Pardon the interruption…
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This is a LAME way to do this, for the record.
Creating and maintaining a presence on the web is about better communication, putting your best foot forward, and connecting with people. With so many options to consider and so much competition, what can you do to set yourself apart? I take your goals and strengths and help you translate them into a quality web site that performs. Take the first step towards a unique, well-built web presence that works for you and contact me now!
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This is a LAME way to do this, for the record.
I used to work for a big, huge wireless company. I was the nameless, faceless guy who received email requests all day and made minor change to wireless accounts. Each email was formatted exactly the same way and I used the same system for each change. 8 hours a day, 5 days a week I was a machine.
While I haven’t eliminated repitition from my professional life entirely, I’m aware of something very different at work. Creating websites from scratch can be tedious but it has taught me something critical about…
This word has two pertinent dictionary.com definitions:
the act of repeating
Iteration can mean doing the same thing over and over again. When I use this word, however, I’m thinking more about the second definition:
a problem-solving or computational method in which a succession of approximations, each building on the one preceding, is used to achieve a desired degree of accuracy
In layman’s terms, when you iterate or use an iterative process, you’re doing the best you can with the information you have, checking how successful you were, and using that information to take another, more educated stab at it. Since I’m a self-taught designer and developer, iteration has been a critical part of my professional growth. I’ve developed a very iterative mindset.
An iterative mindset is based on three things: observation, analysis, and persistence. In other words, iteration comes more from desire and hard work than any kind of innate ability. Continue reading »
For the record, this is one of the reasons I find immense value in Twitter: exposure to a broad range of opinions on an equally broad range of topics. Since this particular option pertained to what I do, I figured I’d chime in.
Tweet in question:
Holy crap, I hope not! There goes an income source…
You can gauge (if you couldn’t predict) my first reaction: um, no. Continue reading »
Update January 31st, 2010 In response to several people asking me about managing this template without using HTML, I created a dynamic template that uses a Google Docs spreadsheet to store the links, text and images. Installation and configuration is very simple as is adding, removing, and changing the links being displayed. The template isn’t free ($10) but a lot of time and effort went into its creation and it will save you hours of messing around with HTML code.
This one-page template has the following features:
Read more, buy, and download the Dynamic Drudge Report Website Template
Also available is a free template…
In addition to the dynamic template above, I also have an HTML version available for free. This template was the basis for the one above and is easy to work with, providing you understand basic HTML.
As a side-note, the HTML on Drudge report is very poor. It was a table-style layout for no discernible reason, there were capitalized tags and attributes throughout, and it looked like it may have been avoiding CSS altogether. It’s really none of my business how other people put their sites together but it was clear I wouldn’t be drawing any inspiration from the technical construction. So I started from scratch and made this very simple, lightweight, one-file, one-page site template that mimics the layout of Drudge report with a few extra features. See the template now.
Download the free Drudge-Style Template
In typical Josh Can Help style, let’s walk through how to get this little guy to do what you want.
I use [[double square brackets]] around the text that needs to be changed in the file so it’s easy to find all the meta (unseen on the page) information. To add new links and change the information, you’ll want to have a bit of experience with HTML but, at the risk of a flood of new web developers taking all my clients, I’ll let you in on a little secret: HTML isn’t that hard. Here’s a real quick way to get familiar.
So, let’s customize this page:
And that’s it! To make it live, just copy index.html to a public folder on your web host and check it out. If you already have a website going, be careful where you put this so you don’t overwrite the main site file.
Have fun! I’m happy to answer questions in the comments below.
The JoshCanHelp Recommended Reading list
This post is because you don’t have enough to read. Scratch that… you don’t have enough useful stuff to read. These are must-reads for anyone who has or thinks they should have a website out there and gathering eyeballs.
I’m a firm believer in understanding why things are done. I also believe that anyone can understand anything if it’s important to them to understand it. People love to tell me “I’m not technical so I’m not going to understand it” but that’s a cop out. If you find value in what you’re learning, you’ll learn it.
Having a website without knowing what goes into it is like having a car and not understanding your gas tank or oil changes or tire pressure. You can go from here to there but, one of these days, that car is going to break and you’re going to be stuck. With that in mind, I strongly suggest you understand the basics. These should help. Best way to go about getting through these is to read the parts that pertain to what you’re doing, absorb the parts you get, and look up the parts you don’t. Continue reading »
This is a post I wrote almost two years ago on my previous blog. I find myself in the same room that I wrote post previously and thinking about the same things in a slightly different light. I’m re-posting it here with minor changes and notes indicated with square brackets.
I have a Hotmail address that includes the word “talent” in it. I’m not going to broadcast the story of how this address came to be simply because the entertainment to embarrassment ratio is far too low. Regardless, every time I give this address out over the phone or in person to someone, it makes me think about the word “talent” before I think about the genesis of the address. I think ‘does this person think I’m full of myself because I have the word “talent” in my address?’ Then, I think ‘do I deserve to have this word in my email address?’
Talent is a funny thing. Being talented in something is a product of chance, practice, both, and neither [these days, I'm leaning much more towards practice]. By chance, you can be a talented writer. By practice, you can be a talented basketball player. By both, you can be an inspirational painter. By neither, you could have the potential for something within you and never even know. Talent is born and built and wasted and ignored. Continue reading »