Senior, Donald, author

Crowe, Brandon D., author

Anglican Church of Australia, author

Hollier, Joel, author

Holland, Tom, author

Chilton, Hugh, author

This is a remix of another author’s idea of using CSS to make a classic model of our solar system. Here, I’ve relied on CSS pseudo-elements and generated content to render scale models of the solar system from simple markup of the raw information.

There are three demos for this experiment, which is based on Alex Giron’s original Our Solar System in CSS3.

• Basic demo: Reworking of original experiment
• Advanced demo: Scale model of the Solar System
• Advanced demo (keyboard support): Scale model of the Solar System

The basic demo uses only CSS and simple, semantic HTML to relatively faithfully reproduce Alex’s original result.

The advanced demo is a rough scale model of the Solar System. It uses the same HTML as the “basic demo” but makes extensive use of CSS pseudo-elements, generated content, and various bits of CSS3.

The advanced demo (keyboard support) is an attempt to provide keyboard support by introducing slight modifications to the HTML. I’ve commented out the animations in this version of the demo.

Why rework the original experiment?

I was curious to see if the same result could be achieved with simpler HTML, by relying on some newer CSS features.

I experimented a bit further with generated content, shadows, and the way the layout of the solar system is implemented. Doing this exposed me to some of the different ways modern browsers are implementing CSS3. I’ve described some of those differences and bugs below.

A scale model of the solar system

The main demo is a scale model of the solar system. It uses 3 different scales: one for the object diameters; one for the distance of the planets from the sun; and one for the orbital period of each planet.

Semantic HTML and Microdata

The HTML is a list where each list item contains a title and description. I’ve included some HTML Microdata to provide hooks for generated content.

<li id="earth" itemscope>
  <h2 itemprop="object">Earth
  <dl>
    <dt>Description</dt>
    <dd itemprop="description">Earth is an ocean planet. Our home world's abundance of water - and life - makes it unique in our solar system. Other planets, plus a few moons, have ice, atmospheres, seasons and even weather, but only on Earth does the whole complicated mix come together in a way that encourages life - and lots of it.</dd>
    <dt>Diameter</dt>
    <dd itemprop="diameter">12,755 <abbr title="kilometers">km</abbr></dd>
    <dt>Distance from sun</dt>
    <dd itemprop="distance">150×10<sup>6</sup> <abbr title="kilometers">km</abbr></dd>
    <dt>Orbital period</dt>
    <dd itemprop="orbit">365<abbr title="days">d</abbr></dd>
  </dl>
</li>

CSS pseudo-elements and generated content

Pseudo-elements are used to produce the planets, Saturn’s ring, the planet names, and to add the scale information.

Given that the scales only make sense when CSS is loaded it isn’t appropriate to have the scales described in the HTML. Both demos use the same HTML but only one of them is a rough scale model. Therefore, in the scale model demo I’ve used generated content to present the ratios and append extra information to the headings.

header h1:after {content:": A scale model";}
header h2:after {content:"Planet diameters 1px : 1,220 km / Distance from sun 1px : 7,125,000 km / Orbital period 1s : 4d";}

#earth dd[itemprop=diameter]:after {content:" (5px) / ";}
#earth dd[itemprop=distance]:after {content:" (22px) / ";}
#earth dd[itemprop=orbit]:after {content:" (91s)";}

Even more complex 3D presentations are likely to be possible using webkit-perspective and other 3D transforms.

Keyboard support

With a little modification it is possible to provide some form of keyboard support so that the additional information and highlighting can be viewed without using a mouse. Doing so requires adding block-level anchors (allowed in HTML5) and modifying some of the CSS selectors.

Modern browser CSS3 inconsistencies

This experiment only works adequately in modern browsers such as Safari 4+, Chrome 4+, Firefox 3.6+ and Opera 10.5+.

Even among the current crop of modern browsers, there are bugs and varying levels of support for different CSS properties and values. In particular, webkit’s box-shadow implementation has issues.

There are a few other unusual :hover bugs in Opera 10.5 (most obvious in the basic demo). It should also be noted that the :hover area remains square in all modern browsers even when you apply a border-radius to the element.

Border radius

There are also a few other peculiarities around percentage units for border radius. Of the modern browsers, a square object with a border-radius of 50% will only produce a circle in Safari 5, Chrome 5, and Firefox 3.6.

Safari 4 doesn’t appear to support percentage units for border radius at all (which is why the CSS in the demos explicitly sets a -webkit-border-radius value for each object). Safari 5 and Chrome 5 do support percentage units for this property. However, Chrome 5 has difficulty rendering a 1px wide border on a large circle. Most of the border simply isn’t rendered.

In Opera 10.5, if you set border-radius to 50% you don’t always get a circle, so I have had to redeclare the border-radius for each object in pixel units.

It appears that this is one aspect of Opera’s non-prefixed border-radius implementation that is incorrect and in need of fixing.

Box shadow

Safari 4’s inferior box-shadow implementation means that inset shadows are not rendered on the planet bodies. In addition, the second box-shadow applied to Saturn (used to separate the planet from its ring) is completely missing in Safari 4 as it does not support a spread radius value.

Safari 5 and Chrome 5 are better but still problematic. The second box-shadow is not perfectly round as the box-shadow seems to use the pseudo-element’s computed border-radius. Furthermore, Chrome 5 on Windows does not properly support inset box-shadow meaning that the shadow ignores the border-radius declaration and appears as a protruding square.

The use of box-shadow to separate Saturn from the ring isn’t strictly necessary. You can create the separated ring using a border but box-shadow cannot be applied in a way that casts it over a border. Another alternative would be to add a black border around the planet to give the illusion of space between itself and the ring, but all browsers display a few pixels of unwanted background colour all along the outer edge of the rounded border.

I wanted the ring to share the appearance of a shadow being cast on it. Opera 10.5 and Firefox 3.6 get it right. Both webkit browsers get it wrong.

Drop-shadows are easy enough to create using pseudo-elements. It’s a nice and robust way to progressively enhance a design. This post is a summary of the technique and some of the possible appearances.

Demo: CSS drop-shadows without images

Known support: Firefox 3.5+, Chrome 5+, Safari 5+, Opera 10.6+, IE 9+

I’ll be looking mainly at a few details involved in making this effect more robust. Divya Manian covered the basic principle in her article Drop Shadows with CSS3 and Matt Hamm recently shared his Pure CSS3 box-shadow page curl effect.

After a bit of back-and-forth on Twitter with Simurai, and proposing a couple of additions to Divya’s and Matt’s demos using jsbin, I felt like documenting and explaining the parts that make up this technique.

The basic technique

There is no need for extra markup, the effect can be applied to a single element. A couple of pseudo-elements are generated from an element and then pushed behind it.

.drop-shadow {
  position: relative;
  width: 90%;
}

.drop-shadow:before,
.drop-shadow:after {
  content: "";
  position: absolute;
  z-index: -1;
}

The pseudo-elements need to be positioned and given explicit or implicit dimensions.

.drop-shadow:before,
.drop-shadow:after {
  content: "";
  position: absolute;
  z-index: -1;
  bottom: 15px;
  left: 10px;
  width: 50%;
  height: 20%;
}

The next step is to add a CSS3 box-shadow and apply CSS3 transforms. Different types of drop-shadow can be produced by varying these values and the types of transforms applied.

.drop-shadow:before,
.drop-shadow:after {
  content: "";
  position: absolute;
  z-index: -1;
  bottom: 15px;
  left: 10px;
  width: 50%;
  height: 20%;
  box-shadow: 0 15px 10px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.7);
  transform: rotate(-3deg);
}

One of the pseudo-elements then needs to be positioned on the other side of the element and rotated in the opposite direction. This is easily done by overriding only the properties that need to differ.

.drop-shadow:after{
  right: 10px;
  left: auto;
  transform: rotate(3deg);
 }

The final core code is as shown below. There is just one more addition – max-width – to prevent the drop-shadow from extending too far below very wide elements.

.drop-shadow {
  position: relative;
  width: 90%;
}

.drop-shadow:before,
.drop-shadow:after {
  content: "";
  position: absolute;
  z-index: -1;
  bottom: 15px;
  left: 10px;
  width: 50%;
  height: 20%;
  max-width: 300px;
  box-shadow :0 15px 10px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.7);
  transform: rotate(-3deg);
}

.drop-shadow:after{
  right: 10px;
  left: auto;
  transform: rotate(3deg);
}

No Firefox 3.0 problems this time

Some pseudo-element hacks require a work-around to avoid looking broken in Firefox 3.0 because that browser does not support the positioning of pseudo-elements. This usually involves implicitly setting their dimensions using offsets.

However, as Divya Manian pointed out to me, in this case we’re only using box-shadow – which Firefox 3.0 doesn’t support – and Firefox 3.0 will ignore the position:absolute declaration for the pseudo-elements. This leaves them with the default display:inline style. As a result, there is no problem explicitly setting the pseudo-element width and height because it won’t be applied to the pseudo-elements in Firefox 3.0.

Further enhancements

From this base there are plenty of ways to tweak the effect by applying skew to the pseudo-elements and modifying the styles of the element itself. A great example of this was shared by Simurai. By adding a border-radius to the element you can give the appearance of page curl.

.drop-shadow {
  border-radius: 0 0 120px 120px / 0 0 6px 6px;
}

I’ve put together a little demo page with a few of drop-shadow effects, including those that build on the work of Divya Manian and Matt Hamm.

If you’ve got your own improvements, please send them to me on Twitter.

CSS is a versatile style language that is most frequently used to control the look and formatting of an HTML document based on information in the document tree. But there are some common publishing effects – such as formatting the first line of a paragraph – that would not be possible if you were only able to style elements based on this information. Fortunately, CSS has pseudo-elements and pseudo-classes.

As their names imply, they are not part of the DOM in the way that ‘real’ HTML elements and classes are. Instead, they are CSS abstractions that provide additional, and otherwise inaccessible, information about the document.

This article will discuss the CSS pseudo-elements that are part of CSS 2.1 – :first-letter, :first-line, :before, and :after – and how the :before and :after pseudo-elements can be exploited to create some interesting effects, without compromising the simplicity of your HTML. But first, let’s look at each type of pseudo-element and how to use them in their basic form.

The :first-line and :first-letter pseudo-elements

The :first-line pseudo-element lets you apply styles to the first formatted line of a block container element (i.e., elements with their display property set to block, inline-block, list-item, table-caption, or table-cell). For example:

p:first-line { font-weight: bold; }

…will change the first line of every paragraph to bold. The :first-line pseudo-element can be treated as if it were an extra HTML inline element wrapping only the first line of text in the paragraph.

The :first-letter pseudo-element lets you apply styles to the first letter (and any preceding punctuation) of the first formatted line of a block container element. No other inline content (e.g. an image) can appear before the text. For example:

p:first-letter { float: left; font-size: 200%; }

…will produce a basic ‘drop cap’ effect. The first letter of every paragraph will be floated left, and twice as large as the other letters in the paragraph. The :first-letter pseudo-element can be treated as if it were an extra HTML inline element wrapping only the first letter of text in the paragraph.

The :first-line and :first-letter pseudo-elements can only be attached to block container elements, but the first formatted line can be contained within any block-level descendant (e.g., elements with their display property set to block or list-item) in the same flow (i.e., not floated or positioned). For example, the following HTML fragment and CSS:

<div><p>An example of the first line of text being within a descendant element</p></div>

div:first-line { font-weight: bold; }

…would still result in a bold first line of text, because the paragraph’s text is the first formatted line of the div.

The :before and :after pseudo-elements

The :before and :after pseudo-elements are used to insert generated content before or after an element’s content. They can be treated as if they were extra HTML inline elements inserted just before and after the content of their associated element.

Generated content is specified using the content property which, in CSS 2.1, can only be used in conjunction with the :before and :after pseudo-elements. Furthermore, you must declare the content property in order to generate the :before and :after pseudo-elements.

The content property can take string, url(), attr(), counter() and counters() values. The url() value is used to insert an image. The attr() function returns as a string the value of the specified attribute for the associated element. The counter() and counters() functions can be used to display the value of any CSS counters.

For example, the following HTML fragment and CSS:

<a href="http://wikipedia.org">Wikipedia</a>

a:after { content: " (" attr(href) ")"; }

…would display the value of the href attribute after a link’s content, resulting in the following anchor text for the example above: Wikipedia (http://wikipedia.org). This can be a helpful way to display the destination of specific links in printed web documents.

Keep in mind that CSS is meant for adding presentation and not content. Therefore, the content property should be used with caution.

It’s also worth noting that the :first-letter and :first-line pseudo-elements apply to the first letter and first line of an element including any generated content inserted using the :before and :after pseudo-elements.

Browser support for pseudo-elements

The :first-letter and :first-line pseudo-elements were introduced in CSS1 and there is wide basic support for them. However, IE 6 and IE 7 have particularly buggy implementations; even modern browsers are not entirely consistent in the way that they handle the :first-line and :first-letter pseudo-elements (example bugs).

The :before and :after pseudo-elements were introduced in the CSS 2.1 specification and are fully implemented in Firefox 3.5+, IE 8+, Safari 3+, Google Chrome, and Opera. Modern versions of Firefox even support CSS transitions and animations applied to pseudo-elements. However, legacy browsers like IE 6 and IE 7 do not support the :before and :after pseudo-elements at all.

For more detailed information on pseudo-element browser support, browser bugs, and workarounds, have a look at Sitepoint’s reference and this article on IE 6/7 issues.

In most cases, the :before and :after pseudo-elements can be used as part of a ‘progressive enhancement’ approach to design and development, because IE 6 and IE 7 will simply ignore them altogether. Alternatively, Modernizr now includes a robust feature test for generated content, providing one way to specify fallbacks or enhancements depending on browser support. The important thing is to remember to check what happens in browsers where support is missing.

Alternative ways to use pseudo-elements

Let’s take a look at how the :before and :after pseudo-elements can be used as the basis for some interesting effects. Most of the time, this involves generating empty :before and :after pseudo-elements by declaring an empty string as the value of the content property. They can then be manipulated as if they were empty inline HTML elements, keeping your HTML clean and giving you full control of certain effects from within CSS style sheets.

Simple visual enhancements, like speech bubbles and folded corners, can even be created without the need for images. This relies on the fact that you can create simple shapes using CSS.

Several types of ‘CSS polygons’ can be created as a result of browsers rendering borders at an angle when they meet. This can be exploited to create triangles. For example, the following HTML fragment and CSS:

<div class="triangle"></div>

.triangle {
  width: 0;
  height: 0;
  border-width: 20px;
  border-style: solid;
  border-color: red transparent transparent;
}

…will create a downward pointing, red triangle. By varying the width, height, border-width, border-style, and border-color values you can produce different shapes and control their orientation and colour. For more information, be sure to read Jon Rogan’s summary of the technique.

The more advanced pseudo-element hacks use the extra background canvas afforded by each :before and :after pseudo-element. This can help you crop background images, control the opacity of background images, and ‘fake’ multiple backgrounds and borders in browsers without support for CSS3 multiple backgrounds (e.g., IE 8). Taken to ludicrous extremes, you can even build a whole CSS icon set. To start with, let’s look at some simple effects that can be created without images or presentational HTML.

Creating CSS speech bubbles

In this example, a quote is styled to look like a speech bubble, using CSS. This is done by creating a triangle using a pseudo-element, and then absolutely positioning it in the desired place. By adding position:relative to the CSS styles for the HTML element, you can absolutely position the :after pseudo-element relative to its associated element.

<div class="quote">[Quoted text]</div>

.quote {
  position: relative;
  width: 300px;
  padding: 15px 25px 20px;
  margin: 20px auto;
  font: italic 26px/1.4 Georgia, serif;
  color: #fff;
  background: #245991;
}

.quote:after {
  content: "";
  position: absolute;
  top: 100%;
  right: 25px;
  border-width: 30px 30px 0 0;
  border-style: solid;
  border-color: #245991 transparent;
}

There’s nothing stopping you from adding some CSS3 to further enhance the effect for capable browsers. This could be adding rounded corners to the box or applying a skew transform to the triangle itself. Fiddle with the code in this example.

Creating CSS ‘ribbons’

Using the same principle, you can create a CSS ribbon effect without images or extra HTML. This time the effect uses 2 pseudo-element triangles. The HTML fragment is still very simple.

<div class="container">
    <h1>Simple CSS ribbon</h1>
    <p>[other content]</p>
</div>

You then need to use negative margins to pull the h1 outwards so that it extends over the padding and beyond the boundaries of the container div. The HTML fragment above can be styled using the following CSS:

.container {
  width: 400px;
  padding: 20px;
  margin: 20px auto;
  background: #fff;
}

.container h1 {
  position: relative;
  padding: 10px 30px;
  margin: 0 -30px 20px;
  font-size: 20px;
  line-height: 24px;
  font-weight: bold;
  color: #fff;
  background: #87A800;
}

From here, you only need to add the pseudo-element triangles to create the ‘wrapping’ appearance associated with ribbons. The :before and :after pseudo-elements share many styles, so you can simplify the code by only overriding the styles that differ between the two. In this case, the triangle created with the :after pseudo-element must appear on the opposite side of the heading, and will be a mirror image of the other triangle. So you need to override the shared styles that control its position and orientation.

.container h1:before,
.container h1:after {
  content: "";
  position: absolute;
  top: 100%;
  left: 0;
  border-width: 0 10px 10px 0;
  border-style: solid;
  border-color: transparent #647D01;
}

/* override shared styles */
.container h1:after {
  left: auto;
  right: 0;
  border-width: 0 0 10px 10px;
}

Fiddle with the code in this example.

Creating CSS folded corners

The final example of this form of pseudo-element hack creates a simple CSS folded-corner effect. A pseudo-element’s border properties are set to produce two differently-coloured touching triangles. One triangle is a slightly darker or lighter shade of the box’s background colour. The other triangle matches the background colour of the box’s parent (e.g. white). The pseudo-element is then positioned in the top right corner of its associated element to complete the effect.

.note {
  position: relative;
  padding: 20px;
  margin: 2em 0;
  color: #fff;
  background: #97C02F;
}

.note:before {
  content: "";
  position: absolute;
  top: 0;
  right: 0;
  border-width: 0 16px 16px 0;
  border-style: solid;
  border-color: #658E15 #fff;
}

Varying the size of the borders will vary the size and angle of the folded-corner. Fiddle with the code in this example.

Pseudo background-crop

Although creating polygons with pseudo-elements can produce some popular effects without images, the possibilities are inherently limited. But this is only one type of :before and :after pseudo-element hack. Treated as extra background canvases, they can be used to fill some gaps in existing browser support for CSS features.

One of those features is the cropping of background images. In the future, it’s likely that you’ll be able to crop background images using fragment identifiers, as is proposed in the CSS Image Values Module Level 3 draft. But at the moment no browsers support the use of fragment identifiers with bitmap images. Until they do, you can make use of this CSS 2.1 hack to emulate background image cropping in modern browsers.

The principle behind a ‘pseudo background-crop‘ is to apply a background-image to a pseudo-element rather than directly to an element in the HTML document. One of the applications of this technique is to crop icons that are part of a sprite.

For example, a web app might allow users to ‘save’, ‘edit’, or ‘delete’ an item. The HTML involved might look something like this:

<ul class="actions">
  <li class="save"><a href="#">Save</a></li>
  <li class="edit"><a href="#">Edit</a></li>
  <li class="delete"><a href="#">Delete</a></li>
</ul>

To enhance the appearance of these ‘action’ links, it is common to see icons sitting alongside the anchor text. For argument’s sake, let’s say that the relevant icons are part of a sprite that is organised using a 16px × 16px grid.

The :before pseudo-element – with dimensions that match the sprite’s grid unit – can be used to crop and display each icon. The sprite is referenced as a background image and the background-position property is used to control the precise positioning of each icon to be shown.

.actions a:before {
  content: "";
  float: left;
  width: 16px;
  height: 16px;
  margin: 0 5px 0 0;
  background: url(sprite.png);
}

.save a:before { background-position: 0 0; }
.edit a:before { background-position: -16px 0; }
.delete a:before { background-position: -32px 0; }

Using pseudo-elements like this helps to avoid the need to either add liberal amounts of white space to sprites or use empty HTML elements to do the cropping. Fiddle with the code in this example.

Pseudo background-position

The CSS 2.1 specification limits the values of background-position to horizontal and vertical offsets from the top-left corner of an element. The CSS Backgrounds and Borders Module Level 3 working draft includes an improvement to the background-position property to allow offsets to be set from any side. However, Opera 11+ is currently the only browser to have implemented it.

But by using pseudo-elements, it’s possible to emulate positioning a background image from any side in any browser with adequate CSS 2.1 support –’pseudo background-position‘.

Once a pseudo-element is created, it must be absolutely positioned in front of the associated element’s background but behind its content, so as not to prevent users from being able to select text or click on links. This is done by setting a positive z-index on the element and a negative z-index on the pseudo-element.

#content {
  position: relative;
  z-index: 1;
}

#content:before {
  content: "";
  position: absolute;
  z-index: -1;
}

Now the pseudo-element can be sized and positioned to sit over any area within (or beyond) the element itself, without affecting its content. This is achieved by using any combination of values for the top, right, bottom, and left positional offsets, as well as the width, and height properties. It is the key to their flexibility.

In this example, a 200px × 300px background image is applied to the pseudo-element, which is also given dimensions that match those of the image. Since the pseudo-element is absolutely positioned, it can be offset from the bottom and right of the associated HTML element.

#content {
  position: relative;
  z-index: 1;
}

#content:before {
  content: "";
  position: absolute;
  z-index: -1;
  bottom: 10px;
  right: 10px;
  width: 200px;
  height: 300px;
  background: url(image.jpg);
}

Many other hacks and effects are possible using the :before and :after pseudo-elements, especially when combined with CSS3. Hopefully this introduction to pseudo-elements, and how they can be exploited, will have inspired you to experiment with them in your work.

The future of pseudo-elements

The way that pseudo-elements are used will continue to change as CSS does. Some new applications will emerge, and existing ones will fade away as browser implementation of ‘CSS3 modules’ continues to improve.

Generated content and pseudo-elements themselves are likely to undergo changes too. The CSS3 Generated and Replaced Content Module introduced a two-colon format for pseudo-elements (i.e., ::before) to help distinguish between pseudo-classes and pseudo-elements. But for compatibility with previous levels of CSS, pseudo-elements do not require two colons. Most modern browsers support both formats, but it is not supported by IE 8 and the single-colon format ensures greater backwards compatibility.

The proposed extensions to pseudo-elements included the addition of nested pseudo-elements (::before::before), multiple pseudo-elements (::after(2)), wrapping pseudo-elements (::outside), and the ability to insert pseudo-elements into later parts of the document (::alternate). However, the CSS3 Generated and Replaced Content Module is undergoing significant changes.

This article was originally published in .net magazine in April 2011

Related resources

• Interactive examples of the code throughout this article
• CSS generated content techniques
• Automatic numbering with CSS counters
• CSS image replacement using pseudo-elements
• Multiple backgrounds and borders with CSS 2.1
• CSS background image hacks
• A whole bunch of amazing stuff pseudo-elements can do

I recently moved from London to San Francisco to work at Twitter, as a Software Engineer. This is a rough guide – in the spirit of @chanian’s tutorial for Canadians – based on my experience of relocating, the mistakes I made along the way, and some information I wish I’d had. Use it at your own risk – don’t assume any legal truths; research things for yourself before making decisions!

I’m not going to cover anything about the US visa process. The company that has offered you employment in the US is likely to work with immigration lawyers who will handle (or guide you through) the visa application and processing. I’m also going to assume that your employer is providing temporary accommodation or that you are organising your own (e.g., via Airbnb) while you search for an apartment. Most of this article relates to things you will need to do once you arrive in San Francisco and soon after, but that you should spend some time thinking about beforehand.

Get a phone

You’ll need a US mobile/cell number pretty quickly, especially if you’re apartment-hunting.

The US telecom market isn’t great and will leave you nostalgic for the halcyon days of the EU-regulated, pro-consumer market you’ve left behind. For example, it’s now illegal to unlock a phone from a carrier unless you have that carrier’s permission to do so. Furthermore, if you do get a phone from a carrier (as part of your contract deal), you should be aware of whether or not you will be locked into a proprietary network, like Verison’s CDMA. Without a US credit history, you should expect to pay a sizable deposit when entering into a contract.

One way to reduce the cost of a phone contract is to bring your own phone to the party. If you bring a phone from the UK, make sure to check that your charger will work on US voltage. With an unlocked, GSM-supporting phone you can look to carriers like T-Mobile who offer various “value” and no-annual-contract plans. These prices are significantly cheaper because they don’t subsidise the purchase of a new phone. You’re likely to find “unlimited” data plans easier to come by than they are in the UK.

You’re shit-out-of-luck if you’re thinking you’d prefer a European-style pay-as-you-go (PAYG) approach. The options are thin on the ground. Any airtime you buy means just that – any time you spend talking or texting – so you pay to send and receive calls or SMS’s. My experience suggests that some networks recycle phone numbers or sell on your details. I still receive random texts addressed to previous owners of my phone number, and get messages from marketing companies who have miraculously acquired my personal details, an irritation that is compounded by the fact that it costs you money to be harassed.

If you’re determined to go the PAYG route, the nearest US equivalent is probably AT&T’s GoPhone SIM or Net10. You’ll have to purchase a phone and credit up front; top ups can be purchased in store, at some supermarkets, or done over the phone. This may also be the first time you encounter the US concept of a “restocking fee” – a method of dissuading you from returning items by charging you to do so. The restocking fee for the burner phone I first purchased was almost as much as the phone itself.

Open a bank account, transfer money

Make this a top priority. You should open a bank account as soon as you arrive in the US, especially as some banks will initially let you do so without a Social Security Number or permanent address.

Until you open a US bank account, you’ll be haemorrhaging money on fees levied by your UK bank for dollar transactions, and subject to poor exchange rates.

Choose a bank

San Francisco has a large range of different bank brands to choose from, but you’re probably best sticking to the big name banks that have branches and ATMs throughout the city, such as Bank of America, Chase, or Wells Fargo. There are co-ops and niche services if that’s your thing. Be sure to do some preparatory research on which bank is best suited to your needs. It’s also worth checking if your bank in the UK has a reciprocal agreement with any bank operating in San Francisco; it may cut down the cost of moving your money. Friends recommended going with either Bank of America or Chase. I went with Bank of America, where the customer service was personal and friendly.

Banking fees are a matter of course in the US. In contrast to the UK, you’ll almost certainly be charged for withdrawing money from any ATMs that aren’t owned by your bank. You have to buy cheque books (“check” in American English) and pay a fee to transfer your money to accounts outside your bank. Accounts usually involve a monthly fee, although this is waived in certain situations, such as setting up your salary to be directly deposited. Expect to set up a current (“checking”) and savings account, and to be asked to make a minimum cash deposit to complete the process (at Bank of America it was $100).

Once you’re all set up, your debit card will be sent in the post – so make sure you’ll be at that address for at least another week. In the meantime you may get a temporary cash card to get at what you’ve already deposited. Even if you transfer more money in, your bank can limit the amount you can withdraw within the first 30 days of the account being open – presumably to combat fraud/laundering.

Transfer money

It’s essential that you transfer money from your UK bank as soon as possible. There are many factors to consider when calculating how much money you want to transfer.

• You may enter the US up to 10 days before your visa is valid and you can start work.
• You need money for food, transport, going out, a phone (and deposit), apartment applications, an apartment deposit, buying furniture, etc.
• You might not be able to get paid until you have a Social Security Number.
• You’re unlikely to get paid until the middle or end of the month you start working.
• You’re very likely to get your first pay cheque given to you as a real cheque; your bank is then likely to withhold the vast majority of the cheque’s value for up to 28 days.
• It will cost you several thousand dollars – a deposit and at least one month of rent – to secure an apartment. In general, landlords will not accept a UK banking cheque.
• You’ll have to buy furniture and general household items if you aren’t shipping any from the UK.

All in all, this means you may end up without any significant US-earned money in your account for 30-45 days while making some of the biggest expenses you’re likely to have made for a while.

Transferring money to a US bank account can be done online via wire transfer between banks. Unfortunately, my bank in the UK – Santander – didn’t allow online wire transfers so I had to look for alternatives. You may want to research this prior to leaving the UK!

The Post Office provide a simple, secure, and fee-free service, but a poorer exchange rate. Looking around, I came across Currencyfair – a peer-to-peer currency exchange service. They provide online quotes without the need to sign up, they were very prompt and helpful in their replies to questions I had, and the exchange rate was very good. Overall, I saved quite a bit of money and I’d rely on them in the future.

Get a Clipper card

The Clipper card is San Francisco’s equivalent of London’s Oyster card. Getting one will take some of the pain out of using the various modes of public transport in San Francisco. You can get a Clipper card online and I’d suggest setting up “Autoload” (you’ll need a bank account) to get the card for free and never worry about remembering to top up your credit. Alternatively, you can buy them on the high street from shops like Walgreens.

Get a Social Security Number

Social Security recommend that you only apply for a Social Security Number once you’ve been in the US over 10 days.

My experience was that the process is quick and simple. You complete a short SSN application form ahead of time and take it to the nearest Social Security office along with the documentation they advise you to bring. Arrive first thing in the morning to avoid any wait. It can take a few weeks for your Social Security card to arrive so you may want to have it sent to your employer’s address if you don’t have a permanent address yet.

Once you have your Social Security Card, you should keep it safe and be judicious in giving your SSN out. However, you should provide it to your bank and employer as soon as possible.

Find somewhere to live

Living in the city of San Francisco is just one of the (more expensive) options available to you. I chose to live in the city but many of my friends and colleagues live in other areas, like the East Bay. Have a look around before making up your mind.

Rent is very expensive in San Francisco, even compared to prices in London, especially since it’s very rare to find furnished accommodation. It also appears to be rising at a staggering rate. However, buildings constructed before June 1979 are covered by San Francisco Rent Control which heavily constrains the rate at which your rent can increase once you become a tenant. Therefore, it’s worth taking the time to find somewhere that you could imagine living for a few years.

The rental market is extremely competitive. Many places rely on one-off, brief, herd-style viewings where you’re in the apartment with half a dozen other desperate people at the same time, and more arriving every minute. People hand over all their paperwork and a cash application fee (if applicable) there and then.

Things are made slightly harder because you’re unlikely to have any US credit history, which is something quite important over here. But an offer letter and salary details from a tech company seems to put you in good shape. It’s in your best interest to put together a dossier of papers to provide alongside any application you make. You should include scans of your employer’s offer letter, your visa, and ideally character references from a previous landlord, etc. Print out several copies to take with you to viewings. You might have to pay $30-$40 to make an application (which is meant to cover credit history checks), but I never did.

I found that using Craigslist or a listing aggregator like Lovely was the best way to find apartments for rent in the city. They will also help you to narrow your focus to the neighbourhoods that you’re most interested in (spend some time learning about the city). Before moving to San Francisco, I heard a lot of stories about how it was essential – if you are to have any hope – to be “first” to make contact with the poster of a listing, but my experience was that you’re generally given the date and time of a mass-viewing to attend. This means that making a good impression in person, and having a bit of a chat with your potential landlord or building-manager, is likely to improve your chances and help you make a decision. Be prepared for it to take a while to find an apartment – it took me over a month of searching.

Once you’ve found a place to rent and signed all the paperwork, call PG&E to create an account to pay for your heat and electricity. You can set up e-bills and automatic payments online once your account has been processed. It’s a good idea to sort out an ISP before you move in – I went with Sonic.net. Again, the monthly cost (which I was told includes 17 different taxes and “renting” of the router) is a little higher than you’d expect in the UK, and you can expect to pay an installation fee. Other things to do: get Renters Insurance and have your bank automatically mail out your monthly-rent check to your landlord or building manager. All these things are quick and easy to do.

If you’re interested in your renters rights, you can search the California Department of Consumer Affairs for information.

Buying stuff for your place

You’re going to need furniture and basic household items. There’s always Ikea, which is located in Emeryville across the bay. If you have any previous Ikea experience, you’ll know that it’s one of the most stressful shopping experiences imaginable. The Ikea in Emeryville is even worse but the prices are pretty good. You can get there by bus from San Francisco and have large items delivered, or sort out your own transport.

Other stores to look at include West Elm and Crate & Barrel; they sell nicer things but are significantly more expensive. Alternatively, there are a lot of independent and second-hand furniture shops in San Francisco, particularly in the Mission district and a few along Van Ness. They’re well worth checking out. Van Ness also has 3 or 4 stores that sell mattresses – Sleep Train came particularly well recommended. I’d suggest that you leverage the lower costs of similar mattresses online in order to significantly reduce the price of your purchase, while benefiting from the great service, free delivery, and returns policy of the high-street stores. And if you have no idea what you’re doing: home decor tips, infographics, and cheat sheets

Get a California I.D.

Once you have your SSN and have found a permanent address, you should apply for a California I.D. at the DMV. This is handy if you don’t want to carry your passport (with visa) around and don’t have alternative I.D., such as a driver’s licence. You should register for an appointment to avoid a long wait in line. It can take up to 60 days for your California I.D. to arrive.

Get a credit card

The U.S. revolves around consumer credit. You need to start building up a credit history as soon as possible if you want to avoid paying large deposits or higher prices. Ask your bank about the soonest that you can apply for a credit card and then start using it – buying on credit even if you don’t need to.

Inform HMRC and the Student Loans Company

Once you’re settled, you should make time to inform HMRC that you’ve left the UK. They’ll be able to assess your tax status. If you are repaying student loans, after 3 months in the US you’re expected to contact the Student Loans Company by completing an overseas income assessment form. They will then work out your repayments.

Welcome to the United States of America

Hopefully you settle in within a couple of months and get to know San Francisco. There are many faces to this city, but the social scene is pretty diverse and there are many restaurants, bars, cafes, parks, and attractions – plenty of places to explore and things to do while you find your feet.

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