbits of information, or want to help with this effort, head over there and send me feedback!

Ever since I can remember, I’ve always loved games. I still remember the Christmas where I waited with eager anticipation for an Atari 2600, and the fun of blasting my older brother with my tank in distorted pixelated glory. I love all kinds of games, from goofy flash games to complicated RPG’s that require weeks to play to completion (not that I’ve ever been able to finish one *sigh*). As I’ve developed as a programmer and web developer, I’ve always sought to combine my love for games (and the “stuff” that goes on behind games such as systems design, storytelling, etc) with my web skills. It has always been my “dream” to be able to be part of the process that creates amazing games. Up till now, I’ve had to content myself with building toy projects on evenings and weekends, and reserve my “real” time for more traditional web development.

This week I get to proudly announce that I’m joining the awesome team at a company called Ohai. They are building games for the social web, and are doing some amazing things in that space that really resonated with me when I was able to talk with their team. You can read their manifesto here. It is a realization of a lifelong dream for me, and I hope that as you read this you look at your own hopes and dreams, and you take a step toward realizing them. Don’t give up on what you really want to do deep down in your heart. Be excellent at whatever you do in the here and now, and it will reap dividends in the future when you really reach out for that “dream job”.

ThinkGeek :: iCade – iPad Arcade Cabinet.

Let’s hope they make this a reality!