How to keep your coding skills from getting rusty

October 3, 2007 | 7 Responses

How many HTML elements can you name in five minutes?

Alright so it wasn’t my first try but I didn’t realize the timer started right away at first. I’m pretty ok with how I did. You really should try this HTML quiz. The answer might surprise you. I’m an old hand at HTML. I learned it, practiced and memorized elements for years, never even knowing about the other scripting languages (besides javascript) that were popping up everywhere.

On that note, I thought it was time for a post about keeping your coding skills sharp. This is especially important for us Wordpress users because we often don’t get into our code for months at a time.

• Hanging around tech support/tutorial forums is a great way to keep your coding skills from getting rusty. As people are generally going there to ask for help with their code that isn’t working. Not only do you get regular practice with troubleshooting codes, but you are making new friends and contacts who will likely visit your site (always link your site in profiles/sigs:)
• Handcode in notepad every once in a while. GUI coding software is fantastic. Especially when you are pressed for time. Having the editor finish your tags for you is always good for your sanity, but coding with this kind of software is like an open book test. Sure you still have to do the work, but you aren’t really honing your skills. Every now and then (if not always) put the blinders on and code out some stuff in notepad.
• Peak at the source code of other blogs you visit. This is mostly just for fun. But when you see something you like, right click and hit “view source” and see how it was done. Even if you think you’re sure. You may be surprised.

The irony of Flash

October 1, 2007 | 4 Responses

Flash animation began as a convenient and quick loading way of putting rich content into your site. In its’ glory days, many a band websites could be found in entirely flash versions that loaded slick, moving graphics and lots of cool slides, fades and other transitions.

Recently, Flash has become the topic of scrutiny for many web development experts. Some still say it is useful when done tastefully, others just plain hate it. Flash animations, especially lengthy loading intros, are fast becoming recognized as a visitor turn off. Especially with things like AJAX taking over in the department of page flashiness i.e. - dynamic animations without reloading the page. But since the advent of megasites like YouTube and other sites utilizing .FLA or .FLV players, many developers have taken a second look.

Flash is easily one of the best ways to deliver movies and music without offering direct download. The old fashioned way was to embed with Media Player or Quicktime, or even link direct to the files themselves, which would cause quicktime to fill the entire browser window. Now website owners can embed a player of their own design right into the pages of their site, with a relatively certain idea of what the end-user is going to see.

The video gallery right here at Needless Productions uses a flash player that loads movies quickly and easily. The funny thing about Flash is that what began as something that over saturated the web with entire flash websites that took days to load for some, seems to have found a home in the world of Audio Visual delivery online.

A great example of how accessible this technology has become is the Riva encoder and player. Riva encodes your video files to the FLV format, and comes with a player that you can embed on your site. I chose to store the Riva player singularly and dynamically embed each video as it is called by the browser using PHP, but it is primarily available as a stand alone player, or to be individually embedded into HTML pages.

How to get listed in DMOZ for bloggers

September 20, 2007 | 7 Responses

Or get into DMOZ for a blog.

So you want to get your blog URL listed in the DMOZ directory.

DMOZ is practically the web’s most trusted directory. It is a giant database of links accompanied by descriptions and organized into categories. To get a site listed in DMOZ is your passage into the realm of serious blogging.

There are general rules of thumb when submitting a website to DMOZ. Consistent page structure, consistent topics within the content, an acurate description, and submitting to the proper category.

These are the most important things for any site. But when it comes to blogs the guidelines aren’t quite as clear. There are certain DMOZ categories for listing Weblogs, but now you are getting narrowed down into more obscure topics. So the idea is to get your blog up to speed enough to be able to submit to higher, broader category ranges. Continue reading How to get listed in DMOZ for bloggers…

My best web development tips so far

September 16, 2007 | 11 Responses

I have these occasional moments where I can be really smart. Sometimes I even get the chance to record one of those moments in text or on video.

Recently, I was talking about a way to get more links from DMOZ and then there was a blast of Writing for print vs. writing for the web and it really got me thinking this would be a good topic to follow on this blog. I might have some bright ideas in the area of web development after all. I’m not going to buckle it down hard because this is still my flagship blog and personal playhouse so I require the freedom to talk about whatever I want on a given day.

So why should you listen to me?

You really shouldn’t. I wouldn’t recommend it at all. I really don’t know much about the web and my blogging skills are not what I would call developed. I’m constantly asking questions to more experienced bloggers. But I am a writer by nature and I can be a fun read.

I’m not going to pretend to have all the answers, and thats’ why I’m not really running a help blog or offering any tech support to you.

These, however, are some articles that I enjoyed writing and people have enjoyed reading. Just some good ideas I have had in the way of this whole blogging and copywriting development scheme that I have going here. However small the bursts may be, if you are here to read those, then dig in and enjoy.

5 More reasons that less is more in blogging

5 mistakes made by webmasters 

So please, check out these articles and browse the archives. If you enjoy them, leave a comment. If you dig them, digg them.(Isn’t it weird how spending too much time on the web makes the normal spelling of Digg seem wrong?)

I told you things would be slow this month.

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