design – Virginia Roberts

My top Grace Hopper session takeaways

I just wrote up a trip report for my team at Microsoft, highlighting at least one takeaway from each session I attended at Grace Hopper 2016. It occurs to me that I should share that with the rest of the world, too. Here they are! â€œGrowth and comfort never coexist.â€ â€“Ginni Rometty, Chairwoman, President… Continue reading My top Grace Hopper session takeaways

Xcoders rehearsal of my AltConf talk

I know I’ve been posting videos galore lately, but all the links are coming to me at once! :) Here’s my run-through of the talk I eventually gave at AltConf, for the Seattle Xcoders Meetup. Three things of note (at least to me): I know this shirt didn’t read great on camera. I had to… Continue reading Xcoders rehearsal of my AltConf talk

Donut.JS lightning talk

Back in late May, I spoke at DonutJS, a totally rad Meetup organized by a bunch of Portland tech wonder-folk. It’s such a great and fun community! I highly encourage folks to attend and/or present if they’re in Portland and can swing it. This was my first-ever public speaking gig! OK, I guess second, since… Continue reading Donut.JS lightning talk

iMore piece on Apple Watch bands

Hey y’all! In case you missed the tweet, I worked my old Apple Watch band blog post into a piece for iMore this week. Enjoy! (Or rage-comment, if that’s your thing! I employed my good husband to filter the useful constructive criticism so I don’t have to read the parts that make me want to… Continue reading iMore piece on Apple Watch bands

The Sweet Setup interview (way late, oops)

See? I'm distracting you with pretty-ish bookshelves.

I was interviewed on The Sweet Setup waaaay back in February, but I totally forgot to post it here. Better late than never, right? :)

Do you want your smartwatch to look like jewelry?

I just had an interesting Twitter chat with Joe Macirowski about our various Apple Watch impressions. Joe said the 42 mm watch face was nicer to use, but that the 38 looked like jewelry, which he preferred. This seems worth exploring to me. Because I don’t *want* my smartwatch to look like jewelry. I definitely… Continue reading Do you want your smartwatch to look like jewelry?

Buying vintage stuff online

I’ve long been skittish about buying vintage stuff online. But my taste has been skewing more antiques-y over the years, and lots of older furniture is built better than the stuff you can get at a reasonable price point these days. So I’ve beenÂ slightly emboldened lately. I read tips from savvy bloggers likeÂ Emily Henderson and… Continue reading Buying vintage stuff online

Manly Wrists and Apple Watch

I have the opposite problem from most of you women in tech. I listen to Christina Warren and Serenity Caldwell and Joanna Stern talk about how excited they are that Apple is making a smaller size smartwatch face. Their wrists are tiny and dainty, and a giant 42mm face would look stupid on them. Hooray… Continue reading Manly Wrists and Apple Watch

Quit lying about cords and cables

Something has really been bugging me lately. As I’ve become increasingly obsessed with fancy shelter magazines and blogs in my quest to beautify our home, I’ve come to realize that those publications totally bullshit their readers. The glossing over of cables and heaters and vents is as maddeningly deceptive to me as celebrities Photoshopping out… Continue reading Quit lying about cords and cables

ï£¿á´¡á´€á´›á´„Êœ Unicode madness

*Disclaimer* Unicode is not well supported in some browsers, especially on mobile. This is tricky since this entire post is about Unicode. I’m sorry your eyes might have to see ugly unsupported squares or blank spaces instead of the proper pretty entities I intended. If you’re interested in reading, soldier on; the characters in the… Continue reading ï£¿á´¡á´€á´›á´„Êœ Unicode madness