Tag: web development

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.

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.

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!

Developing as a Developer

Carl Setzer
apple laptop notebook office

I’ve been continuing on with my “50 Projects In 50 Days” project. Since my last post, I’ve added 3 more:

Slowly but surely I’m growing my developer skills. I have realized that some of the video trainings move too quickly for me, but taking a moment to pause from time to time and process what I’ve done helps. I’ve also started reading Eloquent Javascript to get an alternative style of information absorption. Also, I ordered “Cracking the Coding Interview” today, as coding interviews are an area of anxiety for me (I know this is not an uncommon feeling amongst developers). These will be my foci for the next few weeks.

Now, beyond that: I’m still mapping that out. Do I want to deep dive into web development? I’m still not sure. While pursuing my ATA, I took classes in Cisco Networking and desktop support. I really enjoyed that and wonder if there might be opportunities to incorporate that into my career. Perhaps dev ops?

Data, database theory, and design were other key areas of my studies, plus, I really enjoyed them. SQL is SO cool! (Nerd acknowledgment). Another option I’m evaluating is Data Analytics. I would like to add Microsoft’s Power BI Data Analyst Associate certification this year as well.

I also studied Amazon Web Services, but just “got my feet wet” as the adage goes. I would like to go further with Cloud Systems, whether with AWS, Azure (I am a Microsoft Alum, after all, and live in Microsoft Land), or Google (I utilize Google extensively in my day-to-day work, seems like a logical fit). And, after watching several videos about 2023 IT Trends, cloud computing is one of the key growing areas in IT. Since I already have a little bit of training, diving deeper and getting some certifications sounds wise. AI and Machine Learning are things I want to, eventually, study, I am just not sure when.

Tiff In Tech’s look at Top IT Skills for 2023

So, that’s where I am as I map out my 2023 plans. What do you think? Any advice? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

Happy New Year! I finished the Drag N Drop Project

Carl Setzer
person holding smartphone while using laptop

Well, Happy New Year everyone! Today, I completed another project in my 50 Projects In 50Days series. This one, Drag N Drop, grabs a random photo from Unsplash, then move it between different boxes. And I created effects styles for the different elements (drag over, etc) . A pretty neat feature/ability.

So, more this is another exploration into JavaScript, which is where most of the functionality of the project comes from. Though I’m not sure I want to be a coder, career-wise, I do want to get better. And I’m not sure how much more JavaScript I want to study. Perhaps I’ll dive into Python soon. It nothing else, it’s more data for my Github page.

On another note, my current contract has been extended to the end of January. Additionally, the plan is to make the role permanent after the next Congregational Meeting. However, it’s only part-time, so I am looking for a full-time gig somewhere. I’m open to a range of roles, from exec support/admin work to project management to web development. My main goal is to have a continuing education budget. Let me know if you hear of anything.

Drink Water Project

Carl Setzer

Today’s “50 Projects In 50 Days” project: Drink Water. Always good advice, but that’s not what this is. This one lets the user click on the number of glasses of water one has consumed, and gives you back an animated graphic. You can check it out here.

After each project, I feel more confident with my coding. However, my questions grow. For instance, I wonder, though, how much more of vanilla web dev (html, css, javascript) I want to explore. Do I want to focus exclusively on web development? Or do I want to add the almighty Python to my list of languages? I’m unsure.

Additionally, I still see my super-power as a project manager/coordinator. As much as I’m enjoying coding, will that ever be the place I make the biggest impact? I’m unsure. Funny, in a way, that after all this web development work, recruiters till reach out to me regarding my executive assistant skill set. For a dying industry (exec support), I’m getting a LOT of interest in this skillset. Such is life, I guess. Keep growing, keep learning, see what comes.

Incrementing Counter: Another 50 Projects In 50 Days Project

Carl Setzer
Coding on a computer screen

You’ve seen these types of counters, ones that zip up to some total at some speed. Well, that’s what this project is. This is one that I can easily see a use case for. Also, it was a lot of fun.

An interesting realization: coding gives me energy. I was feeling rather worn and fatigued when I started this project. At the end, I felt invigorated. There’s some good learning here…just got to figure out what it means.