Viktor Bijlenga

  • The Great Discontent: Merlin Mann

    I keep posting links those fine interviews from The Great Discontent. This might be the best one so far. Take some time, and read it. I enjoyed every word.

  • Freelance thoughts

    Sometimes I need to take a step back and admit to myself that I have achieved great things during the past months.

    One of the projects that I’ve been working on during the last months feels great. It’s been a challenge on many levels to build.

    > Great work done by me.

    Feels good to say that loud. You should try it too.

  • The Great Discontent – Timothy Goodman

    > Are you creatively satisfied? I don’t like this question (laughing). Right now, as I sit here, I would say yes: I feel creatively satisfied. Will I feel this way in a month? Maybe not. As creative people, we always want more. No matter where we’re at, the grass is always greener somewhere else.

  • WP-Snippets

    A growing library of code snippets for WordPress. I always learn new things while browsing trough archives like this.

  • Inspiration: Return To Craft

    I spent 120 seconds tonight watching this short segment with Brad Frost. I enjoyed it, especially those words:

    > People are starting to appreciate craft more.

  • How to hide the WordPress update message in a git production enviroment

    Since I use git on a lot of my projects, I don’t want to update WordPress in the production environment. So I wrote a few lines of code, that hides the update message. Add it to functions.php if you want to use it.

    If you find some issues, or have some great ideas on how to improve it, just fork the gist.

  • How I feel about making the switch to write in English

    A few weeks back I had a short, but still very interesting discussion with my colleague [Li](http://twitter.com/Clavissimo). We talked about Twitter, and the impact that it had on our network of people which we talk to, do business with, get inspired by and so on.

    As usual (when talking to someone about Twitter) I told her about that I always thought of switching to English instead if Swedish. After a few minutes I was convinced that I finally should make the switch.

    I’ve previous made the switch of language and every time I’ve felt silly. This time I convinced myself that I need to give it time. I need to be patient and slowly build new relations with people around the world.

    I also decided that I had to switch my blog/site to English too, since this is the main place for sharing/thinking about stuff I care about. I want to contribute to the conversation, with my own words and thoughts.

    It’s hard. I still feel silly and like a newbie. But I feel that is gonna be worth the struggle. My writing in English will get better, I hopefully will learn to know more great people and it will probably change things in more ways I can think of.

    A few weeks back [Federico Viticci](https://twitter.com/viticci) posted I tweet that I constantly have in the back of my mind these days:

    I need to remember that learning new things takes time, it’s a process. I write and share because that I’m interested in learning more. It will get easier, and I’ll probably feel less silly over time. I have to commit. I have to show up, practice and feel frustrated, solve problems, look up things. Just like when I write code or design something. Just like life.

    I checked the stats for the blog for the first time since making the switch yesterday. That got me inspired to write this post. Suddenly there is activity from all over the world, not just Sweden. Someone on the other side of the world visited this blog. That’s magic.

    Hello World, I’m Viktor. Say hi to me on [@viktorbijlenga](https://twitter.com/viktorbijlenga).

  • Tools for image optimization

    Great advice by Paul Irish in the comments of the linked article:

    > Automate everything. You don’t want to repeat image optimization yourself, nor do you want to ask your team to do the same six steps you repeat. Set up a build process that smartly optimizes new images. Use lossy compression.

  • Quickly edit text in the broswer

    > Typing “document.body.contentEditable = true;” into Chrome DevTools makes all of the text on a page editable.

    This trick is brilliant to use if you design in the browser.

  • Great interview with Helena Price

    Helena Price:

    > It’s very easy to get tied up in what other people are doing and compare yourself to others. We’re in an age where everyone is on the Internet and everything has metrics attached to it. My advice would be to stay very focused on making good personal work with your own unique perspective.

    I recommend that you read the whole piece. As usual on The Great Discontent, it’s a great interview filled with thoughtful things to think about, especially if you work in the design/web/photo industry.

  • FlowType.JS — Responsive web typography

    > Ideally, the most legible typography contains between 45 and 75 characters per line. This is difficult to accomplish for all screen widths with only CSS media-queries. FlowType.JS eases this difficulty by changing the font-size—and subsequently the line-height—based on a specific element’s width. This allows for a perfect character count per line at any screen width.

    Seems like an interesting script if you wanna fine tune that blog of yours. I need to try it out.

  • Staytu.be

    Brilliant website for listing to live concerts while at work (or other places). A micro project by [@urre](https://twitter.com/Urre). Best part, it’s free from youtube comments.

  • Fingervals for iPad

    Fingervals is a fun game for the iPad. The goal is to collect coins and power items while avoid being hit by explosives. I’ve been playing for a few hours now. It’s also available for iPhone, [Fingervals Pocket](https://itunes.apple.com/se/app/fingervals-pocket/id699503441?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D2). Go get it!

  • Effeckt.css

    A great collection of CSS transition & animations. It’s still a work in progress, so it still growing/evolving. Chris Coyier has recored a [great introduction](http://css-tricks.com/video-screencasts/128-effeckt-css-local-setup-with-grunt-and-contributing-on-github/) of it, if you want to contribute.

  • The Verge: Apple iPhone 5S review

    > The iPhone 5S isn’t just supposed to be “the most amazing iPhone yet.” It’s not “the thinnest and lightest iPhone ever.” No, Apple says the 5S is “the most forward-thinking iPhone yet” and “the best smartphone in the world.”

    It’s also my next phone.