I have been quietly searching for this embarrassingly goofy photobooth polaroid for at least 2 years now. I included a low-res scan of it in the original amesnjas.com website, but that was back when Amy and I lived in Florida. Like the polaroid format itself, I was afraid the tangible evidence of this memory was lost forever.

I was pleasantly surprised though when I re-discovered the picture in an old box of notes last week. The box was from the Summer after that picture was taken. We had been dating for almost two years at that point and as you can read from the polaroid, had just gotten engaged. It was really a bitter-sweet Summer though. I was headed to Italy for a 6 week project with Campus Crusade for Christ and Amy had been awarded a 10 week REU scholarship to do research at the University of South Carolina.

While those were both exciting, life-changing opportunities for us, it meant we had to be apart for almost the entire Summer. As I was packing my suitcase, Ames gave me a wooden box with hearts all over it that was filled with little pieces of paper. Each paper was individually rolled up and tied shut with red ribbon. She explained that I could open one whenever I missed her. Every piece of paper had a note written on it about why she loved me. I ran out of notes long before the end of my trip, but this was the last one I opened, and the object I was actually searching for when I discovered my favorite picture.

To celebrate our fifth anniversary, I had a recent picture of us blown up and I put a copy of that note with it in a frame. I figured it was an appropriate gift (along with some jewelry of course) for our 5th anniversary as she’s about a year and a half from being finished with a PhD at the University where she spent that summer 6 years ago. It’s amazing to me that it’s been so long since those memories were created, but we’ve got plenty more to make. Happy Anniversary, Ames!

I thought Google Street View was fairly entertaining when it launched last year, but it wasn’t all that exciting when you could only explore 5 cities. Ever since they added coverage here in Columbia though, I’ve been fascinated. Writing about how cool the service is doesn’t really do it justice. Instead, you’ll have to see for yourself. Here’s 10 interesting sights to see while roaming the 360° virtual streets.

1. Eiffel Tower
   
2. Golden Gate Bridge
   
3. Magic Kingdom Entrance
   
4. St. Louis Arch
   
5. Hoover Dam
   
6. Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas
   
7. Geysers at Yellowstone National Park
   
8. UCF Arena (Go Knights!)
   
9. Fountain of Rings at Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park
   
10. Our House (Somewhere in Columbia, SC)
    

Find something interesting in Street View? Post a link below!

It’s been over a year and a half since my book hit the shelves, but I am still getting a lot of email feedback. I’ve gotten 4 so far in the last week. I can’t really complain because most of it is very positive, but a lot of email means a lot of time spent answering questions. While every email is different, I get three general categories of question-containing emails:

• Personal Guidance - These types of emails usually require the most time, but are often the most rewarding to answer. Examples include students asking what types of courses they should take and amateur webmonkeys asking what skills they need to “make it” in the industry. I was once an amateur webmonkey, so I try to answer these when I can, even if that means they sit in my inbox for a week or two.
• Technical - Or, “how do I make this do that” emails. I try not to answer technical questions directly. I’ve learned most of what I know about website design through experience. Instead, I try to point people to places where they can learn the answers themselves. That leads to the last category.
• Additional Resources - The majority of questions I get are from people who simply want to know what they should learn next. I have a lot of respect for self-learners, so I do my best to suggest books and resources that I think will help. Here is an actual example of this type of email that I received today:

Hey Jason -

I just finished reading your book and I have to say kudos for a job well done. This was probably one of the most useful web design books that I have ever read.

However, now that I’ve finished your book I am ready to jump right into making my (somewhat) great new comp that I’ve made in Photoshop into a web page. Yeah, that’s where I get stuck. I’ve read a couple of the ‘dummy’ books for CSS, PHP, etc, but those don’t seem to help me take my design from the comp I’ve made in Photoshop and turn it into a functioning website. So there’s my question: can you recommend any books / sites / resources for doing just that? I understand the mechanics of CSS, for example, but I don’t know how to use it to replicate that beautiful design that is currently stuck in Photoshop onto the web.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer. And again, great job!

John Doe

As I read this question there were several books that immediately came to mind: A few of the Sitepoint books, Designing with Web Standards, Bulletproof Web Design, Transcending CSS & Web Standards Creativity. I love all of these books, and the skills “John” needs are explained well in each of them, but the process of converting a Photoshop comp to working HTML/CSS isn’t something I learned solely from a book, but rather through years of reading online resources, viewing source code and tinkering. I remembered seeing a link a few months back to a series of screencasts that supposedly did a good job of explaining this process, so I started hunting. What I found was Chris Coyier’s CSS-Tricks.

Chris is currently up to 24 video screencasts covering a wide range of basic-to-intermediate web design and development skills. I haven’t watched all of the videos yet, but from what I’ve seen, Chris has a knack for breaking down the tasks he’s explaining into easily digestible instructions. I’ll definitely be adding CSS-Tricks.com to my list of recommended resources.