Jeff Croft

Photo // 12.23.2007 // 1:47 PM // Topeka, KS // flickr

Jenn
Photo // 12.23.2007 // 1:45 PM // Topeka, KS // flickr

Topeka snow
Photo // 12.23.2007 // 1:42 PM // Topeka, KS // flickr

Dexter and Jackson
Photo // 12.22.2007 // 10:25 AM // Seattle, WA // flickr

Thank you so much, Sara!
Link // 12.22.2007 // 1:01 AM // 1 Comment
WebKit gets Native getElementsByClassName

Here’s to innovation among browser makers! Nice work, WebKit. Mozilla and Opera, where you at?
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Photo // 12.21.2007 // 3:38 PM // Seattle, WA // flickr

Happy Holidays from Vladimir Lenin!
Photo // 12.21.2007 // 2:52 PM // Seattle, WA // flickr

Homeless (?) guys on desktop computer. Outside.
Link // 12.21.2007 // 11:38 AM // 1 Comment
M. Jackson Wilkinson: Introducing The Humble Gourmand

Jackson’s new personal site is Django-powered and looks great. Well-done, my friend!
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Link // 12.21.2007 // 11:36 AM // 1 Comment
24 ways: Mobile 2.0

Blue Flavor’s Brian Fling on “Mobile 2.0” — or, what’s next in the mobile web space. Great piece.
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Link // 12.20.2007 // 8:18 PM // 1 Comment
Web’s Builders See Too Much Fuss Over Standards, Not Enough Innovation

Building on his post at Wired’s blog earlier this week, Scott Gilbertson now has a full article on the Wired front page, and again quotes me. I know it seems silly, but this is really cool to me. I’ve been reading Wired since its inception in the early 90s, so to be quoted on their website is pretty neat. And, they didn’t even get me using an F-bomb, this time. :)
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Photo // 12.19.2007 // 11:18 PM // Seattle, WA // flickr

Blue Scholars
Photo // 12.19.2007 // 10:39 PM // Seattle, WA // flickr

Common Market
Link // 12.19.2007 // 3:35 PM // 1 Comment
IEBlog : Internet Explorer 8 passes Acid2

Wow, very nice. This is impressive. It also makes Opera look very, very silly. So now that all the majors can claim reasonable standard compliancy, can we please get those browser wars started again? :)

Congrats, IE8 team!
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Link // 12.19.2007 // 10:59 AM // 0 Comments
Snook at 24 ways: Christmas Is In The AIR

My buddy Jon has a great-looking article on getting started with Adobe AIR at 24ways. I haven’t fully read it yet, but I’m anxious to, as AIR is one of the thing I’ve been meaning to make some time for.
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Link // 12.18.2007 // 3:38 PM // 2 Comments
Virgin America now services Seattle

Booyah! I know who I’m flying next time I go to CA.
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Link // 12.18.2007 // 3:37 PM // 0 Comments
Creating a Pownce widget with Django

A nice tutorial that shows you how to make a ‘widget” for an external service like Pownce, using Django.
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Link // 12.18.2007 // 3:36 PM // 0 Comments
37signals: 10 ways to “get ink”

A great post from Matt over at 37signals about how to get publicity. I’ve had a few people write me asking how they can get their blog “out there” — I’d think all of these tips apply equally well to individual bloggers as they do to companies like 37.
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Link // 12.18.2007 // 3:24 PM // 0 Comments
Digital Edge Awards finalists announced

Once again, my boys back in Lawrence are finalists for several Edgies. LJWorld.com is nominated for Best Overall News Site, Best Design and Site Architecture, and Most Innovative Multimedia Storytelling (for 24 Hours in Lawrence). Additionally, Lawrence.com is a finalist for Best Local Guide or Entertainment Site. Is it just me, or did the Edgies used to hve an award for sports sites?

Anyway, congrats to all the finalists — especially my buddies back in Lawrence. We’ll have to get everyone together and have some drinks — that LJWorld.com redesign we did seemed to pay off!
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Link // 12.18.2007 // 1:36 PM // 2 Comments
Wired.com: Is the Sacred Cow of Web Standards Headed for the Slaughterhouse?

A life long goal of mine is to be mentioned in Wired magazine. Today, I’m in their blog. That’s pretty close, right? It even calls me a “prominent developer.” But most importantly, it quotes me (accurately, even!), dropping an F-bomb. Classy, Jeff. Real classy.

Thanks, Wired. :)
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Link // 12.17.2007 // 8:26 PM // 0 Comments
Lea: Handling “Rejection”

Another nice piece like Lea. Why can’t I write about stuff like this?!
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Link // 12.17.2007 // 6:59 PM // 0 Comments
Eliza Truitt Photography: Train In Vain

If not for the municipal clusterfuck that apparently happened before I moved here, a futuristic monorail system would have opened last week, with two stops a stone’s throw from my apartment — thus making my neighborhood (which already includes the Space Needle and EMP) look even more like the town the Jetsons built. Eliza Truitt has some really great photos she took of the locations where monorail stops would have been.

I wasn’t here through the debate around it, but it strikes me as really sad this project never happened. Would have been sooo cool. We are set to get light rail in 2008, though, so that will be nice. Sadly, it won’t come too close to my apartment — although I can always take the existing 1962 World’s Fair monorail over to Westlake, which will be a light rail station.
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Link // 12.17.2007 // 6:17 PM // 0 Comments
Stuart Langridge: Reigniting the browser wars

Stuart responded to the same Alex Russell piece I did, only less positively. Stuart makes good counter-arguments to many of Alex’s points. Alex then shows up in the comments and the two politely debate back and forth — it’s a really great discussion. The conclusion? Stuart seems to be coming around to many of Alex’s ideas.

It’s tough to talk openly in this community about things that aren’t “compliant.” The second you mention trying something outside of the standards world, you get clubbed with the giant Internet stick, even if you’re a standards advocate 95% of the time. I’m glad people are starting to talk openly about what’s really important — innovation and moving forward — rather than just about how we can all fall in line and be compliant* all the damn time.
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Blog entry // 12.17.2007 // 2:24 PM // 13 Comments
Audio available for my Webmaster Jam Session talk

The kind folks at CoffeeCup Software have posted audio of all the Webmaster Jam Session talks from this past September, including my talk on web typography, and the Web Design Roundtable, on which I participated. The audio comes in the form of a podcast you can subscribe to in iTunes or your favorite podcast application.

I was pretty proud of my type talk in Dallas. I felt like it went over really well and had a lot of good information on web typography. The roundtable was also pretty great, with a lot of good questions and answers (yes, someone even asked me about CSS frameworks!).

There were a lot of great sessions at WJS 2007, so be sure to give ‘em all a listen — and come down to the Big D for the event next year!
- Podcast of Webmaster Jam Session 2007 talks
- Slides for Typography: Beyond the Font (Follow along! 3MB PDF)
Enjoy.
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Link // 12.17.2007 // 2:20 PM // 0 Comments
16 Things You May Not Know About Seattle Until You Move Here

This list is awesome. I added my own in the comments.
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Link // 12.17.2007 // 12:23 PM // 0 Comments
The B-List: The future of web standards

My former co-worker James ahres his insights on some of the stuff we’ve been discussing here at JeffCroft.com. Gotta say, I sort of hate how James always manages to come off as such a level-headed dude in his blog posts. If only you guys could see what he’s like in real life…

Just teasing, James. :)

Kind of.
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Link // 12.16.2007 // 8:47 PM // 1 Comment
Chris Messina: Wither web standards? And a call for new browser wars

Chris has a nice, toughtful response to my blog post that didn’t fit in my 3000 character limit (note: my limit is going up once I switch over to the new version of my CMS!). I generally agree with most of what Chris has to say, and I think he may have misunderstand some of my thoughts: I am in no way suggesting we abandon the existing standards. Rather, I’m suggesting that browser makers should be encouraged to innovate, using the unobtrusive -renderingengine syntax, alongside the existing standards.
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Blog entry // 12.16.2007 // 4:31 PM // 79 Comments
Do we need a return to the browser wars?

Alex Russell, proprietor of the Dojo JavaScript library, has written a provocative new piece that is so incredibly spot-on, it’s scary. It’s an absolute must-read for any web standards oriented designer. I just wanted the time to highlight a few choice quotes from Alex’s The W3C Cannot Save Us.
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Link // 12.16.2007 // 2 PM // 1 Comment
The Django Book: now updated with the final copy

DjangoBook.com, the online location where you can get the entire text of Jacob and Adrian’s new book The Definitive Guide to Django, has been updated to reflect the final copy used in the print edition (published by Apress — you can get it from Amazon). I’ve just received my print edition and it looks really, really great, so far. Congrats, guys.
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Link // 12.16.2007 // 1:52 PM // 0 Comments
Two-Faced Django: Building a project that exists on Facebook and the web

Will Larson has a nice series of posts that explains how to build a Django project that exists at its own URL, as well as in Facebook, as an app.
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Link // 12.16.2007 // 12:23 PM // 0 Comments
Amazon removes the database scaling wall

Dave Winer on Amazon’s new SimpleDB, which seems pretty damn awesome. I agree with Dane: it’s absolutely baffling that Amazon is gaining so much mindshare in online development tools (with S3 first, and now this) and companies like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft aren’t releasing any competitors. This feels like it should be Google’s realm, not Amazon’s. Nonetheless, the tools seem great.
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Link // 12.15.2007 // 9:02 PM // 0 Comments
Guilty as charged.

E-Chuckles:

> ah, seattle. one of the few places where you can walk into a bar and be totally ignored because the drunk guys aren’t hitting on girls… they’re trying to figure out ways to make out with their iPhones while praying they’ve gulped the weekend away so they can return to the comfort of their undecorated Microsoft offices…

I don’t know Elizabeth very well. But, we’ve hung out a few times, and I can confirm that she is funny and smart, and I think it’s too bad I didn’t have time to get to know her better before she packs up and moves to New York. It’s been fun, e-chuck — I’ll see you in New York, sometime. Bye for now. :)
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Link // 12.15.2007 // 3:54 PM // 0 Comments
Eddie Vedder + John Legend? Yes, please.

Vedder and Legend will team up to work on music for a documentary miniseries adapted from Howard Zinn’s two People’s History of the United States books. “The People Speak” seems a likely candidate for HBO. Nice.
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Link // 12.15.2007 // 3:31 PM // 0 Comments
Google Zeitgeist 2007

Google’s always-entertaining year-end Zeitgeist has been released.
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Link // 12.15.2007 // 3:30 PM // 0 Comments
24 ways: 10 Ways To Get Design Approval

Paul Boag has some great tips on how to get you designs approved by your client or boss.
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Link // 12.15.2007 // 3:29 PM // 1 Comment
Noodlesoft: Hazel

Hazel is a neat-looking little Mac app that let you do e-mail rule-like filtering on your filesystem. Sounds cool.
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Link // 12.15.2007 // 3:20 PM // 1 Comment
volll

The site of this smaller studio from Europe is freakin’ great. It uses Inman-style scrolling for navigation coupled with a wonderful background illustration to great effect.
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Link // 12.15.2007 // 12:32 PM // 0 Comments
T-Mobile Shuts Down Twitter

According to Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, T-Mobile has shut down access to Twitter’s shortcode (40404) for at least some of its customers (it’s not entirely clear whether this only applies to those paying for unlimited messages, or all customers). This is an ballsy, asshole-ish move on T-Mobile’s part. I would call it shocking and unbelievable, but I’ve accepted that all U.S. mobile carriers are basically douchebags who damn give a damn about their customers. I don’t know if Twitter is a big enough deal for the backlash of this to really hurt T-Mobile, but I do know that if they keep up these kinds of practices, it will eventually bite them in the ass.
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Photo // 12.15.2007 // 11:57 AM // Seattle, WA // flickr

Paige and Sarah
Photo // 12.15.2007 // 11:56 AM // Seattle, WA // flickr

Ben and Tom sing along, Tiff throws horns
Photo // 12.15.2007 // 11:55 AM // Seattle, WA // flickr

Michelle and Keith