Posted by geetarista July 26, 2007
Web technology seems to be constantly changing at an incredible rate. I feel that becoming a successful web designer (or developer) depends greatly on how much knowledge you can attain and how fast you can do so. I think that this is such an excellent industry to do so since there are so many blogs and web sites that provide such a vast amount of information.
Since evey person learns a little differently, I think that it is important to first understand how you learn best. I feel that understanding this will give anyone the ability to learn what they need in the amount of time that they have. Once you know how you really learn, find those resources that cater to your learning type and immerse yourself.
Just as with practically anything else, I feel that one of the most important things that help with learning web design as a beginner is doing it. When I first started thinking about web design a couple of years ago, I would constantly read articles, books, and anything that I could get my hands on to try and learn what I could. However, after reading all of those materials, I still felt that I had not learned much since I was not applying any of it. This is one of the first reasons that I created my first web site and how I really got my start with web design. My first web site was incredibly simple, but it met my needs and it gave me a platform to learn from. Since then, I have been constantly trying to expand my knowledge and skills by reading, studying, and creating code.
My advice is to do everything possible to expand your knowledge: subscribe to every web design/development blog you come across, download every free code example you can, go to the library, follow newsgroups and mailing lists, find a mentor, learn more languages, etc. An important thing to remember is that there is always more to learn and be mastered, so never stay satisfied with your skills and what you (think you) know.
Posted by geetarista July 25, 2007
One of the great things that I love about web design is the community of individuals that come together to help one another and advance the industry. I have lately become more and more interested in frameworks and libraries since they make it a little easier to create sites and applications. However, I have been wondering what the differences are between the two and what these differences mean. I understand and believe in the concept of reusing code and see the many benefits that it has. Frameworks, libraries, classes, etc., are used to prevent programmers from reinventing the wheel so they can spend time on new and better things. With web development, there are many libraries and frameworks that are available for the very same reason. The only thing that I struggled with when I first learned of them was why there was a difference between them and what it meant.
From what I understand, a library is more lightweight and portable than a framework. A library usually contains many functions and classes that are used to assist a programmer with tools to reuse important code. A framework on the other hand is more robust and complicated. For example, a framework could include multiple libraries as well as pieces of software and other tools to assist the developer. So far I have only had a little experience with a couple of libraries, but I plan to keep learning about more frameworks and libraries so I can have more tools available in my arsenal.
Posted by geetarista July 23, 2007
I received the 7th and final Harry Potter book on Saturday and finished it last night. It did not take too long to read, but there were other things that I had to take care of during that time. I originally started reading the Harry Potter series several years ago, but very–very reluctantly. I had heard about all of the hype surrounding the books, and my parents were listening to the CDs and were enjoying it. Since I am not the type of person to simply jump on the bandwagon, I simply refused to read the books and even made fun of them and anyone that read them. I mean, it is a children’s book, right?! However, after a great deal of time, I was greatly intrigued by them and eventually succumbed to my curiosity and read the first book.
Since that day (after completely devouring the book in half the day) I have been completely hooked on the series. I have sometimes wondered whether Rowling or her publishers have infused illegal drugs into the pages. For those of you that are still in the same position that I used to be, I highly recommend that you give it a try. At least read a few chapters and see if it has any effect on you. Of course it is not for everyone–but it is a very powerful, entertaining, meaningful, and emotional adventure that has been a great experience for me. After reading this 7th book, I believe that it will be one of those series that continues to be a favorite read for people of any age.
I applaud J. K. Rowling and thank her for sharing this wonderful tale with us all!
Posted by geetarista July 23, 2007
I read an interesting article that discussed public libraries and the ability to access a great deal of ebooks, articles, pictures, music, etc., instead of just stealing it from the internet. Although some may say that there is a fine line between the two, only one of the two choices is legal.
I previously wrote about my opinion on the importance of the public library, and I think that this idea only further drives the point.
Posted by geetarista July 23, 2007
As I have been learning about web design and development, I have often wondered what the difference is between the two. There are many blogs, articles, web sites, applications, etc. that are available online that both refer to both web design and web development and I have to admit that it can be confusing. However, I think that the basic definition and difference between these two terms or fields can be simple.
Web design usually refers to the aesthetic design of a web page and how it relates to the effects on the user. Usually a web designer is someone that is a great graphic designer that understands the artistic nature of a web site and how important are the color scheme, layout, typography, and general presentation of a site. In addition to being adept with graphics, web designers are additionally able to code in HTML and CSS and many also animate with Flash.
Web development on the other hand is more geared toward the development of applications on the web and programming languages such as PHP, JSP, ASP, Ruby, etc. In other words, web development deals more with the functionality of a web site and the interaction that the users will have with those functions. Web developers are more focused on security, scalability, performance, and architecture than how pretty the web application is.
I know that these “definitions” are very basic, but this is how I understand it based on my experience. It does not mean that web design and web development are completely different and that someone cannot be both. On the contrary, I believe that it is important to have experience with both aspects of creating web sites and applications. Many companies have web designers that work on the front end while developers work on the back end of the application. I do not think that one is better or more important that the other, but that each is relative to the individual, company, web site, or web application. Since I love everything to do with it all, I hope to become both a web designer as well as a web developer.
Posted by geetarista July 22, 2007
Sometimes I think about why I even have a blog and if it is worth the time and money to keep it. I am not making any money from this blog and I don’t really expect to, even if this site becomes popular to others. I know that a lot of people have a blog to make money, but I do not really think that it is something that I am interested in doing. I even sometimes wonder if people read this blog or will continue to read it if I keep writing here. However, I have lately been thinking about why I want to do it and about what benefits it can bring to myself as well as others. Here are a few of the things that I have been thinking about lately:
- Practicing and improving writing skills
- Keeping a public journal that is beneficial to everyone
- Sharing experiences that I have had with others
- Self promotion
- Your blog is your resume
- Using it as a notebook to record what I have learned
Although this is not an exhaustive list of the benefits of blogging, I think that these points are important for a blog.
Posted by geetarista July 11, 2007
Changing my hosting was pretty much flawless for me, but there was just one thing that I wanted to change in Wordpress that has been bothering me for a while. The old permalink structure that I was using before would look like this:
http://robbycolvin.info/year/month/day/post-name/
The only problem with this was that if I updated or changed a post, it would change the permalink structure for that post which is not desirable. The reason is that search engine listings are messed up and people that have bookmarked those links will be unable to re-visit them.
So I decided to change the structure of my permalinks to /archive/post-name. This way, I’ll never really have to worry about changing the post, unless I change the name, which I never would do anyway. The only problem is that I now have the same problem that I had in the first place: all my links are now messed up. Luckily for me, I found two plug-ins that fix this problem and now I do not have to worry about it at all. They are Dean’s Permalinks Migration and Permalink Redirect. For some reason, I had to install both of these plug-ins for everything to work, but I am very satisfied with the result.
