Weeknotes

Week: 3 ▪ Date: 2020-12-09 ¶

The end of this semester is coming to an end and I'm working very hard on the back-end course and my web animation course for next semester at CMD Amsterdam. It will also my first year teaching in our 'beginner programming' course and I'm also doing an in-take for the Basic Teaching Qualification. Next week will be a busy week planning and organizing!

Links ¶

• Dan Abramov wrote about it isn't only about how code looks but how it evolves in a team in Goodbye Clean Code.
• A dutch article in The Correspondent about why you shouldn't follow the Daily News.
• Reasons for burn-out by Frank Chimero.
• JavaScript can't really multitask. Sarah Drasner wrote a piece on CSS Tricks explaining Async Await.
• Basecamp founder Jason Fried made a guide on how they handle internal communication.

More to click

• Which emoji scissors close
• Datamining Bandersnatch
• Calendar Versioning

Project ¶

These weeknotes are now part of a newsletter (which you are probably currently reading). I've chosen Buttondown.email because of the good markdown experience and basic functionality, no fancy features.

Updates to my personal site include a /mistake page with, you probably guessed it, an incomplete list of my mistakes. I also wanted to track the progress of how my site changed (or evolved) over time so I'm consistenly saving my site to the web-archive.org and made an overview on /archive.

Learning ¶

I started with Wes Bos his Beginner JavaScript course, not really for learning but seeing how Wes teaches tricky concepts. In a couple weeks, I'll teach a JavaScript Bootcamp and I'm looking for inspiration for the curriculum. That's why I'm also re-doing his JavaScript 30 course for exercise inspiration.

Media diet ¶

↪ Playing: Got my Sim Racing all set-up so I'm playing tons of Gran Turismo Sport on the Playstation 4 but also bought Ori and the Blind Forest for the Nintendo Switch.

↪ Reading: Finished two college books from Cal Newport and started with Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss.

↪ Watching: The Toys that made Us was a fun watch, I was waiting for Gommorah S4 to hit Netflix and it finally did.

Week: 4 ▪ Date: 2020-02-26 ¶

Last week (several times) students confused Design with Art. To me, design is not art, but design is definitely creative. The outcome is more focussed on function, it leans more towards the usability of the product than aesthetic appeal.

Over the last year, I accumulated a lot of small gear but guessed it was time to upgrade my Every Day Carry. First up, a Victorinox Huntsman to keep as a multi-tool in my bag.

I'm also starting to broaden my music horizon. I like classic house music but feel like I'm staying in my lane. Got some good suggestions for discovering new music and artists.

Links ¶

• An illustration from Damien Newman called The Design Squiggle of the design process; from research to one single designed solution.
• Fun talk by Michael Flarup on how to maintain high creative output while still living your life.
• This article got me thinking about the gamification of fitness; How I use video games to lose weight and feel fit by Jeff Ramos.
• 'Accessibility is a perfect indicator for the quality of a website' wrote Manuel Matuzovic in Bad accessibility equals bad quality.

More to click

• The (Unofficial) Apple Archive
• Guidelines for Brutalist Web Design

Project ¶

The outline for the JavaScript Bootcamp is finished. We feel like these are some of the core JavaScript fundamentals that are good for students. I also worked on my personal website for a bit by adding a /privacy page and /timeless page with a list of timeless links and products.

Learning ¶

Daniel Shiffman from The Coding Train is so fun to watch, I've been watching a couple of his AI, machine learning focussed video's. Kyle Simpson has a course up on Frontend Masters for free that's a great introduction to JavaScript.

Media diet ¶

↪ Playing: Probably about halfway trough Ori and the Blind Forest for the Nintendo Wii.

↪ Reading: Still reading Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. It's good, but not life-changing.

↪ Watching: Watched The Game Changers documentary on Netflix and am six episodes into Unbelievable.

Week: 6 ▪ Date: 2020-02-09 ¶

This was quite a busy week. Lot's of assessments and re-sits. It drains your energy very quickly. Even if it's just 4 / 5 hours a day (no full days) grading is mentally pretty demanding. You need to be sharp with every student no matter the time of day.

This week was also the first week of the Basic Teaching Qualification. What struck me was that all of us encounter the same 'problems' and there are a lot of similarities when teaching that are not related to specific course subject content. Our group has about +20 teachers that all work in different programs at our university. That difference and diversity of people's views and opinions about teaching is inspiring.

Links ¶

• TCJX on the difference between knowledge and wisdom and how it relates to self-help books.
• A lot of articles from different people about Design Systems and Frank Chimero sums them up nicely.
• Wendy Steffens from Fabrique wrote about a usability test they did with visually impaired users.
• I've been using Firefox as my daily browser for over a year and Brad Frost also switched.

More to click

• Min and Max Width/Height in CSS
• Setting Up Your Webcam for streaming

Project ¶

Started planning out the content and layout of a course website. One of my side projects is that I want to create more tutorials (online courses). So I started researching how to make good screencasts and how different popular course platforms are structured.

Learning ¶

Didn't do a ton of learning this week. I usually set aside ~30 minutes a day to work on an online course but this week I didn't make time for it, I'm still trying to finish Kyle Simpson his front-end masters course.

Media diet ¶

↪ Playing: Finished Inside on the Playstation 4 over the weekend. Takes a couple of hours with a fantastic (weird) ending.

↪ Reading: Started in Ultralearning by Scott H Young about how to learn and master skills quickly.

↪ Watching: Parasite was so freaking good. On my wishlist for a very long time and oh did it deliver. I also watched the pilot of The Witcher and so far so good.

Week: 50 ▪ Date: 2019-12-09 ¶

Worked on the speaking request form for my personal website. It uses Netlify Forms which parses the HTML at build time. Setting it up was a breeze.

Currently looking at a couple newsletter providers to see if I can deliver these weeknotes (with some additions) as a weekly newsletter. Buttondown.email seems like a good fit.

We had a CMD reconnect session, over 50 Alumni from our program joined for dinner to chat about topics from our curriculum. I was very interested in the gap between our program and actual jobs / internships. And if students were interested in teaching part-time.

Links ¶

• Building trust as a designer is an article from Adam Silver about trade-offs and the balance between users and your own team.
• Daniel Göransson wrote about Screen Readers on Axesslab. Great introduction and includes many examples of users using assistive technology.
• Kaitlyn Tiffany wrote about the origin story of wikiHow called how to make a website.
• Quality list of Typography books by Robert Toman.
• Many people contributed their end of 2019 thoughts about building websites on CSS Tricks.

Project ¶

Started working on the Zero Twenty group (wip) which is a private mastermind group for people building digital products. Here is the GitHub organization. The idea is to be a mastermind group, not a community. Working on the landing page, branding and the group governance.

Learning ¶

Reading Shape Up from Ryan Singer about Product Development within Basecamp. Complementary read for anyone who's running Design Sprints.

Also working my way trough Working with Data and APIs in JavaScript from Daniel Shiffman (coding train) Good refresher for anyone dealing with server-side.

Media diet ¶

↪ Playing: Switching between Cuphead on the Nintendo Switch and God of War on the Playstation 4.

↪ Reading: Finished a dutch book from Huib Modderkolk Het is oorlog, maar niemand die het ziet and currently reading the bundle of Columns from Ben Tiggelaar.

↪ Watching: Abstract: The Art of Design on Netflix and West World season 2 on HBO.

Week: 47 ▪ Date: 2019-11-24 ¶

We started the last course called 'front-end data' in the tech track of Communication and Multimedia Design at the Amsterdam University of Applied sciences. Students created a static d3.js visualization and are now adding interaction and events to make them more interactive.

Played around with monetization on my personal site, inspired by the Shop Talk Show episode 379. You can tip me with BAT if you are using the Brave browser.

Links

• Mind the gap, user centered design in large organizations is a fantastic Talk by Luke Wroblewski which talks about copying user interface elements because 'everyone else is doing it'.
• Brad Frost wrote about the design system governance process; when to create one-off components or when to abandon the design system all together.
• Marko Saric wrote a fantastic post about why you should use Firefox as your default browser covering their privacy-focused features.
• Speaking.io is a comprehensive resource full of tips for public speaking by Zach Holman.

Project ¶

Made a GitHub organization for Voight (wip), a small side project where I started working on front-end boilerplates and Syntax / UI themes. I'm currently making a static boilerplate using 11ty, the static site starter, and another one which includes Tailwind CSS. Deckard is the work in progress name for the UI themes. Still need to have a look and try out some other themes to gather inspiration from. Started with an an Alfred, Slack & Terminal theme and will move on to code editor themes.

Learning ¶

I postponed this for a long time but I'm finally learning some frameworks to build a couple of sites I want to work on. Starting with React for some reason. I did this Scrimba React course to make some quick examples and play around with the syntax. Then onto the Framer Guide to React to learn some overarching principles. Next up are the plain ol' React docs and the React for Beginners video's from Wes Bos.

Media diet ¶

↪ Playing: Switching between Cuphead on the Nintendo Switch and God of War on the Playstation 4.

↪ Reading: Finished a dutch book from Huib Modderkolk Het is oorlog, maar niemand die het ziet and currently reading the bundle of Columns from Ben Tiggelaar.

↪ Watching: Abstract: The Art of Design on Netflix and West World season 2 on HBO.