That’s it, finito. My project is complete and I’m on the verge of submitting it. I can’t believe I’ve made it to this point without being carted off by men in white coats. This project has pushed my patience and tenacity to the brink, but I’ve got through. Now I just have to cross everything… Read More 16: Done and dusted
The finish line is looming so I’ve been busy putting the final polish on my site. As per Marcus’ request I’ve taken out all the <br> tags and replaced as many of the <div> tags as I can muster, as well as getting rid of any superfluous code I can find. I used the elements index… Read More 15: The home straight(jacket)
Here’s a great example of getting one thing working only to break another: I managed to implement an iframe to pull in Google Maps but this knocked my contact form off into a strange position. I tried changing the widths of all form elements and played with the margins and padding but it didn’t make any difference. Just for fun the footer… Read More 14: iFrame it on me
So it doesn’t look like huge progress from last week but once again it’s taken a bloody long time to get this far. I really hope I can get this done in time, I’m starting to sweat a bit now – only two weeks! In the last week I spent a lot of time working… Read More 13: Troubleshooting (myself in the foot)
I’ve managed to progress my website a bit further since my last blog but it feels like it’s progressing at a snail’s pace. Each tiny correction takes me hours to work out and I’ll often find I’ve broken something else in the process. I’ve found some answers and assistance on Stack Overflow and WebPlatform.org, like adding… Read More 12: Float:left like a butterfly
This week I’ve been feeling like I’m running out of time, but at the same time not quite having the required skills to actually do the job I’ve been tasked with. It’s a frustrating mix, but I’ve ploughed on all the same and am starting to produce something that vaguely resembles my design (if you squint).… Read More 11: On a wonk
So I’ve finally managed to put together something that resembles a wireframe of the site I plan to build. I’ve kept it super simple with three sections on one page. To be honest I still don’t feel confident enough to build anything much more complex than this (or even this). If I can get something… Read More 10: Dabbling with design
Unfortunately in week 9 my grandad became ill and so I had to dash back to Devon to help my mum look after him and then to organise the funeral once he passed away. This was obviously a big disruption to my studies and unfortunately I had to miss some lectures as a result. I’ve read up… Read More 9: Forming the basics
Well I’ve tried my best to keep calm and learn Javascript but after another lesson of struggling for it to sink in I’ve decided the best approach for me is to shelve it for the time being. I think with my level of experience I’d be wise to get my portfolio site developed further in HTML… Read More 8: Javascrip-ed over the edge
This week we started learning Javascript. The best thing I can say about this is that it makes HTML and CSS look easy. I really struggled to understand how it all fits together as the examples in class didn’t have much context. I could follow to a certain extent but then I would lose the thread and be… Read More 7: Lynda, my new BFF
This week I volunteered at the Nielsen Norman Group conference in London so I missed this lesson. I did 6 full days at the conference from 7.30am until 6.30 pm so I didn’t have much time or energy for study on top of that but I did learn a lot at the conference. None… Read More 6: Information overload
This week our lesson was cancelled so we could attend the UX Brighton conference. I found a lot of the presentations there to be interesting in a general sense but there wasn’t much that I felt I could apply from a practical point of view, particularly not relating to web development. The one presentation that probably… Read More 5: UX-y thing
This week we got stuck into CSS in a little more detail. I was really glad that I’d done some of the Khan Academy tutorials beforehand so some of it made more sense to me. Some of it still went slightly over my head but I’m sure it will make sense with a bit more… Read More 4: CSS-o far so good
This week we looked at HTML in a little more detail. We learned about the difference between block-level and inline elements, which I had a vague idea about without knowing that I knew it, if that makes sense. I’m finding that happening regularly in this class. Having learnt some very basic coding in my job, largely through trial and error,… Read More 3: HTML-ementary?
Our second web dev class started with a lecture on the history of how the internet developed, which was interesting to find out more about. I knew the basics, that is was invented by Tim Berners-Lee while he was working for a university, but it was good to get a more detailed understanding. We also went into… Read More 2: I Khan do this, Khan’t I?
After many years of hacking bits of code together in various dysfunctional content management systems, I’m finally learning web development properly – hurrah! I’ve wanted to improve my technical skills in this area for a long time so this is an ideal opportunity to focus on this. The languages we’ll be learning in this class… Read More 1: A Sublime start