Web Design Courses and Dreamweaver

Feb 4

ToddArticle , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

The local college and the local school that offers college courses offers web design as a course. Both these courses use Dreamweaver as the aid for students to help them in their learning. The only thing I have a gripe with is that the local courses for college credits list Dreamweaver as

the industry standard.

If you’re reading this article, I would like to hear your input. Do you think this is so? Is Dreamweaver the “industry standard” and if not, what are your thoughts? What would your “standard” be? What do you use in your aid and if you were the instructor, what would you use as your aid to help students learn web design?

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Dear New Hampshire,

Feb 4

ToddArticle , , , , , , , , , , No Comments

As a whole, I’ve seen better garbage in a landfill. The state of this states’ websites in dreadful. Save for a few that have jumped into the 21st century, the internet nightmares that exist that come from this state are awful.

Even the New Hampshire Official State website, is an abomination. A table-filled, inaccessible (even though they have an accessibility policy online), usability nightmare. I’m glad to see that the State like to remain in the Dark Ages of the web and use tables for layouts and HTML 4.01 as their preferred DOCTYPE. Well, that’s when the “webmasters” decide to use a DOCTYPE, which is about a ratio of 1:3 while perusing the state websites and their hideous offspring.

The old nheconomy website… A thing of precision and excellence. Now, plastered with ads, it looks like a fucked up version of Facebook. I like the look and feel of this page that I clicked the giant image at the bottom of the main page, but when I looked at the code, I figured it was time for a breath of fresh air.

No DOCTYPE and whomever did it, uses Dreamweaver for evil means. At least it is nice to know with this page, that someone remembers how to center table for layout, even though it’s so much easier to do it with a div-based layout and CSS. Tables are not for layouts, but they are for lazy hobbyist web designers and “webmasters” as well as shoddily-developed CMS’s.

If I were the state, I’d add a job opportunity in their listing for someone with web design knowledge.

Same company pumped out this gem. Apparently they love the usage of _blank on every external link and standards don’t matter when you’re smart and use .aspx pages.

The NH Campgrounds & RV Parks site looks like that game I used to play on my C64 back in the 80’s… what was that called? Ah yes, Operation WOLF. The “Site by: TRANCER” link doesn’t work, so perhaps that person is now in another field? Sandwich Artist? Lead Bagger? Cart Shagger?

http://www.theunionleader.com/. One of the ugliest online newspapers in the country. Bar none.

These folks at this “firm” felt the need to slap Flash into an HTML site that really did not need it. Nothing a Javascript slideshow (done right) would of taken care of. But, what do you expect from the kind that places a crushed image of Dane Cook on a stadium website? it doesn’t look like Dane Cook, it looks more like Robert Blake. I don’t want to go see Robert Blake in concert, I might get shot.

This one looks pretty but under the hood, it’s not only a usability and accessibility nightmare, it’s just chock full of errors. And tables. And shim gifs. And no alt tags for images, whether empty or not. I hope the people at web-sites.com know that you can shut off the border on an image in the CSS.

This kind of site wants to make me drink more.

Close, but no cigar.

There is so much wrong with this website that they went on Craigslist looking for a student intern to do the editing for the website.

If you are interested in working 5-10 hours or more per week in our Vermont office and/or from home, have your own laptop computer with Frontpage or Dreamweaver and Photoshop, and are looking to infuse your creative energies into our website while gaining valuable real-world experience, please contact us!

Yes. Because we all know 21st century web developers and programmers use FrontPage. *vomit*

Closer look at it revealed not only so many errors, but that the evil use of Dreamweaver was by Satan himself.

Someone took advantage of these folks and probably over charged them for a WordPress install and generic template you can find on about 40 million WordPress theme sites.

Did I run into the new Facebook again?

The ONLY site in this state that even remotely impressed me was this gem. Shocked and in total disbelief that something like that could be done in this state, When I looked under the hood, it was like bringing that girl home you met that is beautiful and dressed like a model, then you get intimate and suddenly it all falls apart from there. Once again, no DOCTYPE, tags out of place and and hoard of scripts and inline Javascript and more tags out of place. Now after all the fodder I have stumbled upon in the past few weeks like;

northconway.com
northconwaynh.com
mtwashingtonvalley.org
or angelfire.com/super/badwebs
facebook.com
myspace.com
areaguidenewhamsphire.com
nhpr.org

SkiNH had me at “hello.” Then we got close, then I went for the validate button. I feel dirty.

Wow… and just when things seemed to be at their worst, someone, some lost soul invented the target=_new in an a href. that is truly, not only monumental, but clearly ground-breaking.

No wonder the web is in a state of discord… the state of the web in ‘08 was that of change, now it looks like everyone is hiring that $7/hour web “master” or “mistress” to WYSIWYG the shit out of their websites.

Let’s at least clean the shit up on the web in this state, shall we? let’s at least have a little “web dignity” as I like to call it.

and just to show I am not biased just to the ridiculously crappy sites and sites in this state, I offer you this beauty of a site that pleases the eye and is slicker than shit rolling downhill in August. Inline Javascript (I call it the ‘Javascript monster and it shits all over the inside of the source code) and my pet peeve: NO DOCTYPE.

I’ll definitely be working on the “Website Nightmares” part of the program very, very soon.