• How to install Node.js on WebFaction

    Installing Node.js on WebFaction only takes a few minutes and a handful of commands. 1. In the WebFaction control panel, create a new “Custom app listening on port” application. Make a note of the port number it generates. You’ll also need to assign the app to a “website” and associate the website with a domain. […]

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  • Tracking Links with JavaScript

    So you want to use JavaScript to track some links. Easy. Just attach a click handler and call some function that triggers a tracking beacon. Done. Oh, but what about the possible race condition between the execution of your function and the browser’s following of the link? No problem. You can get around that by preventing […]

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  • Responsive UX: Taking Responsive Design a Step Further

    For the last year, the concept of responsive design has been a hot, hot topic in the design and front-end community. With the rapid growth of smart phones and tablets, websites must now accommodate an array of gizmos, and responsive design offers an attractive solution: build a single site that’s capable of responding to device […]

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  • jQuery Peel Back Ad

    On several occasions I’d have to set up a “peel back” (or “peel away”) ad, and each time I’ve used this old script that relies on a SWF file for the peel back animation. It’s a popular script and if you’ve ever had to work on one of these things you probably know the one […]

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  • Editorial SEO: Introduction and Best Practices for Editors

    In many ways SEO is about knowing all the tricks. It’s why SEO discussion can easily bounce around from keyword analysis to semantic HTML to site performance to inbound linking to whatever new thing was mentioned in yesterday’s SEOmoz blog post. When introducing SEO concepts to beginners it’s sometimes easy to forget that they don’t […]

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  • Getting Android to Recognize Apple Touch Icons

    On the Twitters yesterday I saw this tweet about how Android 2.2 uses Apple Touch icons when you add a bookmarked page to the home screen. Did you know this? I didn’t. Some googling revealed that this is a fairly known feature but that there were questions about when it worked and when it didn’t. […]

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  • Tracking Code and Click Response Delays

    Sometime last year I tried out Clicky, a web analytics service offering real-time1 traffic monitoring. I was really impressed with a few of the features, in particular the “Spy” feature, which provided real-time data of visitor activity at the user level. Being able to watch, in real time, a user move through a site was […]

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  • Data URIs and Dynamic Stylesheets

    This a quick follow-up to a post I wrote a few months ago about embedding data URIs in stylesheets and a potential performance hazard regarding the way non data URI images are positioned in the network waterfall.  What I found was that under certain circumstances the performance penalty was great enough to not only negate […]

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  • HTML5 Slideshow

    Maybe it’s because I have weak PowerPoint computer hacking skills, but whenever I work on a presentation I find myself thinking, “Shouldn’t this be easier?” or “I’d rather be doing this with CSS.”  So last week when I ran into my usual PowerPoint frustration I decided to devote a little time to correct the problem […]

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