Author: bethsoderberg
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On Setting My 2019 Goals
I’m the sentimental type that takes a new year very seriously. There is something about the natural pause at the holidays that makes goal-setting, planning, and otherwise organizing seem so natural. I did not make goals for 2018. As 2017 turned into 2018 I was preoccupied with recovering from the trauma associated with a life-threatening…
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My Favorite Browser Extensions for Web Development
The very first time I expressed interest in learning how to modify the code on websites, my mentor exclaimed “well first, you need to get Firebug!” I had no idea what she was talking about, but googled Firebug nonetheless and installed my first browser extension. Ever since, Firebug has been a tool that I’ve used…
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2016 Year in Review
Early in 2016, I left my job, became self employed, and never actually announced that fact to the world. Here’s why: It’s scary. Terrifying, in fact. At first, I didn’t share because I was adjusting in the same way anyone with a new job adjusts. I had left my full time job as a senior…
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Organizing a Hackathon (Again)
A week and a half ago we held the second Annual DCFemTech Hack for Good, which I had the pleasure of planning along with Ally Palanzi, Alex Ulsh, and Cat Robinson. We also had some help from other DCFemTech folks, especially Shana Glenzer, who helped us connect with contacts at the venue and with some…
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Dynamic CSS
The fundamentals of CSS transforms, transitions, and animation are the basics that allow front-end developers to kick it up a notch and add a bit more pizazz and interactivity to websites. What are the basic building blocks that make up these capabilities? What is the difference between a transition and a transform? What does browser…
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I am Writing a Book this November
Last year I failed to write a novel. I had every intent of writing a book and I even had an idea (think the results of apocalyptic consumerism encouraged by a greedy and controlling government). So, I signed up for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and gave it a go: I lasted two days. I failed because…
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WordPress Redirection Plugin and Trailing Slashes
I am a huge fan of the WordPress Redirection plugin because I have found that it’s an easy way for non-technical folks to go in and set up 301 redirects so that all URLs are directing site visitors to whatever new content is appropriate. Recently, I ran into a small issue where some redirects that…
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HTML Basics: Elements, Tags, and Document Structure
HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language and is the basic structural element that is used to create webpages. HTML is a markup language, which means that it is used to “mark up” the content within a document, in this case a webpage, with structural and semantic information that tells a browser how to display a…
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On the Death of Websites
When most people think of a website dying they think of sites that are temporarily pushed off the face of the internet by denial of service attacks or sites that are maimed and manipulated by hackers. Though these two things certainly do cause websites to “die” temporarily, there are so many other ways websites can…
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Making Responsive Rectangles and Squares with CSS
The basic conceptual and literal building block of most responsive CSS shapes is the rectangle. In terms of geometry, a rectangle is a parallelogram where each corner is a right angle. This means that once you know how to make a responsive CSS rectangle, you’ll automatically know how to make a responsive CSS square. Always…