Ask the Web Designer/Web Host

In My Humble Opinion
21

When I was in school the organization of JMC was different. I don’t think they had a Visual Communication Design program. The class I took was part of the JMC program and I think it was maybe “Designing For The Web.”

Basically some cocksure jackass who was hired to redo the KSU Web site was also hired to teach this class. We were taught how to use Dreamweaver a bit - in WYSIWYG mode, while he walked around and told us about how he know Chrissy Hynde and drove a fancy car.

The workshops I took (PHP and Javascript) were taught by a library science prof. While they were slow (2 days of 6 hour classes over 2 weekends I think), the classes were pretty good. It gave me some new skills.

IMHO I do not think paying for someone to teach you how do “do web design” is a worthwhile venture. Neither my partner nor I went this route. I would venture to guess that most of the other folks who are posting in this thread as Web designers did not take classes either.

I learned (as did my partner) by doing and reading. Most of my higher-level skills were obtained by seeing something online that I wanted to be able to do on my site and either taking the code and changing it or looking up how it can be done (in the case of server-side script, you can’t really steal it). My partner is one of those folks who can read a paper or a book on a topic and do it. So I learned a lot by using and manipulating his code.

That being said, I think KSU is a wonderful journalism/mass communication school. I worked on the sites for the Stater and the Burr, which are both top-notch professional publications. The JMC staff were all professional journalists/editors. While I was the only one at the time who had any Web skills (this was the late 90’s) and could do my own thing, I still had to work in the chain of command and that taught me a lot.

Congratulations on your degree, and btw if you ever need to outsource any client Web sites, hit me up :wink:

22

Those are my feelings right there, too. Flash has its place. Flash can look great. We use Flash in our software and on some of our sites. I like it best for graphs and styled text that needs to be dynamically sized (such as headlines that need to fit on one line).

If I had the choice I would choose not to use it. As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, our official “graphic design guy” is a Flash master so I have had to work with it a lot. But as he fades away so does my use for Flash.

In fact we just did a project for that guy - a really large eZine. His original concept that he submitted to us was completely Flash-heavy. Noticeable slow load time. It was beautiful I’m sure but not practical one bit - after all, the site was about the TEXTUAL CONTENT and not the pictures. We had to do a lot of work with him to chop it down, and it still looks beautiful.

It’s also very hard to get your Flash updated. If you can’t find the guy who made the original FLA file ten years ago, you’re out of luck and the client is going to be paying for it to be re-built from scratch.

I’m in the middle of re-doing our company’s current site. It’s last incarnation was a complete collaboration between the 3 of us - so it has a lot of Flash. Our portfolio is in Flash. Since I don’t know Flash…our portfolio is really outdated now.

I think companies that advertise needing Flash as a skill do it because they don’t know what they’re talking about. They either think Flash is a default skill to have, or don’t realize that there are dozens of other ways to accomplish what they need.

Since I am all about dynamic data, Flash is only useful to me with ActionScript. Dynamic manipulation of Flash. Flash for the sake of Flash doesn’t do anything for me.

23

Honestly, I am not so sure. I spend so much time physically doing the work that I don’t have time to ponder what is next.

I’d like to think that companies are beginning to realize that fresh content and dynamic data are what keeps people coming back to their sites. Organized data leads to an organized site - meaning you should have a nice database backend running your site and not just a big bloaty “brochure on the Web.”

But that’s not so much “next big thing” as “companies getting their heads out of their asses.”

This whole “Web 2.0” thing, I guess, is here to stay. User-created content. As MySpace has shown, people don’t care what the Web looks like as long as they are able to manipulate a piece of it. If we could harmonize good design with fresh and custom content, we’d be good. I like to look towards Amazon as a role model in that sense - they are leading the way, somewhat quietly.

But the absolute up-to-the-minute “next big thing” is announcing your candidacy for office via video on your Web site :slight_smile: I was just commissioned to do a site for a person who is running for mayor of a local town and she said “I want to announce my candidacy on a video on my site just like Hillary.”

24

Just looked up AJAX myself. I do some ASP development and I’ve been running IIS on my computer. But it died and I’ve got a new loptop. Do you know what’s up with Vista? Is IIS available? Will everything work somewhat smoothly? I’m thinking about Linux as well. Is there a way to develop ASP via Linux (I don’t think so, but you never know.)? I expect the answer of “don’t know, haven’t looked into it” but am asking just in case.

Also, do you like your job? Is working from home as awesome as I think it would be? I think web development is a blast and would give my left nut to work from home.

25

Thank you! On a similar note, if you’re ever looking for someone to do top-notch graphics work, print design, or logo/identity work, I’d be more than happy to be an independent contractor for you!

I believe when you were a student there, VCD was one of the lesser-known programs at Kent; it was only in the few years before I began (in 2002) that the VCD program began to get national recognition as a design school. The Stater now employs several VCD students to do Compo work for them (including a few Juniors in the program I’m grooming as potential future employees).

26

No idea on Vista but I assume that the Professional edition would come with IIS just like XP Pro did. Personally I’m not going to be doing Vista for a year or two. And as far as I know there will be no “Vista Server” on which we’ll be running Web sites - just whatever comes after 2003 Server.

About Linux…used to be that you could use something called ChiliSoft!ASP (I never used it, just read about it in ASP For Dummies) to run ASP on Linux. Looks like Sun bought it out and is going to be discontinuing Linux support.

I get tired and crabby and hate my job and find myself to be poor quite often. But then I think “man I love making Web sites” and “man I love working at home” so yeah I like my job. Working at home/owning your own business is not the walk in the park that everyone assumes it is but I’ve been doing this my entire professional life so I don’t know quite different - other than what I see on TV.

27

Good timing – I’m pulling my hair out over here. Here’s the lowdown:

My wife is an admin on a message board. The woman who ran the board decided she wanted nothing more to do with it, so we said we’d take it over from her. Here’s what we’ve done:

The old message board (run on Simple Machines Forum software) has been backed up. This saves it as one huge .sql file.
The domain has been transferred into my name.
New hosting has been purchased.
The nameserver has been changed to the correct new info.
I FTP’d the .sql file to the new host.

Once all that was done, users saw one of two things – either the message board working perfectly, or a directory listing showing the .sql file. The big problem with that was if someone clicked on the .sql file, it would display it in plain text, and if a user wanted to hunt through 20+ megs of text, they would find other users’ private messages. Since we wanted to protect people’s privacy, I pulled the board down and put up a simple “under construction” splash page.

The thing that is making me pull my hair out is this – here we are, a day later, and many users are accessing the message board. The only problem is, it doesn’t exist! I’m looking at the FTP directory right now, and the only file in there is my 260 byte index.htm file. Granted, some users are seeing that page, but quite a few a happily posting to a message board that isn’t there.

Now, it could be that the (and forgive me if I don’t get the terminology exactly right here, but I think you’ll understand) new nameserver hasn’t propagated to all users. If that’s the case, then I’m wondering if this message board that people are accessing is actually the one that the original owner ran. She probably hasn’t pulled her copy of it offline yet, so that may be the answer. If so then that will probably be solved by later today.

So, the two questions I have here are:

  1. Does it make sense that some people would still be seeing the board on its old hosting platform?
  2. Does something special need to be down when uploading the .sql file to the server so everyone sees it as it’s supposed to be seen?

Thanks much, and if you happen to need any specifics then please feel free to e-mail me.

28

I’ll hopefully avoid the Windows vs Linux / Apache vs IIS / Open Source vs Closed arguments ZipperJJ wants to avoid.

But if you are looking Linux you’d be much better off going with one of the free/open source ASP like solutions. Mainly, JSP and PHP come to mind.

ZipperJJ, I also do quite a bit of Web Development work (I’m a software engineer at a large fortune 500 company). We have aligned ourselves with a modified LAMP (Linux, Apache, MSSQL [not MySQL - MSSQL is a corporate standard], Perl/Python). We also have done a bit a Ruby on Rails development, although I didn’t really buy into the hype.

So, you ever thought about joining us on the dark side of open source?

Which of the .NET languages do you guys like for your back end C#, VB.NET, J#?

How do you feel about the idea of MS giving you controls for your webpage? I’ve always found this intriguing since doing “custom” controls by hand is a pain in the arse. (I believe MS generates web forms using drag and drop controls, which are just HTML with JS, similar to form design in MS client programming - please correct me if I’m wrong). Rails has some support for this but it’s hit and miss.

I’m also quite curious about how ASP.NET integrates aspx pages with code behind .cs or .vb files. Care to comment on how that works in practice? I’m so used to either doing straight CGI and having the server spit HTML/JS or doing dynamic JSP/PHP and placing my dynamic code in blocks, something MS wants to avoid.

Sorry for the vagueness of the questions, I’m just really curious. I guess I really need to get a copy of Visual Studio.NET (I haven’t touched it since it’s first iteration, mostly C# and VB client side stuff) and give ASP.NET a whirl.

29

I believe the people still seeing and using the message board on the old server. The DNS takes some time to propagate.

Uploading the .sql file into your document root isn’t going to do anything to restore the site. You have to install/set-up the forum software on your new web-host. You are then going to have to regenerate the backend database using your SQL file.

If you upload a .sql file to your document root, people going to the site are going to see a listing with a .sql file in it.

30

Seeing a site at 2 different places at once is definitely what happens when you do a nameserver change. In fact, I just had a guy change his NS an hour ago. www. hissite.com takes me to his old site on his old server and hissite.com takes me to the new site on our server.

As I think you might know, the registrar holds all of the nameserver info. ISPs poll the registrars from time to time to get the latest nameserver info and put it in their DNS caches. Whatever your particular ISP thinks the nameserver is for a site at a particular time is where it will direct your browser. So if you have Time Warner and time Warner knows the new server’s location you’re set. But if your neighbor has SBC and SBC hasn’t been made aware of the change, your neighbor sees the old site.

It is both random and fun! Minus the fun :frowning:

As for your moving of the files…the board has not been moved at all. An .sql file does not a Web site make. Your host is showing the contents of the default Web directory because you do not have a default page set up as per your Web host’s instructions (index.html, index.php, default.html…etc. Whatever they say.)

You need to upload the board software anew and go through the setup process. Then IMPORT the contents of the .sql file into MySQL. MySQL isn’t a file (like, say, an Access .mdb file) it’s an actual served database that holds info.

I’ll give you a little trick for learning how to be the be-all-end-all Smart Guy Of The Web - RTFM. Hehe…not trying to be snarky, actually. Clients come to me all the time asking me how to do stuff I don’t know how to do and it’s not that I magically know it, I just know that there’s a 99% chance that the answer to their question can be found on the Web because someone else had that exact question before. The difference is I get to turn around and charge them money. So check out that SMF manual - it seems to have all the info you need.

31

I agree with that. If you want to use Linux, use Linux-friendly languages. My limited exposure to PHP has convinced me that it’s just as good as ASP. I only use ASP because that’s what I started with and it has served me well. Just like how I speak English because that’s what I started with.

I do whatever pays the bills :slight_smile: If one day I woke up and find that Windows-based technology went the way of the dodo I’d be right up there with you!

We use C#. Don’t know why - that is what my partner (the “tech” guy) decided on.

I will be honest and say that I am still learning C#…and when I say “learning” I don’t mean reading up on it. I learn by example…so I am still learning to read my partner’s C# code and figure out what the end results are and how I can change it.

It makes things easier on the technical end (faster at least) and employs some cool technology that was more convoluted to program traditionally.

From a design aspect, though, I am still getting used to it. It still feels very WYSIWYG and lots of times these controls make my job harder because they get put in place and I have to reverse-engineer them or jury-rig them to make them LOOK right. I think control over controls is getting more granular as .net evolves but I haven’t worked with it in about a year.

As I said above I am not 100% proficient in this area. So far I have found it difficult and frustrating to work with mainly because I have not totally grasped the concept and need reminders from time to time from my partner as to why this is better than “the old way.”

Yeah that’d be my advice - VS.NET is free now (so is SQL 2005) and the only way I am going to learn it, too, is by doing it.

32

Bingo – that was my suspicion here, just needed some confirmation.

I actually had looked up that exact link you sent last night. Unfortunately, as someone else commented on the page, it’s a little lacking in plain English explainations. My skill level on things of this nature is a three, maybe four at best. Looks like that manual was written for fives.

Anyway, thanks much for the tips – hopefully we’ll have everything back up and running later today. Appreciate the help!

33

I’ve found that most web-based PHP package scripts (like a message board or a blog) has really good, automated setup that steps you through the process of getting things working. You usually have to follow some instructions to get your site ready for setup, do the setup, and then start tweaking.

Don’t forget to check out the software’s message board for those 1’s and 2’s saying “Hi - y don’t my board werk? thx” - those usually have replies by the 5’s rolling their eyes and giving a few links to good setup guides.

34

I think more exposure to PHP might cure you of that. PHP is fine for prototyping and small webapps, but it doesn’t scale all that well. You can do it, but IMO you’re better off with going with J2EE or .Net and work in an environment that encourages/forces you to have a separation of concerns.

35

Heh, I’m trying to be fair. I’ve spent plenty of time swearing at PHP. But it’s great to hear someone else’s opinion on it that jibes with what I had a feeling was right.

However - do you think apples to apples classic ASP vs. PHP is on the same scale? I would choose to use .net for a huge application but I don’t consider that “classic” ASP.

36

ASP is pretty much the same as JSP, right?(my experience is in J2EE) Trying to maintain a webapp done solely in JSP (with embedded Java) would be a nightmare – I would definitely say that in that case, the solutions are about equivalent.

37

Okay, I’m a web designer/developer, and I’ve been going to school for it (although I’ve been doing it as a hobby longer than I’ve been going to school ;)). We’re learning using LAMP right now and haven’t touched any of Microsoft’s products. Is this going to mess me up later? In my experience, it seems that jobs that advertise for people with experience in .NET are internal company departments as opposed to web design firms.

To throw my say into the mix, I’m mostly a developer. I can do design, but it isn’t my strongest point. I mean, I’m far from designing those crappy 1997-esque animated GIF filled pages, but I’m not CSS Zen Garden material either. laughs

A lot of people bash formal programs and say their graduates are those people who only know how to make a site by image slicing in Photoshop. I really don’t like that view, because there are some excellent programs out there. I’m at the equivalent of a community college, but we have some great instructors that have worked in the IT field and gotten Comp Sci degrees. They’ve always let us push as far as we want to go, and being able to do things like put up our own Samba server and making CMSs is great. So you (general you) shouldn’t immediately turn your nose up at us diploma students. :slight_smile:

38

To be honest, wherever you work, there’s going to be things that you have to learn. Having to teach a new graduate .Net wouldn’t be unheard of. My only worry would be that PHP developers tend to have a single script respond to a request, does some action(like make database queries) and then present the results as HTML. Best practices in J2EE(and, I presume, .Net) is to have separate components do the action and present the results.

39

That worked fine. Thanks, ZipperJJ. And thanks for your suggestion, too, Eonwe.

40

I don’t think it’s like JSP…it’s really just like PHP. Pop in your block of code and out comes the results.

I’ve never worked with JSP. I have no interest in Java.