In this excerpt from Treehouse Friends, Nick Pettit sits down with illustrator and letterer Jessica Hische. Jessica gives us insight into going freelance full-time and the pros and cons of doing so. If you’re a Treehouse Gold Member, you can see the full interview HERE.

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The post How to Launch a Career as a Freelance Designer | Interview with Jessica Hische appeared first on Treehouse Blog.

The UMBC Council of Computing Majors (CCM) will hold a general meeting from 3:00pm to 4:00pm this Wednesday, April 27, in the CSEE Department conference room, ITE 325b.

Come discuss service opportunities, CSEE speakers, and upcoming CCM events.  Several professors have generously agreed to lecture on tools and topics in computer science.  Dates and details will be announced at the meeting.

The Council of Computing Majors is a student organization for CMSC and CMPE majors and other students interested in computing.  Come if you are interested in joining or just finding out more about the CCM.

For questions of more information, send email to Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.

Advertise here with BSA

Mobile does not just mean smartphones anymore. The word has metamorphosed into an all-encompassing term for any computing device not permanently tied to a wall outlet.

While there are a billion phones in use worldwide, over 52 million tablets were sold in the last quarter of 2012 alone, and tablet sales are predicted to overtake notebook sales by 2016.

Tailoring your website to offer an optimized mobile experience that automatically adjusts itself to multiple device types will very soon be a requirement rather than a feature.

The Popular Solution: Responsive Web Design

Developing for the Mobile Web now involves an understanding of mobile browsers, their JavaScript and CSS engines, and the expected user experience for a wide array of touchscreen devices.

The popular solution for this issue is responsive web design. Responsive web design leverages new features in CSS3 to actively modify the size and position of web page elements based on screen size, orientation, and pixel ratio. It is a strong solution for content-driven sites, whose main requirement is to make text and images digestible.

On the other hand, resizing and repositioning content doesn’t fully address the interface or user experience needs of websites that have heavy interaction, such as web apps and e-commerce sites.

For these types of sites, responsive design is only a small piece of a much larger puzzle.

Issues with Responsive Web Design

For one, mobile users have become acclimatized to how native applications work. Engaging these users through the Web increasingly requires an interface layout that mimics the native applications they associate with their devices. Responsive design techniques alone fail in this task, for the following reasons:

• Screen size and pixel ratio are not enough to determine device type.
• Responsive design does not allow for the creation of in-depth, touchscreen specific interactive elements when the site is visited on mobile devices, but only the re-styling or hiding/showing of existing elements.
• Phablets, such as the Samsung Galaxy Note series, are growing in popularity. While they have the pixel count of small tablets, they are closer to phones in size and are often better served with phone UI and UX.
• Desktop layouts will be transformed into mobile layouts when the browser window is sized down. This will hinder UX if you gear your mobile design towards touch interaction.

Although the popularity of responsive web design is growing within creative circles, its limitations are keeping it from being a regular solution outside of blogs, design portfolios, and news sites.

Server-side Scripting + DOM Manipulation

Luckily, with the fairly recent and ubiquitous acceptance of HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript DOM standards across major mobile browsers, alternative techniques (with responsive design as an optional component) are available.

Building web applications that function like their high-end, native counterparts — without redirecting to separate subdomains — is an achievable goal for dedicated and adventurous web developers.

On the website for my company, SpotTrot — which is content driven, but offers some interactive elements — we not only serve desktop and mobile interfaces, but a separate tablet one as well.

We do this without redirecting the user to separate "m-dot" (e.g. m.yourwebsite.com or mobile.yourwebsite.com) or "t-dot" (e.g. t.yourwebsite.com or tablet.yourwesbite.com) subdomains.

In other words, we don’t maintain a separate site for mobile and tablet devices — we simply modify the DOM and serve the appropriate JavaScript and CSS files based on the user’s browsing device.

Using Server-side Scripting Libraries for Refined Device Recognition

The first step in achieving this is to use server-side user agent string parsing to determine the visitor’s device type.

Parsing user agent strings to serve a custom interface is almost as old as the Web itself. In recent years, it has become the main technique for delivering "m-dot" versions of sites.

The responsive design philosophy shies away from serving up separate subdomains for mobile devices, but traditional server-side scripting detection can be repurposed to render the same HTML file in multiple ways.

There are a wide array of libraries that make server-side device detection easier, yet few work as well as MobileESP, in my opinion. MobileESP is available in every major Web programming language and detects both device type and capabilities.

Here is an example of how our website uses the PHP version of MobileESP to categorize devices and serve the appropriate CSS and JavaScript:

<?php
    // Create some constants for devices
      class Device
      {
      const TABLET = 0;
      const PHONE = 1;
      const DESKTOP = 2;
      }
    
      // Initialize MobileESP object
      $uagent_info = new uagent_info();
    
      // Define the device    
      if($uagent_info->isTierTablet)
      {
      $device = Device::TABLET;
      }
      elseif($uagent_info->isIphone || $uagent_info->isAndroidPhone || $uagent_info->isTierRichCss)
      {
      $device = Device::PHONE;
      }
      else
      {
      $device = Device::DESKTOP;
      }
    ?>
      <html>
      <head>
      ...
      <!-- Serve up the appropriate CSS and JavaScript for the device -->
      <?php switch($device) : ?>
      <?php case Device::TABLET: ?>
      <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style/tablet.css"/>
      <script type="text/javascript" src="js/tablet.js"></script>
      <?php break; ?>
      <?php case Device::PHONE: ?>
      <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style/phone.css"/>
      <script type="text/javascript" src="js/phone.js"></script>
      <?php break; ?>
      <?php default: ?>
      <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style/desktop.css"/>
      <script type="text/javascript" src="js/desktop.js"></script>
      <?php break; ?>
      <?php endswitch; ?>
      </head>
      ...
      </html>
     

CSS Media Queries vs. DOM Manipulation

While desktop and mobile phone interfaces can follow more traditional design rules, the tablet space has a much higher degree of variation and requires more forethought. Tablet screen sizes commonly vary between 7 to 10 inches, while phones usually hover around 4 inches. Therefore, retina displays on tablets make a larger impact on the amount of pixels on screen. For our website, this means that the single column text display does not always work for tablets and needs to be switched to the three-column display also used on the desktop version of the site.

This can be accomplished through CSS media queries or JavaScript DOM manipulation.

CSS Media Query

CSS3 allows for extensive use of conditionals based on the user’s screen characteristics (such as width and orientation). Here is an example of using media queries to design responsive layouts:

@media screen and (min-width: [width]px)
      {
      .class
       {
        property: value;
       }
      }
    @media screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2)
    @media screen and (orientation: landscape)
    @media screen and (device-aspect-ratio: 16/9)
    

DOM Manipulation

However, our site uses JavaScript DOM programming through jQuery to switch between the single and triple column view.

Manipulating the DOM allows complete, real-time control over the layout of a web page. The tablet-specific JavaScript, served up by user agent parsing, contains code that alters the CSS of preexisting HTML div elements.

// If the screen is wide enough that we want 3 columns
      if($(window).width() >= 770)
      {
      // Create the indent
      $("#front_items").css(
      {
      'margin-top': '-5px',
      'margin-left': '20px'
      });
    
      // Size the columns
      var textWidth = ($("#carousel").width() - 70) / 3;
      $(".front_column").css(
      {
      'width': textWidth + 'px',
      'margin-bottom': '0'
      });
      }
      // One column interface
      else
      {
      $("#front_items").css(
      {
      'margin-top': '0',
      'margin-left': '0'
      });
    
      textWidth = $("#carousel").width() + 20;
      $(".front_column").css(
      {
      'width': textWidth + 'px',
      'margin-bottom': '5px'
      });
      }

Downsides of Server-side Scripting + DOM Manipulation

Though this technique, in my opinion, allows for far greater control over design and interactivity versus using CSS3/media queries, it’s not without its potential downsides.

• No device or browser detection is flawless. The best way to maximize proper device detection is to use a regularly updated library like MobileESP.
• This solution will not fully function if the user has disabled JavaScript. Although the exceptionally few users that have JavaScript disabled are used to websites not fully functioning, solely using device-specific, CSS media queries is the best option if you want to keep some of the benefits without using JavaScript.
• This solution requires the maintenance of separate CSS and JavaScript files for each targeted device as opposed to a single CSS file that media queries can afford.

How it Works on Our Website

The navigation menu is the only element on all three versions of the SpotTrot site that has complete variation. So it’s a great talking point to show how this method works in the real-world.

On the desktop, a horizontal menu sits below the header, matching traditional website layout. This allows the user to interact naturally and leaves the visual design of those elements as the main differentiator.

On the tablet, the same horizontal menu is moved above the header. It is then slightly altered, with the corner radius moved to the bottom, to reinforce its positioning at the top of the page. This follows the expected interface of a native mobile application, with all navigation control usually in a bar at the top.

Finally, the phone version displays the highest amount of interface variation. It would be impossible to fit all of the horizontal navigation buttons on most smartphones, so the design opts for a vertical menu. The buttons automatically fit themselves to the width of the screen to maintain the user’s sense of vertical direction, complementing the single column layout for small screens.

Conclusion

Within the last few years, web application design and development has been most affected by touchscreens. The shift of computer interaction to a tactile experience is the core factor in the "mobile revolution."

As touchscreen laptops and desktops are becoming the norm, the interface designs currently implemented on smartphones and tablets will soon be the way all web applications are laid out.

Learning these techniques and philosophies may be optional right now, but it will ultimately be a central part of any web developer’s job description soon.

Related Content

• A Comparison of Methods for Building Mobile-Optimized Websites
• 5 Simple Tips for Designing Better iPhone Apps
• 10 Solutions for Creating Cross-Platform Mobile Apps
• Related categories: Mobile and Web Development

About the Author

Blake Callens is Lead Engineer for mobile e-commerce provider SpotTrot. He’s contributes to e-commerce technology, specifically computer vision and natural user interface UX. He was lead architect/co-inventor of Webcam Social Shopper, is a Webby award winner, and is a co-inventor on an e-commerce U.S. patent for virtual dressing rooms. On Twitter: @blakecallens.

Is race still a hypersensitive subject for Americans?   It appears so…

A recent Philadelphia Magazine cover story titled “Being White in Philly,” has hit a raw nerve in the city of Brotherly Love.

The article describes the experiences of many white city residents who live in racially mixed neighborhoods.  The accounts in the article range from pleasant to tumultuous.  One older man describes being the victim of multiple criminal acts committed by black people, while another woman describes taking her daughter to a pool in a black community where they met many nice young black girls.     

The article also tackles the taboo of white people trying to express feelings about race, which sometimes may be considered politically incorrect.

Editor of Philadelphia Magazine, and author of the article, Robert Huber, claims  he intended for his work to address problems of race relations in Philadelphia and “push for a better dialogue.”  Whether the dialogue that has been opened is better is questionable, but the article certainly has people talking.

Black Mayor of Philadelphia, Michael Nutter, claimed the article perpetrated negative stereotypes that portrayed the African American community as lazy, irresponsible and criminal.  He wrote a four page letter to the Human Relations Commission calling the article an  ”incitement to extreme reaction,” and then took it a step further by writing:

“I ask that the commission consider specifically whether Philadelphia Magazine and the writer, Bob Huber, are appropriate for rebuke by the commission in light of the potentially inflammatory effect and the reckless endangerment to Philadelphia’s racial relations possibly caused by the essay’s unsubstantiated assertions.”

Nutter’s challenge of Huber’s right to free speech has only brought more attention to the article.  Amendment scholars such as UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, have referred to Nutter’s letter as “outright suppression” of speech.  

While there are some members of the public who agree with Nutter’s views on the article, many others do not.  A sociologist professor at University of Pennsylvania believes the article has provided an opportunity for Philadelphia to openly converse about race issues.  

Another city resident, James Brunson stated,

“The more dialogue we have on race and race issues, the more understanding we have of where other people are coming from.” 

A public meeting will be held by the Philadelphia Human Relations Commission on April 18th to discuss the article.

What do you think?  Should people be condemned for expressing feelings of uneasiness about races other then their own?

It’s been a week since two high school football players from Steubenville, Ohio were charged in the rape of a 16-year-old girl. And by now, there’s little about the case that hasn’t been dissected in the news.

But now the news is part of the news.

The media itself become embroiled in the controversy when a CNN broadcast that aired shortly after the verdict was announced seemed to sympathize with the attackers instead of the victim. Ever since, the internet has been blowing up with arguments about how rape cases are mishandled in the media, as well as in the courts.

But the problem with the coverage on the Steubenville case is that it overshadows what we really should be focusing on here. Because it’s really shouldn’t be about taking sides. And it’s not about whether or not justice was served in the end, either.

Looking at all of the articles about Stebenville and other similar cases, it seems like we’ve come to a point where we’re afraid to talk about rape. Many stories shy away from using the word “rapist,” and others still say “alleged” even when clear evidence has been provided and a guilty verdict handed down.

With one in four college women having been the victim of rape, there’s obviously something wrong with the current way we approach the topic—and maybe even how we define it when it comes to our own lives. 

Max Warren, a J.D. candidate at Harvard Law, put out an op-ed this weekend that starts to make things a little less gray and little more black and white. Here’s what he had to say:

If things went farther than you wanted last night, it doesn’t mean it’s your fault for being too drunk or “leading him on.” It’s not your fault for not trying harder to stop it. It’s not your fault for not knowing what to do. I cannot stress this enough: that is not how this works. This is rape, and it is always the rapist’s fault—no one else’s. The sooner we can all wrap our heads around that, the better for everyone.

The bottom line here? Rape is more prevalent than many people realize, and it’s time we stop laughing things off and start realizing when to draw the line. The only way to change how the media and courts handle rape is to start handling it more seriously ourselves.

Will you?