Author: Davin Granroth

  • Lila and Eva posing while decorating cookies, Easter 2008

    Thank you Richardsons for having us over for egg-painting and cookie decorating! We had a great time!

  • I finally did the right thing and joined the Usability Professionals Association

    After years of crashing UPA-sponsored events, I finally shelled out the membership fee and joined the association. The Usability Professionals Association is a professional organization that is focused on supporting the development of the field of usability.

  • Perspective: Websites are fleeting.

    I was glancing through some files in some webspace I’ve had for a while, and ran across a fairly old portfolio page I had. It listed seven websites that I had worked on around that time. This was probably about seven years ago, so sometime in 2001 or so. Not only is there not a…

  • The trouble with desiring less is that it is easier to have more.

    A series of thoughts led me to write a list of possessions. This is, more or less, what I possess, not counting perishables or things like paper towels. Dishes, pots, pans, mixing bowls, cutting board, cooking utensils, flatware Mop, bucket, broom, dust pan, vacuum, toilet bowl brush, 2 garbage cans, dish rags, towels, cleaning solvents,…

  • Memories of snow

    I read the book “Snow” by Orhan Pamuk. There is much to say about the book, but I’ll say nothing, except that upon discussing the novel with Sarah Payok, who recommended I read it, I recalled some memories of snow, which I have not written down before. The sound of snow I meditated often when…

  • Zen rock gardens, accessibility, information architecture

    I was walking into work this morning, thinking about 1st, 2nd, 3rd orders of order (“Everything is Miscellaneous” by Weinberger) and came across a frozen pond. The pond is shaped like a teardrop and has three clumps of grass growing from it. As I considered the space between the clumps of grass, it reminded me…

  • Perspective 2 Studio is hopping!

    This past summer my friend Adam (of Envision Internet Consulting) and I worked with Lynne Brown and Matt Schulert of MediaGraphics, Inc. on a website for an exciting concept of Lynne’s, called Perspective2. The idea was to create a studio space for the artists and producers in the area, and, wow, has it taken off!…

  • MSU English Department Film series, ICS file

    The English Department at Michigan State University is promoting a film series over the next few months that looks interesting. It is called Cinema under Siege: Imperiled Visions from Beirut to Baghdad. The screenings will be held on campus in C20 Snyder-Phillips Hall and are free and open to the public. Here’s a PDF of…

  • Using Javascript to add instructive text for input and textarea form fields

    OUTDATED POST: HTML5′s placeholder attribute creates the behavior that this javascript did. Just use the placeholder attribute. UPDATE 2008-04-13: This code has been refactored. Please view the updated posting. Over the last year or so, I’ve worked on a number of websites where I wanted to add instructive text to form fields, but didn’t want…

  • Nephtali

    Oh! Nephtali! Alright, so if you look up “Nephtali” on thinkbabynames.com, you see it listed as a variant of “Naftali.” The boy’s name Naftali \n(a)-fta-li, naf-tali\ is of Hebrew origin, and its meaning is “struggling”. Biblical: a son of Jacob and one of the ancestors of the 12 tribes of Israel. “Struggling.” Apt. How many…