The Archives / Tips & Resources
There are 150 posts in the Tips & Resources archive.
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May 08
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Deploying Merb with Git, Vlad the Deployer, and Ubuntu (Fiesty Fawn)
I had the need recently to deploy a merb app. Since this whole project is about trying new things (merb, rspec, etc) I thought I might as well give Vlad… Read More
April 08
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Greedy
Now that I've gone and left my job, one of my mandates to myself was that I was going to take all of these random projects of mine seriously.… Read More
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Design Exercises
The idea of a design exercise is nothing new, but I recently read a tweet from Cameron Moll that made me rethink about… Read More
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Reducing comments and increasing documentation
When I first started programming, my only goal was to get things to work. Now that I've gone past how to get things to work, I've reached a new point in development: maintaining… Read More
March 08
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Scaling is for nerds
One of the most interesting bits of information from SXSW for me was a small conversation I had while walking to Dinner with Jakob Heuser from… Read More
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South by South West 08
Almost forgot to mention -- I'm heading out to SXSWi this year for the first time. I'm totally stoked, regardless of how "uncool" it's become to go. I'll be the short kid with… Read More
February 08
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Your mom’s not accessible
A few days ago, Arron Cannon over at North Temple threw up a post titled: Is Adobe Flex Really Accessible... which was full of inaccuracies… Read More
January 08
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Understanding javascript effects
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of years, you’re bound to be familiar with AJAX javascript effects. With the immense popularity of packages like… Read More
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Refining your estimation skills
One of the most important traits that separates junior level developers from senior level developers is the ability to accurately estimate projects. Every junior level developer… Read More
December 07
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An Overview of XAML
A little while ago I talked about how I was starting to get into Windows Presentation Framework… Read More
October 07
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You know you wanna (work with me)
It looks like it's just about that time again. Well actually -- it's just about always that time. We're hiring. Specifically we're looking… Read More
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Long running tasks in Rails: Backgroundrb
A few months ago, I was looking for a solution to long running tasks in Rails. A long running task is basically just a process that can detach from the main application. Let’s… Read More
September 07
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Getting started with WPF: Installation
Lately I've been diving into WPF development. Not WPF/E (aka Silverlight) -- but WPF as in the Windows Presentation Framework. WPF is the new foundation for Windows application… Read More
August 07
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Strategic Specificity
There's a lot of hubbub about what exactly specificity is, but little talk of how to strategically use specificity to minimize maintenance, maximize flexibility and help others understand… Read More
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Skeleton Classes
Here's a quick tip to help you keep your OO code clean and modular: create skeleton classes as you work through your projects. Most people that start off with OO really just end… Read More
July 07
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Javascript scope and binding
Justin Palmer writes up a great article on just what scope and binding is. For the beginning Javascript coders out there, scope is everything. Learn it, re-learn it, and do it. Understanding… Read More
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2007 Wordcamp
I almost forgot to mention -- I'll be heading up to San Francisco this weekend to meetup with some folks for WordCamp. I'll also be hitting… Read More
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MooTools Javascript Classes
One of Javascript's major blunders when it comes to Object-Oriented design is the lack of true classes. Lucky for us, we've had every library author out there have their whack at… Read More
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Why I don’t use jQuery
It's been said a few times elsewhere, but statistics is a tricky business. Specifically, when using statistics to measure speed improvements. It's all too easy to slap a sticker… Read More
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Resume Tips
Here's a few resume tips from me to you. I end up reading a lot of resumes, and I happen to have a pretty different view on what a resume should be. Remember, the creative industry… Read More
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A Language a Year
This is a tip for all you designers /
modelsdevelopers that want to become better coders. HTML and CSS is one thing, but if you really want to clean… Read More -
A few days with YUI
On a recent project I've been working with, the client wanted YUI, so we gave them YUI. Overall, I've been extremely disappointed with the framework. Here are my initial impressions,… Read More
June 07
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Custom page titles and more with Rails
Here's a quick tip to get custom page titles and more with Rails. From the view. Like it should be. The key to how this all works out in the end is how Rails' templates are rendered.… Read More
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Using TextMate’s TODO bundle
If you use TextMate, you should really think about using the TODO bundle more often. It's a pretty simple, low-maintenance bundle that adds tremendous value to your code.
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Exit with grace
One of the most common actions in javascript functions is checking if certain browser functionality is available before executing the function. Here's a common pattern you'll see...
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Hacking Markdown: Classes on the <code> element
For the redesign of my site, I decided I wanted some sexy code-highlighting. For a number of reasons I rejected most PHP-based solutions, the driving reason being accessibility… Read More
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Truncate with fashion
One of my biggest pet peeves is lazy-truncating around the web. With a couple of lines of PHP and a little bit of
substrlove, you can cut down long sentences to a… Read More -
Point of view
It's funny, for the first time in a long time WWDC didn't generate a strong vote of positive or negative. It kind of sparked both. We have the comings and goings of Safari, the… Read More
May 07
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Hi, my name is Kyle Neath, and I’m a spammer
... At least, Campaign Monitor tells me I am. This is a story about a legitimate webmaster trying to use the power of newsletters to promote his site. And how Campaign Monitor… Read More
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Lego my Ego
There's room for more ego than you ever thought around the web. But how much is too much ego? How much do you need to get the gig, and how much puts you in the pompus category?… Read More
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Wordpress community, we gotta talk
For the most part, I love the Wordpress community. I love the passion, the selflessness and the creativity that spurs from it. It's the reason that Hemingway… Read More
April 07
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Profiling your web application - the home-brew version
Have you ever wondered what the slowest part of your application was? Ever wished you could know that before you ship it off? I decided last night to take a crack at it for the… Read More
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Adobe open sources Flex, Joyent eats words
In case you haven't heard yet, Adobe is announcing tonight that Flex will be open-sourced. This is some of the… Read More
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Apple needs force Microsoft to recall Outlook 2007
Apple is in a unique position right now. Last year, at WWDC, Steve Jobs gave a sneak peak of the upcoming update to OSX, Leopard.… Read More
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On scaling, performance, and realism
By nature I'm a front-end developer first. Programming is a hobby that I think I'm pretty good at -- but the stuff I have most experience with is front-end development. Think… Read More
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Revisiting Flex
A while ago I hinted that I was taking a second-glance at this whole web-publishing business and trying out Read More
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Lighthouse: The bug tracker you’ve been looking for
Two of my most respected developers out there, Rick Olson and Justin Palmer have decided to take their… Read More
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Happy Birthday, Bryan
This is just a quick Happy B-day to Bryan Veloso of Avalonstar fame. For those of you who haven't heard,… Read More
March 07
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7 Flash Myths
7 Flash Myths
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Standards Nazi, Transforming
For the past three years I have been engrossing myself in the mastery of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. I have labored countless hours over it, and come to a point where I think I can… Read More
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Common web myths: Optimizing CSS & Javascript
Many people give a big to-do about optimizing CSS & Javascript. Everything from removing line-breaks, to removing all comments & whitespace, to obfuscating compressors like… Read More
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California on the brain
The recent stretch of The Most Beautiful Weather EverTM hit San Luis Obispo this weekend. I woke up today to the sun in my face, already a wonderful 73Ëš outside. … Read More
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Visual Scripting Patterns Investigation
I've been thinking a lot about visual scripting lately -- manipulating the display of objects over time, mostly through CSS & Javascript. I know the Actionscripters of the world… Read More
February 07
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Most amazing CSS tip you’ll ever read in your life
You want to know how to become a css-ninja? Build more websites.
January 07
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Organix: Homepage tabs, Featured article detail
I haven't been talking much about Organix lately -- because I've been hard at work actually doing (as well as working… Read More
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MooTools: review
A little while ago Valerio Proietti took the little moo.fx that could and spun it off into the full-blown MooTools… Read More
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A little rant on Safari
It seems many web professionals around the blogsphere praise and worship Safari for it's temporary status as superior type-renderer. While that's all well and fine, I'd be willing… Read More
December 06
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Organix: Finishing off the homepage
Here's a quick check in on my redesign progress. I think I've gotten to a good point now with the home page.
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Live redesign: Organix
It's been a long time coming, but the time for the format of my site is about to change. Unlike last time, this redesign isn't going to… Read More
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Spotting a fake: “New apple design”
I spend far too much time on digg wasting my time, so my eyes sharpened when I saw this new apple.com design... or… Read More
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Code bounties
Something interesting is happening in the open source community -- at least something I've hadn't noticed until recently. The idea is code bounties -- put up a reward fee for specific… Read More
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Sewing confusion with absurdity
Sometimes I wonder if schools hire Information Architects to purposefully confuse the student populous.
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I just don’t get this whole Microformats thing
I know this isn't going to be a popular opinion, but I just don't get this whole Microformats thing. No, seriously. I've tried and tried but I just don't get it.… Read More
November 06
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Image preloading revisited
In years past, image preloading was all the rage. You'd see more MM_preloadImages than pictures of Britney at newstands. Who's to blame anyone? It was… Read More
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Hemingway styles: Winner!
I'm a bit late on this, but I'm going to declare a winner to my little style competition
October 06
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The deception of job-hunting in the web business
It seems that every day there's a new job posting site popping up on the web. It makes sense -- business is booming, and everyone who is anyone is hiring right now. It means a great… Read More
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Driving is fun again
So, on Friday I finally picked up an upgrade to my aging '73 VW Superbeetle. Meet my new toy, my 2003 20th Anniversary… Read More
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Using CrazyEgg for goal optimization
By now, I'm sure that all of you have heard of the fantastic CrazyEgg. I've been a huge fan of this service for a very long time now and think… Read More
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Turn off your computer
Amidst the start of school, a poem from William Wordsworth: The Tables Turned
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The new generation of online marketing
With the recent successes of sites like MySpace, Facebook and YouTube the internet marketing space has all but flipped on it's side for consumer-driven products & services. … Read More
September 06
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The train that Web 2.0 Missed : Part 2 of 3
This portion of my little mini-series is going to describe how students are expected to register at Cal Poly. The aim is to merely expose the blatantly… Read More
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The train that Web 2.0 missed: Part 1 of 3
With all the craze of Web 2.0 and user-centric web applications that bring together user-generated content and community, there's a major niche that application developers have missed… Read More
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September Randoms
Oh yes, it's time again for that wonderful time of the year when I decide to spew out a stream of consciousness because I just can't get it out of my head.
August 06
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Hemingway styles for geek fashion
So, it's come about that time of year again when I'm feeling a bit guilty for not paying enough attention to Hemingway. So, it's come time to fix that.… Read More
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A few lists
A few lists for you to enjoy.
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Why designers don’t contribute to open source
There's been much discussion all over the web about how ugly open source is. Why is that so? Because designers are usually the last people to contribute to open source, and it's… Read More
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CSS & Email: The dirty little secret
Quite some time ago, Mark Wyner published a piece at A List Apart title "CSS & Email, Kissing in a Tree" alluding to… Read More
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Opinion
Opinion-less people suck. It’s true: you know who you are, and you all suck. What’s the fun in life if you don’t express your opinion? I’m sure as hell not… Read More
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How much does Rails cost?
Today, I ran across something interesting in my Bloglines: Recent Rails job… Read More
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The state of the web: August 2006
All words and thoughts in the proceeding article come out of my own nonsense brain and are probably more wild speculation than truth. Take what you read with a grain of salt
I've… Read More
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Why do you read Warpspire?
I'm not going to lie, this little old rag of a site has gotten more popular than I ever expected. As a result, I've had a bit of a hard time pinning down exactly what Warpspire… Read More
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Better living through DOM builders
I've been working pretty heavily with JavaScript these past few weeks -- specifically parsing XML & JSON. I found out pretty early on that while modifying the DOM with… Read More
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Owning up
Anyone who's ever owned a services business knows that eventually you're going to screw up. Bad. Soon you're going to have to explain this to your customer, and it isn't going to… Read More
July 06
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Jumping Ship
Recently, someone in 9rules asked about whether it was safe to abandon 800x600 users on a new web application they were designing. A few people were adamantly against this, and… Read More
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Zig Version: The missing Subversion GUI for OSX
Over the past year and a half I've grown to love Subversion. My first experience with Subversion was with TortoiseSVN (you can read about… Read More
June 06
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The joys of working at an agency
Much ado is made of going freelance, but very little of working full-time at an agency. Many people view working at an agency as simply throwing their life away for slave wages.… Read More
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Testing HTML Emailers
Recently I had a need to send out HTML Emails for testing without the aid of a email management app (as I've done in the past). As I stared at Outlook for far too long, I found… Read More
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I think the noise is taking over
For several years, I've been an avid fan of Signal Vs. Noise, a blog run by those great guys in Chicago known as the 37… Read More
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Closet developers
I get a fair number of people asking me "how do I do that?" -- referring to web design, of course. Many of them are envious (usually after they find out my salary), but don't realize… Read More
May 06
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Server Seed is a bad host
If you've noticed, Warpspire suddenly dissapeared off the map sometime last night and was replaced with a "this account is suspended" message. Before today, Warpspire had been living… Read More
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My initiation into the Apple club
Over one year ago, I wrote about switching. Well, the time finally came and I could finally afford to get my very own Apple. So, May 1st I took the plunge and pushed the buy button.… Read More
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Rails Day is coming, Rails Day is coming!
If there's one time of year that I get really excited about programming, it's Rails Day. Last year's Rails Day was my first immersion into… Read More
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Prototype is a Javascript framework
This will be a quick post, but I've noticed an ever-increasing trend around the 'net. I've been seeing more and more of these types of comments...
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Launching a site successfully
For those of you keeping track, I launched Total Spore 5 days ago, and it's been a resounding success. So far, I've received more than 2,500… Read More
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Status Update (Reboots, ideas, and world domination follow)
So it's May 1st. Normally, I'd point you over to the reboot site, but it seems Adam's had the server take an extended vacation in Honolulu today.
April 06
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Of higher education, lower education, and everything in between
Right now there are thousands of young men and women across the country approaching the conclusion of a very important chapter in their life: the end of their high school career.… Read More
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Can you tell
Along with Matt Brett I've been in somewhat of seclusion lately. Of course, it's all due to working… Read More
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Beauty in less code
Tonight I added new features to Poetry with meaning (on my local machine) -- but I actually reduced the total lines of code in… Read More
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Blame Bryan Veloso
Seriously, it's all his fault.
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April Randoms
I've had about a billion things running through my mind lately, so I just kind of felt like spilling it all out there.
March 06
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Foot in mouth
Sometimes we put our feet in our mouth. It sucks, but it happens every once in a while. I do it myself, but there are things you can do to prevent this. I realized this today while… Read More
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9/11 and Pearl Harbor: Do we even care anymore?
It's come to my attention that the majority of America is so blinded by tax cuts that they refuse to even aknowledge the possibility that perhaps America might have done… Read More
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The devil is in the details: a review of Backpack
I know I'm no graphical genius or have talent oozing out of my brain, but I'd like to think I'm a decent… Read More
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Writing: Blocked
Lately I just haven't been feeling writing. I don't know what's up, but it's the reason for lack of reasonable articles (oh yes Khaled, I'm calling… Read More
February 06
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Hemingway updates & testing
Hemingway seems to have gotten some great attention lately. First Matt and that wonderful Wordpress.com crew got… Read More
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AJAX Tamed: Where HTML and the DOM meet
AJAX is a powerful technology and frameworks like Prototype and Dojo have made it frighteningly easy… Read More
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The friends you keep
This is going to be a very rare post from me: a post about drama in the blogsphere. Yep, I said it. Blogsphere. Today, 9rules announced that they're going to start weeding out the… Read More
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Setting up Subversion with Dreamhost and Windows
Subversion is an immensely useful tool, especially for the practicing web developer. Think of it as the backups you never created: after setting up your project in Subversion, you… Read More
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My name in print… err, pixels
Just a quick shout out that my article in Treehouse Magazine came out today. If you’re not subscribed already, get to it! -
Hemingway: 0.12
Well, it's official. Hemingway is ready for a new release. I'd like to thank the dozens of people who volunteered to help me out during beta testing: with… Read More
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Hemingway: I need beta testers
Hey guys, this is just a quick update on Hemingway. I spent the better part of the day working on it, and I think I've come on to something. Really. But, because what I'm doing… Read More
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Warpspire: A few landmarks
Well, at the end of January Warpspire hit a few major landmarks, so I thought I'd document it if not for my own sake. January, of course, was a historic site for this site with… Read More
January 06
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Officially Announcing Poetry with meaning
So, I know it took me a while to get to this, but here it is: Poetry with meaning officially launches today, January 30th, 2006. Go ahead,… Read More
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PHP 5.1.1 + Markdown and WordPress = Kaboom!
So, I log onto my site tonight after noticing it was down for about five minutes to find my entire site has exploded with all sorts of errors resembling this:
Warning:… Read More -
Tagged
It would seem I've been tagged by Koray. Some of the info below is a bit stretched since I'm still only… Read More
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Good Copywriting launches
So, in the wee hours of the morning I snuck yet another site into my lineup: Good Copywriting. Check it out, it's a small experiment of… Read More
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What I want from an analytics package
So, this past weekend I decided to splurge and buy Mint, mostly just to see what all the hype was about. Honestly, I think I still like Measuremap… Read More
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Predictions for the future
I thought it might be fun to say where I think the web, technology, and music are going in the next few years. I really feel 2006 is going to be some kind of renaissance for technology… Read More
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Apple’s new hot thing
I love Apple. No, not in the way that I love Mt. Dew (which I do) but in the way that I love the brand. I love the ideals behind it, I love the products backing it, I love the people… Read More
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(Re)introducing Hemingway
The time has finally come for me to unvail my first release of a Wordpress port of Hemingway. This is by no means a final… Read More
December 05
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The best music of 2005
While discussing the year's culmination of music with a few people I realized I should probably write down what I thought was hot and what was not in 2005. Strange enough for me,… Read More
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Are you a Rails developer on the inside?
Rails has been a large influence on my life in the past year. I know it sounds strange to say such a thing, but I'm serious. Rails has taught… Read More
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December Randomness
A quick update on various projects, issues, news, and everything else.
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Useful PHP coding tips for writing maintainable code
It's funny, but the best thing that ever happened to my PHP coding was to play with Rails. I've learned a great deal from the framework, and… Read More
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Writing quality content
I think there comes a time in a site's life when you must decide: am I going for quality, or quantity? This doesn't just apply to blogs - I'm talking about news sites, informative… Read More
November 05
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Introducing Hemingway
I've been a busy little bee lately, but not busy enough to add on a small side-project. Its name is Hemingway and it's a weblog template.
Hemmingway.… Read More
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Resolution dependent layouts are not the future
There's been a bit of a scuffle lately around resolution dependent layouts. I've heard such phrases… Read More
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Something’s different around here
If you've been watching closely, you'll notice a new logo sporting Warpspire's sidebars. The fine folks at 9rules have accepted Warpspire out of their… Read More
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Actually getting things done
I'd like to introduce a new way of living. It's called Kyle's method for actually getting things done (AGTD™ for short). Here's the synopsis: Instead of finding… Read More
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Pink Week
Today marks the start of the twelth annual weeklong celebration of the… Read More -
Getting all of your feed subscribers to FeedBurner (Wordpress)
Are you looking for how to redirect all of your subscribers to FeedBurner in WordPress? Did you find out that you have a large portion of people still subscribed to wp-rss2.php… Read More
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The last 10%
Many people take the last 10% of a redesign for granted. They underestimate the details, and figure it's better to get out 90% today than 100% tomorrow. Wrong.
The… Read More
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Google’s new referral system
Now here's something interesting. Google recently announced that they've opened a new referral service… Read More
October 05
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Finally.
It's been a long night, but it's done. Version 4½ of warpspire.com is upon you. What's so different around here?
- New Design: Finally something I… Read More
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Hmmm…
I wonder what these could be.
SELECT DISTINCT * FROM wpposts LEFT JOIN wppost2cat ON (wpposts.ID = wppost2cat.postid) LEFT JOIN wpcategories ON (wppost2cat.categoryid… Read More -
Step back for a minute
I pull up to my house and park my car outside - that damn tree is spewing some kind of unknown white substance that leaves my car a mess of sticky, dirt and god knows what. I walk… Read More
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Sitepoint makes me laugh
Forget if Ruby on Rails can scale - we've got far bigger things to worry about. The question on everyone's mind: Can MVC Scale?
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The new face of Warpspire
As I've mentioned before the current look is only temporary. But here's a quick sneak peak of what's to come. I've taken something I Read More
September 05
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Backpack is slowing down
Has anyone else noticed lately that Backpack is slowing down? I sure have noticed it. Pages used to load in less than a second, and now it's… Read More
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Are you a poet?
Do you have a passion for poetry? If so, I might have something that interests you. Drop me a line at kneath at gmail dot com or post a… Read More
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College level text books
To have a decision-making situation, there must be at least two alternatives available. If only one course of action is available, there can be no decision making,… Read More
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Dear Bank of America
Dear Bank of America,
I take pride in the fact that I bank at one of the few banks operating that seem to "get it" that people actually use online banking and you… Read More
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Why I love the Rails Community
Because they take a good idea, show how to build in less than four days, and then release it as open-source.
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Incompetence
On Thursday, the President of the United States of America claimed "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."
The Army Corps of Engineers gave… Read More
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When programmers attack: Giving the wrong people control of the UI
There has been much discussion in the rails community about script.aculo.us and whether the full library of effects should be included into the… Read More
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New Orleans
There are times when I am so appalled, so disgusted with our government that they can sit idly by and ignore the things that really matter it makes me want to vomit. Listen to the… Read More
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Costa Rica, oh how I miss thee
A bored night on flickr reminded me why I miss Read More
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An old friend
Looks like I finally got off my lazy ass and got Bob back on his feet. Read on, young 'uns.
Wordpress almost makes it too easy to take… Read More
August 05
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Battlestar Galactica
Words cannot express how amazing this show is. I thought the first season kicked my ass... well I just finished watching Season 2 Episode 7 (aired Friday night) and that… Read More
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Fuck you, Foo Fighters
Yesterday I bought In Your Honor because, well I used to like the Foo Fighters. Today I went to rip the CD to mp3 so I could use it as I use the rest of my music collection… Read More
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Dissapointed by Pragmatic Programmers
Some companies take customer loayalty for granted. Pragmatic Programmers is one of them. No disrespect intended, but customer support… Read More
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What exactly “enterprise software” really is
If you're familiar with the web and the business surrounding it, I'm sure you've heard of the term "enterprise software." Sure, it's easy to say and to boast, but seriously what… Read More
July 05
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How not to handle customer service
Back in April, I cancelled an old hosting account. I cancelled it about 2 weeks before my renewal was up, but the hosting company did not actually cancel it until several days after… Read More
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Settling In
I changed around K2 a bit to fit my needs a bit more. I took a little of what I had from a previous design comp and… Read More
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Frutiger
This… Read More
March 05
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Upright.
Or, how to jump head first into the deep end of the pool and land snow-skiing down Mt. Everest. If that last sentence didn't make sense, maybe you better ask the guys over at Read More
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Warfield
Last night's show of O.A.R. and The Southland… Read More
January 05
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Why Cameron Moll kicks ass
I believe that a designer's life can be shaped by around five people, and those people may become his mentors even if he has never met them. Cameron… Read More
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A new year, a new definition
2004 was amazing for me. And no, I don't mean it in the cliche way. I mean it in the way that it actually changed the course of my life. 2004 was the year of standards for me,… Read More
December 04
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Convince me to switch
I have always had this crush on Apple. Perhaps it's the fact that I started off with Apple's (before color screens). Perhaps it's the fact that Macs have always worked for me. Perhaps… Read More


Warpspire is the place that web professional Kyle Neath writes about the web. 

