Blog

I've written posts since 2009. I like talking about web development, web performance and image optimization. In total, I've written 117 articles on my blog. Use the search below to filter by title or summary.

Most Popular

How Medium does progressive image loading

How Medium does progressive image loading

41,991 views

This post explains how Medium renders an image placeholder using low-res thumbnails and canvas.

Using SVG as placeholders — More Image Loading Techniques

Using SVG as placeholders — More Image Loading Techniques

14,175 views

Web Performance Optimisation by lazy-loading images using SVGs as placeholders, representing edges, shapes and silhouettes.

Hiding the outline or :focus ring in an accessible way

Hiding the outline or :focus ring in an accessible way

10,739 views

A simple technique to hide the outline CSS property while making your website accessible when using keyboard navigation.

All Posts

Persistent logging and performance metrics for Vercel with Axiom

Persistent logging and performance metrics for Vercel with Axiom

698 views

As your projects grow in users and traffic you will need to monitor errors closely to minimize the impact and help with investigation. Axiom is a good fit for Vercel, and especially Next.js projects.

How to Estimate Web Performance Impact Before Making Fixes

How to Estimate Web Performance Impact Before Making Fixes

2,141 views

Learn about several ways of assessing the potential performance gains before implementing improvements. This will help building the case and prioritizing performance work.

The role of Solutions Engineer at Facebook

The role of Solutions Engineer at Facebook

20,234 views

Solutions Engineers partner with advertisers to solve their business challenges through Facebook technology. This is my take on what the role involves.

Building Spotify's New Web Player

Building Spotify's New Web Player

492 views

A story on why and how we built a new Web Player at Spotify. Or how re-writing can be a good decision if risks are minimized and solutions properly validated.

What PWAs for Desktop means for Users and Developers

What PWAs for Desktop means for Users and Developers

691 views

Progressive Web Apps for desktop fills an important gap for the web. Native apps might not be worth thanks to the new capabilities of the web.

Developing modern sites with good performance

Developing modern sites with good performance

955 views

Performance affects user engagement but also can leave many users out. Fast sites are key to democratize the web and let everyone enjoy our products and services.

My 2018

My 2018

494 views

Wrapping up 2018 - A summary of what I have done during this year.

The different shades of Progressive Web Apps

The different shades of Progressive Web Apps

946 views

Taking advantage of PWA functionality on your site is easy. You don't need to go all-in using all the features. Just take what is needed for your use case.

Common Pitfalls when Serving SVGs and How to Solve Them

Common Pitfalls when Serving SVGs and How to Solve Them

1,234 views

Some ways to reduce the payload of the Spotify logo on their website, which can be applied to other SVGs.

PiterCSS 2018

PiterCSS 2018

501 views

A short summary about this frontend conference hosted in Saint Petersburg, Russia. There I spoke about fostering a web performance culture.

Fostering a Web Performance Culture

Fostering a Web Performance Culture

1,554 views

Some ideas to create awareness around performance optimization in a team and company.

Cómo mejorar la performance de una web usando lazy-loading y code-splitting

Cómo mejorar la performance de una web usando lazy-loading y code-splitting

3,216 views

Cómo usar un High Order Component para detectar cuándo un elemento está visible y hacer lazy-loading de componentes y secciones de nuestras páginas. Manda al navegador sólo lo que es necesario.

Increase the Performance of your Site with Lazy-Loading and Code-Splitting

Increase the Performance of your Site with Lazy-Loading and Code-Splitting

9,198 views

Using a High Order Component to detect visibility and lazy-load components and sections on our pages. Just serve what is needed.

Displaying Page Load Metrics on Your Site

Displaying Page Load Metrics on Your Site

956 views

Showing page load, First Paint, and First Contentful Paint displayed on your site to prove you care about web performance.

Sketchy SVGs with RoughJS

Sketchy SVGs with RoughJS

1,291 views

Applying RoughJS to vector images to get a hand-drawn effect.

Taking A Look At The State Of Progressive Images And User Perception

Taking A Look At The State Of Progressive Images And User Perception

170 views

We all want to load images fast on the web. Choosing the right image format, optimizing the quality and using responsive images are important tasks, but what can we do beyond that?

Choosing a Platform for Blogging

Choosing a Platform for Blogging

285 views

Why I keep my personal blog, use AMP, and cross-publish to Medium.

My 2017

My 2017

244 views

Wrapping up 2017 - A summary of what I have done during this year.

Speaking at FrontFest 2017 in Moscow, Russia

Speaking at FrontFest 2017 in Moscow, Russia

289 views

I attended FrontFest 2017 conference and talked about image performance, lazy-loading, placeholders and creative SVGs.

Usando SVG como placeholders — Más técnicas de carga de imágenes

Usando SVG como placeholders — Más técnicas de carga de imágenes

1,551 views

Optimización del rendimiento web utilizando carga diferida de imágenes con SVGs como placeholders, representando contornos, formas y siluetas.

How to use SVG as a Placeholder, and Other Image Loading Techniques

How to use SVG as a Placeholder, and Other Image Loading Techniques

14,175 views

Web Performance Optimisation by lazy-loading images using SVGs as placeholders, representing edges, shapes and silhouettes.

Duotone using CSS blend modes

Duotone using CSS blend modes

9,468 views

Using CSS blend modes to apply a duotone effect to an image.

Hablando sobre PWA en el podcast WeCodeSign

Hablando sobre PWA en el podcast WeCodeSign

240 views

He grabado un podcast sobre Progressive Web App para WeCodeSign. Escúchalo o lee la transcripción.

Speaking at Alicante Frontend

Speaking at Alicante Frontend

813 views

I have presented a talk at Alicante Frontend, a meetup about web development in Spain.

Collaborative listening on Spotify using Connect endpoints

Collaborative listening on Spotify using Connect endpoints

4,587 views

A project to create a collaborative room to listen to songs in sync using Next.JS and Spotify's Connect Web API endpoints.

Hiding the outline or :focus ring in an accessible way

Hiding the outline or :focus ring in an accessible way

10,739 views

A simple technique to hide the outline CSS property while making your website accessible when using keyboard navigation.

Reading List  (June 2017 edition)

Reading List (June 2017 edition)

138 views

Reading List with some articles from June 2017

The (mobile) web is making a come-back

The (mobile) web is making a come-back

144 views

Some recent examples of large companies implementing Progressive Web Apps, changing their mobile strategy

PerformanceObserver and Paint Timing API

PerformanceObserver and Paint Timing API

1,638 views

A quick look at the Paint Timing API to get metrics about render events on our pages.

Speaking at JSDayES 2017

Speaking at JSDayES 2017

258 views

I spoke at JSDayES 2017 in Madrid about web performance and images.

Playing with the Spotify Connect API

Playing with the Spotify Connect API

4,709 views

The new Web API endpoints let you show what is playing in your Spotify account. It is easy to create views that update in real time.

Speaking at Render Oxford 2017

Speaking at Render Oxford 2017

331 views

I spoke at Render Conf 2017 in Oxford about web performance and images.

More examples of Progressive Image Loading

More examples of Progressive Image Loading

3,266 views

Medium is not the only site using blurry placeholders. Let's look at how Quora and Quartz implement a similar technique.

SSL, HTTP/2, Service Worker, Offline Mode? This blog has all of them

SSL, HTTP/2, Service Worker, Offline Mode? This blog has all of them

179 views

Some background on the hidden features of this blog. Static site, progressive images, AMP, HTTP/2, SSL...

Reading List (January 2017 edition)

Reading List (January 2017 edition)

175 views

Reading List with some articles from December 2016 - January 2017

Assessing New Technology

Assessing New Technology

164 views

It is easy to bless or criticise a piece of technology without understanding what they do. Let's change this.

React Alicante 2017 - A summary of the talks

React Alicante 2017 - A summary of the talks

218 views

First React conference in Spain, covering React and React Native. An international event with workshops and talks.

My 2016

My 2016

155 views

Wrapping up 2016

Using MediaRecorder API for screen recording on the web

Using MediaRecorder API for screen recording on the web

5,065 views

Record your webcam and screen using Javascript to create screencast from your browser.

Speaking at CSSConf Australia 2016

Speaking at CSSConf Australia 2016

511 views

I spoke at CSSConf AU 2016 in Melbourne about images on the web and what we can do to reduce their impact in our site's performance.

JPG compression level, SSIM and Jpeg.io

JPG compression level, SSIM and Jpeg.io

516 views

It's difficult to select the best compression level for JPG images. SSIM helps measuring image similarity, and tools like Jpeg.io makes it easier.

How to lazy-load images to improve loading time and save bandwidth

How to lazy-load images to improve loading time and save bandwidth

1,514 views

When building a website, consider lazy loading the assets when they are needed. This post will focus in the specific case of lazy loading images.

Some things I learned implementing Data Fetching for Universal Web Apps

Some things I learned implementing Data Fetching for Universal Web Apps

239 views

Webpack and Browserify generate large bundles if we include Node.JS code to be run on the browser. In this post you will learn how to prevent this issue.

The importance of personal side projects

The importance of personal side projects

178 views

Side projects are fun, and they will add value to your daily work when it is most needed.

Spotify's new brand identity using feColorMatrix SVG filters

Spotify's new brand identity using feColorMatrix SVG filters

819 views

Using feColorMatrix SVG filters to apply a duotone effect to an image.

SVG Optimisation using SVGOMG and FontForge

SVG Optimisation using SVGOMG and FontForge

937 views

How to optimise your SVGs rounding values and using SVGOMG

Drawing images using edge detection and SVG animation

Drawing images using edge detection and SVG animation

5,461 views

Using SVGs to achieve a cool drawing effect

Farewell Rdio

Farewell Rdio

139 views

Some thoughts about Rdio closing down.

Using WebP to create tiny preview images

Using WebP to create tiny preview images

3,568 views

Following with the image optimization topic, I am going to have a deeper look to Facebook's technique to create preview photos, and will show how WebP can simplify their solution.

Web Performance talk in Stockholm - Internet Days

Web Performance talk in Stockholm - Internet Days

155 views

Faster than lightning was a set of talks around web performance during Internetdagarna 2015 in Stockholm, Sweden

How Medium does progressive image loading

How Medium does progressive image loading

41,991 views

This post explains how Medium renders an image placeholder using low-res thumbnails and canvas

Fronteers 2015 - A wrap up

Fronteers 2015 - A wrap up

261 views

Fronteers 2015 - Some notes about the conference in Amsterdam.

SSL all the things

SSL all the things

147 views

Adding SSL to your site can be super easy. If you are using GitHub Pages with a custom domain, read this.

iOS 9 and content blockers

iOS 9 and content blockers

153 views

Some opinions on ads and content blockers and how they affect web development.

Using ES6 today

Using ES6 today

159 views

Setting up ES6 in your next web project isn't that difficult... if you know how.

What I've been up to recently

What I've been up to recently

129 views

Some open-source projects I have been working on recently. Rest APIs, ES6 and Audio API.

On widgets, popups and communication between them

On widgets, popups and communication between them

307 views

How to communicate from an iframe to a popup served from the same domain i.e. when using login forms in popups.

Detecting tempo of a song using browser's Audio API

Detecting tempo of a song using browser's Audio API

5,015 views

Article about project for detecting BPM of a track using the Audio API, in combination with the Spotify Web API.

Polymer and Web Components

Polymer and Web Components

274 views

A look into Polymer and how they can polyfill web components to use them today

Subtle animations to improve the user experience

Subtle animations to improve the user experience

158 views

Good animations make the interface look smoother and more professional, and it just feels great to use it. However, it is very easy to end up overusing animations and applying them to lots of elements just because it is possible.

Moving from Wordpress to Jekyll + Github Pages

Moving from Wordpress to Jekyll + Github Pages

169 views

I recently migrated my blog to Jekyll and Github Pages and it was worth it. Even though there are drawbacks, it is convenient and the website has know a very good performance.

Meetups in Stockholm - Web and Startups

Meetups in Stockholm - Web and Startups

154 views

A look into Polymer and how they can polyfill web components to use them today

Music Hack Day Paris 2014 and other projects

Music Hack Day Paris 2014 and other projects

141 views

I have several small personal projects around Spotify in which I am working in my free time. I recently attended the Music Hack Day Paris 2014, where I coded Spotify iQuiz

Meteor meetup in Stockholm

Meteor meetup in Stockholm

156 views

Meteor Stockholm organized a meetup to talk about meteor and build an app during a hack event.

Spotify Hack Week 2014

Spotify Hack Week 2014

166 views

The whole company has been hacking for a whole week lots of different projects. We have played with Raspberry Pi, 3D printers, and even stationary bicycles.

Gulp.js, an alternative to Grunt.js

Gulp.js, an alternative to Grunt.js

219 views

Gulp.js is a Javascript task runner based on streams, what can offer an advantage compared to Grunt.js. It is really worth to try it out.

Tips to implement an embeddable widget

Tips to implement an embeddable widget

1,341 views

What to use to embed a widget? Iframe or Javascript snippet? In this post I explain their pros and cons when deciding how you want users to embed your widget.

Pet Project: Sync Subs

Pet Project: Sync Subs

156 views

Shift subtitles easily on your browser. My new side project.

Printing a message in the browser console with a favicon

Printing a message in the browser console with a favicon

337 views

How to use custom styles in console.log to render a favicon with some text in the developer tools console.

Spotify Apps Development

Spotify Apps Development

160 views

Spotify desktop client includes a CEF engine that allows HTML5 web apps to interact through a JS API with the native layer.

Modular Javascript + Grunt

Modular Javascript + Grunt

161 views

Like if it was a new year's resolution, a few weeks ago I decided I wanted to become a better JS programmer.

Removing voice from songs using Javascript

Removing voice from songs using Javascript

2,914 views

Side project where you can drag and drop an audio file and play it removing the vocals. Perfect for a basic karaoke! And it even works on mobile.

Line-height, multiline ellipsis and responsiveness

Line-height, multiline ellipsis and responsiveness

244 views

How to display ellipsis with texts that expand multiple lines.

Spain.js 2013 - JavaScript Conference in Madrid

Spain.js 2013 - JavaScript Conference in Madrid

224 views

During the conference I gave a talk together with my Spotify colleague Tomás Pérez about "Cross-platform application development using web technologies". We had been planning giving a talk in Spain for some time, sharing some ideas and experience we have learned as developers in Spotify. We have little experience as speakers, but the desire of spreading our knowledge was powerful.

Giving Android development a try

Giving Android development a try

145 views

It may seem a bit strange that I talk about Android. After all I am a web developer and I have been actively promoting Web for mobile development. But after a course I have been taking, I wanted to share some thoughts.

Using C3PO to load Spotify Play Button

Using C3PO to load Spotify Play Button

167 views

C3PO is a small library developed by Stoyan Stefanov that allows injecting these widgets as iframes, instead of defining their containers and use certain 3rd party JS code to create and inject those iframes

Polluting the head section for the sake of adding 3rd party services

Polluting the head section for the sake of adding 3rd party services

1,240 views

The head section of a page is becoming the place to include information for integrating your page with external services.

Facebook news feed: Unifying mobile and desktop

Facebook news feed: Unifying mobile and desktop

345 views

Facebook has decided, simply, to unify their layout across devices.

Proxy mobile browsers are coming back

Proxy mobile browsers are coming back

162 views

Mobile proxy browsers are coming back. For a long time we had Opera Mini. And these days we have seen the release of Opera Beta for Android and an update to Chrome Beta for Android, both highlighting data compression features.

Emigrando a Suecia

Emigrando a Suecia

159 views

Trabajar en el extranjero era algo que estaba en mis planes desde hace tiempo.

Spotify Hack Week 2013

Spotify Hack Week 2013

178 views

This week almost the whole Spotify company have been working on hack projects. Having 5 days to implement your project is a nice thing, especially after having participated in many 24h ones, and encourage you to come up with more complex projects that otherwise wouldn't be possible to implement.

Mloc.js conference in Budapest

Mloc.js conference in Budapest

220 views

These days I have been attending the mloc.js conference in Budapest.

Cómo hemos cambiado - Un antiguo proyecto web

Cómo hemos cambiado - Un antiguo proyecto web

144 views

Hoy los desarrolladores web estamos inmersos en un montón de cambios continuos. Todos los días aparecen tecnologías, herramientas y técnicas que vienen a mejorar el desarrollo. Y uno pocas veces echa la vista atrás y se da cuenta de cómo se hacían las cosas antes. Y cómo las hacía uno mismo.

Charlando sobre Desarrollo Web en Spotify - HTML5Spain

Charlando sobre Desarrollo Web en Spotify - HTML5Spain

271 views

Presentación sobre tecnologías web en Spotify

Music Hack Day Stockholm 2013

Music Hack Day Stockholm 2013

180 views

Last weekend Spotify hosted the Music Hack Day Stockholm 2013 at their office in Stockholm

Image optimization: Lossy, lossless and other techniques

Image optimization: Lossy, lossless and other techniques

419 views

Images are currently the largest average payload in web sites, meaning a 62% of all the bytes. With the increasingly importance of responsive design, responsive images are becoming a challenge to face.

Revisitando la nueva web del Senado

Revisitando la nueva web del Senado

173 views

Aunque aún quedan algunos por resolver, es de destacar que hayan seguido trabajando en el sitio.

Estudiando el rediseño de la web del Senado de España

Estudiando el rediseño de la web del Senado de España

152 views

Hoy se ha presentado el rediseño de la web del Senado de España. Sin entrar a valorar su coste o la necesidad, quería analizarla desde el punto de vista de implementación frontend.

Facebook for iOS: From HTML5 to native

Facebook for iOS: From HTML5 to native

184 views

Facebook has rewritten their iOS app from HTML5 to native code to provide a faster user experience. Having actively promoted HTML5 development, this shows hybrid apps performance is still not good enough, but some ideas can be taken from this decision.

Hybrid apps: It's not only about mobile

Hybrid apps: It's not only about mobile

225 views

Hybrid apps are also present in desktop. And that's the magic of web development, where I can use web technologies to provide content to a large amount of devices, and as a developer use the very same tools and techniques that I used to build websites.

Webapp first: An approach to developing for mobile

Webapp first: An approach to developing for mobile

153 views

Mobile web apps are not at the same level of native ones. Until browsers don't implement HTML5 API specifications to access device hardware (device API, audio, video), implement push notifications, and improve general performance (animations, scroll) web apps will not be able to deliver the experience that can't be reach through native development.

HTML5 in Boot to Gecko

HTML5 in Boot to Gecko

163 views

These are good times for web development. It is moving from client side web development, to server side, then to mobile apps, and now as the top layer used to run all the applications of a typical phone. We need browsers and OS makers to push forward these technologies, implementing better Javascript engines, and making reality the latest HTML5 APIs.

On webkit-only mobile javascript libraries

On webkit-only mobile javascript libraries

144 views

Many mobile-focused JS libraries doesn't support Opera or Windows Phone 7. Thus, not all smartphones are covered.

Server Sent Events on iOS

Server Sent Events on iOS

615 views

Server Sent Events are fired on iOS even when the page is not active. Are there any good applications for this?

Web technologies behind Google+

Web technologies behind Google+

157 views

What web technologies are behind Google+ website? This is a collection of links to posts explaining interesting features of this brand new network site.

Avoid showing address bar on iPhone when loading ajax

Avoid showing address bar on iPhone when loading ajax

328 views

Workaround to avoid showing the loading address bar when loading ajax content on iPhone.

BigPipe in ASP.Net MVC using Razor

BigPipe in ASP.Net MVC using Razor

202 views

Razor to implement BigPipe using ASP.Net MVC. You can use the new view engine to early flush pagelets content and mimic this technique created by Facebook.

Changing job

Changing job

149 views

This week I am changing jobs, from Signum Software to Tuenti

Front End Tech Talk - Facebook

Front End Tech Talk - Facebook

384 views

Nice ideas taken from Facebook's Front End Tech Talk about implementing common interactions and patterns to reduce Javascript file size and use progressive enhancement.

The not so good web performance tips

The not so good web performance tips

196 views

Yahoo realised that two of the wide accepted tips for improving website performance had not work so well for them.

AsyncController: Server-side parallelism

AsyncController: Server-side parallelism

135 views

Asynchronous processing of controller actions is very useful on long-running requests, since it avoids thread-blocking while the request is being processed.

Updates on BigPipe using ASP.NET MVC

Updates on BigPipe using ASP.NET MVC

271 views

These techniques (named Quickling and PageCache) are based on hijax and an intelligent update of specific content of the page instead of the whole page when data changes.

Lazy loading Javascript: On-demand scripts to faster load times

Lazy loading Javascript: On-demand scripts to faster load times

4,538 views

How to load JavaScript on-demand using stub functions and progressive enhancements

Tutorial: Implementing Facebook's BigPipe Using ASP.Net MVC - Part 3

Tutorial: Implementing Facebook's BigPipe Using ASP.Net MVC - Part 3

241 views

Third part of the tutorial to Build Facebook's BigPipe using C#. Source code to make pagelets and achieve delayed parallel execution in an ASP.Net MVC website.

Tutorial: Implementing Facebook's BigPipe Using ASP.Net MVC - Part 2

Tutorial: Implementing Facebook's BigPipe Using ASP.Net MVC - Part 2

277 views

Second part of the tutorial to Build Facebook's BigPipe using C#. Source code to make pagelets and achieve delayed parallel execution in an ASP.Net MVC website.

Tutorial: Implementing Facebook's BigPipe Using ASP.Net MVC - Part 1

Tutorial: Implementing Facebook's BigPipe Using ASP.Net MVC - Part 1

441 views

First part of the tutorial to implement Facebook's BigPipe using ASP.Net MVC. BigPipe improves pages loading time dividing them into regions that are generated on the server concurrently.

Generating google images sitemap with C#

Generating google images sitemap with C#

673 views

This is the C# code to generate a XML images sitemap to let Google Images Bot index more easily the pictures of your site.

Google Maps Geolocation and Directions to a Specific Destination

Google Maps Geolocation and Directions to a Specific Destination

784 views

Have you ever wondered how to show a google map showing instructions on how to get to your business? You can do it easily detecting your visitor's position and then provide directions to get to a specific destination.

Website optimization checklist

Website optimization checklist

143 views

A compilation of known techniques to improve your website performance, both client-side and server-side.

Personal thoughts on web development

Personal thoughts on web development

152 views

Until 2 years ago I had always seen Javascript as a poor language. It was painful to develop a simple script and expect it to work cross-browser.

Using HTML5 features today

Using HTML5 features today

138 views

You can already use different HTML5 to improve your websites. These are some that I have already started to use in several web applications, offering an equivalent functionality in older browsers.

Tracking action execution time in ASP.Net MVC

Tracking action execution time in ASP.Net MVC

3,024 views

This post shows how we can easily track the execution times of our actions and controllers by using a filter attribute

Response.Flush to make more responsive websites using ASP.Net MVC

Response.Flush to make more responsive websites using ASP.Net MVC

833 views

I looked for the way of using flush in ASP.Net MVC as I am currently developing websites using this platform, and this can be accomplished by using `Response.Flush()`. The idea is to execute a flush in the view after some external files have been referenced

Optimizing images for web with Google Page Speed and jpegoptim

Optimizing images for web with Google Page Speed and jpegoptim

957 views

This post shows a script to recursively optimize a set of JPG files using jpegoptim

Let's make the web faster - Tips from Google

Let's make the web faster - Tips from Google

152 views

Google gives some tips and advices to make your site work faster, especially about loading time.

Recommended Reading: J2EE AntiPatterns

Recommended Reading: J2EE AntiPatterns

158 views

J2EE AntiPatterns is a book that teaches design patterns using a different approach.

Recommended Reading: Building Findable Websites

Recommended Reading: Building Findable Websites

167 views

When designing a web site different goals are to be reached, but the main one is to get a high number of visits.