Drawing with CSS
From time to time I run across somebody that has pushed CSS to the point where they can draw pictures with only markup. There are a few interesting older CSS behaviors that make this possible, and of course some new tricks such as gradients as well. In being inspired by some of these examples, I couldn’t help but try my hand at the technique on an image I see nearly every day – the Adobe logo. Since the Adobe logo does not have any gradients, and is fairly blocky to begin with, it made for an easy subject for a first attempt. I was able to manipulate the border width and thickness, as well as width and height, to draw the triangles that make up the logo. It may, however, surprise you to find that I have also drawn the letters of the logo with only...
Animating Web Socket Data
Over the years I have learned many things about why companies build applications. There is the standard e-commerce site for example, which allows a company to sell its goods to a broad audience they may have never originally been able to reach. Behind the firewall of an e-commerce site then is typically a dashboard application, which allows managers and marketers to watch purchasing trends and learn how to execute better in the future. Historically, however, this has been a job of refreshing the data occasionally to see the latest. This lag can introduce missed opportunities for the business – especially when the data being monitored relates to a single event (e.g. special sales). With Web Sockets, this data can now become real-time information, and...
Child’s Play
Back at the beginning of November, I had the opportunity to present on “Exploring Canvas” at HTML5 Live in New York, NY. During the presentation I covered a variety of canvas topics ranging from the basics, such as how to get started, to more open-ended experimentation such as red/blue 3D rendering. It was a fun topic, with a fun audience, but the slides were especially fun to build since I had my seven year old daughter help me design them. I have since gotten a lot of questions about how I built the slides, so I thought I would spend a post talking about the process. I should note up front that I have often included my daughter in my presentations – especially around multi-screen and physical computing. The original idea popped into my head when...
About Me
I am a father, husband, photography enthusiast and pilot most of the time. I work for Adobe managing the world's best evangelism team the rest of the time. I also enjoy hacking hardware, cigars, travel, and movies.