ryan.c

Shuffled - A Photo Wall

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

For awhile now, my wife and I have had the idea of a smart photo wall. Something that could schedule screen savers, sync across multiple displays, etc. We love documenting memories, and we wanted an elegant way to display them.

Battle of Brothers

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Shortly after leaving SurveyMonkey, my brother and I decided to persue a passion: Game Development! How hard could it be, right? We naively created a one year competition to see who could make the better game.

Learning & Blogging

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This blog serves the purpose of tracking my progress, and acts as a test bed to learn new concepts. I’ll keep a directory of those projects here.

Helping Charities

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Amanda and I have a goal of becoming more involved over the next two years. I’ll continue to update this space documenting the types of contributions we can make.

A Second Design Proposal

Mon, 28 May 2018 16:19:03 -0400

A few days ago I submitted a first stab at a redesign for a local charity. As expected, this was way too much of a change. I learned quickly that a basic round of discussion is needed before jumping into a project. I’m still happy I practiced on the last design, but it turns out they’re looking for more of a clean, expected look. So, I ran with a look you might find in most charity templates.

A Design Proposal

Fri, 25 May 2018 07:28:18 -0400

I’ve been working with a local charity to revamp their website. This has been a good project for me for a few reasons. First, as a coder, this gives me a chance to workout some design muscles. Second, as someone who normally answers only to myself, this gives me a chance to pitch to a group and understand their needs and wishes.

Import Wordpress Nested Comments into Hugo

Thu, 17 May 2018 07:01:09 -0400

I’m currently in the process of converting my most complex Wordpress site into a Hugo site, and comments proved to be one of the greater challenges. My approach went from screw comments, to let’s use Disqus, to no let’s do this right and use a static comment system.

Add Jazzy Docs to Hugo

Mon, 07 May 2018 20:06:53 -0400

I’m still riding this wave of excitement for static sites and free hosting, so the next step for me was to build my code documentation right into my Hugo sites instead of a separate standalone instance on Github Pages.

Responsive Design With Moom

Wed, 02 May 2018 06:58:34 +0000

Responsive design is not meant to be about the device. It’s about the breakpoints that your design needs, and supporting them correctly. That’s why when dragging the browser to resize your site, the design should look good at all widths. And even though that’s true, I still have a desire to verify how the design would look on a specific device like a portrait iPad.

Automating Workspaces on macOS

Tue, 01 May 2018 00:21:37 +0000

I now have 4 side projects in motion along with personal tasks like finance and communication. For the first time, my go to workspace solution of mission control and spaces doesn’t cut it. Between Xcode, multiple terminal windows running, Photoshop, Mail, Photos, Sketch, and so on I finally felt overwhelmed. It’s time for a new solution.

A Lot Changes in Five Years

Sun, 29 Apr 2018 19:29:30 +0000

I recently offered to create a website for a local charity, and then it hit me – I haven’t made a website in five years. Sure, I made this site and got on the decentralized bandwagon, but I haven’t done something from scratch in some time. Especially on the design and responsive front. Now that I’m finished, I thought it may be useful to share my notes.

I'm Late to the JAMStack Party

Sat, 28 Apr 2018 17:29:58 +0000

It turns out my new found fascination with decentralized websites isn’t specific to them being decentralized. The movement of static sites has a place on the current web too – JAMStack. For the past year people have been researching ways to take away the traditional centralized back end, and it’s pretty neat.

Adding a Codepen Shortcode to Hugo

Tue, 24 Apr 2018 12:36:17 -0400

Shortcodes allow you to add external content to a blog post in a user friendly way. Someone’s tweet, an instagram photo, forms, and so on. Instead of a long ugly snippet of JavaScript, you can paste one line of clean shortcode. Hugo has built in shortcode support, and adding a custom shortcode is super easy.

Forestry + Hugo + Netlify

Fri, 20 Apr 2018 01:17:47 +0000

Just when I thought my publishing setup was finalized, I stumbled across Forestry. Forestry appears to solve my GUI wishlist all at once. GUI for Hugo? Check. Well designed for clients? Check. Can be mapped to my URL? Check. Well supported and documented? Check.

Publishing a Decentralized Blog

Tue, 17 Apr 2018 12:24:17 -0400

The promising aspect of Beaker is that all web technologies work as expected. The fact that visting a site is as simple as creating an index.html and placing dat instead of http in front of the URL is a great start. The trickier aspect is teaching yourself to think in terms of a static, shared infrastructure instead of a central one. No database means that a static CMS is needed to manage the blog.

Decentralized Web : First Impressions

Mon, 16 Apr 2018 15:17:53 -0400

After reading Time to Rebuild the Web? and the accompanying Hacker News discussion, I felt compelled to jump in and give Beaker a shot. I was instantly excited. They type of excited where eight hours fly by and you don’t want to leave your computer. That said, I’m not sure if the appeal was from nostalgia or innovation.

Home

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m a husband, father, developer, gamer, runner and lots of other er’s. I finish some projects and attempt to finish others. I believe writing is a hobby with benefits, so I share my thoughts here.

Particletree

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I credit Particletree with any success I have. Chris, Kevin and I were forced to push ourselves, stick to schedules, learn to work together, and generally get inspired.

Wufoo

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The company I started with my brother (Chris Campbell) and friend (Kevin Hale) back when I was 23. A form builder! Exciting! Still proud of it, so here is the story.