Instant Web Site Tools

Tackling the fun behind websites.

A Look Into Tomorrow’s Hard Disk

Data is best stored on hard disks. It is easier to access when data stored in a hard disk. Of course, they can also be stored online. While there is nothing wrong with storing data online, you would have to rely on the internet to access your files.

With a hard disk, there’s no need to rely on the internet to access your files. Since it’s very convenient to use, a hard disk with huge data storage capacity is always in demand. The thing is, a hard disk with huge data capacity might not be portable. If it’s not portable, then it won’t be that convenient to take everywhere.

Ideally, the size of a hard disk should remain small as its data storage capacity increases. At the moment, that kind of hard disk is a myth. Hopefully, tomorrow, it becomes a reality. Here’s a look at tomorrow’s hard disk.

A recent breakthrough discovery of the world’s first high-temperature single-molecule magnet (SMM) opens doors to future exciting developments in massive storage capacity increase in hard disks without increasing their physical size.

Before the publication of the study Magnetic Hysteresis up to 80 Kelvin in a Dysprosium Metallocene Single-Molecule Magnet led by Professor of Chemistry Richard Layfield at the University of Sussex in England, it was only possible to synthesize single-molecule magnets with blocking temperatures that were reached by cooling with considerable expensive and scarce liquid helium.

The team at the University of Sussex in collaboration with Sun-Yat Sen University in China and the University of Jyväskylä in Finland, reported a new single-molecule magnet (SMM) which is a type of material that retains magnetic information up to a characteristic blocking temperature.

(Via: https://interestingengineering.com/first-high-temperature-single-molecule-magnet-can-revolutionize-hard-disk-storage-capacity)

The characteristics of the SMMs are paving way to a very tiny device that could store huge data.

SMMs are molecules with the characteristic of remembering the direction of a magnetic field that has been applied to them over relatively long periods of time once the magnetic field is switched off. This makes possible to write information into

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Footnotes That Work in RSS Readers

Feedbin is the RSS reader I’m using at the moment. I was reading one of Harry’s blog posts on it the other day, and I noticed a nice little interactive touch right inside Feedbin. There was a button-looking element with the number one which, as it turned out, was a footnote. I hovered over it, and it revealed the note.

The HTML for the footnote on the blog post itself looks like this:

<p>...they’d managed to place 27.9MB of images onto the Critical Path. 
Almost 30MB of previously non-render blocking assets had just been 
turned into blocking ones on purpose with no escape hatch. Start 
render time was as high as 27.1s over a cable connection<sup id="fnref:1">
<a href="#fn:1" class="footnote">1</a></sup>.</p>

Just an anchor link that points to #fn:1, and the <sup> makes it look like a footnote link. This is how the styling would look by default:

The HTML for the list of footnotes at the bottom of the blog post looks like this:

<div class="footnotes">
  <ol>
    <li id="fn:1">
     <p>5Mb up, 1Mb down, 28ms RTT.&nbsp;<a href="#fnref:1" class="reversefootnote">&#x21a9;</a></p>
    </li>
  </ol>
</div>

As a little side note, I notice Harry is using scroll-behavior to smooth the scroll. He’s also got some nice :target styling in there.

All in all, we have:

  1. a link to go down and read the note
  2. a link to pop back up

Nothing special there. No fancy libraries or anything. Just semantic HTML. That should work in any RSS reader, assuming they don’t futz with the hash links and maintain the IDs on the elements as written.

It’s Feedbin that sees this markup pattern and decides to do the extra UI styling and fancy interaction. By inspecting what’s going on, it looks like they hide the originals and replace them with their own special stuff:

Ah ha! A Bigfoot spotting! It’s right in their source.

That means they fire off Bigfoot when articles are loaded and it does the trick. Like this:

See the Pen
Bigfoot Footnotes by Chris Coyier (@chriscoyier)
on CodePen.…

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About inputmode

The inputmode global attribute provides a hint to browsers for devices with onscreen keyboards to help them decide which keyboard to display when a user has selected any input or textarea element.

<input type="text" inputmode="" />
<textarea inputmode="" />

Unlike changing the type of the form, inputmode doesn’t change the way the browser interprets the input — it instructs the browser which keyboard to display.

The inputmode attribute has a long history but has only very recently been adopted by the two major mobile browsers: Safari for iOS and Chrome for Android. Before that, it was implemented in Firefox for Android way back in 2012, and then subsequently removed several months later (though it is still available via a flag).

Almost six years later, Chrome for Android implemented the feature — and with the recent release of iOS 12.2, Safari now supports it too.

This browser support data is from Caniuse, which has more detail. A number indicates that browser supports the feature at that version and up.

Desktop

Chrome Opera Firefox IE Edge Safari
66 53 20 No 75 No

Mobile / Tablet

iOS Safari Opera Mobile Opera Mini Android Android Chrome Android Firefox
12.2 No No 67 74 No

But before we go deep into the ins and outs of the attribute, consider that the WHATWG living standard provides inputmode documentation while the W3C 5.2 spec no longer lists it in its contents, which suggests they consider it obsolete. Given that WHATWG has documented it and browsers have worked toward supporting it, we’re going to go assume WHATWG specifications are the standard.

inputmode accepts a number of values. Let’s go through them, one by one.

None

<input type="text" inputmode="none" />

We’re starting here because it’s very possible we don’t want any type of keyboard on an input. Using inputmode=none will not show a keyboard at all on Chrome for Android. iOS 12.2 will still show its default alphanumeric keyboard, so specifying none could be sort of a reset for iOS in that regard. Regardless, none is …

Weekly news: PWA Issue on iOS, Performance Culture, Anti-Tracking in Browsers

Šime posts regular content for web developers on webplatform.news. Each week, he covers timely news at the intersection of development standards and the tools that make them available on the web.

Installed PWAs cannot easily be restarted on iOS

Maximiliano Firtman: On iOS, it is not possible to restart an installed PWA by closing it from the recently used apps screen and then immediately reopening it. Instead of restarting the app, iOS restores its state. This can be a problem for users if the PWA gets stuck in a broken state.

After some undefined time, the saved context seems to disappear. So if you get out of the PWA, do nothing with your phone and wait some hours to go back to the PWA, it restarts from scratch.

Instilling a performance culture at The Telegraph

Gareth Clubb: At The Telegraph (a major UK newspaper), we set up a web performance working group to tackle our “organizational” performance challenges and instill a performance culture. The group meets regularly to review third-party tags and work on improving our site’s performance.

We’ve started deferring all JavaScript (including our own) using the <script defer> attribute. This change alone nearly doubled our (un-throttled) Lighthouse performance score.

Deferring our JavaScript hasn’t skewed any existing analytics and it certainly hasn’t delayed

…

30+ Best Cool PowerPoint Templates

PowerPoint slideshows used to be the boring part of a meeting or presentation. But now, with the help of cool PowerPoint templates, everyone can make presentation slideshows look more interesting and attractive, even if you don’t have any experience in PowerPoint slideshow design.

For this collection, we gathered some modern and stylish PowerPoint presentation templates you can easily customize to make your slideshows look cooler. Download one of these cool PowerPoint templates, open it up, and start customizing right away!

Onfire – Creative PowerPoint Template

Onfire - Creative Powerpoint Template

This is a modern and creative PowerPoint template that certainly does justice to its name. It features a set of 30 unique slides that feature attractive designs filled with shapes that allows you to showcase information is a professional way. The template is available in 5 different color schemes as well.

Neaches – Minimal PowerPoint Template

Neaches - Minimal Powerpoint Template

Featuring a minimal and stylish slide design, this PowerPoint template comes with a total of 150 slides that are ideal for making presentations for creative brands and agencies. The template also includes lots of editable vector graphics, illustrations, and image placeholders for easier editing.

Clover – Modern PowerPoint Template

Clover - Modern Powerpoint Template

Clover is an attractive PowerPoint template that comes with a set of creative slides that are designed for promoting apps, services, and products. The template is easily customizable and comes with 3 different color schemes as well as in light and dark background themes.

Comersa – Multipurpose PowerPoint Template

Comersa - Multipurpose Powerpoint Template

This modern PowerPoint template is perfect for making a presentation to showcase your portfolio and fashion designs. The template includes 30 unique slides with multipurpose design and features image placeholders as well.

Lawyero – Law Firm PowerPoint Presentation

Lawyero - Law & Firm Powerpoint Presentation

If you’re working on a presentation for a law firm or a lawyer, this creative PowerPoint template will help you design an effective presentation that attracts attention. The template includes 40 unique slides with vector icons.

Karpetian – Colorful PowerPoint Template

Karpetian - Colorful Powerpoint Template

Karpetian PowerPoint template features a modern and colorful design that also features a professional content arrangement for making presentations for all types …

Why I Charge the Same for Building Websites Designed by Someone Else

As a web designer, the vast majority of my new projects are original creations. The process goes a little something like this: I create a mockup, make revisions until my client is happy, then move on to building the website (usually with WordPress).

But there are occasions where I receive a mockup from another designer, then build a custom WordPress theme to match. While this makes up a relatively small portion of my business, I generally end up building around a half-dozen sites like this each year.

From a distance, you may look at each of these scenarios and conclude that the latter would cost significantly less than the former. However, that’s not usually the case. In fact, I tend to charge around the same fee, regardless of who created the mockup.

A closer look at the challenges involved will explain why:

A Similar Investment of Time

Everyone has their own unique style and works in the way that suits them. That being said, taking someone else’s vision and making it a reality (err, virtual reality) isn’t easy. Just ask any developer who’s had to take a PSD or Sketch mockup and make a pixel-perfect recreation across browsers and devices.

This is especially challenging when the original designer isn’t a member of your organization. In these cases, there are no established procedures for, say, naming (or even ordering) PSD layers or spacing out design elements to fit within a specific layout system.

The fallout from this is that a great deal of time is spent trying make heads or tails of the document on my screen. If the designer has included notes, that can be a big help. But even then, there are still details to hunt down.

Granted, some designers are more organized than others. The more they implement things such as clear labeling or even a list of fonts, the easier the process of building the website.

Designing something on your own, however, is a smoother ride (at least, it should be). And it seems like any …

5 Common Design Mistakes That Disappoint Users

Designing an interactive interface or a website is not an easy feat. You have to analyze everything about your audience, in the first place their behavior, and then implement thorough planning. New technologies are making it easier but they are also making the users more tech savvy and hard to impress.

Glossy images and hover effects are no longer impressive to users. Neither are animations or gifs – especially when everyone can make their own in just a few steps with their phones. So, how do you go about creating a great experience for your users? How do you make them happy and keep the conversions coming?

This is only getting harder if you make mistakes in your design in order to impress your audience. So, without further ado, here are some of the mistakes designers commonly make in order to amaze visitors:

1. Innovating Too Much

Design, in itself, is a creative endeavor. Designers are artists in their own respect and they always seek to express themselves through their work. They are always innovating and making sure that their designs stand out in the sea of other designs.

But if we are talking about designing a perfect interactive experience for your users, innovation might not always be the best choice. It might not be good for the niche or even that specific website. Users need to feel comfortable when visiting a website. They need that familiarity in the ways that they work with a website — you know, the common navigation patterns. They are very used to this and going off track in order to be clever or unique can only harm you, especially if you go too far.

For instance, you may have a great project in mind, some gamification methods for example, however, if you stray too far into the unknown the user will stumble onto your website, see the thing and just walk away because they won’t know what to do with it. Especially so if they are seeking just some basic information.

2. Confusing Navigation

…

12+ Best Baby & Bridal Shower Invitation Templates

Throwing a bridal shower or a baby shower can be as stressful as planning the wedding itself. It can be even more frustrating when you have to design an invitation to invite everyone to the party as well.

To help take some weight off your shoulder, we handpicked a collection of beautiful baby shower and bridal shower invitation templates you can use to quickly create a stylish and creative flyer to invite everyone to the event in a fashionable way.

These templates are easily customizable. If you have Photoshop or Illustrator on your computer, you can simply download the template and open it in your favorite app to edit the text, change colors, and add images as you like. Then you can print it out all by yourself. Check out the invitation templates below and start downloading.

Elegant Bridal Shower Invitation Template

Elegant Bridal Shower Invitation Template

Being able to choose from multiple color options is one of the benefits of using this bridal shower invitation template. It includes 5 color variations of the template, allowing you to use a design that matches your party theme. It also has space for showcasing the venue as well as what kind of activities you have planned for the event. You can easily customize the template using Photoshop.

Geometric Bridal Shower Invitation Template

Geometric Bridal Shower Invitation Template

If you’re planning on throwing a decent bridal shower to a wide variety of guests, this elegant bridal shower template will help you design a stylish invitation to get everyone’s attention. It’s customizable with Photoshop and you can change its text, fonts, and colors however you like. The template is also available in 3 different designs as well.

Floral Bridal Shower Invitation

Floral Bridal Shower Invitation

Flowers are always a great choice for designing a welcoming invitation. This beautiful bridal shower template features a stylish floral design with a touch of watercolor art to make it stand out from the crowd. The invitation template comes as a fully organized PSD file and the colors can be customized to your preference as well.

Creative Bridal Shower Invitation

Creative Bridal Shower Invitation

This bridal shower …

Iterating a React Design with Styled Components

In a perfect world, our projects would have unlimited resources and time. Our teams would begin coding with well thought out and highly refined UX designs. There would be consensus among developers about the best way to approach styling. There’d be one or more CSS gurus on the team who could ensure that functionality and style could roll out simultaneously without it turning into a train-wreck.

I’ve actually seen this happen in large enterprise environments. It’s a beautiful thing. This article is not for those people.

On the flip side of the coin is the tiny startup that has zero funding, one or two front-end developers, and a very short timeline to demonstrate some functionality. It doesn’t have to look perfect, but it should at least render reasonably well on desktop, tablet, and mobile. This gets them to a point where it can be shown to advisors and early users; maybe even potential investors who’ve expressed an interest in the concept. Once they get some cashflow from sales and/or investment, they can get a dedicated UX designer and polish the interface.

What follows is for this latter group.

Project Kickoff Meeting

Let’s invent a company to get the ball rolling.

Solar Excursions is a small travel agency aiming to serve the near-future’s burgeoning space tourism industry.

Our tiny development team has agreed that React will be used for the UI. One of our front-end developers is big on Sass, and the other is enamored with CSS in JavaScript. But they’ll be hard pressed to knock out their initial sprint goals; there’s certainly no time for arguing about the best possible styling approach. Both coders agree the choice doesn’t matter much in the long run, as long as its consistently executed. They’re certain that implementing the styling from scratch under the gun now will incur technical debt that will have to be cleaned up later.

After some discussion, the team opts to plan for one or more “styling refactor” sprints. For now, we’ll just focus on getting something …

Evergreen Googlebot

I’ve heard people say that the #1 most exciting and important thing that came out of Google I/O this year was the evergreen Googlebot:

Today, we are happy to announce that Googlebot now runs the latest Chromium rendering engine (74 at the time of this post) when rendering pages for Search. Moving forward, Googlebot will regularly update its rendering engine to ensure support for latest web platform features.

Before this, I guess I never even thought about it.

I guess part of it is that some people did already know that the old version didn’t support some newfangled JavaScript stuff, and thus literally packaged their app with old JavaScript to be more SEO-friendly.

A bunch of people were apparently shipping older code simply for the sake of Googlebot, and now they don’t have to. Sure, I’ll call that a win.

Don’t read this news as “don’t worry about your JavaScript-rendered pages and SEO” though, because Google Webmasters is still telling us that pages with content that requires JavaScript to render are put into a special slower queue for both initial crawling and for updates. Not necessarily a penalty, but certainly a delay. I’m sure that’s enough to make server-side rendering a priority for sites where SEO is the whole ballgame.

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