HTML pages are not always better than PDFs. For example, if the main goal is for the user to print something or scroll through a brochure or catalog, PDFs can provide an admirable experience. However, posting an effective PDF to your website can be challenging because search engines may not be able to crawl them, or users may not know…
What is SVG? SVG, or Scalable Vector Graphics, is an XML-based language format supporting two-dimensional graphics. SVG images are comprised of vector-based shapes which are generated by mathematical equations. SVG is nothing new. In fact, SVG was introduce all the way back in the year 2001 (13 years!). But only in the last few years has SVG been fully embraced…
In this two-part series, I cover testing a Rails application using RSpec and some other popular gems. If you missed Part 1, head over to Testing Rails 4 Apps With RSpec 3: Part I to get caught up first. In Part 2, with the setup out of the way, we’ll dive into writing tests for the various components of a Rails…
If you’ve been surfing the web or looking for current web trends then you probably noticed that large engaging photography has become a prominent trend in more recent website design. But finding compelling photos that are high resolution and meet your target audience needs can be extremely difficult. Most stock photo sites either provide super cheesy photos of business people shaking…
If you don’t already know, a 404 or Not Found error message is a HTTP standard response code indicating that the user was able to communicate with your website server, but the server could not find the page requested. A user can come across a 404 error page for a few different reasons. Either the user entered in the wrong…
Today I’ll show you a quick and easy way to embed audio files on your website. Believe it or not, we still don’t have the equivalent of the ubiquitous <image> tag for audio files. However, with the increasing adoption of HTML5 standards in modern browsers, we’re getting very close. The current best practice is to use a little bit of…
Website and web application testing should cover a variety of platforms and browsers. You want your application to run smoothly for your widest audience. If you’re like me, your primary machine is OS X and your browsers of choice are Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. But what about Internet Explorer? Enter virtual machines. A virtual machine or VM, emulates a complete…
This post is about job control in Unix shells. Job control is your command line shell’s built-in interface for managing multiple jobs. Although I’ve known about and used job control features like & for a long time, I only recently discovered how they all fit together. With your terminal emulator’s tabs and programs like tmux and screen, it’s possible to…
Here is a tip that can make your day-to-day job easier and also your work results more accurate and predictable. Make checklists for your common work tasks. You can start with a general checklist of how to approach your workday or your week, to very specific checklists on how to perform a specific task at the office. Checklists can be…
Mobile testing is one of the most important requirements when building a website or web application. Gestures, load times, and browser differences can all effect the user experience. In the case of testing with Android, you have two options. You can either purchase a physical device with the latest and greatest version of Android or choose the more practical (and…
