Last week, I was in London to give 2 talks. The first one was last Thursday, in one of the conferences I wanted to go ever since I learned my first CSS properties: Web directions @media. The second one was 2 days later in a smaller event called Standards.next.

Web Directions @media

I managed to get my @media talk early on schedule, so I could relax afterwards and enjoy the rest of the conference. Before I saw the feedback on twitter I thought they hated it, since the audience was silent and didn’t laugh at any of my jokes and asked no questions afterwards. However, I was wrong: The tweets about it were enthusiastic! Here’s a small sample:

https://twitter.com/KrokoHunter/status/73686696381779968

https://twitter.com/adrmakow/status/73688461537849344

https://twitter.com/KrokoHunter/status/73691398058147840

https://twitter.com/xtinafowler/status/73691708138848256

https://twitter.com/stefsull/status/73692171684941825

https://twitter.com/ubelly/status/73692212772343808

https://twitter.com/pauliom/status/73694312315092992

https://twitter.com/mfujica/status/73694696517545984

https://twitter.com/johnallsopp/status/73694876524490752

https://twitter.com/johnallsopp/status/73695196986085376

https://twitter.com/prawnstar/status/73697565970935808

https://twitter.com/KrokoHunter/status/73700078921056256

https://twitter.com/matmannion/status/73700794624516096

https://twitter.com/farinab/status/73700896722268160

https://twitter.com/GlennCahill87/status/73701420704075776

https://twitter.com/NIMRweb/status/73701806122868736

https://twitter.com/xtinafowler/status/73702048620744704

https://twitter.com/KrokoHunter/status/73728517489172480

https://twitter.com/KrokoHunter/status/74227907878334464

https://twitter.com/blagdaross/status/74429856514965504

https://twitter.com/sparrk/status/74556639608442880

https://twitter.com/anttio/status/74575465905520641

https://twitter.com/sirbenjaminnunn/status/74900149448609792

You can play with the HTML version of my slides or view them on slideshare:

Mastering CSS3 gradients

View more presentations from Lea Verou

I really enjoyed some of the other talks in @media, especially:

• Stephanie Sullivan’s “Modern CSS”
• Bruce Lawson’s “Multimedia in HTML5”
• Nicole Sullivan’s “Performance of CSS3 and HTML5”

Standards.next

The morning before my Standards.next talk, I woke up with a sore throat, a running nose and a blocked ear. I even thought about cancelling my talk, but I’m one of those people that have to be dying to change their schedule. So I went, and I’m glad I did, as I got to attend Peter Gasston’s incredible talk on CSS3 layout. I really learned so much stuff from that!

As for my talk (“CSS Secrets: 10 things you might not know about CSS3”), it went fine after all. I had some trouble hearing the questions, due to the blocked ear, but nothing too bad. I had trouble with my last demo, as I got confused and used background-origin: padding-box; instead of content-box, but nobody there hated me because of it, like I was afraid would happen if I ever screwed up one of my demos :)

That event was much smaller (it took place in a small room in a pub), so the tweets were much fewer, but still very positive:

https://twitter.com/patrick\_h\_lauke/status/74496751716929536

https://twitter.com/stopsatgreen/status/74497512261693440

https://twitter.com/mfujica/status/74499137558687744

https://twitter.com/danielknell/status/74499496746299392

https://twitter.com/brucel/status/74500503098245121

https://twitter.com/patrick\_h\_lauke/status/74501557349138432

https://twitter.com/danielknell/status/74502234251071488

https://twitter.com/mfujica/status/74504295927648257

https://twitter.com/designjuju/status/74504416534855680

https://twitter.com/mfujica/status/74504823881469952

https://twitter.com/twitrnick/status/74506406191046656

https://twitter.com/patrick\_h\_lauke/status/74506910807764992

https://twitter.com/stopsatgreen/status/74508394974810113

https://twitter.com/stefsull/status/74508645513175040

https://twitter.com/albybarber/status/74532879832584194

https://twitter.com/jackosborne/status/74608125289828352

I found out afterwards that one particular lady in the audience complained about my pronunciation of the words “fuchsia” and “ems”. That’s what I would’ve said to her if I heard: “Here’s some breaking news to you: Not everyone is a native english speaker. Shocking, isn’t it? I would really be interested to hear your pronunciation if you ever did a presentation in Greek. KKTHXBAI”

Overall, I had a great time in London. I hadn’t been there for more than 10 years, so I had forgotten how beautiful city it is. I loved attending and speaking at both of those events, and I would like to thank Maxine Sherrin and John Allsopp for inviting me to @media and Bruce Lawson for inviting me at Standards.next.