Apologies for the lack of updates recently, I’ve let it slide a bit too much for my liking. Whilst I’ve been away I’ve been busy learning new things both at University and at home.

Whilst at University I’ve been continuing to use C# in programming which I’ve got to say is not my favourite subject, and is not something I’m particularly enjoying to be honest. Thankkfully I should complete the module this week, so yay! I’ve also been experimenting with Photoshop and Fireworks, having just purchased Adobe Web Premium CS4. I’ve never really used the Creative Suite packages before to any great depth I’m sorry to say, but it is obviously essential to the industry so I aim to address that fact ASAP!

It’s just a quick post this time but (hopefully) over the next couple of weeks there will be a new design up for this blog which I’m quite pleased about. As well as a new design, there will be more regular posts to keep it fresh and up to date.

So, watch this space!

Photo: http://flickr.com/photos/magdalengreen/323202821/sizes/o/

As can be seen in my sidebar, I have a twitter account and usually send several “tweets” each day. When I first started using Twitter I had much less followers and wasn’t following as many people as I am now, and I was happy with that as I was still working out what the service was and it’s uses. These days however, I’m following more people and having more conversations and it has proven useful in the past when asking questions and receiving advice both from people I follow and from others. However, I’ve noticed that some people I’ve had to stop following because of the sheer volume of their tweets has made all the other ones get lost in the crowd.

It’s not that I want to stop following these people, as they are useful people to follow but I find that I just can’t keep up with the sheer number of messages if I haven’t checked in a couple of hours. And if this is happening to me who is following around 30 people, how do others cope who follow a lot more than me? Is there a way to filter out and “seek” the tweets from people that you want insted of trawling through until you find them amongst the others? Is there a third party application such as Twhirl that could help with this?

I’m not complaining about Twitter as I do like the service but sometimes it can feel like information overkill if conversations are going on around me, and that can be off putting.

So how do others cope with a high volume of received tweets?

Well I’m now into my fourth week here in Dundee, and I suppose now would be a good time to document the experience and my thoughts so far on University life.

I’ve now almost had three weeks of teaching and overall things are going well so far I think with all four of my modules this term. The four modules are:

Programming
Personal Web Pages
Web Fundamentals
Personal Study Skills

The programming module uses C# which is a language I’ve had no previous experience with so far and as such is taking a bit of getting used to. It takes me a bit of time and effort in order to get my head round the concepts and syntax of the language, but I’m getting there with almost all the assessed exercises completed so far.

Personal Web Pages is the module that I’m enjoying the most, where we have to create a seven page website based around the topic of “My Top 5…..”, where I have the chosen the topic of my Top 5 Football grounds. My site is almost complete, and so far complies with the current XHTML and CSS standards which is good. I’ll post a link to the site when it is completed.

Web Fundamentals is a “funny” subject at the moment, with the tutor having been off ill for every class so far which has resulted in an awkward situation so far. The first lecture we had to go and find a tutor to fill in, and then for the first lab session no tutor turned up at all!

So far we’ve had two lectures and one lab session for this module, with the lectures being a mixture of vague points read from the module descriptor combined with anecdotal evidence and the one lecture we’ve had so far involved following through a booklet which taught us how to use Dreamweaver to insert tables and images etc into a webpage. Now even I can manage that without Dreamweaver! Hopefully it will improve before too long.

The Personal Study Skills module is a combination of students from the Computing school and the Health school and involves group work on a hybrid topic between the two subject areas. So far it is going well and it will be interesting to see how it develops.

Well that’s it so far here in Dundee and overall things are going well I feel, although I do need to install some decent broadband in the flat because this mobile broadband malarkey is far too temperamental for my liking. I think Virgin Media will be getting a phone call shortly to bail me out, although I am open to recommendations!

Oh, and any C# tips and advice is gratefully received!

Yesterday I visited the local Software Freedom Day event here in Dundee, and I was impressed with what was available. I think that the whole web industry is moving towards open source software, and went along to see what things were on offer. We all know that the biggest and most common instance of open source software within the internet industry is Mozilla Firefox, but there is so much other items of software available.

It was interesting to see the wide range of software packages available, which ranged from graphics packages to office software and everything in between. The most interesting outcome of the day for me was when I received a Linux Ubuntu disk, as I’ve very little experience of that particular operating system. I’ve seen people use it and have obviously read about it over the years but I’ve little personal experience. One technique I picked up was to install it using a Virtual Box, which enables the new system to be installed on a machine virtually so that it doesn’t affect the original operating system. This seems like a good way of trying out Linux knowing that I can always revert back without too much risk.

What do the current Linux users think? Should I jump over from Windows?

It is now over seven years since the 6th version of Microsoft’s Web Browser was launched, and it is still popular today for some reason, although this is mainly with large organisations and some education centres. With the recent release of Firefox 3 it is plain to see how far browsers have progressed in the past seven years, and with Google now joining the party with their Chrome release there is much to be said for the browser business today.

As any web developer will know, trying to create aesthetically pleasing sites which fit into all these browsers is a challenge, with Internet Explorer 6 being the worst of the lot due to the way that it handles code and styles. As a beginner, I’ve had little experience of altering a site specifically in order to suit Internet Explorer 6 (lucky me!). Large organisations are often the last to change software due to perceived security issues but I feel that the time has come for us to help them along by refusing to cater for IE 6 users anymore, and if the majority of developers do likewise then slowly but surely Internet Explorer 6’s market share will begin to drop completely.

Do you support Internet Explorer 6?

Well as promised a few weeks ago, I have completed the new design of the site. It is a bit different from the previous “working desk” design, but I hope that you like it. There will no doubt be a few tweaks still to do, and as we all know everything we do in in Web Design and Development is a work in progress, so feel free to make suggestions.

The new design co-incides with my starting University and I will be posting a lot more often as I have let that slip recently with all that has been happening.

Now you’re probably expecting me to launch into a rant and rave about the downtime and other problems about the social network, but you’d be wrong! My problem with Twitter is getting the background image on my twitter page to change. I follow the steps meticulously and conform to the image sizes, but when I press save the background goes to all white!

The image is within the correct file size and type - actually it is a JPG sized at 166 KB which is well within the 800KB limit but it just will not show at all. I think the main reason I’m wanting to change the background is so that it reflects the look and feel of this site in order to provide a consistent web presence for myself. It’s not a huge issue as it is not affecting the functionality of my twitter but is one of those annoying wee quirks that exist on the interweb which bug me from time to time.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to get this working, I will be eternally grateful!

I was a little daunted before I get there as I can be shy in new situations and these events are all about meeting new people and generating conversation so I wasn’t sure how it would go. As it turned out everyone was friendly and I met a range of interesting people who spoke to me about subjects ranging from mobile web development to producing TV adverts. A few of the people that I spoke to were also there for the first time and it was good to speak to other “newbies” as I felt like less of an invader to the event.

Overall I enjoyed going along to Old Broadcasting House and will be going back again next month.

I still like the concept of this current design as being a “working desk” but I just feel that it’s not quite working as well as I had hoped and that I just feel that instead of tweaking the original concept I will try a change of design. It will take a few weeks in order to complete but should be completed and live by the end of August.

Watch this space!

It will be a topic that is covered when I go to University in Dundee this summer, but I’d be interested in using some PHP in a personal project this summer before I go. Nothing fancy, but just so I’m able to understand the principles. I already have this book which I’m slowly working through, and I’ve recently discovered this tutorial site which I will take a look at, but wondered if there were any other recommendations that people have?