Saying Good Bye to my College Experience

A Look Back

Today I gave my final presentation closing out my college experience, although it is a blessed feeling of accomplishment of which I’m most proud, I also will greatly miss my grueling class schedule. The realization of it’s all over hit hard on my hour long drive home, no more worrying about the next big project or I’m just not getting this 3D modeling program called Blender or I have a huge database exam that I’m totally not prepared for. I do however have one last assignment before I walk the stage and receive my degree and that is to write a blog about anything I choose, so I’ll write my blog about my AB Tech experience and those that have inspired my during my stay there.

Honduras

Two and half years ago I was working a control systems manager for Anvil Knitwear Inc in Honduras when I decided to hang it up and come back home to my family. I knew I wanted to go back to school and had my mind made up to take Business Administration, it was only the logical choice since my entire career was somehow involved in managerial work. I went to AB Tech and took all my placement exams and got up to the desk to sign up for classes and at the last minute changed my mind to major in Digital Media. It sounded like a fun course that would be fun and exciting and since I loved photography it should be a snap.

College Begins

I began off course by starting in the spring so right off the bat my schedule was out of whack, I did the right thing by taking all the things I hated first, Math, English, public specking and things like that. I really enjoyed those first few semesters and it felt good to be back in school and not have all the responsibility of the work load of the last few years I endured in my job starting up new plants or consolidated old ones. The joy soon changed when I started getting into the move advanced classes of Digital Media, the first eye opener was Computer Art II. This class was the first class where we dived real deep into design and topography and the instructor was not the nicest person in the world, I actually seen a few tears on people during the tough critics in that class, but I did survive it making my first B.


Digital Media is a program that focuses on being able to design things like websites and other GUI’s that are not only beautiful but work in a logical and semantic way. You would think this would be an easy thing to do, but a lot of thought must go into what a user will do and think when using your interface. If you don’t make it extremely clear and easy for them to follow you’re in trouble and they will lose interest and move on to another site. The course work of involves things like

• Web design
• Databases
• 3D Modeling
• Animations and Action Script Programming in Flash
• Illustrations and Print
• Branding and Identity for businesses

Digital Media covers a broad spectrum and the program is extremely fast pasted, I found that the farther I got into it the more time it was taking to complete assignments and that I basically lived in front of my computer. I began to think if I had made the right choice by choosing this track and a lot of the people that I was taking class with began to fall out of the program. A few determined souls remained and we became close friends, helping one another and taking guidance from each other’s strong points and somehow we made it to the end of each semester together with passing grades.

In the fall of 2009 I had to take 5 courses that were all very demanding and it really was a test to my determination, taking courses that were considered to be most important in my curriculum such as User Interface Design and the more advanced web classes. I also took a programming class in mySql and a class called Digital Animation II, where the focus was on 3D Modeling and Animation using a program called Blender. I must say that the entire semester was nothing but my face in front of a computer screen and no time to do anything else, go to school put my face in front of a computer and then go home and do the same thing. It was hard and I wasn’t having any fun and considered going back to work. I stuck with it and before I knew it was over and I was registering for my last semester. Thank god!


With only 4 classes to go and one being Systems Project the end seemed close and I would finally be able to right all the wrongs from High School. The same group of student that managed to stick out the grueling demands of Digital Media were all in the same boat as me and we each had to completely brand a company and design logos, print ads, business cards and even do a complete website for them. It was defiantly the culmination to apply everything that we had learned from the last two and half year of mind breaking studying. I began this program with very little graphic design skills and over the course of the program I did manage to learn a lot in this area, although I’m still not the best designer, I have come a long way. Our instructors Jonathon Ross and Constance Humphries kept pushing us, wanting that little more from all of us, but with their guidance we all managed to push out a piece in the end that we all were extremely proud of.

Graduation

As I look back at my college experience at AB Tech I’m extremely proud that I chose Digital Media, It was a very hard course to complete and not many make it to the end, but those of us that did have learned a great deal. I have an enormous amount of respect for all my instructors who often put up with my repeated questions. AB Tech is a wonderful institution of higher learning and I don’t think I could have went anywhere else and learned as much as I did there. Although I’ll walk across the stage next Friday with my peers where we will receive our degrees with much happiness and satisfaction, I will greatly miss the program and all those wonderful people who taught us how to do it all. Thanks to all my instructors, but most of all to Jonathan Ross, Constance Humphries and Marlene Anderson-Roden, you’re the best.

Event Calendars

Event Calenders are a great way to let people know what is going on with your business and the dates that activities are going to take place. When choosing an event calender you have many options available depending on which Content Management System that you plan on using it with. Today I'll be looking at the Event Calenders for Joomla, as always I will begin my search using Google and see where it takes me.

Google Calendar

Using a Google Calendar a nice choice for those new to events calendars and has many options. It allows you to organize your schedule and keep track of life's important events all in one place. Below are some reasons to use an event calendar.
Share your schedule

• Get your calendar on the go
• Never forget another event
• Send invitations and track RSVPs
• Sync with your desktop applications
• Work offline
• Is Free

You can embed the calendar on your personal website by copying the embed code and placing it into your own HTML. Google calendar also allows you to change the colors, and size of your calendar to what ever you feel best suits you. Firefox seems to have some issues with the Java Script but you can make it work with a little head scratching. You can also link to your calendar if that works best for you.

JEvents

JEvents for Joomla is a lot more complicated but is a very powerful tool for Joomla users and developers. You can download JEvents 1.5.3 and it offers a ton for themes that you can choose from to fit your needs. The Calender itself is pretty self explanatory once you have it installed it allows you to post your schedule for your business or your own personal needs. There are a lot of resourse out there on the internet to help you get started using JEvents but I find them extremely difficult to understand and get it installed.

To add an event all you have to do is go to the day and click on the date and add event. You can then select the category for the event and enter a description of the event. JEvent has a very nice editor that allows you to customize it in many ways, very nice. You can set reminder that will email you on what ever time frame you establish.

JCalPro

JCal Pro is a W3C-validated, multi-language events calendar component with a gorgeous, CSS-based front-end display. Feature highlights include, native Joomla! permission for event creation/management and event viewing, multiple calendars including private or public calendars, WYSIWYG event descriptions, administrative theme installation and management, back-end event management, an integrated search plug-in, feature-rich mini-calendar and latest events modules, RSS feeds and SEF URL support.

JCalPro is a very attractive calendar and is supported my Joomla and to me was the easiest of all to understand. If you want to add an event there is a icon in the top left of the calendar that says add event, how easy is that to understand. Add the necessary information using the WYSIWYG editor and save it. It also allows you to send emails to yourself or other reminding them of the event that is coming up. You can configure it to be private or public, its your choice.

My Pick

JCalPro all the way. It's simple and very attractive and even more impressive it was easy to install and use and that made me happy

CMS Templates --- Joomla

Starting off any web project can be a daunting task and for me it’s the hardest part of any project, it’s that first step into an unknown world of what am I going to do with this. The first step a developer needs to take is sitting down in front of the ole computer and having a look at the many templates available on the internet. This not only gives the developer and little help but also a little inspiration to boot.

To Template or not to Template

As a newbie to Joomla designing a template from scratch is not the worst thing I could do, it would give me the experience of learning the this new CMS and become a little more familiar with its inner workings and interface, however, using a template offers many advantages and allows us to see just how powerful Joomla can be. The web as many resources and all you have to do is go to Google and type in a search to be flooded with free online templates, here are my top five sites for Joomla Templates.

• Joomla 24
• Joomla Shack
• Best of Joomla
• Joomla Bear
• Site Ground

This project I'm about to undertake is part of a Emerging Technologies Class at AB Tech and it involves coming up with a working template for Art Space which is a charter school located in Asheville North Carolina. This project is a full blown database website that the school will use to let Students and Family know what is going on and fill out any necessary form that is required. I have chosen

Art Space Charter School

I think that any school should have a simple and welcoming site that is fresh and inviting for potential visitors, having said that I think warm color scheme would be the right choice. It also needs to be user friendly and have a clear navigation menu that allows parents and visitors and easy means to find what they are looking for. For this project I have chosen the Going to School Template.
The reason I chose this template is that is has the look and feel of a school already, with only the modifications to be made for my existing needs I think this would be a good starting ground for my project. The color scheme is simple and the text is easily read.

Resources for learning Joomla

Im providing a quick list of places that you can go to learn Joomla, these links are in-valuable for the beginning programmers that wish to delve deeper into the world of CMS's and Joomla.

• Joomla Tutorials
• Compass Designs
• Joomla Shack
• Rocket Theme

Search Engine Optimization vs. Search Engine Marketing/Visibility

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a well known term that is used widely in today’s web community and Clients that wish to have a website built often refer to this when talking with web developers. Clients want more than anything to have their website returned at the top of the list when Google returns its list of search item results, but is this really what clients want? I would have to say it’s not. In this blog we will talk about the difference between SEO and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Visibility (SEV) and what your client really wants.

What Client really Want

Clients want their site at the top of the list and that is really Search Engine Visibility (SEV) but the difference between the two can be confusing to those who are not knowledgeable in this arena. SEO is really a component of search engine marketing, SEO is the process of improving a web site’s placement in the listings of the search engines like Google, Yahoo and many others, these listings are commonly known as “organic” listings. The term SEM is the process of marketing a website via the Internet Search engines: whether by improving rank in organic or natural listings, paid or sponsored listings or a combination of both.

SEO involves:


On-site Optimization:

• Improvement of your HTML code on each page of your site
• Improve the relevance of keywords
• Include Meta, Title and Description tags
• Have good site navigation structure and link wording

Off-site Optimization: Getting back-links from other relevant sites by using keywords or anchor text in the links themselves.

SEM goal is to create additional traffic to websites by increasing their visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs). There are several ways to improve SEM.

• Paid inclusion: this is where you pay a search engine company to add your site to their database and your site will appear above other non-paying sites.
• Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising: where advertisements appear alongside of normal search results or on relevant pages on other sites.
• Email Campaigns and Safe lists: these can be free or from a paid provider, create a newsletter and have an opt-in option.
• Write Articles: articles is a great and free way to promote your online services
• Banner and Link Exchanges: Banners need to be catchy and specific on placed on sites that are pertains to your target audience.

Content Management System (CMS) and SEO /SEM/SEV

Search Engine Optimization along with SEM and SEV are largely about good content and proper links and navigation right? So implementing a CMS would be a big help in your efforts? This is not always the case.

CMS must be SEO friendly but most were not designed with SEO in mind, here are a few examples of the problem.

• Dynamic URLs: that use special characters (%&=) throw up red flags to search engine spiders
• Bad Meta Tags: Many CMS do not even allow users to assign unique, relevant Title and Description tags to content
• Keyword Poor URLs: some CMS often do not let you create URSs that include keywords
• Unfriendly Search Design: more than a few CMS can make a page total invisible to a search engines because of text in images, script-based navigation, overuse of AJAX and a host of other practices.

Search Engine Friendly CMS:

When searching for Search Engine Friendly CMS there are a few things to consider and not all CMS that say they are SEO compatible really are. Make sure you understand what you are getting because some CMS mean is that the programmer can modify the systems with add-ons, although this approach works it does require a trained developer who understands it more in-depth. A better solution is a CMS that directly implements common SEO task, that is human/search engine readable URLs, 301 redirects, Meta tags that are built into the CMS itself.

CMSimple vs. Website Baker

Content Management Systems are a must for modern web developers these days; clients want the ability to change the content on their site on their own. In a tough economy clients don’t want to spend lots of money but still expect a lot from their web developer, so it’s important to know which open source Content Management Systems are right for your Clients. CMSimple and Website Baker are two CMS that are worth looking into as they are both open source and absolutely free.

Installing:

The comparison of these two begins during the install, for CMSimple once you download the program and extract the files to your localhost you’re basically done. All you have to do is copy the folder and you can then begin coding your new site. Website Baker is not as simple to get going as CMSimple, with Website Baker you must have a php server and mySql installed on your localhost, once you have that done you can begin the install of website baker and it’s a little more complicated. Website Baker is a true database driven website and requires a mySql database to be created before you run the install to create the website. Once the database is created you can run the install file located in the wb folder. The install will bring you to setup screen you will have to enter the information to properly set up your database and website, and then just click the install site and your done. In my opinion CMSimple is wins hand down in the install as it is far easier and doesn’t require a true database, copy the folder and you have a website wherever you put it.

Creating a Website:

Creating and coding a website using CMSimple requires the use of three files in two locations, the content for the site is located in the content folder in a file called content.htm. This is where all the data for every page that is on your site is located in one single htm page. Creating different pages for your site only requires that you place H1, H2 and H3 tags in your code and it will automatically create a new page and generate a menu for you. The next two file that you will need are located in your templates folder and they are the template.htm and the stylesheet.css and this is where of course style your site. The reason I tell you this is that it can be confusing having to go between the two locations to do certain task. The editor in CMSimple is very simple and allows you to do most anything you need to accomplish.


Website Baker is much more robust with its way of doing the coding and creating pages, once you have it installed it will bring you to the control panel where you can modify any of the settings in your site and create new pages at the click of a button. Website Baker is far ahead in this area and I really like the simplicity of its control panel, even for the new developers it easy to understand. The editor is easy to use and straightforward and allows you to upload all types of media to your site and it will even unzip them for you, how cool is that? Website Baker is the winner here by far and I truly love the control panel. Although both CMSimple and Website Baker have templates that you can download and install Website baker wins here again, Website Baker had many different templates to choose from and you can install any template from the control panel and choose which one you want to use, so at the click of a button you can choose which style you like and the look the you need for you clients.

Which Do I Choose?

That is a toughs question to answer; it really depends on the client’s needs and what kind of site they are wanting. CMSimple backs itself up each time you log out of the system which is way cool and you can even configure how many backups you want to keep. Website Baker you have to backup the database manually at the control panel and then make a copy of your folder, but Website Baker is a much more robust CMS. CMSimple and Website Baker both have a loyal following and both will be here for a long time as for which is the best one, hum… I would have to say Website Baker for me. It really depends on the client’s needs as to which one I would use and where. My recommendations are dive into them and decide for yourself which is better for YOU!

Download them both CMSimple and Website Baker and Enjoy !

References:
This one is just from me and are my own thoughts. Scary uh?

Introduction to Content Management Systems(CMS)

A Content Management System is an excellent tool for a company to maintain a website without having to understand Markup Languages needed to create and manage a website. CMS systems allow companies to have less dependence on their developers for quick edits and daily changes. A developer can configure you website to run with a CMS and with minimal training, an employee of the company can add photographs, links, and other content as needed without having to pay the developer to make changes. This reduces the cost of the overall website and the frustrating waiting time it often takes the developer to make the changes.

Basics Feature of a CMS:

A CMS comes with all types of features, some features are necessary have just to operate and manage a website. The basics are a simple GUI that will allow you to create content and manage your site, the features are a text editor with simple formatting options that also allow you to upload images and other types of media, a user login to control administration and allow for updates. They will also offer basic templates to choose from but are very limited.
Advanced Features of a CMS:
More advanced CMS systems come with all types of bells and whistles and require much more knowledge to utilize, some features to look for are the ability to use CSS and create your own templates and styles necessary to control the presentation of your site. Most advanced systems offer many types of plugins in order to give the users more options, flexibility and control. Complex CMS systems offer a more dynamic range of options to allow for many different levels of users and security and even reporting options.

Designers and CMS:

In the modern world of business today, more and more companies want to update their own content on their site. A designer and web developer needs to be competent in the various CMS available today. The needs of the company will dictate which type of CMS it will need; some will only require a simple version to update the textual data and images while others will need a fully functioning database system for e-commerce. The developer will need to be aware of the many different types of CMS in order to maintain flexibility for his/her client base and provide a cost effective solution. The best way for a designer to learn a CMS is to jump in and start using it, create simple sites and practice, practice, practice.

CMS and SEO:

Search Engine Optimization is largely about using good semantic web standards and coding practices which would lead you to believe that using a CMS would be a big help, not necessarily so. Many CMS are not designed with SEO in mind and problems with spiders being able to read them can even reduce the sites SEO, for example, bad Meta tags where some CMS do not even use the title or description tags. Some content management systems even have a practically invisible structure of pages that spiders cannot see
To make the most of your content in reaching better search engine rankings, your CMS users must easily be able to optimize content as they create it. For this, you need a CMS that allows non-technical users to specify keyword rich URLs, title tags, descriptions and image alt text. The system should provide feedback on these elements in terms of how they will affect the page's performance for selected keywords. This kind of CMS allows users to create and optimize content in one tool rather than having to switch back and forth between a CMS and a set of SEO tools.

References:

http://www.idatatechnologies.com/en-US/SEO_and_CMS_how_do_they_Relate.aspx
http://www.websmx.com/dme/?Lectures:Web_Development:Content_Management_Systems
http://ithemes.com/5-reasons-to-use-a-content-management-system/
http://www.seowebsitecms.com/

Smartphone Technology and the Designer

Smartphone technology is one of the single fastest growing technologies afforded to businesses today and has changed the way many businesses operate. More and more firms are turning to Smartphone Applications to enhance the way customers interact with their products and services and even boost their bottom line. In today’s world, customers expect to have everything at their finger tips and receive feedback on a timely manner, if companies can’t provide that information quickly the results can be devastating. Providing an application for clients will assist in keeping companies on the mind of your customer and give the company a modern, up to date appeal.
A modest Smartphone Application can cost between $6000 to $8000 dollars to create and implement, and most companies will see this as a wise investment for improving Company Client relations. Even Small business can have an application with less features and buttons for around $2000 dollars.

History

Smartphone Technology emerged in 1993 with release of the Simon by IBM; this phone contained a calendar, email, world clock, calculator, notepad and a couple of games. Since that day Smartphone Technology has evolved into what are basically, small computers, offering the same characteristics as your desktop or laptop. In the mid to late 1990s PDAs became all the rage and the technology advanced to start offering applications such as word processors, spreadsheets, music, cameras, wireless Internet and so on. Today there is not much a Smartphone cannot do and the technology is advancing with leaps and bounds every year.

Benefits of Smartphone Technology

The benefits of using Smartphone’s are enormous to any company large or small and offer tons of features and applications that can assist you in your daily business or private life.

• Keeping you organized - Smartphone handsets can function as personal organizers, with electronic diaries, contact lists, and automatic reminders
• Flexible working - as with a PDA, you can use your Smartphone to take notes, review and edit your appointments, contacts and documents, all while you're on the move.
• Information at your fingertips - Access to maps and directions to television transmissions with news coverage or weather reports to traffic information and scheduling alerts - which means your business can always stay one step ahead of what's going on.
• Never out of touch - you can connect to the internet for e-mail and web access 'on the move', or connect to your computer network to access relevant data, wherever you are, making it easier for remote workers, or a mobile workforce to stay in touch with the business.
• Faster communication - web access is quicker, making it easier to access e-mail and information from the Net. Some models and carriers offer an 'always-on' internet access service making connection easier.
• Sell and Promote Products – Personalized Applications for companies allow mobile users to browse and purchase products from any location via a wireless connection. The power is in the hands of the consumer which holds the Smartphone where ever they go.

Who is using the Technoloy

Many Companies are already using this technology already, Pizza Hut, Amazon, Dell just to name a few. Break Down Way, a small company from Pomeroy Ohio is an online company that provides guitar and bass lesson to their clients. David Wolff, owner of the company has found a new way to attract customers by offering an application that will provide lesson via Smartphone technology. The plan offers 5 free lessons and for those who wish to continue to use the service a small $29.99 monthly fee will be charged which will give customers access to the full catalogue of lessons taught by artists including Jorma Kaukonen from Jefferson Airplane and Michael Falzarano from Hot Tuna. That’s just one small example of the technologies many uses and the best part is that any company can benefit from it.

Problems Associated with Smartphone’s

As with most technology Smartphone’s due have some problems and business and consumers need to be aware. The most pressing issue is with security and if plan to do online banking or transferring data be cautious, stealing IDs and data transmission is a common type of fraud. Another concern is that in todays fast pace world people are using Smartphone’s while driving and it has been a factor in many auto Accidents and Fatalities. Many States are now passing legislation to ban there use while driving in effort to reduce such accidents.

Smartphone’s and the Designer

As a Designer understanding and being able to design applications for customers will afford us a means of revenue, far into the future. Smartphone Applications are not trends that will go away in the near future, they will continue to grow and evolve as the needs increase, which by all predictions are immense. Smart Designers will take the opportunity to learn and become fluent in this technology so that they can keep ahead of their competitors and offer clients that extra touch that is so valuable in today’s economy.

Flash CS5

The upcoming release of Flash CS5 will incorporate many features for designers to create all types of mobile phone applications for a wide range of phones including the iPhone. Designers will be able to create applications and compile them to run in apples native code for the iPhone, other Smartphone’s will be able to load SWF files in regular Flash format through the web browser. Some of the many features are listed below

• Accelerometer Input – A new class allows developers to read acceleration values in X, Y and Z axes and control them with Actionscript 3.
• Screen Orientation – SWF content adjust automatically between Portrait and Landscape modes or remain consistent with the way the application was built.
• Graphics hardware acceleration – a GPU based vector renderer replaces the software renderer on the Smartphone resulting in faster rendering performance while using less power.
• Reuse Action Script 3 Code – You can use existing code long as the phone supports the functionality on available devices, Just make sure it is web optimized adjust for mobile

Designer who take the time to learn this technology will reap the benefits of an ever growing market and the market is one of the fastest growing technologies of today. Some say that Smartphone’s could replace computers altogether for the regular person and business, I don’t think that will happen, however; I do feel that it is wise to understand and offer this technology as a service in my business for future success and stability.

Links of Referenced Material

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125071635069144197.html
http://www.laptopxl.com/devices/smartphone/
http://www.is4profit.com
http://www.scmagazineuk.com
http://www.taterboy.com