I wanted to standardize the Josie site design so I can more seamlessly embed the blog as a development journal for larger projects. So here it is.

It’s become fashionable to write a ‘Book Stack’ post so I thought I would partake. Here are the books I am currently reading:

• Essential PHP Security by Chris Shiflett
• The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
• MySQL Cookbook by Paul Dubois

This post was inspired by Oaktree Creative. NOTE: I know, I didn’t take a picture of the stack, but that’s OK.

This week: pouring my heart into runnersmedium.com, an online running journal.  Users will be able to log runs into an intuitive interface, review their history/mileage share training profiles, routes and results.  Even growing a mustache and adopting the Steve Prefontaine look.

I thought I would write a short piece on my new navigation menu, seen above, as I have changed it after a short stint from a more intricate and perhaps marginally less-obscure menu. This is an opportunity to write a word on usability and simplicity in the design world and the role these concepts play in my mind when I write CSS.

The previous menu was a fancier image map with a tag-cloud-like feel written in Franklin Caslon alternating between CAPs and lowercase. Attractive, sure, but something about the presentation made me nervous, and it wasn’t just the text-indent: -99999999px; property - itself a point of contention in some circles. No, my qualms were accessibility and extensibility (not just a CS term anymore) and how the menu played with the Feng Shui of the current layout.

Given the technical and minimalist approach to my site, I decided the new menu had to be purely textual and should not break if I ever wish to add new pages. Nevertheless, I did not want to compromise style for efficiency. After some tinkering I decided on the simple horizontal list you see above. Subtle, yet accessible, punctuated by a dash of obscurity - “ou” translates to “or” in Portuguese. Enjoy.

In a recent interview I was asked to write a Perl solution to Fizz Buzz using my choice of marker color on a white board.

#!/usr/bin/perl

foreach (1..100)
{
    print $_ unless $_ % 5 == 0 || $_ % 3 == 0;
    print "Fizz" if $_ % 3 == 0;
    print "Buzz" if $_ % 5 == 0;
    print "\n";
}

Suffice to say my impromptu script was not quite as articulate. Also, I chose green.