ShopTalk Show

This week we're joined by Emily Lewis and Lea Alcantara of the CTRL+CLICK Cast! We talk about keeping up with new technologies, Expression Engine VS Wordpress, CMS alternatives to Wordpress, the creative process for designing for the web, how to find work/life balance, and more. Q & A: 20:01 For years I have primarily used ExpressionEngine as my CMS of choice. While I still love EE, it isn't right for every project, so I am looking to brush up on my Wordpress chops. Do you have any recommendations on a few sites or other online resources that you use to keep on top of WP developments? 25:04 Is Wordpress usually the best CMS to use for client work? Are there better alternatives out there? 41:58 When you're just beginning a new design - when that completely blank Photoshop canvas is staring back at you - what is your thought process like? 49:22 As a business owner, freelance creative who works from home, I often have trouble balancing my work life with my family life. Can you offer insight on how you balance work life and family life? Sponsors: 40:48 E4H: Responsive Web Design Summit - Environments for Humans brings together some of the Web's most notable experts in responsive web design and web performance for an all-new, three-day online conference, the RWD Summit 2015! Bring the experts to your desktop March 10-March 12, 2015 from 9AM to 4PM (CT). Use coupon code SHOPTALK for 20% off your ticket! 46:12 Beanstalk - Beanstalk is a complete workflow for private teams to write, review and deploy code. In November they launched their updated Code Review workflow. It’s a complete rethinking of how teams collaborate. Their review process is designed to start the discussion early and integrates directly with your branch, resulting in more feedback from your team. Head over to beanstalkapp.com/shoptalk to get 50% off your first month! Show Links: CTRL+CLICK Podcast Emily Lewis Follow Emily on Twitter Lea Alcantara Follow Lea on Twitter Bright Umbrella Converge SE Conf WP Tavern Chris Coyier: Digging Into Wordpress Susan Robertson: Overwhelmed by Code Perch CMS Craft CMS Cameron Moll: Why I Passed Up the Chance to Work at Apple If you're looking for a job, head over to the Shoptalk Job Board. We just posted a bunch of great new jobs! If you're enjoying our show, please take a minute to leave us a review in iTunes. We really appreciate it, and thanks to everyone who has already left a review!

Vitaly Friedman is the founder of Smashing Magazine. Vitaly shared his experiences with traveling and working remotely, and online publishing. We also discussed Microsoft's new browser, designing for VR, holograms, and more. We talked about (roughly in order): News’n’Links’n’Drama: 24:43 Microsoft's new browser, Spartan Q & A: 36:31 I’m planning to start blogging about web development. Do you have any tips on how I can drive traffic / increase visibility of my blog posts. Are there any web sites where I could submit my blog posts in an attempt to increase visibility? 41:01 I currently use MAMP. I no longer want to use MAMP. Help me. 48:06 How do you organize your LESS/CSS files and optimize them at Smashing Magazine? How about Javascript? 56:23 Microsoft today announced HoloLens, its augmented reality-type headset, and there's the secretive Google funded Magic Leap project. There's also the world of VR: Sony is working on Morpheus and Samsung is partnering with Oculus. How will the web be consumed on these devices? How do today's web developers stay relevant, or will the role die off/merge with something else? Sponsors: 35:23 E4H: Responsive Web Design Summit - Environments for Humans brings together some of the Web's most notable experts in responsive web design and web performance for an all-new, three-day online conference, the RWD Summit 2015! Bring the experts to your desktop March 10-March 12, 2015 from 9AM to 4PM (CT) Use coupon code SHOPTALK for 20% off your ticket! 51:32 lynda.com - Kickstart your new year and challenge yourself to learn something new with a free 10-day trial to lynda.com! Check out some super great courses like: Jeffrey Zeldman: 20 Years of Web Design and Community Word Press Essential Training Code Clinic - an innovative series where each month lynda.com issues a code challenge and authors share their solutions using a variety of different programming languages Whether you want to set new financial goals, find work/life balance, invest in a new hobby, ask your boss for a raise, find a new job or improve upon your current job skills in 2015; lynda.com has something for everyone! Get a free 10 day trial now! Show Links: Vitaly Friedman Follow Vitaly on Twitter My name is Vitaly, and I am homeless. Smashing Magazine WOFF 2.0 Improving Smashing Magazine’s Performance: A Case Study Web Design Weekly MAMP Vagrant Browser Sync Moz VR If you're enjoying our show, please take a minute to leave us a review in iTunes. We really appreciate it, and thanks to everyone who has already left a review!

This week we’re joined by Tom Dale. Tom is a former Apple software engineer who worked on MobileMe and iCloud. He also helped create Ember.js and co-founded Tilde.io with Yehuda Katz. We took a deep dive into Ember.js, Javascript frameworks, and working with open source projects. We talked about (roughly in order): Q & A: 16:24 I’m not so experienced with JavaScript, so I really don’t quite understand the potential benefits from using a JavaScript Front End Framework. Could you describe it with your own words and give some examples for real-world use cases? 25:45 I’m thinking about learning a JavaScript framework. So far I’ve been recommended to look into Angular and Ember. Which one is better? 58:07 How did you get started in open source software? What’s the best advice you have for encouraging others to get started as well, namely designers, writers, etc? Sponsors: 24:28 E4H: Responsive Web Design Summit – Environments for Humans brings together some of the Web’s most notable experts in responsive web design and web performance for an all-new, three-day online conference, the RWD Summit 2015! Bring the experts to your desktop March 10-March 12, 2015 from 9AM to 4PM (CT) Now that the growth of the mobile Web has outpaced the desktop, Web designers and developers are at a crossroads. The race to keep up with every new device dimension and interface could easily dwarf the pain of dealing with browser quirks, but only if we let it! Take a day to discover the newest Responsive Web Design techniques and change the way you build the Web. Use coupon code SHOPTALK for 20% off your ticket! 54:21 lynda.com – The best online learning resource. New courses are posted every single day. Check out some super great courses like: Audio & Music Production Logic Pro X InDesign Typography with Nigel French Writing for the Web with Chris Nodder Selling on the Amazon Marketplace with Peter Kent And so much more! Learn everything you need to know to be a great developer! Get a free 10 day trial now! Show Links: Tom Dale Tom Dale on Twitter Tilde Skylight.io Yehuda Katz Sproutcore Ember Inspecter Extension Vine Bustle Brandon Hays – Tame the Big Ball o’ Mud The Frontside Podcast Why there’s no Rails Inc. – DHH Dan Webb New Relic If you’re enjoying our show, please take a minute to leave us a review in iTunes. We really appreciate it, and thanks to everyone who has already left a review!

This week we’re joined by Jed Schmidt. Jed is a javascript developer and resident web nerd at UNIQLO in NYC. We take a deep dive with Jed into Javascript and front-end frameworks. We talked about (roughly in order): Q & A: 16:10 In spirit of keeping markup separate from style, separate from behavior, what are your thoughts on using the HTML5 data attribute as a selector for javascript, rather than the typical classname or id? 28:32 How do you deal with handling the cache of JS and CSS files when rapidly iterating a design for a client? 31:56 I work for a company and my main responsibility is taking a PSD and converting it into a fully responsive HTML + CSS template. Would Grunt be an appropriate addition to my workflow or is it geared towards JavaScript projects? 39:26 What are your thoughts about supporting browser zoom? Do you have any advice on a good policy to give clients on what’s covered as a bug if it doesn’t look right when a user zooms? 45:38 I’ve been recently learning more about Meteor, but I’m wondering what are your thoughts on these frameworks. Do you think they are going to replace front-end javascript frameworks (Angular, Backbone, Ember) + server side framework (Rails, Express, Django) or do you think there’s a reason this separation exists between front-end and back-end? 56:40 How do jQuery Page Loaders work? How can I utilize CSS animations (even SVG at some point) on a page loader? Can you ask jQuery to paint a progress bar for each % of the website it has loaded? Would that slow down the loading? Sponsors: 25:48 E4H: Responsive Web Design Summit – Environments for Humans brings together some of the Web’s most notable experts in responsive web design and web performance for an all-new, three-day online conference, the RWD Summit 2015! Bring the experts to your desktop March 10-March 12, 2015 from 9AM to 4PM (CT) Now that the growth of the mobile Web has outpaced the desktop, Web designers and developers are at a crossroads. The race to keep up with every new device dimension and interface could easily dwarf the pain of dealing with browser quirks, but only if we let it! Take a day to discover the newest Responsive Web Design techniques and change the way you build the Web. Use coupon code SHOPTALK for 20% off your ticket! 37:00 Adobe Typekit – Typekit is a subscription font service that brings thousands of fonts from foundry partners into one library for quick browsing, easy use on the web or on your desktop, and endless typographic inspiration. Typekit now brings beautiful type to your desktop with the power of Adobe Creative Cloud. Choose the fonts you need, and then use them wherever you need them—whether that’s on the web, synced to your desktop, or both. Check out their typography practice page, and then sign up for a free trial! Show Links: Jed Schmidt Follow @jedschmidt on Twitter UNIQLO Bitwise Operators 24 Ways Polygon Game Knockout JS Angular JS React JS Getting Started With Grunt Gulp Broccoli JS Gobble Node Package Manager Intro to Meteor Discover Meteor Learning React.js: Getting Started and Concepts Bonobos Pace by Hubspot Orbital Bootcamp Fund NEW!!! Shoptalk Show Job Board! If you’re enjoying our show, please take a minute to leave us a review in iTunes. We really appreciate it, and thanks to everyone who has already left a review!

This week we’re joined by Sophie Shepherd. Sophie is a Senior Designer at Happy Cog Austin, organizes the Austin Dribbble Meetup, and teaches at Girl Develop It. We talked about (roughly in order): Q & A: 19:40 How do I choose the right font for my website? 28:20 I have been doing web design and development for a while and I’m wondering whether I should start blogging. Would you recommend hosting a blog with Github+Jekyll or go with a standard WordPress blog? 35:00 I teach web design and development at a community college in Michigan. We have a Special Topics class that allow us to teach just about anything. This Spring semester I have a class on Emerging Web technologies. What sort of topics should be discussed in a class like this? 42:19 When dealing with overlays, do you prefer to have them centered on the screen, or offset from the top? 52:00 What’s your experience/opinion on R&D within companies, and should everyone has its own project? (For example: how Grunt fits in the company workflow) 58:40 I work with WordPress and create custom themes using a Bootstrap grid. I can develop roughly quickly, completing a site in 3 to 5 days. My coworker uses the same WordPress theme for all the projects, but gets praise for his quick turnaround time. Should I sacrifice my opportunity to grow for job security, or perhaps start looking elsewhere? Is this a new business trend, quantity over quality? Sponsors: 26:20 lynda.com – The best online learning resource. New courses are posted every single day. Check out some super great courses like: Audio & Music Production Logic Pro X InDesign Typography with Nigel French Writing for the Web with Chris Nodder Selling on the Amazon Marketplace with Peter Kent And so much more! Learn all the things! Get a free 10 day trial now! 48:11 CodePen – CodePen is an HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code editor in your browser with instant previews of the code you see and write. It is a searchable trove of your own creations, and a world of other people’s creations. A place to troubleshoot, to teach, to learn, to test, and to grow. CodePen PRO takes things further with features like Collab Mode which allows you to pair program in real time and Professor Mode for allowing a group of students to follow you as you teach code and chat with each other. You can get a free 14-day trial of the Pro account – go sign up now! Show Links: Sophie Shepherd Follow Sophie on Twitter Serial Parody Dribbble Meetup Austin Girl Develop It Austin Jekyll CodePen Radio Grunt Travis CI If you’re enjoying our show, please take a minute to leave us a review in iTunes. We really appreciate it, and thanks to everyone who has already left a review!

This week it’s another RAPID-FIRE!!! Nothing but Thanksgiving turkey hangover and hot question and answer madness! Q & A: 3:12 I have had to do a bunch of horizontal scrolling sliders for work lately. These “sliders” always through me for a loop because I am working off comps I had no part in designing. How do I keep these sliders from freaking out when the browser is resized while they are partially scrolled, and what is the definitive best way to make these from a performance and UX stand point so that I can help our designers make better choices? 10:10 When it comes to responsive web design in WordPress, I find myself using a lot of modules in the WordPress page editor to organize the sites content. Is there an easier way of doing this? 16:30 Have you ever used any prototyping tool like Fireworks or Sketch? If so, what is the best tool you’ve came across? 22:10 Where should I include the media queries for my responsive design in my CSS files? 30:14 Is there a way to use pure CSS (i.e., no JavaScript) to modify properties of a whole table-column without marking up each individual cell? 35:07 What other podcasts do you listen to? 45:30 Why are some sites targeted by hackers more than others, especially automated attacks? Do web sites end up on target lists, or are the attacks just random? Sponsors: 15:05 lynda.com – The best online learning resource. New courses are posted every single day. Check out some super great courses like: Audio & Music Production Logic Pro X InDesign Typography with Nigel French Writing for the Web with Chris Nodder Selling on the Amazon Marketplace with Peter Kent And so much more! Learn all the things! Get a free 7 day trial now! 28:29 One Month Rails: Learn Rails, 30 minutes a day for 30 days. You’ll learn how to build a fully functional web app using: Ruby on Rails HTML CSS Bootstrap Git Github Command line Databases using SQLite S3 from Amazon Web Services Heroku – the popular web service used for getting your site live on the Internet We offer all students support: The best part is: if you get stuck, there’s always someone there to help you out while you learn. (Yes, like, a real person.) Enrollment is typically $99, but if you join now you’ll get a one time discount of 25% off for joining, AND as always you’re helping support Shoptalk. Enroll now @ onemonth.com/shoptalk! Show Links: Owl Slider Royal Slider Adobe Fireworks Sketch Codepen SCSS Stylus Shoptalk Show Store (Buy shirts!) Podcasts We Recommend: Responsive Web Design CodePen Radio 99% Invisible History of Rome Pagebreak Serial Startup Podcast Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me The Moth Planet Money Radiolab This American Life Security Now Podcast Bizcraft Javascript Jabber The Web Ahead Freakanomics Podcast Stuff You Should Know Podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour Podcast When Women Stopped Coding If you’re enjoying our show, please take a minute to leave us a review in iTunes. We really appreciate it, and thanks to everyone who has already left a review!

This week it’s another RAPID-FIRE!!! Nothing but web standards southern gentlemen and hot question and answer madness! We talked about (roughly in order): Q & A: 2:37 A question about responsive images: I just came across this CSS approach to specifying a “focal point” of an image so when the browser resizes the image is cropped and it’s location is adjusted so that a specified point stays in the visible area. What do you think? Are there other similar solutions you like better? 5:40 I’m working on a refactor of a site I built a while ago. In that site, I’m loading a font file just for the logo which seems like it might be unneeded page bloat. My question is: is it worth the time subsetting a font for only the characters I need, or would a better approach be some sort of accessible svg? 11:40 I came across thegrid.io and watched their video. I love the concept, but how do you think this will effect the web design industry? 18:30 Is there a good replacement for css resets? 24:33 I’m wondering what your experiences are with hacking attempts and what methods you use to secure your sites and servers; specifically for WordPress sites? 38:01 I recently started to use SVGs instead of an iconfont. However I’m still struggling with the right technique. What are your thoughts on that? 44:11 I have a situation where people are creating and editing content in Google Docs, then pasting the content over to the CMS. Sometimes Docs behaves and doesn’t include a bunch of inline styles, sometimes it isn’t so nice. What is the best/most efficient way to override these inline styles? 51:56 Why isn’t there a good text editor for OS X ? I’m so tired of these multi-platform editors like Atom, Sublime, and Brackets. Are there any better options? Sponsors: 9:18 One Month iOS – One Month iOS is the easiest way to learn iOS Development using Swift. Over the course of 30 days, instructor Alfie Hanssen (Lead Mobile Engineer at Vimeo) will teach you how to build an iPhone app from scratch. The project you’ll be building is a simple photo sharing app similar to Instagram. The best part is… if you ever get stuck, One Month has live support! Each week during the course you’ll meet-up with your mentor for a 1-on-1 personalized session. And in addition, you have unlimited email access for any questions you have along the way. Enrollment is typically $899, but if you join now you’ll get a one time discount of 25% off for joining, AND as always you’re helping support Shoptalk. 36:05 lynda.com – The best online learning resource. New courses are posted every single day. Check out some super great courses like: Audio & Music Production Logic Pro X InDesign Typography with Nigel French Writing for the Web with Chris Nodder Selling on the Amazon Marketplace with Peter Kent And so much more! Learn all the things! Get a free 7 day trial now! Show Links: Focal-Point thegrid.io SmugMug Normalize.css Cloudflare Atom Sublime Text Brackets Coda 2.5 Seti UI Theme

This week we’re joined by Rachel Smith. Rachel is currently doing animation/motion design for the web at Active Theory. We talked about (roughly in order): Q & A: 16:16 I’ve been playing around with requestAnimationFrame in an attempt to create a smoother, more efficient animated ScrollTo effect for various web projects I work on. In some modern browsers, I’m getting some stuttering at the beginning of or during the animation. Any tips on how to create smoother animations using rAF or relevant resources for this type of problem? 24:08 I wondered if you guys had any good references about animated charts and statistics? I would need to be able to have nice transitions on graphs like the classic google analytics type chart (visit/time) and also other charts like pie charts and so on. What tech would be good for this? 32:54 Do you have a helpful tip on understanding the whole WebSockets ‘pub-sub’ concept? 46:00 I am front end web developer with php experience but have never created a native phone application. Would a program like PhoneGap or ionic be a good solution for this problem or would the “hybrid” app have performance issues? 53:11 I want to know why Photoshop has become an industry standard when it comes to creating layouts for web design. What are some of the benefits of using Photoshop for layouts? Sponsors: 22:22 Environments for Humans: Javascript Summit 2014 – Environments for Humans brings together some of the Web’s most notable experts in JavaScript and jQuery for an all-new, three-day online conference, the JavaScript Summit 2014! Bring the experts to your desktop November 18-November 20, 2014 from 9AM to 4PM (CT). Join some of the Web’s most experienced JavaScript professionals as they share experiences culled from working on sites big and small. Get the tips and techniques that use frameworks to their fullest. Learn from the pros how to tackle Javascript difficulties head-on with proven methods in use by some of the most popular sites on the Web. Use coupon code SHOPTALK for 20% off. Grab your tickets now! 42:27 Adobe Typekit – Typekit is a subscription font service that brings thousands of fonts from foundry partners into one library for quick browsing, easy use on the web or on your desktop, and endless typographic inspiration. Typekit now brings beautiful type to your desktop with the power of Adobe Creative Cloud. Choose the fonts you need, and then use them wherever you need them—whether that’s on the web, synced to your desktop, or both. Check out their typography practice page, and then sign up for a free trial! Show Links: Rachel Smith Rachel on Twitter Active Theory WitnessGotham.com D3.js datavis Snap SVG Chart.js Nate Silver Socket.io Node.js PubNub Iconic PhoneGap Ionic Cordova Appcelerator Typescript CodePen Creative Cloud Extract

This week we’re joined by Marcy Sutton. Marcy is a interactive developer at Substantial in Seattle. We take a deep dive into web components, accessibility, Angular JS, AJAX, ARIA, and more! We talked about (roughly in order): Q & A: 17:56 Do you know of any standard way that accessibility-aware web devs will test whether their ARIA-related efforts have proven successful? Is there some screen-reader or browser-extension of choice (or just your personal recommendation)? 26:00 Our client’s accessibility consultant is telling them that they must have valid HTML in order to be WCAG 2.0 compliant. Is that true? 30:46 With the prevalence of front-end frameworks like AngularJS, there seems to be a rise in logging in via AJAX instead of a traditional post back. I’m all for AJAX in almost every case on a web app, but when it comes to login/logout, I feel the perceived load time is much better for a traditional post back. I haven’t done any A/B testing on this with real users yet, but I’d love to hear your thoughts! 42:19 My question is concerning aria attributes placed on icon fonts, and the accessibility issues that can arise if you use the wrong one. For the past year or so at the agency I work at, we’ve been using icon fonts and slapping an aria-hidden=”true” on all of them. Recently I learned of the aria-label and aria-labelled by attributes. Dave, since you’re the accessibility master, what’s the best and/or proper way to use these different attributes? 54:30 What do you guys think about minifying html? Sponsors: 24:25 Environments for Humans: Javascript Summit 2014 – Environments for Humans brings together some of the Web’s most notable experts in JavaScript and jQuery for an all-new, three-day online conference, the JavaScript Summit 2014! Bring the experts to your desktop November 18-November 20, 2014 from 9AM to 4PM (CT). Join some of the Web’s most experienced JavaScript professionals as they share experiences culled from working on sites big and small. Get the tips and techniques that use frameworks to their fullest. Learn from the pros how to tackle Javascript difficulties head-on with proven methods in use by some of the most popular sites on the Web. Use coupon code SHOPTALK for 20% off. Grab your tickets now! 41:05 lynda.com – The best online learning resource. New courses are posted every single day. Check out some super great courses like: Audio & Music Production Logic Pro X JavaScript for Web Designers Creative GoPro Photography and Video Techniques Up and Running with Genesis for WordPress Creating a One-Page Scrollable Website with Adobe Muse So much more. Learn all the things! Get a free 7 day trial now! Show Links: Marcy Sutton Marcy Sutton on Twitter Substantial Chrome ExtensionAccessibility Developer Tools Web Aim Tenon.io Drink Distiller Cascading Attribute Sheets

This week we’re joined by Justin Sainton. Justin founded Zao, Portland’s premier WordPress Agency. He is also the Lead Dev for WP eCommerce, and a WordPress Core Contributor, so we joined him for a Halloween-themed deep dive into some spooky questions about WordPress development! Warning: this episode contains some spookily-scary soundbytes; listener discretion is advised. We talked about (roughly in order): Errors and Omissions 19:22 Blurry text after 3D transform? You need to use only 2D transform or hide, request prop, show. Thanks to Matt Lockyer for clearing that up! 20:12 Here’s that jQuery plugin for ‘responsive cropping’. Dynamically crop images to fill available space without cutting out the image’s subject. Great for full-screen images. Thanks to Zsolt Pentz for sharing that! Q & A: 22:06 How much does A/B Testing help in eCommerce, and which tools or plugins do you use to A/B Test? 34:30 I’m working with someone on a WordPress site to clean it up and install a new theme. Here’s the problem: they’ve got hundreds of posts and pages chock full of inline styling… and there are so many s! It’s bad. Please tell me there’s a good way to strip all the cruft from these posts and pages in bulk! 38:20 I was thinking about managing CSS / JS for WordPress (as you guys were talking about recently), and avoiding extra http requests. This plugin ( AutoOptimize) may be worth a look. 41:35 I have a question about Bower and WordPress. I installed Codekit 2 and fiddled a little with Bower components, which I haven’t done before, and I installed WordPress, all good except that the WordPress files are in the bower_components folder. I’m pretty sure you are not supposed to use bower_components folder as the root for your WP projects, so what do I do? Do I take it out? In that case, what’s the point of using Bower to install WordPress?! 47:46 I’ve been working on overhauling our site using WordPress, WooCommerce and the woo canvas theme with a child theme. I’ve been nothing but happy with WooCommerce, however, I suspect Woo Canvas may be sacrificing performance for the sake of convenience. Other than saving me development time is there any security or performance advantages to using a child theme or will a lean custom theme perform better and be just as secure? 57:00 I have questions relating to WordPress and theme/plugin functionality in response to this article. While I sort of agree with the thesis of the argument I have a hard time wanting to use any plugins to create taxonomies or CPTs. What are your thoughts on this? Sponsors: 28:51 Environments for Humans: SASS Summit – A full-day deep dive into Sass–setting up from workflow foundations to learning the cutting edge Sass stuff coming in version 3.4. Join us for a day of Sass experts discussing the state of Sass and deep diving the features that make our workflow easier: from building style guides, coding complex RWD layouts, and much more. Bring the experts to your desktop November 6th from 9AM to 4PM (CT). Use discount code SHOPTALK for 20% off! Get your tickets for the 2014 SASS Summit now! 45:39 Media Temple – For years, Media Temple has been the premium web hosting choice of more designers, developers, and creative professionals than any other platform. It’s all managed through their own simple, custom control panel, and backed by Media Temple’s famous 24/7 live support. Virtual Private Server solutions are also available with their DV and DV Developer hosting plans. Also, check out their new managed WordPress hosting which includes 3 WordPress installs with unlimited bandwidth! Special discount for ShopTalk listeners, use promo code SHOPTALK for 25% off your first month of web hosting. Go to mediatemple.net and enter your promo code upon signup. Show Links: Justin Sainton on Twitter Zao.is WooCommerce WP e-Commerce WP Polls Contact Form 7 CSS-Tricks: Taking Control of the CSS/JS that WordPress Plugins Load Ask Dr. Web with Jeffrey Zeldman: Help! My Portfolio Sucks Pippin Williamson Optimizely Visual Website Optimizer Google Experiments Codekit Bower Woo Canvas iThemes Exchange Inbox by Gmail

This week it’s another RAPID-FIRE!!! Nothing but mouth guns and hot question and answer madness! We talked about (roughly in order): Q & A: 8:16 Is there a reason to use single quotes instead of double quotes when writing HTML? 11:45 I started doing work (with a group of fellow students) for a client 6 months ago, and they keep coming back with more work and changes to the site. I still haven’t been paid for the original work, and I can’t keep working for free, but I really need the money (if they ever pay). What should I do? 20:12 I work for an agency that hires a new developer every 9-12 months or so (with 5 currently on staff). Besides resources, what kinds of things can we put in place to not only make that a more seamless transition, but also for us to perform as a more cohesive unit? 26:10 My question is about rendering quality of text when the CSS transform scale is applied to the container. After scale is applied the text looks blurry. I tried using some of the fixes (like text stroke, for example), and it’s a little better but still not very sharp. Any suggestions? 36:00 What are the latest developments for dealing with the responsive image “art direction” problem? 44:59 How do web designers and developers handle the hosting of their own sites and their clients’ sites without it becoming a logistical nightmare? 51:20 The other day I saw a stack overflow question where somebody posted a PSD of a share button their designer had given them, and asked for someone to make it work using pure CSS. What are your thoughts on the ethics of outsourcing to stackoverflow? Sponsors: 17:17 Environments for Humans Online Conferences UX Future Summit – Rosenfeld Media and Environments for Humans bring together some of the Web’s most notable experts in for an all-new, one-day only online conference, the UX Futures Summit 2014! Bring the experts to your desktop November 5th from 9AM to 4PM (CT). SASS Summit – A full-day deep dive into Sass–setting up from workflow foundations to learning the cutting edge Sass stuff coming in version 3.4. Join us for a day of Sass experts discussing the state of Sass and deep diving the features that make our workflow easier: from building style guides, coding complex RWD layouts, and much more. Bring the experts to your desktop November 6th from 9AM to 4PM (CT). Use discount code SHOPTALKSHOW for 25% off! Get your tickets for the UX Future Summit and the SASS Summit now! 33:57 lynda.com – The best online learning resource. New courses are posted every single day. Check out some super great courses like: Audio & Music Production Logic Pro X JavaScript for Web Designers Creative GoPro Photography and Video Techniques Up and Running with Genesis for WordPress Creating a One-Page Scrollable Website with Adobe Muse And so much more. Learn all the things! Get a [free 7 day trial now]!(http://lynda.com/shoptalk)! Show Links: Geek Mental Health Week Mental Illness Can Affect Anyone (tweet) Single vs Double quotes (‘ vs “) CodePen Meetups Vagrant Pattern Libraries Dave’s Article “Delivering Mini-Bootstraps” Dave’s Tranform Scale CodePen A Guide to SVG Animations (SMIL) Get a free 14 day CodePen Pro Trial Uncle Dave’s Ol’ Padded Box JS Face Detection CSS Tricks: Figuring Out Responsive Images Picturefill: A responsive image polyfill If you’re enjoying our podcast, please let people know by leaving us an iTunes review! We really appreciate it. Thank you!

This week we’re joined by Jared Spool. Jared is the founder of User Interface Engineering, the largest usability research organization of its kind in the world. He also co-founded Center Centre, a new school creating the next generation of industry-ready UX designers. We talked about (roughly in order): Q & A: 32:38 How do you feel about questionnaires being sent to clients? Do you think it decreases the level of personality / closeness with your client? 46:39 Have you ever used any prototyping tool like “Fireworks” or “Sketch”? And if so, what is the best tool you’ve came across? Sponsors: 24:54 – Environments for Humans UX Future Summit – Rosenfeld Media and Environments for Humans bring together some of the Web’s most notable experts in for an all-new, one-day only online conference, the UX Futures Summit 2014! Bring the experts to your desktop November 5th from 9AM to 4PM (CT). SASS Summit – A full-day deep dive into Sass–setting up from workflow foundations to learning the cutting edge Sass stuff coming in version 3.4. Join us for a day of Sass experts discussing the state of Sass and deep diving the features that make our workflow easier: from building style guides, coding complex RWD layouts, and much more. Bring the experts to your desktop November 6th from 9AM to 4PM (CT). Use discount code SHOPTALKSHOW for 25% off! 40:40 Adobe Typekit – Typekit is a subscription font service that brings thousands of fonts from foundry partners into one library for quick browsing, easy use on the web or on your desktop, and endless typographic inspiration. Typekit now brings beautiful type to your desktop with the power of Adobe Creative Cloud. Choose the fonts you need, and then use them wherever you need them—whether that’s on the web, synced to your desktop, or both. Check out their typography practice page, and sign up for a free trial! Show Links: Jared Spool Jared on Twitter Center Centre Shoptalk FAQ Google Glass Apple Newton Rosenfeld Media Books Source Han Sans Fireworks Sketch Balsamiq Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design (Interactive Technologies) Paper Prototyping UI Conf