Web Design and Development

I have been so busy between freelance and the full time job I haven’t had much time to update my site nor my blog with many posts. I figured I should post this soon since it has been almost a month since the launch.

Ann Taylor
Ann Taylor LOFT

Last year around this time I started doing my contract gig at Fry, it was the biggest step by far in my career and has led me to the great job at Niche Retail. Even though the sites aren’t perfect web standard examples (not by my choice!), It was still my first time working with a major nationally known development company. I worked with many engineers, system architects, and project managers. This is much different then the normal freelance jobs where you work with a client or are contracted out from a web firm.

I learned that the process is so much more complex in this environment, from building the site inside of java platform and having to compile the project just to see the changes, to committing the changes and waiting for it to be deployed to the dev server, where then people tell you there are changes to be made and you start the whole process over again. Not to mention the hours and hours of tasks that come from QA testing! Lets not forget updating the project and having tons of the engineers code conflicting with yours.

I think this is why I love my job so much now, not to mention the great company and their philosophy but working in side of something that is a bit more of a challenge then just coding some XHTML and CSS templates and handing them over. Its that added complexity that makes you strive to be the best at what you do. Where would we be if our jobs became easy and not challenge us anymore. The challenge being now to turn this platform into the best it can be in terms of Web Standards and Accessibility. We are way off but in the 3 months I have been here, we have made tremendous progress!

I have been really busy lately with work and other things in life, I barely have time to think. I wanted to show everyone what I have been working on at the job since starting. A lot of stuff we work on we don’t go as public about because it wouldn’t be professional to do so for our partners/affiliates, so I can’t always divulge all of our work.

Today we launched a Refresh (as we like call it), to our header and footers areas of the sites. This is more then just a redesign but an actual initial overhaul of the existing structure. We are also working on some great homepage redesigns for our sites. It has been a lot of fun and I’m really excited to see the results of the hard work we have been doing the last few months.

This was the first step in the right direction, in terms of cleaning up the front end code and really giving our sites an updated look and feel. There is still a lot of work to be done, so don’t bash me to quickly on what can use improvements, if your looking at the source code or CSS files. We have several e-commerce sites, so it is going to be a very tedious process, one that I like to look at as a war with many small battles. At the end I hope to bring our sites to the front of the pack in terms of web standards and e-commerce.

here are some of the sites to check out:

http://runbikes.com/
http://childcarriers.com/
http://bicycletrailers.com/
http://europeanstroller.com/

While your checking them out buy something for your kids, or your friends kid’s. You won’t get much of a better customer experience on any other e-commerce site.

For the last week I have been dealing with the biggest headache. My domain registrar Registerfly has always sucked. The only reason I stayed with it was the fact I had started using them when I first got into the web. I accumulated so many domains that I didn’t want to spend the money to transfer.

I am changing host this last week and wanted to transfer my domain names as well. It turns out that Registerfly has become the worst domain registrar ever. First they loose their ICANN accreditation, since then the owner, Kevin Medina has decided to take control of people domains by deleting them, not unlocking them for transfer and they are currently under a class action lawsuit. I knew I should of just transferred back in January…

I don’t even know if I will have this domain anymore. It says that the transfer has initiated but who knows if it will work. Two of my other domains are unlocked in the Registerfly control panel but I got errors from my new registrar, saying they are locked. Of course Registerfly isn’t responding to the support tickets and emails, though I expected this because its the main problem people are having.

Besides that, I have moved to a great new host, Media Temple. I have seen so much about these guys on other blogs, of which I highly respect. I figured I would give them a go and I am truly happy. I think everyone should check out their great hosting, its different then any other hosting I have seen in the past. I got the Grid Server hosting, which offers the following

• 100 GBs of premium storage
• 1 TB of short-path bandwidth
• Host up to 100 individual sites
• 1000 email accounts
• 64 MB Ruby/Mongrel container
• Money Back Guarantee

All for just $20 a month, also I would say its the best control panel I have used. I will keep you guys updated with the experience I have with them in the future.

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.