Blogging and all that Malarkey

Converts fixed-pixel width layout dimension to percentages. It would be better with padding and box-sizing, but mustn’t grumble.

Before she died at the fantastic age of 98, my Nana gave me her boxes of family photographs. She knew I value family histories and would keep her things safe. I’m in the process of organising them and in one box I found a tourism brochure from Liverpool from around 1938/39. In it, an advertisement, for Liverpool Zoological Park caught my interest. In particular, “MICKY,” the world’s cleverest CHIMPANZEE.

More about Micky the world’s cleverest chimpanzee. I’ve ed several parts:

Sorry to break into your Diamond Jubilee celebrations, but my Flexible Responsive Web Design workshop on the 19th September in Freiburg in Germany sold out so fast that Smashing Conference and I are hosting a second day. That’s right. We didn’t want disappointed Germans. Especially after Engerlaaand will be beating them in Euro 2012. This one’s the day before the conference, on the 16th September. You know the drill. Places are limited. Found out more. Register. Now.

My contribution to The Pastry Box Project this month: There’s no reason why anyone should have to wait more than 24 hours for the money you owe them, especially people you work with. So the next time you receive an invoice from a contractor or supplier, pay it right away. Don’t wait a month, a week, a day or even an hour longer than you have to. Better still, find out how to pay them before they start any work. That way you can pay them immediately when you receive their invoice. They’ll feel good and so will you. (This post was inspired by the experience of someone I know.)

This morning I picked up the phone to (just) Holly, a chirpy sounding lady who asked if we played music ‘within our business.’ If we did, we’d need a license. I told her we didn’t (yeah, shoot first and ask questions later) and she said we’d be removed from their list (whatever that is.)

I’ve given Vitaly and his Smashing Magazine team some (good natured) stick over the years, but (to their credit) they ignored me completely and have built a fabulous business that publishes the website and books including Smashing Book #3 that I was proud to write the closing chapter for. Now they’re organising what I predict with be one of the best web conferences anywhere this year. The Smashing Conference will be held in beautiful, historic Freiberg Freiburg in Germany on 17 th and 18 th September and the speaker line up is tremendous. Heck. It has three of my CSS heroes, two of my favourite people in the whole world, AND more. What a show it’s going to be! As you probably heard, I’m taking a break from speaking this year (apart from Austin (see what I did there?)), but I will be hosting a Fashionably Flexible Responsive Web Design workshop on the 19 th. It’s an updated version of the workshop that was so well received in Australia earlier in the year. (You can grab the slide deck from that from Speaker Deck to give you a taste. You know the drill. Places are limited. Found out more. Register. Now. I’m looking forward to the Smashing Conference so much. So much! It’s going to be super, smashing, great.

Need noise? Get noise. (Via: Tim Van Damme’s @2x.)

This post from Jolly Bureau ties in very nicely with what I wrote for The Pastry Box Project this month. So I thought I’d elaborate on: About a year ago, I left day rates and job rates behind and started estimating, billing and working on projects on a weekly basis. A year on and I’m better organised, more productive and less stressed than ever before. Our accounts are in better shape and no one owes us money for longer than a week. It was one of the best business moves I’ve made.

I’ve been reading Jonathon Snook’s Scalable and Modular Architecture for CSS book this week. (It’s well written, practical and perfectly formatted for Kindle. I learned a lot and I’d highly recommend it.) In SMACSS, Jon recommends breaking down stylesheets into rules for: