Category: Technology

I work in technology and consider myself to be a technology enthusiast, especially web technology.

Determination

Learning for a lifetime

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Learning for a lifetime

I have a passion for web design and web development. I don’t have a computer science degree or a graphic design degree, but I do hold a BA in Communications from Elon University I also have a certificate in Graphic Design from The School of Communication Arts in Raleigh, NC (now Living Arts college). Additionally, I have taken classes at local community colleges to learn HTML, CSS, basic JavaScript and Flash.


ANYONE WHO STOPS LEARNING IS OLD, WHETHER AT TWENTY OR EIGHTY.” —HENRY FORD

Lately, I have taken courses online to keep up with the rapidly changing technology. Just in the past year, I have taken many courses on Udemy. They offer courses for pay on different web technologies. Some of the courses I have invested in recently are:

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Technology

CSS Animation and how to use it well in your website

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CSS3 Animation

With the progression of Cascading Style Sheets (or CSS) to include the ability to create animations, there are now a plethora of possibilities to create eye-catching visuals on your website and as we all know CSS animations rate very high in the “cool” factor when it comes to web development. Not only that but people love seeing movement and interactivity in digital format. With the right animation, you can accomplish a lot by telling a story which helps describe complex ideas better than text or a non-animated illustration could. Websites with animations can also entertain the visitor to the site longer than a site without animation.

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Technology

Getting started with CSS Grid layout

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One of my strongest areas of web development is Cascading Style Sheets more commonly referred in the web world as CSS. I have always been a visual person, and with CSS I can create a pallet on the web using code (when combined with HTML5). CSS has rapidly evolved over the last few years with technologies and frameworks such as SASS/SCSS and Bootstrap leading the way. Another major advancement to CSS recently is the new layout techniques using grid (Or CSS Grid as it is commonly referred as). In this post, I will expound on the basics of CSS grid and how it can help you to design and code a complex layout for various devices.

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Technology

Best new features in JavaScript ES6

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I’ve been coding in JavaScript for quite a while. In fact, I can remember when JavaScript was used for such cool functionality as a replacement image when you hover over a button for example. It was pretty cool interactivity for 1998, but it wasn’t until libraries such as jQuery came along in the 200’s that JavaScript really took off. Around this time AJAX was a big deal too where you could do things like creating a form where the user could fill it out, submit the form and receive a partial page update without being redirected to another page. Pretty cool stuff indeed!

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Web Design

Fun with Flexbox

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Fun With CSS3 Flexbox

I have been doing web development for quite a while and one of the frustrating things we have to deal with in web design is laying out a web page and getting every element to be positioned just as we want it.

Back in the day, we would use floats and absolute positioning to get everything pixel perfect only to find out the layout was broken in Internet Explorer. Today’s web world is much different with fluid designs, rem units instead of pixels and grid systems such as CSS grid and Bootstrap.

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Philosophy

Evolution via Agile

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Evolution via Agile

Technologies evolve, processes evolve, businesses evolve and even people evolve (some more than others). Of those, I think that technology evolves quicker than anything else. It seems like overnight technologies can change.

With technology changes, there is a need to constantly be updating and evolving digital communications as well. When I say digital communications, I am referencing websites, web applications, blogs, email newsletters.

I have worked on several development teams that have adopted the Agile approach and I have learned a lot and adopted many of the Agile processes to my development process on freelance projects. Some staples of agile development are Sprints, Epics, SCRUM, Stand-Ups, and Feature Driven Development. I won’t go into detail for each one, but a good article can be found here.

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Technology

why learning core JavaScript is still important

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JavaScript

The big deal now and the last several years with JavaScript is the modern frameworks. The most popular being Angular JS, React JS and Vue JS . It seems like every posting you see for a front-end web developer position wants you to have hard-core experience with one of these frameworks. (Mostly Angular, but some React and Vue JS is kind of the underdog at this point.) One thing you hardly see anymore is a need for the skill of core JavaScript often referred to as “Vanilla” JS and I think this is a complete shame.

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Technology

WordPress REST API 101

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WP-REST API

I have recently been exploring the REST API plugin for WordPress and how it works, and why it is such a big deal, as I’ve been hearing for a while that the WP Rest API is “a game changer” in the web development world. Of course, as a web developer, we hear this every month about some new technology, so I was a bit skeptical.

The nuts and bolts

The WordPress REST API is now in Version 2 and was introduced a few years ago. It can be installed and activated as a plugin simply named WP REST API. “REST” is an acronym and stands for “REpresenatational State Transfer”. “API” is also an acronym standing for “Application Program Interface”. There is one more acronym in this equation and that is “JSON” or “JavaScript Object Notation”.

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SEO

Content is King when it comes to SEO

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Content is King

When it comes to SEO content is king. Not just any content will do though. You need to have the right content pertinent to your business and marketing efforts and you need to ensure that content is filled with keywords in the right places.

Visits are definitely important for your website, but it is not the most important measurement for success. If you have a million views in a month, but those views don’t result in an increase in business, well then those views haven’t amounted to much. That’s great that search results are resulting in traffic for your website, but you want to convert those visitors to customers/clients.

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Technology

WordPress vs. Drupal overview

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WordPress Vs. Drupal

WordPress and Drupal are two common open-source Content Management Systems. By open source I mean they are free to download and use, and they are powered by PHP and MySQL on the back-end. These systems are constantly evolving and being improved upon by a community of developers.

WordPress was started way back in the dark ages(2003) by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little and has come a long way since it’s early humble beginnings. The latest version of WordPress as of this blog is 4.7 and this what you are reading now is being run on the latest WordPress (or WP).

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