Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with webdevelopment

What's the best WYSIWYG software for web design these days?

julen — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 21:03:57 -0800

What is the best WYSIWYG website builder for PCs out there these days? My uncle is still using an archaic version of Front Page to produce his family websites. The results look OK but are unusable (hyperlinks don't work) if you are using a Mac or Firefox, which is pretty much rules out 90% of his audience.

So what is the best desktop app for designing websites on a PC these days? He doesn't know HTML, and online webapps aren't an option. It should be easy to use but produce good clean code. Help me only fix the HTML once!

Solutions for a web-based form that takes payment...?

You Should See the Other Guy — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:27:22 -0800

Have to build a form for a web site that takes generic stuff (name, address, etc.) but also processes a payment, preferably through Paypal Pro. The site is hosted by Dreamhost and the CMS is Expression Engine. Paypal Pro's site is a little mind-boggling for an amateur like myself. Are there companies that will just do this aspect of the development (and quickly) or a site that has solutions given these variables? I don't mind paying, I just need it done fast.

Which HTML/CSS/JS IDE do I want?

drjimmy11 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:31:52 -0800

Which HTML/CSS/JS IDE do I want? So I've been doing AS3 development for the last few years, using Flex Builder, but am now moving back into HTML/CSS/JS. I've gotten used to having a fairly intelligent IDE and I'd like to not go back to the bad old days of having to type every single param and property from scratch every time. (I'm looking for code help, not just highlighting.)

I have tried a few but none seems to have everything I want:

1. Dreamweaver:
Pluses: When you link to a stylesheet, you can CTRL+space and get a list of styles to choose from.
Minuses: Weak support for JS. (no auto-complete at all)

2. Aptana:
Pluses: Seems to have excellent JS support, including major AJAX libraries.
Minuses: Unless I am missing something, I can't choose Css styles off a list, and that is a major major timesaver for the work I'll be doing.

3. HTMLPad 2010:
Plusses and minuses seem about the same as Aptana, plus it costs money. (DW CS3 is already installed on my work machine so no cost there.)

So, am i doing something wrong with Aptana? Is there another piece of software I'm not aware of? Or should I settle for DW for html/css and Aptana for JS? (The work will probably be 80% or more on the html/css side.)

thanks!

Art Gallery Web Sites?

crickets — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:55:09 -0800

Do you know of any art galleries with really great web sites? I'm not interested in museum sites, I'm interested in how small art galleries present their business and inventory online.

(Do you run an art gallery? What do you use your site for? What are people looking for when they visit it?)

Restricting access to directory... with conditions

You Should See the Other Guy — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:35:15 -0800

How do I restrict access to a directory on my web site but still allow an audio streamer program to access the files? For instance, I want to put my mp3s in the audio directory but I want anyone going to mydomain.com/audio to not be able to download the tracks. The audio player being used is JW Player if that makes any difference. Thanks!

Head hurts. Insert own witty title here.

springbound — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 20:39:31 -0800

LessSuckyThanMeAtJoomlaFilter: I'm newish to Joomla and building a website that's going to have on its front page (amongst other things) a section highlighting three services offered, in three side-by-side boxes in the main column, each with a "more" link hopping via anchor link to a corresponding heading on a "Services" page listing all services offered. To more experienced developers than I, how would you achieve this? Three articles in a "position"? A ul in a single article (not really possible if I want to use h3s in each and remain w3c-compliant)? Something else? Trying to figure out the generally accepted best way to do this, in a way that's intuitive enough for someone non-techie to update it later, doesn't break web standards with crap markup, and gives me Large Amounts Of Sweet Control of how it looks (via stylesheets). Anyone have a thought or two on how best to approach?

Can I build a Craigslist Crawler?

wetpaint — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:01:00 -0800

Can I safely and legally build a Craigslist crawler? If so, help me figure out how! See inside for details... I want to have a crawler built to scan Craigslist in all U.S. cities. I'm launching a free online marketplace for the re-sale of niche products, and want to be able to contact Craigslist sellers to inform them about posting ads on my site. Is it legal? And if so, does anybody know what Craigslist has put in place to block this type of thing? Does CL have a daily e-mail limit? Do they change their parameters frequently so that crawlers have to be modified?

Hopefully, this doesn't raise anybody's evil-spammer-red-flags. I hope to never send an e-mail to anyone who wouldn't be interested! I'm just trying to reach a very targeted audience of sellers, and offering them a (free) alternative to CL. If there's something un-kosher about that, you can also let me know why. Nicely please :)

Thanks MeFites!

Help me manage changes to a website

Reverend John — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:33:07 -0800

Whats the best way to set up version control for a website? I work for a small building supply company, and we have a custom online store which was developed by an outside consultant. He used to provide a 'development' site where we could make changes, which we would submit through subversion, and which would be reflected when we browsed to the development site.

He is no longer providing this service. I've set up a separate hosting account with dreamhost, since they provide subversion repositories as part of their package. I can upload our code to this hosting account and it works, and I can set up a subversion repository, but I can't get subversion on a 'live' site.

Can anyone provide pointers on how to get what I'm trying to do working, or suggest an alternative approach?

How can I find someone willing to let me, an amateur, design a website for them for practice?

oracle bone — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 21:50:57 -0800

How can I find someone willing to let me, an amateur, design a website for them for practice? I've worked amateurishly with website design/coding before, largely on my own, in a learn-as-needed learn-as-I-go style. Most of these projects have been done for fun, and as a result, most of them are simple websites & have not stayed online for too long. I'd like to eventually work for pay. However, since I've never worked professionally before, I don't think I have enough experience, so I'm looking for opportunities to gain more experience & expand my portfolio.

Can anyone suggest how I can find some people who would be willing to let me design a website for them? I can work for little/no pay, but I'd really like this project to be comprehensive in the sense that I get to work with all components of a website (coding/databases/etc). Also, I'd like to be able to use this as an example of my work for my portfolio.

This could be local, but I have already tried several non-profits in the area but most already have webmasters. (I live in a pretty small, non-tech town, so to speak.) I can also consider working over the internet with someone/some group, ideally with programmers more experienced than me so I can still learn new techniques.

Techniques I'm quite comfortable with/experienced in: HTML, XML, CSS
Techniques I'd like to practice: PHP, MySQL/databases, JavaScript, AJAX.

Any suggestions appreciated!

IE6 Bugfix "R" Us

whycurious — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 03:51:08 -0800

Can I outsource my IE6 CSS? Kinda like a PSD2HTML, but more IE6 Bugfix"R"Us. Earlier this year, Tim Van Damme put out a blog post that called for an IE6 Bugfix "R" Us service. The idea is that you'd outsource your IE6 specific CSS to a company specializing in such.

The post made the blog rounds, and I sort of remember a service popping up shortly thereafter that did exactly that. Anyone remember what that was? I've googled with no luck, and I don't believe it was a general service like PSD2HTML - I'm pretty sure this was a definite IE6-FIXERS company. Any help?

Web development big picture for a non-web programmer?

silentbicycle — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 05:48:00 -0800

Can you give me any pointers on learning web development? Unlike other similar questions in the archives (1, 2), I have a lot of programming experience. I haven't really followed web programming practices closely, however, because without keeping closely involved, it has been hard to sort out useful stuff from buzzwords and fads. (Non-web programming has enough of those!) I strongly prefer having a big-picture understanding of systems when working with them, so the various "here's stuff to copy-and-paste to make this happen" sites don't do me much good. I'm not concerned with that level, rather, I want to pick up the underlying skill set, so I can teach myself the surface details as necessary. (FWIW, I recently learned standard practices for HTML, RSS, and have gotten a sense of how to (and not to) use CSS. The stuff about semantic markup makes a lot of sense to me. I suppose Javascript and jQuery come next?)

A good example of a page I find opaque is the wikipedia page on REST. It sounds like it's about managing state in a stateless protocol, and about abstracting away storage so that proxies, replacement servers, etc. can be used transparently, but the terminology is a bit alien, and I wonder if I'm just missing something.

For programming, I'm quite comfortable with Python, Lua, C, OCaml, and Scheme. Of those, Lua is especially noteworthy, both because it would be my first choice (Python second) and because it's semantically quite close to Javascript. I'm also familiar with RDBMSs (SQLite and postgres) and the relational model, and have about a decade's experience with Linux, BSD, and the associated toolchain.

For other languages people tend to suggest: I don't know PHP, and everything I've read about its design makes me wary. I have tried Ruby a bit, but don't care for it, and Lua + Python already cover that niche for me.

I'm not clear if learning a web framework would be a good idea for me or not. It would probably help with picking up the vocabulary I'm missing, but at the same time, the "handle the details for me" aspect would interfere with learning what's actually happening. I'm not worried about ORMs, etc., as I'm fine with setting up abstractions for the database myself. I'm also not concerned with scaling - I know a lot about algorithms, caching, etc. already, but I also know about premature optimization, so I won't worry about that unless something I write needs to scale. Abstracting away browser incompatibilities would be quite welcome, though. (Frameworks also seem to be where most of the buzz is -- advice like "check out _, it's teh new hotness" really doesn't tell me anything...)

What's the best CMS for our site

Hartster — Tue, 12 May 2009 09:08:50 -0800

What's the best CMS for our site? Yes, another one of those questions. No, I don't think Wordpress is the answer. We're building a website. It needs to be in a number of different languages. The URL structure wants to be in the form of (for example):

example.com/ca/fr/product/price
example.com/fr/fr/product/price
example.com/de/de/product/specifications
example.com/ch/de/product/specifications

so we'd know the first URL would show the Canadian French version of the site (price in Canadian dollars, maybe Canada specific pages in the nav), the second would be the French version of the site (price in Euros, French specific pages) with both sharing the same template and language files etc.

We need to have a good work flow e.g. staging and approval of content (both new and editted) before it goes live and also ease in creating specific URLs.

It needs to be PHP-compatible - i.e. we want to (easily) be able to use PHP in both templates and content.

We also want very strong flexibility in terms of being able to design the site. (Obvious I know but still)

We're also slightly short of time, so a lowish learning curve would be appreciated.

We've looked at Expression Engine. This does 90% of what we need (I think) (including having a good learning curve), but has no easy stage-to-live feature (if you want to do both content and templates at the same time) that I can tell of. Also, having only used EE Core at this stage, I don't know how much I'd like using the Pages module to force /template/article to our URL structure.

It's for a commercial site so we're happy paying, however we wouldn't want to pay at this point multiple thousands of dollars. (Although if a product is awesome let me know as we may be doing a very similar but much bigger site in the future).

Web Referral Tracking For Morons

spicynuts — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 10:05:58 -0800

Coding advice needed on how to create some basic user/referral tracking functionality on a website. Please go easy on me as I'm not a developer, but I need to evaluate a request from my boss that came in urgently without consulting me. Answers understandable from a kindergarten level perspective will be appreciated.

I have a site running on Drupal. MySQL backend. Bunch of PHP handling communication between the two. My boss signed a revenue sharing deal wherein I need to track all users coming from the partner site for six months. If any of them buy anything either on first click through to our site or on any subsequent click through within six months, we give the partner precentage of the revenue. I need to be able to do this extremely quick and cheap...even if it's dirty. What's the best way to do this so that I can report on it out of the database or at least see all transactions for these users in a GUI?

Here's what I know he agreed to:
1. Banner on their site
2. Banner sends user directly into a Flash tool housed in a Drupal generated page
3. User registers AFTER performing functions in Flash..or..they go away and don't register..I still need to be able to track them if they come back and register later
4. After registration, user buys what they've made in Flash Tool
5. Every day I look at orders or some new GUI that shows me users who came from partner and how much they bought.

What is the best way to pay independant contractors of my new web development company?

sideshow — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:55:45 -0800

I'd like to hire some designers/copywriters as contractors, how do I handle stuff like "comps" for my clients? Also, is it a common practice to tell the contractor that they will get paid when I get paid by the client? I have some more questions inside. These are partly business process questions and partly "contractor etiquette" questions. I've been a web developer for nine and half years and I'm trying to get my own web development company rolling. I'm definitely doing this "bootstrap" style, but I'm my design/writing skills are weak so I'd like to find people to help me out in those departments.

My first web dev job was for an ad agency, so I'm somewhat familiar with the process of:

1) Talking to the client and getting a feel what they want

2) Have the designers each come with a "comp", or concept

3) Get the client to pick one

4) Do a bunch of revs and get approval

5) Developers/copy writers/designers build the site

6) Client approves, everyone is happy.

If everyone is employees (like they were at my job) this is pretty cut and dry. Everyone would turn in their hours or be on salary and the company would pay them.

But, in my case, these people would be independent contractors.

I haven't found all the people I need, but I may have a couple designers and perhaps one copy writer I can use. But for this question let's say that I hypothetically have 5 designers and 3 copy writers I can send work too.

1) What would be the best setup for paying for comps? Should I tell the designers "Here's what the client wants, spend x hours on an idea"? Or, is there some sort of industry standard "Comp Price"?

2) Is it acceptable to only pay for a design that the client chooses?

3) Is an accepted practice to pay the contractors when I get paid by the client (50% deposit up front, 25% at half way point, 25% at completion)?

4) Is it best to pay by project (with exceptions for client changes or changes that I might ask for) , or just keep it a straight "by the hour" type deal?

5) Is some sort of retainer customary in this situation?

My goal would be to get enough work and capital to build a staff and not have to worry about this sort of issue. But, in the mean time I'm going to have to contract out work that needs skills outside my expertise.

Developing a web application for school reports in Python

topynate — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 14:48:49 -0800

What web framework, preferably in Python, should I use to develop a student reports web application? My old school wants to employ me to replace their current student reports system. I think that the way to go is to create a web app that the teachers can use to submit comments and exam marks on each student they teach, which will go into a database that can be accessed by the administrative staff to generate personalised reports for each student. This will replace the current system of the teachers filling in special MS Word templates for each student, which causes problems with them blocking each other from filling in the documents, and generates an enormous administrative burden in checking everything is filled in, chasing the delinquent teachers down, and printing the whole caboodle off.

I'm experienced with Python, but have never used it for web dev (except for messing around with Plone once). I have used Ruby on Rails and MySQL to make a survey website, but I never really got to grips with Ruby, and this will be a bigger project involving more business logic. I would prefer not to use PHP. What would be a good framework to use, very preferably in Python, and considering that the focus of this project will be on secure data entry and manipulating that data to generate printed reports, rather than web-based content?

Looking for a good web-based task management system

Eastgate — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 05:20:59 -0800

I'm looking for a web-based task management system. I want to be able to create projects and individual tasks and assign them to different users with deadlines. A user needs to be able to login to see his/her assigned tasks. Any suggestions? I have had a look at TaskFreak and it's pretty close to what I'm looking for, but want to see some alternatives too. Whether it's a script I install on my own server, or it's a service hosted elsewhere doesn't matter. Free is always good, but I'm willing to pay for a system that does the job. It definitely needs to support multiple users, and be able to handle lots of different projects and tasks, as I want to use this to help manage contractors for my web development business, so it's not just for my own use.

Any suggestions on a good system to handle this would be appreciated!

Can I get a tax deduction from building a website for a charity?

Eastgate — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:50:45 -0800

Building a website for a charity in Australia. Can I get any tax deductions from this? Does it make a difference if I charge them or if I do it for free? I'm a freelance web developer in Melbourne, Australia, and I've been asked by a charity if I will build a website for them. I'm wondering whether I can get any tax deductions or any other tax benefits from doing this. I'm also wondering whether anything changes if I do it for free or charge them. Anyone know about how this works?

Is WAP dead?

MaxVonCretin — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 07:22:51 -0800

Is WAP dead? I have a limited budget to create wireless offerings for several websites which currently have none. Is it even worth investing the time and money into WAP versions in late 2008, or should I just focus on http web templates that are optimized for iphone/smartphone screens?

Super-configurable javascript calendar picker?

delfuego — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 08:09:41 -0800

Does anyone know of a Javascript/DHTML date picker (or calendar widget, or whatever you want to call it) that allows you to configure it so that only specific date choices are available? Specifically, I'd love to find one that lets me set its configuration such that only the first or third Mondays of the month are clickable, or other restrictions similar to this. Any thoughts?

How do I move from PHP to JSP/Spring without a J2EE background?

secret.osha — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 00:05:49 -0800

Anyone have experience moving from PHP to Spring/JSP? What approach made the change easiest for you? I'm comfortable in PHP. I know Java from a college classroom setting, but I've never had to help develop a J2EE app. I've looked at Spring tutorials (done the MVC step by step one), but the toy examples that they give just don't do it for me, probably because it seems like a lot of extra work for something I can write in PHP in a fraction of the time. I don't have a current project to work on, I just don't want to be caught with my pants down when the time comes when I'm required to use Spring and JSP. Anyone learn from sample Spring apps that aren't toys but also not ridiculously complex? Any other suggestions for the transition?

Thanks!

How to setup AS2 workflow?

Pasa la bola chetu — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 03:30:08 -0800

Is there an ActionScript 2 SDK or workflow I can leverage? Or can AS2 only be developed thru the Adobe GUI Tools? I am quite good with ActionScript 3. I have my process set up and fully automated so I can do AS3 work in a text editor and have scripts that use the Flex 3 SDK to compile, run tests and deploy.

Can I make similar automation for AS2 projects? I just started looking into AS2 and it seems my only choice is a GUI tool like Flash Professional CS3/CS4 ($$$).

What should I learn in order to do web development?

giggleknickers — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 03:09:46 -0800

What should I learn in order to do web development? I would like to create some feature-rich websites with some Web 2.0 aspects to them. I'm trying to figure out what I need to learn.

At present, I know XHTML, CSS, and javascript. There is so much else out there - php, perl, xml, ajax, ruby, sql, c#, java applets, and on and on and on.

This has been asked before, but not recently, and I know how fast the web changes.

What does someone who wants to be an entrepreneur do after college?

schindyguy — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:59:18 -0800

I am trying to figure out what do with my life after college for money and in general. I have a couple ideas like remote tech support and web development, please give me your wise advice (very long explanation) After reading lifehacker.com’s “ask metafilter roundup” several times over the last year, I decided last week to actually become a part of this great community (or aka as the hive, right?). I spent my $5 to get on here and want to introduce myself and ask for a little guidance from those wiser than me. After just graduating summa cum laude from the U of Arizona with a marketing/business degree in May, I am now in limbo between partying and real life. I used to be able to drink, get high, drink some more and stay up until 7 AM doing nothing, but now I feel my life should start. I have now moved back in with my two wonderful roommates (mom and dad) to my hometown in Los Angeles (Calabasas… if your unfamiliar with the area: known for Incubus, the Menendez brothers, Will Smith, Howie Mandel, reality shows like Jessica Simpson’s, Denise Richard’s, and the Kardashians). There are a lot more celebrities and powerful people that live and have lived here, but I won’t dwell on that because I don’t think you really care . As I digress, my point is that everyone I live around is very successful (in terms of money).

I have always been motivated by making money (especially on the internet); when I was 12 I first opened up a website selling turbo antenna boosters for FREE (with 4.95 shipping and handling—hope none of you fell for that). It was a great little scheme until the popularity of those things died out (making 5k when I was 12 was amazing). Then I moved on to selling U.S. car flags on eBay immediately following 9/11 (made some nice cash there too). I can relate a lot to another’s post (which I can’t find right now) about having everyone around me think that I was going to cure cancer or start the next Google by the age of 21. My family and friends all still believe that I am going to be the next Bill Gates and its hard for those thoughts to escape my head because I have been so brainwashed by them.

Anyway, my main business has been credit card processing for last year. It earns me some good residual income, nothing that I am proud of, but it covers some very minimal expenses. I plan on working very little on that, just supporting the service for current clients and adding others from WOM. It’s a side thing for me.

So after reading through this post I realized I could really benefit from setting up a similar service myself. I do computer support for about 15-20 family and other clients (they are always asking me if they can recommend me to others, but I say no because I am too busy with other things). I usually install the free LogMeIn on their computer and they call me up when they have a problem. I get $80/hour which seems very high in comparison to the poster’s proposed rates. However, unlike the poster, I would rather get a virtual team together that could log into my client’s computers and fix whatever basic computer problem they have (they should be shifts that will allow 24/7 support). I haven’t worked out the pricing, but somewhere around 20 bucks/month for a certain amount of time spent for help (spyware, MS word problem, printing pictures, installing drivers; anything over that specific amount of time would be more money hourly). I know “LogMeIn’s Rescue” could allow my clients to click on & be able to connect with someone on my team that can solve basic computer problems (the problem is that Rescue is expensive at $200/month which might be nothing in the future but is significant now). Crossloop has what’s called helpers in their network but I don’t know how it would be configured to work properly. There is also GoToAssist (Express Beta) which is currently free and does what I would want it to do, but will eventually cost money. If I went with LogMeIn or GoToAssist, I don’t know where to find qualified techs to be online and available 24/7. This post gives a lot more examples of software to use, but I dont know how I could get that team together. Eventually and down the road,
I would like to do 0% of the actual computer fixing
Oversee customer service/acquisition of new contracts/handle accounting
Have my virtual team be available 24/7 for 100% of my client base.

I have also been making money doing web development off and on for the last 10 years (since turbo antenna). No programming or writing code but using Dreamweaver and templates. I am at the point now where I would like to just be able to middle man the situation and get competent and qualified people together into teams to get these projects done when people ask me. For instance, I have this hotel owner in New York that needs a redesign of his site to include virtual tours, videos, a reservations system, and clone the look and feel of delano-hotel.com website. So if I charge the owner $4000 for the site, I would like to get it done for around $2500 (35% profit). In essence, my profit could be attributed to acquiring the client (finders fee), figuring out the scope of the project and its requirements (alongside developer), drawing up a proposal, handling correspondence/updates with client and team, and payments. I even posted a job on metafilter for this a couple days ago but no hits yet.

Mainly I am looking to put together a team(s) that can get any type of web programming done (web 2.0 design, CSS standards /compatibility testing, backend programming, flash programming…everything) Like if they aren’t the best at doing it, they know the best or a very qualified person to get that part of it done. I have talked to several startup owners like popdeck.com, rocknclothing.com, branders.com and they all told me about Indian development (which may fit my needs or may not). I have looked to online freelance sites (getafreelancer, guru, odesk, elance). Im not sure if Im too critical, but the quality of work and logic doesn’t seem to be there (common sense stuff). I am thinking of a project team that has maybe a manager, designer, variety of programmers, and tester that I can just give a task to and they will complete it. Maybe I should have a couple different teams that could accomplish different aspects; like one team for design, one for programming, and one for testing. Or maybe it needs to be divided along programming types. Most of those Indian guys act like they are one-stop shop solution for web development; they are the best at programming flash and the best at developing a iPhone app and they are also the best designers (and then they show me a mock of their site built in frames/tables). But at the same time I am open to having it programmed overseas if the quality is good and the client will be happy. I am sure that someone in the U.S. knows of good developers overseas and has good enough logic/communication skills to take my input and turn it into something good.

So to wrap this long rambling post about my current life situation:

What path do you think I should take? Should I try putting together the remote support team, the web development team, or stick with the credit card thing? I clearly can’t put 100% into everything.

How should I go about putting together these teams?

What suggestions do you have for current situation I am in?

Thanks for your time and once again sorry for the long post.

What're the essential web languages for a new developer?

GilloD — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 08:50:55 -0800

I'd like to learn some web languages to help me take advantage of APIs and generally be more useful. It's been a crazy month and a half. After letting programming lapse entirely, both as hobby and profession, I've found myself seated in the role again. As the only person with even the vaguest idea of how programming languages work, I've been appointed the job of "Web development guy" at the small company I work for.

This has turned out to be wonderful. I'm kept busy, I get wide creative latitude and I genuinely enjoy the act of creating. And, if I do say so myself, I'm not too bad at it. I dove right in reading up on modern CSS, digging through the archives of Alistapart, challenging myself to implement complex solutions and generally learning by doing. I read a ton on best practices and worked hard to make my web code pass the "drop-dead" test- If I died today, I'm certain someone with only minimal knowledge could pick up my code tommorrow.

So this is great! But now I'm looking to try and be even more useful. I'd love to start learning some web-friendly languages so that I can flex my programming muscle. There are things no manner of CSS wizardry can accomplish that I'd like to be doing. If there's an API that I think could be helpful, I'd love to be able to take advantage of it.

But, like I said, I'm still rusty. So I'm looking for two things

-What are the vital web languages that a budding development dude should be familiar with.
-Where should he learn them?

Books, videos, web tutorials- I'm open to all of them. I'm just looking to solicit advice from folks who are in the trenches. I'm not looking to be able to brew my own social network or create a mega database, but I'd like to know enough to generate some dynamic content or employ some Java tricks when most pedestrian methods fail.

As a web designer, do I still need to aim for under 50kb files?

bristolcat — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:48:35 -0800

Web designers, what is the maximum recommended file size for site designs in this day and age? I'm sitting here putzing around with a website I'm building, trying to optimize images and trim down code and I'm getting frustrated. This site design is for a friend's rock band and it has a lot of imagery and graphics associated with it. I was originally taught to aim for building sites that totaled under 50kbs, but that was in 2003. Here we are five years later and I find myself questioning this, considering how many people must be on DSL or cable internet now.

So, all things considered, can I consider upping my max total to 100kb or maybe even more? I look at other sites and see beautiful, crisp graphics and I'm jealous!

Details that may matter:
-This design is going to be a template for Joomla.
-My client may or may not want to have a streaming MP3 player on the front page, which would obviously add to the size.
-There is a gallery plugin which will show 3-4 thumbnails from a gallery component on the front page.
-I'm going to limit how much content can be shown on the front page - it's a fixed height and any news/tour dates/images will spill over into respective pages.
-The audience for this website is intended to be college age to late twenties. Whether this makes them more likely to have high speed internet, well, I'd have to assume so but I would like to hear what you think.
-This is a tableless design and will be styled by an external style sheet.
-I'm using Photoshop CS3 and Dreamweaver CS3.
-I have a little over half of the images in place so far and the Firefox Web Developer Toolbar is telling me that the site totals 39 KB. It is not attached to Joomla yet. I'd love to bring the quality up on the images that are already implemented in the design.
-I'm planning develop a separate mobile site that loads upon detection.

Any tips for image optimization or code optimization would be very helpful, too.

Thanks in advance!