“Conn,” meaning the power to metaphorically steer the course of an endeavor or enterprise, comes from the literal use of that power. When “conn” (in the form “cun”) first appeared in English in the 17th century as a verb, it meant “to direct the steering or course of a ship,” usually from the bridge of the ship or its equivalent. Obviously, the captain of a ship has the primary responsibility for “conning” the vessel, but often delegates the “conn” (the noun appeared in the early 19th century) to subordinate officers. Early battleships actually had elevated “conning towers,” armored to protect the captain, et al., but today the same functions are usually carried out from a “conning station” on the ship’s bridge.

For a term redolent of the high seas and naval battles of yore, “conn” has a remarkably tame origin. “Conn” apparently arose as a variant form of the verb “cond,” also meaning “to direct the steering of a ship,” which in turn derived from the obsolete verb “condue,” meaning “to conduct or guide.” As you might suspect, “condue” itself ultimately harks back to the Latin “conducere” (to lead or guide), which also gave us our modern English “conduct.”
-source

For a long time, our industry has been designing for the web the same way we design for print. We open Photoshop. We decide on a width (somewhere around 960px so we can cater to those 1024×768 screens, which follows what used to be our once 750px site). We place our components exactly where we want them and in the exact pixel sizes we want them in. We open our text editor and write some semantic markup. We create all of the components in HTML and use CSS to place them where our PSD told us to in the exact size that it told us to. We set a 960px width here, a 300px width there, and a 600px width over there. As screen sizes get larger, we update with a wider site (many are moving to 1140px these days). Pixel perfection is what matters to us. We make our websites so they could just as easily be printed in a magazine as on a screen.

And then web capable smart phones come around and EVERYONE is using them. So, keeping with our trusty work flow we make mobile versions of our websites. We decide that if someone is trying to access our site from a mobile device, it must mean they are coming for a reason other than when they are browsing on their PC. So we limit the content delivered to these devices. We cut out all of the fluff and give the user what they really want (never mind that we are only guessing at what the user really wants). We create perfectly sized mini sites with a link to our “full site,” all the while ignoring how silly that concept is. But, we are cruising again and this approach fits our print design rooted, pixel perfect ways.

And then tablet devices show up and throw another wrench into our spokes. Fortunately there is only one so we either decide to let them have our full desktop site or our mobile site. Or maybe we do what we’ve always done and make one more site for this cool new screen size! But wait, what about these tablets? 10.1″ screens? 7″ screens! What are we going to do?!?

Have we always done it like this?

Creating websites with this “pixel perfection” mindset has made sense for a long time, but it isn’t how we always did it. Back in the 90′s, before we thought of using tables to create a layout, all of our sites were completely liquid and also very linear. We couldn’t really “design” anything structural, so things simply filled the screen from top to bottom and side to side. For a while, even when we had discovered tables and then, luckily, CSS many of us tried to make our designs flexible. We might not have realized it, but we were doing it because we could tell that the web felt different than print. We noticed that, depending on our screen resolution, our designs might look very different. As we learned above, this never quite caught on.

What should we do now?

We were really on to something in the 90′s when we tried to built liquid websites. It wasn’t just a feeling we had about how the web felt. The web actually is different! The web was meant to be flexible. With the progress of CSS3, we finally have the tools to create a truly flexible experience on the web, no matter what device we are on or what screen size we are using.

By combining

• A flexible grid based layout
• Flexible images
• Media queries

we are able to develop websites the way the web always intended. These techniques together have come to be known as Responsive Web Design.

As Jeffery Zeldman so eloquently puts it:

It’s what some of us were going for with “liquid” web design back in the 1990s, only it doesn’t suck.

Sounds great! What’s the catch?

The magic we see with Responsive Web Design is how we can rearrange the layout based on screen width using media queries. Unfortunately, this is only the final ingredient, and not the most important. This technique requires a rethinking of how we design and build from the ground up. It is possible to apply media queries to an existing fixed-width site, but implementing in this way is frustrating and painful and makes maintenance a nightmare. It still means we have to design for a set of fixed widths. In order to do this right and make our development time quicker in the future, we have to start with the right foundation. That foundation is a fluid grid, which fully embraces the way of the web. Instead of designing for a few fixed widths, we can re-size our browser and see where things don’t work and write CSS to correct it.

I realize this is not always possible. Not everyone has a client or a boss who is willing to give the time to rebuild the foundation of a site. My hope, though, is that as responsive sites become more widely used, our bosses and clients will take notice and change their minds. All we can do is continue to evangelize web standards and push for doing the right thing. It isn’t easy. Anyone who has being in this business for a while knows that it is never easy. Web standards are an ongoing fight. We’ve won many battles in the past and we will continue to win them in the future.

Changing our ways of thinking and acting isn’t easy. “Closely held beliefs are not easily released”. But I’ve come slowly to realize that much of what I took for granted needed to be reassessed. Judging by what I see and read and the conversations I’ve had, the email I’ve read over the last couple of years, many hold these beliefs closely, and need to rethink them too.

Now is the time for the medium of the web to outgrow its origins in the printed page. Not to abandon so much wisdom and experience, but to also chart its own course, where appropriate.

The web’s greatest strength, I believe, is often seen as a limitation, as a defect. It is the nature of the web to be flexible, and it should be our role as designers and developers to embrace this flexibility, and produce pages which, by being flexible, are accessible to all.

The journey begins by letting go of control, and becoming flexible.
- Jon Allsopp

1. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien (3 books)
2. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
3. The Silmarillion – JRR Tolkien
4. The Two Swords – RA Salvatore
5. The Lone Drow – RA Salvatore
6. The Thousand Orcs – RA Salvatore
7. Snuff – Chuck Palaniuk
8. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
9. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe – Douglas Adams
10. Life, the Universe, and Everything – Douglas Adams
11. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish – Douglas Adams
12. Mostly Harmless – Douglas Adams
13. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – JK Rowling
14. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows – JK Rowling
15. Rant – An Oral Biography of Buster Casey – Chuck Palaniuk
16. A People’s History of the United States: 1942 to Present – Howard Zinn
17. The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians) – Rick Riordan
18. The Sea Montsers (Percy Jackson and the Olympians) – Rick Riordan
19. The Titan’s Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians) – Rick Riordan
20. The Battle of the Labyrinth (Percy Jackson and the Olympians) – Rick Riordan
21. The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson and the Olympians) – Rick Riordan
22. The Lost Symbol – Dan Brown
23. The Road – Cormac McCarthy
24. Canticle – RA Salvatore
25. In Sylvan Shadows – RA Salvatore
26. Night Masks – RA Salvatore
27. The Fallen Fortress – RA Salvatore
28. The Chaos Curse – RA Salvatore
29. Pygmy – Chuck Palaniuk
30. HTML5 for Web Designers – Jeremy Keith
31. Handcrafted CSS – Dan Cederholm
32. Preacher Volume 1 – Garth Ennis
33. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Book Got Wrong – James W. Joewen
34. The Walking Dead Volumes 1-13 – Robert Kirkman (13 books)

So now it’s 2011 and I am well on my way to another good year of reading. So far I have finished 7 books and and working on 4 others. Wish me luck and leave any recommendations in the comments!

Well, not all images, just images used when they aren’t needed. I decided to see how hard it would be to make an all CSS button that looks the same no matter what the element is and that looks acceptable in IE < 9.

I used a bit of CSS3 to make rounded corners, a background gradient, drop shadow, and text shadow. Obviously these won’t work in older versions of IE, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make. As long as there is consistency in your browser of choice, I can ignore inconsistency between browsers. If you disagree, please refer to http://dowebsitesneedtolookexactlythesameineverybrowser.com/

I put together this test page to show the buttons I made.

While listening to Episode 5 of Page Break Podcast I was reminded of the problem I’ve had with RGBa and HSLa since I first read about and started using them. Why can’t the Hexadecimal color notation be extended to include alpha so we can set the opacity of a color? Hexadecimal is simply a different way of writing an RGA value. The value #ffffff corresponds to #rrggbb (so #fff corresponds to #rgb).

So, instead of rgb(102,0,255,0.5) why can’t we have #6600ff05 where 05 is the opacity on a scale from 01 (fully transparent) to 10 (fully opaque)?

Interestingly, Microsoft is doing something like this with filters to replicate opacity in browsers that don’t support it.

Am I the only one would would like to see something like this added to the spec?

Keeping track of my correct choices with a *
(I ended up with 18/24, if you don’t feel like counting)

* Best Picture
The Hurt Locker

* Actor in a Leading Role
Jeff Bridges

* Actor in a Supporting Role
Christoph Waltz

* Actress in a Leading Role
Sandra Bullock

* Actress in a Supporting Role
Mo’Nique

* Animated Feature Film
Up

* Art Direction
Avatar

* Cinematography
Avatar

* Costume Design
The Young Victoria (these period pieces always win)

* Directing
Kathryn Bigelow

* Documentary Feature
The Cove

Documentary Short
China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province

* Film Editing
Hurt Locker

Foreign Language Film
The White Ribbon

* Makeup
Star Trek (too good to get no Oscars!)

* Music (Score)
Up

* Music (Song)
The Weary Kind – Crazy Heart

Short Film (Animated)
A Matter of Loaf and Death

Short Film (Live Action)
Kavi

* Sound Editing
Hurt Locker

* Sound Mixing
Hurt Locker

* Visual Effects
Avatar

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
Up In The Air

Writing (Original Screenplay)
Inglorious Basterds

Avatar
I really didn’t know what to expect with this because of all of the hype, but Avatar absolutely lived up to everything I heard about it. I agree with most that the story is nothing new. It is pretty typical SciFi. It’s the effects that completely blew me away. It took me a while to really become absorbed in the world of Pandora, but once I did I couldn’t look away. I don’t see any way that this film doesn’t win Art Direction, Film Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Visual Effects. Its the other categories that I am not sure about. I really don’t want it to win best picture, Director, and Cinematography, but I could see some of them happening.
Final thought: Spectacularly beautiful film! Everyone should see this in 3D. Don’t wait for dvd!

Julie & Julia
This was a very cute film. It really made me want to eat and cook delicious French foods! Meryl Streep was really great as Julia Child. Very convincing. I hope she wins Best Actress. She was much better than Sandra Bullock.
Final thought: Great film to watch at home with your family.

The Blind Side
This film was very heart warming and inspirational. Sandra Bullock did a great job in her role as a wealthy suburban mother who takes in a homeless teenager and helps him go to college on a football scholarship. As a Best Picture nominee, I’m just not convinced. There were other films this year that could have been nominated over this.
Final thought: Great inspirational family film, not really worth the Oscar buzz, though.

Precious
I can’t even tell you how heartbreaking this film is. Gabourey Sidibe plays Precious, a teen mom in the ghetto trying to make it through the worst possible situation. Monique, who plays Precious’ mother will win Best Supporting Actress, no doubt about that. You will hate her character, but her power is undeniable in the role. This could contend for Adapted Screeplay, but Best Picture and Director are a long-shot.
Final thought: Not a film for anyone who is not interested in very rough and horribly sad realism, but a must see otherwise.

In absolutely no particular order

1. Gangs of New York
2. Wet Hot American Summer
3. In the Bedroom
4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
5. No Country for Old Men
6. There Will Be Blood
7. Brick
8. The Departed
9. The Royal Tenenbaums
10. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
11. Juno
12. The Fellowship of the Ring
13. Inglourious Basterds
14. Pan’s Labyrinth
15. Donnie Darko
16. Up
17. District 9
18. Mulholland Dr.
19. 28 Days Later
20. The Pianist
21. Wall-E
22. Memento
23. Moulin Rouge
24. High Fidelity
25. Dark Knight
26. Punch Drunk Love
27. Almost Famous
28. Spirited Away
29. Kill Bill Vol. 1
30. Superbad
31. 3:10 to Yuma
32. Hotel Rawanda
33. Little Miss Sunshine
34. Avatar
35. O Brother Where Art Thou
36. Dogville
37. Amelie
38. Big Fish
39. The Squid and the Whale
40. Brokeback Mountain
41. Lost in Translation
42. The Hurt Locker
43. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
44. Babel
45. Letters from Iwo Jima
46. Milk
47. One Hour Photo
48. Requiem for a Dream
49. Amores Perros
50. Adaptation

Maybe I’ll do best albums of the decade in a few months. I know, I’m so timely with these things.

An Education
I haven’t watched any other films nominated for Leading Actress, and I know Carey Mulligan is a long shot, but her performance is fantastic in An Education. Mulligan plays a very convincing 16 year old who is seduced by an older man. Her performance is very natural and stands out in a phenomenal ensemble cast. As a Best Picture contender, I doubt this film would have made the cut if the category hadn’t been expanded, but certainly hold it’s own among the other nominees. For Adapted Screenplay this is a major contender.
Final thought: Very witty, very clever film that I would recommend.

The Hurt Locker
Certainly the best Iraq War film I’ve seen, the Hurt Locker follows a small team of Bomb Squad Technicians through their tour of duty. The story isn’t really special, so I don’t really see this as getting far in Screenplay Original. Visually it is ultra realistic and makes you feel like you are a journalist covering the action. Certainly a contender for Directing and Cinematography, though it will be hard to beat Avatar for the latter.
Final thought: Great war film worth the watch.

Inglorious Basterds
If I were a member of the Academy, this would get my vote for Best Picture. The competition is stiff this year with 5 extra nominees, but Inglorious Basterds, a rewrite of WWII history where Hitler is assassinated, is easily the best. This is a defining piece of cinema and may be Quentin Tarantino’s best work. Although, these things may be what keep it from winning the honor as movies this good never seem to get the credit they deserve until later. I would love to see this film win best picture (dark horse for sure), directing (very possible), and screenplay original (maybe).
Final thought: Probably the best film of the last 5 years…maybe 10, in my opinion.

A Serious Man
I’ve heard a lot of people say this film is overly pretentious and boring. I found it to be very thoughtful and darkly hilarious. A serious man chronicles the ridiculous trials of Larry Gopnik, a Jewish professor whose life seems to be falling apart before him. This film proves that you don’t have to be nominated for every other category to be considered for Best Picture; it stands on the story alone. That said, the Coen Brothers could grab the Screenplay Original award for this film, but I doubt it has a serious chance at Best Picture.
Final thought: Not for everybody, but very good if you typically like the Coen Brothers.

Up in the Air
This film certainly deserves the nominations it received. The acting is phenomenal and the story is both hilarious and desperately sad.
Up in the Air is about a business man who lives in the air, traveling from city to city to fire people. He doesn’t realize how terribly lonely he is until he meets another frequent flier who catches his heart. Like A Serious Man, this film shows that a great story is enough to be a Best Picture contender. Though it probably wont win, Up in the Air stands a good chance for an upset.
Final thought: For me, this film was more sad than funny, though enjoyably so.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Why don’t people like Terry Gilliam? I seriously love his films, and Dr. Parnassus does not disappoint. It may sound odd, this being a film about the struggle between imagination and the devil, but this film is very imaginative! Visually it is spectacular. The costumes, the scenery, everything about this film looks great. The story may be muddled, but it is fascinating at the same time. Certainly has a chance to win both Costume Design and Art Direction.
Final thought: I love Terry Gilliam, so I recommend this to anyone who also loves him.

Nine
I really love Daniel Day-Lewis, so I hate to say that I didn’t really enjoy Nine. The music and choreography is almost all really great, but the narrative is really awful. The story focuses on film director Guido Contini’s struggle to write his next film. I see no chance for Penelope Cruz going up against Mo’Nique for Supporting Actress (honestly Marion Cotillard had a better performance than Cruz), but could win for Costume Design and Art Direction. I haven’t really heard any of the other original songs, but the music was fantastic in Nine, so it could win there.
Final thought: I wouldn’t really recommend this film. The story really is poorly told.

The Messenger
The Messenger offers a look into the awful job of informing next of kin of the death of a soldier. Woody Harrelson is terrific and will be the only person up for Supporting Actor who might be able to beat Christoph Waltz (Inglorious Basterds). This movie gives a different side of war that isn’t often portrayed in film, at least not as well as it is in this film.
Final thought: Very good film that I highly recommend.

Food, Inc.
This is the only Documentary Feature I have had a chance to see. I liked it, but already knew most of the information that was presented so it became a bit tedious. I would have liked to see some solutions for people who can’t afford to shop at Whole Foods.
Final thought: Not as good as I thought it would be, but worth a look if you’ve ever wondered where your food comes from.

Invictus
Clint Eastwood is a very good director. He got a bit of a snubbing by not being included in either Directing or Best Picture, but I don’t blame the academy. This film wouldn’t have won either and the other nominees are probably better than Invicus, the story of Nelson Mandela using the South African rugby team to unite a very divided country. This movie is quite good and Morgan Freeman has a very good chance of winning for Leading Actor.
Final thought: Very enjoyable film that I would recommend to anyone.

1. The Chronicle’s of Narnia – C.S. Lewis (Try to read these every few years)
2. Dragon Tears – Dean Koontz
3. Hitchhicker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams (8th time. I love this series. I always cry when Marvin dies.)
4. Animal Farm – George Orwell (2nd time)
5. Lord of the Rings “Trilogy” – JRR Tolkien (I read this every year. This would be my 9th time)
6. The Hobitt – JRR Tolkien (I try to read this every year, but usually a few years in between)
7. The Silmarillion – JRR Tolkien (I try to read this every year, but usually a few years in between)
8. Twilight Series – Stephanie Meyer
9. Harry Potter Series – (3rd time through he series)
10. Dreams from my Father – Barack Obama
11. The Cather in the Rye – J.D. Salinger (4th reading, after he died RIP)
12. Legacy of the Drow (The Legacy, Starless Night, Siege of Darkness, Passage to Dawn) – R.A. Salvatore
13. Paths of Darkness (The Silent Blade, The Spine of the World, Servant of the Shard, Sea of Swords) – R.A. Salvatore
14. Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk

Total for this year: 40 books! Less than last year, but still very cool! I’ve already read 5 books for 2010, so I’m off to a great start!

As usual, please recommend anything I should look at. I’m always looking for a new author or book to read.