jakdothtml

I'm not entirely sure how well integrated you can get with Squarespace, but services like MailChimp allow you to create some kind of 'abandoned cart workflow' which you can automate to send email incentives to the user in order to gain their custom. See http://kb.mailchimp.com/automation/create-an-abandoned-cart-workflow
 
You might also benefit from services like Hotjar which allow you to track (and view videos of) your users' entire journey right from their landing page to checkout. You can even create things like funnels which enable you to see where users are dropping off. Combine all the really useful insights they give you and it will better help identifying the potential problems. I believe Google Analytics allow something similar with the funnels - could be wrong though!
 
Also be aware of simple things like links to your basket (could this be a reason for so many abandoned carts?) and account area. These are critical in order to create as little friction as possible for the customer and ensuring their journey is as smooth and painless as possible.
 
Take a look at other, successful eCommerce websites and literally copy what they do. It's likely they're doing it very well.

Yeah, that happens...
sudo rm -r ****ing-git-repo-dir

Awesome, I'll give it a try, thanks @@jakdothtml!

I've never used it, but Monit (https://mmonit.com/monit/) looks exactly like what you're looking for.
 
There's a great tutorial from Digital Ocean too! https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-and-configure-monit

I think webinars / lectures / conferences are a great place to learn. I've never been to one where the speaker was trying to do what Fisicx mentions above although they have had some truly exceptional developers speaking. I want to attend conferences where the speakers know more than me - that way I learn
 
Socialising afterwards you will likely meet some devs who think they know everything, we even get them on here but they don't normally stick around for long... but everything in life is like that so why avoid them? You might meet some truly inspirational people who can help you become a better developer.

Use the examples on the Grunt website. Personally though if I need a complex task runner (In many cases you don't you can just use NPM Scripts) I would always advise Gulp over Grunt as Gulp runs async which is much faster when you have a lot of tasks working on many large files.

It could definitely be designed in a more engaging way.

I'm not able to answer your question, but most on here including me will advise you to ditch dreamweaver and just roll with an IDE or text editor like Sublime text.

Thanks for your inputs Jack. Some very good points. I used the placeholder image to keep things simple and I actually think it is OK (in terms of performance) because the image will be loaded anyway. But it should probably have an empty alt attribute since it is hidden. Of cause if you want the images indexed by google you would have to use img tags. The reason I'm using background images instead of img elements is because of the overlay texture. When using background elements with the value cover the images will always stretch to cover exactly the same area as the relative parent div even if the aspect ratio is a bit off. When using img tags (which was my first idea) I noticed that sometimes the overlay texture takes up a little more space than the images even when all padding was removed from the parent. If you are not using an overlay img tags works fine though.
EDIT: Brilliant suggestion with the min-height. I will add an annotation to the video with that.

Nice idea, but I would recommend against using an actual <img> to make the slider responsive.
 
Instead there's a neat trick where, if you set each slide to position: absolute and give the wrapper a :before/ :after pseudo element with a padding-bottom/ padding-top whose value is a percentage which resembles the same aspect ratio of the slider images, it scales in exactly the same way. It's a little fiddly getting the right percentage, but it's worth it.
 
You could even go further and add a min-height to the slider so that images don't appear to 'letterbox' when the browser's width is rather small. This would require centering (and therefore cropping) the slides, however, so would require careful consideration in regards to art direction, etc.
 
I realise that's a mouthful, so I whipped up a little CodePen example and you can see it in action here.
 
Also, I was always under the assumption that it was bad practise to use background images for stuff that could otherwise be considered content.

Definitely recommend stripping out only the animations you require (if you're using something like animate.css).
 
You could even go one step further and do away with libraries such as wow.js - they're totally unnecessary. Here's a great tutorial on how to handle triggering animations on scroll.

Our agency decided to spend a few hours and create a website for Kanye West's 'Donda' company he want's to start.
 
He wanted Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Page to invest 1 Billion so we have made a fake investment website where people can invest Donda Dollars.
 
Uses angular and wordpress along with having a bit of fun with sound clips when investing.
 
http://donda.global

Several good points yet, and though you are using bootstrap, nobody has mentioned responsive. If you want to increase conversions then number one on your list should be to ensure your site is mobile friendly.
 
A huge (and growing) number of visitors will be using a mobile, and if they can't use your site on their device then they're gonna hit the back button.

I don't think it's a question of whether it'll 'catch on'. It has, and it is somewhat widely used. It solves many, many headaches developers have (including equal heights, re-ordering content, masonry grids, etc).
 
The problem comes down to support. A quick look at support for Flexbox (see below) shows pretty good coverage, except for IE. In the case of Flexbox, it's generally up to you to make up your own mind as to whether you should roll with it.
 

 
There was a fallback for the original Flexbox specification, but seeing as it has changed dramatically, it no longer works. There's another in the works, but I wouldn't have a clue when that'll materialise.
 
Best thing to do is to consider your target audience and whether they'll likely be using a browser that does support Flexbox. Go with the majority.

Sorry, but there's a whole heap of performance metrics and other tools that you get from the chrome dev tools that you just cannot get from firebug. They are both equally easy to use imo, clearly the one you use most of the time will feel most familiar, that doesn't make it better. Have a look at some of the tutorials and articles that Paul Irish has written, he covers this stuff in detail.
 
@@fleur I doubt that any non-dev has ever heard of Paul Irish or Addy Osamni so that's not really making any significant impact on Chrome's popularity.

Hi everyone,
 
Just wanted to use the opportunity to drop a quick note about the new in-house role advertised by Midas Media.
 
The right person will have the pleasure (or pain! ) of working with me for some time.
 
If you are interested or know someone who might be, here is the advert and more details http://midasmedia.co.uk/junior-web-designer-front-end-developer-job/
 
 

I'll also add we should be targeting mobile and desktop as different entities, where does mobile end, where does desktop start? what comes in between. In short we should design for every concievable screen size, even those that do not exist. You also have to think about touch, mouse and keyboard interractions - your site should be easy to navigate and look great using any medium.

I presume you're using <h11> tags to demonstrate how individual you are?

Woof....
 
More here: https://www.behance.net/gallery/27661753/Dogs

Wouldn't even waste your time. Looks like you need a re-design/build.

Hi everyone,
 
Long time no speak.
 
I have been working on a design for my portfolio.
 
 
Currently doing the front end for it now.

Here's a little preview
 

In addition to the above, take a good look at the source code for sites that take your fancy. You could even try and replicate your favourite site, providing it isn't too complex. It'll give you experience in building actual websites and you'll know exactly where to apply what you learnt!

Hello
 
I want to use an API but don't really know anything about them.
 
I am looking to insert my latest DJ chart from the Resident Advisor API - http://www.residentadvisor.net/api/dj.asmx?op=getcharts into the charts tab on my website - http://www.jameswinfield.co.uk/v2.html#.
 
Can anyone help me, or at least point me in the direction of somewhere that will teach me how to use an API.
 
Thanks
James