Archives
September 18, 2007
Web design has been transformed over the last many years. In many ways, the skills a web designer needed in 1996 are totally different from the skills you need in 2007 … and the foreseeable future.
I won’t go into what you needed in the past, because it matters not. So let’s talk about what you need to know today, to be a complete and competitive web designer.
The Web Designer’s Study Guide:
- HTML
- CSS
- PHP
- Javascript
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September 15, 2007
Killersites.com was started by David Siegal (of ‘Creating Killer Web Sites’ fame) back around 1996. This was effectively the first version of the site.
In 2002-2003, I officially took over and started version 2 of killersites.com. It has gone through a lot of changes over the last 4-5 years that has resulted in a lot of web design related content … too much content to manage with html, php and jsp pages running all over the place!
… It is time for a major shift.
WordPress vs. Drupal and Killersites.com version 3:
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September 6, 2007
Hi,
I’ve update my beginners tutorial on object oriented PHP adding steps 18-22.
Again, this is a code intensive article where I expect you to follow along with your PHP editors.
More to come.
Thanks,
Stefan Mischook
www.killerphp.com
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August 26, 2007
Hi,
I’ve update my beginners tutorial on object oriented PHP adding steps 12-17. I cover two new basic OO concepts in these steps:
- Constructors.
- Access modifiers.
Again this is a code intensive article where I expect you to follow along with your PHP editors.
More to come.
Thanks,
Stefan Mischook
www.killerphp.com
www.killersites.com
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August 23, 2007
Hi,
I just released part 1 of a two part tutorial that teaches object oriented PHP to total beginners.
The tutorial is made up of 23 simple steps where you will learn practical OO PHP.
From the tutorial:
This tutorial is designed to teach total beginners object oriented PHP.
This is not a long-winded theoretical blathering that you see all too often; instead, we actually start writing OO code very quickly.
… I believe that this ‘hands-on’ style of learning, makes understanding OO (object oriented) PHP much easier … and less boring too!
So before you begin, get out your favorite PHP code editor and be ready to write and run some object oriented PHP code.
Object Oriented PHP Tutorial
I hope you guys find it useful.
Thanks,
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
www.killerphp.com
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August 21, 2007
Hi,
As some of you may know, I’ve been slowly working on a new set of video tutorials that teachs you how to start and run a small web design business.
You can find the videos posted here:
Business of Web Design video tutorial
I have had a few request for more details, so I decided to release a PDF document that outlines the videos. This is still a work in progress … any comments would be appreciated.
PDF: business-of-web-design-project-plan.pdf
Thanks,
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
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August 14, 2007
Hi,
With some of my post, I try to come up with a story to add a little ‘color’ my writing…. my mother complains when I don’t.
Unfortunately, unless you want to hear about the ongoing saga of my teeth, I haven’t much to say.
🙁
OK, I have something to say:
One thing that painful teeth have taught me; take care of little things before they turn into big things. Otherwise you risk an expensive and painful punishment for being lazy.
Which reminds me of an expression (I think?) I came up with:
“You either pay now … or you pay later with interest!”
Keep that in mind in all aspects of life.
Onto things nerd-like:
We made some good progress getting the new free video tutorial website up and running – www.idea22.com.
We now have a cool new interface that allows you to quickly browse through the last 50 videos. We’ve fixed a lot of bugs and polished up the look of the site overall. You should also check out the full-screen view of the videos – I think they are the sharpest on the Web.
That’s all well and good, but what’s in it for you? Well, we got a bunch of new videos up on things like:
* – Web design
* – PHP
* – Photoshop
I invite you to take a look, join up and please comment on the videos and the site. We are still doing a lot of work and your input will help us build a better web site.
Some specific pages:
http://www.idea22.com/video/details/id/200708147122666750
http://www.idea22.com/video/details/id/200708082373232020
A few of videos are actually from the killersites.com archive … buried deep in killersites.com. I am moving them all to idea22.com over the next little while so they are easy to find.
Thanks,
Stefan Mischook
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August 13, 2007
Youtube is the new big thing on the Web. But you have to wonder why Youtube got so big so fast?
… Consider that there are web sites that have existed long before Youtube and did the exact same thing – user generated videos/video sharing.
As a web designer/web developer, my first instinct would be to look at:
- Functionality
- Usability
I found that Youtube is very good in both camps (for the most part,) but so are several other video sharing sites.
The answer to Youtube’s success:
Youtube went to the top because of content.
Unfortunately, the content that drives Youtube is the content that the other big video sharing sites (ethically) removed from their websites – all the professionally produced videos.
.. We all like to see videos of cats falling off tables once in a while, but let’s be honest, most of us go to Youtube to see copyrighted videos:
- The Daily Show
- Colber Report
- Family Guy
… etc.
While the other video sharing sites removed copyrighted material, Youtube turned a blind eye (at least that is what I think,) and Youtube saw its’ traffic skyrocket.
So now Youtube is being sued left and right … they deserve it. If someone was selling ad space from an audience largely attracted by my hard work (not that would ever happen …) I would be pretty pissed off.
Side note:
My relatively simple video tutorials take a while to produce: you are taking about 5-7 hrs of work (easily) for every hour of video!
–
Google says (Google bought Youtube) that in September it will introduce its’ video filtering technology and flush out the stolen content. I wonder if Youtube’s traffic will go the way of Napster?
Just in case you forget; Napster was the big name in music sharing (again stolen content,) until they were sued and forced to remove all the big-name songs. Napster has since fallen off the radar … no content.
Content is King:
That was the first rule of web design I learned back in 1994: content is king. You have to have good usability etc .. but at the end of the day, a web site needs good content.
… And that (my nerd friends,) is what Youtube and Napster can teach us about the Web.
Thanks for reading,
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
www.killerphp.com
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July 23, 2007
I don’t want to go on too long on how you should not be so concerned about failure … for fear of sounding like one of those self-help ‘gurus’. Ack!
But it needs to be quickly address anyhow …
Why are people so fearful of failure?
… Wait a second, that’s a really stupid question!
People hate to fail because we’ve been conditioned to think it’s terrible:
- You can’t fail a test – your parents will punish you.
- You can never fail a class at school – your whole academic career will be damaged.
- You can’t ever get rejected – because you’ll never meet someone new!
The problem with this FALSE belief is that it does not reflect reality and the patterns of the most accomplished people.
… To get anywhere, you have to try and fail. And then try again … and fail. And then try again.
WHY FAILURE IS A GOOD THING
When you fail at something, you can be sure that you are moving towards developing a new skill. If you’ve never failed, it is probably because you never challenged yourself – that’s a bad thing.
CONCLUSION
As you travel on the road to developing your web design business, you will undoubtedly face a few failures along the way.
… Don’t get too down on yourself when you do hit the expected road-blocks! Just recognize where you messed up and try not to do it again, and move on.
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
www.studioweb.com
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July 23, 2007
In the business of web design (any business really,) there are two fundamental rules of risk you can use to evaluate whether or not you should take a particular risk:
- If what you are attempting do does not work out … will it kill you?
- Does the potential gain justify the risk?
THE FIRST RULE OF RISK
There is an old gamblers expression someone taught me years ago that sums this up nicely:
‘Don’t go to the track with money you can’t afford to lose.’
This rule tells you, that you should not take any risk that would kill your business, if the risk should prove unsuccessful. Keep in mind that most business projects fail; yep, most business ventures, new products whatever … fail!
All-or-nothing type gambles may work once or twice, but eventually something will screw up. If you are one of those guys/girls who puts it ‘all on the line’ everytime, you are doomed to struggle the rest of your life.
As a web designer building a business, you need to learn to take calculated risk that if they should fail, you will be able to continue along as you did before.
For example; lets take a look at a classic situation: the big contract.
Many times when people start a new business, they want to go after the big contract with the big clients right away.
… This is a fatal mistake because of a few things:
- Big business will almost always only deal with big companies … not small start-ups.
- Big clients and big contracts will cost you a lot of time just to make proposals and bids – this cost a lot of precious time where you could be earning actual money doing work for small clients.
- Big business can be tricky to deal with: they know they’re big and so they have a tendency to push their weight around.
Trying to take on a big contract is a high risk decision because chances are you will not get the contract. Also, the process of trying to get it will cost a lot … possibly your business. It is not worth the risk.
You are better to go after byte-sized contracts and slowly build up a stable of clients that will help you develop your web design work-flow and your financial base. In time you will be able to tackle the larger projects knowing that if you don’t land them, it won’t sink you.
Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com
www.studioweb.com
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