IE9 is here
The latest version of Internet Explorer IE9 is here and now is the time to work out if Microsoft has finally found the answer to Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera? Probably not but it’ll be good to see in what ways they have caught up.
Archived entries for web-design
Last weekend was “Creating Custom Posts”
Last weekend I realised how little I actually knew about WordPress (the CMS/blog system that powers my blog). My intention was to learn how to create custom posts and have a different page of the blog where these posts would appear. For example, I would create a running log and every entry would go to the “Running” page.
After a weekend of pulling my hair out I managed to create these custom posts, with taxonomies. But the other more interesting part of my goal was not successful. I have a book called “WordPress Bible” and this is helpful but it feels as if everything in the back end is gobbly goop. Perhaps I need to take it one-step at a time and break down into components and understand each one before going right into the deep end.
Anyway that is for sometime in the future, not now, as I am going to the New Adventures in Web Design conference on the 20th in Nottingham, and this Friday Marion will join me so we can go for a weekend camping in the Peak District.
The Year 2010
To start again you have to let go of the past and move forward to free yourself of the baggage that weighed you down. This is what I want to do with this post, to finalise the year 2010 and get ready to embrace 2011.
For me the year that was 2010 was an incredible year full of life changing activities and one where a number of big goals were completed. I’ll list them here:
- Proposed to my now fiance̩ Marion on the top of Glastonbury Tor РJune.
- Completed my “Masters CIW Designer” course thus ending a long 2.5 year journey – December.
- I Became a front-end Web Developer for Heath Wallace and beginning my career in web- August.
- Quit Thames Water and thus ending my career in Chemistry – July.
- Completing the toughest long-distance walking route – Corisca’s GR20 – with Marion – September.
- I passed my course in Digital Photography – January.
My next post will contain what I want to do in 2011 so keep your eyes out for that! Until then, adios amigos!
I passed!!!
This is the end of a long journey which I started a long time ago. In April 2008 I persuaded myself and my girlfriend (now fiancee) Marion that I wanted to change career and it would be great if I would do some training in web design—something that I had been dreaming of ever since teaching myself to code after graduating from university—and she pointed out an advert to Advent Training who had been doing lots of adverts on the TV and internet at the time.
The first two modules of the “Masters CIW Designer” course were CompTIA A+ and A+ Technician exam. Basically to get me to be able to install, fix, troubleshoot any hardware or software in Windows. I really enjoyed being able to learn more about what goes on inside the computers and was able to learn a lot of useful stuff.
The next module—the first of the CIW modules—was called CIW Foundations. It taught a little about coding, but was mostly about networking, business and very basic web stuff.
The penultimate module, CIW Site Designer, was my favorite and was mostly about coding websites in different languages (although mainly HTML). I read a lot of other books at the time, books about Web Standards, Usability, and went to several UX meetups in London, I revamped my own website using all that I’d learnt and started applying for jobs in web design/development. I got the job that I was dreaming of and thus made my own progression from Chemist to Web Developer. It was after passing this exam that I found out that the company that I was doing the course through—Advent Training—had gone bust and I was thus left in a haitus not knowing whether I could finish my course. Luckily a new company came along and I could continue my course.
The final exam was CIW E-commerce and it really sucked. I hate most (though not all) of the topics and studying was a nightmare because of my new job and not having the energy or motivation to sit down and study after a long day on the computer at work. So this month I have taken a number of days off as holiday from work and stuck to it, learning and revising the subjects in the book. Today I took the exam in Wokingham and passed with 84% (the pass mark was 68%). I am very happy now as you can imagine! You can call me a “CIW Web Design Professional” if you’d like to. Otherwise Andy is good for me;)
Now I can focus on enjoying life a little and absorbing the festive Christmas atmosphere. After Christmas I will start to learn French.
Sunday Morning
Good morning to all out there on this beautiful brilliantly cold ice-blue Sunday morning! On the stereo is Mercury Rev’s “All is But a Dream” and I’ve just finished a glass of delicious orange juice.
Recently I have been quite busy learning more about wordpress and how to customise it further. How to add custom javascript libraries, custom CSS. All that’s happening can be seen over at my test blog. I am using the starkers HTML5 theme as a starting point and also using the HTML5 boilerplate CSS reset so that I am working from a base-line so that any changes I make make it mine even more. Experimenting with CSS3 and also learning more about PHP and how PHP is implemented in wordpress. Yes I am having a great time!
Outside the air is cold and frost lies on the ground and inside I wonder if it’s now time to have some breakfast, time to get moving onwards with the day and then do some studying (I am revising for the final module of my Masters CIW course).