So I decided I wanted to learn web development and began researching, posting on forums for advice and buying books.
I have to self teach as I work long hours and can't leave work for full time or even part time education with attendance.
I'll be honest I feel like a dog chasing its own tail and in a few weeks have built up a patchwork knowledge of this fascinating field. But I need to stop chasing my tail and get some direction.
My goal is two fold:
1. Develop an Eve site that has integrated CMS (UMBRACO) and then use this as a platform to develop web based apps using eve's api. This in turn hopefully will provide me valuable skills to turn to work where I need to develop a web based event logging system that can then produce reports.
2. Become proficient with html > css > javascript and jquery > .Net with C#. I've more or less settled now on these languages in that order and feel .net is right for me and valuable for my work. Besides it'd be an easier stepping stone to learn Java or other languages after if needs be.
What I've done so far could be described as organised chaos! I bought:
Missing Manuals Creating websites
Sitepoints Build your own website the right way 4th edition
Sitepoints Build your own asp.net 4 website using c# and vb
Wrox programmer: Beginning asp.net 4
C# 2010 All-in-one for dummies
PHP and MySql for dynamic web sites
I have Visual studio express IDE's installed, netbeans, dreamweaver cs5.5 and have been hand coding in notepad at work!
But to be perfectly honest I feel stuck in the mud and learning from books is hard going and quite dry for me. I looked at Lynda.com but their asp course was for 3.5, then I saw killsites dvd's and they looked interesting.
I have a wonderfil library and not alot to show for it though I do know what my end goals are and to a point they are driving what I want to learn.
I created my design in photoshop and decided to have it professionally converted to html / css by markupbox and then reverse engineer it to understand how they did it and what it is comprised of. I then wanted to try integrated Umbraco CMS into this template.
So as you can see I think I've spent enough money but I'm going round in circles! Can anyone help set me straight on this as one thing I do know is I love this field and am excited at what you can do.
To give you an idea of what I'm upto in ability atm (that is what I can hand code in notepad with a bit of occassional forum help).
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8" />
<title>Visual Logistics</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css" />
</head>
<body>
<div id="container">
<div id="tbar">
<div id="tbcontent">
Visual Logistics Interface...
</div>
</div>
<!--Page header here-->
<div id="header">
<h1>Visual Logistics</h1>
</div>
<!--Navigation Bar-->
<div class="nav">
<ul>
<li>Event Management</li>
<li>Event Viewer</li>
<li>Crystal Reports</li>
<li>Support</li>
</ul>
</div>
<!--All page content here-->
<div id="content">
<p>This is a prototype interface for event logging written in html and css on notepad</br>
Not everything has to cost a fortune to learn and develop!
</P>
</div>
<!--Page footer content here-->
<div id="footer"></div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
html, body, #container {
height:100%;
margin:0;
padding:0
}
body {
background: silver;
font-family: Calibri, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;
}
p, h1 {
padding:10px 21px;
}
#content {
width:950px;
height:100%;
min-height:100%; /* this should make the #content stretch all the way down to the bottom of the screen. */
margin:0 auto;
padding:40px 0;
font-family:Arial, sans-serif;
font-size: small;
background:#fff;
}
#header {
width:950px;
margin:0 auto;
background:#fff url(image/grad.jpg) repeat-x;
}
#tbar {
width:950px;
height:40px;
margin:0 auto;
background:#484343;
}
#tbcontent {
color:white;
text-indent:21px;
font-family:Arial, sans-serif;
font-size: small;
line-height:3em;
}
.nav {
width: 950px;
margin:0 auto;
background:#fff;
}
.nav ul {
margin: 0; padding:0;
float: left;
}
.nav ul li {
display: inline;
padding: 21px 22px;
}
Sorry for the enormous post but I know I can do this, just need a little help.