Archive for the ‘Web Design’ Category

Software used in Learning Web Design and Building Websites

Thursday, January 5th, 2012

Hello Everyone!!

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.

I hope that helps,

Stefan

Tags:
Posted in Web Design, Web Design Training | No Comments »

Youtube Upgrades HTML 5 video player as it moves to replace Flash.

Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011

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:

  • enable annotations and captions
  • copy embed code and URL
  • native full-screen support for Firefox and Chrome
  • 480p and 1080p options

Read more: Youtube Upgrades HTML 5 Player.

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.”

Read more: Occupy Flash has stepped up.

Final Comment:

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.

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook
killersites.com

Posted in Adobe, Flash, Real World Web Design, The Web | 1 Comment »

Best Computer for Web Design?

Thursday, November 17th, 2011

I get this all the time:

Stef,

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:

http://www.apple.com/macbookair/

PS: I am not a Mac/Steve Jobs fan-boy … I have an Android phone!!

Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com

Posted in Professional Web Design, Web Design | 10 Comments »

Learning Web Design with Projects

Monday, August 8th, 2011

learn web design by doing

What is the best way to learn web design?

Well, I’ve learned over the years that the best way to learn anything is to just do it. I would say that the theory-to-practical mix, should be say 20% theory and 80% practical.

Yep, academic shills (regardless of profession) are not only useless, they’re down right dangerous!! To avoid becoming an evil useless shill, you need to step it up and actually build websites, write code, make mistakes and learn from it.

We build our courses with that in mind.

If you check out our growing collection of web design training courses, you will notice a few things:

  1. They are very tasks oriented – you learn by doing.
  2. They are very practical – you learn stuff that people actually use in the field!
  3. The teachers are ALL experienced web designers and programmers – no academic shills here!!

Conclusion:

Yep, I’m shilling for our courses, but why not?

:)

Besides, people like our stuff, check out just a small sampling of the emails we get:

www.killertestimonials.com/

Thanks.

Stefan Mischook

Tags:
Posted in Podcast | Videos, Web Design, Web Design Training | No Comments »

Outsourcing and its’ Impact on Web Designers and Programmers

Monday, July 18th, 2011

Hi,

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!

(more…)

Posted in Business of Web Design, General, Professional Web Design, Real World Web Design, Web Design | 4 Comments »

Web Designers Roadmap for 2011

Sunday, June 26th, 2011

web designers study guide

Web Designers Roadmap
June 2011 – By: Stefan Mischook

PDF: web-designer-roadmap

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)

Comments

(more…)

Posted in Professional Web Design, Real World Web Design, Web Design | 31 Comments »

How to get ahead in web design.

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

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:

  1. The Web is many times bigger than it was in the 1990’s.
  2. 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?

  1. HTML 5 and CSS 3.
  2. Tablets and smart phones: iPad, iPhone, Android.
  3. CMS development: Wordpress, Drupal.

More later,

Stefan Mischook

Posted in General, Professional Web Design, Real World Web Design, Web Design | No Comments »

How to Easily Password Protect a Web Page?

Tuesday, May 10th, 2011

question about web design

Hi,

From a recent email sent to me:

Hi I am subscribed to Killersites University. I need to add a section on my website that members only can access with a password. Can you tell me where to look to learn how to do this?

Many thanks

There are a few ways to approach this and the way you choose depends on how complex this needs to be. Your options are:

- use php
- use htaccess
- use wordpress or another cms/blog engine .. it can do this for you.

In video library, you can look at:

Htaccess & Mod_Rewrite (4 Videos):

OR

The Wordpress section.

OR

Learn basic PHP … The video section in the library is: Beginners PHP (16 Videos):

Another thing you should do is to post the question on the forum so others can jump in.

I hope that helps,

Stefan

Tags: ,
Posted in Web Design | No Comments »

Web Designer Video Library Updated.

Sunday, May 1st, 2011

Hi,

I just wanted to mention a couple of changes in the video library:

- we have a new course: New PHP course: Build a Content Management System.
- we now simplified to the subscriber types to just two: Standard (3 month) and Premium (1 year)

Check out the details:

video library subscription types

That’s all for now.

Stefan Mischook
killersites.com

Posted in Podcast | Videos, Web Design | No Comments »

How to get good Google Ranking? Be honest!

Monday, March 14th, 2011

Hi,

This is a question that I get put to me every so often … it goes something like:

Stef,

I noticed you get millions of pageviews a month and was wondering what SEO tricks or tips you may have .. how did you do it? How do you get Google to rank your websites so well?

I don’t have all the answers, and I doubt anyone does since Google keeps their algorithm secret. But over the years, having managed and built several high ranking websites, I can identify one key thing you can do: be honest with Google and your web site visitors.

Honest with Google .. in what way?

One of the first tips I got about websites back in the mid 1990’s was that Content is King. And all these years later, it still is.

The symbiotic relationship with Google

Google NEEDS good content to point to; their business depends on it. And we lowly web site owners need Google (all search engines) to point to us – our business probably depends on it. Keep that in mind as you build your websites and that will go a long way to successfully positioning your web site on Google.

Yes, there is a lot more you can do, but these two simple ideas form the foundation of any successful Google relationship.

:)

Stefan Mischook
killersites.com

Posted in SEO & SEM, Web Design | 2 Comments »

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