Writing
Blog
Field notes from a creative technologist: craft, code, and the curiosity that keeps me shipping.
All posts
Local development with json-server and JSON:APIWorking on projects that have a clear spearation of backend and frontend typically have a good API setup to communicate between both. This makes development on frontend applicat…NgRx Entities: Wrangling the reducersNote: This will be a series of posts around how I moved from custom built reducers and state management with NgRx to use the NgRx Entity library. Previous posts include NgRx Ent…NgRx Entities: Updating the selectorsNote: This will be a series of posts around how I moved from custom built reducers and state management with NgRx to use the NgRx Entity library.NgRx Entities: Namespaces with TypeScriptNote: This will be a series of posts around how I moved from custom built reducers and state management with NgRx to use the NgRx Entity library.Intercepting errors with Angular and NgRxUsing NgRx for state management has been a great way to store server data across an application. One thing I started to wonder is how could I use this same pattern, but in a dif…Angular HTTP interceptors, making development DRYI've been building on an Angular app for a while now learning and strengthening my way through the ecosystem. As with most Angular apps, they are driven by services that end up…Taking Advantage of NgRx EffectsEffects in NgRx are awesome. Not only do they utilize RxJS, but they abstract the complex logic from your Angular components to allow for state to be kept. Recently, in my fun s…An easier way to understand Subject and Observable in RxJSI have been reading up and learning RxJS for a while now and one aspect of the library that I couldn't quite grasp, until now, was the differences and use cases for an Observabl…Guarding for data with NgRx & RxJSFor the past couple of months, I have been toying around on a fun little project for myself, mostly just to learn and understand NgRx and keep up to speed on the latest Angular.…Taking a breakRecently, I came off of a six week, yes six week, sabbatical. UserTesting just introduced this year yearly perks for their employees. The list ranged from gift cards for your fi…API Documentation Made EasyI have been doing a little fun side project for myself on and off for the better part of six months. The end goal is to complete it for it to be useful, but as of late it's been…Part 2: SSL on New AWS HostIn my last post, Moving to AWS, I explained how I went about moving this site from Gitlab to utilizing AWS. The only thing that I hadn't finished was making sure it is served ov…Moving to AWSUPDATED: After moving things to CloudFront to handle the SSL (see this post), I needed to add a line to the .gitlab-ci.yml file to make sure to invalidate the cache on CloudFront.Checking out the VueI've been working with AngularJS for the better half of three years now. I was attracted to it's opinionated form and how easy it was to setup a simple MV, even though there was…What is your \"one thing\"?Since being at UserTesting I have had a couple of roles over the course of the five and half years. From being the sole front-end engineer to becoming that more well rounded ful…Compressing images with GuetzliBeing a front-end developer, one of big things I tend to always worry about is performance. Of course, this worry came with not only time and learning, but also with the introdu…GitLab, the host with the most for the leastPrior to the switch over for the new site, the old was hosted through ImpDesigns which is a full-service graphic and web design shop in Raleigh, NC. It was my first job out of c…Revamping the old with new tricksIt had been close to twelve long years since the first release of my personal website and since then it rarely got an update UI wise. Yes, I would write posts from time to time,…Rails, AngularJS, and $httpIt has definitely been a while since the last post — over a year now. Life's been busy (moved to another state) and so has work, but I've been learning lots of new things to use…Mongo and Sinatra on HerokuI recently built a small app for Red Bull Records utilizing Sinatra on the backend. They wanted to collect some data from visitors to their site so I figured I would put my feet…A Sinatra run Facebook appThis will be short and sweet as my last post was also about creating a Facebook App.Digital SwellA simple one page splash showcase site for an up and coming advertising and deals space startup.Utilizing Jekyll with Sinatra on Heroku for a Facebook AppI love working with Jekyll. It's very nerdy for what it does since the final output is a static HTML server which is awesome for smallish projects not utilizing a database. Low…A New Experience - ReduxHer name would be Addisyn Jo. Would she be like her sister, wild from the start, but knew how to flash you a smile that would melt your heart or would she walk her own beat and…Digital World EmersionI was leaving the dentist office after having a checkup and passing the grade of having teeth in good order, when the receptionist handed me a paper card with my next appointmen…Amazon S3 and OGG Content TypesNote: This post is more of a reminder to myself and also help out whomever lands here. It took me a couple of good Google searches to figure this one out.Why owning an iPhone now scares meAbout a month ago, I started a new job. I left my job at RealTravel to move on to a new gig working for a much larger, non-startup, but still in the web industry company called…Ashley and Kris WeddingThis is the website I created for my sister in law to showcase their up and coming wedding. Utilizing Ruby on Rails and hosting through Heroku's free Dyno, I was able to design,…An iPhone app built in one dayMy buddy Jerrod Blavos hit me up last Friday evening about 8pm. He said he had been working on an iPhone app and needed a user interface to go along with it. Being a designer th…AspectGadgetA dead simple iPhone app that allows you to calculate proportions of a given size for images and video. If you perform this calculation constantly on a day to day basis and are…Easy form validation with UJS and Rails 3In a previous post, Rails 3, jQuery & UJS, I talked about how easy Rails has made it to do remote forms or even linking to remote actions. It covered how to set up the basics of…A/B test like a bossWhen the word testing comes to mind, there are many definitions. From using RSpec or Cucumber which test the validity and robustness of the code base to visual testing framework…SignMeTo Roadrunner RecordsA social network for budding artists and bands looking for recognition from scouts and A&R reps to hopefully grab a spot and be signed to Roadrunner Records. I created the front…Rails 3, jQuery & UJSThe days of old JavaScript where writing events and handlers inline on the html DOM elements have finally passed. Rails 3 has caught up with this movement and no longer will the…Withstanding timeFirst rule of thumb when it comes to logo creation is to pick a typeface that holds up to the changes in design and tastes. A font choice can easily make or break the logo by po…Delta Response TeamTom Walton of Delta Response Team in Appomattox, VA contacted me to get a simple showcase website up for his company he just started. He wanted a site that was modern and flashy…Home is where the office isFor those not familiar with the term telecommuting, has Greek origins with tele meaning distant and commute to travel. Commuting from a distance. This is not your typical commut…Git reflog to the rescueThe other day, I was working on a feature for Real Travel using our current branching strategy in that each release we do is a separate branch. Not sure if it was a cause of lac…To HAML or not to HAMLI have been developing in table-less HTML for the past eight years. I can say I have a pretty good grasp on its syntax, how it is handled by the browser, what it can and can't d…Real Travel LogoReal Travel has decided to take their marketing of hotel shopping towards using social recommendations. I created a humanistic type quality to the logo through use of a thumbs u…A Human MilestoneThe other night, I got a sense of nostalgia as I sat in front of my computer pouring over a few hours of unedited video that my wife and I had taken of our daughter since her bi…CAPSThe Georgia-Pacific Big Island plant was starting up a new program to involve their employees and educate them on safety in the industry. They needed an identifiable logo to coi…Finally published, well sort of...A couple of months ago, I received an email from Patrick McNeil of The Web Designer's Idea Book inquiring if I wanted a chance to be included in his next book. I could tell it w…Easter mailer cardMailing card sent out to friends and family for Haidyn's first Easter.First birthday invitationHaidyn's first birthday invitation mailing card.Wedding shower invitationInvitation created using photography I took for engagement pictures to mail out.Real Travel recommendation stickersReal Travel wanted to let the hotels that are on the website know that they are recommended by Real Travelers. I created stickers utilizing the recommendation badges found on th…iPad, maybe there is a use caseThe iPad hubaloo has somewhat died down and it has finally sank in to what it is and isn't or even could possibly be. Twitter trending topics on the subject matter have also slo…Note to self: Use git clean sparinglyThe other day, I had some merge conflicts to resolve on a project with another team member. Prior to this, I had been developing on the working branch and had created new files.…Semantic xHTML FormsWorking with Ruby on Rails for the past four years has been great. Switching over from the PHP world was pretty easy, yet I do do some coding in that area from time to time. One…Top 6 annoying types of Facebook status postersFacebook. It's the social network that blew away other competition such as MySpace or even the then early-to-the-party-but-forgot-the-gift Friendster. It utilizes it's simplicit…Sanity saved by GoogleNote: this post's four images (pop3.jpg, sendmailas.jpg, sendmailthrough.jpg, leavecopyonserver.jpg) are broken on the original site — the image URLs contain a leftover {filedir…Git remote branching made easyThe branching strategy using Git we have adopted at Real Travel allows us to share code branches back and forth, while maintaining a clean master. This also allows for us to dev…A tried and true practiceFirst starting out in the design world coming directly out of school, I was constantly testing the waters on what the quickest, but most efficient way was to getting a project f…Lori Beth and Chris Wedding SiteLori Beth is a childhood friend of my wife and asked me to create her wedding website. Using Expression Engine, putting the site together was a breeze and she is able to edit an…Git tag it like it's hottAt Real Travel we practice SCRUM) which allows us to release a new code base to the live server roughly every two weeks. Since moving to Git we now are able to track our release…Git your branching straightA couple of years ago, a buddy of mine, Jerrod Blavos, turned me onto using Subversion (svn) for our projects that we would work on together. At the time, I was eating up any ne…Tweet SackCollaboration with Jerrod Blavos to make a simple website that pulls in Twitter retweets that contain links. From start to completion the initial web app took two days.Real TravelJoining the Real Travel team in August/September 2008 as their front-end UI developer, the site got a complete overhaul not only in code base but also visually. We figured that…Srsly? Pay for followers?Checking my Twitter profile this morning, I happened to click on one of the links in the sidebar that showcase all the great sister websites that have cropped up from the explos…A fresh look on travelNote: In a previous blog entry, I talked about step one of reworking the Real Travel UI. Here is the completion entry.Trying on a hat for a whileI have been working indirectly with Ruby on Rails for the past four years. I say indirectly as I have focused more on the UI side (views and sometimes the controllers) when it c…Sprites, not just a CSS fantasyMost designs of sites found on the web verge on the graphical overload to grab the attention of the viewer — if you can accomplish it, do it. I am one myself to do this from tim…What is 'this?'Just recently, Real Travel started to run into an issue with Internet Explorer alone when it came to Javascript calls. Unfortunately, this issue had been going on for about a we…The wonders of jQueryInternet Explorer. Those two words are the dread of all web designers who have ever had to throw in CSS hacks to make their pages look correct or even to try and debug erroneous…Featured on CSSeliteI submitted the site a while ago after contacting the developer over there about an issue with their submission form and my email address, who graciously asked for the URLs I wa…KalooFind it on github: Kaloo GitHub RepositoryAn intentional lens flawI've had Adobe Lightroom installed on my iMac for the past two years. Since I never really had the urge to get back into digital photography, it pretty much sat there with the o…A facelift for travel. Part I.Note: Since this segment of my career has been pretty involved over the past half a year, I am going to have to cut these entries into two parts. There is so much I want to say…Yes, that is my signatureThe other day, my wife and I made a trip to Walmart to do some grocery shopping. Granted the closest current Walmart is about 20 minutes away — I say "current" because if our to…Font loveI am probably going to sound like a fan-boy jumping on the band wagon from writing this post, but I have to say I don't really care. For the past year or so, I have been making…Quick, down and dirty layoutSince I started using CSS, I have been trying to refine my skills and creating a base set of styles that I would apply to every site I created. Basically they would reset the wh…Begin Oaks Golf ClubBack in 2005, I created version two of Begin Oak's website. My Aunt came to me asking for a better site than they had previously as she wanted to be able to update the informati…Carla and Jonathan Wedding WebsiteAnother quick one put together for my wife's cousin's wedding. She is a big scrap booker and they were both graduates of Virginia Tech, so I thought the theme of the website wou…Hot RockThis is a collaboration project with Paul Hepworth for a product that produces unbelievable taste! The owner first approached Paul five years ago for the first version of the si…Kristen and Chris Wedding WebsiteThis is definitely an old one. This is the site that I developed for our wedding back in 2006 to help inform people about the date and location. It utilizes a custom PHP CMS tha…Our Baby SloanWhat better way to tell the world about our first born than her own personal website. Our family and friends are all over the country so we figured we would need a place to post…RecCenterFor about a year and a half, I was the front-end developer and designer for RecCenter.com. It was a music and culture centric social network startup. Unfortunately, things slowe…CMS Land InvestmentsVisit the site (www.cmslandinvestments.com)Imp DesignsMy old design house, Imp Designs, I worked at asked me to create their new website design. Their old one had been present for the past two years and needed an overhaul. I create…American Welding & EngineeringI created the design and did the initial xHTML/CSS and JavaScript coding which Imp Designs in turn did the Expression Engine coding side.Audubon EnvironmentalAnother collaboration through Imp Designs with doing the Photoshop mockup and initial xHTML/CSS template. Also created a flash banner animation for the homepage.Bradley RoofingVisit the site (www.bradleyroofinginc.com)HomewarmthUnfortunately, this site is no longer available for viewing.Joel Lane Museum HouseJoel Lane House is the birth place of North Carolina's capital city and they needed a new updated design to show case their history. Through Imp Designs, I created the design an…State Law ResourcesUnfortunately, this site is no longer available for viewing.The Cake WalkThe Cake Walk located in Cary, NC contacted Imp Designs to redesign their existing site. Once again, I created the design and did the template for the site which they ultimately…Mookiss ControlsCurrently gathering my thoughts about this project. For now, please visit the GitHub repository. Mookiss on GitHubOyoyoCurrently gathering my thoughts about this project. For now, please visit the GitHub repository. Oyoyo on GitHubInteraction with Facebook UIAs a web designer, I find it very interesting how the end user interacts with a web application. From simple management sites such as Backpack or Basecamp by 37 Signals to the f…