Author: Bruce Gilbert

I am a web developer and blogger living in Durham, North Carolina. Technical specialties include WordPress and Drupal Development, HTML5, CSS3, jQuery, PHP and MySQL. I also dabble in SEO. When I am not working on websites or SEO I enjoy music, art, sports, movies, and being a foodie.
Technology

Getting started with CSS Grid layout

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One of my strongest areas of web development is Cascading Style Sheets more commonly referred in the web world as CSS. I have always been a visual person, and with CSS I can create a pallet on the web using code (when combined with HTML5). CSS has rapidly evolved over the last few years with technologies and frameworks such as SASS/SCSS and Bootstrap leading the way. Another major advancement to CSS recently is the new layout techniques using grid (Or CSS Grid as it is commonly referred as). In this post, I will expound on the basics of CSS grid and how it can help you to design and code a complex layout for various devices.

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Technology

Best new features in JavaScript ES6

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I’ve been coding in JavaScript for quite a while. In fact, I can remember when JavaScript was used for such cool functionality as a replacement image when you hover over a button for example. It was pretty cool interactivity for 1998, but it wasn’t until libraries such as jQuery came along in the 200’s that JavaScript really took off. Around this time AJAX was a big deal too where you could do things like creating a form where the user could fill it out, submit the form and receive a partial page update without being redirected to another page. Pretty cool stuff indeed!

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Web Design

Fun with Flexbox

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Fun With CSS3 Flexbox

I have been doing web development for quite a while and one of the frustrating things we have to deal with in web design is laying out a web page and getting every element to be positioned just as we want it.

Back in the day, we would use floats and absolute positioning to get everything pixel perfect only to find out the layout was broken in Internet Explorer. Today’s web world is much different with fluid designs, rem units instead of pixels and grid systems such as CSS grid and Bootstrap.

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Life

Enjoy the present because tomorrow is not promised

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Stop and smell the roses

It has been said that most people cannot enjoy the present because they are always dwelling on the past or looking to the future. I think that I can be counted in that category most of my life but as I have aged I have slowly learned to not take anything for granted and to enjoy the present as much as I can.

An often heard phrase is “stop and smell the roses”. To me, this means to take the time out of your day to realize where you are, what you are doing, who you are doing it with and most importantly why you are doing what you do.

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Healthy Lifestyle

Why I love drinking green tea

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Green Tea

I love green tea. I drink a lot of tea in general, but by far my favorite is the green variety. I will drink it hot in the Winter and cold in the Summer. Besides the refreshing taste, there are many other benefits to drinking green tea that might not be well known to most people.

First off, there isn't just one type of green tea, there are many varieties. Among the different varieties are Sencha, Tencha, Matcha, and Gyokuro.  The most popular variety is Sencha. These are all teas grown in Japan, the capital of green tea. Read more about the various varieties of green tea.

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Philosophy

Evolution via Agile

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Evolution via Agile

Technologies evolve, processes evolve, businesses evolve and even people evolve (some more than others). Of those, I think that technology evolves quicker than anything else. It seems like overnight technologies can change.

With technology changes, there is a need to constantly be updating and evolving digital communications as well. When I say digital communications, I am referencing websites, web applications, blogs, email newsletters.

I have worked on several development teams that have adopted the Agile approach and I have learned a lot and adopted many of the Agile processes to my development process on freelance projects. Some staples of agile development are Sprints, Epics, SCRUM, Stand-Ups, and Feature Driven Development. I won’t go into detail for each one, but a good article can be found here.

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Determination

2018 New Year – New Resolutions

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Many people in a new year make New Year’s resolutions, and I am no different. Some people write down their resolutions on paper, some just make them mentally and nerds like me blog them out!

Without further ado, here are my 2018 New Years resolutions, at least some of them.

  • Exercise regularly, drink more water and meditate often.
  • Eat healthy meals.
  • Practice gratitude and take walks of gratitude.
  • Read more books.
  • Be a better friend, and overall a nicer, kinder person.
  • Don’t try and force success. Trust the process and enjoy the work you do and the people you do it with and success will follow.
  • Smile and laugh more!
  • Enjoy what I do, whether it be web development/design. blogging or whatever.

    • Thanks to Jon Gordon and 20 positive tips for inspiration!

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    Current Events

    Reflections of 2017

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    Reflecting on 2017

    It is December 30th as I write this. 2017 is almost over and as with a lot of people, the last few days are a time to reflect on the year that has been, and to make resolutions for the year to come. In this blog post, I will write my thoughts as well as share some of my New Years resolutions.

    I’m going to come out and say it, 2017 has been brutal. I thought 2016 was a down year, but 2017 said to 2016 “hold my beer”. I mean this year has been challenging to say the least. I truly believe that what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, and this has been truly been put to the test this year.

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    Current Events

    Sorry, but I won’t be joining you in your protest or boycott

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    Protest

    It seems everywhere you turn your head these days there is a protest of one sort or another. Let’s see… there are the NFL players protesting the National Anthem, there are people protesting the NFL because of those NFL player protest. There are people protesting the Confederate statues and also people who are protesting the people protesting the statues (pro-Confederate/Old South values). Additionally, there are many businesses that people boycott for one belief or another.

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    Life

    2017 half way through, in review.

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    We recently passed the halfway point in 2017. While this year has gone by fast, it has not gone by well for me thus far. I had great dreams and ambitions for 2017 which have not materialized. Not yet anyway.

    At the start of January everyone has great hopes for the year ahead. Everything is new, the year is ahead of us and we can start over (at least for a while). I know I had great hopes for 2017, but the year started off bumpy and quite frankly has been a “Debbie Downer” for me thus far. I won’t go into full details but so far this year I have dealt with loss, depression, anxiety, doubt, excitement, disappointment, bad luck and a lot of soul-searching.

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