Weeknotes 26:45

Posted 41 minutes ago

Week of November 1–7

Around the workshop

• Wonder of the Word templates – I spent a majority of my time last week working with our different language teams to update translations and gather translated image content for Wonder of the Word. I also need to update some layouts because several of our other language sites are participating at different levels so I needed to take that in account and adjust layouts where the content is different.
• Homepage features and ads – I also worked on implementing some features and ads on the site that will go live later this month.
• Health Update page – I created a page that will share health updates for Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth as she undergoes chemotherapy to treat cancer. I had recently discovered that we have a generic template that allows me to build a page completely in the CMS. I can add and edit content without having to touch the codebase. I did create a template for the page that extends the generic template but allowed me to add some scripting to play videos in dialogs on the page.
• Social Share images – I created social share images for our 6 other language sites. I had updated the English site a couple of weeks ago. We had a request from one of our language teams to update their social image so I decided to do all of them in one shot. I had also updated the English one earlier in the week as we updated the tagline.

Articles I read

• Works & Wonders: Wikipop, Weather Photos, Men Who Sing (Tim Challies)
• New Bot Day! Robot No.3991 is a “push puppet (Joe Crawford)
• What’s !important #20: GTA 6 Scroll Effects, Scrollspies, random() (Daniel Schwarz, CSS-Tricks)
• Laid off 60 days in: what is the tech industry doing to developers? (Samuel East) – It continues to be very rough out there. How discouraging to finally get a job and then be laid off two months in.
• Patrick Stewart, 1940 – 2026 (Abigail Nussbaum)
• Community (Marco Arment) – I miss feeling more part of a community. Some of it was the downfall of Twitter. And thou I get tastes of it from time to time, it is not like it was 10-15 years ago.
• Last week in the studio (CW44-26) (Andy Clarke)
• How I designed Moonwalk Audio’s website to turn imagination into interaction (Andy Clarke) – I always enjoy reading case studies and the process different designers or developer employ or go through in a project. I can’t wait till the site goes live and I can go play around with it.
• Newsletter October 2026 (Ben Rivera) – I worked with Ben over 20 years ago. I enjoyed those days. It is good to catch up with what he is doing in his ministry. The timing of seeing his newsletter corresponded with 26th anniversary of the launch of a ministry site I worked on when I was in Ben’s office.
• I saw an engraved bit.ly URL today (Joe Crawford) – I have enjoyed hearing Joe’s thoughts on digital permanence through his posts and in Front End Study Hall.
• A select should tell you something (Ahmad El-Alfy) – I like that there customizable selects in some browsers and now and will be baseline in our future that will allow us to do this.
• May God Be Gracious to Us: A Prayer Before Election Day (Rob Pacienza, Institute for Faith and Culture) – I needed this spiritual perspective this week.
• Making features generic in CSS (Rachel Andrew) – I enjoyed this discussion of making new features that are more generic and work across different layout methods.
• Patrick Stewart’s Greatest Picard Moments in STAR TREK (Eric Diaz, The Nerdist)
• and shredding (Joe Crawford)
• A Daring Suggestion for Netflix (Tim Challies) – There are several shows on Netflix that the premise interested me but I did not like all the profanity, which in my opinion did not add any value to the show, and then I stopped watching.
• “It Gives Great Demo” (Jim Nielsen) – Bring back the substance. I am tired of the parlor tricks.
• Beyond the viewport: Introducing Site Seeing (Ahmad Shadeed) – Ahmad has created a great new tool, Site Seeing. “With this tool, you can see how a web page will behave in different contexts that force unusual viewport sizes.” I got to see it before it launched and gave Ahmad some feedback, which he incorporated into the tool. “I think it does a great job of showing things visually without a lot of explanation. I think it is great to have all those things in one place especially for designers and developers that have not seen sites in those different contexts.” (my review) I appreciated the shout out in Ahmad’s article.
• The Missing Piece in John Mark Comer’s Quiet Time (Matthew Bingham, The Gospel Coalition)
• The Problem with Comer’s Cafeteria Approach to Spirituality (Matthew Bingham, The Gospel Coalition) – I read this as a follow-up to the previous article.
• A few big ones this morning (Joe Crawford)
• Studio Notes #109 (Dan Cederholm)
• Can You Keep Your Agency and Use AI? (O. Alan Noble) – I don’t want to surrender my God-given responsibility to make choices and delegate them to technology. I think this is one of the biggest dangers of the era we live in.
• How To Quit Spotify And Improve Your Life In The Process (Luke Plunkett, Aftermath) – I appreciated this practical article. I would like to quit Spotify but have not had a clear path forward on where to jump to. (via The Index, Piccalilli)
• The Index: Issue #205 (Piccalilli)
• I lost a fin today. Not my favorite thing. (Joe Crawford) – I feel for Joe, especially since he lost some others in the last 6 months.
• RSS Club: CSS-Tricks Redesign Preview (Geoff Graham, CSS-Tricks) – I always enjoy these articles that only are visible through RSS. I look forward to seeing the redesign this coming week.
• The Hutterites’ Guide To Technology (Daniel Miksha, Maclean’s) – I enjoyed these perspective by those who are making choices about what technology to embrace and putting limits on it for the good of individuals and communities.
• Searching for Jobs, Gen Z Feels Like It’s Staring Into ‘the Void’ (Callie Holtermann, The New York Times) – I relate to a lot that was shared in this article. I experienced a lot of this when I was unemployed two years ago. The whole things is so impersonal. This whole enterprise needs an overhaul.
• 4 Applications for the Order of Love From the Home to the Ends of the Earth (Alex Kocman)
• If We Had No Choice but to Be Born into Sin, Why Should We Praise God for Rescuing Us? (Randy Alcorn)
• Dwelling in the Truth That “Heaven Rules” (Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, Revive Our Hearts)
• What We Forget in Our Fight over the Clock (Trevin Wax, The Gospel Coalition) – Interesting perspective about the daylight savings time/standard time debate.

What I watched

• It’s time to come back to Firefox. The Internet you loved is still here. (YouTube) – I might consider going back to Firefox. I left over concerns about AI and privacy.
• Titans-Bengals (CBS) – I was not watching as closely in the second half. Pretty exciting ending.
• Chiefs-Broncos (CBS) – I was not watching this one as closely in the fourth quarter as I should have. Disappointing ending.
• Mrs Doubtfire (ABC)
• The Voice (NBC)
• Best Medicine (FOX)
• Enola Holmes 2 (Netflix)
• Paddington in Peru (Netflix)
• The Great British Baking Show: Collection 14: “Free-From Party Week” (Netflix)
• Boston Blue (CBS)
• Phil Rosenthal Talks Food, Family & The Future of Somebody Feed Phil | Infatuation X Phil Rosenthal (YouTube)
• NOWHERE TO HIDE in this TECHNICAL CHALLENGE! BakerReacts to Great British Bake Off Episode 6 (Peter Bakes, YouTube)
• Star Trek: The Next Generation (Paramount+) – I watched several random episodes using the shuffle function. I have been thinking a lot about the show with the recent death of Patrick Stewart.

What I listened to

• It’s Good to Be Grateful (Revive Our Hearts Daily Podcast)
• Cultivating God-Centered Gratitude (Revive Our Hearts Daily Podcast)

Books I am reading

• The Discipline of Grace (Jerry Bridges) – I enjoyed discussing the chapter on watchfulness with my teammate on Friday. Only one chapter to go.
• Enjoying Jesus (Tim Chester)
• Desiring God (John Piper)
• The Heart Taken Up (Stephen Yuille)
• The American Puritans (Dustin W. Benge and Nate Pickowicz)
• Irreplaceable: Humanity, Vocation, and the Limits of Technology (Gene Edward Veith Jr. and A. Trevor Sutton) – I am enjoying this book about technology and the theology of vocation.

Walking

• Saturday – I walked for about an hour. Strava didn’t track the last part of my walk so I am not sure how far I went.

What I played

MLB The Show 23 (Braves) – I started a new season with the Braves. I missed playing the game so I decided to play with the Braves. I have played two seasons with the Braves in the past. I went 4-1 in my first five games, losing the last one to the Cardinals. It is fun to play with this team. I played with the 21 team so there are a lot guys still around on this team.