More Flogging

A quick Google search says that I didn't invent the word "webflog," but that's what this will be until I finally remember everything I meant to put in yesterday's post. The one thing I know I meant to add (and there may be more):

• Last year at SxSW, Tom and I had a great time giving a joint session called "When Your Partner Is Your Partner." We live it, so we figured we'd talk about it. However, the version that got approved last year was a fraction of the full panel I wanted to do, and since last year's was so well received, I figured I'd pitch it again. Consequently, it's now up on the SxSW panel picker: When Your Partner Is Your Partner: When Home & Office Collide. If you're thinking about going to SxSW, could you please vote for us? Thanks!

Fresh from the back yard

In late 2005 and early 2006, we finally finished our back yard, which had been a weed-strewn hell since we moved here in December 1999. We planted some fruit trees along the back wall, put a small herb garden in pots, and picked up two half wine barrels, one of which has a small Meyer lemon tree, and the other contains Mexican limes. We got a bunch of lemons and limes last December, but then we had a few days of frost in January, and the citrus nearly died. They finally came back, but we won't get any fruit out of them this year.

From the fruit trees, we got a couple of peaches last year, and six or eight this year. We just picked three Golden Delicious apples yesterday, and three more should be ready next week. No apricots or plums yet.

In the herb pots, I'd forgotten that we had small strawberries, but we were reminded when these popped out.

They were about 3/4 inch wide in real life. And they were delicious.

Flogging, Not Blogging

Tom's been griping lately about my complete lack of blogging around here lately, and he's right. I just haven't been in the mood to blog for some reason; if you want to hear from me, your best bet is to follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and/or del.icio.us instead.

In lieu of blogging, though, it's time for me to do some flogging:

• Want to learn some JavaScript? Check out JavaScript Essential Training, from the great folks at Lynda.com. Seven full hours of me talking about glorious JavaScript! It's not just me reading our JavaScript book aloud; it actually contains a lot of new stuff I created just for this title.

  Currently it's only available as part of their online library, but they say a CD-ROM version will be out shortly. If you follow that first link, you should be able to listen to over 40 minutes of it even if you aren't a subscriber.

  (Note that there is a JavaScript CD-ROM being sold on that site, but it's from 2002, and this title is replacing it. Don't buy that one.)

• Coming up in the not-too-distant future is a brand-new conference: Voices That Matter: Web Design Conference 2007. It's October 22-25 in San Francisco, and even if you have no interest in JavaScript, there are some pretty amazing speakers in the lineup.

  If you are interested in learning JavaScript, though, you should check out my workshop, JavaScript and Ajax for Designers—in just four hours I take graphics people who know absolutely nothing about scripting and turn them into coding machines (and that's a good thing!).

  Want to go, but don't want to pay full price? I don't blame you one bit. If you register before September 10th, you'll get the discounted early bird rate. Still not good enough? Use priority code WD-SMIT, and you'll save another $100 off the listed prices.

  Hope to see you there!