Web Design and Development

For the last month or so we have been in the process of purchasing a new home. We have been moving slowly but surely for the last 5 days or so and tonight is the first time I have been on the internet in my new home!! Its a great feeling, sitting here in my office, yeah thats right no longer just a desk in my bedroom!

Its a 3 bedroom ranch with a fully finished basement, and the yard already landscaped with a nice deck for some potential great barbeque’s.

Well anyways, hopefully I will be able to start posting some more now that we are almost all done with the hectic transition period.

Well I have been tagged by Ross Johnson on the “Top 5 Reasons I Blog” chain. Its really interesting to go up the chain and see the other people that have done this also. Compared to these other people, I am pretty inexperienced in blogging so maybe this is a good thing to think about and will help me in the future.

1. More experience writing

Most of you can tell that I’m not the most well versed writer, especially with grammar and all the other basic skills! Instead of just staying scared of what people and what they think about my writing, I decided to take it head on. To become a better writer you have to write! You can’t be scared of what people will think, although I still am nervous when I type up these things. Mainly from what I see on other blogs and sites like Digg. Hell there is probably 100 mistakes in this post already, but like anything practice makes perfect.

2. Sharing Knowledge and other cool Information

I typically haven’t been posting a lot of tutorials, basically because I see so many of the tutorials that I would be posting on other sites. I like to share information that I find on other sites so maybe I shouldn’t think like that about writing tutorials. I just find cool sites and articles and think maybe theres some out here that haven’t seen them and would enjoy. I think after this post maybe I will post more of my own ideas and tutorials instead of just posting my thoughts on others.

3. Getting people to view my site

Without my blog, I don’t think I would have many visitors, besides the people I send my link to for job opportunities. Just like Ross states in his entry, a big reason is Search Engine Optimization. Before my blog if you entered my name, the site didn’t even show up. How bad is that. Now with all my feeds and Search Engines crawling my posts I see visitors from all over. I love checking my Google Analytics and seeing people from all over the world.

4. I’m a web developer

I think anyone whose career is creating web sites, should have a blog. Just like the rest of this site, creating a blog helps you become more familiar with the software and techniques that are out there. You could always wait until you have a project that utilizes certain software but it’s much easier if you have had your own experience with it. I also have a couple other things installed on my sever, such as Drupal. Its also a great place as a web developer to just talk about your issues through out the process of developing.

5. Gives me something to do

Instead of just surfing the web and gathering all this useful information. When I’m bored I can think of something to write about or find some cool web site to post for you guys to check out.

Your Turn

Ok so now I am suppose to post 5 other people to blog on this but since I don’t know many of you that read my blog I can only post the couple I do know have a blog and read mine.

1. Dan Klyn
2. Nate Olmstead
3. You - I don’t know many of you that read my blog and not many leave comments, but I know your out there. I see my analytics. I would love to get to know you all a little better so feel free to leave comments. If you do have a blog and feel like posting on this please leave a link in the comments.

If your an online geek like me and also watch a lot of T.V., check out Couchville, an online t.v. guide. All you have to do is slap in your zip code and pick the type of service you have and a cool interactive t.v.guide comes up. You can easily drag the guide to later times and also jump to stations. If you click on a show then it gives you a description, future times and the ability to add to your favorites.

I would say most of you have the same problem in deciding which restaurant to go to or when with a group of people no one steps up and makes the decision.

Check out this cool little mashup called the The Wheel of Lunch. Just put in your zip code and up pops a spinning wheel with a a bunch of local restaurants near you. It lands on one and gives you a rating if one and the address. You can leave a review if you want.

I thought it was pretty funny!

Lately you will see my posts will be geared towards web standards in the ecommerce industry. Its very disappointing because there really aren’t any industry leaders that try to produce their sites with them. Since I have started working for an ecommerce company, I have been doing a lot of research and hunting for sites to get some inspiration from.

I have looked at the top 30 or so internet retailers and haven’t found anything that would show me sites that are doing web standards to the fullest. There might be some that use div based layouts but fall short of using it all the way throughout their site. they are also very non-semantic and suffer from serious divitous.

Anyone can create an XHTML/CSS website but just slapping up some container divs and applying some CSS doesn’t cut it in my book. To me its the same as an old school mechanic that gets a hold of some new techniques/tools and starts slapping on these parts and using these techniques on a piece of crap car thats going to give out no matter what. He doesn’t take the time to learn the power of these techniques/tools and how to use them to gain their full potential or their correct use. Sorry to any mechanics, I was just trying to think of something to compare it to.

Anyways after realising my search for a great site to learn from was going to be harder then I thought, maybe I would ask some of the leaders in the industry. I figured some of these guys that preach web standards and put out great sites would know of some good ecommerce sites. I emailed Roger Johansson, a Swedish web professional specializing in web standards, accessibility, and usability. He is one of my favorite bloggers to read and anyone reading this should start subscribing to his blog, if you haven’t already. I emailed him a description of my problem, thinking he had to know some sites, but like all my previous attempts he is just as puzzled as me. In a way it made me happy because I was thinking, I must be dumb if I can’t find one site but on the other hand, is it that hard for this industry to do it right?

I will be emailing others that are leading the industry and see if they know of any and please post any that you might know of. I will keep you updated with any links that I find also!