• My exercise regimen went out the window…
• I found that am more productive and work more hours from home than when I go to the office.
• I have lost interest in shopping or going out altogether.
• Am not as good a cook as I thought I was.
• I have re-learned playing the guitar and found that I enjoy it even more now than before.
• I’ve grown to love joggers. (whereas I’ve disliked them before the pandemic)
• I’ve learned how to entertain myself at home and would be able to live entirely inside for weeks/months at a time as long as food supplies are adequate.
• I love social distancing.

So we have had this very lazy, laid-back Terrier-Chihuahua for more than 2 years now and sometimes I swear he understands everything I’m saying. But even if he doesn’t, I know for sure that his vocabulary has improved a lot since we first got him.

From Animojis to FaceID to its enormous sticker price, I hate everything about Apple’s new flagship phone, the iPhone X … why did I purchase it? Well, in my defense, it was for my wife as she is a dedicated iPhone user. I hated how there is no headphone jack and while it does support wireless charging, why wasn’t the wireless charging pad included at this price?! It is also rated as waterproof up to 3 m but water damage isn’t included in its warranty which is odd. One other thing that bugs me is that the calculator bug still hasn’t been fixed (try inputting 1+2+3 quickly on the calculator, it will be 23 – Apple math no doubt!). I hate iTunes as well, there are so many bugs on that piece of software that I want to light it on fire.

So here’s why I bought it – my wife was using an iPhone 6 and she’s been complaining about it for a while now. She initially wanted an iPhone 8 Plus and I feel like adding another $200 to get the iPhone X was more worth it hoping that this will last her at least 3 years of use. Her iPhone has been serving as our family’s official camera so this alone was probably worth the upgrade, for all its faults, I can’t complain about the camera – the photos, especially in portrait mode looks awesome.

So there it is, in a nutshell why I bought the iPhone X. But don’t you dare do the same … go spend your money on a Pixel 2, an Essential Phone or the HTC U11.

We’ve all had to style forms now and then. I know most of you will agree that this is a very unpleasant task – it can add numerous hours of extra work for you and it may leave you frustrated, confused or just plain angry. But now there is a solution for all of us . . . using jquery, Nathan Smith has tamed forms so you no longer have to dread the day you are handed your next forms project.

Head on over to formalize.me and download the formalize jquery plugin and css file.

How do we achieve gradients through CSS? well, right now – the syntax is different for each browser . . . so why go through the hassle, if we can just specify a background image . . . right? Well, if the gradient isn’t all that essential and you can accept a solid background color as a fallback (for older browsers) – then you can save an http request and faster page load minus the extra background image.

So how is it done?


div {
background-color: #1a82f7; /* fallback color */
background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(100% 100% 90deg, #2F2727, #1a82f7); /* for mozilla browsers */
background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, 0% 0%, 0% 100%, from(#1a82f7), to(#2F2727)); /* for webkit browsers */
background-image:filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(GradientType=0, startColorstr=#1471da, endColorstr=#1C85FB);
-ms-filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient (GradientType=0, startColorstr=#1471da, endColorstr=#1C85FB)";
/* for IE */
}


Mozilla

Here’s the official documentation.
-moz-linear-gradient( [<point> || <angle>,]? <stop>, <stop> [, <stop>]* )
or
-moz-linear-gradient (-45deg,red,blue);
For radial gradients, it’s -moz-radial-gradient

WebKit (Safari,Chrome)

Documentation

-webkit-gradient(<type>, <point> [, <radius>]?, <point> [, <radius>]? [, <stop>]*)
or

background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, from(#00abeb), to(#fff), color-stop(0.5, #fff), color-stop(0.5, #66cc00));

IE

Documentation

filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(GradientType=0, startColorstr=#1471da, endColorstr=#1C85FB);
-ms-filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient (GradientType=0, startColorstr=#1471da, endColorstr=#1C85FB)";


The Smashing Book

Got my Smashing Book in the mail today, am surprised it’s heavy, considering it’s such a small book (paperback) – all the pages are in full color. I ordered this one probably 2 weeks ago and am actually looking forward to reading it. It was probably a year or so ago when I stumbled upon the Smashing Magazine website and it is one that I frequently visit for inspiration and design resources.

I will post my feedback on this book once I’m done reading it. In the meantime, if you are interested, you may sample the 1st chapter here – http://media.smashingmagazine.com/cdn_smash/pdfs/sm-book-chapter1.pdf.

During the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver – the press and media will be based in either one of two buildings – Canada Place will be home to over 2500 journalists and is called the MPC (Main Press Centre) and right beside it, the IBC (International Broadcast Centre) where over 7000 video/radio broadcasters will be based. A good chunk of the IBC is taken up by NBC and CTV.

MPC

IBC

Here are some pictures of what it will look like inside the venue.

Entrance to MPC

Press Workroom

MPC Hallway

Olympic rings

Another comic by the oatmeal. Am beginning to really like this guy’s work . . . Thanks Alex for the initial link.

One of the websites I made for a company I previously worked for was mentioned on the evening news at CNBC.