Jim Nielsen

Designer, developer, writer.

Lover of food and websites.

Collector of app icons https://www.iosicongallery.com

Publisher of feeds – subscribe to my blog or notes. Or don’t, whatevs.

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npub13vut34pvq2fv0ry8q5eafssf0tzwdr2ypqyssnrpayzv69t4rc3srnej2c

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jimniels_at_mastodon.social@mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsgkw9c6skq9yk83jrs2v75cgyh438x34zqszggf3s7jpxdz463ugcpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0wd68ytnsw43qu7z7nk

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relay.mostr.pub

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npub13vut34pvq2fv0ry8q5eafssf0tzwdr2ypqyssnrpayzv69t4rc3srnej2c

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Last Notes

2024-10-23 06:07:10

📝 Calling the web “lowest common denominator” is a good thing if you value reach
https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2024/lowest-common-denominator/

2024-10-22 22:30:22

Always be hustlin’ and promoting your blog.
See me, I'm crafting the following response to the attached SMS message I received today.
—
Nice try, but I've tried parsing URLs before and know what the public suffix list is. Perhaps you've seen my article on the nuances of a domain? Check it out.
https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2023/domain-nuance/
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/353/439/181/980/302/original/c11a0c7f7fdb6579.png

2024-10-07 05:44:14

📝 Intriguing interview with Ryan Dahl on the @npub1e6x…zd8d podcast. Some of his “regrets” from Node.js” have rolled right into Deno — and he admits it — in service of practicality.
https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2024/ryan-dahl-talks-deno-on-changelog/

2024-10-02 20:40:59

If you haven't seen it yet, this is pretty cool.
I mean, can you imagine some corporate entity owning the trademark for "HTTP” or “HTML" or "CSS”? That'd be absurd.
Time to free JavaScript
https://javascript.tm

2024-09-18 04:53:31

📝 Opinion:
When you put a reading time estimation widget on your content, I take that as an admission of so many things — including that you favor expediency over quality.
https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2024/reading-time-estimation-widgets/

2024-09-11 20:21:37

You know what's a really good feeling?
When you're looking at solving a problem.
And the JS solution would be super complicated and require refactoring multiple components across many files.
But then you take a step back and think, “Could I do this with CSS?”
And the solution is 3 lines.
Yeah, that's a good feeling.

2024-08-19 05:13:47

📝 Social posts die with the passage of time, whereas blog posts gain life from it!
https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2024/blog-vs-social-posts/
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/986/975/319/662/654/original/ef62b89614caff85.jpeg

2024-08-12 22:19:29

My 9y/o came home and said his teacher claimed to have swam with sharks.
He said he’s done that too.
We asked when.
He said, “anytime you swim in the ocean, you swim with sharks.”

2024-08-12 14:31:26

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@npub16u7…uend ha nope, always love a blog post quoting a blog post!

2024-08-05 17:20:22

<my-$0.02>
The best software design is always just quirky enough to evade complete systemization, each area of the product allowing the context and concerns of its unique, local constraints to overrule the demands of any overarching system.

2024-08-05 17:15:12

Small scale farming, e.g. gardening, is fun but industrial scale sucks all the fun out.
Similarly, small scale making websites is fun, but industrial scale sucks all the fun out.

2024-08-05 17:07:42

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@npub1xed…yg9w I hear it plays like a broken record…

2024-06-29 02:24:35

Better to blog for yourself and have no traffic, than to blog for the traffic and have no self.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/697/532/178/428/569/original/eabae038a920ebfc.png

2024-06-21 16:33:37

It's that time of year where our neighbor's apricot tree (which hangs into our yard) overflows with so many apricots we can't even keep up — and that's just for the half of the tree that’s in our yard!
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/655/571/793/777/547/original/3be70a2a7c024f7b.jpeg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/655/572/202/026/522/original/50c98dbbcece4daf.jpeg

2024-06-18 15:16:54

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@npub1xed…yg9w what‘a the over-under on DNS complexity and corporate bureaucracy winning the day?
Anxious to make a quick buck on those odds…

2024-05-13 04:53:21

📝 I messed up with git. But a gist saved me. And its comments section is an oasis in the desert of internet comments.
https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2024/gist-that-keeps-giving/

2024-05-12 22:18:39

Mother’s Day questionairre our 9y/o brought home asked:
“My favorite thing to do with my mom is ____”
He filled in “argue”
Wife: “we don’t argue!”
9y/o: “yes we do”
Wife: “no we don’t”
9y/o: “we are right now”

2024-05-05 19:59:21

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@npub1xed…yg9w use this all the time in lots of personal projects https://github.com/jimniels/html

2024-05-01 04:38:29

📝 If there was a problem, yo this method’ll solve it. Check out the post while my server serves it.
https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2024/bulletproof-problem-solving/

2024-04-30 14:37:00

Our tools, and by extension our own sanity:
> will last longer if we learn how to slow down and understand the nature of the medium, the grain, rather than hacking against it.
https://daverupert.com/2024/04/thoughts-on-cosmotechnics/

2024-04-21 02:47:09

Ah sweet, no more need to stick a JS class on the root html element to style things based on JavaScript being enabled
Thanks for the post @npub19g7…wffn
https://ryanmulligan.dev/blog/detect-js-support-in-css/

2024-04-17 22:52:53

One thing about the web is that it requires you relinquish control.
If you're a government, you can't control the flow of information.
If you're a designer, you can't control the exact placement of pixels.
If you're a developer, you can't control how content will flex and bend across devices, inputs, etc.
If you want to work with the web, give up the idea of control and your expectations will be properly set from the outset (which helps you avoid disappointment and/or disillusionment).

2024-04-15 05:28:03

📝 The question of “How great is your experience on the web?” is increasingly driven by “How slow is your device?” and not necessarily “How fast is your connection?”
This and more in some notes from a great article by @npub1a4c…t2kf
https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2024/faster-bandwidth-and-websites/

2024-04-10 02:22:31

📝 Borrowing from Emerson: I cannot remember the blog posts I’ve read any more than the meals I’ve eaten; even so, they’ve made me.
https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2024/you-are-what-you-read/

2024-04-01 14:40:40

📝 When @npub1m4k…rhpr observed his preference for "exposing platform APIs over wrapping them" that really stuck with me, especially when I found myself trying to get <meta> tags into a Next.js app I was working on.
https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2024/expose-platform-apis-over-wrapping-them/

2024-03-25 14:00:35

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@npub16u7…uend would love to see where you go with it. I’m interested in this idea of a file-first approach (a lot of localfirst stuff is all about crdts and db syncing)

2024-03-19 04:56:47

📝 Just about anything I read, hear, or watch makes me think, “Oh hey, that’s kinda like making websites…”
So it should come as no surprise that I listened to a podcast interviewing Christopher Nolan about filmmaking and I thought, ”Oh hey, that’s kinda like making websites…”
https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2024/making-films-and-making-websites/

2024-03-12 22:32:01

I once asked my Dad something along the lines of:
“What the's most memorable event of your lifetime?”
Given his birth in 1949, I'm thinking maybe he'll say:
- Cold war & nuclear proliferation?
- Humans landing on the moon?
- Sept. 11?
He thought for a moment, then responded: the internet.
When I asked why, he said nothing else has impacted every aspect of his life (and those around him) as much as that.
And he doesn't even like using it lol.
https://w3c.social/@seth/112083394077777706

2024-02-27 16:16:21

📝 Files are a medium of exchange. More files plz.
https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2024/more-files-plz/

2024-02-26 14:52:35

📝 Subvert the status quo. Own a website. Make and share links.
https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2024/the-subversive-hyperlink/

2024-02-19 07:05:35

📝 UI=f(org): UI is a function of your organization.
A UI can only ever be as good as the capabilities of the organization that deploys it (and vows to deliver on its promises) — no matter how beautiful, fast, or responsive the UI is rendered on glass.
https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2024/ui-fn-org/

2024-02-16 16:06:48

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@npub1nqp…w9sy as you can tell, I have a long-standing bias
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/942/015/632/787/929/original/4233032796a8e933.png

2024-02-16 15:56:08

https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/941/973/670/693/201/original/cbb713b74c64438c.png

2024-02-16 03:21:13

I rarely, if ever, leave feedback as to why I unsubscribe from somebody's emails.
But today that changed.
I left a comment when I unsubscribed because I had to make sure they knew I loved their newsletter I just didn’t want it in my inbox.
“I unsubscribed from my personal email and subscribed anew from my personal Feedbin email so I can read your writing in the comfort of my RSS reader.”
Spread the word: RSS is great — and so is Feedbin’s personalized email address feature.

2024-02-13 16:20:15

📝 Feels like “the case for design engineers" is a series I could write more and more of (selfishly, it's mostly an attempt at a rationale for my own existence ha) because a lot of companies are just like “lol, why would we want someone who can design in figma _and_ write code?”
https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2024/the-case-for-design-engineers-pt-ii/

2024-02-02 16:32:45

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@npub1xed…yg9w gonna start a company for a new OS — but it'll just run on linux — and it shall be called “The OS Company”. you in?

2024-01-30 16:22:55

📝 Riffing on a post by @npub1asr…u4w5 but instead of shady emails, I’m sick of the legitimate ones.
https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2024/inbox-o-receipts/

2024-01-28 15:14:23

Sad day. Pour one out for the square checkbox.
https://tonsky.me/blog/checkbox/

2024-01-04 21:26:34

It's a cold/wet day outside, so the cat is inside resting.
When I checked on him, I found him in a position that seemed strangely familiar…
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/699/793/741/767/535/original/b907169d0622ba36.jpeg

2024-01-04 17:31:25

📝 I'm sucker for analogies, so I had to note down my thoughts on "cold-blooded software” by @npub1jxp…3an6
https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2024/cold-blooded-software/

2023-12-28 03:07:41

Is it possible with @npub1rky…0xq2 to follow the public timeline of an instance that you're not a member of?
e.g. i'm not on front-end.social, but if i want to follow their public feed — https://front-end.social/public/local — somewhere in Ivory, can i do that?

2023-12-22 17:19:34

New side project idea:
abandoned.jim-nielsen.com
The carcasses of all the personal redesigns and side projects I started, but that died along the journey to shipping.
The very first featured project is the project itself.

2023-12-22 17:00:57

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@npub1xed…yg9w
🎶
on the 9th day of Christmas
my true love gave to me
a website built with 11ty
🎶

2023-12-22 16:05:52

I woke up with the seedling of an idea to redesign my personal website.
And like a fool, rather than push the idea out of my head like an unwanted guest, I entertained it.
Now the impulse to redesign is snowballing and it’s 3 days before Christmas.
Send help.

2023-12-12 00:30:29

Today is one of those days I go home to my spouse and declare, “I am not good at computers”

2023-11-30 14:19:49

Oooohhh cloud four’s mobile nav that slides down the page with a blue gradient that extends upward like the sky is just so simply pleasant
https://cloudfour.com/
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/499/934/777/556/504/original/5f903ddb6c08d54a.jpeg

2023-11-01 20:30:26

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@npub1c35…9pmh this is a great writeup. it’s what was in my mind when I wrote my post, but failed to articulate so clearly.
that moment when you realize you can skip all the scraping and looping and waiting for the DOM and instead encapsulate (and scope) all of that to a custom element — it's a new way of seeing how to build for the web in a "pure progressive enhancement" kind of way!

2023-10-20 15:33:58

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@npub1xed…yg9w it's right there in the word…
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/268/071/661/381/380/original/86bff00d8442da02.png

2023-10-10 16:33:43

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@npub1xed…yg9w Actually just published something this morning and gave a nod to this toot cause I called what I did "web components" but it's really just a custom element with full markup over the wire which then gets enhanced/added to by the custom element's JS (if its available). Didn't have a word for it so just said "it's a web component”
https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2023/web-components-icon-galleries/

2023-10-02 01:55:52

📝 loved a toot from @npub1n43…y3cf about why he’s enthusiastic about the web
https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2023/websites-are-for-normies/

2023-09-28 22:41:19

I'm still relearning so much of what's possible with CSS because :has()
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/145/181/209/444/851/original/a2a85c77c6f83aa1.jpeg

2023-09-27 15:06:35

📝 To me, robots.txt is like those photographs with signs in the foreground and people completely ignoring them in the background.
https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2023/robots-txt/

2023-08-21 18:24:13

📝 Following up from an earlier post, you can reload the document preserving query string parameters using only HTML. The answer is:
`<a href="">Reload</a>`
https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2023/reloading-document-in-html-and-preserve-query-params/

2023-07-13 16:19:42

Haha @npub1gf2…u0nm dropping an indie web burn on all the social networks coming and going these days:
> They’re all just syndication endpoints to me.
https://adactio.com/journal/20323
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/110/707/679/459/388/487/original/906df18353ae102a.png

2023-06-19 15:04:56

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@npub1gf2…u0nm I would love a “Find” functionality that triggers the browsers on-page find functionality

2023-06-19 06:49:44

📝 What I remember about my attendance at AEA were talks *descriptive of principles* for building on the web, instead of talks *prescriptive of tools* for building on the web. I really loved that. Shout out to @npub1c35…9pmh, @npub1pm5…58h0, and all others who helped make that conferences happen.
https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2023/ode-to-aea/

2023-06-15 21:28:17

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@npub1c35…9pmh what’s on your mind there Eric?

2023-06-15 19:15:51

Great graphic: one line of CSS, many results (all due to color space)
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/110/549/820/849/289/228/original/146846b8a9030036.png

2023-04-18 14:03:54

📝 Really enjoyed the 'local-first' talk from #[0] and the perspective shift from the binary offline/online to a spectrum of latency: offline is just online but with extreme latency.
https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2023/offline-is-online-with-extreme-latency/