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Post by The Herald on Nov 3, 2007 8:19:40 GMT
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Post by The Herald on Nov 3, 2007 8:19:55 GMT
I have compiled a few tips that can be used in almost any situation. These are a few things I have picked up as I went along that I have found especially helpful. 1. Talk to someone/something. Studies have been done, and they have shown that when you talk about the problem, most of the time you solve it yourself. As you very well know, people do actually make mistakes. They screw up, and overlook simple solutions from time to time. Just explaining the problem can lead to the solution, and if you don't home someone about to talk to, put a stuffed animal or doll next to your computer. 2. Proper Formatting. Format your code! Use indents and make it readable, and most importantly, use comments! This will save you so much time no matter what you are doing, but is most important for large projects. If you have someone working with you on that content management system, or plan to give it away as a resource at some point, comments are a must. People want to make little changes to the code, and allowing them to do that is just courteous. Even if you aren't working with someone, or aren't planning on giving the code away, formatting and commenting your code is good practice. Get in the habit so when you need to, you do it without thinking. 3. Keep with the standards. Don't use depreciated tags or functions that have been replaced. They aren't used for a reason. Of course, one can't always follow the standards, but they are a good guideline, and you should follow them the best you can. This will help you in the future, and will once again teach you good coding habits. 4. Keep it simple. This is one of the most important tips I could possibly give. Don't code something when you don't need to. Don't over complicate your code by adding things - or making it possible to add things - that you will never use. Keep your code clean, keep it organized, and keep it simple.
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Post by The Herald on Nov 3, 2007 8:20:45 GMT
Name: Andrew (Kahless) Age: 17 Interests: Coding, Guitar, Music in general Website: webAddict (Coming Soon) If I remember correctly, you were the admin of Kronos Designs, which is now closed. What have you learned from that experience and what will you do better in the future to ensure wA is successful?Well the main reason Kronos failed is that we didn’t really have anything that appealed to members over other forums, and the things we had were way to hard to manage. With wA, we have highly effective ideas that we can maintain and build on easily. The big thing I learned is not to bite off more then you can chew, really. Which do you think is harder: Running a forum or coding it? Why?Running the forum by far. You gotta watch the mods, make sure things run, contests, database being updated, members not getting out of hand, advertising... the list goes on. With coding a forum, it's just trial and error really. After you do the hard work it's easy to fix. You mess up on a forum, you can't just hit the backspace button and try again. What project, be it coding or not, is your most successful?(Thinks) I haven’t really had any major ones to be honest. I've mostly been coding forums, but wA coding was a bit of a challenge. I was doing a lot of modifications and I still managed to make it load quick, plus working with another coder on big codes like with forums is very difficult, so I’m happy I pulled it off. Be on the look out in the future for some bigger projects from me. Why did you choose to learn coding as opposed to graphic design?I tried to design, I suck... nah, but I just like coding. It's logical and I can attack it from different sides. With graphics, it's based on peoples opinions a lot more and takes a lot more time. With coding, so long as it runs, they don’t have many problems as to the why. What advice can you offer to people interested in coding?Take your time and learn things properly and thoroughly, otherwise later on you have a lot of problems. Also, take your time and practice a lot; don’t try to write massive codes when you’re starting out. Read everything you can and maybe make a few friends with older or more experienced coders. Do you have any mentors online that you look up to? In what ways have they helped you improve as an admin/coder?Well, as an admin, no; every forum I posted on for fun has well died. But coding-wise I learned the basics from Aaron (Der Fleurer) and he helped me improve as a coder. The others that I looked at when I was starting I’ve pretty much caught up to now. I know you are involved with a band. What instrument do you play? What is it like to be in a band?I play Guitar and I sing lead vocals. Being in a band, although fun, is a lot of work. You need to work around people schedules and agree on things. It's great, but also tough sometimes.
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Post by The Herald on Nov 3, 2007 8:21:12 GMT
PSPad is a great text editing alternative to Notepad. PSPad is nice no matter what language you are coding in, and adds nothing extra to your code. But the truly great thing about PSPad is the little extra features that you don't have in Notepad. It comes with syntax highlighting for multiple languages, macros, spell check, a built-in FTP client, auto-completion, line numbers, auto-formatting, and much more. FTP File Browser. The FTP file browser on PSPad allows you to connect directly to your intended server, and edit the files right from there. It works by storing changes in a temp folder and uploading them when you save, but if I hadn't told you, you would be none the wiser. The interface is great, though there are a few bugs. The FTP client disconnects randomly, and some times the whole program will freeze if it can not connect to the server, but hey, this isn't any worse than Explorer. FTP File Browser The Syntax Highlighting is great. It color codes your, well, code to tell you exactly what is going on. It makes life a lot easier by pointing out important details - like a forgotten quote. Syntax Highlighting Macros really come in handy when you need to do a repetitive task. Recently I needed to renovate a clients website, and he used FrontPage or some other WYSIWYG editor that left a bunch of crap spacing in the HTML. This would have taken a good hour plus to clean up, but with a quickly configured Macro, I got it done in a few minutes. Macro start/stop button My spelling is absolutely terrible. Horrendous. If not for spell check, guaruantee guarantee would still be spelled wrong five times on the main page of my site. This is a Godsend for someone like me. Auto-completion is also an amazing tool. It closes your brackets, parentheses, quotes, and much more for you. You can open up a few more options, but even off the start it is really helpful. I wouldn't even wanted to think about how many brackets I would have left off in random code if it wasn't for this. It can get annoying at times (and takes a bit to get used to), but this feature is great. Tabs Auto-formatting is a neat little thing that uses TidyHTML to clean up your code. Mostly used only for HTML - but helpful with other code - the Auto-format feature makes your code more readable, but it doesn't touch the functionality. Line Numbers are almost a must for any text editor. PSPad by default shows the line numbers on the left side of your code; however, you can change this or get rid of it altogether. This is a great feature for debugging, without it I couldn't imagine getting anything to work. Line Numbers PSPad also offers some additional features such as hex editing, an option to change your HTML to Text, HTML compression and a few others I personally don't have any use for, but you might find helpful. You can download PSPad off their website at: www.pspad.com/ It is available in multiple languages, and the best part is; it's free!
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Post by The Herald on Nov 3, 2007 8:21:27 GMT
Recently I have been getting quite a few inquiries on forums and at school as to what the best web hosts are to choose. Web hosting has become quite a trivial thing. However, it can be annoying and tedious to copy your files over if you find a host who isn't right for you. In this article I will be reviewing a few hosts while teaching you what to look for and what to avoid. The first thing to consider is the amount of disk space and bandwidth you need. If you are planning on uploading quite a few media files, choose a plan with a decent amount of both. If you are making a personal HTML site, you won't need too much so you can choose the smaller, less expensive, plans. Another thing to consider is the knowledge you have of websites. If you are going to need help setting up your site, that is fine, but you want to look for a host that is known for helping people along with the process. Once you have an idea as to what you want, your next step is choosing your hosting provider. I am only covering paid hosts, but with a quick Google search you can find quite a few free hosts as well. Hostgator: Host Gator is a site that I personally have a few years experience with. I left them for some time due to pricing, but overall I find them a sound host. They offer cPanel, and have some slightly high priced plans, but they will also help set up a plan that suits your needs. They are a large hosting company founded in 2002. Popular Opinion: Most reviews on Host Gator are positive. People generally feel that they are a good host to choose. My Opinion: They are a little pricey, but they make up for it with stability and support. I have a reseller account there, and I also have a client who has a shared plan, and both seem to be functioning very well, with very few problems. The few problems I did have were resolved the same day I opened a ticket. They also offer live chat support. The only real "issue" I have with them is the lack of overselling on the reseller accounts. They do this to limit load problems, which is understandable, but it limits my hosting capabilities. Hosting Zoom: I had an account over at Hosting Zoom for a few months. They offer Reseller hosting as well as shared and dedicated hosting plans. They offer cPanel, and have decently priced plans. They are a large company founded in 2004. Popular Opinion: About half the reviews I found on Hosting Zoom are positive. The most common issue is down time, though people also complain about the fact that their servers are blacklisted by several spam filters. My Opinion: I didn't have a very positive experience with Hosting Zoom. I had a reseller account. My experience could be one of just bad luck, but overall I would say don't buy from them. My problems weren't something the average user would experience, but the run around they gave us, along with the lack of live chat support for non-premium users, an overall bad impression. Hosting Matters: I have a client that has a shared account over at Hosting Matters, and since I set the site up a few months ago, I haven't had any issues. They offer Reseller hosting as well as shared and dedicated hosting plans. They offer cPanel, and have high priced plans. Popular Opinion: Quite a few of the reviews complain about the horrible tech support. Over half I found could be classified as negative reviews. My Opinion: Since I have never had to contact support, I don't know how bad they might be. What I do know is that their servers are relatively fast, but their hosting is somewhat expensive. From my knowledge they seem to have decent uptime. Those are just a few to get you started. Do your own research. Since choosing the wrong host for you can be a waste of time and money, it is best to make the right choice in the beginning. Watch for the early warning signs: bad reviews, their own website doesn't function, lack of a support forum, etc. If you get a bad feeling, don't sign up.
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Post by The Herald on Nov 3, 2007 8:21:46 GMT
These are a few of the many sites that have the pleasure of occupying my "Programming/Web Development" Bookmarks folder. This list is ten sites I have found extremely helpful, and I hope you will as well. 1. FamFamFam Icons: This is an invaluable resource. They offer one of the best small icon sets around, absolutely free. My advice is to bookmark this, as you are bound to need it. 2. 13 sites for beautiful patterns and backgrounds: A great list composed of 13 sites you can go to get great background images and patterns. Another great resource, I have used this several times for various projects. 3. Web 2.0 Resources: A huge collection of downloadable Web 2.0 layer styles, gradients, and more- all for Photoshop. Great for that Web 2.0 look. I can't think of a time when I haven't used something from this site. 4. Creating a table with dynamicly highlighted columns: A neat little tutorial that shows you an alternative way of displaying content. I enjoyed it because it gave me new ideas about how to style the content on my own site. 5. W3Schools: This is the perfect website for any beginner. I still use it myself when I forget something or I need to look something up. 6. CSS cheat-sheet: A neat little cheat-sheet for CSS, this is very helpful when you forget something. 7. CSS Lists: A very cool site that taught me new ways of customizing lists. 8. CSS Links: A common thing that people overlook when making a website is styling their links. Such an easy thing makes your website look that much more unique. 9. Best CSS tools of May: A good site to check out and read if you have the time, even if it is old. I learned quite a few things from here. 10. Top Ten CSS Tricks: Ten very good CSS tricks. Gives a basic overview of CSS, different elements, how to use them and when. Talks about quite a few things that will make you a better CSS coder. Well, there you go. This is only a basic run-down of a few sites I found helpful, there are plenty others out there. If you come across a particularly interesting resource, PM it to me and maybe it will get a spot in a future article.
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