1 and 2/3 rotations of the Sun. 166 billion stars born and lain to rest. Duke Nukem Forever, released.

These are just some of the events that have transpired since handing in my last notice and traversing the seas of full-time self-employment. Those of you who have made the jump (of your own choice), and those of you who are looking to, have probably all acquired the same nuggets of advice: “Build up a small base of clients”, “Save X number of months worth of salary”, etc… Well, that advice? Is exactly what I didn’t do. And I’m not ashamed to admit, I’ve been winging it ever since. If my business acumen were plotted on a graph, there just wouldn’t be a damned graph.

It should come as no surprise then, that this varied and rich tapestry of unstructured living has been slowly unravelling. The gaping holes of efficiency and process, dotted chaotically around like cigarette burns.

I have, of course, known about this for some time. But, often, you need to wait. Wait until you’ve become a slave to your neuroses; built enough of  those mental barriers we love to set up for ourselves. And then, one day, you snap. You know, that day when you’ve just dug into your tax savings for the fifth time. Or that day you had to pay the DVLA not to take you to court because you forgot to tell them you no longer own your vehicle. Whichever.

It’s time to streamline things a bit, then. Perform a kind of mental Spring Autumn clean. I don’t know what the future holds, but unless some wannabe Snake Plissken activates that network of EMP satellites, it’ll be technology based. Whatever happens, I don’t want to think that I was held back.

And here, finally, we return to the crux of this post: Foundations. It’s time to take a closer look at the fundamentals that underlie what I do; How do I make my processes more efficient, so that I can no longer find silly excuses, or set up stupid little neurotic mental barriers. What do I need to GET. SHIT. DONE. And so, all two of you who might care slightly, we begin this little journey. A carefully documented journey of all the decisions, research, frustrations, learning and the outcomes, as I try to find balance in this technologically rich life.

The only thing left to say is that while I can’t commit to a ‘money is no object’ policy, I don’t mind saving up and spending a little extra, if that’s what it takes to find a solution that works for me. However, on the flip-side, I’m all for building things myself, physically or digitally to accomplish various tasks. In fact, I’m probably more inclined to take that route wherever possible.

Well, that’s that. If you got this far, thank you for reading. Prepare your overnight bags for the next leg of the journey as we start at the very bottom and deal with Home media/Fileservers.

The process has been considerably easier than expected. Mainly because you can still be quite creative with the meals – more so, I’ve often found – and even if you haven’t planned anything in advance, frying up some meat and steaming a few vegetables doesn’t exactly tax the ol’ noggin. I used to eat a lot of spaghettis and pizzas, so things like pasta and wheat were the trickiest to replace, but I’ve been having quite a bit of fun trying out foods that I never thought I’d eat otherwise. Asparagus? Are you mad? Oh, wait… It’s quite nice actually… And really, any diet where all you have to do is eat quite a lot of meat, can’t possibly be bad.

It turns out that there is a difference between ‘Paleo’ and ‘Primal’. Paleo seems more to do with the diet, while Primal refers more to the way of living. Subtle differences adorn the foods one can eat. So, in the end, it’s comes down to preference. I personally drift between the two, following recipes from either.

The benefits have begin to hit me like a ton of bricks. What I’m finding most astonishing though, is that in my job there is a lot of sitting down and I’ve yet to ramp up my physical activities, yet I can feel marked improvements. Visible weight loss (not that I had much to lose), loads more energy at my disposal, increased focus, and even less stress. I even seem to be battling colds and illness better. Much of it could be psychosomatic, based on what I’m expecting to happen. But, regardless, I’m enjoying the diet, and feel great too. There’s little more I can ask for.

What happens when you’ve put your heart and soul into the perfect CSS3 button, only to then be told it must look the same in IE? Personally, I used to go into a corner and have a little cry. But not anymore! With this super swell tip, from yours truly, you can CSS3 until your heart literally explodes with joy, yet still retain that delicious Mac rendering goodness on the dastardly IE 8 and below.

Step 1

Get that page marked up properly, with particular focus on wrapping that <html> element with the appropriate conditional comments:
<!--[if lt IE 7 ]> <html class="ie6" lang="en"> <![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 7 ]> <html class="ie7" lang="en"> <![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 8 ]> <html class="ie8" lang="en"> <![endif]-->
<!--[if (gte IE 9)|!(IE)]><!--> <html lang="en"> <!--<![endif]-->


Step 2

Mark up your splendificent button in a browser that, you know, doesn’t smell like formaldehyde – and other old people fragrances.
Here’s one I made earlier (It’s true. I did) :

Then, with your Mac keyboard shortcuts of pure awesome perform a simple Shift-⌘-4 and drag a selection around the box like so:

This will save a lovingly crafted PNG file straight onto your very desktop! Probably some Moose magic going on there. Who knows.

Step 3

Throw that image class into your site’s images folder (I take no responsibility for broken monitors). And now, with those amazing classes you previously placed on the <html> element, head into your style sheet of wonders and lay on your basic image replacement code:

.ie7 #button, .ie8 #button {
display: block;
text-indent: -999em;
overflow: hidden;
background: url(/images/button.png) center center no-repeat;
}


Tweak it to your image’s properties, like width and height, and be sure to remove any borders and padding you applied previously.

Final Step

Sit back, and smile. You’ve cheated the system. Treat yourself to a cookie.

There I was consuming the vast knowledge chasm of Merlin Mann and Dan Benjamin’s Back to Work podcast, when the conversation turns to Dan’s diet: Paleo Nutrition. Dan has already written a brief primer on the subject with some very good links for us noobs to get started. From there I was on track to begin digesting the vast quantities of information necessary to begin on my path to extreme healthification.

A quick read on some Paleo blogs informed me that various health benefits of this diet were:

• increased energy
• weight loss
• better sleep
• lower cholesterol and blood pressure
• decreased chance of obtaining heart disease
• decreased chance of becoming diabetic.
• stronger immune system

These were the sorts of benefits I wanted out of a diet, and the types of foods one has to consume for it are organic, free range meats for maximum omega-3 content, and organic, well, everything else. High quality and ethical.

I’d recently been trying to make some major lifestyle changes (not those kinds) – increase my work efficiency, be more focused, and hopefully gain more spare time to indulge in various side projects. I’d found that I was lacking energy a lot, and I’d begun to detect that wheat and/or dairy were playing a part in that. I wanted change.

The Story So Far

I started the diet roughly last Tuesday (17/03/2011). In the beginning I had intended on a slow transition. I started picking up vegetables, meat and nuts. I knew I’d already planned a few meals with friends that week that weren’t part of the diet, so attempting one Paleo meal a day, at least, seemed best. But I made the first step by cutting out processed sugar entirely, and I threw out all my bread. Yesterday, however, I decided to dive right in to the full Paleo plan I’m sticking to it.

Even with the the odd ‘cheat meal’ during the initial transition, I’m already starting to feel a little more energetic, and I could swear I’ve already started to lose weight. I don’t own scales though. Mirrors are my guide (Ladies). Unfortunately, my body has a few tricks to play yet, which are inevitable for a diet change of this kind, namely: Ketosis.

What is Ketosis? Here’s a description taken from Wikipedia:

If the diet is changed from a highly glycemic diet to a diet that does not provide sufficient carbohydrate to replenish glycogen stores, the body goes through a set of stages to enter ketosis. During the initial stages of this process, blood glucose levels are maintained through gluconeogenesis, and the adult brain does not burn ketones; however, the brain makes immediate use of this important substrate for lipid synthesis in the brain. After about 48 hours of this process, the brain starts burning ketones in order to more directly use the energy from the fat stores that are being depended upon, and to reserve the glucose only for its absolute needs, thus avoiding the depletion of the body’s protein store in the muscles.

The consequences of which are a period of low energy as my body adapts back to using fat directly from its fat stores. Once that switch occurs, energy levels will rise, metabolism increases, and I’ll shed weight like a wife giving birth until I’m ready to re-introduce more carbs into my diet to offset it. More can be read about that here.

So far so good. The main issue I’m dealing with right now is actually thinking ahead for my meals. Especially lunches, as I’ll not be able to depend on running out to Boots, or even a pub lunch (the horror!) if I find my cupboards empty.

The Small Print

Nutrition is a deep, dark hole, with a lot of information, much of it conflicting and contradictory. It could be easily confused with a belief system. Diets are what you want out of them and they are about self control. I’m certainly not saying this is the best, and I’m also not trying to preach. I don’t want to be that guy. I would rather be the test subject from which some of you learn, and hopefully, I can inspire a few of you towards a healthier life.

**Disclaimer. I am most definitely not a nutritionist. If you have any kinds of medical conditions, then it’s wise to consult one before starting this diet. However, in my limited research so far, it appears there’s a good chance a lot of nutritionists are idiots.

Why Version Control? – a.k.a Convincing the Boss

“… I was hoping you could point me in the right direction as to how I’d go about convincing them to use something like Git or SVN as a better solution.”

While I’ve sworn off Dreamweaver for life and, hence, don’t know the details of its check-in/check-out feature, I can guarantee that Git/SVN is a better solution. However, they’re also much harder to learn. While I’m personally a fan of Git over SVN, it isn’t for the faint-hearted. You may have seen Andy Clarke’s recent moan and, stubborn though he may be, his views mirrored the cries of many others.

In Nathan’s particular circumstance, I’d recommend SVN. Purely because it has superior Mac GUIs, (Versions, Cornerstone), a shallower learning curve, and is built to run from an externally hosted set of files (repository) making the concept of checking out files and committing changes easier to grasp initially. Windows has TortoiseSVN which integrates straight into menu system. Though, personally, I’m not a fan.

Git does have a similarly good GUI en-route (Git Tower), but it’s currently in Beta, and still trickier to fathom than, say, Versions. Windows has, wait for it… TortoiseGit!, which is also still in development. You can of course use the command line for either, and you’ll see later that for Git, I prefer it.

For either version control system you’ll need a central repository for each project member to access. SVN has Beanstalk and Git has Github. There are others, but I’ve found those two to be the best so far. If you have a capable web developer, or server admin in your midst, they can set up repositories for free on a local server. But often you then can’t access them from outside the building.

I imagine Dreamweaver’s check-in system works on the premise of monitoring files modified in a central location, and simply updates files on each machine when it changes on another, kind of like Dropbox. However, version control typically stores changes, as opposed to the files themselves, except in the case of binary files, such as images. So, at every step of the way, you have a trail of amends made to each file from the moment they were initially checked in, allowing easy reverting to an earlier revision, or grabbing some long lost code fragments previously overwritten and bringing that into your current file. The number and frequency of these changes depends on how often ‘commits’ are made.

The power of version control comes from features like ‘branching’. If you plan on trying something new and quite different, you can create a testing branch and make whatever changes you like, which prevents you from polluting the main branch with broken/untested code that could break the website, allowing you to merge new features later when you’re sure it all works.

“Can you use Git to control an entire website, or is it more useful for smaller projects like themes and frameworks?”

You can put anything you like under version control, but text files use the least space, and allow merging of changes between files. Binary files like images are just versioned as whole files because otherwise the merging process would create some very bizarre and undesired results. In all situations I’ve used version control, it’ll be a repository per whole website, whether that’s a Rails or Django project, or a WordPress site.

Git or SVN?

“Besides the learning curve is there any reason why you’d use SVN over Git or vice-versa… ?”

Being in position of knowing of and having used both, there is no earthly reason I’d use SVN over Git ever again, aside from being required to by companies who have an archive of SVN repositories.

“I want to use either SVN or Git on my own WordPress site hosted by MediaTemple … Is there anything special I need to do?”

If you want to get to grips with version control, Git is actually ideally suited to local development. It’s one of a newer breed of version control systems called a ‘DVCS’, Distributed Version Control System which, by design, does not need a central repository where all the code was kept. It uses that mechanism as an easier way to collaborate on projects.

Working locally, Git is also easier to setup and use than SVN. Particularly if you don’t mind getting your hands dirty in the Terminal/Command Prompt.

Getting Up and Running

Head over to: http://git-scm.com/ and download the latest version of Git. It should be a straightforward install. If you’re not using a Mac, you should just kill yourself now, btw. No reason.

Once that’s done, place your website’s folder structure somewhere easy to maintain and access like the Sites folder in your home directory (Mac), if it’s not already. I think there’s a similar folder on Windows machines. Whip open the Terminal/Command Prompt and find the project you want under version control with a command like

cd ~/Sites/my-project

I think on Windows Vista/7 it would be something like

cd c:/Users/your-profile/sites/my-project

Then run

git init

Boom! Your project is now version controlled. Congratulations. Have a cookie.

It’s advisable to keep the Terminal/Cmd open from now onwards. All you do then is build your website as you would normally. Every so often, flip back to the Terminal/Cmd and, issue:

git add .

(the full stop is important. Tells git to add all changes), then:

git commit -m "description of your changes here"

and get back to building your site. You can think of each commit as a snapshot of your folder structure. The more commits you make, the more snapshots. Though, I wouldn’t worry too much about doing them too often. The ‘add’ and ‘commit’ functions can be rolled into one with the command:

git commit-a -m "description of your changes here"

but by splitting them up, you can perform several adds, or even remove/revert changes before finally committing. Not entirely necessary, but gives you that extra level of flexibility, should you need it.

Here is a good point to note that version control systems need telling when you’ve added or removed files from the folder structure. You’re telling the Git what to and what not to version. Thinking back to the snapshot idea, Git needs to know when files were added/removed so it can keep an accurate ‘state’ of your project. If you’ve ever used or seen Time Machine, it performs a fairly similar visual representation of what version control does, at its simplest. If you removed a CSS file a two weeks ago, and committed that change, to get it back all you’d need to do was look back in the project version history and all ‘states’ from that time and those preceding it will contain that file.

http://gitref.org/ looks to be a nice and concise reference to get you going quickly. Some of the commands you won’t need until you’re collaborating with other people and are using a repository, such as clone, pull and push.

Once you’re familiar with the basic concepts, I’d advise the getting to grips with Git Tower, currently the best GUI available, and stable enough to use. It makes life easier for deleting, reverting to previous versions, branching and merging. But frankly, if you’re using add and commit most of the time, I find the Terminal/Cmd is quicker and easier. But if you’re ever to convince your co-workers of the wonders of Git, it’ll be handy know how to use the GUI.

And right there, tucked away in the bottom left of this site is a button. Simple, innocuous, but a button all the same. The button’s design could have been replicated using CSS, but alas, it was not.

Now the company is expanding. In fact, unbeknownst to even their expectations, it’s taken root in another country. So, now it’s time to get the translators and convert that site into another language. Oh, but wait, that button we had. Once comfortable in its fixed width glory, now breaks horribly under the weight of the extra characters imposed upon it by the different language. No problem, right? Let’s just whip open Photoshop and extend the width… Or do we.

We’ve all been there. Even us developers who have no right adjusting the design. What’s just happened, however, is that here we have a button, the development time of which – if built in pure CSS – could have taken about the same time as it took to load up Photoshop in the first place. So now we’ve just doubled the development time from the mere action of opening Photoshop at all. For a button. But wait, we’re not done. We still need to actually tweak the image itself then put it back onto the website. Hang on though, now we’ve increased the general size of the button in our language. That wasn’t in the plans. So maybe we should create a separate stylesheet for that language. And the implication soon dawns that, wait, there are other languages too. And yes… there are more buttons. And, of course, the matter of the entire website.

So, for what would have taken less time to implement in the first place, we’ve just increased development time for a single button by a factor of, what, 10? 20? 100? Maybe we’ve lost minutes, maybe you took the route of separate stylesheets and instead it’s now hours to this change. That equates into money very quickly, and this was just a button. And for what? Because it had to look the same in every browser?

Companies, by letting us do what we do best, and doing what we believe is right – simply because we know what we’re doing – we’re saving you money. A lot of money.

Thank you.

There are 2 final fringe events, one of which is a photo walk round Belfast. Luckily the weather, though cold, has delivered in spades; blue skies and minimal wind. 5 of us group up by the Waterfront and Andy arrives to show us the way. We don’t even make it 10 minutes before we’ve stopped off for some lunch, where we’re joined by one of my design heroes, Sam Brown (@sambrown) and his wife.

Here we can sit and reflect on the week as a whole. I take the time to congratulate Andy and quiz him on Build’s future plans. “When do preparations start for the next Build”, I ask. He replied, much to my disbelief, “Monday”. He really wasn’t joking when he said this was his job now. Andy is brimming with new ideas and next year’s will be bigger and better, it seems. There are no plans to ever increase the costs, nor let the conference spill over into a second week. Given how shattered Andy is at this point in the week I ask if he’ll get anyone to help that he can delegate jobs to. I understand completely when he replies “No”, as there’s a certain feeling of accomplishment attained by getting your hands dirty and being involved in absolutely every facet of the event.

Lunch over, we meander through the streets of Belfast, cameras in hand. Destination: Queen’s Fim Theatre, the final fringe event. We’re joined by a few more Builders and shortly thereafter we’re sitting happily in a theatre all to ourselves, settling down to watch Jurassic Park. A perfect end to a such a mind blowing ‘conference’.

—-

Epilogue

This week meant more to me than a simple conference – however simple it may not have been. I’d been working non-stop since going full-time freelance a mere 7 months previously, and even before then I can’t remember the last time I took a holiday. I was undeniably burnt out and this became a way for me to ‘pause’, in the words of Liz Danzico.

I met so many people I can barely remember any names. And each person was just as wonderful as the next. Everyone was so kind and approachable – speaker, ‘web celebrity’ or otherwise. I only hope people found me similarly good natured. Though, when confronted with a man carrying two SLR cameras, it’s easy for them to be filled with a certain level of… apprehension. Speaking with them all gave me, in particular, a way to remove one’s self from our own little microcosms and get back in touch with the people who make this industry what it is. An industry all too easily defined by the work and the publicity of a few select outspoken ‘celebrities’.

Even if by next year I’m penniless and homeless, I shall strive to find a way to return. A big thank you to Andy, the speakers, and just as importantly, the other attendees. I shall, hopefully, see you all next year!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to get lynched by the subjects of many of my photos…

There was a ‘fr00tball’ tournament taking place around midday for those who signed up. Not all it’s participants managed to turn up on time, and others… not at all. Several of us wiser folk made our way to the Malmaison’s cafe instead for coffee, chats and a bit of work. Gradually our numbers dwindled as they began to head off to catch their respective flights. Ultimately, our brains had given up, so we were happy enough to simply vegetate.

Having lounged our way through the day, we staggered onwards to ‘An evening with Threadless’. Brock Rumer (@brockrumer) took us on a trip through daily life at Threadless. It surprised me to learn just how community focused they are. Opinions of the customers are valued very highly. By the end, we pretty much all wanted to work for Threadless.

And finally there was an app launch party from Onotate (@onotate) but, due to an allergy… issue… I duck out and die slowly in my hotel. Fan. Tastic. Heard it was good though, with mentions of people ‘eating their own faces’ in the form of decorative cupcakes.

And so, we have survived (in a manner of speaking), and this is the day we’ve been waiting for. Now that all the attendees are here, it’s good catching up with other speakers and folk whom you’ve met at other conferences. Or Maybe that’s just me. I’m as inevitable to conferences as the post-conference hangover. There’s free coffee and tea, but, oddly, no free water. Then there’s the schwag. Buttons, badges, pens and pencils, notepads, stickers and the like, adorn table tops for us to cherry pick. And, pulling out all the stops, there’s free pick ‘n mix! Build branded Hoodies and Shirts are available shortly during the first break for us to purchase.

I won’t dwell too heavily on the talks. They’ll all be released in glorious haytch-dee-o-vision soon enough. Andy took to the stage to kick off the day and quickly introduces Tim Van Damme (@maxvoltar) and Keegan Jones (@keeg) who cover designing for mobile platforms. A two-man talk is a tricky style to pull off, and I’m not pesonally convinced of the format, but their talk is good; insightful and full of practical information, so I’ll let them off… For now. And during the talk, for our amusement, Tim gets groped by a sound technician after his microphone fails. Highlight of the event, that.

Tim Brown (@tbrown) does his best to inform me of the intricacies of typography, much of which goes over my head, you know, because of my stupidity. But his talk is well delivered (He informs me later that night it was his first time conference speaking. Fooled me, I tell you.) and considering the more niche subject, held my attention pretty capably.

I had heard already that lunch would take place in a ‘rented market’, but still couldn’t quite believe it until I’d seen it. Several vendors had set their stalls up in an unused marketplace for us to choose our food preference. I had soup. Tomato and Basil. Because I know you care. This was such a nice touch, and one I reckon it’ll be hard to top in other conferences.

Frank Chimero (@fchimero), robed in tweed, and Liz Danzic (@bobulate) change things up a bit in each of their talks by covering topics outside of the normal design discussions. Liz is right at home on stage and her talk in particular about ‘The Pause’ makes a refreshing change from the usual conference topics but still maintains heaps of relevancy and tips for all facets of life, not just our work.

Meagan Fisher (@owltastic) has, by far, the most beautiful slides. With more than a hint of nerves she relates her work methodologies and inspirations, as we stare, mouths gaping at each hand-crafted slide illustrations.

Dan Cederholm (@simplebits), unfortunately, had the most disappointing talk in my opinion. A master craftsman and a leader in the field, the talk itself is fantastic and Dan is one of the more accomplished speakers I’ve seen in a while, but he’s using a battle hardened series of slides, the topic of which has become common knowledge in only a few months previous. Really, it’s more to do with the fact that I was already up to speed with what he was covering. I know others found it inspirational.

Aside from the slight microphone hiccup, the day went off without a hitch. Before we left, Andy revealed next year’s lineup, and other little secrets and plans headed our way in the not-to-distance future.

With the talks concluded we made our way on to the night’s proclivities. MediaTemple had graciously organised a free bar which lasted until some time after midnight. I’d lost track of time at that point. As had most people. The after-party gave us the opportunity to impress upon the speakers our amazing knowledge, or embarrass ourselves beyond all comprehension. I’m sure it was all there in equal measure.

A short consultation with Andy and I’m armed with the knowledge of good places for lunch. And with that, I take to the streets. This conference-turned-festival, after all, isn’t just about the events.

I’m going to go ahead and assume the workshops were awesome. During which time, I roamed the streets aimlessly, camera in hand, until lunchtime reared its empty belly. Tweets were tweeted, hashtags… umm… hashed. One epic burger later I’d made my way to Social 21, where we’d be quizzing like maniacs in the evening. I find several reprobates, also known as my quiz teammates, Cole (@cole007) and Robbie (@rougebert), accompanied by Sam (@sambrown) infesting the joint like a rash. I show them the way to the Duke of York and the switch from lunch to pub crawl is imperceptible.

At this point it’s best I tell you of a certain tradition, or perhaps, epidemic, that permeates conferences like these. Poopin’. Should you find someone’s smartphone laying helplessly on a table, the owner of which is either buying drinks, or actually headed to the toilet, it’s customary to open up their twitter app and post Poopin’. Hilarious, no? Anyway, it turns out that other devices are ripe for a poopin’ situation. Such as my camera. The bastards. Thankfully, the photos remain of a family-friendly nature.

With many of our phones dying, we head back to our respective hotels for a recharge and about an hour later reconvene for Jessica’s talk.

The majority of the conference attendees have turned up. Jessica’s talk is fantastic. An accomplished speaker, she effortlessly weaves tales full of humour and charm around her beautiful designs and hand-crafting lettering.
With the talk wrapped up, many gather round her Drop Cap collection still on display downstairs. As may be apparent by now, this conference is all about the people and the constant mingling.

Then: The quiz. Sweet baby jesus. The Standardistas have crafted questions made of pure torture. iPhones, iPads and Macs littered the tabletops as we battled against a form of psychological torture crafted deep within the pits of Tartarus. That night, we wept. At least there was beer.

I met so many people that night, it was ridiculous. There are no barriers here. Tomorrow, the talks begin. And there we were, 2.30 in the morning, in the Malmaison bar. Still drinking…