Lately I've been slacking on my coding duties. I had a good pace going but have been spending time in the evening powerlifting instead.

Offline. Offline? Oh, they're offline. OFFLINE!!!!!!!!!

So now that they have been offline all morning, I have been perusing other sites from which I can learn. Short list:

• WiBit (sort of like ribbit)
• CodingBat
• Hackety Hack!
• jQuery Air
• PHP 101
• jQuery for Designers
• Tuts+ Family
• P2PU - JavaScript

Lots of good stuff to learn.

What to learn ... JavaScript, jQuery, PHP, Ruby, CSS, and MySql seem to be the most sought after skills of web developer applicants. I don't expect to be proficient in everything at once, but I do expect to be good to go within one year.

First off, I'm tackling all of the lovely, interactive tutorials found on Codeacademy. I have found this to be a great site to learn Javascript. It features interactive, step-by-step guides to get you going. Codeacademy gives you immediate feedback whether you did something right or wrong. I have noticed some minor bugs, but all in all it is a solid place to start. Code Year is an offshoot from Codeacademy, that teaches you a "new interactive programming lesson every Monday". Simply subscribe via email, and you'll be on your way to becoming a wexpert (web expert?) within one year.

In addition to Codeacademy, I have been reading several books on various web design topics.

What's that? Mad Photoshop skillz? Yeah you need that too. I already have a pretty good, albeit simple, grasp of the many Photoshop tools. A nice site for MANY PS tutorials is psd tuts. This site features tutorials for all PS levels. A real solid resource to further your skills.

Ruby Monk, functioning very similar to Codeacademy, offers interactive tutorials to learn Ruby. Easy to follow. Too easy?

In addition to all of this, I have been reading several books on various web design topics.

So much to learn, so little time to accomplish.

(download)

Click here to download:

school-of-webcraft-hosting-and-dns-zzqqzexijpmfqsCdzcgJ.zip (246 KB)

Setting Up DNS

1. Sign into your GoDaddy account at http://godaddy.com.
2. Select Domain Management from the Domains menu option.[pic1]
3. Choose DNS Manager. (I don't find GoDaddy's management structure simple or user friendly. [pic2]
4. Select Edit Zone for the site you would like to manage.[pic3]
5. Scroll down to the CNAME section. This is where you can direct alias names for your domain to specific IP addresses. Since I am hosting my site on Google, they have provided a domain name for which to redirect the "www" alias.[pic4]
6. SAVE! You must save your settings otherwise the obvious nothing will happen and you will blame me. Told ya so! [pic5]

Almost Done

In order for this to completely work, you must add your custom domain name to the list of web addresses that redirect to your Google Site. [pic6]

Hope you enjoyed this mini-tutorial and learned that setting up your own website is very simple. Although I did not cover actually setting up your Google Site, it is easy once you have created your own Google account. Go to Google Sites and snag your F.R.E.E. website today!

DNS, Domain Name Service, is a system that translates a humanly recognizable name into computer recognizable numbers. The human name is an alphanumeric website name. The computer name is the server IP address where the information is hosted (stored).So DNS is used to simplify an otherwise complex number into an easily recognizable, memorable name.

Below is a short list of popular websites and their server IP address

To find the public IP address of any website, simply use your computers ping command. For Windows, click Start then Run. Type cmd. A new window will appear, containing black and white text. Type ping yahoo.com , or another website of your choice, then Enter.

HTML Hunting in the World Around You

Go out and take photographs of stuff that has the same structure as the tags you've researched

The task at hand was to find HTML elements in the world around you. Being in a school, bricks, blocks, tiles, desks, are plentiful.

Check out my sweet Photoshopped pics of my classroom and hallway.

(download)

Click here to download:

p2pu-world-around-you-skCbnbIkbsfaHAzlkIsd.zip (590 KB)

Task at hand: exceptionally poor review of HTML text editors for School of Webcraft

My experience with HTML editors has been mostly with WYSIWYG, notepad, Dreamweaver, and long ago, vi. Majority of recent web development with WYSIWYG from a CMS. Anything better, or more robust, will be a bonus.

Komodo Edit Easily the most full-featured of any editor I have ever seen. Described as being the "open source editor for Python, PHP, Ruby, Javascript, Perl, and Web Development". Fantastic! I want to learn about all of those languages! Komodo is a very robust, open source program that I am excited to learn. Many more tools than I need at this point. This would also facilitate a smooth transition to Komodo's big brother, Komodo IDE. Komodo is a wonderful product that I am excited to use to further my web developing career.

Notepad++ Notepad++, unlike it's cousin with a similar name, is another full-featured HTML editor. Although not as robust and feature rich as Komodo, Notepad++ has its positives. Notepad++ is designed to run on a minimal footprint.Weighing in at just under 6 MB, it could [almost] run off of a floppy disk. Remember those things? Compared to Komodo's mighty 48 MB download, you can see why N++ touts itself as being a green editor. N++ has many plugins available to enhance your editing needs. It comes with a lightweight Tetris-like game ... what nerd doesn't like to take a game break? The only downside of open source Notepad++, is that it is a Windows only installation where as Komodo supports all platforms.

Hello World by Dave Joe

Hello World by Dave Joe

This code is written by hand. How awesome am I?

Most of my experience has been with vi, notepad, and most recently Dreamweaver. I'm comfortable reading/editing code in any program as long as everything is properly indented. Judging by my predecessors, it has been narrowed down to two - Komodo Edit and notepad++.

Komodo Edit is the most logical choice because the Komodo IDE looks very powerful (debugging). Learning their line of products just makes sense. Notepadd++ looks to be a good alternative.