WordCamp Houston

Over the past few months Monica, Mr. Valdez, Katie and yours truly have been hard at work putting together the first ever WordCamp Houston. For those of you not familiar with the whole WordCamp thing, here is a brief description from the official WordCamp website:

“WordCamp is a conference that focuses on everything WordPress. WordCamps are informal, community-organized events that are put together by WordPress users like you. Everyone from casual users to core developers participate, share ideas, and get to know each other. WordCamps are open to WordPress.com and WordPress.org users alike.”

We have been incredibly lucky so far and have gotten an amazing venue, The Houston Museum of Natural Science and an amazing keynote speaker, Matt Mullenweg, the Houston-raised founder of WordPress.

The event is taking place on August 7th, 2010 and will be quite the event. For more information be sure to check out the website at www.wordcamphouston.com and head over to @wordcamphtx on Twitter for even more WordCamp Houston goodness. Tickets are on sale now and the quantity is limited so be sure to get yours today!

The Magic of 960px

One of the biggest questions I’ve been faced with by people just beginning to design for web is: “How big should I make the website?” This single question causes more stress and consideration than any other in the web design world. There are so many different variables to take into consideration that the concept of an ideal width seems impossible.

The first place your mind will likely delve into is trying to determine what the average resolution is. There was a time when the answer to this was a much simpler one, 800 pixels by 600 pixels. Now it’s a different story, with the standard resolution being more of a debate. Should you design for the minimum? Should you design for the most common? Or should you design for the more advanced user? The easy answer to all three of those questions is “yes”. That being said, you can’t typically do three things at once, so why not cater to the common?

Modern monitors typically support up to 1024 × 768 and most new machines these days ship with either 1024 x 768 or 1440 x 900 as the default.

This brings us back to the original question; the generally accepted answer is 960 pixels wide.

Designing to 960 is surely going to fit within browsers on screens at 1024 or 1440, but there’s quite a bit more magic to the choice of using 960 pixels for your design width. This magic is given birth by the sheer mathematical flexibility of the number, it is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 20, 24, 30, 32, 40, 48, 60, 64, 80, 96, 120, 160, 192, 240, 320 and 480. Imagine how much easier that layout math will be with all of those numbers producing a whole number though basic math!

So there you have it, the magic of 960 pixels. Now that’s not nearly to say you should always stick to 960 pixels, hell, my site is based on the 960 system, but I do break it off to the left. Some people would also argue that a fluid layout is much more practical, but I’ll leave that argument to the birds.

Now go get your 960 on!

If this is the first time you’ve heard about the magic of 960, be sure to check out the places I’ve read about it before to stay on top of your game:

“Optimal Width for 1024px Resolution?” – Cameron Moll
960 Grid System – Excellent site with a framework of sorts