Programmers Kit

I was recently asked how to handle client requests that are ‘bad’ for usability or just bad in general.

A friend of mine has a client who asked her to do a site that is really, really bad. The client sent an example url of what they are looking for –wow, not good at all.   So she gave them part of what they wanted - a busy page background, but with nice white rounded corners for the main content and text. The look she had was clean and easy to read. Now they come back to her and say that they like it but could she please get rid of the white background and just tile the background image?

So, what to do? My advice to her, do exactly what the client wants. I think she did the right thing - giving the client a little bit of what they were after at first.  If the client keeps pushing toward terrible, she cannot stop it.   She should remove her name from the site and never, ever take credit (or blame) for it.

Filed under: HTML | 1 Comment

Ok - it’s that time of year again!

Students,

Make a post stating which site you choose to optimize and give a brief outline of what you recommend for the site’s marketing plan.

Filed under: SEO | 4 Comments

I really like this article, almost as much as I hate it:

Deadly Web Design Sins

I like it because:

1. It has the name ‘dwight’.

2. It has all the things I hate that people ask me to do, including:

• Blinking Text *SideNote: Please tell me why this was ever cool?!? I don’t get it!
• Marquee text.
• Stupid, stupid frames
• Tables for silly reasons

BTW - I apologize for this post in advance. It’s annoying, I know. I couldn’t even list the other examples of the deadliest sins because they were just too badddddd.

Filed under: General | 1 Comment

I had to laugh when I was reading Gmail’s custom time joke this morning:

Gmail Custom Time April Fools Joke

The idea is that you can send an email in the past.

Here at the college, the students all have gmail accounts. Google didn’t add the joke to their personal accounts, but many of the students have personal gmail accounts outside of the school as well.

I overheard a conversation:

‘Did you see that Google has set it up that you can send an email that is time stamped in the past?’

‘You could send your instructors assignments that were late, but they would never know!’

Filed under: General | No Comments

At this time in the semester, some of my students are asked to create a quote for a fictitious client.

I receive many emails asking “I don’t know how much to charge”.

Never tell someone that you charge $10/hour. Even if you make an ugly page that only the client likes, $10/hour is a slap in the face.

I have found that in the beginning, it is better to charge per page and page elements rather than per hour. You can later charge per hour when the client requests updates.

If you are building a static HTML, 5 page site with no Flash - it may be fair to charge $300. You are trying to build a portfolio and gain a little experience and a little extra cash at the same time.

In the beginning, it may take you 5 hours to figure out one little problem with your CSS - obviously, you cannot pass that charge to the client.

It is always a good idea to search and find out what others are charging for similar websites - and to see current salaries.

You can visit:

http://www.sitepoint.com/article/web-work-should-charge

Filed under: General | 5 Comments

There are some rules to remember when emailing.

Here’s a list of my pet peeves:

1. Writing in all caps: I am not going to read one more thing that is sent to me in all caps. I MEAN IT! See…I was shouting there. IT IS SO ANNOYING!

2. Emails without any white space, punctuations, or breaks: This is really hard to read because I am just going to type and type and never end this sentence well i dont know lol what do you think and i like to misspell can you help me with this but i am not sure with what and wow it looks like i wrote a lot here that is so funny lol ha man sorry this is so long but i haave a lot to say

3. Vague emails: ‘yeah’.'no’ ‘this isn’t working’ - I, like many others, get tons of email just in one day. If the email doesn’t keep the original thread or isn’t specific with the purpose of the email, I will have no recollection of what the heck we are talking about. Don’t make the recipient have to do a lot of work or digging just to answer you.  Without specific questions or details, my brain hurts and all of the emails get jumbled up into one giant mess.  I will then turn off my computer and go to bed, positive that I am never going to answer another email again.

4. Writing ‘I’ in lowercase: Mrs. Latona (second grade, Waterloo elementary - the best teacher ever) was right - this just isn’t cool: ‘i am writing you to see if you can help. i am having a really hard time and i just don’t understand.’

5. Like OMG! LOL!: This is fine if you are writing to a friend, but don’t use acronyms for business emails or when writing to your instructor. Or to your Mom.

Remember, the interpretation of an email is ultimately with the reader…emails can be taken a lot of different ways, and in ways that you may not have intended. It is much different than having a conversation. When in doubt, always go for super-polite and end your email appropriately:

Thank you,

Valerie

Filed under: General | 2 Comments

I am up to 50% complete on the hard level on Guitar Hero. The hard level is going way slower than the medium level.

In other, better news - my son (Gavin, 7 years old) is doing awesomely at Guitar Hero.  He has been competing against people online and not doing too bad. I am pretty proud of him. He can type really well too. Of course, we just had a parent teacher conference and his reading teacher told us that his handwriting is awful. I wanted to ask her who handwrites anything anymore… but decided against it. I bet he could beat her at Guitar Hero.

Filed under: General | 1 Comment

Well, I am officially bored with the look of this site. I have had enough.

So be prepared for some new looks on the site, and some old links that may not work as I have re-worked the site. Check out the sitemap if you need to.

* UPDATE: All links should now work - if you find any that do not, please send me an email.

Filed under: General | 3 Comments

I am often encouraged to learn more about .NET and to get Microsoft certifications.

I know I will probably end up going to training & getting the certs - but…my heart will always be in the Open Source world.

The idea of Open Source is groovy like an afternoon movie. For those that aren’t aware, open source means that the software is open..so improvements can be made by outsiders to the code source.

Has Microsoft ever opened up its source code? uh, no…at least, not to my knowledge.

On top of that, what does Visual Studio offer? The ability to drag & drop code without any real understanding of what is happening? Nevermind the fact that the drag/drops within Visual Studio create the ugliest HTML code ever. I hope to see improvements in Visual Studio 2008. (Fingers crossed!)

My challenge to those just learning - go out there and find some open source software - learn it, improve upon it. Don’t ever rely on software to do your thinking for you - learn how to program, not how to program within a program.

It is great for a up & coming programmer to create software or other applications and submit them to the open source community. It’s a great way to get your name and reputation built.

Not only that, but once you learn how to program without the software, it will be no problem at all to learn the syntax of other languages.

Here are some really good open source resources:

http://www.opensource.org/ - open source initiative site

http://www.opensourcecms.com - I really, really like this site. You can demo open source content management systems and try them out before you download.

http://www.oswd.org/ - Open Source Web Designs. I am not a big fan of this site for my open source designs - although I cannot pinpoint why.

http://www.openwebdesign.org/ - Another open source web design site..I like this one a little more.

http://www.opendesigns.org/ - This one is my favorite of the open source web design sites.

Filed under: PHP | 1 Comment

* These instructions assume you have a folder on your server named ‘administration’.

You can create an administration area in two ways – depending on the needs of the website.

First Method:

You could add a table to the database with username and passwords of allowed users. You would then create an index page inside of the administration folder. This index page will have a form that allows the user to enter name & password. The script will go to the database and try to find the user – if successful; the user is allowed access…otherwise, NOT!

This method is good for multiple users of administration system that have different levels of access.

Second Method:

We will add an .htaccess & .htpasswd file inside of our admin that will limit the users. All users visiting this folder will have the same level of permissions and username/password.

Open textpad.

Paste in the following:

AuthUserFile D:/WAMP/www/administration/.htpasswd
AuthName "Access to Admin"
AuthType Basic

require valid-user

Note: You should change the AuthUserFile Path to whatever your path is. (it may be C:/WAMP/www/admin)

Now visit the following site to generate an .htpasswd file:

.htpasswd generator

It is imperative that you save the files exactly like this: ‘.htaccess’ and ‘.htpasswd’. It looks weird - but this will not work without it.

Save both of these files in your protected directory (admin).

This should now give you a login prompt when you try to go to the folder (Ex: http://localhost/admin)

Filed under: PHP | No Comments