My reading this week includes the book Design Patterns For Dummies which is an overview of the design patterns used by programmers to solve real world problems. Design patterns allow the programmers to utilize pre-exisiting classes/methods/etc… to achieve the desired results. In the last 50+ years of programming, someone else has had a similar problem to yours and has likely published the best method for dealing with it. I am reading this book knowing I will one day have to do some real programming with PHP or Ruby so I wanted a baseline understanding of best practices.

As I read the first chapter which deals with OOP Building blocks I began to see some practices which are useful in standard web design as well. A quick Google found no articles merging these ideas so I had an inspiration for this posts. Since I am not a “Programmer” with formal training my applications of the OOP Building blocks may not fit the true definition of each component, but should at least be kept in the spirit of the functionality of each building block. The for basic building blocks and my interpretation of them for web developers is below.
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Alistapart.com is hosting its first industry survey about the profession of web design. I took the survey and was expecting more robust questions about tools, skills, and knowledge. But instead it was more geared to those in the design industry, not parttime freelancers. Still if you are a web developer or designer, go take the survey.

http://alistapart.com/articles/webdesignsurvey

OTHER NEWS:
WDB has experienced a sudden upswing in purchases this week. I want to personally thank all who visit and shop here.

Running your own business as a web developer requires you spend a portion of your time networking and finding new business. I find that most of my leads come from my existing clients but occaisionally I reach out to contests or other networking outlets. Today I was surfing Eric Meyers website and saw he was a member of LinkedIn.com. So I decided to check it out.

LinkedIn is a personal and professional listing and online networking tool. The goal is to develop your own network so that you become more likely to find work or colleagues with similar interest.

You can view my profile and Invite me to your network if you so desire. Thanks for visiting.

An article at Earners Forum suggest 10 tools to help you become a more efficient webmaster. I’ll agree with most of them. If you are concerned with SEO tools there are a couple of good ones.

What was left off the list were tools developers could really use. Those apps that do site spell checking, dead-link checking, browser plugin developer tools, project management tools, a place to safely store your clients ids and passwords, and a top 10 list of reliable hosting companies. Perhaps I should create my own top 10 list. You’ll have to check back in a few days.

In the mean time go buy a book and improve your skills. You know the one you’ve been reading in the bookstore while slurping the $5 lattes. It is likely 35% off of retail here at WDB.

Thanks in advance for your purchase.

I am a very technical person. Outline a process into minute steps and I can follow those steps in letter and spirit. However give me a blank sheet of paper and ask me to fill it and I will have a great deal of difficulty getting started. I have had to force the artist in me to come out.

One of the best bits of advice of how to be creative is from Hugh McLeod of Gapingvoid.com. Hugh has a creative mentallity that extends well into writing, art, and marketing. He draws cartoons on business cards and writes about businesses in his blog, which in turn generates buzz for his clients. Read How to be Creative »