Learn HTML – Chapter Three: What is HTML?
Posted on | July 19, 2011 | No Comments
HyperText Markup Language
CloseTags (Are Your World)
Basic Tags
Learn HTML – Chapter Two: Tools.
Posted on | July 19, 2011 | No Comments
Most tutorials teaching the basics of web design state that the only tool you need is ‘notepad’ or any other simple text-editor. However, I’m going to go against that. At the risk of turning you off right from the start I strongly suggest/urge you get hold of a graphics program (Photoshop being the most obvious and popular). Sorry, I know you want to learn something without recourse to spending money and might be a little indignant that these tutorials are expecting you to do so, but wait one moment. The great thing about the net over the past few years is the plethora of free programs that are out there. There’s no need to splurge money on Photoshop until you get very highly advanced (even then, there are still some great grahics editors for even the most advanced users).
Here’s a great list (an personally I highly recommend ‘Gimp’):
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pixelbasedwin/tp/freephotoedw.htm
Download one of these programs and you’ll be fully prepared to take on the tutorials that show you how to start incorporating graphics/images into your site. Until then, just open up Notepad.
A quick note on HTML editors – avoid them …. like the plague. At least until you are truly a great web designer. Why? HTML editors (ie. Frontpage Express, often shipped with Microsoft Office) are like ‘paint by numbers’. You can be Picasso, just by following rigid preset rules, without any vague ability to blend colours, understand subtlety or imagine a concept. Trouble is, take the numbers away and your lost. Another great analogy would be driving along in your car with no natural/logical sense of direction and no map in the car, but guided by your GPS. Then the GPS breaks down and you’re stranded somewhere in the middle of the Redwoods. How has the GPS made your life easier now. If you’d had a map in the car and had been bothered to learn how to use it, then maybe the bears wouldn’t have eaten you.
It’s exactly the same with an HTML editor. You think it makes your life easier, but the moment you don’t have access to it (maybe you’re on another computer and need to update or edit a site) your previously proud web design ‘skills’ are reduced to rubble.
I can’t guarantee that these tutorials will set you on the road to professionalism, but one thing I can guarantee is that if you use an HTML Editor to develop your websites but never ever learn how to ‘hand-code’ your sites from a blank page upward then you will NEVER be a successful web designer. And if contrary to what I’m saying you know someone who’s seemingly made a career out of using, for example, FrontPage Express, without ever having bothered to learn how to hand-code a page from scratch, please introduce them to me. I’d love to see what kind of websites they create. The bottom-line is that hand-coding not only gives you a great intial understanding of what you’re doing, but it also enables you, later on, to really get your teeth into the more complicated, cutting-edge, ultra-snazzy high-end stuff. You will NEVER get to this stage unless you learn to hand-code first.
Learn HTML – An Introduction
Posted on | July 15, 2011 | 1 Comment
No one likes to be patronised. There are a glut of learning resources out there on the internet, in libraries, on bookshelves, that purport to be ‘idiot’s guides’ or ‘for dummies’. Being self-derogatory can be fun, but some of us might be a little more sensitive about a lack of knowledge in a certain area. Some of us might willingly hold up our hands and shout “I’m a moron, teach me …”, some of us might have a little more pride. These tutorials assume nothing about your education, limits or state of mind. They just assume that you know absolutely nothing about web design but are very willing to learn.
These tutorials also set out to be jargon-free. My opinion is that ‘jargon’ is nothing more than a slightly insidious method of belittling others. If we throw a stream of technical terms and buzz-words at someone, we’re instantly excluding a vast majority of people who simply aren’t ‘in’ on the subject. More often than not jargon is used simply to prove to others that you’re knowledgable about something, almost used like some form of secret code by some special elite. This is, of course, fallacy. Just because you can throw some hot new technical term into a conversation doesn’t prove that you have even the smallest grasp of what it means. No-one, except the small handful of people in your elite little ‘club’, is impressed.
I’ve been designing and devoloping websites for over seven years now. I’m 100% self-taught, largely through trial and error, and I’ve worked freelance through most of that time, meaning that I haven’t had ‘clued-up’, ‘jargon-wise’ colleagues to trade ideas and anecdotes with. I could be the perfect person to teach you about this: by default, I just don’t do jargon and I’m confident that everything laid out in these tutorials will be clear and cohesive, oblivious of gobbledygook.
The overall intention of these tutorials is not to just to give you a basic grounding in web design but also to take you through the entire process of creating a modern, state-of-the-art webpage/site, at a level high enough to give you an exceptional chance to establish yourself as a professional web-designer, as opposed to a happy amateur or hobbyist. If you’re real about wanting to reach a high-level, then with a modicum of concentration and application these tutorials can take you there.