April 19, 2016 in Learn
Bundling Angular with webpack
I love building Angular applications. Because Angular is so modular you can separate your JavaScript code like your controllers and services into multiple files. But adding all of the script references to my HTML file is painful. If only there…
February 1, 2016 in Learn
How to Deploy a Static Site to Heroku
Heroku is a hosting platform where you can deploy dynamic applications in Rails, PHP, Node.js and Python web applications. Prerequisites In order to deploy a site you need a couple of things: Have git installed Heroku Account – sign up…
December 8, 2015 in Learn
Understanding Normal Maps
Most modern video game assets have multiple texture maps applied, and one of those maps is called a normal map. This is a technique in computer graphics that simulates high detail bumps and dents using a bitmap image. Real-time rendering in video games is…
November 3, 2015 in Learn
How to Make a Loading Screen in Unity
At some point or another, every game developer has to create a loading screen. Often, you’ll see a loading screen at the start of a game, or when entering a new area of the game. A loading bar or a spinning…
September 8, 2015 in Learn
How to Use Image Effects in Unity
Image effects in the Unity game engine can have a big impact on the look of your game. A bloom effect can turn harsh lighting into a warm sunny day, or an effect like color correction can make a landscape look…
August 10, 2015 in Learn
How to Use npm as a Task Runner
A task is something you need to do. If you want to perform that task over and over again, as you do in development, you’ll save yourself a lot of time if you automate the process. Common web development tasks include…
July 22, 2015 in Learn
Thinking Ahead: CSS Scroll Snap Points
CSS recently introduced a scroll snap points feature that gives users a fluid and precise scrolling experience for touch and input devices. There are plenty of jQuery plugins available that create scroll snap effects. But instead of installing a plugin…
July 14, 2015 in Learn
Learn How: Programmatically Open File Downloads in a New Window with JavaScript
Have you ever wanted a way to update all file download links on your site to have the behavior of opening a new browser window? This is a better user flow than having the user follow the link and then…
July 8, 2015 in Learn
How to Build an npm Package
What is npm? npm is a package manager for JavaScript. It manages dependencies for both front-end and back-end projects. If you’re a company wanting to distribute a way for developers to connect to your service or an open-source developer who…
July 6, 2015 in Learn
An Introduction to the Rails Command
If you’ve worked with a Rails application, you’ve used the rails command. In this post, we’re going to go in depth with the rails command and find out what it does. For the purposes of this post, placeholder text will…
June 30, 2015 in Learn
Use jQuery to Asynchronously Load an Image
Back in May I shared how to load images asynchronously with JavaScript. I had a lot of requests from people on how to do it in jQuery. So here we go! Asynchronous Image Loading Instead of having images load like…
June 25, 2015 in Learn
How to Create a Stunning Site Hero Image in 5 Minutes or Less
Hero images are everywhere these days. You’ve probably seen them front and center in websites for apps, magazines, stores and pretty much every other product category. And with good reason: these large background images are often successful at capturing a…