Little bit of all things me

Sunday, February 24, 2013

The Goal



Week #2

How am I going to apply this knowledge on web development?

I'm going to build a website for my father's small business. His current one, in my opinion is insufficiently appealing and if it's in my power, I'd like to change that. Now it's going to be a long work in progress and I'm going to need to crank a lot of hours into learning and actually coding, but I think I can pull it off.
It's a transit service company, so I will have to implement schedule pages, policy pages, and a method to set reservations (and link it to an email). I'll reference and emulate the websites of large transportation businesses like Greyhound as I go along. What I aim to do here is not make a blog site with just text and minimal interactivity, but a practical website with heavy utility. Looking pretty far ahead, I can also move on to making a mobile site because I've noticed the poor formatting of my dad's current site on a smartphone browser. Furthermore, it'll be an ongoing project. One that I'll have to maintain, update, and improve upon. It's not simply learning HTML coding, but in my opinion (in this modern era of technology), a necessary life skill. Of course there are professionals, of which I've talked with, but there hefty prices of $600-1000 for just a "decent" website is rather off-putting. At the same time, if they are actually justified in charges these rates, I'm sure the task ahead of me is going to be a rocky road.

From what I've learned about HTML coding so far, it's based on a very technical and logical flow but there's a bunch of nooks and crannies for me to discover and implement. Even once I understand how the whole shebang works, I am still going to need to acquaint myself with the nearly endless list of tags, attributes, and so much more. Still, I'm in this for good now, and I'm going to make the most out of this. Whether the website comes out gorgeously or unusable, it'll be a nice little milestone to my journey towards web developing.

Monday, February 18, 2013

The Concept

Week #1

Web design has been an interest of mine for quite sometime now. The beauty of this DIY project is that it give me the little push to submerge me into this whole new field of learning, as I'm sure was a goal of my instructor in assigning this. It fascinates me how much a website does for a company. Content means next to nothing with an aesthetically-sound  presentation. The design of a website represent, say a company, could mean a potential customer depending on whether or not the website catches and holds onto the visitors attention. We've entered an age of simplistic beauty. Take for example Google, the multinational corporation whose blogging website I'm using right now. Google.com: the search engine that we visit at least 10 times a day. The website is a simple arrangement of the company name in the iconic red, yellow, blue, and green against giant slab of white with a black strip of extra options lining the top. No fancy font or overbearing color gradients. Simple. Easy on the eyes.

Without an appealing website, these visitors, turning away from your website, would flock to another superior website. The classic example: Facebook vs. Myspace. I still remember the days of Myspace. The speed that it died out was rather surprising but why did Facebook destroy it so quickly? Myspace's interface was a cluttered, confusing mess. Facebook on the other hand mimicked the same things that won it for Google. The colors were light and limited (not the neon nonsense of Myspace), and the interface was accessible to the most inexperienced of minds. The logo: Facebook in a simple yet bold font against blue. That's it. It is so plain yet can be picked out of a list of logos at a single glance by any user.

The first step though is learning a medium of coding. I have chosen HTML (HyperText Markup Language) coding, the most popular method of creating web pages. On Blogger, this blog website by Google that I'm currently typing from, it gives two options while in the text edit: Compose and HTML. Compose is simply for inputting text and dragging in pictures. You can click a couple button up ahead in the toolbox to complete additional tasks too. In HTML mode, everything is translated into code. If you had an embed code, this would be where you'd paste it into. This option is made available to the more computer-savvy bloggers (of whom I hope to be part of as a result of this endeavor) who need the flexibility of that coding makes possible.

I have a rather experienced friend who has created website professionally that recommended using Udacity.com in my learning process. The website includes video tutorials ranging from beginner intro courses to the more advanced freaky-deaky stuff. Most of my resources will be found online including programs for creating and simulating HTML codings. This friend of mine will be on hand to help when I'm in need.

With a plan of attack, it's time to start learning the art of HTML coding.