Category Archives: web design

I’m Not a Web Designer

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I have a love-hate relationship with web design.

I’m not a web designer. I can do professional work, and I can get hired to do web design, but I’m not *in it* every day, if you know what I mean. I’ve taught myself everything I know about it by reading books and scouring websites for critical “code”. (My brother frequently reminds me that HTML isn’t “code” in the developer’s sense. Or is it?)

WARNING: This post is technical in nature and you might just be bored out of your mind to read on. For those of you not interested in computer graphics, image rendering, or web design, I’d kindly suggest that you stop reading here.

So here’s the point of this post today (yes, this is a rant):

iPhones and iPads and MBP’s have been out long enough now, but for some reason, NOBODY has written an article that simply explains how to implement “retina graphics” on a website. Seriously. All I want to do is “serve” three different image header files to users that match three, different device specs: user 1: iPhone/iPad, user 2: Retina MacBook, user 3: lo-fi computer screens. Why can’t this be easy? It beats me.

Next problem: WordPress (and Blogger) both need to update their platforms to support this function *automatically*. Seriously, WordPress? You’re huge. You don’t even have a third-party plug-in that will do this well.

Is it too much to ask that my website looks great on an iPad? I think not.

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Yes, It’s 3:30 AM, but the New Site is Up!

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My life always seems to work this way. I get an idea. I run with it. I don’t stop. Three days ago, I started work on a complete redesign of jaymathes.com. I knew the day was coming when I’d need to make that happen, but I didn’t expect it to happen this week.

I’m not going to restate why I did the new design. You can read out that on the first news post of the site. (Never fear, I will continue to keep this blog up. This blog is where I get to rant. Over there, I keep things more business-like, you might say.) What I will say, though, is that I feel much better now that it’s “done” (I have a few things yet to touch up, but they’re all very minor.)

I like the idea of starting something, going all in with it, completing it, then moving on to the next task. It’s refreshing. I hope you enjoy the new site as much as I do. I feel like I’ve accomplished something.