It seems that Google and Youtube are moving quickly to replace the Flash video player; they just released a new HTML 5 video player for Youtube that does a bunch of things:
I know the Flash people are going to be pissed at me (again!) for suggestion the obvious: Flash is quickly moving into obsolescence.
From PC Mag:
Adobe confirmed Monday that it will release one more version of Flash Player for the mobile Web to accommodate Android 4.0, but that will be the final update.
“Adobe will release one more version of the Flash Player for mobile browsing, which will provide support for Android 4.0, and one more release of the Flash Linux Porting Kit—both expected to be released before the end of this year,” an Adobe spokesman said via email. “After that time, Adobe will continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates.”
Occupy Flash!!
I’m all for advancing technology, but this is really vicious!! We now have a group who is actively looking to kill Flash:
Occupy Flash has stepped into the breach with an ambitious goal: “To get the world to uninstall the Flash Player plug-in from their desktop browsers.”
I was one of the first users of Flash in the world – back in the 1990’s when it was called Future Splash. But being a nimble nerd who is language/platform agnostic … I’ve learned to move on from fading technologies, not wanting to fade right along with them. In biology they say the most successful species are the most adaptable; we web nerds have to be ultra nimble too.
Though it will probably take a few years for Flash to fade away into a niche, Killersites has always been about PRACTICAL web training and not getting stuck on a technology. The writing is on the wall, even Adobe is adopting HTML 5 and CSS 3.
The one great fear any nerd has is the specter of outsourcing – will my job be outsourced to some cheaper part of the world?
Yes, free trade is really not free trade, it’s actually opening up barriers to allow big American, Canadian and European companies to ship jobs to much poorer countries so that they can save money on cheap labor.
The people who benefit are:
The executives of the big companies, since they can pay themselves big bonuses. Of course, they are the few who WILL NOT have their jobs outsourced!
The hard working people in the poorer countries – people of the west should not bear them any ill will. They are simply trying to earn a living like anyone else.
Bankers – who see the stock prices rise in the publicly traded corporations. In fact, it seems the big Wall Street banks were the major force behind outsourcing.
… But it is not all bad for SMART web designers and programmers working in the crumbling west. Read on and learn how!
The skills required in modern web design are constantly changing … that’s because the Web itself is always changing. If you want to be successful as either a web professional (web designer / programmer) or as web site owner, you have to keep up!
What to learn (as of 2011-2012) – in order of priority:
1. HTML
2. CSS
3. PHP basics
4. Javascript
5. JQuery
6. WordPress
7. OOP PHP (for programmers only)
8. HTML 5 and CSS 3
9. iPad / iPhone (choice of either: Objective C or HTML 5 + CSS 3)
One of my main motivations is to teach you web design skills that are practical, marketable and in the end, will make you more money. We want to teach you how to make a living with those skills.
… Yes, web design for cash is a good thing – in fact, it’s the goal for many of us!
How to beat the competition:
Though the Web is growing faster than ever before, you still have a lot of competition out there when it comes to web design jobs. In fact, there are many more web designers today than ever before. Fortunately, we have a couple of big things going for us:
The Web is many times bigger than it was in the 1990’s.
Like the 1990’s, the key to getting ahead of the competition is not all that hard because (as always) we have one thing on our side: laziness! Yes, people are lazy.
The more you learn, the more you earn:
The key to getting ahead is found in learning. The more you know, the easier it will be to find work, to land that contract and to charge more for your time. It is important that you as a web professional continue to develop your skills and to look to what is coming around the bend – those who jump onto the next web technology trend, will be able to monetize that upside.
… Since most people are lazy and will only learn new techniques when they absolutely have to, all you need to do to get ahead, is to continue to the learn.
So, what are the web skills for today and tomorrow?
One of the early lessons in my business life was that to make money, you had to figure out the trends going forward.
… You can’t be looking at what was popular last year and you shouldn’t pay too much attention to what might happen 5 years from now – you need to figure out what will be the in thing within the next 12-18 months.
Web Design Trends of 2011
My predictions are as follows:
Android development – this means HTML5 and CSS3
iOS development – this means HTML5 , CSS3 and for programmers: objective C.
Small business website development – this means PHP or Ruby, Javascript/Jquery and learn a blog program like WordPress or a CMS like Drupal. Of course these days, WordPress is pretty much a CMS too.
So there you have it. Concentrate on learning one of these and you should do well this coming year.
I would like your advice … I have NO experience at all in web design … not very artistic or good at math!! Do I need these talents to become a web designer?
Teresa
Hi Teresa,
I have good news for you:
1. You don’t need to be artistic to be a great web designer.
2. You don’t need to be good at math to be web designer.
You need to learn to be organized and persistent thought.
Shameless self promotion:
If you want to save money and get extra stuff not found elsewhere, then the Complete Web Designer is the best deal … by far:
I recently got an email from a student learning web design (and some basic web programming) … and he said something like this:
I took a web design course and the syllabus only taught Perl …
Wow! They are still teaching Perl!
Perl (is not) part of the modern web … for the most part.
Yes Perl is a powerful language and yes it is still used by a shrinking number of die-hard zealots. But these days, you have a few other languages that are just so much better suited for today’s modern web design and programming:
PHP
Ruby
Java
… And there are more.
Perl’s power without its’ weakness.
Perl’s power was largely found in something called regular expressions – RE (as nerd’s call it,) can process and parse text like nothing else. It is tricky to use but so powerful it is, that most … if not all modern programming languages have it built-in now. So Perl’s secret weapon is now gone and all you are left with is the weakness.
Some of my best posts (at least IMHO) are derived from questions put to me by students and visitors to one of our ‘killer’ sites.
😉
So, this time around, I have a great question from an old school Oracle developer who wants to get into the web game:
Hi Stefan,
Speaking for myself, I’m a former Oracle application and database developer (10 yrs exp) who’s looking to transition to freelance web design/development, and will likely become a subscriber to KillerSites University in short order.
My question for you is this: would I need to shell out for Dreamweaver in order to derive maximum benefit from the site’s video tutorials (HTML/CSS/JavaScript/PHP/mySQL)? Or, could I get by using a combination of free tools, such as Amaya w/TopStyle Lite?
Also, how crucial is the graphics component of web design for someone who wishes to become a web developer (ultimate emphasis on the programming side)? My artistic and spatial skills are rather limited, to put it mildly (thought modality is decidedly more verbal than visual)?
Thank you for your help.
Nick
The answer:
Hi Nick,
Dreamweaver is just an option. We use Dreamweaver to teach web design software, because it is the most widely used commercial package out there … and besides, the concepts carry forward to most other web design programs.
… But keep in mind and as you are probably aware, many web designers will use a simple text editor for much of their work.
🙂
How about designer/graphics skills?
Graphics are not necessarily important because you can leverage the many templates that are out there. Besides, if you follow a few basic design principles, you can make a simple page look good.
The truth of the matter is that still today, it is the coder/programmer who makes the big money and gets many more jobs than the average designer. The exception of course, is if you are a talented designer – then you’ll do very well too.
These two training packages are probably what you are looking for:
I always find it a challenge to balance the aesthetic of the site, while still keeping it usable. On top of that, I don’t want to overload visitors with my sales pitch (for my video courses) … yet I still want to sell videos.
🙁
New Video Courses
This blog post itself is an example of that; I want to mention our new web design video training packages, but I also want to give you guys some useful information. So first, the useful information:
The Web ‘likes’ the soft sell.
That means that your product information should be interwoven with something useful or interesting. Pretty simple.
So back to our new home page with the rotating top banner .. pretty nifty stuff and easily done with JQuery … something we teach come to think of it!
😉
So my question to you is, do you think our home page is becoming too commercial?
