Yet another blog post based on an email question … the email:

Hello Stefan,

I just got through watching your video on basic web design. Before I decide to purchase this beginning video I wanted to ask a few questions.

I am currently seeking alternate ways to generate income. I live in a small town type atmosphere and think maybe there is a future in business web site development. I have built a web site many moons ago using Front Page and it didn’t turn out half bad for not knowing exactly what I was doing.

My questions are:

#1. Is it possible to gain the knowledge to develop attractive beneficial web sites without obtaining a college degree in computer science?

#2. I realize that starting out with the beginner course is the starting point, but where will (or should) that lead?

#3. What is a typical cost for someone to hire a web designer? I don’t want to rake anyone over the coals but feel I should charge a fair affordable price.

#4.In the old days when all we had was dial-up, the key was to keep website design to a minimum so that the pages load faster and keeps the visitor’s interest (same goes for the number of pages). Is this logic still true or are visitors looking for “wow” when they visit a website?

Thanks and look forward to your response.

Chris

My answer:

I’m going to answer you in point form – check it out:

#1. Yes. The best designers and programmers I know have neither.

#2. Once you understand the basics, your decisions as to what your web-specialization should be will be much easier to make. That decision will be largely made based on what you like to do. For example, some people may choose to get into Flash based work while others may choose to get more into PHP.

#3. Cost varies considerably based on the experience and talent of the designer and on where you happen to live.

#4. Speed of the site is always important. But, since we are in the age of Youtube, you have a lot more latitude than what we had in the 1990’s.

That all said, the best place to start your career as a web designer, is to start by learning the basics of HTML and CSS.

I hope that answers your questions,

Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com

Once in a while, I use email questions sent to me as the subject of an article, this time the question is about whether someone should use a Mac or a PC if they want to get into web design.

… I’m thinking of becoming a web designer and I was wondering if I would be better off with a Mac or a PC? Is there any advantage to using one over the other when building websites?

Thanks,

Jason

Short answer: there is no real advantage on either PC (Windows) or Mac when it comes to web design. Here are the two reasons why:

• The technology’s behind websites (HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP etc…) are universal.
• All the major software used in web design production can be found on both Mac and PC. The one exception maybe Web Expression from Microsoft.

Outside of web design, some would argue for Mac and others for PC. I use both, but I can see how some might prefer one or the other. That said, prior to the soon to be released Windows 7, Mac has had Windows beat hand-downs … all things considered.

With Windows 7 coming out though, I’ve heard from many reliable nerd sources, that Microsoft has really improved things a lot.

… I will almost certainly be upgrading my XP box when Windows 7 comes out.

Conclusion:

If you are looking to jump into web design, you are pretty much free with regards to which type of computer to get. I would be making my computer choice based on other things, for example:

• Stability of the operating system.
• Ease of use.
• Cost
• What looks nicer to you!

I hope that helps,

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com

I just updated to Firefox 3.5.2 in hopes that it might fix some issues I have been having with it on Mac. I can’t say if it has fixed anything yet, but I did discover something new: Firefox now supports the free Open Video Format.

What? Don’t we have Flash already?

Yes, we have Flash, Windows Media, Quicktime and others to embed video into our web pages, but in all those cases, we need to use an outside plugin. With this new video format, you just use plain old HTML!

Some details from Wiki:

As originally recommended by HTML 5, these browsers support Theora when embedded by the video element:

* Mozilla Firefox 3.5
* Google Chrome as of version 3.0.182.2 [1]
* Opera video build

-

Theora is the name of this free video compression format/codec and it produces video quality that is about the same as h.264 – the video format Adobe has decided to use to replace their own FLV format. So it should be pretty good.

To encode your videos into Theora, you will need to find a video encoder that does this. There are already several out there and I am sure more will come out over time … since already several browsers can play Theora videos. For now, you may want to try a video encoder that you can install right into Firefox!

Learn more about Theora.

Final comment

This is cool except for the fact that until Internet Explorer allows us to embed Theora … it’s a no go. Internet Explorer still has the vast majority of browser market, so we as web designers have to build within its’ limitations.

Thanks for reading,

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com

… I thought I posted this before, but non of my site searches came up with anything. Here is a common question:

Enjoyed the first video about building web sites. Very clear and to the point. I just have a difficulty since I’m using Mac 10.5.7 and I tried the Text Edit application but didn’t get the same results. I managed to save it to my Desktop as an html file and it did open in the browser but the code just appeared exactly as the code appeared in Text Edit rather than in bold with different font sizes (h6 or h4) or paragraphs and so forth. What am I getting wrong? Am I using the wrong application (SimpleText is an older Mac app).

If you are trying to create an HTML document using a Mac text editor (like Text Edit) and all you are getting is the code being displayed rather than a web page, watch this video on creating an html document with a Mac.

Hope that helps,

Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com

In the following video I answer this question and more importantly, I go into the broader issue of the importance of learning the code behind the web pages – HTML and CSS:

Trying to build websites without a good understanding of HTML and CSS is like petting your cat’s fur the wrong way … it’s a recipe for disaster!

LEARN HTML AND CSS THE EASY WAY

If you need help understanding HTML and CSS, then my Web Design 1 video course will do the trick.

BTW, Golive has been effectively dead since 2008 when Adobe replaced it with Dreamweaver.

Thanks for stopping by.

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com

This is part 2 of my video tutorial on how to use Youtube to deploy videos in web pages. You can may want to also watch part 1 of my Youtube video embed tutorial.

Some final notes:

Video Processing Notes:

Dimensions: 1280 x 720
h.264 (MP4)
5000 kbits/sec

Dimensions: 640 x 480 / 640 x 360
h.264 (MP4)
3000 kbits/sec

Nerd’s Choice: I find 640 x 360 works well for live action videos.

As always, thanks for dropping by.

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com

Hi Guys,

This is interesting news for web designers as it seems Safari is even getting traction in the Windows world:

Apple said Friday that more than 11 million copies of its new Safari 4 web browser have been downloaded in the first three days of its release, including more than six million downloads by users of Microsoft’s Windows operating systems.

Some interesting points about the new Safari 4:

- It uses the Nitro JavaScript engine that executes Javascript code several times faster than IE 8 or Firefox 3.

- Safari (according to Apple) renders HTML three times faster than Firefox 3 or IE 8.

And for Mac users, this is an interesting point:

With the release of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard this September, Safari will run as a 64-bit application, boosting the performance of the Nitro JavaScript engine by up to 50 percent, Apple claims.

Besides the speed improvements, Safari 4 has some really cool features like the Topsites feature that basically gives you a large thumbnail preview of recently viewed web pages.

You can read the full article here:

Apple 11 million downloads …

You can check out Safari’s 150 features here:

Safari’s cool features.

Thanks for reading,

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com

I just released a video where I go into step-by-step detail on how to use Youtube to embed videos in your web pages. This is part one of two.

The video:

Notes from the Video

I assume you have a Youtube account.

There are pro’s and con’s to using Youtube as your means of adding video to your web site:

Pro’s:

- Easy to do, since Youtube provides all the tools you need to embed the video.
- You don’t have to pay for the video bandwidth.

Con’s:

- Videos are public – if you want to embed.
- Youtube branding on your videos.

Video Formats

YouTube accepts videos uploaded in most formats, including .WMV, .AVI, .MKV, .MOV, MPEG, .MP4, DivX, .FLV, and .OGG. It also supports 3GP, allowing videos to be uploaded directly from a mobile phone.

Nerd’s Choice: You should go for MP4 with H.264 encoding.

Programs that output H.264 video

There are many programs that will produce or convert videos into H.264

QuickTime 7 Pro ($29.99)
iMovie (Mac only)

More expensive video software ($300+):

Adobe Flash
Adobe Premiere
Apple Final Cut Pro Express (Mac only)

Note: Windows Movie Maker at this time only outputs WMV.

Nerd’s Choice: I would get QuickTime 7 Pro if you don’t have a professional editing package like Final Cut. If you are on a Mac, you can use iMovie.

Video Dimensions for Youtube

You can with just about any dimensions but Youtube will crop most sizes. These two video sizes Youtube does not alter:

- 1280 x 720 (16×9 HD)
- 640 x 360 (16×9)
- 640 x 480 (4:3 SD)

-

Hope that helps.

Stefan Mischook

1. Using a site like Youtube.
2. Embedding the videos directly using a Flash video player.

I also get into the video formats you can use to embed video in a website:

1. Flash FLV
2. H.264
3. Quicktime video
4. Windows WMV

For details and pro’s and con’s, watch the video:

As you probably noticed, I am using Youtube to deliver this video as part of an ongoing experiment. If you can’t see the video, it is probably because your work place is blocking Youtube. Let me know and I will release another copy of the video on the killersites.com servers.

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com

I recently put out a few new videos on Javascript event handlers:

Javascript Event Handlers Part 1

Javascript Event Handlers Part 2

Javascript Event Handlers Part 3

These are part of my new growing collection of Javascript video tutorials that aim to teach total beginners how to read and write practical Javascript.

I would like to point out that I’ve invested in making the sound for these videos as clear as possible … so let me know what you think.

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com