All posts by arnorhs

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  1. 2011

    1. Open all files from a git diff or git show with this handy command utility

      Sun, Dec 25, 2011

      We use git as our versioning tool at work and I've gradually been learning a few tricks on how to speed up my development time and time spent managing my repo. When jumping between branches, continuing your work from where you stopped last time, etc., you very often open the same files as you were editing in a previous commit. This may not be a problem if you use something like Command-T for vim or rely on the file browsing in TextMate, but often it might just be quicker to open all the files from a particular ref in git or opening all files from your branch's diff from master/dev or something.

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    2. Arnor's Handy Bookmarklet for Measuring Page Scroll Performance

      Sun, Dec 11, 2011

      I've been dealing with some unfortunate scroll performance issues at work lately, and to aid me in that task I've been using a handy CSS stress test bookmarklet made by Andy Edinborough. It works by iterating through all your classes and measuring the performance improvement you get from dropping them - thus helping you find out which classes are making your page scroll speed slow. It's handy but the use case too constrained for my needs. I wanted to be able to simply run a test anywhere on the page just for a single run, and I didn't really care about the classes, since I was manually disabling styles and moving things around, unbinding event etc to find out where the biggest performance improvements could be had.

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    3. Possibly the nicest Node.js beginner's guide (and style guide)

      Sat, Dec 10, 2011

      Felix Geisendörfer, one of the node.js contributers has released what can only be dubbed as the ultimate guide to writing node.js applications. He's launched a site called nodeguide.com which has a beginner's guide, a guide for how to convince your boss you should be using node (kind of funny, but sadly there are people who need this) and a style guide for standardization of indentation, naming, etc which should be taken with a grain of salt.

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    4. Diving into Facebook's Timeline UI

      Sat, Dec 3, 2011

      A couple of months ago, Facebook started rolling out it's Timeline feature. For those who don't know, it's a new form of a Facebook profile, which displays a user's profile in a very different way, based on their entire life's history. It's a very dramatic thing and is a very impressive endeavor. I signed up the very minute it was announced and have had it as my default profile, though it hasn't been viewable by anybody but me for some time, it's dust has now settled a bit and I've been trying to digest it and form an opinion. The Timeline is so interesting in so many ways. In one regard it's got a very inconsistent UI compared to the rest of Facebook and it introduces a lot of UI concepts and ideas that have not been known to websites in general before but on the other hand it's also a very pretty beast. Read on if you're interested in diving (probably way too) deep into the Timeline

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    5. Echo JS launched

      Thu, Dec 1, 2011

      A new Hacker News-style social news site has been launched focused exclusively around Javascript. It's a nice source for some interesting JS libraries and articles. If you are passionate about Javascript, you should check it out: https://www.echojs.com/

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    7. Designing User Interfaces for "Normies"

      Tue, Oct 25, 2011

      When I was working at a small web development shop in Iceland, we developed a lot of applications. Some of those applications were used by what you would consider the "older generation" and/or "normal users". Working at a small company like that you need to wear many hats, so usually what would happen is that I would end up teaching the end users to use most of the applications I developed. I really hated it and I'm guessing most developers do, however, I would also say that it taught me a lot at the same time. It would even be safe to say that it shaped how I see user interfaces today. In this post I try to cover a few of the common patterns that I noticed among users with less computer understanding.

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    8. The problem with "Lorem Ipsum" and What You Can to Do Instead.

      Thu, Oct 20, 2011

      Usually when designers are designing both print and website layouts, banner ads and other user interfaces, they need to have some text copy to work with. Most of the time, the client or the company they are working for doesn't have text copy prepared, so designers usually place so called "Lorem Ipsum" content into their designs. Lorem Ipsum has been used for many decades as placeholder content in print layout designs. It's based on latin, but is actually just gibberish and doesn't have any meaning. It's purpose is to divert the reader's attention away from the text itself and onto the layout and the design. That seems very logical.

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    10. Facebook's "Problem"

      Sun, Oct 16, 2011

      My mom had a birthday gathering the other day (happy 52 mom). It was pretty uneventful as you would expect, but as sometimes happens these days, a conversation about Facebook got started. Most techies you meet would say that they hate listening to normal people talk about anything technical - especially the older generation. I usually find these kinds of conversations rather enjoyable, especially if I can withdraw and not have to be a part of it and just listen. Because then you kind of get a sense for how normal people see things and what problems they run to, etc.

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    12. Closures and Other Great Powers of Functions in Javascript

      Fri, Oct 14, 2011

      Closures are functions that you define "on the fly" that have access to the same variables (the same [scope](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scope_\(computer_science\))) as they get defined in. You can store them as variables, pass them around between other functions, and generally get treated like a normal variable. In general they are very powerful. Read on for a deeper explanation of how they are useful and creative way in which they can be used.

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    14. I have arrived in Palo Alto

      Tue, Sep 13, 2011

      Good news. I have finally arrived in Palo Alto. I just got to my hotel and I'm getting my apartment later this week (hopefully), so you could say that I've officially moved.

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    15. Best vim Cheat Sheet in the World / Planet / Solar system

      Fri, Sep 9, 2011

      This is awesome for all Vimsters out there. A guy named Michael Pohoreski seems to have had a similar problem to almost every other vim user/beginner out there. He couldn't find a good vim cheat sheet, so he made the mother of all cheat sheets. It's damn ugly, but pretty good:

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    16. Commands for converting from TextMate to Vim

      Mon, Sep 5, 2011

      I saw this post on Hacker News today and thought it might be interesting to the TextMate users out there. It's written by this person, Jack Kinsella and he goes very much in-depth into how to convert yourself from being a TextMates to a vim user. Link: [textmate-to-vim](https://www.jackkinsella.ie/2011/09/05/textmate-to-vim.html)

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    17. How to Draw an Equilateral Triangle in Photoshop CS5 (updated)

      Sun, Sep 4, 2011

      An [equilateral triangle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equilateral_triangle), in case you've forgotten, is a triangle composed of lines that are all of the same length. For some reason I started thinking about those kinds of triangles the other day and wanted to create one, for use in a pattern or something. I could have opted to just google for an image of one, but I wanted to draw one by hand. I started by creating a shape using the pen tool (p), but I found out quickly that it's not intuitively easy.

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    18. Palo Alto

      Sat, Sep 3, 2011

      [![Picture from Palo Alto, Stanford University Palm Drive](/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Stanford_University_Palm_Drive_facing_Palo_Alto-150x150.jpg "Click to read the post")](https://arnorhs.com/2011/09/03/palo-alto/) On a professional level, the last year and a half has been pretty interesting. I've been managing my own projects, doing freelancing work, did some traveling, even some classes at a university, tried to work on a lot of side projects, etc. I can't say I did everything I wanted to, but it's still been pretty great. However, times are going to get even more interesting in the coming months...

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    19. VimConf is hopefully coming

      Wed, Aug 31, 2011

      As a big fan of the text editor vim. I'm also a bit of a newbie and I'm constantly seeking out some new stuff to learn. Either some key combination I didn't know, some nice nifty plugin to help out, etc. [![](https://cl.ly/2h4625433e0i1Y3B3I0w/Image_2011-08-31_at_10.14.36_AM.png "VimConf")](https://www.vimconf.org/?s=2E4) That's why I'm excited about this possible online vim conference. It hasn't been planned properly yet and I believe he/they are still seeking people to participate and help. If you're interested you should check it out.

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    20. New Vodafone in Iceland website launched

      Thu, Aug 25, 2011

      The [Vodafone website in Iceland](https://vodafone.is/ "Visit the Vodafone website") has just undergone a redesign. It was designed by the amazing web agency [Kosmos & Kaos](https://www.kosmosogkaos.is/ "Kosmos & Kaos website"), which is also based in Iceland. I'm very grateful to have been able to partake in the project. I helped with the CSS, initial HTML and most of the Javascript interactions on the website, and I've got to say I'm pretty proud of the work. That includes some nice CSS3 effects, a custom parallax slider, the modern dropdown menu etc.

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