Category: Web Systems

I have an Associate in Technical Arts in Web Application Development degree, and I’ve built websites with a variety of tools (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, WordPress, and Wix amongst others).

My tech stack includes:

  • HTML
  • CSS
  • JavaScript
  • jQuery
  • PHP
  • Visual Basic
  • Microsoft Office (Project, Excel, Publisher, PowerPoint, Word, and SharePoint)
  • Adobe Creative Suite (InDesign, Photoshop, PremierPro, and Audition)
  • AutoCAD
  • Mailchimp
  • WordPress

 

The IndieWeb

Carl Setzer3 Comments
data on a computer screen

I watched this video (below) yesterday, and it gave me all kinds of ideas. It’s mainly exploring the IndieWeb. I feel the best description is capturing the best elements of the “old” internet. Moving beyond the enshittified internet, beyond the grip of social media companies. Remembering the internet that was not heavily focused on maximizing profits, on selling as much stuff to everyone who has any disposable income.

As someone who is quite enamoured with the Open Web, things like Open Source and Free Software, this notion is captivating. And, the more I think about it, the more important I think these tools are, and how critical the IndieWeb will be for the evolution of the web. It’s a critical tool in wresting control back from corporations. I’m just starting to explore this in depth, so let me point you to Dan Gillmor’s post from 2014 about the IndieWeb. His post summarizes my ideas nicely.

I’m reminded about the ways we navigated back in the early days of the web. Before the days of Google, and the other webcrawler technologies, things like link pages, blogrolls (here’s mine), and webrings were THE way you discovered new content. In a world where search is dominated by paid placements, I think blogrolls and link pages are extremely important. (Side note: I just discovered Wiby, which looks like it might be a powerful tool in this as well. I’ll need to explore it further, though.)

This brought up another thing I’m now: WordPress vs Handcoded. As you’re on my WordPress site, you can check out my hand-coded page here. That one started when I was studying Web Development back during the pandemic. Anyway, I see a lot of value in taking full control of my content. But, with decades of life on WordPress, I’m unsure how much effort I want to expend in extricating myself from the WordPress ecosystem. Hmmm…I might explore doing a bit of both. Stay tuned.

Anyway, check out this video. It’s only 12 minutes and has interesting insights.

Some thoughts on WordPress

Carl Setzer4 Comments
man typing on keyboard while working on laptop

My friend, Pooj, over at Life’s Fine Whine, brought up some issues with WordPress in a recent post. There are many challenges with WordPress, but there are some seriously powerful elements, too. As Pooj points out, the community is perhaps the most powerful element, but it’s not the only one.

Now, I’ve been using WordPress for ages, but it’s not the only platform I’ve used. I started blogging on Blogger. When Google acquired them, I believed Blogger would be indomitable. Well, I was wrong. Blogger blogs look pretty much the same as back in the early 2000s. I don’t know what Google has done with the platform as far as development, but I expect it’s mainly security. Navigation, themes, all of it looks pretty much unchanged. It pretty much looks like Google has forgotten about it. Which I guess is preferable to some of the possible outcomes. I mean, there’s a whole website dedicated to their abandoned products. When Google took over this tool, I had no idea that abandoned products would be a key part of their legacy. Clearly, my belief that Google taking over something would be a great thing was a miscalculation.

Now, I have a degree in web development. I could just build my own site, and have built many. However, there is no community around it. Adding a RSS feed or email subscription feature requires even more code, along with configuring some other pieces. Thus, there’s no easy community building tool.

I’ve also studied Joomla, another CMS tool. It’s less well used as a platform, which I don’t care too much about. But, again, it’s lacking on the community side, too.

We have things like Wix and SquareSpace, which I’ve used extensively. I actually like these tools alot, but they’re a bit different. The ease of managing your connections is nice. You can build all kinds of email communications. But they’re proprietary. Each one a private company. They’re quite easy to design, though. They’re meant to be no-code. I do like that I can utilize some HTML with relative ease if I need some customization.

One of the things I like a lot about WordPress is that it’s Open Source. The surrounding community is something I value. It makes me feel a greater sense of ownership.

I do recognize that WordPress’s User Interface has undergone some radical transformations. I’m not much of a fan of most of it. The Block Editor, in particular, is something I loathe, but can cope with. (Don’t get me started on Elementator.) I do need to be honest, though, there have been many times that I’ve thought it would be easier for me to just code my own websites.

Ultimately, WordPress is powering over 43% of websites, which is a powerful thing. It shows the effectiveness and resilience of the platform. There’s a lot I would love to see done differently. But, at this point, I still appreciate it for what it offers.

An example of my advice to NOT depend on a single social media platform

Carl Setzer
facebook application icon

A webcomic I follow recently ran afoul of Instagram’s TOS. Their 100k+ followers evaporated instantly. They appealed, Meta denied the appeal. So, their option is to rebuild or quit. Now, one way to rebuild is to launch under a slightly different handle, but really, the damage is done. Regaining that many followers will be hard. They are now launching a website to rebuild their connections.

Now, for years I’ve advised folks who do business online to NOT depend on a single platform, not Meta, not YouTube, not Twitch…no, not any of them. The main thing is that you are dependent on whatever decisions they opt to make. We, as customers, have no real influence over the business. Perhaps, if we have enough followers, we can force an action (ie: Linus Tech Tips and YouTube). But keep in mind that Linus has other channels to engage and enrage his followers.

So, the main gist of my recommended social strategy is to drive people to your website. Have them subscribe to the site or an email list. Then you are decently insulated from any capricious decisions by those companies.

I can hear some of my good friends saying “the 90s called and they want their technology back”. Or, even better, “yo, web dev, not everything is solved with a website”. However, I stand by my strategy and, as time goes by, I recommend it even more boldly.

Check out more of what I have to say about Social Media here. And if you like what I have to say, please consider liking and subscribing.

Some video work today

Carl Setzer

I spent some time this morning trimming this video out of Trinity’s service last Sunday. A local choir, the Evergreen Ensemble, performed with us; their music was stunning. As I was watching (I was running media that service), I thought “I want to pull this out and post it on our socials”. So, I whipped open Premier Pro and made this little piece to share (posted on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok).

I am always pleased when I get to create fun projects, even small ones like this. Though I’m no master of Adobe stuff, I enjoy getting in with this stuff. For a bit of creative diversity I used Canva to create the thumbnail. I’ve come to deeply appreciate Canva’s simplicity. It makes creating something like this fast and clean.

I do love creating content and managing websites and social media. I find this work delightful and fulfilling. I guess I should find ways to get more of this in my life.

Thinking About Code

Carl Setzer
a man and a woman using their laptop in a bar

My fellow blogger and online friend Bernie Michalik posted today “On futzing around with code“. A key thing for me was the reminder about how much I enjoy coding. To be clear, coding is most enjoyable when it WORKS. Over the years, I’ve had a lot of fun building programs, tweaking things, and exploring how it all works.

Currently, though, I struggle with coding. It is deeply frustrating when it doesn’t work. As I step back and look, I see it’s challenging some of my deepest insecurities. Computer programming is for “smart” people, and I have some deep insecurities around this. More things to work out, I see.

So, when the code doesn’t work, it rattles those old fears, those old pains. Then I get angry and frustrated quickly, driving me to quit my project. My stubborn streak often brings me back, and I never regret coming back and getting it to work (I guess two negatives do make a positive). Figuring out these bugs makes me feel like a wizard. It’s amazing! But the downs are awful.

I think when I decided to study web application development, with the goal of launching the next part of my career there, I put a huge amount of pressure on myself. That robbed much of the fun. If every time I’m building something, I’m focused on how this will help build a programming career. When I’m in a beginners mind, curious, having fun and not concerned about the end product, coding is still fun.

Reflecting on Bernie’s post, I think I need to dive back into code, but focus on having fun. Just enjoy the work, the journey.

More Web Dev Projects

Carl Setzer2 Comments
data codes through eyeglasses

I didn’t post yesterday, so I’ll post about the project I did yesterday and the one I did today. Yesterday, the project was for an Animated Countdown timer. Using CSS and JavaScript to create this animation was pretty cool. My consternation came from a bunch of mistyped elements in my code. Finding those little glitches (like typing “igm” vs “img”) gets wearying after awhile.

Today’s project was an Image Carousel. I only made one code error, but it was a sneaky one. The images would not sit well in their frame. Turns out, I tried to set the size to 500px, but I had a stray “1” in there (1500px…opps). Once I found that, viola!

These are rather small projects, where I’m mostly trying to refresh my understanding of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. I want to be far better than I am, even if I don’t end up becoming a coder. I really enjoy this and want to grow.

I also am working on Google’s IT Support Professional and Project Management certificates. Both of these are valuable skills, and useful things to understand regardless of role in IT.

Another of the 50 Projects In 50 Days

Carl Setzer2 Comments
Screenshot of 50 Projects in 50 Days Notes App Project

Ok, I got distracted from the 50 Projects In 50 Days Udemy Course. It’s been over a year since my last post with one. I’ve been working two jobs for the past year, so that’s my excuse. However, I want to get back at this as I still want to better my developer skills.

This project is titled “Notes App“, which is, well, a note-taking app with interesting elements. First, we use the “Marked” library to enable mark-down capabilities. Second, it uses local storage. So, this was a pretty cool project!

I still hope to eventually move into web or software development. This is fun, if often frustrating work. But, man, you feel like a wizard when you figure this stuff out. Once I’m done with this class, I’m leaning towards studying Python, though maybe I should dive into other web technologies (React or Svelte, perhaps?). One of my attractions to web development was the ability to continue to grow. There’s always something to learn. Always!

Thinking and Re-Thinking Domains

Carl Setzer
close up shot of a typewriter

Now, though, as I’ve spent so much time becoming a web developer, and have built my own page over at GitHub, I think it would be great to have domain that ties in with that work. So, CarlSetzer.com has been a blog for ages. The whole thing started over at Blogger, then I ported the domain over the WordPress years ago. And it’s a WordPress site to this day. So, with those two things, I’m wondering what I should do regarding domains.

Should I create a new domain, say CarlSetzer.blog for this site and use CarlSetzer.com as a hand coded and tech/professionally focused site? I have a hundred business cards coming with CarlSetzer.com as the address, so it makes a lot of sense to shift the blog. Plus, it has solid SEO with my name.

So, what do you think? Change this here blog to CarlSetzer.blog and make CarlSetzer.com into more of a business/tech thing? Or register CarlSetzer.io or something like it for the tech-biz side of my life? I’m really looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Another #50ProjectsIn50Days Project

Carl Setzer
close up photo of person typing on laptop

Got back at it today and tackled the “Double Click Heart” project. This one counts the number of times you click on the featured image, along with a little heart animation. What impressed me the most on this one was seeing how the heart animation was mostly CSS. It’s also nice to feel my understanding of JavaScript settle in deeper.

I feel motivated to finish this course. Now I’m past the half-way point, and have blocked time to get this finished, I’m starting to wonder what I want to do next. There’s so much more I want to learn that choosing a path is challenging. Do I go deeper still into vanilla web development? Do I explore Angular or React? Or do I go a different direction and look to Python? I’ll write about that as I hash it out!

Also, I’m looking for a new role. Ideally, one that utilizes my tech skill set. However, it seems that more people want to talk to me about my admin skill set. Well, that’s fine. I will continue to grow and develop as a developer. It’ll be interesting to see where all this takes me. If you’re looking for either a web dev or a administrative assistant/project coordinator in the Seattle area, let me know!

Onwards!

Todays #50ProjectsIn50Days Project

Carl Setzer1 Comment
woman sitting while operating macbook pro

Today’s project, titled “Github Profiles“, is a tool that pulls information from Github (if you’re not familiar with it, it’s a site where developers load their code. We do that to show code samples, to share our work with others, and to work collaboratively). This tool uses Github’s API, where we can select whatever elements we want from the profile to display on our own site. For this project, we opted for our name, profile picture, bio, number of followers, number we’re following, the number of repos (repositories) we have, and then the 10 most recently updated ones. Check it out! And feel free to use my username to search by: carlsetzer.

Using APIs is really fun for me. And, in this one, Brad Traversy (the instructor), introduced us to Axios.

The amazing part to me is after learning so much, there’s just so much more to learn. That’s one of the reasons I chose this path: continuous learning! But there are times it gets overwhelming. Just dive in, move forward, and grow. So, onward!