jignog

Hello everybody, Some of you may already know that on April 25th 2010 I am running the Virgin London Marathon for what I believe is a very worthy cause. I am hoping to raise as much money as possible for The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation. This is a charity that is very close to my heart and I now know what it is like first hand to have somebody in the family suffering from this terrible illness. Please do not feel obliged to sponsor me but if you do please understand that it will be greatly appreciated not only by myself but by thousands of suffers of lung cancer and their families. I have created a Virgin Money Giving page to allow you to easily and safely sponsor me if you wish and there is a direct link to my page below. Click here for my fundraising page

When i first started to learn web design i had the same question - Should i use Dreamwever whilst learning to code? My answer to you is a definate no! Hand coding is the way to go with a text editor. I work on a Apple Mac and i use CODA from Panic and i find it a delight to use. But whatever operating system you use just make sure you learn to code your own pages without having to rely on the 'bloaty, clunky' dreamweaver. As for the actual designing there is one book that i strongly recommend to you and that is 'The Essential Guide to CSS and HTML Web Design' written by Craig Grannell. It focuses on good looking, efficient, standards compliant coded pages and i think it is worth its weight in gold! Anyway, good luck and stick at it!

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Many thanks for that Ewan, that was pretty much the perfect reply!! I guess i will now go and bury my head in yet another book for the next month or so!

Hey guys.... I have spent the last year buying, reading & studying every book 2 do with web design i can cram into my days. Thankfully, I can now hand code HTML & CSS by heart whilst sticking to standards & semantics and avoiding browser bugs. At the moment i am reading a book on Javascript......i know it brings all the bells and whistles to a website, but is it just me or do you guys find it a chore to study? Am i wrong in thinking that i should know javascript as off by heart as i would HTML? What do u people out there do? Do you just gather scripts and insert them or do you write and understand them all from scratch??? That also brings me onto the subject of PHP......the same question as above really. Is a web designer expected to know ALL of this?? I come from a graphic design background so web graphics & banners are fine with me. My main point of concern is this: "When does a web 'designer' become a web 'developer/programmer'? Are they seperate entities? And how does this situation bode for a wannabe freelancer? Thanks everybody for your input on this one.

I chose Coda and it is great.

I have used Dreamweaver on the PC but now I have reverted back to using my Mac. As I now like to get my hands dirty with coding I would like to buy a dedicated Html editor other than DW for this machine. I have downloaded the free TACO HTML software which seems ok. However, I am looking into buying BBEdit or CODA after hearing good reviews. Which one would be the best buy, and what benefit would these 2 provide over TACO? Thanks

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Hello everone, I have a question to ask. What is the favoured method of communication or correspondence with a client? I know these days email is probably the easiest way or even the telephone, but how often (if at all) do you actually meet up with the client & does this limit your business to a more local vicinity as opposed to travelling from one end of the country to another? Do clients ever expect to visit a designer/coders workplace? Many thanks

Many thanks for your reply and decent advice notbansky! I checked out those editors you suggested, they look better than i expected so will definately be giving those a go. I will probably make a final decision on the G5 within the next month or so I will most definately keep you in mind. Cheers

Many thanks for your reply guys. I too really value my freedom and like you guys its the flexability and self management that I am really aiming for. Obviously its nice so have a few ££'s left in the bank after the bills have been paid but I guess it's like all business really- the more you put into it the more you get out of it.

Quick bit of advice needed please guys. I have spent the last several months scrutinising numerous books on coding and web design and I now would like to take things further by developing a portfolio to showcase my shiny new skills. I have an old Dell precision M50 laptop on its last legs running on XP with Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash MX, Photoshop CS2 & Adobe Illustrator CS. I have been using this machine to practise and experiment. I would look to buy a new one in the future for about £700-£800. However, stored away collecting dust I have an Apple Powermac G5 1.8 Dual desktop machine. This is not an intel machine so it would provide more testing problems for my pages. How would I test on browers like Internet Exporer? This machine has Photoshop, Illustrator but no Dreamweaver etc. I have learnt to hand code so have become accustomed to using Dreamweaver code view and would prefer to use this than wordpad etc so I would consider buying this for the mac if i chose this option. What would you guys do in my position? It seems a waste that the mac would go to waste through its lack of use. ( I have had it from new for over 3 years & its had about 6 months of use). I have considered selling it but due to its age ( and clumsy removal men damaging the casing) but i think i could gain more from keeping it than selling it. Many thanks for your help

Quick bit of advice needed please guys. I have spent the last several months scrutinising numerous books on coding and web design and I now would like to take things further by developing a portfolio to showcase my shiny new skills. I have an old Dell precision M50 laptop on its last legs running on XP with Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash MX, Photoshop CS2 & Adobe Illustrator CS. I have been using this machine to practise and experiment. I would look to buy a new one in the future for about £700-£800. However, stored away collecting dust I have an Apple Powermac G5 1.8 Dual desktop machine. This is not an intel machine so it would provide more testing problems for my pages. This machine has Photoshop, Illustrator but no Dreamweaver etc. I have learnt to hand code so have become accustomed to using Dreamweaver code view and would prefer to use this than wordpad etc so I would consider buying this for the mac if i chose this option. What would you guys do in my position? It seems a waste that the mac would go to waste through its lack of use. ( I have had it from new for over 3 years & its had about 6 months of use). I have considered selling it but due to its age ( and clumsy removal men damaging the casing) but i think i could gain more from keeping it than selling it. Many thanks for your help

Long way to go yet but I have a dream of being a self-sufficient, full-time code/design freelancer. Just wondering how many of you guys derive your entire income from freelancing. Also, hope its not too a personal question, but do you on average generate the kind of income that is offered if you were to work for a larger studio as an employee, or do you tend to sacrifice a little in exchange for a little freelance freedom? I know this can seem like a 'piece of string' question, e.g- Skillset etc, but is it still possible to generate the kind of work that would produce a yield of an above average salary figure? Thanks all

I am currently learning CSS & Javascript through various recommended textbooks. My plan is to work as part of a team for a company designing websites once my skills are up to par. After a year or two I would like to consider doing freelance work for myself. This is an extremely informative forum for such things, but I was wondering if there is a dedicated book in print that will cover all the topics and useful information that a newbie freelancer would need? Many thanks