Posts tagged as ‘websites’

Thu19Aug

Tools and services every web programmer should know

Written in Development

I will write about the tools and services I consider a must-have for every web programmer. They’ll be ordered by the most important to the less one:

  1. Firebug. Let’s be honest: without Firebug we are nothing. It’s the Firefox extension to view the AJAX calls and responses, to edit the entire HTML page to see the changes directly, etc.
  2. Subversion: A Software Source Control is a must. You need it, even if you think you don’t need it, you really need it. I recommend Assembla for non open source projects and Google Code and SourceForge to open source.
  3. PhpMyAdmin: To connect the MySQL databases and get a fast lookup between the tables is a really needed tool. If we depend the MySQL console we’ll be dead very probably.
  4. FileZilla: The FTP client everybody use to upload his files to the server.
  5. Statcounter: I know Google Analytics is very beautiful and very good, but if you want your stats instantaneously, you need it.
  6. Mantis Bug Tracker: You need a system where store every bug you find in your application and Mantis Bug Tracker is the easiest way to do it. It’s made with PHP+MySQL, so you don’t need an exotic hosting to get it running.
  7. IconFinder. An incredible icon finder where you can find whatever you want. Be careful with the license of them, because you can have problems.
  8. ColorMania: It’s a simple color picker. There are thousands of them, but I use it. You need a program where capture the color of everything on your screen, where convert between RGB and Hex, etc.
  9. Tada-list: I think a to-do list is always very recommendable. It’s useful to set goals or tasks.

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Written by alex in 19 of August of 2010.

Thu08Jul

10 Steps to build a fairly ambitious website

Written in Development
  1. Be clear with the idea. First of all, you need to have an idea and this idea must be very clear. Speak with your partners until is clear.
  2. Build the high level classes for the application. The connection with databases must be built before write any other line of code.
  3. Implement the user registration and the login later. That step can be obvious if your website doesn’t require login, but else you’ll need to have it as early as possible.
  4. Write the main code of your application. Forget about details and about design unless you have dedicated layout designers or something like that.
  5. Give the website an acceptable appearance. Start thinking about how the web will look.
  6. Think about what things might need the application if it grows more than expected. Scalability and code’s expansion possibilities. Also, get in mind the possible features your users will ask for you.
  7. Give some persons the application to hear opinions, and to test the usability of the website.
  8. Write the code to generate RSS feeds and to build the Sitemap.
  9. Start linking the web from other sites you own. Add the URL to Google. Start thinking about SEO seriously.
  10. Put a link to the site everywhere you can. Comment in blogs, register in forums and post links, answer questions on Yahoo! Answers and put a link, etc. etc.

If you follow all the steps you have the possibility to start a website with ambitious, but, remember, the most important thing here is your knowledge: more knowledge in web programming and more possibilities of success.

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Written by alex in 08 of July of 2010.