Writing on DHT

Books I read in 2026 (in progress)

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Books Completed: 7

List Notes:

Only books I finished
Audiobooks are books
Includes chapter books I read to my kids

List of Books

The Bible Says So: What We Get Right (and Wrong) About Scripture’s Most Controversial Issues by Dan McClellan
Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach
Finlay Donovan Is Killing It - Finlay Donovan #1 by Elle Cosimano
How To Make The Best Coffee At Home by James Hoffmann
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
Origin - Robert Langdon #5 by Dan Brown
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

Alton Brown Aged Eggnog Recipe Calculator

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I love eggnog.

I always have, and in my experience, adding alcohol to eggnog always seemed to make it worse rather than better. That is until, several ago, I found Alton Brown’s aged eggnog recipe and knew I had found a new winter tradition.

Here is the recipe: https://altonbrown.com/recipes/aged-eggnog/

However, I usually make large batches, and sometimes give it as gifts, so I decided to have a little fun and vibe-code a calculator that let’s you adjust the volume any way you’d like and lets you print an ingredient list, and a shopping list.

[Solved]: Use Piwik Pro Progressive Web App analytics in a vanilla html and javascript project

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Background

I was packaging up a website as a PWA (progressive web application) so that it could be used offline at a conference, and I wanted to have some analytics collected while offline.

After a lot of searching, I came across Piwik Pro, a capable analytics package that specifically included capabilities for offline analytics tracking. Perfect!

However, their code assumes that you are building your project using a framework with a packaging-based workflow. My project was simple, vanilla html and javascript.

Books I read in 2025 (in progress)

Fri, 21 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Books Completed: 24

List Notes:

Only books I finished
Audiobooks are books
Includes chapter books I read to my kids

List of Books

The Assassin’s Blade - Throne of Glass #0.1-0.5 by Sarah J. Maas
Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor
Built from Broken: A Science-Based Guide to Healing Painful Joints, Preventing Injuries, and Rebuilding Your Body by Scott H Hogan
The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future by Ryder Carroll
Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People by Vanessa Van Edwards
Competing Against Luck by Clayton M. Christensen with Karen Dillon, David S. Duncan, Taddy Hall
The Disengaged Teen: Helping Kids Learn Better, Feel Better, and Live Better by Rebecca Winthrop, Jenny Anderson
Fourth Wing - The Empyrean #1 by Rebecca Yarros
Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits - Zoey Ashe #1 by Jason Pargin/David Wong
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Heir of Fire - Throne of Glass #3 by Sarah J. Maas
The Iliad by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson
I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom by Jason Pargin
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account Of The Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer
Iron Flame - The Empyrean #2 by Rebecca Yarros
John Dies at the End by David Wong/Jason Pargin
The Lost Symbol - Robert Langdon #3 by Dan Brown
Onyx Storm - The Empyrean #3 by Rebecca Yarros
Reset: How to Change What’s Not Working by Dan Heath
Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters by Ryan Singer, Jason Fried
Throne of Glass - Throne of Glass #1 by Sarah J. Maas
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
Zoey Is Too Drunk for This Dystopia - Zoey Ashe #3 by David Wong/Jason Pargin
Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick - Zoey Ashe #2 by David Wong/Jason Pargin

Books I read in 2024

Thu, 04 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Books Completed: 26

List Notes:

Only books I finished
Audiobooks are books
Includes chapter books I read to my kids

List of Books

A Salty Piece of Land by Jimmy Buffet
Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life by Rory Sutherland
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
Digital Fortress by Dan Brown
Exodus by Leon Uris
Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon by Michael Lewis
How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Katy Milkman
Left of Bang: How the Marine Corps’ Combat Hunter Program Can Save Your Life by Patrick Van Horne, Jason A. Riley
Machine Learning for Absolute Beginners, 2nd Edition by Oliver Theobald
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss, Tahl Raz
Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It by Richard V. Reeves
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein
Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering by Malcolm Gladwell
Revenue Management: Hard-Core Tactics for Market Domination by Robert G. Cross
The 2-Hour Cocktail Party: How to Build Big Relationships with Small Gatherings by Nick Gray
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy
The Deer and the Dragon (No Other Gods #1) by Piper C.J.
The Jake Show by Joshua S. Levy
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
Who Killed Truth?: A History of Evidence by Jill Lepore
Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife

My People Manager Promises

Sun, 10 Mar 2024 13:34:00 +0000

A few years ago, I became a people manager for the first time. While I had led teams and projects for years, it was in the “responsibility without authority” construct common and crucial to project and product management. I was now officially responsible for the development and career advancement of several direct reports across a number of disciplines. I did a lot of thinking about what kind of manager I would be, and how I would approach it.

Books I read in 2023

Mon, 18 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Books Completed: 25

List Notes:

Only books I finished
Audiobooks are books
Includes books I read to my kids that have chapters

List of Books

A Burglar’s Guide to the City by Geoff Manaugh
Armada by Ernest Cline
Bob by Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass
Caffeine: How Caffeine Created the Modern World by Michael Pollan
Inside Voice by Lake Bell
Miracle and Wonder: Conversations with Paul Simon by Bruce Headlam and Malcolm Gladwell
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
So Many Steves by Steve Martin
Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek
The Baby-Sitters Club #1: Kristy’s Great Idea by Ann M. Martin
The Baby-Sitters Club #2: Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls by Ann M. Martin
The Baby-Sitters Club #3: The Truth About Stacey by Ann M. Martin
The Baby-Sitters Club #4: Mary Anne Saves the Day by Ann M. Martin
The Baby-Sitters Club #5: Dawn and the Impossible Three by Ann M. Martin
The Baby-Sitters Club #6: Kristy’s Big Day by Ann M. Martin
The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn
The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni
Theodore Boone #1: Kid Lawyer by John Grisham
Theodore Boone #2: The Abduction by John Grisham
Theodore Boone #3: The Accused by John Grisham
Theodore Boone #4: The Activist by John Grisham
What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell

Reader’s Notes

Hard Science Fiction

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

[Solved]: axe cli won't run in WSL

Tue, 14 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

SOLVED posts detail solutions to problems I could not find anywhere else.

After installing axe-cli in my Ubuntu/Windows 11 environment using Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), I got the following error whenever I tried to run it:

Chrome failed to start: crashed
(unknown error: DevToolsActivePort file doesn't exist)
(The process started from chrome location [file path] is no longer running, so ChromeDriver is assuming that Chrome has crashed.)

This can be caused by a lot of things (and I tried most of them), but in my case it was caused by Chrome not being installed in my WSL environment, which makes sense because I only use it for command line programs.

A Short Accessibility Tester Job Description

Wed, 05 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

After convincing someone that accessibility testers needed to be added to a project because none of the existing testers had any accessibility experience, I was asked to provide a job description on the spot. This is what I came up with basically off-the-cuff. My goal was brief, targeted, and mostly comprehensive. I am curious what you would add, remove, or edit.

Job Description - Web Accessibility Tester

Must have experience testing websites/web applications for WCAG 2.1 AA compliance on the following platforms:

How to ditch the accessibility section of your contract

Thu, 23 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In contracts and project plans, accessibility-related work is often siloed away in its own section, if it appears at all, which undermines its pervasive role in a project. A better approach is to integrate accessibility thinking and tasks into all the “normal” project phases. Not only does this normalize accessibility being part of all processes, it also makes it harder to get rid of it all at once.

Below are strategies to integrate accessibility into a contract or project plan. This post will be updated with more strategies over time.

Recommended Browser-Device-Screenreader support matrix for testing plans

Thu, 02 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I find it helpful to keep my default test stacks handy, and I prefer to incorporate screenreaders in the “Browser compatibility” section of contracts and testing plans whenever possible to normalize the need for screen reader testing and to make sure it doesn’t fall through the cracks.

The primary source I consult for screen reader usage patterns is the WebAIM Screen Reader Survey, which they have been conducting since 2009. The latest survey was published in June 2024.

Top 6 unexpected things I learned about ADA Web Accessibility Lawsuits in 2020

Mon, 01 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been working in the accessibility space for a couple of years now, but it wasn’t until last year that I started to pay attention to the landscape of ADA web accessibility lawsuits, and a lot of what I learned surprised me. Here are my top 6 unexpected learnings and realizations from 2020.

1. What do you mean it’s NOT the law?

Believe it or not, there is no actual law or regulation in the United States saying that your website needs to be accessible to people with disabilities…it’s all based on a patchwork of court judgments. It does seem like Congress has noticed, and they are expected to act on it soon.

Web Accessibility Using a Content Management System

Thu, 07 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

It is no surprise that accessibility is an increasingly important consideration when searching for a new content management system (CMS), but what may be surprising is just how little the CMS itself matters.

When comparing different systems, it is tempting to look at what the default install provides in terms of the ability to create and display accessible content, but this is less useful than it seems. In my experience, very few businesses use a CMS in its out-of-the-box form. What matters most is how you customize the experience and how you train your editors. In that regard, very few systems will stand in your way (or help you).

WCAG 2.2 Updates: Things That Should Not Have To Be Said In 2020, But Are Still Being Said

Tue, 17 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

WCAG 2.2 was scheduled to be approved in November 2020, but this year being what it has been, it will not be approved until next Summer 2021. That said, it is likely to be adopted in its current form, so it is worth reviewing to see what will change.

New WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) updates make Marketers and Web Administrators nervous and I typically hear questions like:

What if we are doing something wrong and need to change a bunch of stuff?
What do the rules really mean?
How do I know if I am complying or not?
Where am I going to find the budget for this?

Luckily for everyone, the WCAG 2.2 AA updates are common sense additions that comprise a baseline acceptable user experience for any web user. I would propose that anyone reading this article is more than capable of passing judgment on compliance with the 2.2 updates. Let’s look and you can see what I mean.

4 Key Takeaways from the WebAIM 2019 Screen Reader User Survey

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

WebAIM has been conducting surveys on web accessibility for years (see WebAIM projects), including a survey of Screen Reader users since 2009. The latest survey was published in September 2019.

I encourage everyone to read through their results and analysis as it won’t take long, but here are the four key insights I found.

Note: Numbers rounded to the nearest full number.

#1 - The technology landscape for screen readers is fragmented, but usage is not.

A predominant number of users rely only on a handful of platforms and technologies. More is always better when it comes to testing, but given the scarcity of time, talent, and treasure, I would expect the best ROI by prioritizing the following list:

Forget About Compliance, Accessibility Is An Optimization Strategy

Tue, 10 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

As marketers, we are always concerned with - maybe even obsessed with - incremental optimization of our key metrics. More pageviews, more conversions, higher CTR, more dwell time. The opportunity for huge leaps of market share or mindshare is largely out of reach, so as a group we spend ghastly amounts of time and effort chasing fractions of percentages of improvement. That is, of course, if you haven’t neglected the double-digit blind spot waiting for you at the top of the funnel known as “web accessibility.”"

How to start a fight in a web team

Mon, 21 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

All links should open in the same window

This is a tiny, albeit immensely controversial statement.

But it shouldn’t be–it’s been recognized and recommended as a best practice since the earliest days of the web. Somewhere along the way, we lost sight of that in pursuit of juicing metrics and forgot why we started in the first place.

Below are 4 reasons why you should default all linking to the same window. All are sufficient on their own to make you rethink your linking strategy. If you have an argument that can override all these concerns, I would love to hear it. (Really, I would).

Is your marketing making the web better?

Mon, 21 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

When I’m not helping clients, one of the things I do at BlueModus is produce what we call “Making the Web Better” website audits by looking at the front-end of prospective clients’ websites. I’ve always felt that marketing activities could have intrinsic value, and this is an expression of that.

These audits are bespoke, manual evaluations that focus on the gnarly interaction of performance, usability, SEO, accessibility, and content strategy. They are manual because the whole point is that they contain the type of insights that are hard to automate, and so have more value.

How to Jumpstart a Good Design Critique

Tue, 11 Aug 2015 02:13:50 +0000

Creation rarely happens in a single iteration.

What happens in-between is critique, a close examination by yourself and others regarding the concept, assumptions, and execution of your idea. A constructive critique is collaborative, creative, and directed. When done well, it can be productive and incredibly gratifying, and it requires only the engagement of its participants. In this post, I suggest some simple strategies for engaging in good critique that also serve to jumpstart a lethargic group. Over time, these strategies will increase your critical awareness and improve both the quality and usefulness of any critique you participate in.