Category Archives: Personal

1-800-Contacts: Great Customer Service or the Greatest Customer Service?

It’s not often I feel compelled to write about a customer service experience, but 1-800-Contacts is so far beyond any other company I’ve ever dealt with, I think they deserve some credit. Quick note: this all happened a couple months ago, so quotes are not exact and largely paraphrased. I’ve been a customer of 1-800-Contacts for […]

Terrible UX of the Day: Thanks for the Panic Washington Healthplanfinder

I received the following automated email yesterday from Washington Healthplanfinder, our state’s insurance exchange: “Please log into your Washington Healthplanfinder account to view your Washington Apple Health Termination Notice notice.” And yes, “Notice notice” is theirs. Anyway, seeing the words “Termination Notice” sent me into panic mode, reading it as “Your insurance has been terminated, log […]

It’s Cool Seeing Your Creations in the Wild

Shortly after I made Mercury, I was contacted on Twitter by Justin Jackson about doing some small customizations. Last night I noticed he’d put some screenshots on the home page of Product People Club that featured Mercury. It looks great, and it’s cool knowing that in some small way I’m helping entrepreneurs get their products off the ground.

Sony’s PS4 Parental Controls Protect Exactly No One

Don’t ever, ever put PS Plus on a Playstation 4 sub-account. When setting up my sons PS4 account, I did the right thing and entered his correct age — 16. I added it as a sub-account under my master account. I set the parental control levels I thought were appropriate. We go and buy a PS […]

Uploading a Child Theme to the WordPress.org Theme Directory

I wanted to give a short overview of my experience uploading a child theme to the WordPress.org Theme Directory. I’m sure a decent amount of this advice is documented somewhere, and most of it was first-time-don’t-know-what-I’m-doing user error, but hopefully this might help someone avoid the goofy situation I experienced. When I first zipped and […]

Photographer Interviews at Shoti.es

Introducing Shoti.es, a little side project I started last month. I love photography and I’m always wondering how photographers capture their photos: tips, tricks, planning, gear, post processing, etc. Shoti.es is an effort to scratch that itch. I like reading the stories, and hope it can give others the inspiration it gives me.

Mercury: A WordPress P2 Child Theme

Mercury is a modern and responsive child theme for WordPress’s P2. The planet Mercury was “named Mercurius by the Romans because it appears to move so swiftly,” a little like P2. This is my first attempt at a child theme, and the first open source project I’ve worked on, so please be gentle! I’ve enjoyed […]

If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel

A few months ago, after I remembered reading the analogy somewhere, I thought it’d be fun to take the size of something inconceivably small (a neutrino), increase it to some arbitrary size (a golf ball), compare it to something massive in comparison (an atom) and then create an accurate scale model to be designed and […]

The Internet as a Slideshow

I miss popups. Back then, at least you could close the window and quickly continue reading the content. Now, link after link, site after site, I find myself staring at a page wondering “Where’s the rest of this article?” only to realize “Oh, there’s a next button. Right above the ad I almost clicked that […]

Hello World!

Yes, this is the first post at ryansommers.com. I’m just testing out the design, fixing miscellaneous bugs, and generally playing around. I’ve always had intentions to start a blog, but told myself I never had the time. Of course that’s bullshit; you make time for the things that are important to you. I’m not really […]