Alex Jones: Web Technologist, Barbecue Acolyte, Information Junkie, Austinite

flavour design co.

flavour design co. produces some beautiful, creative furnishings.

Posted in Architecture & Furniture, Quick Links & Tagged: decoration, furnishings

Hidden

Creative Home Engineering integrates “silent, automated hidden passageways” into your home. How cool is that?! Beyond the standard “pull on a book” or twisting a candlestick, their custom switches give you the ability to activate the passage entries any way you want. The “triple-redundant safety features includ[e] optical sensor arrays, overtorque protection, thermal sensors, infrared sensors and mechanical obstruction detectors” as well as biometrics (fingerprints, optical and voice). They apparently have pre-fab kits ($150+) available for those who can’t afford a complete solution ($10,000). Link via one of my favorite authors, Neil Gaiman.

Posted in Architecture & Furniture & Tagged: architecture

On a Roll: Children’s Paper Chair

On a Roll: Children’s Paper Chair is “made out of drawing paper rolled up like a pair of toilet rolls, and as a child uses paper, it’s scrolled from the back roll to the front one on which the child sits. As the child uses more paper, the chair gets taller and taller, conceivably getting larger as the little tyke grows taller.”

Posted in Architecture & Furniture, Quick Links & Tagged: furnishings, kids

Remote Destruction of Data on a Stolen Laptop

Mac Geekery has a nice little article discussing how to remotely destroy data on your laptop should it be stolen. The concept is great, and the use of Perl could easily be replaced by other technologies. I like the idea of taking the machine down and notifying the user that the machine is stolen, in addition to gathering additional info as to the laptop’s whereabouts.

Posted in OS X & Tagged: laptop, macbook pro, security

Symbols != Immutable Strings

Symbols Are Not Immutable Strings

Posted in Quick Links, Ruby

Animated Live Search

Animated Live Search is a great tutorial written by Steve Smith, which discusses how he has built his site-search. The cool thing is that the search presents its results immediately in a handy container within the current page instead of a new page. Tasty demo included.

Posted in Design & UI, Featured, JavaScript & Tagged: JavaScript, Web Development

JavaScript Libraries and Patterns

Over at SitePoint, Kevin Yank discusses JavaScript Libraries and Patterns, running through packages offered up by Yahoo and others. While a bit short on details, it is a good overview and an ideal point form which to dive into the options.

Posted in JavaScript & Tagged: JavaScript, Web Development

CSS Problem Solving Panel Survey

CSS Problem Solving Panel Survey - I just may have something to add to the survey, but I need to set it up properly for submission.

Posted in CSS, Quick Links

Graded Browser Support

The Yahoo! Developer Network: Graded Browser Support looks to be a very interesting development within the Web development profession…

Posted in Quick Links, Web Development

Design and Web Books

While I don’t have much time to actively participate in the Designers in House List, to which I subscribe, I enjoy reading many of the threads. One recent thread from a while back, titled “Your favourite web design book” served as a reminder that I should update my list of Web and design-related book recommendations. It’s been quite a while. So, here is a brain dump of the tomes on my bookshelf and ones that should be. The list is by no means comprehensive - I would love to hear your recommendations!

Items without a rating indicates that I do not own the book, but believe it is worth attention due to recommendations from other Web-type folks, or that I hold the author in high respect due to their other work and contributions to our industry.

Template amm_design_books_output could not be found. View HTML source for details.

Posted in Bookshelf, CSS, Design, Design & UI & Tagged: books, Design, web design