Chesapeake ADHD Center of Maryland is my most recent client: an ADHD psychotherapy practice in Silver Spring, MD. As was the case with Ann Dolin’s site, the original codebase was inherited. Apparently, the website was originally created in an old version of Dreamweaver — and all of its WYSIWYG glory. Sigh. With over 150 pages (and file names such as cooltext449991252_001.png) the codebase had become an unmaintainable morass of untemplated spaghetti, with nary a single redeemable line of code. The site was razed to the ground and reborn in the ashes.

Chesapeake ADHD has undergone more of a reorganization than a redesign; in fact, I view my design as more of an improvement upon the original — the essential design elements can still be seen.

When I inherited the project, the site’s Page Speed score was a somewhat respectable 78. Now? Try 96. The law of diminishing returns should kick in soon.

You may remember a site refresh I did for Ann Dolin last summer: her own tutoring business, Educational Connections. This spring finds her personal site, anndolin.com, getting a subtle makeover and a substantial speed boost.

Before the refresh, the site’s Page Speed score hovered in the high eighties. Not bad, by any measure. The original codebase was inherited, and I had done all I could to increase page load times (save for completely redoing the site, which was using a WordPress template of questionable character). The stars realigned with this recent redesign, and her Page Speed score is positively screaming with a score of 97.

Three of my favorite artists are releasing fresh new studio albums in the coming weeks, and I’m super-psyched!

Panda Bear

In 2007, Panda Bear released Person Pitch, an album as close to perfection as technically possible. His latest, Tomboy, is already exceeding my expectations, and I can’t wait to hear the album in its entirety. Oh wait: the album is streaming on NPR until April 12th.

Fleet Foxes

I saw the Foxes in early July 2008, when hype for the band was first building. Some claim that they’ve pigeon-holed themselves into a folksy, lush, baroque sound; if I concede that point, I still believe this works to their advantage. Right before the release of their debut album, an old school mate of mine, Josh Tillman, joined the band. While he’s been with Fleet Foxes for going on three years, Helplessness Blues will be his first recording with the band.

My Morning Jacket

MMJ appear to be caught in a Catch-22. They can’t exactly revisit the old sound, the reverb-laden At Dawn and It Still Moves, without coming across as overly nostalgic also-rans. At the same time, their last release, Evil Urges, somehow diverged simultaneously into both white-boy falsetto funk, slow steel-guitar numbers, and standard AOR pop-radio fare. MMJ has promised a “reset” of sorts for their latest, Circuital. Needless to say, the record will probably blow me away.

My derivation of Eric Meyer’s latest Reset CSS, but for current browsers:

:not(button):not(input):not(optgroup):not(option):not(select):not(textarea) {margin:0; padding:0; border:0; font-size:100%; font:inherit; vertical-align:baseline;}

article, aside, details, figcaption, figure, footer, header, hgroup, menu, nav, section {display:block;}

body {line-height:1;}

ol, ul {list-style:none;}

blockquote, q {quotes:none;}
blockquote:before, blockquote:after, q:before, q:after {content:''; content:none;}

table {border-collapse:collapse; border-spacing:0;}

Meyer’s first rule — in which we reset margins, padding, borders, and fonts — quickly becomes unwieldy as we explicitly list out all elements, save for a few typically used in forms. Instead, the negation pseudo-class provides a succinct way of selecting these elements. Internet Explorer 8 and below will still need to be fed the more verbose rule, however.

Update

Ah. It turns out I spoke too soon. The negation pseudo class carries a higher specificity than a simple element selector. So in practice, my method would be at least cumbersome. It was a nice mind exercise while it lasted…

Something strangely fascinating happens when I filter my digital music library with the simple keyword “swim” — nothing but standout Grade-A™ songs:

• R.E.M.’s “Nightswimming”. The song represents R.E.M. at their commercial (and arguably creative peak) and is right up there with “Fall on Me” and “Find the River” in the upper echelon of R.E.M. songs.
• Surfer Blood’s “Swim”. Bombastic power-pop surf rock with an ocean’s worth of reverb. “Swim” plays as the musical equivalent of an extreme off-roading Jeep. Do yourself a favor and buy this right now.
• A couple singles from Canadian folk-rock band Great Lake Swimmers, “Pulling on a Line” and “Your Rocky Spine.” Both are melodic, and exude a certain pop craftiness.
• Caribou’s “Odessa” from Swim. In the same vein as Hot Chip, “Odessa” is an organic-sounding dance track with a tight flute riff and a killer bass line. Someone needs to sample this and rap over the top. Pronto!
• Tyler Ramsey’s cover of Jackson Browne’s “These Days” from A Long Dream About Swimming Across the Sea.
• Camera Obscura’s “Swimming Pool”. A twee little duet. Sample lyric: “My head’s been lying dormant like a sleepy little mouse.”
• Frightened Rabbit’s “Swim Until You Can’t See Land”. Yeah, yet another quality Scottish rock band. I swear, I don’t do this on purpose.

A couple days ago, I was attempting to feed our rabbits something delicious: I believe it was a grape.

“That’s so unhealthy for them!”, Annie interjected.

Our rabbits tend to subsist primarily on hay, hay/alfalfa pellets, leafy greens (kale, lettuce), and carrot pieces. Sugary treats such as dried mango, raisins, and plump red grapes are apparently out of the question now, as we want our sniff machines to live as long as possible.

Then it dawned on me: kale — by far the healthiest food in our fridge — was more or less reserved for two eight-pound Holland Lops. So that’s when I decided to start eating raw kale. It’s actually quite tasty. And healthy as all get-out.

And, no, I’m not talking about alpha-methylphenethylamine or the dopamine receptors in my brain. Nay; I’m referring to improving the efficiency of two aspects of my daily life:

My recreational running speeds over various distances

In the early months of 2010, I began to notice that running at a given speed — say, 7 MPH was progressively taking less and less effort as my overall weight and health improved. So, naturally, I started to increase my average speed. 8 MPH became the new 7 MPH and it looks as if 9 MPH is becoming the new 8 MPH. In July, I started to keep track of my personal records for various distances and times. Records continue to fall, so I know that there’s still room for improvement.

Web page load times of websites for which I code

In September, a random blog post keyed me in to the goodness that is Page Speed, a Firefox extension, that, with the help of Firebug, analyzes a web page’s assets and server settings against a set of web performance best practices and assigns a numeric score between 1 and 100. Do you see where I’m going with this? I now have a somewhat-tangible way of expressing a web page’s speed and a method for calculating speed improvements over time!

I’ve lost nearly 50 pounds since the summer of 2008. I now weigh more or less what I weighed when I started college in 1998, so — needless to say — I’m pleased.

The cause

What’s changed? I haven’t exactly increased my exercise regimen. It’s still the same old running, volleyball, and casual weight training. In fact, when I initially joined a gym in 2006, I was mystified that my weight just kept creeping up. So I’ve learned not to attribute weight solely to an exercise regimen.

Diet! I’m no longer eating meat (except for fish). I’m no longer overeating to the point of abdominal discomfort. I’d like to think that I’m consuming higher quality calories — and in reasonable quantities. Mainstays: nuts, beans, brown rice, fish (salmon, tuna), potatoes, tomatoes and tomato-based products (soups and V8), oatmeal, yogurt, milk, natural sweeteners (honey and maple syrup).

The effect

Last month, I went clothes shopping and bought a couple of size small polo shirts at the Gap. Small! And they fit just fine. Small is apparently the new medium.

The post-volleyball knee pain is completely gone. Two years, ago, I’d come home from volleyball and I’d barely be able to walk from the car to the front door — the pain in my knees was so bad. At the time, I didn’t even put two and two together; I just attributed the pain to repetitive jumping and pivoting. It wasn’t until a couple weeks ago that it dawned on me: I was carrying around the equivalent of two adult Japanese macaques 24/7!. How I managed to even run or jump at all is a mystery to me.

Aside from volleyball, I’ve been running progressively faster and for longer distances. I’ve even somehow begun to do sets of unassisted chin-ups at the gym. Remember, no more snow monkeys on my back.

The data

Educational Connections

In June, Annie got a referral from a book publisher in need of graphic design and layout for an upcoming title. As it turned out, the client also needed intensive web development, which presented a golden opportunity for Annie and me to work together for the first time. The book, Homework Made Simple (left), features her cover art, layout, and illustrations.

For the website, Annie provided page mockups, designed the logo, and gave much-needed creative input. I made a decision early on in the redesign process to ditch the site’s integration with WordPress — a decision I didn’t make rashly. WordPress definitely has its uses, but for Educational Connections, the drawbacks of WordPress outweighed the benefits.

The site is unique among my projects in that it boasts prominent stock photography of photogenic children and teens. I didn’t think I’d ever say this, but I believe I have a new-found appreciation for happy, bubbly stock photos.

Practical Pockets

Practical Pockets caters to, admittedly, a very niche market. Post-surgical recovery accessories for women? Hey — the site can’t redesign itself. A caveat: page content is served by a CMS which the client edits from time to time, so any peculiar page-specific layout decisions were probably not made by me.

I think my greatest accomplishment for Practical Pockets is that, even though I developed in Firefox and Chrome, used beaucoup progressive enhancement, and tended to push “aggressive” CSS rules, my Internet Explorer fixes file consists of a single float declaration.

For both of these projects, I “flipped the switch” and opted for the HTML5 doctype. Many developers are of the impression that HTML5 is “the future.” The future is now! Coding from the beginning in HTML5 now means not having to go back and correct markup later, as Jens Meiert can attest.