I just installed VMware Fusion Version 3.0.1 (215242) … and it seems to have solved the problems I listed below. Thanks be to the nerds – I use Fusion a lot!
The original post …
Hi,
I use both Windows and Mac machines at work. But still, when on the Mac, it is useful to have Windows available for those rare occasions where you need to jump quickly into Windows … some programs can still only be found on Windows.
You have a few choices when it comes to installing Windows on your Mac, but for me, Vmware Fusion has been my favorite because it works really well and hasn’t given me any problems … until now.
VMware-Fusion-3.0 is Buggy
I just installed and soon after, uninstalled the latest version (VMware Fusion 3) because Fusion 3:
– ran really slow as compared to VMware Fusion 2.x
– could not connect to the netwok adaptor card and thus the Web.
So once again, I broke my own rule of NEVER upgrading software, until at least a few months after the release date … for the bugs to work themselves out.
… For Microsoft software, I would extend that to as long as a year!
Facebook is one of the predominate social networking platforms out there today … ok, we all know that. Anyway, I have problems with many social networking sites … Facebook though, is a special beast.
The top 3 things that I don’t like about Facebook:
Security issues.
Privacy issues.
Lousy user interface.
Security
Putting all that information out there for everyone to see, for Facebook to catalog and sell … makes it really easy for people to create detailed profiles about you. Maybe I’m just an overly cautious nerd programmer, but I’m thinking that having all this personal information out there is not a good thing.
Privacy issues
Very much related to the security issue I just mentioned, privacy is lost when you start posting everything about yourself on Facebook. Another problem is the social aspect of it all – you may find yourself ‘connected’ to people by accident you may not want to be connected to.
It happened to me once, a friend of mine, who was friends with these Russian girls (that I did not know) … anyway, the Russian chicks started posting stuff to my profile page (something called The Wall) and that got me into trouble with someone, though I really had nothing to do with this.
.. Russian girls on Facebook can spell trouble!
Lousy user interface
Without a doubt, Facebook has a really sucky user interface. You’d figure with all that venture capitol money being pumped into that beast, they could get that right. Sending emails is a pain and Outlook, Thunderbird and just about every other email program works much better.
… The short time I used Facebook when I was traveling around Asia, I wasn’t sure half the time if what I was writing was public or private! It got to the point where I was a little nervous about posting anything.
Once in a while, I will step away from teaching raw web design and web programming and look at things from a broader, more strategic perspective. This is one example of that …
One of the biggest mistakes people often make, is trying to develop skills in areas that they suck in. For example, you maybe good at writing HTML and CSS code, yet you still have a terrible time at making your pages look good.
… Let’s face it, some people just don’t have that artistic/designers eye.
I wrote a quick article on what you should know (in terms of nerd skills) to be a professional web designer. From the article:
The skills of a professional web designer are constantly changing because the Web is constantly changing.
This fast-paced nature of the Web is considered good by some (because it opens up opportunity) while others hate it because you have to be ready to learn new web design skills regularly.
… Personally, I see it as an opportunity with a headache!
I’m not sure how pretentious it is to quote your own writing .. I’ll let you decide. Anyway, check it out:
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.
Once and a while I use an email question as the basis of a blog post. This time, someone wanted to know about Dreamweaver and PHP:
Hi Stefan,
I am looking to get some videos on using Dreamweaver cs4 creating dynamic sites with PHP and MYSQL, do you have any videos on this using the drag and drop features etc with some code writing also?
Many thanks
Andy
My answer:
Hi Andrew,
The short answer:
Dreamweaver‘s drag and drop features are very brittle. I was a beta
tester for DW CS4 and the programmers themselves told me that they would
be looking to trash it for the next version of Dreamweaver – they knew
it was a mess.
… It can be used for simple things (and prototyping), but the code is so messy and
convoluted, that any changes that you will probably have to make to
your project could be a nightmare. You are much better off learning PHP
and using Dreamweaver as a PHP code editor … and it’s pretty good at that.
In my basic course on PHP, I use Dreamweaver as the code editor and I
touch on in as far as how Dreamweaver can be used to write PHP code. You
can see a bunch of sample videos here: http://www.killerphp.com/videos/
I am happy to announce our new Flash CS4 video tutorials are finally ready! It only took me a year to get Santo (the author of the video tutorial course) to finally do it – better late than never I suppose.
🙂
… I have to tell you, wrangling up good video authors is like herding cats!
Check out this sample video on using the Flash Bones tool:
Today, the Web is a much more sophisticated place (dynamic shopping carts, blogs, DOM scripting, Ajax etc) … a Web that requires much more sophisticated web designers. To be a competitive and modern web designer these days, you have to learn more than just HTML and CSS .
The ‘foundation’ languages of web design today are:
You don’t have to become a full-fledged nerd coder but you should at least understand the basic concepts and be able to read and write basic scripts. This way, when a client or your boss comes to you with some shopping cart script that he wants you to install … you wont be freaking out because you don’t understand a thing.
So in keeping with my goal of training you guys and girls up, I just wanted to announce my latest video tutorial; a course on Javascript: Beginners Javascript.
… OK, not the most exciting title, but the video tutorials are perfect for people new to programming. Some details:
Beginners Javascript is designed to teach total beginners Javascript programming. By the end of the 5 hrs of video training (over 39 individual videos) you will feel comfortable reading and writing usable Javascript code for everyday web tasks like spawning windows, validating forms and creating simple page effects.
The table of contents:
Introduction (10:09)
First Javascript (10:21)
What is a programming language (6:18)
Javascript event handlers part 1 (8:58)
Javascript event handlers part 2 (6:40)
Javascript event handlers part 3 (4:50)
Javascript errors part 1 (6:39)
Javascript errors part 2 (4:39)
Javascript variables part 1 (10:53)
Javascript variables part 2 (10:01)
Javascript execution (4:21)
Javascript functions part 1 (8:46)
Javascript functions part 2 (6:22)
Javascript functions part 3 (6:32)
Javascript functions part 4 (9:27)
if statements part 1 (7:33)
if statements part 2 (6:52)
if statements part 3 (8:55)
Javascript loops part 1 (8:25)
Javascript loops part 2 (5:58)
Javascript object; a birds eye view (8:31)
Javascript arrays part 1 (3:36)
Javascript arrays part 2 (7:44)
Javascript arrays part 3 (5:28)
Javascript functions cont. part 3 (8:13)
Javascript functions cont. part 4 (10:16)
Javascript functions cont. part 4-b (9:57)
Javascript functions cont. part 5 (9:18)
Introduction to the DOM part 1 (8:31)
Introduction to the DOM part 2 (3:37)
Javascript forms part 1 (14:50)
Javascript forms part 2 (15:10)
Javascript forms part 3 (6:58)
Javascript forms part 4 (8:51)
Creating a toggle menu part 1 (6:59)
Creating a toggle menu part 2 (10:39)
Linking to external Javascript files (5:46)
Spawning windows with Javascript (9:24)
Javascript frameworks, conclusion to course (4:24)
The DOM is short for: Document Object Model. This is basically a virtual map of the currently loaded web page. You can use this map along with the help of Javascript, to travel about your web page and do things like:
Insert tags
Remove tags
Insert text
… And a whole lot more.
The DOM is the key to all those cool Javascript and Ajax affects that we now see all over the Web. Check out my new video that introduces you to the DOM and I also teach you an exercise I came up with to help you better understand the DOM:
1. Basic object oriented concepts.
2. The Javascript object hierarchy.
The goal of this video is to give you a birds eye view of Javascript, to hopefully make it easier to understand how to use this language in later videos.
