In my previous blog I mentioned that I am taking the move away from the windows ruled world into the empire that is apple.
I never knew anything about Mac’s until I spent the summer working for nzime where the mention of the words “Windows” or “Microsoft” is a crime punishable by death (well almost). I started work on a Mac Pro running 10.4 (Tiger) but then gave up the processing power to a higher cause (Will the designer) and downgraded to the trusty old G4. Lets face it Dreamweaver isn’t the most resource hungry program on the market.
Spending 8 hours a day in this magical environment of docks and expose showed me a new light, a new way of thinking. The Apple way. Things just seemed easier, System crashes were non existent. Windows has done me good in the past and I wouldn’t be where I am now if it wasn’t for learning how to resolve the mass of Windows errors I encountered throughout the years.
10.4 showed me the new light but this is only the beginning of my experience as Mac 10.5 (Leopard) is due out at the end of this month and it is bringing a whole new host of features to the table. In this list includes: Spaces, Time Machine and a shiny new desktop.
Bring this all together with a brand new iMAC with a 2.8Ghz Intel Core Duo and a few gigs of ram and a 24inch display gives us a nice little party to celebrate the end of a Microsoft era.
Well until I install Windows on parallels to do all the annoying things Microsoft has managed to monopolize.
The blog has been out of action for a few months now as I have been working on a new blogging system and site design. Both of these are still a work in progress but I hope to have them up soon.
I have been very busy recently working freelance in house for Nzime Design Consultants in Nottingham over the summer months. My main role was PHP/MySQL programming, spending much of the time building a system for them to handle all of their jobs, quotes, clients and passwords (securely). Building this system was a good excuse for my to get to grips with OOP (Object Oriented Programming). This new found knowledge has too me away from procedural code for life, I don’t know how I ever lived without OOPHP.
I am now back at good old university and into my final year. The workload is mounting extremely fast. With a Showcase project, Dissertation and 4 other units to get grades in the social life is going to have to be put on hold and all the games removed from the hard drive. Well apart from Counter-Strike, it would take more than a high workload to remove that.
For my final showcase project I am going to be building an e-Commerce system which I plan to have finished for December. It will be built in OOPHP/MySQL with use on AJAX in areas of the admin to increase usability.
The dissertation is also well underway, which is going to be on “Accessibility on the web in small to medium enterprises”. The reason I chose this topic is that Accessibility and Usability is something I have a passion for and believe should be took into account on every website.
On other developments spending the summer in a design studio working on Apple Mac OSX I have decided that I want to remove myself from the claws of Microsoft and move to Apples Leopard which is due for release later this month. If a 24” shiny new iMac doesn’t tempt you to make the move nothing will.
Every day when I am surfing the internet I come across a website advertising someone who calls them self a “Web Developer” or “Web Designer”. When I come look at these sites I start looking for core aspects of their website which give off their skills and how much of a Developer/Designer they are.
It annoys me to say that most of the websites I come across offering web design/web development are made by people who are completely clueless about all aspects of building a website. These are the people I call the cowboys.
The cowboys are the people who will build you a website for £50. It may look good but it won’t conform to any web standards. Accessibility won’t even be in the developers/designers vocabulary and it’s more than likely doing to be a Photoshop cutout or Dreamweaver/Frontpage WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get).There both as bad as each other.
5 years ago I have to admit I was one of these people but I didn’t expect to get any clients it was more something I did for friends and for free. But I have come a long way since then and Web Standards and Accessibility are at the core of any website I make. But they aren’t the only things which need to be taken into account when building a website. HCI (Human Computer Interaction) is an aspect which very few designers take into account when building a website. They work on the concept of: it looks pretty or it’s artistic. But that is found in all designers in all areas where they are required it’s why we employ them. It’s then down to the problem solvers to turn it into something which is user friendly.
Recently I came across a website and this person claimed to have built websites professionally for a career. Yet they were working with Photoshop cutouts and WYSIWYG HTML generated by Dreamweaver in tables (Tables are a BIG NO for layouts).
I also found this little gem of a quote:
“Recently I have begun to encode my web sites in PHP and MySQL so I can bring databases into my web sites for catalogues, profiles and more.“
Firstly lets start on the wording of Bringing databases into my website. I’m sorry but I have never heard of bringing a database into a website. You use a combination of SQL and a server side language to retrieve data from within a database table. Secondly “encode my web sites in PHP and MySQL“. Encode: The process of compressing audio or video
I don’t see where PHP or MySQL relates to this definition. And MySQL is the database application not a language. SQL is the language used to communicate with databases such as MySQL, SQL Server and PostgreSQL.
I just feel that too many people are getting ripped off/conned by these cowboy Web Designers/Web Developers. A cheap website will never/rarely be a good website.
Anyone can make a website but it takes skill and knowledge to make a good website!
Just because a website looks good it doesn’t mean it’s a good website there is A LOT more to it than a few pretty pictures!