Helena Zhang has written about the “7 Principles of Icon Design” and talks about clarity, readability, alignment, brevity, consistency, personality, ease of use and more …

I wish she would have written on her own blog (if she has one) instead of Medium … but she was listening to nice music while writing 😊

⇾ Visit: 7 Principles of Icon Design

Anyone who likes to learn how CSS positioning works or who wants to refresh what you know about CSS positioning should visit this tutorial, that Ahmad Shadeed created.

⇾ Visit: CSS Positioning

In 2006 Mena Trott, co-founder of Movable Type, during a talk said about, what a blog is:

[…] it’s this record of who you are, your persona […]

I like this a lot and I think this is still right and relevant.

For many months I am having issues with syncing my Apple Watch’s Nike Run Club app with my iPhone. Every once in a while – sometime more regularly sometimes after two months again – when I am back home after a run an my watch states ”synced” and I open my NRC on the iPhone I can’t see my run. But not only this: when I then go back to my watch it has disappeared there as well. I often thought I simply switch to Strava, but then, I like keeping my history of my runs in one place.

In December 16, Nike released an update to the app. It happened now, that my NRC did update, but after one day I would see ”Update” with Dec. 16 again. While their support on Twitter was brilliant and super fast, trying to help, which seemed to have worked in the beginning, their support via email is pretty slow sadly. Also they just repeat what I went though with their Twitter support already and which did not help in the end.

Now today I went for another run with a friend and once again my run disappeared from both devices. I started taking photos of my watch with my phone to then add the run manually, but this is actually not the way it should work. I know, this is definitely a first world problem, but simply annoying, especially as I report this behaviour for about two years or longer.

I will now, from February on start start using Strava and give it a try. Maybe I event use one of those syncing tool to take my old runs with me. At least those from January, so I have a clean cut with 2020.

Which app are you using to track your runs and can you recommend it? (I am just using my Apple Watch. I know, there is better hardware out there to track runs ;) … )

Update: Well, just trying to re-activate my Strava account. It shows me, that my email is registered already. Hit ”Forgot Password” three times already. Nothing happens in my inbox (not even in spam). Not a good start, eh 😂

Dave Rupert is being honest about a brutal experience he had. Public speaking is not always a joy. Thanks for sharing this, Dave ;)

⇾ Visit: When Public Speaking Goes Wrong

Like last year, I am going to kick off the year of events with New Adventures in Nottingham. I am already looking forward to the event, as I know that Simon and Colly put their heart into it and always make it a special event. Not only because they work hard on finding interesting and different people and topics, but also because I know hat always lovely people come to this event, which means great conversations and a good time next to the core values of their New Adventures Conference.

I know that tickets are still available and if you like to kick off the year in a creative and lovely way, join in and come to Nottingham!

For a longer time I was looking into a solution to get rid of the mess around my espresso machine. I have three portafilters: one with a filter basket for one shot and one spout, one with a filter basket for a double shot or two espresso and a double spout and last but not least one with no spout, or, a bottomless portafilter.

As i am only always using one of the above portafilters, the other two are somewhere next to my machine and I don’t have the most space around my machine. I thought of building a little rack out of wood to hang the portafilters I don’t need onto the wall. Then I thought, I do a little bit of research as other people might have the same issue and already solved it.

I found a couple of nice looking solutions, like this one, by someone calling himself chuckcoffee or this one, which comes even with a magnet for the blind filter basket. There are even solutions from companies like ECM, made of metal, but sadly also quite pricey.

I then looked on Etsy and found something called Portakeeper, which does not waste a lot of space on your wall, is easy to mount (you can use 3M sticking pads to mount them) and does not cost too much. Maybe not as beautiful as wooden versions, but you don’t really see them behind the portafilter either. I took a couple of photos of how they look and how I mounted the two I bought.

Of course, those are “only” 3D printed and you can find similar versions on Thingiverse (e. g. this one or this one), but I like that the one behind the Etsy solution provided a great service, helping me with questions and I was happy to buy from him (plus, I don’t have a 3D printer anyways).

This is stunningly beautiful. This is a photography project by Richard Silver.

I can’t describe why, but somehow those photos have something really fascinating. But simply have a look yourself on his website, where you find them in higher resolution.

This is one example of the lovely comments – via email, direct message or alike – I get often after running an event. And this also is an example for my reason running those events.

I can’t describe the happiness whenever I receive one of those emails. Thanks a lot to all those who make the effort and take the time to write me. ❤️

Looking forward to two days in Vienna to attend the Webclerks Conference. Excited to meet friends (and make new ones) after running beyond tellerrand in Berlin just a little more than a week ago. Also happy to meet a couple of people there, which I had not spoken to a lot at my own event as a matter of time and business ;)

Se you there …