“Geeks are a very large and influential market. As one big example, if not for geeks, Firefox would never have started to catch on in 2004 and broken Internet Explorer’s reign. We installed Firefox on every non-geek’s computer we could … Keep reading
Author Archives: Scott Vandehey
About Scott Vandehey
LOL Rating System
ha A singular ha is the smallest amount of jocularity that retains the properties of laughter. It is the atomic level of laughing. Used infrequently to indicating grudging laughter, such as from an unfunny joke delivered by one’s employer, or … Keep reading
Design is a Job
I’ve just finished reading the latest short book from the A Book Apart series. It’s called Design is a Job, by Mike Monteiro. Mike is the owner of Mule Design, though if you’ve heard of him, it’s probably from his … Keep reading
Quotes from Zoe, Age 3
I just stumbled across a cache of notes for a blog post I never wrote. It was crammed full of funny things my then-three-year-old daughter was saying. Here they are for posterity’s sake. “Mama, don’t whine.” “What are we gonna … Keep reading
2012 Presidential Candidate Web Design Review
A couple weeks ago, I gathered my coworkers in the big conference room for a design critique. Instead of reviewing one of our own projects, however, I put up the websites for each of the current candidates for president. The … Keep reading
Customer Service Showdown: Zappos vs Federal Direct Loans Servicing Center
Recently, I had to spend some time in the customer support channels for two very different organizations: Zappos.com and the Federal Student Loan Servicing Center. The difference between these two, while sadly unsurprising, was still dramatic. TL;DR: The federal government … Keep reading
Will the Real Captain Marvel Please Stand Up?
“The character was originally created in 1940 for the long-defunct publisher Fawcett Comics, who ceased publication of their Captain Marvel in the early 50s under legal pressure from DC Comics, who claimed the character infringed on Superman. In 1967, while … Keep reading
How to Get Better
“I’ve said it time and time again. You can’t get worse at something you do every day.” – Brad Guigar
Comic Recommendations
A friend of mine got a gift certificate to a comic shop recently, and asked me for some graphic novel recommendations. He’s not a huge comics fan, so I pulled together a list for him focussing on some of the … Keep reading
Jim loved your card so much he ate it
“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card … Keep reading
Asimov on Anti-Intellectualism
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’” – Isaac Asimov
Surrounded by Assholes
“Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self esteem, first make sure you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.” – Steven Winterburn (frequently misattributed to William Gibson)
Blinded by the Light
Today, everyone was linking to the new Qwikster landing page. Most people who saw it probably thought about the business implications of Netflix spinning off the DVD rental part of their company, or wondered if they would have to recreate … Keep reading
The False Economics of Twitter Auto-Follow
In the last year, I tried to drive up my follower count on Twitter. I used a program that auto-followed people who mentioned keywords I was interested in. While this did dramatically increase my followers, the gains were misleading — … Keep reading
It doesn’t matter how secure your WordPress installation is if you have insecure hosting
I recently struggled with a nasty case of Pharma spam on my blog. I’ll post soon with a more detailed run-down of what happened and how I dealt with it. In a nutshell, however, it appears that the hackers got … Keep reading
Wally Wood’s Design Motto
“Never draw anything you can copy, never copy anything you can trace, never trace anything you can cut out and paste up.” – Wally Wood, Editor, Marvel Comics
Neil Gaiman Tells You All You Need To Know About Doctor Who
“No, look, there’s a blue box. It’s bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. It can go anywhere in time and space and sometimes even where it’s meant to go. And when it turns up, there’s a … Keep reading
Six Truths and a Lie
In honor of April Fool’s day, here is a list of facts about me that I recently sent to my new coworkers. One of the following statements is a lie: I graduated with a BS in graphic design from PSU … Keep reading
How we made the Metal Toad site more mobile-friendly with media queries
There’s been a lot of buzz lately about Responsive Web Design, and in particular about CSS3 Media Queries. When our CEO recently asked me to make our site easier to view on his mobile phone, I jumped at the chance … Keep reading
On Code Maintenance
“Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live.” – Brad Bowman
Roger Black’s Advice for Young Designers
“On the skillset side, what you’ve got to do as a young person entering the field, is really equip yourself with some basic development skills. You have to be able to understand HTML and CSS. You have to know what … Keep reading
Creative People Romanticize Mistakes
“Creative people romanticize mistakes and process. But there is no process if you don’t start. No one crumples a blank sheet of paper.” – Frank Chimero, How to Have an Idea
How to use @font-face to avoid faux-italic and bold browser styles
Did you know that if you declare a custom font using @font-face, the browser will try to fake the bold and italic styles if it can’t find them? This is a clever little feature that avoids a scenario where a … Keep reading
How to Add Theme Settings for Drupal 7
You know that list of checkboxes on the theme settings page that let you turn on and off parts of the theme like the logo or slogan? Well, you can add your own options to that list really easily in … Keep reading
New York Times Claims HTML5 is a “Pandora’s Box” of Privacy Risks
Alarmist rhetoric from news organizations about the web is nothing new, but today’s front-page headline on the New York Times still caught my eye: “Web Code Offers New Ways to See What Users do Online.” It’s about HTML5 privacy risks, … Keep reading