News, articles, and tutorials from Hello Web Books
Over the last few months, I've been slowly increasing the capabilities of this website with the ultimate goal of replacing several external services I was depending on. I'm excited to say that work has finally finished! HelloWebBooks.com now has a full educational site back-end. You can order my book packages, which will prompt signing up for an account, and on this account you can access your…
A month ago, an error with my business's email address caused it to bounce. Even after I discovered and fixed the issue, this led to a still-unknown amount of emails to silently be suppressed while I carried on unaware. Email suppressions should be something everyone should be aware about but I've found over the last few weeks that no service provider was aware their mail API services (e.g.,…
I've been having a fun few months of missed notifications/emails in some form or another. A few weeks ago, I realized I messed up something with my domain and emails to tracy@hellowebbooks.com weren't arriving. Explained why my inbox was being particularly quiet! (This has been fixed.) Well ALSO... I thought my book sales through my website plummeted in the last month. I wasn't getting any email…
One of the things I wanted to accomplish this week (in honor of the Patreon launch) was an update to one of the zines; either getting the art done for the Windows or Linux command line zine or working more on the content for the git zine. BUT that programming project I mentioned in the last update is STILL ONGOING. It has been the giant-est of giant yak shave-y projects. Turns out replicating…
I've launched a Patreon for myself/Hello Web Books! (Since we're one and the same at the moment.) https://www.patreon.com/tracyosborn I'm working on the baby beginnings of several new books and zines and wanted a better place to do small, quick updates on progress (Twitter is a bit too ephemeral/noisy, I don't want to spam my email list, little updates weekly seems like too much work for…
Oh hey it's Black Friday time again! Use the coupon code BLACKFRIDAY2018 on the order page to receive 50% off all products and packages. Coupon code will work until Monday the 26th at midnight ET. Enjoy!
hellowebapp-deploy's package location on pypi.org I was recently alerted to the fact that one of the packages I use in Hello Web App , waitress, had been updated to a version that is backwards incompatible with the book. This package was installed by my own package ( hellowebapp-deploy ), where I didn't specify version numbers. This is a quick update to let y'all know that I've updated the…
This website got a big update! This is where I would usually show a screenshot of the new website except, in this case, the changes are 99% invisible. I created this website way back in the day using a static site generator named Cactus , which worked okay for what I wanted to do. Back then, my concerns were more about time to get things launched and making things as easy as possible to deploy,…
I've gotten a few questions lately about bulk, library, and educational discounts for all Hello Web Books, so I thought I'd write a quick note here. Of course, I'm happy to give a discount for the above use-cases — just write me at tracy@hellowebbooks.com and I'll set up a special order form with a discount. While my order page sells the paperback book with the digital files included, I'm also…
Video thank you! The new Hello Web App just finished its Kickstarter campaign making over 200% of goal! Super duper awesome. Thank you so much to everyone who backed the campaign, shared it with friends and family, and supported the re-release of my first book. The files have been at the printer for awhile already, so I should be getting the paperbacks soon to send out to everyone. I'm also…
Today I'm releasing my first project, A Really Friendly Command Line Intro for MacOS! For free! This is a great addition to Hello Web App (and will be bundled with it moving forward). I walk through all the basic UNIX/command line commands that a beginner might need to learn when they start coding for the first time. Right now, you can: Read the HTML online here. Download the PDF. Download the…
Hello Web App on Kickstarter — go back the campaign! The first book I wrote was Hello Web App , teaching web app development using Python and Django. It's since been read by thousands of readers around the world, and I'm super excited to announce a new edition of the book, fundraising on Kickstarter! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1868398473/hello-web-app-20-build-your-first-web-app-with-dja…
After a few weeks months of work, I'm super excited to release the new Hello Web Books website design to the world! Video/vlog of this post. In it, I go through a bit of why I updated everything and before/after screens. In Hello Web Design , one of my biggest points for a nicer looking website design is to reduce clutter . And then I'd come back to this website and get annoyed at past-me for…
On January 19th (after fretting for at least two weeks), I finally launched Hello Web Design on Product Hunt (You know, my book/video course teaching design for non-designers . Video/vlog version of this post! Trying to get better at speaking on camera so I'm doing a video version of all my posts. The post did way better than I hoped, becoming the #5 product of the day. Here’s my recap of the…
Video/vlog version of this post. Experimenting with formats! Back when I was in California, I got a pretty good system down for fulfilling books ( which you can see here ). Since I’ve moved to Toronto, Canada, I’ve had to set up a completely new fulfillment system, so now that blog post is completely out of date. My current solution still has some kinks but lately I’ve had a few big “ah ha”…
Hello Web Design is on Product Hunt today, check it out! Woohoo! Product Hunt is a community celebrating new products and they're incredible in sending a ton of traffic and new users. It's a great place to find awesome new things, so it's an honor to be up for voting today. If you get a chance, please check out the discussion too!
Part 1 of this design series dealt with the visual design, and Part 2 delved into user experience, content, and testing. Here, we’re going to jump into a bit about theory and reassurances that will help you become a better designer . Steal like an artist. Imagine June—she’s a developer who needs to build a new personal homepage to showcase her open source design work. June sits down at her desk…
Part 1 of this article series focused on the visual (since that’s usually what folks are looking for help with when it comes to design), but it’s important to remember that usability trumps beauty . The most gorgeous website in the world is useless if folks using that website can’t achieve what they want to do. Don’t forget the user experience. It’s more important that your design works well than…
Black Friday (and Cyber Monday, and Small Business Saturday, and all those other things) is almost here! From Friday starting 12:01am until Monday 11:59pm, I'll be selling all three of my video courses for 25% off (only $59 for each package) . Hello Web App , my videos + eBook teaching beginner web app development with Django. Hello Web App: Intermediate Concepts , which teaches intermediate…
Even if you’re not a designer, I’d bet that at some point in your career you’ll need to do something visual, whether it’s making a landing page for your project, designing a form, creating your personal website, or making slides. So, part one — what’s the one main thing to remember when designing? Reduce clutter. That’s it. Focus on just this one thing. If you want your design to feel more…