June 2023

May was a tough one to take. Rebekka and I both got sick and had to pull out of the Hackney Half. A real shame, as we’d been training for a while, but we’ll continue our training and focus on the next one, wherever that may be.

On the upside, there’s been lots of highlights this month. And, the weather in the northern hemisphere is finally starting to feel more like summer. Time to get outside more.

Here’s the latest.

✨ Highlights from last month #

• I’m finding time for Practical Hugo again. And, I hope to have some content out there in the next couple of months. Let’s hope I can stick to that.
• I’ve been working on how I write CSS. CSS is developing fast, so it’s time to improve my approach. I’m planning on formalising this with a new starter project, of sorts, which I’ll add to a public Github repo soon.
• I bought an Apple Watch SE a couple of weeks back. Mostly to track my runs and map routes. I was concerned it would be yet another distraction, but I’m pleasantly surprised.
• Over the bank holiday I watched The Swimmers, which follows the remarkable true story of two teenage Syrian refugees.

🕸 Elsewhere on the web #

• “It is your choice. You can hire frontend developers to build your product, or make it happen somehow and later on hire performance and accessibility consultants to fix what doesn’t work properly.” Christian Heilmann in The ongoing defence of frontend as a full-time job.
• Writing when tech has broken the web’s social contract. Baldur Bjarnason questions whether publishing content online is still a safe thing to do.
• Robin’s made a great list of Handwriting Fonts For Lo-Fi Design, via which I discovered and enjoyed the story of Shantell Sans, a hand-drawn font based on the often reviled Comic Sans.
• ”Start with mostly static HTML. Progressively enhance the dynamic parts. Pick small, focused tools.” Chris Ferdinandi on How to build lean efficient websites in 2023.
• Designing for realistic attention and Outlines are information architecture; two short but helpful pieces from Christopher Butler about structuring content and webpages, respectively.
• Interesting things you can do with Hugo Render Hooks: Supercharge your headings in Hugo with Render Hooks from Dariusz Więckiewicz and Better code for image processing in Hugo from Bryce Wray.
• Building a greener web from Michelle Barker is packed full of great advice.

🗓 What I’m up to this month #

• I’m currently back in Germany for another family event.
• Working on Practical Hugo and my second Hugo theme.
• I hope to get back into distance running after a few weeks off.
• Continuing my monthly ski sessions.

Thank you for reading #

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