New blog site...

As you may have noticed, my blog is now separate from my website. I have done this for a couple of reasons.

1. I thought my website was going to shutdown recently and I wanted to keep the blog going. My hosting package was up for renewal and I was just going to focus more on my studies than on the business for a while, therefore I didn't think that the website was a necessity. After going through all of the changes required, my hosting company took the money out of my account and renewed my membership anyway, so now I have a different site for my blog.
2. I've always wanted to see what a difference an external blog would make to the SEO on a website. The theory is that it acts as another link, which many search engines will give more weight to as far as ranking is concerned.

Anyway, if you've followed the link to here and want to get back to the website, simply click your back arrow at the top of your browser.

All the best,

Tim.

5 Things you need to get started...

Hi there.

In my last post, I spoke about getting the business off the ground and ways that you could do that. In the last point, I mentioned that I wanted to focus more on the design than generating business and so for that reason, I have decided to go back to study. My hosting contract is up at the end of the month and I won't be renewing it for the moment. This blog will continue to run however in it's new location.

So, today I thought I'd tackle some things you might need to get you started. I have a list of what I consider to be five essential ingredients to a budding web designers arsenal:

1. HTML/CSS Editor
2. Books/Forums/Tutorials
3. Graphics Editor
4. Browsers
5. Patience

A decent editor is probably your most essential tool. A lot of people will tell you to use a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) program like DreamWeaver or KomPozer. The problem here is that these things have a tendency to add extraneous code to your files and can cause issues with things like validation etc. These programs have their place and you can use them once you're proficient enough to take out any extra code without breaking your website, but I always feel that starting out, a text editor is the best way to learn. It also gives you more control in my humble opinion.

When choosing an editor, you have to take a few things in to account. Things like budget, operating system, support and so on and so forth. If you're using windows and you have absolutely no budget, you can always use Notepad for your editing. However, there are some other options which are also free. Crimson Editor is a great editing program and also allows you to do CSS, PHP and many other "web appropriate" functions as well. The good thing about Crimson Editor is that you can get it for Windows and Linux -not too sure about Mac. For the Mac, you can get a program called BBEdit. I have to point out here that I don't use a Mac (yet) so much of what I write here is coming from people I know who do use one and I haven't tested them myself.

If you have a budget for setting up, you can also pay for an editor. I have used TextPad in the past and it works quite well. It has built in validation which comes in very handy. I'm not sure about it's availability on the Mac and I know that -WinE withstanding- you can't use it on Linux either, so it's really only available on the Windows platform. There are many others out there, but these would give you a handy start at least.

As far as books go, I mentioned, "Build Your Own Website the Right Way Using HTML & CSS" in another post. There is a brand new edition of that book out. Another good book is, "HTML, XHTML & CSS, Sixth Edition" by Elizabeth Castro, Published by Peach Pit Press. There are many others available, but for the absolute beginner, they are a great place to start.

There are a number of Forums out there that a new designer can use. Obviously (if you've read my earlier posts) you know about SitePoint which is a great place to start. This forum tends to be very kind to beginners, but some of the others mentioned may not be quite so forgiving of the "noob" questions. WebDev Forums is quite a nice looking site, but as you dig a bit deeper you can find a great range of information. Designers Talk carries a wealth of information. Web Design Forum and Web Design Forums.net are also very good.

Many of the above mentioned forums have tutorial pages that you can go through. However, some more dedicated tutorial sites include A List Apart and Veerle's Blog. Both of these are great places for the beginner to go to as they teach very good technique.

As far graphics programs go, there are two that I recommend. Depending on your budget, you can either pay for Adobe PhotShop or get the free graphics program called Gimp!. PhotoShop can be quite expensive (around $1,495 by itself at full price, possibly even higher) but is is a very powerful program for editing images. Probably a better bet though, if you're going to be shelling out money for something like this would be to go for the Adobe CS4 Web Premium suite which will set you back around the $2,500 mark. The reason I suggest the package is because, if you're going to be doing images and graphics, Illustrator has some very good tools and the suit also comes with DreamWeaver, which, as I said earlier, can be a great program to use once you are proficient with building websites. Moreover, you also have Flash as part of the package, if you decide to head that way with your design.

The other program I mentioned was Gimp! Gimp is an open source program that you can download over the internet. It has many similar features to PhotoShop, but it isn't quite as intuitive (in my humble opinion) and doesn't have the same level of support. There are however, many free tutorials out there if you can spend some time looking for and compiling them.

This brings us to browsers. The list of browsers that I'm about to give is not an "or" situation. It is an "and" situation. If you're going to be a web designer/developer, you need to have these browsers installed on your computer so that you can test to see how your site will look in the majority of browsers. There are 5 main browsers you should test against:

• Internet Explorer
• FireFox
• Opera
• Chrome
• Safari

If you can test on these in their native environments where applicable (Windows for IE, Mac for Safari) it is even better, but there aren't that many people that own at least one each of Windows, Mac and Linux computers, so this is not always the case.

You will be staggered at some of the differences you get between the browsers. They are changing all the time however. Internet Explorer for example has been rumoured to be changing it's engine. This will bring it more in line with the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). Safari 4 is apparently fully W3C complient, the first browser to be so as I understand it. The main thing is to keep an eye on what's happening in the world of browsers.

The last thing that you need to be a great web designer/developer is patience. I can't stress this point enough. You're not going to be brilliant over night, so just make sure to enjoy the ride as you go along. Like I said in an earlier post, don't be afraid to make mistakes, this is how you learn your best lessons. And don't expect to be as good as Dan Cederholm or Paul O'Brien next month. They took along time to develop into the designers they have become and it will take a long time for you too. Just keep listening and you will get there.

All the best,

Tim.

A look into the future!

So far I've been writing about the technical aspects of Web design and where to start as a beginner. I'll get back to that in my next post, but today, I want to take a look at the future and where being a Web designer may take you in the longer term. There will be people reading this who have no interest in running their own business and that's perfectly OK. You may still get some points out of this so, please, read on. For those of you who are interested in running your own business... well, these are some of the things that have hindered me as a small business owner. I want to state, right off the bat that this is advice based on my own experience and deals more with the psychology of running your own business than it does practical business advice. Still, you need to check the legality of anything printed here as pertaining to business practices in your own region. I would also like to make it clear at this point that I am an unashamed fan of SitePoint, but am in no way other than that associated with them. I have a number of their books/kits and will refer to them throughout this blog. While I do endorse these publications, they are by no means the only voice out there on the subject, so feel free to research further for differing views. Anyway, let's get started.

I was contemplating one night just why my business was not getting off the ground. As I sat there staring at my whiteboard, I started to have some thoughts come to me and so I put them down in point form. I ended up with 10 points (eight of which I will cover here) but more importantly, split the board in to two sections and also came up with 10 solutions. Like I said, I'm only covering eight of those points as two of them are somewhat personal and wouldn't be of a wide range of use. So, what was it that I felt was holding me back as a business owner?

1. Lack of capital to use as start up. (Money is needed for advertising and marketing.)
2. Don't feel that I'm experienced enough to run the business. (Lack of confidence.)
3. Such a daunting task, I don't really know where to start. (Lack of experience/orientation.)
4. I don't have many contacts. (Graphic artists, programmers, designers, marketers, copywriters etc.)
5. Lack of discipline. (This ties in with point 2 to some degree. I need to stay on top of invoicing and other administrative tasks.)
6. Fear, whether that is of failure or success. (Also ties in to point 2 to some extent.)
7. Self sabotage. (Every time I begin to move forward, I do something -or nothing- to break that momentum.)
8. I want to design, not work in sales and/or marketing. (The "Web Designers Business Kit" by Sitepoint pushes the latter, rather than the former, but my interest lies in building Websites.)

As I sat there looking at my board, I remember thinking to myself that these were some pretty scary looking issues. Indeed, they were potential business killers! So what could I do to overcome them? Let's go through the list point by point. I will put the problem in bold, the solution in normal font and any comments in italics.

Lack of capital to use as start up. Use the "Web Design Business Kit" and implement some of the $0-low cost marketing examples. Get one or two clients by using this method and it will start to generate cash flow, some of which can be put towards "more effective" marketing -by which I mean heavier saturation etc. Do something! To use an old cliché, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step!"

Don't feel that I'm experienced enough to run the business. There are multitudes of books and Websites out there that can help with this. Whatever you come up against, there will be someone who has faced and beaten it. Using the examples and resources such as the aforementioned "Business Kit" and others such as Forums, you can surround yourself with all the experience you need. Most importantly though, don't be afraid to make mistakes. This is where your most valuable lessons will be learned. Making and subsequently fixing mistakes will help you to develop more confidence in your ability and expertise.

Such a daunting task, I don't really know where to start. This isn't a bad place to start. Break the issues down into bite (or byte) sized chunks. This sort of exercise helps to provide clarity and empowerment for a course of action. Breaking the task down can make it more manageable and make solutions to problems easier to find. Use the experience of others. Find a mentor if needs be.

I don't have many contacts. Make them! Forums and other design firms are a great place to start. Do some research on people you find. Call their clients to try to gauge their work and when you find quality people, don't be afraid to use their abilities as part of your strategies for growing your business.

Lack of discipline. This can be a tough one. Get help from others -wife/husband/partner, relative, friend etc- to remove you from tasks that "challenge" your concentration span. For me, general administrative tasks fall into this category. So I have my wife look after things like invoicing and entering financial data and the like. Lack of motivation/discipline seems to be well seeded in boredom, so if you can put those tasks in to the hands of people who find them interesting or have an aptitude for them, the battle is 90% won.

Fear, whether that is of failure or success. This is another tough one. Start with talking with others who have started a business or have been otherwise successful (sports coach, founder of a charity and things of that ilk). Forums such as SitePoint are a great source of information in dealing with issues such as this one. Ask how these people have faced and conquered their fears in starting a business.

Self sabotage. Surround yourself with people who can keep an eye on you. Mentors are good for this. These people don't need to be around you 24/7, they just need to give you a call every so often to touch base with you. Another tactic is to talk with a close friend or family member about your business. If they know where it is heading, or more importantly, the steps you need to take to move forward, they can spot if you're off track pretty quickly.

I want to design, not work in sales and/or marketing. This one is actually easier than it looks. Build the business up to a point where you don't have time to do both the marketing and design work (or just under this point preferably) and then bring someone on to take over the marketing of the business. You could look at someone on a commission basis to begin with and then enter in to a partnership later on. As the business continues to grow, you can begin to add staff with other skills with the aim of eventually doing most jobs entirely in house.

This is by no means a definitive list of either problems or solutions. But as I looked over it the other night, I could not help but think that any one of these was a potential business killer if left unchecked. I also don't want to give the impression that any of these suggestions are easy. They will carry varying degrees of complexity, depending on who puts them in to practice and of course, each situation will be unique. But I am certain of one thing though. A little bit of action immeasurably outweighs doing nothing and when it comes right down to it, building a profitable business is about gaining momentum. As I said earlier in the post, the journey of a thousand miles - or 1600 Km evidently :-) - begins with a single step. Here are eight steps that I hope will guide someone on towards success.