The whole point of being a web developer is that you create websites for people. I'm now at the stage in my craft when I can actually do that - so I am and it's all starting to get very scary.
The issue with creating things is that there is no point when you've tried everything. One minute you're wandering about and the next you've had an idea for something. Technology has a similar issue. You start off knowing nothing and you never ever ever get to the point where you know everything. As soon as you've learnt everything you think possible to know about something, some smart arse goes and invents something else.
If you decide that you're going to spend your life creating things with technology, then you will probably have a lot of days where you feel like a plank who doesn't know anything! Negative self talk aside I have realised that I will never get to the end. As soon as I master a piece of software or a programming language there'll be a better way to do it. In fact before I even start there is somebody sat at home inventing a better way. I don't know what Ruby on Rails is yet but I'll bet you a fiver that somebody is already working on an upgrade.
The first time I looked at a piece of source code and understood what I was looking at, I felt like a genius. In fact the warm, smug feeling lasted for days. Unfortunately more and more frequently I keep finding things I haven't learnt how to do yet. I recently started learning web scripting - so all the smugness I've built up by mastering HTML has been replaced with insecurity about my abilities with PHP. The problem is that I'm impatient. I want to know how to do everything now. Right now, right this minute!
The plan behind the web development came from my position as a frustrated retailer. I had an e-commerce site that didn't perform and couldn't afford to pay somebody else to do it for me. Therefore I decided to go to university and learn how to write my own websites. A little OTT perhaps but being at uni keeps me out of mischief during the day and lets me look after my family during the school holidays, which is more than can be said for my previous life as a shop keeper or the one before as a senior manager.
My love of retail comes and goes, so whilst I'm perfecting my craft, I'm producing sites for other people. At the moment I'm building sites for people I know and who more importantly, know me. Despite the fact that I'm working with my friends, these are real sites for real people so I have to get it right. My work will be used to represent their businesses. Out there in real life. It is not like the website university are making me create for a ficticious conference centre - these are real people with real businesses in the real world and that is scary. In fact some days it's absolutely bloody terrifying but the best way to conquerer your fears is to just get up and do it. The more sites I create - the better I get at it and the friends I'm building sites for at the moment will be getting updated sites next year when I know even more.
So between the coursework, the client sites, the family and the procrastination it looks as though I'm going to be really busy for the forseeable future.
Saturday, 29 October 2011
Friday, 7 October 2011
The iPod: My First Love
This week saw the passing of the legendary Steve Jobs. I am quite prone to using the word legendary in a fairly haphazard way but in the case of Steve Jobs I think it's fair to say that the term is entirely appropriate.
Apple didn't really exist for me until I was given an iPod as a present. The logic behind this fantastic gift was that I'd be able to upload my CD collection onto one piece of kit and get rid of my CD's. This would mean that Mr WorthyOnTheWeb wouldn't have to put up with me leaving them all over the house. Unfortunately his logic was flawed and owning the iPod didn't affect my beloved collection of CD's or the vinyl and cassette collections that preceded it. Despite exasperating my husband and costing him a large amount of money, the iPod is for me the best present I have ever owned. My children are the only thing I have been happier to accept into my life.
Everything about my iPod was gorgeous, even the packaging. In fact the packaging was so wonderful that I have only recently thrown it out. There were layers of specially shaped polystyrene, making a box which had a sleek black sleeve around it. Even the carrier bag felt luxurious. The iPod itself has twice the depth of the current classic model and feels much heavier than it's modern counterpart. It was shiny on the back, glossy on the front and came with a docking station and associated wiring. It was the most gorgeous piece of technology I'd ever seen and I loved it instantly. In fact I loved to so much that I bought a Mac Book. I didn't need one, I just wanted one. It was also sleek and glossy. In fact it was so sleek and glossy that I totally ignored the fact that it didn't do any of the things I actually needed it to do. I had to go out and buy the iWork suite of apps because despite costing me almost £800.00 I couldn't use it for spreadsheets or word processing. Garage Band and Comic Book are all well and good, but at the time I didn't want or need any of them. I still don't if I'm honest. I can count on one hand the number of times I've used Garage Band and the only reason I've ever used the other is because it's there. Granted they are both pretty cool but it's like paying over the odds for a car with a snowboard carrier when I don't snowboard and then having to buy a steering wheel and headlights.
My love of the iPod formally became a love of all Apple products. I have an iPhone and a MobileMe account. All of which works well unless you attempt to use any of it with anything that wasn't created by Apple. Unfortunately in my experience it doesn't play well with others. Write a page on iWeb and upload it to MobileMe and it's all happy days. I wouldn't recommend writing a page on iWeb and trying to host it elsewhere and I would strongly advise against writing your own web pages in HTML and CSS and trying to host them on your MobileMe web space. My iPhone only tolerates sending emails from my mobile me accounts, attempting to send emails from my other accounts generates sniffy messages about receiving accounts not accepting relayed messages. If I turn off my WIFI, say the magic words and do a special dance it sometimes works, but it's generally easier to just reply from an Apple email address because that just works.
Essentially the problem is that I loved my first iPod so much that I assumed that every member of it's family was just as wonderful. I now know that they aren't. My Mac Book is still awesome but newer versions of the Mac Book and the newer feline operating systems have rendered it almost obsolete, despite it working perfectly (so far) The realisation that not everything I buy from an Apple store is entirely lovable has changed my view a little and taught me to be more careful about the brands I fall in love with. It was an expensive beautifully designed lesson.
When my iPod eventually started playing up and subsequently died I was practically distraught. I had a genuine sense of loss. The pain must have shown because Mr WorthyOnTheWeb bought me a new iPod Classsic. It's technically superior to the first one, but it's not as gorgeous and although I love it - the attachment isn't as emotional as it was with the first. Luckily I still owned the original CD's, which justified my crazy hoarding tendancies, but there was something different about the new one, almost like replacing a cherised family dog with a new puppy. The first one was so fantastic that even it's replacement can't compete with it. I opted for a black one this time. The back is still shiny, but the front finish is matte instead of the glossy finish I was expecting. It has a slightly different shape and has lost a lot of the weight. Environmental concerns have transformed the packaging. The polystyrene casing is a thing of the past. It came in a cardboard box a quarter of the size of the original one. It's a good looking box but there is a lot less drama to unwrapping it. I was almost disappointed when they put it on the counter. Thankfully the carrier bags are still quite luxurious and when I got it home and started using it, I got over myself. It's only a music player for goodness sake.
I still have my original iPod, I can't quite bring myself to throw it away. Maybe deep down I'm hoping there is a way to fix it. At some point I'll probably buy an iPad to join my Apple collection but no matter how gorgeous it is, I doubt if I'll love it in quite the same way as I did my very first iPod.
The legacy of Steve Jobs is bigger than the technologies he created. The ability to create a piece of technology that people not only find useful and functional but also become emotionally attached to is undoubtedly not only marketing and commercial gold but genuine genius.
Apple didn't really exist for me until I was given an iPod as a present. The logic behind this fantastic gift was that I'd be able to upload my CD collection onto one piece of kit and get rid of my CD's. This would mean that Mr WorthyOnTheWeb wouldn't have to put up with me leaving them all over the house. Unfortunately his logic was flawed and owning the iPod didn't affect my beloved collection of CD's or the vinyl and cassette collections that preceded it. Despite exasperating my husband and costing him a large amount of money, the iPod is for me the best present I have ever owned. My children are the only thing I have been happier to accept into my life.
Everything about my iPod was gorgeous, even the packaging. In fact the packaging was so wonderful that I have only recently thrown it out. There were layers of specially shaped polystyrene, making a box which had a sleek black sleeve around it. Even the carrier bag felt luxurious. The iPod itself has twice the depth of the current classic model and feels much heavier than it's modern counterpart. It was shiny on the back, glossy on the front and came with a docking station and associated wiring. It was the most gorgeous piece of technology I'd ever seen and I loved it instantly. In fact I loved to so much that I bought a Mac Book. I didn't need one, I just wanted one. It was also sleek and glossy. In fact it was so sleek and glossy that I totally ignored the fact that it didn't do any of the things I actually needed it to do. I had to go out and buy the iWork suite of apps because despite costing me almost £800.00 I couldn't use it for spreadsheets or word processing. Garage Band and Comic Book are all well and good, but at the time I didn't want or need any of them. I still don't if I'm honest. I can count on one hand the number of times I've used Garage Band and the only reason I've ever used the other is because it's there. Granted they are both pretty cool but it's like paying over the odds for a car with a snowboard carrier when I don't snowboard and then having to buy a steering wheel and headlights.
My love of the iPod formally became a love of all Apple products. I have an iPhone and a MobileMe account. All of which works well unless you attempt to use any of it with anything that wasn't created by Apple. Unfortunately in my experience it doesn't play well with others. Write a page on iWeb and upload it to MobileMe and it's all happy days. I wouldn't recommend writing a page on iWeb and trying to host it elsewhere and I would strongly advise against writing your own web pages in HTML and CSS and trying to host them on your MobileMe web space. My iPhone only tolerates sending emails from my mobile me accounts, attempting to send emails from my other accounts generates sniffy messages about receiving accounts not accepting relayed messages. If I turn off my WIFI, say the magic words and do a special dance it sometimes works, but it's generally easier to just reply from an Apple email address because that just works.
Essentially the problem is that I loved my first iPod so much that I assumed that every member of it's family was just as wonderful. I now know that they aren't. My Mac Book is still awesome but newer versions of the Mac Book and the newer feline operating systems have rendered it almost obsolete, despite it working perfectly (so far) The realisation that not everything I buy from an Apple store is entirely lovable has changed my view a little and taught me to be more careful about the brands I fall in love with. It was an expensive beautifully designed lesson.
When my iPod eventually started playing up and subsequently died I was practically distraught. I had a genuine sense of loss. The pain must have shown because Mr WorthyOnTheWeb bought me a new iPod Classsic. It's technically superior to the first one, but it's not as gorgeous and although I love it - the attachment isn't as emotional as it was with the first. Luckily I still owned the original CD's, which justified my crazy hoarding tendancies, but there was something different about the new one, almost like replacing a cherised family dog with a new puppy. The first one was so fantastic that even it's replacement can't compete with it. I opted for a black one this time. The back is still shiny, but the front finish is matte instead of the glossy finish I was expecting. It has a slightly different shape and has lost a lot of the weight. Environmental concerns have transformed the packaging. The polystyrene casing is a thing of the past. It came in a cardboard box a quarter of the size of the original one. It's a good looking box but there is a lot less drama to unwrapping it. I was almost disappointed when they put it on the counter. Thankfully the carrier bags are still quite luxurious and when I got it home and started using it, I got over myself. It's only a music player for goodness sake.
I still have my original iPod, I can't quite bring myself to throw it away. Maybe deep down I'm hoping there is a way to fix it. At some point I'll probably buy an iPad to join my Apple collection but no matter how gorgeous it is, I doubt if I'll love it in quite the same way as I did my very first iPod.
The legacy of Steve Jobs is bigger than the technologies he created. The ability to create a piece of technology that people not only find useful and functional but also become emotionally attached to is undoubtedly not only marketing and commercial gold but genuine genius.
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