Hello. I'm Scott Robbin. I enjoy making things to use, and see.

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20 Jan 10 

Easy Full Screen Background Images with jQuery

“There are many like it, but this one is mine.”

A recent Weightshift project, Central, brought about a few development challenges, one of which was background imagery. Naz had designed the page to include photography set behind the content. This raised questions:

  • How would we deal with the additional weight of the images (~150–250K) without dragging down the page’s load time?
  • Everyone’s browser window will be a different size. How do you determine what is the best/largest size to make the image, so that it fills the entire window?
  • How do you account for images that are proportioned differently?

I did some research and found a few good solutions, though each had its limitations.

CSS-based solutions were straightforward, but didn’t address the requirement of triggering the download only after the page was ready. Javascript solutions addressed the page load requirement, but were often more complex than we needed and required the user to have prior knowledge of the image size (something that we couldn’t necessarily predict). The final solution was not novel, it was an amalgam of both solutions, implemented in Javascript.

Backstretch is a simple plugin recreated from the code used on Central, derived from the ideas presented in existing CSS and JS solutions. It is meant to be used by those who want a lightweight, minimalist implementation of dynamically-resized background images that can be executed in one line of Javascript, with nothing more than a link to an image.


Download Backstretch


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17 Nov 09 

Twitter Statpack: Who’s Following Who

Twitter Statpack Venn

Sasparilla Muckinfuss is now following your tweets on Twitter. Huh? Who’s that?

It’s not an uncommon scenario: someone follows you on Twitter, and you’re not sure how that happened. Of course, there’s a good possibility that they’re spam, but not always. Often it’s hard to tell. You can see that they follow 101 people and are followed by 523, but who are these people, and how are they related to you?

Introducing Twitter Statpack, a Jetpack extension for Firefox. Statpack adds a few more statistic to the Twitter profile page, helping you understand who someone is, and how they relate to you.

Twitter Statpack Screenshot #3

Ready to give it a try? Install Twitter Statpack today.

Note: You’ll need to have Firefox with Mozilla Labs Jetpack installed in order to use Statpack.

21 Oct 09 

Goodbye AT&T, I’m out

I am no longer an AT&T customer. My iPhone is now useful.

iPhone receiption on AT&T vs. T-mobile

I consider myself lucky: I was let out of my contract after a several-month long dispute over AT&T’s quality of service (or lack thereof). Look above; that picture shows what I saw every day: zero to one bars of service within a 1-mile radius of my office. Anyone who’s been on the phone with me me has earned the purple-heart-of-patience award for tolerating my dropped calls (sometimes as many as 2-3 times per chat). And this phone is my only phone, the one I depend on to run my business.

I expect I’m not the only one with this problem. I’ve spoken with you too; your reception sucks.

How did I do it?

I don’t mean for this to be a how-to for those who wish to sneak out of their contract. Mine was a legitimate problem of poor service. If yours is too, here’s what you can do:

  • Call AT&T (1-800-331-0500 or 611 from your wireless phone).
  • Ask them to open a support ticket. It’s important that you start documenting your problem.
  • Remind them that they have the data to confirm this issue: call start/end times and dropped call logs. (Updated: Thanks, Paul)
  • Wait at least a month. Let them try and resolve the problem—it’s only fair.
  • If they can’t resolve your problem, demand compensation or to be released from your contract.

Seems like common sense, eh? It is.

An open support ticket is the key; it’s your documentation that there’s a problem, and proof that it hasn’t been resolved in a sufficient period of time.

Remember: it’s reasonable to expect that your service works; reasonable to ask someone to repair it if broken; and reasonable to leave if it can’t be fixed.

Good luck.

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29 Sep 09 

Responses to a Informal Survey on Scotch Whisky

I was looking to buy a new bottle of Scotch whisky and posed the question, “What’s your favorite?” Here are the answers that everyone submitted. Hope you find a new, enjoyable drink. And thanks for your help.

Distillery Region Type Age (yr.)
* Honorable mention for 12-year, Redbreast Irish whiskey, which does not get to stand with its Scottish brethren, though is recommended as a good alternative.
Laphroaig Islay Single malt  
Oban Highland Single malt  
The Macallan Speyside Single malt 12/15
The Glenrothes Speyside Single malt 12
Compass Box Highland Blended malt/grain  
Benromach Speyside Single malt  
Bruichladdich Islay Single malt 15
Rosebank Lowland Single malt 15
Bowmore Islay Single malt  
Glenkinichie Lowland Single malt  
The Balvenie Speyside Single malt  
Lagavulin Islay Single malt 16
Glengoyne Highland Single malt  
The Glenlivet Speyside Single malt 18
The Dalmore Highland Single malt 12
Isle of Jura Highland Single malt  
Scapa Highland Single malt 12/14

 

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22 Apr 09 

Leaving Songza

I love music. Every since my parents let me pick out a few cassettes from our Columbia House ‘12 tapes for 1 cent’ mail-in order, I’ve been hooked. (I chose Thriller, Weird Al’s ‘In 3-D’, and the Flash Gordon soundtrack.) That’s why, when Aza approached me with a project he had been working on, I was so excited to join in. The concept: provide a way for people to legally listen to and share music, and do so in an incredibly user-friendly way. Flash ahead to the present: Songza has grown into a robust website that’s enjoyed by millions of people around the world. I’m incredibly proud of the work we’ve done, appreciative of the opportunities it has presented and thankful for the community that has supported us.

So why am I leaving? I’m working on a new project: a social network that allows people to send status updates to their friends, telling them what they’re doing…in 141 characters.

But seriously forks, I’m leaving so that I can return to freelance work with clients and to start a new project. The details of the new project are hush-hush for the moment, but I’ll be sure to announce them here when it’s ready to go.

Thank you to Humanized (Aza, Atul, Jono and Andrew–collectively and fondly known as The Humanoids) for all of the support that you’ve given me; to my friends and family for listening to me ramble on about Songza ad naseum; to my friends in New York who’ve welcomed me with open arms and taught me to completely obliterate my liver; and above all to the Songza community for making the past year and half of my life so wonderful.

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14 Apr 09 

Visual Reinforcement of a Conversation

I like how Twitter Search uses overlapping profile images to distinguish individual status updates from ones that are conversational. It’s a nice, little touch.

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10 Apr 09 

iPhone Skin

I really like what Harper did to gussy up his laptops. Flipping through the Skinit.com website, I saw that they also do iPhone skins. If I were to make one, it’d look like this.

07 Apr 09 

New Look

I’ve made a few changes here at srobbin.com; most notably: the site has a new design. In addition, I’ve started to prune some of the older pages/posts that are no longer relevant.

If you have any difficulties with the presentation or 404s, please let me know. Thanks.