Preston Stahley

Music

Best of 2011: Music

Post author By Preston
Post date January 12, 2012

It’s my 10 favorite albums of 2011!

Cure for the Common

Bozeman’s own Cure for the Common released their debut album this year, and it seriously rocks. This unique funk-jazz-rock-hip-hop blend packs some killer grooves and fresh flows.

Audio, Video, Disco

Justice

A departure from their previous work, Audio, Video, Disco finds Justice mixing their signature dance sounds with cheesy 70s rock music. An odd move for sure, but the results are pretty interesting.

One for Sorrow

Insomnium

Insomnuim beats out releases from Amon Amarth and Turisas to be only metal album on my list this year. One for Sorrow lives up to it’s name with a powerful sound of strong melancholy and an underlying beauty that shines through in the melodic guitars and clean vocals.

Turtleneck & Chain

The Lonely Island

Turtleneck? Check. With another on deck. Case I spill something on it. Like some light beer? Yes.

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They Might Be Giants

They Might Be Giants took a break from children’s music (which was also quite good) to put out their 15th studio album. The Johns’ may be getting old, but their unmistakable style is still as sharp as ever.

Tags Battles, Beastie Boys, Cure for the Common, Danny Brown, Deerhoof, Delicate Steve, Insomnium, Justice, The Lonley Island, They Might Be Giants

Games

Best of 2011: Video Games

Post author By Preston
Post date January 4, 2012

It’s my top five games of the year!

Mortal Kombat

NetherRealm Studios finally returned to their roots with this fantastic reboot of the Mortal Kombat series. I loved seeing the original cast, the reworked story, and all the nods to the original trilogy. Oh, and it’s actually a solid fighting game this time as well!

Dark Souls

Dark Souls is an absolutely brutal game, but that isn’t what makes it great. The real magic is how it forces you to explore it’s deadly and terrifying world with all the creeping precision of a survival horror game. The understated tone is genuinely creepy and the dark fantasy setting is well crafted. Overall, Dark Souls might be the most original game I played this year. VICTORY ACHIEVED.

Batman: Arkham City

This game delivers exactly what it promises. You’re THE GODDAMN BATMAN. I wasn’t a huge Arkham Asylum fan, but Arkham City’s open world and improved group fighting system make it one of the best superhero action games I’ve ever played.

Mass Effect 2

I finally got a chance to play Mass Effect 2 on PS3 this year. Part shooter, part RPG, the gameplay mechanics are simple, but the story is where Mass Effect 2 really shines. The fiction is literally comparable to Star Wars in terms of the scope and the interesting races and characters found within. The focus on team building makes each mission feel important and keeps the momentum going right up until the end.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Skyrim is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I’ve sunk almost 70 hours into this game, and I’m not even close to finished with it. I love the setting, the quests are interesting, and the music is great. I’m currently on hiatus due to frame rate and freezing issues, but as soon as a patch drops, I’ll be back to slaying dragons, reading books, shouting at bears, collecting drums, stealing cabbages, etc, etc.

What were your favorites?

Tags Batman: Arkham City, Dark Souls, Mass Effect 2, Mortal Kombat, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Web Design

A new website for the New Year

Post author By Preston
Post date January 1, 2012

2011 was a very interesting year for the web. The App Internet continues to march on while web consumption continues to fragment into a myriad of devices with different browsers and form factors.

Out with the old

As Jeffrey Zeldman recently pointed out, the days of a single fixed width layout are over and web designers once again find themselves in uncharted territory with few standards to guide them. What is the new ‘best practice’ in web design? Responsive design? Adaptive? A return to fluid layouts?

It’s easy to complain about the lack of guidelines and the seemingly daunting task of crafting a great user experience across so many devices. It’s a lot more fun to start experimenting in search of a solution.

It was with that spirit I set out to redesign my personal site a few months ago. I wanted to create a proof of concept for a mobile-first, adaptive design where every page looked great no matter what device you happened to be using.

Simplicity

My first goal was to keep things as simple and lightweight as possible. Mobile-first design treats mobile and desktop as equals, so pages had to be small enough to load quickly, even at 3G speeds. Frills were cut, and a minimalist style was adopted.

Hot tools

I looked at many responsive and adaptive grid systems before settling on Joni Korpi’s excellent Frameless. The Frameless grid frees you of pixel-based thinking by using LESS to calculate em based columns that give you more control over which elements adapt and which do not.

FitVids, a jquery plugin for adaptive video players, works flawlessly for scaling videos.

Results

I’m very happy with the results of this first step into full-scale adaptive design.

The site adapts well to every smartphone, tablet, and desktop display out there, while remaining very lightweight. Grab the corner of your browser and resize away. The content will scale to fit any size.