Michael Fienen & the Moderately Priced Scotch

Michael Fienen on March 18, 2015

“Episode thirteen starts with a pop as Michael Fienen, Senior Developer at Aquent and CTO for nuCloud, cracks into a new bottle. In this episode, we talk a lot of tech, but we talk higher ed, too. Michael used to be the one-man web team, bringing us down a long winding road of figuring out how to prioritize tasks alongside putting out fires. We also talk about the importance of face-to-face interaction, especially across departments, and how being a “translator,” or at least having one in your office, is key to collaboration. We also do a lot of tech talk, discussing UX and UI, website design fads, and skeuomorphism, a new phrase you can use to make you sound smart.”
Listen to the full interview at http://highered.social/michael-fienen-the-moderately-priced-scotch/

Context vs Layout in Responsive Web Design

Michael Fienen on February 11, 2013

So I just got done looking at the new plugin the guy that did Masonry is working on (see attached link). It’s crazy smart. It also got me thinking about how we architect and build sites in general. In general, do you know why responsive web design kinda sucks right now? It’s the fact that it’s basically context blind. Everyone does it by a grid with no respect for content. What’s missing is the bridge between responsive LAYOUT and responsive CONTEXT. Frameworks like 960GS, Foundation, etc are all great, but they only solve half the problem, and basically blind sites to the other half. Responsive context doesn’t necessarily mesh with the principal of a site that marries itself to a grid that is clever at linearizing itself, which is really all those frameworks are designed for. Don’t get me wrong, there are sites out there that are managing to do okay on the context front, but they are few and far between. They also generally have to work around the framework, rather than with it, to get the results they want. We need a way to do weighted prioritization of elements, so that as a page scales down, it truly responds with intelligent sorting. When I see elements flying around in the Packery preview, I can’t help but think that there is the possibility for something near to a solution there. A grid that can scale, while moving elements around, and do so in a way that allows a developer to say certain elements should flow to different parts of the grid based on what they are showing. Feel free to share your thoughts on the subject below.

Packery Preview – Metafizzy blog

5 Reasons Why the US Domain Seizures Are Unconstitutional

Michael Fienen on November 26, 2011

…This arrest has once again raised questions about the seizure of domains operated by those that are accused, but not convicted, of copyright infringement related crimes. Critics ranging from bloggers to individual rights advocates to Senators have rightfully questioned the constitutionality of these seizures.

Latch: The Five Ultimate Hatracks

Michael Fienen on November 7, 2011

The LATCH principle believes that there are only five ways to organize information, and anything else is a subcomponent of those five. Do you agree, or is that idea to rigid for today’s data structures?

Voice and Tone

Michael Fienen on November 4, 2011

If you’ve ever wondered how you might approach creating a style guide for speaking as a brand consistently across channels and using different people, MailChimp’s guide is an absolute must read.