The blog

Multi-Device Web Design

Luke Wroblewski writes:

As mobile devices have continued to evolve and spread, so has the process of designing and developing Web sites and services that work across a diverse range of devices. From responsive Web design to future friendly thinking, here’s how I’ve seen things evolve over the past year and a half.

Continue reading at LukeW.com

Steve Jobs, 1955–2011



Thanks, Steve! It’s been an awesome journey!

This post is a bit on the personal side, so bear with me.

I pretty much grew up using Windows PCs. My interest for computers grew during my Junior High years. Thanks to my dad, I had access to a computer at home, even though it may sound normal to anyone in the U.S., it wasn’t the usual thing to have such thing in Mexico. Not during the late 80s.

For over 15 years all I knew was Microsoft DOS, then Windows… 3.1, 4, 95, 98, (just shoot) Me, 2000, XP… you name it.

After I moved to the U.S. in 2000 I started investing hours and hours to web development. I developed under the premise that most people would use a Windows machine to access most sites, so my development, scripting, markup, was targeting those computers.

In 2004, while building a website for my fiancée’s cousin, I asked my now mother-in-law to check it out. She had a Mac, and warned me that the site was not looking good on a Mac… I just never got to test it.

A few months later, after realizing that if I really wanted to get serious on building sites, I needed to make sure they all looked presentable in both Mac and PC. After months of having an iPod Mini, I knew that purchasing an Apple product was safe… The beauty of their design had me mesmerized and was willing to have an Apple notebook just as a “secondary machine”.

A few months after acquiring an iBook G4, I realized it had become my main computer. So easy to use, so beautiful, so many good things that “the others” didn’t have… So perfect.

In 2006, when the very first MacBook Pro with an Intel Processor I knew I could have, at some point, the best of both worlds, so I sold my iBook, bought a MacBook Pro, and a few months later, I became an Apple loyal by ditching my home desktop for a Mac Pro.

I was now a victim of the “Reality Distortion Field”. And it felt so good…

Everything about all the Apple computers I have purchased since 2005 is unbelievable: the performance, the industrial design, the noise, the quality build. Everything “just works”.

This is one of the so many reasons why Apple products are my tools of choice for both entertainment and work. To this day, I have not been disappointed on any of the Apple products I’ve owned: iPod Mini, iPod Classic, iPhone 3G, iPhone 4, iBook G4, MacBook Pro 15” (2006), Mac Pro (2006), MacBook Pro (2010), Apple TV, iPad… all of them have work as they should…

This is no accident, this quality and ease of use is the direct consequence of never settling.  A direct consequence of always delivering the best of the best.

Yes, I am a switcher, and I have never looked back. These tools have aided me to enjoy so many things, and to learn so many new. These tools have helped me appreciate web design more than ever: the fonts, the rounded corners… It may sound cliché, but everything looks better on a Mac.

Ironically though, my very very very first computer was an Apple IIe. I am just happy I got to try them again.

A couple days ago Steve Jobs resigned from his post as a CEO from Apple.

Among the media frenzy his resignation has generated, the Wall Street Journal published a collection of quotes from Steve Jobs. My personal favorite, given by Jobs at the Stanford commencement speech in 2005:

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

This quote defines so much of what I do, and how I do it. I am lucky to have a job and a career that I love and feel passionate about.

Thank you, Steve and all the people you have trusted your dreams with at Apple. You have changed my life in so many ways.

On the Importance of Bandwidth

When building your website, it is always important to be mindful about download speed. Yes, you may have a blazing-fast internet connection, but your next customer may not.

Your website should always be as lean as possible and never take for granted that your visitors will have the luxury of a high-speed internet connection.  While many people are shifting away from dial-up connections, DSL and cable speeds are not always the fastest, especially in the U.S.

Just today, Mr. Jeffrey Zeldman wrote about such issue: neglecting page speed will not only hurt your visitors’ experience, it seems to be that Google may even start lowering your rank too.

As these bandwidth-luxuriant (and not always beautiful, needed, or useful) practices became commonplace on mainstream sites, many advanced, standards-focused web designers were experimenting with web fonts, CSS3 multiple backgrounds, full-page background images, and other devices to create semantic, structurally lean sites that were as rich (and heavy) as Flash sites.

There are several ways to trim down the size of your pages while keeping aesthetics. Just ensure you are using bytes the right way and not in some meaningless, useless way. It may make sense to present your audience with high-definition images of your products (let the user decide when to get them, and if you can, please warn them about it), but it may not make a lot of sense to use a heavily bloated page for a simple contact form.

Keep it lean!

And we are On!

For over the past ten years, I have been closely working with web browsers, markup, stylesheets, database-driven sites, static sites, intranet sites and internet sites.

It’s amazing how much the web has grown in the past ten or fifteen years.  Every day businesses and people alike are more than willing to start their online presence, whether is a small site, a blog, or a full-fledged site with a content management or publishing system.

Sadly, more often than not, these web sites are poorly designed and do not help their owners achieve their sites’ goals: better engine visibility, robust design that allows the site to grow, simple and flexible code that allows easy maintenance.  On top of that, site owners find out way later in the game that certain browsers on certain platforms don’t even display their site the way they always expected.

That’s our focus: Cross-browser and cross-platform design compatibility, lean, flexible, sustainable design — design that fosters the ability to use modern web technologies without the need to be more expensive, because it doesn’t have to.

links&pixels is committed to each and every one of their current and future customers to provide the best design and markup that will allow their sites to be standards compliant, highly visible to search engines, and tuned up for the best download performance.  We will also ensure that your site is appropriately displayed in all modern browsers so your don’t have to worry about your visitors’ computer or browser, we’ll take care of that.

This is a new and exciting adventure, and we are certain we’ll provide the best web design and development consulting services.

Take a look at our services and portfolio, then if you want a new site or either overhaul or revamp your existing one, give us a shout. We are here to help.

— Mau