Pete Prosper

Hello!

In short, you need to use literals when assigning a default value to a class property outside the constructor. In English, you'd need to use simple fixed values---no calculations, functions, or anything of a similar nature. For example:
 
private $laziness_level = 9001; // this will work private $laziness_level = "Too lazy to get up for the remote"; // this will work too private $laziness_level = 100*100*100*100*100; // this will NOT work because it involves computation private $laziness_level = getRemote()->getFatigue(); // this Will NOT work. Functions involved.  
Save fancy computations and function references for the constructor or methods in general.
 
Regards!

Hello!

In short, you need to use literals when assigning a default value to a class property outside the constructor. In English, you'd need to use simple fixed values---no calculations, functions, or anything of a similar nature. For example:
 
private $laziness_level = 9001; // this will work private $laziness_level = "Too lazy to get up for the remote"; // this will work too private $laziness_level = 100*100*100*100*100; // this will NOT work because it involves computation private $laziness_level = getRemote()->getFatigue(); // this Will NOT work. Functions involved.  
Save fancy computations and function references for the constructor or methods in general.
 
Regards!

Just for this reply your banned. Sorry to break it to you but we do not put up with attacks on a community that contains nothing but talent

So I'll go ahead and contribute a design idea. Don't laugh, I'm genuinely trying to be creative here
 
 
Category: Website & Logo
 
Company Name: Addison Architecture
 
Slogan: "Redesigning the world"
 
Description: A new and small business located in suburban area within France needs a new website and brand. Founded in 2003, the company focuses on the construction of small houses and condominiums.
 
Color Preference: N/A
 
Design Requirements: None. Be completely free in the development of this page

Parallax - Coffee theme

First page - slogan

second page - as you scroll down coffee fills up the cup, when section.two = scrollTop(0); START STEAMING

Well here's a portion of my own process...
 
Personally, before I design a website I go through an "interview phase". I ask my clients a decent amount of questions to get a feel of what their idea of the end product is. From those questions I extrapolate what colors to use, how to layout the website, where content should be, what style etc etc. After that I take a look at other websites in the same field as my client and take note of content in their page. The goal isn't plagiarism, but to learn "what other people did" and use it as a resource for creating something original; use it to create something with an amazing "wow factor".
 
Only then will I jump in and start designing.
 
PS: I learned these steps from reading a book named "The Principles of Beautiful Web Design". Then I tweaked the process described by the author into a way that worked best for me personally.

Welcome to the forum!

None of you have realized yet that this was posted in 2007. This is amusing

$_Post should be capitalised to $_POST
 
 
 
http://php.net/manual/en/language.variables.basics.php

Well you could fix the errors quite easily:
<link media="screen" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="http://w.sharethis.com/gallery/shareegg/shareegg.css"></link> Becomes:
<link media="screen" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="http://w.sharethis.com/gallery/shareegg/shareegg.css"> Use this to fix Lightbox errors (with rel attribute): http://www.pagetoscreen.net/journal/item/html5_validation_and_the_rel_tag/

I've been monitoring this thread for a while, but I've stopped myself from replying because I couldn't figure out a way to not seem rude. You seem to want a specific reason as to "what's wrong with your page" and it's difficult because it's a combination of design violations, but I will attempt to shed some light on the matter.
 
Here's a gigantic essay for you. It was actually much longer than this, but I trimmed it
 
 
Typography
 
This website overuses "Arial", which is one of the most generic looking fonts in my opinion. When you view other websites, you'll notice a font palette containing a variety of attractive looking fonts and you'd be surprised how much this can affect the overall "feel" of your page.
 
You should be aware of the fact that "...human beings don't like to do unnecessary reading..." and "...don't like to read long lines of text".. Not many people want to sit down and read those 3 paragraphs you have on your home page. Blogs or "about us" pages would warrant that kind of massive text, but not on your home page where you're trying to capture the viewers attention to your product/company. Essentially, home page design is the art of trying to communicate as much information with the least amount of words. As an example, take a look at the following websites:
 
http://builtwithmomentum.com/
http://www.bluebubblecreative.com/ (this is the website of a WDF member here, but I can't remember which)
 
Notice the layout of the builtwithmomentum page. It's simple and effective. I'm not saying you should design your website to match these two, but they demonstrate the concepts that I'm trying to get across.
 
 
Layout
 
Your home page is the most important page on your website because it's what needs to capture the viewer's attention otherwise they'll close the tab and move on. Aside from the services you offer (which are in small text), there is nothing on your home page that remotely interests me (I also don't want to read all that text). What kind of website design services do you offer? Do you have samples of your previous work? (This is what could replace that random puzzle piece "thing" you have on your home page), etc etc.
 
From what I could see, all of your pages have the same basic structure and layout; there's nothing really unique about each page unless you want to count the different images. This should not be as it gives your website a serious "Hey, I'm a template" look.
 
One thing your layout does need is "White space" or "room to breathe". It's congested and this is the quickest way to ruin a website.
 
 
Color
 
The color is not very pleasing to the eye. The heavy gradients, the highly saturated green, the pure black foreground on pure white background... it's too much and it doesn't work. Unfortunately, this is not something I can't explain very well. An "art course" would do wonders in your situation. I quoted the words "art course" because there are some who are formally educated in a school and there are others who sit down with a copy of "The Principles of Beautiful Web Design" accompanied with an open tab of dribbble.com. I'm the latter
 
Whether you educate yourself or go to school is your choice, but learning the basics of color theory and the fundamentals of design is essential.
 
 
Other Comments
 
I'm afraid I've only touched the basic issues when it comes to your website. Here are just a few more things I've noticed so I can wrap up this essay:
The bouncing slideshow you have on some pages is very annoying. These effects look cool when you first see them, but when it comes time to actually use them.... no.
I notice you're using "mailto:" on your email link. Unless you've set yourself up to deal with spam, I wouldn't place your email address anywhere on your website or in the visible source code. Instead, use a contact us form that employs mailing on the server side.

To be honest, I think you just need to sit down and carefully plan what you want to have on each page, keeping what I've said above in mind. Draw each page of your website (most beginners often undervalue a pencil and paper) and then move from there. Research and discover other web design companies and observe the layouts they have.
 
I really hope I helped.
 
Kind Regards.
 
Edit: Fixed a few grammatical errors

Not trying to be rude, but I hope your client isn't paying you a substantial amount of money for this project. There is no way you can properly learn the required skills for this website during the duration of it's development and attempting to do so will probably result in an insecure and horribly coded website... if you even succeed in creating one (seeing "index.html" in your link above is not convincing).
 
I really hope you understand that taking on this project could not only be a potential problem for your client, but for you (and your reputation) as well.

Not trying to be rude, but I hope your client isn't paying you a substantial amount of money for this project. There is no way you can properly learn the required skills for this website during the duration of it's development and attempting to do so will probably result in an insecure and horribly coded website... if you even succeed in creating one (seeing "index.html" in your link above is not convincing).
 
I really hope you understand that taking on this project could not only be a potential problem for your client, but for you (and your reputation) as well.

may be worth looking at this

<!--[if IE]> <style> body {background: #EEE; color: #000; behavior: url(csshover.htc);} div#nav ul.level1 li.submenu:hover ul.level2 {display:block;border:none;} div#nav li.end{ width: 9.2em; border-right:none; line-height:1.3em;} <![endif]-->
 
you seem to be missing </style>

The live view in Dreamweaver bares very little resemblance to any real browser so i wouldn't bother checking that at all.
 
 
It's not showing up on IE9 and i presume anything lower than 9. I'd have a look through your head section as it seems to be baulking and causing the code to stop running before it has a chance to start outputting anything.

Yeah that's quite a standard error message to see in DW and i very much doubt it has anything to do with the problem.
As far as i could make out, the error is in the <head> section of your site.
 
In the section in your head...
 

<style type="text/css"> <!-- .style7 {
 
try removing the...
 

<!--
 
So it just becomes...
 

<style type="text/css"> .style7 {

Not trying to be rude, but I hope your client isn't paying you a substantial amount of money for this project. There is no way you can properly learn the required skills for this website during the duration of it's development and attempting to do so will probably result in an insecure and horribly coded website... if you even succeed in creating one (seeing "index.html" in your link above is not convincing).
 
I really hope you understand that taking on this project could not only be a potential problem for your client, but for you (and your reputation) as well.

Not trying to be rude, but I hope your client isn't paying you a substantial amount of money for this project. There is no way you can properly learn the required skills for this website during the duration of it's development and attempting to do so will probably result in an insecure and horribly coded website... if you even succeed in creating one (seeing "index.html" in your link above is not convincing).
 
I really hope you understand that taking on this project could not only be a potential problem for your client, but for you (and your reputation) as well.

Designing and developing a website is not something you can learn in a day.
You need to spend a lot of timing learning HTML/CSS/Javascript ( and maybe also some server-side language ) ,
or hire a web designer to do it for you.
 
Léon

In terms of coding, it's still not an ideal class.
 
There's no constructor, no access modifiers, no getters or setters, etc etc. Also, you're using the "var" keyword which is deprecated and not needed and your methods aren't being used properly.
 
That's at a quick glance.
 
Edit: I realized I didn't really give a good explanation of what I meant when I said the "your methods aren't being used properly". Some users above me wrote about the the proper use of properties and methods and how they relate to the class.

English.

The one thing you'll need to get your head around quickly: I understand spec pitching is quite common in architecture. We don't approve of spec work in this industry.
 
 
Good motivation. I like you, you can stick around.

Web design and development won't be going away anytime soon. I suppose you might see more and more designers becoming front-end developers and designing in the browser, but there will always be a role for you if you have skills in either discipline.
 
It's hard to recommend which path to pursue without knowing what you like. I'd guess that the easiest transition would be into design since architecture uses some of the concepts, but if you don't enjoy the design aspects of architecture maybe development would be a better choice? Both paths pay equally well, though it's a bit harder to get a high-paying design job compared to a high-paying developer job since there is a huge supply of designers available. The demand for developers will almost always be higher, too, since it usually takes a couple of developers to build what a single designer can design and we are still seeing people preferring to hire developers over designers.
 
However, there is a huge push in the startup community to focus on design, so in the next couple of years there will probable be a shift towards designers being more important as companies try to follow a 'design excellence' strategy to differentiate themselves from their competitors.
 
I'm not a developer so I'll let someone else address a good roadmap for that path, but for a designer you should learn:
Design Basics. Principles like balance, gestalt, shape, line, color, dominance, etc. Understand how they work in print and on the web, since the mediums are very different. Even if you want to work in 100% web you can probably pick up a print project here and there for some decent cash on the side.
 
Get a sketch pad and some pencils. Especially starting out, you should be making a dozen sketches for every design that gets to digital form. You can taper off as you get more experience, but even the best designers sketch on a regular basis.
 
Master whatever tool you plan to use. If you prefer to work in Fireworks or Photoshop, master that. If you want to work in a browser, you'll need to master HTML/CSS.
 
Master HTML/CSS. Even if you land a job where you don't have to code, it's essential to understand what's possible and what's practical on the web. Developers hate getting designs with stuff that is incredibly difficult to do or won't be able to be implemented well enough yet.
 
Practice. Pick a brand and redesign their site. Come up with a fake company name and create a logo, stationery and website for them. Once you feel able to produce decent work, you can volunteer to work for a deserving non-profit and that will help you get practice dealing with clients.
 
Keep Practicing. Once you land a job it's easy to forget to hone your skills. Keep designing new types of things, trying a new visual style, or trying to redesign a previous personal project. You always want to keep getting better at something.

Oh... And have fun! If you don't enjoy what you do you'll end up in the same place in a couple of years, so don't force it.

You don't have to stick with one, by learning one you will have a good base to learn any. Rails is not a language but a framework for Ruby, you can compare it with Codeigniter or Symfony, not with PHP. I would say PHP is a good start because learning it will give you plenty of choices to choose frameworks and CMSs.
 
On the browser side, you should have a solid base on HTML, CSS and Javascript, and on concepts such as web standards, semantic HTML, progressive enhancement or behavioral separation. From these, I predict that the most difficult will be to dominate javascript. Make sure that you really understand it before starting to use a framework like jQuery.

For the basic stuff, try HTMLDog - it was written to best practices in the XHTML1.0/HTML4 days, but it's easier to get a good grounding in that then update with HTML5 and CSS3.