Jay Robinson

Listening to the new Beach House album on Spotify while doing...

Tue, 15 May 2012 13:18:00 -0700

Listening to the new Beach House album on Spotify while doing some UX @Sencha. (Thanks, Nick!)

"Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again,..."

Thu, 10 May 2012 18:23:27 -0700

“Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self Reliance

Coffee and Camera animated gif. (Maxed out).

Wed, 09 May 2012 11:36:45 -0700

Coffee and Camera animated gif. (Maxed out).

Challenged myself to recreate these shiny, Jolly Rancher-like...

Mon, 07 May 2012 18:48:00 -0700

Challenged myself to recreate these shiny, Jolly Rancher-like buttons by The Skins Factory in a half-hour over the weekend. Not 100% similar, but a healthy Photoshop exercise nonetheless.

Check it out on Dribbble.

moearora: Please, Tumblr-gods, let “Desk Jockey Jay” become an...

Sat, 05 May 2012 09:36:41 -0700

moearora:

Please, Tumblr-gods, let “Desk Jockey Jay” become an actual meme!

Instant reblog.

My dad is killing it on Etsy: My daughter wanted two of...

Sat, 05 May 2012 03:11:11 -0700

My dad is killing it on Etsy:

My daughter wanted two of these for her June 30 wedding, and I keep selling them!

Bet your mom likes it.

The Sleep Science: Noosphere Series by Tatiana Plakhova.

Sat, 05 May 2012 02:51:00 -0700

The Sleep Science: Noosphere Series by Tatiana Plakhova.

"Well I gotta keep it going, keep it going full steam / Too sweet to be sour, too nice to be mean..."

Fri, 04 May 2012 13:05:20 -0700

“Well I gotta keep it going, keep it going full steam / Too sweet to be sour, too nice to be mean / Well on the tough guy style, I’m not too keen / Trying to change the world, I’ma plot and scheme.”

- My favorite MCA verse, from Beastie Boy’s “Intergalactic”.

Stereo Speaker on Dribbble.

Fri, 04 May 2012 12:36:15 -0700

Stereo Speaker on Dribbble.

Download my Safari Extension: MaxVid Full-Window Flash Videos...

Fri, 04 May 2012 08:54:51 -0700

Download my Safari Extension: MaxVid

Full-Window Flash Videos for YouTube & Vimeo

I made my first Safari browser extension to maximize YouTube and Vimeo Flash videos to the size of the window. Now you have a window you can position anywhere on the screen to watch videos while you do other things. After using it for a week, I don’t know how I ever lived without it.

To get started simply click the toolbar button and the Flash player will take up 100% of the height and width of the browser window. To interact with the website again, simply click the toolbar icon again to toggle the extension.

Prerequisites for this extension:

You must have Adobe Flash. (I did not have Flash installed until I made this extension!)
Visit this page and click “Leave the HTML5 Trial” if you are in the YouTube HTML5 trial.
Visit a Vimeo video page and select “Switch to Flash video”.

The inspiration for this extension came in the form of a tweet by David Cole. Immediately I realized this was very simple with CSS, and wanted a quick project to challenge myself.

In hindsight, this would’ve been much easier to code as a strict JavaScript bookmarklet, and I may tackle that eventually. Either way, it was interesting to play around with the Safari Extension Builder. And many thanks to Robert Dougan for helping me with debugging.

I’ve submitted it to the Apple Safari Extensions Gallery, but there is no way to know if or when they approve it. Download the Safari Extension and it will be included with all other extension updates as normal.

Hope you enjoy it!

Pro-Tip: Hold down Option+Shift when resizing the window to maintain aspect ratio perfection!

I Dribbble’d again. I want a set of speakers like these, so I...

Fri, 04 May 2012 03:33:28 -0700

I Dribbble’d again. I want a set of speakers like these, so I made them.

Download the PSD on Dribbble.

"We see culture and selfhood as shaped by market forces, technology constraints, business decisions,..."

Thu, 03 May 2012 22:25:21 -0700

“

We see culture and selfhood as shaped by market forces, technology constraints, business decisions, and arbitrary software designs. No form of meaning stands apart from the technopoly and remains relevant; there is no evidence of meaning beyond those actions which can be turned into apps or pages and made to generate profit.

In the democratic capitalist technopoly, therefore, meaning is defined by forces that take no note of meaning-in-itself, reject as irrelevant everything that cannot be made into discrete, monetizable, digital units. Technology requires user actions; leisure-as-repose cannot be initiated by a click, shared, or sold. Neither, for that matter, can love, wisdom, or joy.

”

- Mills Baker on Forgotten Leisure. This quote is much the flip-side of this Craig Mod quote I posted today, which I also believe is true and good, in its own way.

As online life takes over for real life, Google, Facebook, and other companies are fighting to turn every aspect of your existing physical life into an exploitable online interaction. I struggle with this. Mills provides a counter-balance while I read Grouped by Paul Adams.

"We blink into a sunset, search for our phone’s camera, and imagine how the photo will play on the..."

Thu, 03 May 2012 22:08:02 -0700

“We blink into a sunset, search for our phone’s camera, and imagine how the photo will play on the screens where our avatar lives, screens belonging to other selves whom we know only as representations.”

- Mills Baker, on leisure as “non-activity”

esbueno: Kyle Steed created this beautiful lettering from one...

Thu, 03 May 2012 19:35:29 -0700

esbueno:

Kyle Steed created this beautiful lettering from one of my list of Thirty Five.

Should probably get this tattooed to my forehead.

How to stop iTunes from opening every time your iPhone is connected

Thu, 03 May 2012 19:25:18 -0700

How to stop iTunes from opening every time your iPhone is connected:

This was driving me crazy. I had the “Prevent devices from syncing automatically” checked in the preferences, yet every single time I docked or _un_docked my iPhone, iTunes would jump to the front of my screen.

The answer is rather unintuitive:

Go to iTunes > Preferences > Devices > and uncheck “Prevent iPods, iPhones, and iPads from syncing automatic”.
Now you can uncheck “Open iTunes when this [device] is connected” in the device screen.

Problem solved. Sanity restored.

Font or Typeface?

Thu, 03 May 2012 19:16:33 -0700

Font or Typeface?:

I wasn’t completely clear on their usage, so I googled it, and this was the best result:

the physical embodiment of a collection of letters, numbers, symbols, etc. (whether it’s a case of metal pieces or a computer file) is a font. When referring to the design of the collection (the way it looks) you call it a typeface.

…

When you talk about how much you like a tune, you don’t say: “That’s a great MP3”. You say: “That’s a great song”. The MP3 is the delivery mechanism, not the creative work; just as in type a font is the delivery mechanism and a typeface is the creative work.

TL;DR:

font is what you use, and typeface is what you see.

This is probably one of those things that drives graphic designers crazy. But, outside of design studios, the language has become much more relaxed. This is just another one of those cases where the meaning of the word changes to account for relaxed usage.

This sketch by Louis CK is really smart; the way that the...

Thu, 03 May 2012 19:15:12 -0700

This sketch by Louis CK is really smart; the way that the most-popular/highest-trending-comedian of the moment is always said to be smart, insightful, and cutting edge.

What this sketch does is comment on a first-world cultural occurrence —I’d imagine much more common in the US— where people are talking with the least amount of vocal inflection possible, also known as “vocal fry”.

This study, conducted in New York among women aged 18-25 years old, notes that vocal fry is an increasingly common speaking pattern:

Vocal fry, or glottalization, is a low, staccato vibration during speech, produced by a slow fluttering of the vocal cords. … Historically, continual use of vocal fry was classified as part of a voice disorder that was believed to lead to vocal cord damage. However, in recent years, researchers have noted occasional use of the creak in speakers with normal voice quality.

It sounds like this: Listen to MP3

Louie’s video sketch came before this study was released, so it is obviously in the zeitgeist to note this speaking pattern. Louis CK is simply doing his job bringing us smart comedy.

Simurai: “We’re in an icon-sharpness limbo”

Thu, 03 May 2012 19:11:07 -0700

Simurai: “We’re in an icon-sharpness limbo”:

Simurai explains why there is not one “silver bullet” image format when it comes to serving images for normal resolution and high-density displays:

With the rise of Retina displays people are looking for resolution independent alternatives to PNG icons. Some fell in love with font-icons, some are shouting “SVG”. But I’m sorry, if you’re looking for a silver bullet, I’m afraid it doesn’t exist. Let’s take a closer look at our options…

Always Specify Image Dimensions to Avoid CSS Reflow/Repaints

Thu, 03 May 2012 15:34:22 -0700

I took an hour the other day and dove into helpful documentation to avoid CSS Reflows and Repaint, but I came up pretty short; in modern browsers, most of these things don’t add to perceived page load in any significant way.

Except one thing that always irks me:

Always specify a width and height for all images. This allows the browser to render the page even before images are downloaded. Otherwise the browser will require a reflow and repaint once the images are downloaded, re-orienting content and disorienting the user.

"If a text isn’t online and publicly pointable, then it doesn’t exist."

Thu, 03 May 2012 13:21:00 -0700

“If a text isn’t online and publicly pointable, then it doesn’t exist.”

- Craig Mod, “A Pointable We”

This is my ideal understanding of the web, and I loved reading Craig’s thoughts on it. And I believe content providers are starting to understand this, too. Over the next year we’ll start to see the smart guys create experiences that blur the line between open web access and native packaged apps.