Job Outlook for Web Developers

Today I stumbled across an article online that talked about the job outlook of Web Developers for 2012 and beyond. The article, which was from usnews.com, currently has the job title of Web Developer as the number 6 on the "Top 10 Jobs for 2012". I'll take it. Let's take a look at what exactly this article by Katy Marquardt had to say.

First, the article talked about some basics of what a web developer actually does. I think the most important statement that Katy makes is that really a web developer does more than create more than visually-appealing and user friendly websites, but that they must take into account a client's products or services as well as that client's target market so that the design and functionality is reflected to portray that target audience.

The outlook looks real promising according to Katy for web developers. She states that the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects nearly a 22% employment growth between 2010 and 2020, resulting in that time from the need for over 65,000 jobs to be filled. The Bureau of Labor Statistics that web developers made a median salary of $75, 660 in 2010, with the lowest-paid developers still earning $43,190 that same year. That's comforting to me and really motivates me to continue to teach myself web design and development so I can obtain a well-paying, satisfying career.

The remainder of the article talks about how networking is important in landing that first web developer job, but so is showcasing your abilities. This is something that is a constant battle for me as I continue to attempt to teach myself to professionally develop websites. On a lighter note, Katy asks someone about what one can expect on a daily basis in the field of web development. The person's response is that:

"Web development is very exciting, demanding, and fun. You have the best of both worlds, where you get to exercise your creativity and have the exacting demands of coding. You always have to be learning and have the ability to learn on the fly."

That job description in combination with the potential starting salary for a web developer position will drive me internally throughout this semester to do everything I can on my part to become a future master of the web. I want to prove to myself and to others what is possible to be taught on your own, in your own free time if you put your mind to it.

link to Katy's article: 2012 Web Development Outlook

CSS: Making Webpages Attractive

I previously wrote a blog that barely skimmed the surface of HTML and now I would like to attempt another blog at what really gives HTML it's appearance that you see on the web today: CSS. CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. The styles of CSS define how to display HTML elements. Typically CSS files are saved as a seperate style sheet that is linked with an HTML file. One of the major benefits of using CSS to style your HTML files is that by updating a CSS stylesheet this update can affect the appearance/layout on all of the pages that make up a site, making CSS a huge time saver!

There are two basic parts to CSS syntax: Selectors and declarations. The selector typically is the HTML element you want to style, so for example if you remember from the HTML blog we could use CSS to set the appearance of a paragaph element <p> with <p> being the selector. Each declaration for a selector has two parts, a property and a value. Here is an example of a declaration: color:blue;. Color is the 'property' and blue is the 'value'. Typically when someone is writing code for a CSS stylesheet they write each declaration on a separate line, resulting in the following appearance:

p
{
color:blue;
text-align:center;
}

These selectors and declarations can be broken down a little more due to the fact CSS actually lets you specify your own selectors. Id selectors are used to specify a style for a single, unique element, and denoted by a "#". For example:

#topText
{
text-align:center;
color:red;
}

There are also class selectors, which are used to style a group of elements. Class selectors allow you to set a particular style for many HTML elements with the same class, and is denoted with a "." For example:

.center {text-align:center;}

There are three ways to insert CSS into your HTML code. The three ways are by using external style sheets, internal style sheets, and inline styles. External style sheets are best used when there are numerous pages for a website that are styled. External style sheets utilize the <link> tag to link to an external style sheet (an external style sheet is saved as a file with a .css file format). Internal style sheets utilize the <style> tag and are primarily used when an individual web page has a unique style. Inline styles are advised to only use sparingly. I recommend you to read up more on stylesheets as I have just covered the very basics here.

In conclusion, CSS makes your websites sexy! CSS is a huge time saver and when done properly can save a web designer/developer a ton of time when it comes to adding styles to text, paragraphs, background colors, etc. There are tons of tutorials out there on CSS and I encourage you to check them out for futher details!

Dream Job (AgencyNet)

It's getting to that point in my life where I think about future employers and jobs more than almost anything else every day. I stumbled across a company called AgencyNet today and was really blown away by their website, some of the clients they have worked with, and what they were able to achieve. AgencyNet's tagline is that they are an "innovation-focused digital creative agency". They have an office in New York and also in Ft. Lauderdale.

AgencyNet's goal is to offer their clients the solutions to grow their business through technology, design, and social media. Their website does a really interesting job of showing their success with clients such as Mike's Hard Lemonade and celebrity singer Rihanna. It does so by almost telling a story by starting out with the goal of their client, then proceeds to show their deliverables and what they actually did for the client, and finally highlights the results AgencyNet was able to come up with for their client, which is usually some pretty successful statistics.

I would absolutely love to work for a big time company like this. I have dreamed about working with nationally known clients for years now and aspire to chase those dreams. It will take hard work and dedication but I am persistent in my desire to make myself more knowledgeable about web design and how it can be a powerful marketing tool in this day and age.

You can visit AgencyNet's website by clicking here

HTML5

In my last blog I talked about the language of the web and how XHTML forms the structure of websites. I want to now confuse anyone new to the web design/development community, as I myself am confused/overwhelmed as well trying to keep up with all of the buzz surrounding something new to the web. What I'm talking about is HTML5: The newest, hottest thing being talked about in the web development industry. Developers are truly praising HTML5 as something that will revolutionize the web. At this time HTML5 is still under development although there are functioning websites and insight out there displaying some of the new capabilities this technology has to offer. Let's see if we can't figure out what all the hype is about.

One of the most important things to understand about HTML5 is that it is indeed backwards compatible. This means that if you are using an old browser and visit a website that is written with HTML5 elements you won't have any idea that it is and everything will work fine. On the other hand if you have a modern browser that supports HTML5 then you will be able to see some of the exciting new features HTML5 has to offer. From the point of view of the developer and a company who has a website that contains HTML5 features they will be hoping that the user does indeed have a modern browser because HTML5 is really looking like it will provide better user experience resulting in people spending more time on their web pages. Since HTML5 is still under development and being finalized this issue won't come into full effect until the product is fully launched.

Like I said earlier there are sites out there that have integrated HTML5 markup (code) into their development. Here is an example of one firm that has a functioning site utilizing some HTML5 features.  

http://www.slimkiwi.com/

HTML5 offers new functions for embedding audio, video, graphics, interactive documents, and forms into websites. I've looked at examples of sites that are using HTML5 and they truly do look beautiful. They are less table-based and more captivating to its audience.


HTML5 also offers new structure. Tags are now availabe that are very easy to understand in regards to the structure of a page. For example, can you guess what the new <nav> tag represents? You guessed it, the navigation menu buttons that everyone is familiar with on a website. There is also now the common terms used in design <header> and <footer> tags for a HTML5 marked up webpage. It's apparant that the goal of HTML5 is to make things easier on the developer. I mean easier by requiring them to write less lines of geeky code (which is good for me as I already have a hard enough time understanding it). It will be interesting to see the new developments that come along with HTML5 and I am excited to see the day when every major browser out there fully supports HTML5, as it is clear that it has the ability to make the future of web development something much more interactive and media-rich for users of the web.