Anyone who has read anything I’ve written (or watched my video blogs,) knows that I can’t stand academics. I was particularly vocal against the Web Standards zealots of the early 2000’s, wherein reality was pushed aside in favor of code purity.
These nerds would ignore reality – for example:
They would ignore how the most popular web browsers would interpret HTML and CSS code – which often times, was in a method contrary to their nerd wet-dreams. As such, they would come up with harebrained hacks to jam in their ‘compliant’ code … hacks that eventually broke in many cases, defeating the supposed original purpose of the Web Standards movement!
They would also obfuscate what the actual browser use was in terms of real people surfing the Web. They would come out with numbers that did not reflect the reality they were desperately trying to ignore: that the vast majority of people surfing the Web were using web browsers (Internet Explorer) that did not play nice with their ideas of how a web browser should read code.
… It gets even more stupid: even the basic web design cycle seemed to be ignored, where their recommendations would actually get in the way of productive web design and development. I am convinced many of the big names in this movement barely created websites in, or for the real-world – they were academics.
Just about every small business owner knows that they have to have a website. What many don’t know, is that they also have to have basic web design skills … yes, even learning the dreaded code behind the pages: HTML and CSS.
Why do you need to know HTML and CSS?
For a few reasons:
To be able to make small changes to your site, without having to call your web designer every two minutes!
To be able to judge (to a certain extent) how long it might take to make a change to your website.
To know what your options are regarding a website.
… Let’s tackle each of these:
MAKING SMALL CHANGES TO YOUR WEBSITE
Websites are in constant need of updates, no question. It could be some new text you want add, corrections, adding a new image or even a new page. Many of these jobs are actually pretty easy to do with even a simple understanding of HTML and CSS.
So rather than having to reach your web designer, waiting for he/she to get back to you, just learn some basic web design and you will save a lot of time, headaches and even some money.
This is a subscription service that works a lot like Netflix, where you can access our entire collection and watch as many videos you want. We have a standard and a premium subscription where with the premium subscription, you have access to all the videos, sources files and we give you one year access.
3. And of course, the KillerSites University where you get the interactive video training experience:
You can either buy individual courses or subscribe to access all of the training courses. KillerSites University is an interactive learning system, where you are quizzed and code challenged, while you watch videos that teach web design and web programming.
I got a good question from someone wanting to learn web design:
… if I buy your videos on how to construct a website, do I not also have to purchase the software to actually make the website, such as DreamWeaver or some other software?
My answer:
Hi James,
To create web sites, you don’t have to buy the expensive commercial packages like Dreamweaver. There are many free alternatives that work great and in fact, we include one in this package:
That said, we teach with the popular commercial products because they are popular. But once you learn to work with say Dreamweaver, any web design program you use will be easy because they are work in the same way.
.. Like driving a car, it doesn’t matter which car it is you are driving.
I really like the style of the Head First series from O’reilly – they’ve managed to create a style of nerdbook that looks more like a graphic novel, than a tech book.
Let’s start with the verdict for this particular title:
Head First HTML5 Programming is a good book if you know HTML, CSS and at least a little Javascript.
Some details …
Basically it covers many of the big features in HTML5 and the surrounding technologies. The authors make heavy use of graphics and storylines to make the book more entertaining. If you are more of a beginner when it comes to programming or web application development, then I think this presentation style will be great for you.
If on the other hand, you are a hardcore grizzled nerd programmer, the wordy, graphic and puzzle rich book might annoy you a bit. That’s OK, because O’reilly has their more traditional style of book for you.
Some of the topics covered:
Canvas: drawing with HTML5
HTML5 video
Web Storage – savings files to client computers – much better than JavaScript cookies!
Web Workers – threading with HTML5!! Yea, this particular HTML5 capability freaked me out.
There’s more topics covered including some quick introductions to JavaScript and Dom scripting. Again, if you are new to programming, I think these sections will be a little too much to handle. That’s OK, you have our super fantastically easy KillerSites JavaScript video training to cover you there.
😉
Being a shameless self promoter that I am, we also have our own HTML5 interactive video courses you can learn from. It’s all good, depending on how you like to learn.
Once in a while I use an email conversation as a blog post – I get good questions from people all the time. So, in this email, someone wanted to know about software used in building web sites – check it out:
… This is the 60 thousand dollar question that no one I ask seems to be able to answer. What programs do you need to be a functioning professional web designer? (Adobe, Dreamweaver,etc.)
And do you know price ranges? I want to have the programs before I get the program so I can hit the ground running.
Thanks,
Jimmy
My answer:
Hi Steve,
The answer to the $60 000 question: You don’t need any!!!
Yep, once you start learning (video #1) you will see that you can build websites with a simple text editor like notepad!! Programs like Dreamweaver can speed up the process … but these days, they are far, far less important than they used to be.
In the first course of the Complete Web Designer package, I demonstrate building a site using notepad and textedit (for Mac people) … and I also include a free web design program that does a lot of what Dreamweaver does.
… You have many options.
Image Editors
In terms of editing images, there are cheap and free alternatives to Photoshop that will do everything you need – web image editing isn’t that complex. The Gimp and Aviary come to mind.
That said, we teach the techniques with Dreamweaver and Photoshop since they are the industry leaders. But the skills you learn there are 100% transferable to the free alternatives I mentioned.
… For the purpose of learning, just download the FREE 30 day trials of Adobe Dreamweaver and Photoshop … more than enough time to learn. Once you have the know how, you can jump to any of the free alternatives or go for the Adobe products.
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.
Every so often people ask about building a CMS (content management system) and so, I decided to included a snippet from an email I recently sent. One point I want to make clear; you can build a CMS using any server side programming language (PHP, Ruby, Java etc …) I just recommend PHP because I think that for most people out there, PHP makes sense.
From the email:
Before you can Build a CMS, you need to understand PHP basics … I would recommend either you get some of the basic PHP courses or you get our Complete Programmer package:
… I can almost guarantee that PHP and JavaScript will sink in after doing these courses. We don’t have the fanciest graphics but we do have the easiest courses to understand out there.
To be clear, to tackle the CMS course, you don’t need to do everything in the Complete programmer package … these should get you there:
PHP Basic – 274min
PHP Misc. – 141min
PHP and MySQL Basics – 105min
PHP CRUD + Pagenation – 90min
Beginners Javascript – 301min
PHP and Javascript Form Validation – 60min
… And that is probably overkill. I just want to be sure.
It may seem daunting, but you will find that it moves fast once you get into it. And of course, we have our active web community ready to help should problems occur.
You’re a nerd and professional web designer, what computer would you recommend for someone wanting to get into the web design or web programming business?
My answer:
Being a professional nerd presents many challenges, and one of them shouldn’t be fighting with your computer, viruses or installing hardware!
You also need something very fast and what most people don’t know, a huge part of a computer’s speed is not found in the processor (everyone just thinks processor!!) … no, the biggest bottleneck these days is disk access. Or as we hard-core nerds like to call it: IO.
What is IO?
IO is short for: input / output
… It is the speed of sending and receiving information to and from your computer hard disk. Hard disk speed is huge!!
So what computer has the best IO out there?
MacBook Air
Buy it and be amazed at how fast a computer can move!! Check it out:
