Think Vitamin » Keir Whitaker

Episode #34: Amazon Fire and Responsive Roundtable

Keir Whitaker — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 16:08:09 +0000

We are back after the “cable gate” affair and it’s a mixed bag of chat this week. Amazon Fire, Designing for devices, Mike’s fashion shoot and more all get discussed. We also highlight a great new tool called Live Reload.

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Episode #33: Web App Workflow

Keir Whitaker — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 12:14:58 +0000

It’s back to normal this week as Keir, Mike and Ryan discuss a few interesting new sites, the benefits of a professional shave and the new workflow Ryan and Mike are using on the Treehouse build.

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Episode #32: Sass & LESS, the new CSS?

Keir Whitaker — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 08:24:58 +0000

This week we are joined by Greg who talks us through the basics of Sass, Compass and LESS and explains how how he uses them in his front end development projects.

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Episode #31: Talking Awards

Keir Whitaker — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 06:34:39 +0000

Ryan is off on holiday this week so we invited the regular listener and Deputy Editor of .Net Magazine Tom May along to chat with us about the upcoming .Net awards, latest news and a hot debate about the use of Lorem Ipsum.

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Episode #30: The Ideas Edition

Keir Whitaker — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 14:48:02 +0000

This week we round up a few useful links and chat about ideas. When do you know an idea is a good one, not fearing failure, making the move from client work to products, pricing and much more are covered in this weeks 40 minute show.

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Think Vitamin Radio Episode #29: Google Plus

Keir Whitaker — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 19:15:44 +0000

This week we round up a few useful sites for designers and chat about the recent launch of Google +.

Links mentioned in this weeks links roundup:

Sprite Cow - Sprite Cow helps you get the background-position, width and height of sprites within a spritesheet as a nice bit of copyable css
FlickrBomb – Great tool allowing you to use Flickr images in your wireframes
Font Combinations App – iPhone app allowing you to see combinations of fonts

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Episode #28: News Roundup and Ryan’s Weird Thing of the Week

Keir Whitaker — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 08:03:38 +0000

This week Ryan is back from his spreadsheets and talks us through the possibilities of 3D hologram websites. We also discuss using WordPress to power your newspaper, the release of GitHub for Mac, Modernizr, RedPop and much more.

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Episode #27: DIBI Round Up and Online Accounting

Keir Whitaker — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 09:52:41 +0000

Ryan’s AWOL this week so it’s left to Mike & Keir to discuss their recent visit to the DIBI conference, Ethan Marcotte’s new gold covered book and online accounting packages for freelance web people.

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Episode #26: FOWD London Wrap up and Bit Coins

Keir Whitaker — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 11:01:06 +0000

The three of us are back from Future of Web Design London. We chat about the highlights, catch up on some of the latest web related news and Ryan explains the future of currency is Bit Coin.

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Episode #25: News Roundtable and Client Revisions

Keir Whitaker — Thu, 19 May 2011 12:03:34 +0000

This week we chat about some of the recent Google I/O announcements and discuss the tricky situation of clients asking for multiple revisions and changes to project work.

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Episode #24: Flickr Royalty, Sortfolio Sale and Work Life Balance

Keir Whitaker — Thu, 12 May 2011 06:02:26 +0000

This week we discuss the recent Royal Wedding, ponder why 37signals are selling Sortfolio which appears very profitable and have a roundtable chat about our approaches to achieving a work life balance.

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Think Vitamin Radio: Episode #23

Keir Whitaker — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 06:25:21 +0000

This week we revisit the topic of web deisgners who code (or don’t) and also discuss the difficulties of pricing in light of Adobe’s recent “Creative Suite” subscription model.

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Think Vitamin Radio: Episode #22

Keir Whitaker — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 10:15:15 +0000

This week we are joined via Skype by Alan Johnson, a developer at Carsonified working on Treehouse. We chat about the need for beauty in web apps as well as a bunch of other developer related topics.

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Think Vitamin Radio: Episode #21

Keir Whitaker — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 16:56:14 +0000

This week Ryan reveals the new name for Think Vitamin Membership and Mike chats about moving on from Carsonified and his ambitions for his new design studio.

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Think Vitamin Radio: Episode #20

Keir Whitaker — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 16:43:32 +0000

This weeks it’s a bit of a mixed bag. We chat about gamification in web apps, Mike discovers GMail labels, Ryan tells us about his name troubles and Keir talks about 88mph and BreadApp, his new post Carsonified ventures.

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Complex Tables: Part 2 Video Tutorial

Keir Whitaker — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 10:06:07 +0000

In this 6 minute video, you’ll learn some additional techniques you can use to improve the accessibility of complex tables. These tips are useful when your table contains three levels of headers.

This video is from Think Vitamin Membership, a high-quality video training site, curated by us at Carsonified and Think Vitamin, with hundreds of short videos on topics like …

10 new videos are added every week, so it’s a great way to stay up-to-date on all the latest technology and methods. Browse the entire library of videos.

20% Off Adventures in Digital Marketing for TV Readers

Keir Whitaker — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 15:08:51 +0000

Regular Future of Web Apps presenter and Think Vitamin author Alex Hunter is putting on a digital marketing workshop at the end of this month and is hooking up all you lovely TV readers with a 20% discount!

Just the coupon code TV when registering at www.adventuresin.co.uk to get your discount. But hurry, I’m told tickets are selling out quickly!

Media Queries Width and Height Video Tutorial

Keir Whitaker — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 09:48:34 +0000

In this 6 minute video, you’ll learn about two media features of media queries. You’ll also learn an advanced technique that will help you get more important content above the fold.

This video is from Think Vitamin Membership, a high-quality video training site, curated by us at Carsonified and Think Vitamin, with hundreds of short videos on topics like …

10 new videos are added every week, so it’s a great way to stay up-to-date on all the latest technology and methods. Browse the entire library of videos.

Moving on From Think Vitamin

Keir Whitaker — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 11:13:14 +0000

Just a quick post to say that Thursday 3rd March will be my last day as editor of Think Vitamin and at Carsonified. It’s been an fantastic journey but it’s time for a change.

The last three years working at Carsonified have been an amazing experience. I have been privileged to work on numerous Future of Web Design and Future of Web Apps events in the UK and America, attend many amazing conferences including Chirp, the first official Twitter developer conference, dConstruct and New Adventures in Web Design. Along the way I have met many passionate web designers, developers and entrepreneurs who are playing their part in forwarding the industry we work in and love.

For the last 12 months I have been focusing on this site, Think Vitamin. We have commissioned, edited and and published literally hundreds of posts on web design, web development and web business by a roster of seasoned writers, first time authors as well as our own team contributions. I have really enjoyed working with all the external authors but special thanks must go to Chrissie for her regular and insightful “Around The Web” posts. The analytics suggest that a lot of you have found it useful too. Think Vitamin will of course carry on and continue to flourish.

As well as the written word we decided to venture into the world of podcasting and launched Think Vitamin Radio in January 2010. We’ve not quite managed to record every other week as planned. Small things like ash clouds, travelling to events and paternity leave got in the way of the schedule but despite this we were nominated for “Podcast of the Year” in the annual .Net Awards. We ultimately lost out to SitePoint.

Along with the back end development of the new theme for the site this the podcast remains a personal high point of my work on Think Vitamin. The good news is that I’ll continue to host the it for the foreseeable future.

What’s Next?

Working on events means travelling, which in turn means time away. With an expanding small family I want to spend more time at home. I have also missed being at the coal face of web development. Prior to joining Carsonified I worked as a freelance developer for many years and the itch to create and work on a variety of interesting projects needs to be scratched.

To that end I will be spending 50% of my time with two good friends to help develop their small but well formed web development company 88mph. We’ll be focusing on a mix of client work as well as working on a few internal projects, the first of which will be BreadApp – our take on helping web professionals find work. I am also planning on kickstarting a few personal projects as well as being able to dedicate time to other freelance work (WordPress development, writing, training and more).

You can continue to find my personal ramblings and contact details over at keirwhitaker.com and on Twitter.

And Finally

I would also like to thank everyone who I have had the pleasure of working with at Carsonified and Ryan and Gill for the opportunity.

Complex Tables: Part 1 Video Tutorial

Keir Whitaker — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 08:20:15 +0000

In this 7 minute video, you’ll start learning some techniques you can use to improve the accessibility of complex tables. These tips are useful when your table contains two levels of headers.

This video is from Think Vitamin Membership, a high-quality video training site, curated by us at Carsonified and Think Vitamin, with hundreds of short videos on topics like …

10 new videos are added every week, so it’s a great way to stay up-to-date on all the latest technology and methods. Browse the entire library of videos.

Yahoo Query Language jQuery Tutorial

Keir Whitaker — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 09:28:28 +0000

In this 9 minute video we look at how to use YQL’s JSONP capabilities to make web service calls directly from the browser, with no need to use your web server as a proxy. We look at how to use the most basic JSONP techniques, and how to write your own convenience methods for jQuery to make executing YQL queries a snap.

This video is from Think Vitamin Membership, a high-quality video training site, curated by us at Carsonified and Think Vitamin, with hundreds of short videos on topics like …

10 new videos are added every week, so it’s a great way to stay up-to-date on all the latest technology and methods. Browse the entire library of videos.

Think Vitamin Radio: Episode #19

Keir Whitaker — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 10:40:54 +0000

This week we focus on Apple’s recent in-app billing announcement and ask what it means for SaaS apps as well as chatting about KickStarter (again) and Mike’s Instagram Tour of Bath, UK!

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As always please do let us know your thought in the comments or email editor@thinkvitamin.com.

SASS CSS Framework Tutorial

Keir Whitaker — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 09:27:57 +0000

In this 7 minute video, you’ll get an overview of SASS, a tool that allows you to write CSS more easily. You’ll also walk through the process of installing SASS.

This video is from Think Vitamin Membership, a high-quality video training site, curated by us at Carsonified and Think Vitamin, with hundreds of short videos on topics like …

10 new videos are added every week, so it’s a great way to stay up-to-date on all the latest technology and methods. Browse the entire library of videos.

MongoDB Basic Queries Tutorial

Keir Whitaker — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 09:27:08 +0000

In this 9 minute video we look at how to insert new records into our database, and how to perform simple queries

This video is from Think Vitamin Membership, a high-quality video training site, curated by us at Carsonified and Think Vitamin, with hundreds of short videos on topics like …

10 new videos are added every week, so it’s a great way to stay up-to-date on all the latest technology and methods. Browse the entire library of videos.

CSS3 Advanced Box Shadow Tutorial

Keir Whitaker — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 12:01:10 +0000

In this 5 minute video, you’ll learn about additional box-shadow features, such as multiple shadows and inset shadows. You’ll also learn some advanced techniques, such as how to create a sunken well effect.

This video is from Think Vitamin Membership, a high-quality video training site, curated by us at Carsonified and Think Vitamin, with hundreds of short videos on topics like …

10 new videos are added every week, so it’s a great way to stay up-to-date on all the latest technology and methods. Browse the entire library of videos.

Responsive Web Design for Mobile Tutorial

Keir Whitaker — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 11:51:20 +0000

In this 6 minute video, you’ll learn about some of the pitfalls of using responsive web design (RWD) on mobile projects. RWD is a great tool for creating mobile websites, but there are several contextual factors to consider before using RWD on a mobile project.

This video is from Think Vitamin Membership, a high-quality video training site, curated by us at Carsonified and Think Vitamin, with hundreds of short videos on topics like …

10 new videos are added every week, so it’s a great way to stay up-to-date on all the latest technology and methods. Browse the entire library of videos.

Alex Hunter’s Adventures in Digital Marketing

Keir Whitaker — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 17:50:15 +0000

Regular Future of Web Apps speaker Alex Hunter recently got in touch to let me know that he’s running a one off one day workshop in London called “Adventures in Digital Marketing“.

If you haven’t had the opportunity to see Alex at Future of Web Apps before then check out the video below from FOWA Miami, it’s certainly worth 20 minutes of your time.

Alex has worked for some of the biggest online brands and knows a thing or two about creating a successful digital marketing strategy as well as how to use bleeding edge techniques to keep your brand ahead of the competition. He’s also written a number of articles for Think Vitamin on startups, marketing and more.

Early bird passes are available for £295. Visit the “Adventures In” web site for full details.

Starting a New WordPress Theme Tutorial

Keir Whitaker — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 11:46:23 +0000

In this 6 minute video, you’ll learn how to start a new WordPress theme from scratch. You’ll also learn how to add metadata to your theme.

This video is from Think Vitamin Membership, a high-quality video training site, curated by us at Carsonified and Think Vitamin, with hundreds of short videos on topics like …

10 new videos are added every week, so it’s a great way to stay up-to-date on all the latest technology and methods. Browse the entire library of videos.

Gathering User Requirements Tutorial

Keir Whitaker — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 09:00:59 +0000

In this 5 minute video, you’ll learn how to gather the preliminary data that will help you conduct user requirements gathering activities.

This video is from Think Vitamin Membership, a high-quality video training site, curated by us at Carsonified and Think Vitamin, with hundreds of short videos on topics like …

10 new videos are added every week, so it’s a great way to stay up-to-date on all the latest technology and methods. Browse the entire library of videos.

TextMate Snippets Tutorial

Keir Whitaker — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 09:00:34 +0000

In this video 7 minute video we explore how to create your own Textmate snippets to speed up your development.

This video is from Think Vitamin Membership, a high-quality video training site, curated by us at Carsonified and Think Vitamin, with hundreds of short videos on topics like …

10 new videos are added every week, so it’s a great way to stay up-to-date on all the latest technology and methods. Browse the entire library of videos.