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Recently.
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Arkanoid: Recent Submissions
Amateur Photography - Photos from Schill
Heavy Rotation - Schill's most-listened-to artists @last.fm
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Reading.
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The latest and/or most relevant stuff.
Most Recently
- How SoundManager 2 Works
- Background details to the JavaScript and Flash that makes SoundManager 2 work, plus technical notes and other findings about Flash's wacky ExternalInterface functionality.
- CSS 3 and The Future: Image-free Rounded Corners, Drop Shadows and Gradients
- A brief history of rounded corner CSS 2 hacks and some examples of effects using border-radius, box-shadow and other fancy CSS 3 attributes (and vendor-specific extensions) allowing modern browsers to render shiny UI designs entirely from code.
- The Cost of "Social Media" Javascript Overload
- Security, load time and user experience are all affected by the amount of inline Javascript blocks and third-party script "includes" being crammed into some modern sites, particularly commercial and tech blogs. This entry is a rant, and some suggestions to improve performance.
- HD Time-Lapse Photography: A How-To
- A hacker type can't simply plant basil and cilantro outside, and leave them alone to grow; of course there has to be something else, preferably nerdy, in the process. This is how I ended up getting into time-lapse photography and making videos from sequences of photos using a Canon camera, the free CHDK software, and QuickTime.
- Javascript Malware Analysis: A Case Study
- When JS goes bad: Remote iFrame tricks on legitimate (or phishing) sites can load Javascript exploits or "shellcode", which can mean drive-by downloads and other risks. This is an example of some heavily-obfuscated code seen on a recent Facebook phishing site.
- Javascript Animation: Tutorial, Part 3
- The final, and overdue, part in a series on Javascript animation techniques: Creating tweens, simultaneous animations and event handling are discussed. A simple animation API, demo and source code is included.
- Extension Wars: Adblock Plus vs. NoScript
- Is it okay for one popular Firefox extension to alter the behaviour of another without asking for your permission? (PS: Internet drama/tempest in a teapot amusement goes here.)
- Optimizing Your External Javascript References
- Traditionally, the script tag blocks parse, load and render of a web page. A few ideas around this include loading JS with JS, the defer attribute and caching locally.
- A Snapshot of The Yahoo! Photos Beta (from 2006)
- Javascript performance learnings: Memory leaks and management, event delegation, performance tweaks, debugging, UI observations and side thoughts from a web development perspective from my time working on the Ajax-heavy redesign of Yahoo! Photos, between 2005 and 2006.
- What I Did In 2008
- A productive year seeing the redesign of SoundManager 2, the Javascript Sound library, a refresh of Snowstorm (a free Javascript Snow effect), continued downtempo and trip-hop mixes, binaural audio recordings, time-lapse photography and video experiments.
- Top 5 favourite albums: Beck: Mellow Gold
- Comments on Beck's classic break-out album from 1994, with a few insights from this Beck fan.
- A Fresh Redesign: 2007/08 edition
- An aggressive new time-sensitive redesign renders the site with different visual and audible cues over the course of the day.
- A Holiday Update (2006)
- The usual holiday festivities: Snow, good tunes, smashing christmas lights and other debauchery.
- Even More Rounded Corners With CSS
- Another take at creating single-image, alpha-transparent, fluid, rounded corner dialogs with CSS.
- Javascript Sound For The Web: SoundManager 2
- A new, fancier version of a Javascript sound project allowing people to add sound, or make sound apps using Javascript.
- Beck Hacks Yahoo!
- Beck Hansen and his band play an unannounced gig at Yahoo! Hack Day.
- How Web 2.0-aware Are You?
- A humorous look at Web 2.0-related sites, using a trick that tests your browser's visited URL history.
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Playing.
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Entertainment: Games
- DHTML Arkanoid
- An attempt at recreating the classic Arkanoid arcade game entirely in DHTML. Includes a level editor and a highscores list.
- "Smash Christmas Lights"
- A seasonal twist on the 2007/08 web site theme, with animations and sound effects. There is a bonus sequence for those who are "thorough"..
- Fireworks.js
- A goofy interactive Javascript Fireworks experiment, with animation and sound.
- "Web 2.0 Awareness Test"
- A Javascript/CSS experiment which gives you a score based on what Web 2.0-related sites you may have recently visited. (Written in 2006.)
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Code and Things You Can Use
- SoundManager 2: Javascript Sound For The Web
- A new, fancier version of a Javascript sound project allowing people to add sound, or make sound apps using Javascript.
- Javascript MP3 Player Demo
- An example of SoundManager 2, showing how you can make MP3 links play inline.
- Even More Rounded Corners With CSS
- Another take at creating single-image, alpha-transparent, fluid, rounded corner dialogs with CSS.
- Javascript Animation: Tutorial, Part 1
- Part one of a planned series: Theory behind Javascript/DHTML-based animation via setTimeout and setInterval.
- Javascript Animation: Tutorial, Part 2
- Discussing efficiency regarding interval-based animation
- SnowStorm v1.2.20031218a
- A downloadable DHTML component that creates an animated snowfall effect. Uses PNG-based images where supported.
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Thinking.
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Observations, Thoughts and Rants
Writing
- Application/XHTML+XML
- What I learned about XHTML when switching schillmania.com to application/xhtml+xml (forcing true XML validation.)
- Don't Believe The (Web 2.0) Hype!
- An attempt at popping the latest Internet 2.0 bubble and related technologies, along with a wishlist of ideals.
- On SEO and Search Engine Spamming
- From a post on theroot42.org originally entitled, 'SEO/How To Do Well On The Search Engines'
- What Turntables To Buy?
- My response to a forum post on choosing DJ equipment.
- Way To D'oh!
- Some tech/geek thoughts on 'Way To Dough', a neat web-based promotion for the Subway chain of stores.
- The (almost) Five-Dollar Coffee
- Starbucks ups the cost of already-overpriced coffee; I've had enough.
- The Obligatory Standards Rant
- A rant advocating standards on a respected design-oriented forum.
- On DJing and Turntablism
- Why you should buy a pair of 1200s, a mixer and some records.
- Spam, spam, spam
- Spam: The scourge of the Internet. A quick overview-cum-rant, and some recommended tools to fight the spam war.
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Archived Writings
- TJ Schiller Stomps US Open, X-Games
- My brother takes first place in two massive comps, throwing a never-done-before trick at one.
- Beck Live in Santa Cruz
- Meeting Beck Hansen, my favourite musician of all-time, after a concert in Santa Cruz
- World Of Trip-Hop Mix
- A 160-minute mix of downtempo and trip-hop.
- TJ Schiller wins 2005 WSI Slopestyle
- My brother wins at a popular freestyle skiing event.
- A Piece of Okanagan Golf Paradise
- A site built for a tourist vacation company at Predator Ridge.
- The Most Expensive Cab Ride. Ever.
- Regarding the purchase of a 2005 Toyota Celica.
- Sugar Ray Rocks Yahoo! 10th Anniversary
- Yahoo celebrates 10 years with the musical talents of Sugar Ray.
- Writing HTML like it's 1993
- A new job update, California, Eric and Molly teach CSS.
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Listening.
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Random soundbites + video clips
Binaural Audio Recordings
- Hand/Eye Coordination
- An attempt at 'Beat juggling' a seamless loop from a sample using turntables and two copies of the same record.
- Drumming with Vinyl
- Correctly scratch a record with a drum sample on it, and you can make your own variation on a theme.
- Scratching .. with a mouse?
- Combine a turntable with a computer mouse and a copy of the SoundCraft vinyl scratching emulation engine, and you have at least 30 seconds of entertainment.
- Chill with Schill
- A two-hour Downtempo/Trip-Hop mix, recorded on a lazy afternoon while drinking a $4 mocha from Starbucks. How's that for detail?
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Reacting.
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Get In Touch.
Interact
- Contact
- How to get in touch with Scott Schiller.
Elsewhere Online
- schill on Flickr
- Scott's Flickr profile and photos
- chillwithschill on Last.fm
- Scott's last.fm profile and music interests
- scottschiller.com: Portfolio
- Scott Schiller's professional and personal portfolio site. (Last updated: 2004)
- freshly ground: Experimental sound/music
- A side-project of experiments in music and binaural audio recordings
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Digging.
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Theme/Design archives (current + some archived content)
Alternate Themes
- 2008 "Back To Basics" edition
- Schillmania! 2008 Edition: Back To Basics (CSS grid layout, minimal JS/images)
- 2007/08 "Night and Day" edition
- Schillmania! 2007/08 Edition: "Night and day" theme with time-sensitive UI/design, environmental sound effects and ambience
- "Smash Christmas Lights" 2007
- Schillmania! 2007 Edition: "Smash Christmas Lights" seasonal feature
- 2006 "Work/life balance" edition
- Schillmania! 2006 Edition: Archived design (Sliding feature photo, two-column layout)
- 2005 "Bouncing Icon" edition
- Schillmania! 2005 Edition: Archived design (Horizon, bouncing icon layout)
- 2004 Edition: Now With More Funk
- Schillmania! 2004 Edition: Archived design (Multi-themed sliding photos+sound layout, may be buggy)
Design Archives
- A Five-Year Retrospective
- A look back on the origins of schillmania.com and its previous incarnations.
- 2003 (Spring.03): Strictly XHTML edition
- Schillmania! 2003 Edition: Archived design ("Newspaper style", first major XHTML + heavy JavaScript rewrite)
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