Books Archives
14 entries
Discount Days
Posted at 2:34 PM
Sure, the price of oil may be at a record high, but the fine, friendly folks of the internet are here to brighten your day. Here are two ways the faithful readers of SimpleBits can save some dough:
Save $50 on the ticket price to An Event Apart San Francisco in August! Just enter the coupon code AEACEDE when you register (that’s in addition to the early bird discount).
If you’ve never been to an An Event Apart, make this your first. I’ll be giving a talk along with 11 other web luminaries. It will be the best of times.
I mentioned Luke Wroblewski’s Web Form Design book previously. Now you can save 10% on the cover price by using the coupon code CEDERHOLM when ordering from Rosenfeld Media. This code should work for their other excellent books as well.
80 Percenter
Posted at 10:11 AM
Last week, I gave my More “Wow”, Please talk at Web Design World Boston. During the talk I mentioned a fantastic book: Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard. Yvon founded the expensive-but-awesome clothing company, Patagonia. I’ve long been a fan of Patagonia’s stuff, and their dedication as a company to environmental causes (they co-founded One Percent For The Planet, of which SimpleBits is a member) , and so when Josh Porter recommended the book a while back, I ordered immediately.
The book covers the history of the company, Yvon’s philosophy on design, and being a reluctant business owner. It’s a great read, with a lot of insightful head-nodding.
One part stood out in particular, when Chouinard talks about how he sees himself as an “80 percenter”:
I’ve always thought of myself as an 80 percenter. I like to throw myself passionately into a sport or activity until I reach 80 percent proficiency level. To go beyond that requires an obsession and degree of specialization that doesn’t appeal to me.
I didn’t know it before reading that quote, but I think I’m an 80 percenter as well. For people that love to create things, whether it be a website or a t-shirt or even a beer coaster (ahem) — the web seems to tie all these things together quite nicely. And it’s reaching 80% proficiency (but not 100%) that I think makes it possible to handle all of that at one time.
Ever try talking to (or working with) someone who is 100% obsessed with a single task? The danger is that they’ll get bogged down in details. Every detail. Whereas an 80 percenter might eventually learn to know which details to focus on. And determining which details are important can be just as useful as knowing them all.
At least that’s my interpretation. Regardless, I recommend the book highly.
Bulletproof Web Design, Second Edition
Posted at 10:04 AM
On bookstore shelves today (I hope) is something I’ve been toiling over for the past few months. Bulletproof Web Design, Second Edition is a refresh of the book I wrote for New Riders in 2005. I’ve been humbled by the response of the first edition, and have enjoyed talking about the principles described in the book at conferences and workshops over the last few years. So it was only fitting to give this little blue book a tune-up under the hood.
This isn’t a giant update nor a new book entirely. Rather, it brings the examples in line with Internet Explorer 7 (which wasn’t released when the first ed. was published) and adds several more examples based on ems (which were sorely lacking from the original book). There are of course errata fixes and nips and tucks throughout as well, and about 30 additional pages were added in total. All in all, I’m happy to have the book be all the more solid and relevant.
On the surface, writing a second edition of a book seems like an easy little project. One that won’t be too much work, won’t take long, and can easily fit in between other activities. But it’s not like that. It’s like writing another book all over again (even though it’s not another book and a large portion of the text is the same).
I find the actual writing of a book the easiest of all stages. It’s the editing, the back-and-forth, the endless checking and double-checking of Word docs (Word!) and then PDF files. Reading comments, checking comments, adding your own comments. “Should this be bold or code font?”. All of this is necessary of course. But my goodness it’s just as time consuming as the first go-around.
But like anything that takes time and effort in life, you quickly forget the pain and maybe even someday agree to do it all over again.
While today is the official publication date, Amazon is still taking pre-orders only. I’ve yet to see an actual copy myself, so there could very well be a slight delay.
Some Speaking Events
Posted at 11:06 AM
The speaking drought is ending this summer and I’ll be taking Bulletproof Web Design on the road to two conferences. Don’t worry though, I won’t be regurgitating the book, but rather using the concepts as a platform to talk about some recent (and future) projects along with the methods and thinking that’s gone into them.
@media 2006 · London · June 15-16
Kerry and I visited (Old) England back in 1998. Loved it of course (especially Oxford). Looking forward to going back, although we originally thought this might be a first big family trip, it’ll be hard to be travelling solo. If you’re attending the conference and see a misty-eyed, intentionally (for now) bald guy glued to his iPhoto-enabled iPod — now you’ll know why.
@media looks like it’ll be a fantastic conference though, with quite an amazing line-up of speakers. Really looking forward to it.
Webvisions 2006 · Portland, Oregon · July 20-21
I’ve never been to Oregon, but have always assumed I’d really dig it. Webvisions has quite a line-up as well, spread out over two days of workshops, panels and keynotes. Should be fun times.
Digital Web Interview (and Life News)
Posted at 10:12 PM
Not too long ago, Ethan Marcotte was kind enough to ask me some questions. I answered these questions, and the resulting interview is now published over at Digital Web. In it, I attempt to shed (more) light on the new book and, saving the best answer for last, also break the news of an upcoming, gigantic, exciting life event. This winter will be unlike any other for both Kerry and I!
Contest Winners
Posted at 10:44 AM
First things first, a big thanks to everyone who entered the contest. A whopping 713 entries far exceeded my expectations — and it’s excellent that so many weighed in with genuinely thoughtful comments regarding Huey Lewis’ modern day equivalent.
The Great Book Giveaway Contest #2
Posted at 10:21 AM
It appears that Bulletproof Web Design is now available, and I’ve received a few reports that copies are starting to be spotted in stores and received via various online booksellers. To celebrate, I’m launching a little contest where you can win two books, a t-shirt, and some icons.
New Book: Bulletproof Web Design
Posted at 10:11 AM
I’m happy to finally announce my new book, Bulletproof Web Design, to be published by New Riders this summer. It’s now completely written and heading to the printers this weekend. If all goes well, it should hit bookshelves in early August.
WSS Update
Posted at 5:22 PM
Since the release of Web Standards Solutions, positive feedback has been received—some in the form of online reviews that I’ve been collecting.
Related to the book, just today friends of ED has published an interview where I not only talk about the book—but more important topics like the relationship between typefaces and seminal bands, robots, monkeys and more.
<tooting type="one's horn">And to top it off, I’ve just learned last week that a second printing of Web Standards Solutions is already in the works.</tooting>
I feel fortunate, humbled, and unexpectedly amazed by the success of the book thus far, as well as thankful for the kind words from those that have read and enjoyed it.
And the Winners Are...
Posted at 5:17 PM
Whoa. When I intitially planned the book giveaway, I envisioned myself writing each comment number on a sheet of paper, ripping them into little squares and drawing three winners out of a hat (a baseball cap of course, likely embroidered with a “B”). What I didn’t anticipate was the 485 comments that were entered in a mere 48 hours.
Writing 485 numbers was out of the question. Ryan suggested I write or use a script to randomly generate the three winning numbers. A great idea. I even took an easier route — employing the use of a random integer generator that completed the task through a simple web form.
And so it went. I entered the range (1-485) and number of random numbers desired (3) and clicked the “Get Numbers” button.
The Winning Numbers
Congratulations to:
Kindly send me your mailing addresses so that friends of ED can send you the goods.
A Bundle of Links
First of all, a big thank you to all those that entered. I wish I could give you each a free book. The flip-side to this is that we’ve amassed a gigantic list (naturally there are several repeats) of quality articles on the topic of web standards.
I’d love to convert the comments to a nice n’ tidy list at some point (volunteers? :-) — as I think it’ll be a wonderful bookmark filled with some indespensable info.
Thanks again for participating. And I of course must mention that if you didn’t win, the book can still end up in your hands by way of more traditional methods.
The Great Book Giveaway Contest
Posted at 1:42 PM
To celebrate the launch, and now availability, of Web Standards Solutions, I’m running a little book giveaway contest.
How to Enter
Add a comment (1 per person, anonymous comments will not be counted) to this entry with a link to your favorite article or weblog entry regarding web standards. The topic is wide open — markup practices, CSS tips and tricks, general web standards thoughts, etc. The idea here is twofold. Hopefully we’ll have a nice collection of links for people to browse, while at the same time we’ll have a pool of entries in order to pick a winner.
How to Win
To keep things fair, and to give everyone an equal chance to win, I’ll be drawing three numbers out of a hat (or some such device) — pure BINGO style. Each number corresponding to the number that’s automatically (and sequentially) assigned to each comment.
Entries must be received before 11:59pm EST on Friday June 18.
Update: The contest is now closed. The winners will be chosen and announced soon. Thanks to all who entered!
The Prizes
Each of the three winners will receive one free copy of Web Standards Solutions and one friends of ED T-shirt from the publisher. Did I mention that both were free? Delivered to you.
Good luck to all!
Pressed and Ready
Posted at 11:28 PM
I received word from a former neighbor that I had a UPS package delivered to our old address. Today I picked it up (luckily just a few blocks away), and it turned out to be my author copies of Web Standards Solutions.
Being able to physically thumb through the book is very surreal. The results of a better part of a year are finally printed and ready for consumption. I couldn’t be happier with the way everything turned out. And I’m sure this means they’ll be shipping any day now from Amazon, and will hopefully start appearing in bookstores.
A single book can never be all things to all people, but I have high hopes for this little book. I hope that people enjoy it, as well as find it useful. It was fun to write and a gigantic learning experience.
As a teaser, here are a few of my favorite (yet corny and ridiculous) subheadings from the book:
- Wrapper’s delight
- Totally tabular
- Worth its (font-)weight in bold
There are more of course… some better, mostly worse.
So if you haven’t ordered yet, now’s a good time to do so, as the wait won’t be long at all.
Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook
Posted at 9:00 AM
I’m excited to finally announce something that I’ve been working on for the last several months. I’ve written a book, titled Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook to be published by the fine folks at Apress, under their friends of ED series.
It’s due to be released this spring, and is now available for pre-order at Amazon.
The book was inspired by the format of the SimpleQuiz — where the comparison of multiple methods leads to valuable knowledge that you can then apply to making your own informed decisions. After the comparison, many chapters include an “extra credit” section that goes on to an advanced related markup or CSS topic or technique.
The goal: to show not only how anyone can benefit from using web standards — but also why certain methods of markup and style work better than others. And it also serves as a culmination of sorts for many of the tips and tricks I’ve learned while building sites with web standards.
Much more about the book will be talked about here as the release date approaches, and I’ve set up a new section of this site, curiously named “book”, to collect it all. At present, there’s not a whole heck of a lot there — simply a description, link to pre-order and a few promotional buttons that you could use with your own referral account to get the word out on the book’s release.
It’s nice to finally talk about something that’s been occupying most of my time and energy for a long while now. Stay tuned.
Perhaps a Book
Posted at 4:38 PM
Rally cap by web
Stemming from the SimpleQuiz, I’m looking rather seriously into putting the question and answer concept into a book. The scope would most likely be more of a “web standards FAQ” — with topics on structured markup as well as CSS tricks and tips and anything related.
What I’m looking for is a little help…
- What topics would be important to you in this type of book?
- What are common questions that one would come up against when diving into standards-compliant design/development?
The format is looking to be much the same as the Quiz: a series of topics each with a question posed, followed by exploration of available options, summary and extra tips based on the topic.
I’m open to hearing any and all suggestions. Feel free to email me directly as well. Thanks, fine people.
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Bulletproof Web Design Second Edition New Riders
Web Standards Solutions The Markup and Style Handbook Friends of Ed