Somehow, no matter much I know before a project starts, something will absolutely stump me during development. As frustrating as this is, it at least gives me an opportunity to learn things as I go and always leaves me feeling better prepared for my next project.
Effigy – The lesson here is that complicated, non-grid designs are best accomplished with a huge background image on the page body. Do this, then just position all the text on top of that and you have a really simple X/HTML page that looks really complicated.
The Washing Machine Man – Ah, my first truly independent web project. This was the first time I set up a MySQL database and a CMS. Doing that seemed so incredibly advanced at the time but now it’s something I casually do in a matter of 15 minutes.
Institute on Race and Ethnicity – The lesson learned here was to not wait until a project is completely finished before going live, especially if there is a current site to maintain. It’s better to avoid waiting for months and just put up a site that’s 95% done.
North Shore Presbyterian Church – A lesson in creating unique menus through absolute and relative positioning is what this site was. Check out the art exhibit page to see what I’m talking about.
Discover and Learn – Setting up this site showed me how incredibly easy PayPal can be to integrate into a website. The code for the buttons is created automatically for you and they host the cart on their servers. It doesn’t get much easier than that.
My Music Site – This site taught me a lot about transparent png files. Achieving a drop shadow around a content box on top of a gradient is only possible using pngs, as are a lot of other advanced layout techniques. Using pngs is always a problem with IE6, but the Unit labs fix was a great find to get around that.
Maybe one day I’ll get to the point where I can tackle an entire project without running into a wall at some point, but from what I’ve heard from developers who have been around since the early days of the internet, there’s no such thing as a project without a ridiculous, unique bug.
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It’s absolutely alarming how many different programming languages one must learn just to work on websites. This fact alone has discouraged a few people I’ve talked to who want to start learning web development. A statement like “First, you absolutely have to master HTML and CSS, and then you should get very comfortable with Javascript, get familiar with databases and SQL, then start learning some server-side scripting like PHP, Perl, oh and some Java and .NET as well” is enough to scare anybody. The thing that frustrates me most is that the tough ones, PHP, Java, .NET, are all mutually exclusive. This means that you either become an expert in all three or only 1/3 of the work out there is for you. Right now, I’d say I have the first four, HTML, CSS, Javascript, SQL down pretty well, and I guess I’ll just forever be a student to learn the rest. Sigh.
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I found a cool site today, webcreme.com, which just lists a bunch of nice looking websites. I’m finding it’s a great place to go when stuck on how to start a new project. I used to just do general searches for the type of business I was creating a site for to check out the competition and get an idea for the design paradigm for the business, but I found that there are a lot, I mean a lot, of bad looking sites out there. I really am my harshest critic, but it’s very easy to find sites that just look terrible, so it’s great to finally have a consistent resource for great web design inspiration.
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Now that I’ve done all that I had hoped with my sample CMS site, sample shopping cart, and portfolio redesign, I’m onto some projects that should be a bit more fun and a lot less work (hopefully).
To begin, there’s the Benno’s Bar and Grill site redesign project. One of my favorite establishments, a place renown for an incredible selection of craft beer on tap, it’s current website falls well short of giving the restaurant a good online presence. Nate and I offered to revamp the site at very little cost and plan to implement a brand new, modern design, an online rating system of the beers on tap, an accurate menu and specials page, and a CMS so that the owners can update the site content as necessary. Most everything is in place and we’re just waiting for the go ahead to put our new design online.
Nate and I also had an idea for a site called MyWikiTrail.net. The site would be another WordPress blog where we, and other users, will log our often confusing and entertaining paths through Wikipedia. The project will give me an opportunity to create a new design, work with applying themes to WordPress, and learn the WordPress end-user features.
Additionally, I am taking two new web programming classes this spring. One class is intermediate Java programming and the other is simply called “Advanced Web Programming” and will be a mixed assortment of database access, advanced javascript, advanced formatting, and more.
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Well, I always seem to keep myself busy, usually too busy. I really love nothing more than mastering a new technology or putting the finishing touches on a new design I’m really proud of, so working on new projects really has become quite an addiction for me. Actual paying work has been scarce, but I’ve been putting any free time I have to good use.
Over the last few months I completed a few projects of my own, most notably the redesign of this website. I took a long, steady approach to the site, working 20-30 minutes a day for about 3 weeks before I was finished with what is by far the best version of my web design portfolio I’ve ever made.
I also poured a ton of time and effort into learning all I could about CMS Made Simple. I set up a sample cms website to explore all of the features including photo albums, blogs, forums, comments, web forms, and more. I though I knew a lot about the system before this experiment as I have used it in 5 previous web projects, but now I really see the true power of it all. I cannot think of an easier and more efficient way for a client to maintain a site.
Shopping carts have always been a source of ire in my freelance experience- everybody wants one, nobody really wants to pay for one, nobody is willing to invest the time into setting one up. Therefore, I’ve never actually set up a full shopping cart system. Last month I took the initiative to just set up a cart of my own using Zencart. It’s not a fully functioning online store now, but I think it’s a pretty good shopping cart solution.
Installing this blog was actually yet another project, as it was only recently added- months after the initial site redesign. The purpose of the blog was to learn the ins and outs of WordPress so that I could have an outlet for delivering news and thoughts about web design and development.
Busy, busy, busy, and more to come.
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There are tons of beautiful wordpress themes available but I’ve decided to skin this blog like the rest of my site. So far, so good, but there’s plenty of work to do still.
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So, after blogs have been popular for 3 or 4 years I’m finally hopping on board and taking the time to learn some blogging tools. I used the blog tool which comes wtih CMS Made Simple and I must say it’s a pretty handy thing for a site which is to consist mostly of static text with the blog function being secondary. WordPress, however, is definitely where it’s at for a site which is to primarily function as a blog. It’s incredibley easy to install on your own server so you don’t have to worry about your site needing to be hosted by blogspot or anything like that. The user interface is really intuitive and attractive, and the ability to intergrate static pages in addition to the blog content is a real plus. Over the next few months I hope to start designing my own themes and even setting up a few small social network sites using WordPress. Stay tuned.
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