Considering a lot of the work I do is taking my design and crafting it into code, I thought I would write a mini tutorial on how I go through this process. I’m sure my process is fairly similar to mosts after all there are only a limited number of things you can do differently to get the result, but I thought it may be a good way to bring insight into both my working process and be also of interest to someone who may not have done it before.

Praise and working paradox

It’s a bit of a paradox that things that work well we never notice in life. You’d think the things that ‘just worked’ would be hailed as wonderful and supreme, yet as human’s we have this nasty habit of ignoring the silent working. Think about the last time you weren’t complacent about something that worked all the time and noted that it was doing a great job? More often than not we are focused on the things that don’t work. The things that claim to do one thing on the tin and fail to live up to anything apart from much ranting.

As a web designer my skill-set is constantly having to be reviewed and updated. If I drop the web development side of me into the picture this gets even more of a priority. Lately, I have been reviewing what skills I use to create websites and one thing has become clear to me. it is all to easy to get carried on from one project to another without refreshing your skill-set. Your basic skills are of course always being added to with every day that passes. I am really talking about the things you learn from new not the ones you build on here.

If you know Ruby on Rails then a great competition is Rails Day 2006. A nice concept of developing something as an individual or team in 24 hours as part of a competition. Another reason for me to finally get around to ready that Ruby book and getting to grips in time for next year. I just love these 24 hour coding competitions myself so will be looking with interest to seeing what the entries are.

Diary of a website has always had a flavour selector, but this went with the reboot due to the dramatic change in coding of this site. I always said I would bring back the flavours and as of today I now have with the return of cinnamon. I will be bringing back the first flavour design too over the next few weeks and then looking to introduce this season flavour sometime near the end of June or beginning of July. So, if you want to change the complete look of the site just select a new flavour and enjoy having Diary of a website your way.

On my journey into AJAX, well in and out whilst being distracted by paying jobs; I have come across a great resource at AJAX Impact.