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.
Determination

Learning for a lifetime

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Learning for a lifetime

I have a passion for web design and web development. I don’t have a computer science degree or a graphic design degree, but I do hold a BA in Communications from Elon University I also have a certificate in Graphic Design from The School of Communication Arts in Raleigh, NC (now Living Arts college). Additionally, I have taken classes at local community colleges to learn HTML, CSS, basic JavaScript and Flash.


ANYONE WHO STOPS LEARNING IS OLD, WHETHER AT TWENTY OR EIGHTY.” —HENRY FORD

Lately, I have taken courses online to keep up with the rapidly changing technology. Just in the past year, I have taken many courses on Udemy. They offer courses for pay on different web technologies. Some of the courses I have invested in recently are:

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Technology

CSS Animation and how to use it well in your website

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CSS3 Animation

With the progression of Cascading Style Sheets (or CSS) to include the ability to create animations, there are now a plethora of possibilities to create eye-catching visuals on your website and as we all know CSS animations rate very high in the “cool” factor when it comes to web development. Not only that but people love seeing movement and interactivity in digital format. With the right animation, you can accomplish a lot by telling a story which helps describe complex ideas better than text or a non-animated illustration could. Websites with animations can also entertain the visitor to the site longer than a site without animation.

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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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