27 June 2008, 11:08 PM

In the 7 years since I first coded HTML I have come across a few problems and bumps in the road to where I am now. I have self learnt HTML, CSS, PHP, ASP and Javascript along with other numerous coding languages. Just recently I have been focussing on typography and design so I may offer that service, website design, to my clients.

There are just a few things that I want to mention to some new web developers that I have gone through and experienced.

Drop the dodgy $5 hosts
I have been shafted by a host once before and it almost cost me a client. These hosts are generally the ones you see that offer $5 hosting and have all these features that are very enticing. But many of them are just young people, many are teens, with a hosting reseller account that want some quick cash, which does usually work.

They just don’t offer the stability or reliability that you get from an actual host like Media Temple. If the reseller doesn’t pay their bill to where they buy the reselling from then there goes their account and yours too or your clients website. It can be a mind field of reseller accounts and dodgy service. My main tip is to stick with the slightly more expensive but better quality hosts like Media Temple, Dreamhost or 1&1, all of which I have dealt with and am happy with their services.

Early learning = Early Success
My plan was to cram in as much experience and knowledge now so I could get the jobs I wanted straight out of school. It will definitely help me get a web developer job with a large spread of coding languages under my belt.

I went to a design agency as a work experience expecting to be given simple office jobs but as it turned out I was coding PHP scripts and got hired as their web developer. That experience has not only started my career but gave me an insight into business and learning design from the staff there. I was only given that opportunity because of my prior learning.

But thats not without sacrifices, that being mainly spare time to go out. It also made me be the family ‘Computer Guy’ which at times can be very annoying.

Anyway thats just a few little things that I wanted to express in my blog. I will hopefully be writing some more blog posts in my spare time.

Do you have any of your own tips or experiences of web developer woes? If you do drop a comment.

Written By: Alex Eckermann -  0 Comment(s) -  Permalink

23 June 2008, 2:18 PM

Well this week so far is not off to a good start. Sick and having a constant headache

Although I have been able to do some coding and I will be releasing a few new features for this blog.

Outside this website I have just been finishing off my school work and the same for TAFE assignments.

Well that’s about it for an update for now. I will be also working on a few CodeIgniter libraries for open use that I have used on this site.

Written By: Alex Eckermann -  0 Comment(s) -  Permalink

17 June 2008, 5:40 PM

Recently I have been going and doing the rounds of getting this site reviewed.

I would firstly like to thank everyone that participated for their opinion and I look forward to many more.

Addition of a profile/showcase of past work
I have had a few people suggest that I have a portfolio created for my work. The thing is that some of my work wasn’t a whole website but rather a small part, like Filemaker integration with a website. I will start to compile a list of work that I will present as a portfolio of my work, but asking clients for their permission first.

So thanks for your suggestions and if you have any more just comment onto this post and I will read them.

Written By: Alex Eckermann -  1 Comment(s) -  Permalink

14 June 2008, 10:03 PM

A slight CSS issue with IE7 has been noticed. When viewing a page with the blog list the page width grows to a un-natural size.

Im debugging on the PC I have here, kinda backwards from my lovely Mac OS.

But an upside is that I have made and released my Flickr module to my front page to add a bit of colour.

Update:
I fixed the issue with the CSS in IE7. Apparently my nice right aligned dates and links in blog posts were throwing out the width. I had to set an outer bounds box to say a specific width and a hidden overflow.

Although the CSS is holding together really well across all browsing platforms. Let me know if you find any more CSS errors.

Written By: Alex Eckermann -  1 Comment(s) -  Permalink