THE JOSH CRAIN
My name is Josh Crain, a designer, front-end developer and illustrator who lives in Des Moines, Iowa. I am intensely focused on web standards, user advocacy and the creative process. This blog is a collection of design, illustration and photography I either create or find to be an inspiration.
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One Policy
Google has updated their privacy page to reflect changes to their upcoming privacy policy—effective March 1, 2012.
We’re getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies across Google and replacing them with one that’s a lot shorter and easier to read.
Shorter? Is that because there’s less privacy?
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Comma added to <input type="number">
In certain versions of Webkit a comma is automatically added to input fields with the HTML5 attribute type="number". In most situations a thousands separator is a nice visual device, but it’s not really applicable to numbers like ZIP codes. In the meantime, there is a workaround until the webkit team addresses the bigger issue.
Personally, this one might be worth waiting out. I’m not sure which option I like least, unintended formatting or using the type="text" attribute for a number field.
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Fire Extinguisher
I guess I should have actually looked at a fire hydrant first. It’s not perfect, but it was fun.
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Prairie View Windmill
This windmill sits atop a tower once used for cellular service.
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Marriage Amnesia
The Polk County, Iowa Recorder offers this marriage FAQ:
I cannot remember my date of marriage. Can you give this to me … ?
If you applied for the license in Polk County, we may have your record. We can search our records if you come into the office. We will need an approximate date of marriage.
Is this really a common question?
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The director John Seely Brown was bringing in linguists, anthropologists, psychologists and even philosophers and artists, the idea being that no technology as intensely social as this one should be entrusted to engineers to figure out.
COMMENTARY
Big Deal
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be Internet famous? In his book, Big Deal: On Being Famous to Almost No One, Robert Hoekman Jr. writes about his experience with micro-fame in the web industry. If you work as a web designer or developer, you know what it means to have work garner praise from your peers. We often look to others in the industry for approval, consumed with “likes,” page views and other measurements of micro-success.
The book begins with Hoekman’s life as a drummer and a fledgling web designer; and follows his dizzying ascent to respected designer, author and speaker. The book, written in only 30 days, reads with the same speed and intensity as his own rise to industry fame. It is an interesting and often dark look at the web industry through the eyes of someone who made it to the top, and then questioned why he was there.
I was fortunate enough to receive an advance copy of the book, which admittedly, I don’t remember signing up for; but immediately found myself unable to put it down. Big Deal looks back with a perspective we all wish we had—an honest look at the mistakes of the past. It was a book Hoekman needed to write, and for this reader, a book I needed to read.
Related Links
The Big Deal website and What People (including myself) Are Saying
My review of Big Deal on Amazon.com
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Responsive Web Design
Dallas Tweets uses Responsive Web Design for a flexible layout and uses jQuery to automatically pair illustrations with tweets.
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