Lara Schenck
Lover of programming, maker of monsters
Blog
Look through historical posts using these drop downs:
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Pricing and Economic Relativity
I’m usually not one for non-fiction, but the times have changed. I’m currently reading Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions by a cool dude named Dan Ariely. In short, we humans are constantly influenced by “hidden forces” that cause us to make decisions that don’t always make logical sense. Can’t say I’m…
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It’s identity crisis, not impostor syndrome
I think we’ve gotten to a point where non-impostors, myself included, are using impostor syndrome as a way to describe ever-human insecurity. The web is in its awkward twenties, and so are many, many of the people working on it. Fortunately or unfortunately, with your twenties comes the inevitable, quarter-life identity crisis.
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Sassy WordPress and some updates
A recap of my talk “Sassy WordPress” along with some updates I’ll add should I give the talk again.
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Cocktails on the Pastry Box
For those unfamiliar, the Pastry Box Project is a curated collection of thoughts and articles from anyone who works with the web. I wrote an article about cocktails and websites, i.e. my two favorite things, and it was published! You can read it here.
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Let’s try “Full-Stack Designer” instead of unicorn
At An Event Apart last week, one speaker asked, “How many of you refer to yourselves as designers? … Developers? … Or maybe you design and develop…so…unicorn?”. The latter had the most hands, along with a few modest chuckles. Let’s take a step back here.
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I wrote a post for CSS-Tricks and people read it
This week, I had a guest post published on CSS-Tricks. You should read it. It kinda blew up. Well, definitely blew up. What started as legitimate comment thread on the post turned quite sour when the article was shared on r/programming: Not a nice way to rephrase my post title. Yes, that would be me. I…
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A favorite tweet
I mention this tweet at least three times a week (both while teaching CSS and in general conversation). Now you will too!
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Iterate over Keys and Values in Twig with Timber
I found the Twig documentation for using key value pairs from PHP arrays a little sparse, so thought I’d elaborate.
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MTNmeister.com:
Timber + ACF for the WinI’m excited to officially announce the launch of MTNmeister.com. It was really fun to build, thanks to my new favorite pair of things in the world: Timber with Advanced Custom Fields. I’d like to share some highlights of my process, and maybe even convince you to try out Timber on your next project.
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I designed some skis
I’m into skiing, and it’s time for a gear upgrade. Courtesy my brother at MTNmeister, I’m getting custom skis from Parlor Skis in Boston, and got to design the graphics myself – how cute are these? And here they are in Alta (took a very nice, unplugged vacation for myself):
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What I’m Up To
I’ve been working my tail off: Simple Sassy Starter MTNmeister WP site (created with Timber) DiJiFi site redesign (also with Timber) Angular Wireframing Kit Many a blog posts about these in the icebox – coming soon-ish!
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Walking and Talking: A technique for writing blog posts
The words were all there when you talked about the topic in conversation yesterday, but when it comes to actually writing the post…impossible. But wait, that’s just it! Record yourself talking about it. I spend roughly 23% of my life walking (that’s an exaggeration, but I do walk a lot). Why not write a blog…
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On Progressive Enhancement
In a nutshell, progressive enhancement is building “content out”, separating the structure of a website (HTML) from its presentation and behavior (CSS and JS). Content should be available regardless of the capabilities of the device, and should not rely on styling or scripting to function at a base level. There are some strong opionions for…
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New Workshop! Getting Started with Sass
Sass is “CSS with Superpowers” and infinitely awesome. But maybe you don’t feel like spending an entire weekend pounding your head against your laptop, figuring out how to get set up. Come to this evening workshop and we’ll walk through it all, step by step. You’ll have Sass up and running in your projects by…
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Coding and Me
All too often, someone new to the tech world sees coding as some kind of magic language we coders are born with. When you see a programmer slapping away at the keyboard, it’s no wonder! But it’s not magic. Really. Coding is not like this This morning I read a great article, What “coder” means…
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Exclude .sass-cache files from Sublime Search [Snippet]
How to hide .sass-cache from your Sublime so that it doesn’t show up in search.
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“Just” is a dangerous word.
“Just update your ruby gems, generate a new SSH key, and run a git rebase…” … I don’t envy those just entering the field of web development. In addition to learning the fundamentals, there’s an expectation to be proficient in an increasingly exhausting laundry list of buzzwords and technologies. So think twice before suggesting someone…
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New workshop! Responsive CSS layouts
CSS layouts are tough…I don’t care who you are! Floats and clearfixing are just hard concepts to grasp, and building layouts in CSS the proper way is no small feat. Come to this evening workshop and learn to create your own responsive layouts. Where and when, you ask? August 21, 7-9pm at New Work City…
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Left my phone in a cab…
Let’s appreciate how great Find My iPhone and NYC cabbies are – phone returned within a day or so. And this was a successful reddit post! Fun stuff.
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I’m talking at WordCamps
That’s right, WordCamps…plural! I will be presenting at both the New York City and Montreal WordCamps in August. And what will I be talking about? Read on, my friend. Freelancing: Real Talk (NYC, August 2-3) Description: How much do you charge? How do you price? How long does it take you to make a custom…
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Negronis and Side Projects
One thing that may not be evident from my web presence is that I’m into cocktails. I had the best Negroni of my life at Gin Palace the other night, and when I needed an idea for a project, naturally that Negroni came to mind.
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I made a Codepen
See the Pen prIFw by Lara Schenck (@laras126) on CodePen. A notlaura.com realign is officially underway (didn’t I just do one?). Don’t expect anything too soon, but the above is a little preview. Plus I’ve been listening to Codepen Radio lately and, well, time to make a pen! In addition to typography and gridding, I’ve…
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New Workshop! Portfolio Site in a Day-ish
Calling all website-less visual artists! You’ve been putting your website off for a while now, right? Come to this two session workshop and leave with a fully functioning portfolio site. We will create websites using WordPress and the theme WPFolio. The workshop will be limited to 4 people to ensure everyone gets the most out…
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How I do Inbox 0 in Gmail
I kind of roll my eyes at productivity posts, and yes, this is another productivity post. But, I’m really good at Inbox 0 and have been complimented a few times on my Gmail set up, so…ti