I had always played video games on some platform or another going all the way back to the TRS-80. A few years ago, I hadn’t had a console in a while and was only playing here and there on the PC when my wife decided she wanted a Wii. She bought me a copy of the new Goldeneye to go with it and I was back on the hook. Continue reading
I’m of the opinion that WordPress has entered a silver age recently and with that comes a vast multitude of fantastic plugins. I run a lot of WP installations and get to try out a lot of plugins. Here’s my first list of five great plugins for WordPress. Continue reading
![Ernst Haeckel [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](http://2013.valerb.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/spongeIllustration.jpg)
I was recently approached by a friend of a friend, a student working towards his B.S. in information technology with a concentration in website design who wondered if I had any tips for someone who’s “new to the scene”. Little did he know that I had been working on a blog post featuring such a list of pointers. I took this interaction as a sign I should finish it. Continue reading
For whatever reasons, I do a lot of development without ever having the opportunity to contribute to design. By the time it hits my desk, it’s too late to change anything — the client has already signed off on the design so what I produce must look exactly like it, even if there are flaws and even if it means unnecessarily wasting money. With any luck, there will come a day when more designers see the importance of involving a developer in the design process at an earlier stage (or perhaps establish a workflow where change is part of the process), but in the meantime I can offer some tips on designing for developers. Continue reading