KCooper

I am massively in favour of this! Not that my reputation is equally as massive Good addition Kyle

lol, yeah I've seen that countless times, usually with "functional" thrown in there too

That really depends on the size of the content that you wish to go within each column. Kyle

The best thing to come from lady gaga, in my opinion; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WnCdf04ba0

But shes like, sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo kooky! It keeps her image in the magazines, gets people talking about her and thus makes her and her label more money, and people lap it up. But tell me about it, dude. To be honest, "celebrity" and fashion generally grates me to the bone, so I try and avoid it as much as I can

Still haven't got this working. Heres the piece of jquery I am currently using by the way, for clarity; <script type="text/javascript"> var $j = jQuery.noConflict(); $j(function() { $j('#tabs').smarttab ({ autoProgress: true, transitionEffect: 'none'}); }); </script>

Theres usually some way of making it look less horiffic. Take it into Photoshop and see if you can add some subtle effects to it, make it look a little less clip-art-ey Kyle

I'm liking it so far - talk about adding a splash of colour Kyle

I know a lot of people use GIMP as a free alternative to Photoshop. I've never used it before (or Inkskape for that matter, so if thats working for you stick with that ) but I've only ever really heard positive things. Link here if you want to have a look. At the end of the day, its the end result that matters, not what you use to get there. I was lucky to pick up Photoshop from a friend, otherwise no doubt I'd be using one of the free alternatives too! Kyle

For HTML/CSS; I used Head First XHTML & CSS (link) I later purchased Handcrafted CSS (link) Your best bet is just keep coding and coding and coding, though, and use books/this forum/the plethora of online tutorials if you get stuck - it does sink in eventually For JavaScript; I have never really worked through any books/tutorials on JavaScript, though I did do a bit of it at uni which gave me the basics. Stick to using jQuery, theres no doubt that knowing javascript well would be useful, but learning to use prebuilt jQuery plugins will serve you perfectly well more often than not. For PHP/MySQL; I'm just working through a book for this at the moment, slowly but steadily. PHP 6 and MySQL 5 (link). Whether this is the best book, I cannot say, but its going well so far (only 3 chapters in, though). For Design (I'm assuming Photoshop here, its the main design tool I use by a long shot); I just signed up to linda.com for a month. A guy called Deke Mcklelland has some fantastic Photoshop tutorials on there. I blitzed through the beginner and intermediate ones (each about 6/7hours long) and that gave me the confidence to be able to navigate around the program. From there, practice, practice, practice - recurring theme It really depends on your personal preference, and both are equally acceptable ways of doing it. Personally, I use both methods. I prefer using a book when I am taking those first tentative steps into a new area. Once I have got the basics down, I find I usually just dive into it and use google when I get stuck. Kyle

Sounds like a good call!

Welcome!

I'm trying to get to grips with Wordpress myself, at the moment! What I usually find is a huge help, is to keep constantly checking the source code, finding the areas I wish to style, and checking out what id's/classes'/span's/ WordPress automatically generates for those areas. Then, from your own stylesheet, target these areas and style them! This might not work ideally for what you are asking, but just thought I'd put that tip out there as it has helped me out loads over the past few weeks Kyle

Hi guys, I'm trying to get the smart tab jquery plugin working on the portfolio page of my website. I can get it working on a standard HTML site, just not via Wordpress, so I'm guessing its an issue with the jquery script I am using, and jquery is not a particularly strong skill of mine. Failing that, I've missed a close div or something stupid any pointers in the right direction would be hugely appreciated Might be easiest just to view the source code of the page; http://www.kylecooper.co.uk/portfolio/ Thanks in advance, Kyle

Yeah, pretty "goddamnit!"-inducing. Though, having a look at some example "success stories" its not too worrying; http://www.stretchnstamina.co.uk/ http://www.contrast-training.co.uk/ http://www.zumbacheshire.co.uk/ I don't think we are totally screwed just yet It looks like a useful tool to help people get online, but it certaintly doesn't appear to negate the need for professional intervention.

Welcome! Kyle

Welcome! Kyle

Welcome! Kyle

Yes its possible, and I couldn't possibly explain it any better than Wickham above, +1

The entry fields are too small, when I type in them you can't see the whole of the letters I type. In the "Why should we hack them?", the colour for the entry text is a shade of grey, and thus really hard to read against the black background. Heres an image showing what I mean; Otherwise, seems to be all good, I like the idea I'm using the latest version of Firefox by the way. KYle

Cheers dude. Yeah I'm well aware that my design skills aren't as good as they could be, its just not the background I come from. I'm always trying to improve though, and I find that with each new site I work on, it comes a bit more naturally to me. Thats quite an improvement you've made, there Irrespective of the coding, the design and feel considering its a first website is actually pretty good, lol. Aye, its a pickle. You gotta do what you gotta do to keep the money rolling in, though. I usually find if you do add a bit of uniqueness to a site, outside the realm of the usual corporate-ness, and explain to the client why you have done so, they are usually pretty receptive to it. Kyle

Welcome! Kyle

It displays fine for me; I'm using Firefox 3.6.13 Kyle

Fully agree with this. For all thier nuances, I just like the feeling of not being totally locked down that I get with a PC. Plus, not only is upgrading to new pieces of hardware usually fairly easy (ie, I've never personally had any issues) but relatively cheap too, considering the performance increases you can get. Something thats always personally irritated me about Apple is how much extra they are charge for additional components/upgrades; a quick look on the iMac configuration page shows; 4 GB ram upgrade to 8GB - (+£164) 4 GB ram upgrade to 16gb (+£818.00) - 1TB HDD to 2TB HDD - (+£123.00) Some of those prices are staggeringly high. Granted, you don't have too upgrade, and you'd no doubt get good performance from the stock setup, but, wow, those upgrade prices are fairly insulting. I'm not trying to get suckered into the whole PC vs Mac debate here, I know they are good pieces of kit, just giving some of the reasonsing behind the appeal of the PC for me. I was going to give a similar comparison. I often think its funny; realistically speaking, being a fan of tinkering with your PC is no different than being a fan of tinkering with your car, but the former is considered nerdy, and the latter somewhat cool... hey, maybe one day we'll have a computer hardware version of Top Gear Kyle