I spent almost my entire day yesterday steeped in JavaScript. UpBuild began doing work with the idea of form abandonment tracking about a year ago after I was inspired by a post by Simo Ahava. The idea is that you use JavaScript to listen to each input field of a form that’s interacted with, log that at each step along the way, and then if someone doesn’t hit the Submit button, send the complete history into Google Analytics. [Read more…] about I’m not a JavaScript developer; I just play one on the Internet
But, Actually, I’m Not a Developer
I don’t always pretend to be a developer, but when I do it’s because there’s a hard deadline to hit. UpBuild is in the middle of helping a client get a website pop-up created for a big campaign that kicks off on Monday. We originally offered to find a 3rd-party developer to have this work done – translating an InDesign file into responsive HTML, CSS, and JS – but, unfortunately, we were completely unable to find a developer on such short notice who could do in within budget. So I’m going to try my hand at it. It’s either this, or it’s not getting done.
Time to put on my trusty coding playlist, pull on my PowerGlove (I wish), and get started.
Ready Player One
Developing My Own WordPress Theme
So I began developing my first WordPress theme this week. The big thought that I couldn’t stop thinking was, “Why didn’t I try to learn this sooner?!”
What inspired me to add this challenge to an already full plate was Tim Ferriss’ interview of Matt Mullenweg, one of the co-creators of WordPress. Learning more about the history of this tool that I use (at least a few times a week) and, largely, take for granted caused a bit of a perspective shift for me. It was an interesting feeling to realize that the people who created it are just…people (albeit awesome people) and they literally intended for others to take WordPress apart, learn by doing, and use the platform in their own ways for whatever they want. The whole thing really got me re-jazzed about Open Source, too.
Anyhow, why am I working on my own WordPress theme now? [Read more…] about Developing My Own WordPress Theme
I Got an iPad for My Birthday!
So today is my birthday. I am now twenty-nine. Damn. I’m thinking of setting some goals about what I’d like to accomplish by the time I turn thirty, but that’s a post for later.
This morning, I was completely surprised when my wife and in-laws gave me an iPad that they chipped in to get. I’ve been wanting one of these things for the past year, so I was incredibly stoked. Here’s a couple of nerdy reasons that getting an iPad makes me super stoked.
Spicing Up the Main Site
So, I stayed up way too late working on the theme for mikearnesen.com. I think I like what I have at this point, I just haven’t done any work for cross-browser compatibility. If you want to check out how it’ll eventually look, try the latest version of Chrome. It looks hot in that!
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