All Posts in Learning

07/26/2019 - No Comments!

Reading, 2018

2018 was a bit of an oddball year with regards to my reading. I managed to read 35 books in total, 9 of which I scored 3/3 on my personal rating system (ie. gut feeling).

My favorite books of the year included Bear Town by Fredrik Backman, The Martian by Andy Weir and Turtles All The Way Down by John Green. Outside of my usual smattering of novels, I dove deep into a few famous fantasy series including Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. I'm excited to jump into some more serious fantasy series in 2019.

Finally, I read a few very random wilderness and survival type books which I found really interesting, bringing me back to my days of childhood Boy Scouting.

As usual, I've again designed simplified book titles for each of the 35 read on my reading page.

Have a look at what I read in 2018 here.

01/18/2018 - No Comments!

Reading, 2017

For 2017, I made the lofty goal to read 30 books! I nearly made that number, coming in with 26. This year I've decided to go for it again, I will make it this time! I've been really enjoying SciFi books like Dune and Ender's Game – with Ready Player One being my favorite of the year.

Similar to last year – I've again designed simplified book titles here, click a cover to view it in more detail on Amazon or another sales website (not affiliate links).

Here's what I read in 2017.

06/02/2017 - No Comments!

Sketch Power User – New Course on Designers.How

Becoming a power user in Sketch is all about knowing the tiny ins and outs of the interface. Recently, I collaborated with the great team over at Designers.How to craft a 5 lesson course all about this subject. In this course, you'll become a better designer through deep knowledge of your tool, shaving seconds and reducing strain from repeated actions. I've gathered up a huge volume of those little tidbits and secrets and bundled them into this jam-packed course!

The first episode is FREE, you'll need to become a member of their incredible community to get into the rest.

Check it out

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10/12/2016 - No Comments!

Practical SVG, Notes

I'll occasionally publish my personal notes from reading a new book, attending an industry conference or something similar on this  blog. I personally refer back to my own posts frequently, revisiting technical skills or refreshing myself on the highlights for a new project.

This is one of those posts. I just completed reading Practical SVG by Chris Coyier from the A Book Apart series. As usual, it was a fantastic read and brought me up to speed on the current state of SVGs for the web! My notes follow.

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12/10/2015 - No Comments!

How Creativedash Uses Boards

Originally published by InVision on their blog.


We’re Creativedash, a team of designers and developers working out of our studio in Roseville, CA. We’re focused intently on creating emotional connections between users and products through beautiful and intuitive experiences. We’re a small, close-knit team with more than a century of combined experience in nearly all aspects of product, from design to development.

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02/18/2015 - No Comments!

Git Shortcuts

GitShort

This is one of those subject where you wonder how it took you so long to figure out. Am I the last one to learn this? Probably. But in the off chance there are still a few suckers out there using full length git commands, not personalized shortcuts, this is for you.

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12/19/2014 - No Comments!

Learning Git

github basics

I've been learning a new skill over the last few weeks, Git. A new project at work has given me the responsibility to write and maintain a Style Guide for our main web application project. This, along with some freelance projects I'm working on, have made this new skill a very necessary one for me to pick up, as I'm working remotely with multiple teams on shared codebases. Here, I'm posting my initial notes and new concepts I've picked up while learning Git. Connect with me on GitHub @ll_coolray.

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12/15/2014 - No Comments!

Introduction to Markdown

Markdown Illustration

I've noticed more and more text-based web applications have been integrating support for the Markdown language over recent months. Most notably the project management software I use in my daily work week Pivotal Tracker. I attended a team Tech Talk on the subject hosted by my coworkers and what follows are my takeaways and notes from learning this new skill.

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