Category: Uncategorized

Now Available – Frontend Architecture for Design Systems: A Modern Blueprint for Scalable and Sustainable Websites

Micah Godbolt’s new book “Frontend Architecture for Design Systems: A Modern Blueprint for Scalable and Sustainable Websites” has been published. 

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Imagine what a large-scale web project would look like if frontend development were not treated as an add-on, but as an equal partner with backend development and content strategy. This practical book takes experienced web developers through the new discipline of frontend architecture, including the latest tools, standards, and best practices that have elevated frontend web development to an entirely new level.

Using real-world examples, case studies, and practical tips and tricks throughout, author Micah Godbolt introduces you to the four pillars of frontend architecture. He also provides compelling arguments for developers who want to embrace the mantle of frontend architect and fight to make it a first-class citizen in their next project.

Order Your Copy Now >

Now Open For Business

A few months ago I re-opened my professional consultancy and here’s what I have to offer companies and executives:

  • Provide an honest assessment of your information technology operation
  • Offer executives a “plain English” explanation of technology
  • Personalized executive technology coaching and training
  • Help you answer the question “IT tells me everything is perfect but is it really?”
  • Offer you the cold hard facts about social media
  • Provide opinions and constructive feedback for new software and hardware initiatives
  • Help you learn more about the “cloud”, its benefits and how it can be implemented
  • Assist you in determining if your company’s data is secure
  • Provide you a motivated and expert speaker for company events and conferences

Here’s a partial list of the companies I have and continue to work with:

  • US Department of Agriculture
  • Washington State Department of Utilities and Transportation
  • Social Security Administration
  • Vulture Street Innovation
  • Systems Advisory Services
  • Environmental Protection Agency
  • IBM
  • TNT Shipping Services
  • Pricewaterhouse Coopers
  • HSBC
  • Agfa
  • Honda Research
  • EPIC Aviation

Let’s talk.

Year 4

Today marks the beginning of my fourth year as a college instructor at Clark College. I’m amazed at how quickly the time flies by. Here are a few things that I have learned about teaching at a community college that I thought I would share with you:

  • Seeing students graduate from your program and getting jobs is awesome.
  • Office hours are a thing of the past. Virtual office hours are seven days a week.
  • 10-30% of your students truly want to learn and the others simply go through the “motions” of school.
  • Teach to the “middle” of the class.
  • Teaching people who range in age from 13 to 75 is extremely rewarding and challenging; especially when they are all in the same class.
  • Excuses are a constant.
  • Classroom management is not as easy as people think it is.
  • Developing the right mix of assignments, testing, labs and other assessments takes time to develop and constantly needs tweeking.
  • I love what I am doing.
  • I’m always learning new things.

I highly encourage anyone who is thinking about teaching at a college or university to do it. Your first couple of semesters will be rough but, once you realize the impact you make on students lives,  you will embrace and love doing it.

I’m always available if you want to talk about becoming a college instructor or want to learn more about the web development program at Clark College.

I’m Very Proud

Recent Clark College Web Development graduate Troy Uyan was part of a five person team that designed and developed the new Clark County website.

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Troy graduated with a degree in web development and was a student in my HTML Fundamentals, Intro to Programming, JavaScript, PHP/SQL 1 and PHP/SQL 2 classes. Troy initially served as an intern at the county and then was offered a full-time position. Troy was in the web deveopment program for two years.

Troy’s role in the project was that of front end developer and co-designer of the site. Troy also produced all of the training videos and other resources.

I’m super proud of Troy and what he has accomplished.

You can check out the new Clark County site here.

Canvas LMS: How to Validate Links in a Course

I’m not sure if this feature is new or not, but it certainly makes validating all of the links in a Canvas course easy to check.

Start by logging into Canvas and going into the course you want to validate. In the left navigator, click on the “Settings” link:

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On the Settings page, look in the right navigator for the “Validate Links in Content” link and click on it.

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From the Course Link Validator page you can click on the button to start validating all of the links in all of your content in your course. It may take a few minutes for it to complete, so be patient.

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Once completed, you will see a list of all of the content with the associated links that are broken. You can then restart the link validation after you fix and links that the validator finds are broken.

I hope this helps you in developing quality Canvas course shells.