"Today, we’ll take a look at how you can dive into responsive design using Foundation, a light front-end framework that helps you rapidly build prototypes and production sites. If you’ve avoided responsive design because it seemed difficult, or the tools weren’t there, or you weren’t sure of the need ... then this is the perfect time to get started."

"Normalize.css is a small CSS file that provides better cross-browser consistency in the default styling of HTML elements. It’s a modern, HTML5-ready, alternative to the traditional CSS reset."

"COPE is really a combination of several other closely related sub-philosophies, including: Build content management systems (CMS), not web publishing tools (WPT), separate content from display, ensure content modularity, ensure content portability."

"As we embrace this shift, we need to relinquish control of our content as well, setting it free from the boundaries of a traditional webpage to flow as needed through varied displays and contexts."

"A few years back, we decided to try something new. A potential client approached us and rather than preparing another project proposal, we offered the client what we now call a “Project Evaluation.” We charged them a fixed price for which we promised to evaluate the project, in all of our areas of expertise, and give them our recommendations."

"It feels like vandalism. This is what hackers do. So why are companies defacing their own sites? Is it really so hard to understand that the browser on a tablet device is in all important respects the equal of the browser on a laptop, and, depending on the machine, in many cases superior?"

"... if we start coding with a little forethought and apply the principles of progressive enhancement from the beginning and apply some responsive practices at the end, we can easily accommodate for less-capable browsers and reward those with modern browsers in both desktop and mobile environments."

"Collect, test, and experiment with interface pattern pairings of CSS and HTML. Pears is an open source WordPress theme, enabling people like you to get your own pattern library up and running quickly."

"... how to create a WordPress plugin that enables you to organize Internet marketing campaigns using trackable URLs, shortened versions of those URLs, and trackable QR codes that you can also use for offline marketing activities."

"... a collection of tools and best practices for building topic-focused sites in WordPress."

"Rather than using a bloated plugin that has features you’ll never use, this tutorial shows you how to create a super simple lightbox for handling images. It’s perfect for image galleries, portfolios, and more!"

"... how you can help give back to the Web ..."

"In about 30 minutes of searching, using only Google and eWhois, I was able to discover the identities of seven of the anonymous or pseudonymous bloggers, and in two cases, their employers."

"The key thing to understand is that the rules of SEO aren’t magic or arbitrary. They’re based on the goals of a search engine, which is to find relevant results. Relevance implies genuineness, and genuineness implies trust. So, shockingly, you should try to make your site’s content trustworthy, genuine and relevant. All of the rules have come about due to their utility in detecting those three positive metrics."

A grid system fluid down to mobile.

"Teach your clients about the mysteries of the web."

"Making your WordPress site Fireball-proof is not hard and anyone who can’t find the minimal amount of time to do it probably shouldn’t be self-hosting in the first place."

"Responsive Web design is the approach that suggests that design and development should respond to the user’s behavior and environment based on screen size, platform and orientation. The practice consists of a mix of flexible grids and layouts, images and an intelligent use of CSS media queries. As the user switches from their laptop to iPad, the website should automatically switch to accommodate for resolution, image size and scripting abilities. In other words, the website should have the technology to automatically respond to the user’s preferences. This would eliminate the need for a different design and development phase for each new gadget on the market."

"Instead of thinking in terms of pixel perfection, we should be thinking of proportion perfection."

Supercharging self-hosted WordPress installs.

"If content cannot be retrieved from a server given its URL, then that site is broken. Gawker have deliberately made the decision to break these URLs. They’ve left their site availability open to all sorts of JavaScript-related errors."

"The solution seemed clear: create a unique identifier or key for each paragraph. But how to do that? The identifiers need to be consistent for all readers, and they must remain intact when a paragraph is edited and a page is republished. So it’s not simply a matter of generating the identifiers on the back end — with that approach, you might end up with the insane idea of building a mini-CMS for managing paragraph keys. On the flip side, how do you generate the same key each time the piece of content changes? This morning I’ve released the second version of Emphasis to overcome this tricky problem. The new release also simplifies the URL hash syntax for denoting which paragraph to link to and which paragraph and/or sentences to highlight."

Evan Williams: "There is some risk to the Internet becoming more closed (although it’s not really about closed). It’s that there are fewer players who own, sort of, the land. And that will have implications long term for everything."

Saved for Full Page Slider instructions.

"Some of these make the user experience better, but a lot of these work in the backend to help the actual functionality of the site out. While it’s best to have as few plugins as possible to speed up the site, I’ve had no problems running all 20 of these plugins on a regular shared server."

"A strategy, even one that is just a paragraph in length, shows that you have understood the task at hand. It shows the direction you will take the project, and it is an effective way to put your client’s mind at ease."

"The implications are clear: the material that's the most important for the users' goals or your business goals should be above the fold. Users do look below the fold, but not nearly as much as they look above the fold."

"I've been ranting for a while that media consumers are growing weary of the constant march of undifferentiated blog launches. I doubt blogging will die anytime soon, but I do think the future lies in finding ways to extend the blog platform to do more than just posts and comments."

Books, blogs, and more helpful links.

Recommendations and links.

Aggregated blog posts about Django, updated every hour.

"HTML5 defines over a dozen new input types that you can use in your forms. And when I say 'use,' I mean you can use them right now -- without any shims, hacks, or workarounds."

"Widgets are now a standard part of the WordPress install so to reach the broadest audience your theme should support them, as well as supporting old style sidebars."

Thorough critique of the museum's freshened site.

"It’s an interesting exercise to try to envision a 'news app' devoid of any presentation layer. At a site like TPM, your first logical step is to define the basic unit of “news” as a post. Though by doing this, you’re already jumping to presentation. Better to think like a version control system, say Git. Git defines a file’s innards as a 'blob.' It doesn’t know what you’re storing, and it doesn’t care. This “news blob” could then be a post, an email, a breaking news alert text message, an article, an item in a feed reader, even a podcast. When you put an image or a piece of text into Git, they are both blobs."

Subscription lit mag app takes advantage of new device features, including push notification and in-app purchasing. Smart.

"Search Engine Optimization is not a legitimate form of marketing. It should not be undertaken by people with brains or souls. If someone charges you for SEO, you have been conned." Strong words.

"Wouldn’t it be a little magical if, when you signed up for a new site, it said something like, 'We notice you have a profile photo on Flickr and Twitter, would you like to use one of those or upload a new one?' ... Ident Engine that can help you do just that."

Use tags to display content differently: You can use conditional tags to display different types of content on your blog in different ways, like a short link or big photograph. I use has_tag to display "quick links" with smaller inline headlines on my front page by assigning the tag "brief."

Lightweight, super easy.

Six milestones from 30 seconds to three years.

Items #3 and 4 are particulary exciting to contemplate.

Alternative to other RSS services.

"Prototyping conveys the 'magic' of a web application."

Explaining the why and how a new look and system

CSS framework, cuts down on development time

UI first, programming second

Introduction to Rails concepts, not a tutorial

"We design amazing web sites ... and help people make sense of the web."

Free and fast web forms

Interactive design consultancy

Access, plug-in API, runtime environment

It's innovation! In racing! In the UK ...

Jakob Nielsen on the top 10 web application design mistakes

"Any piece of software reflects the organizational structure that produced it"