Google recently published one of the best single tutorial resources I’ve seen that cover how to write both CSS and JS based animations on the web. It’s far more than just syntax; it’s recommendations on what timing and easing functions are the most appropriate in different situations. And with Google being Google, there’s some performance related pointers as well.
Engineer Pete Warden:
We’re still behaving like the rebel alliance, but now we’re the Empire. We got where we are by ignoring outsiders and believing in ourselves even when nobody else would. The decades have proved that our way was largely right and the critics were wrong, so our habit of not listening has become deeply entrenched. It even became a bit of a bonding ritual to attack critics of the culture because they usually didn’t understand what we were doing beyond a surface level.
Considering Gone Girl was just released it’s an apt time to review director David Fincher’s filmography. There’s surely a lot of other good video essays out there, but this recent analysis by Every Frame a Painting is excellent. It’s devoted to a technical breakdown of Fincher’s preferred shot composition, supported by many examples from his entire filmography (with Gone Girl of course, exempted.)
xScope is well trusted tool for many web designers, but I find it’s occasionally a bit more power than what I need for day to day design tweaks. So more recently I’ve been testing out Dimensions, a Chrome extension laser-focused on quick measurements between any elements in your browser. It’s fast, effective and worth a look.
GoodBadFlicks reviews the evolution of the PG-13 rating since it’s introduction in 1984. Most of the focus is on recent years where many otherwise R rated films trim content to ensure a PG-13. Remember, with a PG-13 the desirable teen demographic can watch unrestricted. But in the process, it’s watering down a lot of otherwise great content. To quote the narration:
PG-13 is supposed to be pushing the envelope of PG, not pulling R backwards.
I’ve been a huge fan of running LiveReload via Gulp plugin to auto inject CSS and Sass into the page without forcing a reload. It significantly speeds up development and avoids me having to constantly remember to hit the reload action to ensure my changes take effect.
BrowserSync has the same mentality, but promises much more, most notably an “action sync” that mirrors scroll, clicking, and refresh actions across multiple browsers plugged into the same server.
A few overly broad generalizations aside, this brief post at Breaking the Mobile Web is a good overview of some of the largest changes that came along for the ride with the new iPhone 6 and iOS 8. Pay special note to the viewport differences and the big switch to a device pixel ratio of 3 for the iPhone 6 Plus.
Such an amazing debut from director Kenneth Lonergan. It’s one of my favorite movies from the early 2000s, highlighted by impeccable acting by Mark Ruffalo (who broke through to a wider audience after being noticed here) and Laura Linney.
Very solid mini intro to Git by Tobias Gunther over at A List Apart. You can find this content virtually anywhere by running a simple Google search, but Tobias makes a stronger case. First he succinctly lays out the reasons why Git is such an improvement over older repository systems like Subversion. There’s also some great use of visuals here to lay out what happens during core commands like ‘git reset’ and ‘git revert’.
If there’s something I do frequently at work, it’s take screenshots and send them to coworkers. There is your usual stable of options like Cloud and Droplr, but my storage live mostly revolves around Dropbox, and I wanted to stay in-house. Enter this great workflow by “Carlos-Sz” on the Alfred forums. I run a simple global keyboard shortcut, take a screenshot, and it’s saved a public folder in Dropbox, along with an auto generated short bit.ly link copied to my clipboard.