Hello everyone, besides offering various services I also write a weekly article for my site about anything in web design and development. My topics vary and will consist of hints and tips for beginners, design and development processes, and basic information on code. Newer articles will appear on the main articles page. Older articles will be found under the quick links section in the future. I will showcase 3 to 5 articles on the homepage.

There is a lot of work that goes into a website that people do not always realise. When I started with web design we learned the very basics of HTML and CSS then proceded to build static webpages with "What you see is what you get" (wysiwyg) editors. Often times the web pages turned out really plain with no flare or interactivity besides maybe the use of a rollover button or a flash animation. I wondered if this was how web design really worked and if so how forms, games, and other interactive content was created in this manner.

In order to learn to build websites properly I took it upon myself to figure out how the web worked. A website is built of various types of code, (html, css, javascript, php, etc.) You can utilize different wysiwyg editors, text editors specifically designed for coding and error checking, and content management systems. I built my website strictly with notepad, that comes standard on Windows computers, just to see if I could. There is no better way of learning to code and find errors than by using notepad. Also by using notepad for my own site it will keep me in good conditioning.

To be a successful web developer you must learn to code with 3 different languages, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

• HTML is the basic framework of your entire website. It is used for the structure of your whole website.
• CSS is used for the style of your content. By style I mean what color are your backgrounds, what links look like, whether links are lined up vertically or horizontally and what they look like when you scroll over them, among many other things
• JavaScript is the interactivity of your site. It can validate forms, bring up alert boxs when you click something, and is used when building sliders, photo galleries, and event oriented actions.

There are all kinds of resources, both free and paid, you can use to learn to code, though if you are really serious about web design and development and would like it to be your actual job, not just a hobby, I suggest getting a college degree. If you go the college route I also recommend taking an intro programming course. It will help when learning JavaScript. I have a college degree, and I still read online references and have read quite a few books. You can't just read books and tutorials the two most important things of web design and development are practice and patience. You absolutely have to practice and apply what you learn or you will not learn how everything comes together. There is so much that goes into a website, by not practicing you will not retain what you will learn. You absolutely must have patience. You will mess up. You will have errors. A lot of them. You will get frustrated sometimes like with all things. I cannot stress practice and patience enough.

Web design and development can be very fun and rewarding. If you are ready to try something new and exciting and not afraid to fail, the web can be for you. Try not to get too discouraged. There is a lot to learn. Before I ever built anything that was even somewhat functional I had read many books and spent hours practicing. It has been only recently that I felt comfortable to start offering web services. I hope everyone who reads my articles enjoys the read I hope they can help people with various problems, or at the very least give the drive to keep going with their projects..