You would hope this process was straightforward but it’s not so I’m writing this post to help Future Me again. Here are the prereqs:
Articles
Uploading a Project to GitHub
This post follows another post titled Installing Git on Windows. It is a series of posts meant to document my process of Learning how to use the Git source control system.
Here are the steps I’ve gone through already:
Installing Git on Windows
I decided to use Git for version control a recent project. I couldn’t stand resorting to SVN again just because I haven’t gone through the process with Git yet. This post will serve to document the process I went through in installing Git on my computer. I will leave some reference links at the bottom as well.
Website Usability and Search Engine Optimization
A site with proper web usability relies on two things: quality content and speed of access. Content should be well-written of course; but, to be user friendly, content should flow well and be easy to read. The availability of the website (how fast the page loads and the ease at which it runs) is key. Guaranteeing a high speed of access requires business hosting, especially for larger websites.
Web Browser Testing Matrix
I want to introduce a process I have been using for the last several months on a web application currently in development. Our application is essentially a templating platform on top of which we can plug different content into an array of template types, organize them into a timeline, and produce a variety of custom workflows. If you’re confused, think in terms of an online course which has many chapters, and many topics per chapter for which each has it’s own unique workflow and content. For example, say you have 10 chapters, with 10 topics each. Now if each topic is comprised of a 10 page workflow (think test questions) you can quickly see the order of magnitude of the number of possible page + content permutations. In this example, we would be talking about (10 x 10 x 10) 1,000 unique pages that need to be tested. Now multiply this by the number of browsers we support. Managing this amount of data is a daunting task, and the linear QA tool we were using was not allowing us to gain efficiencies by detecting bug trends.
New Blog Design & Personal Retrospective
I just want to briefly comment on my blog’s new design. It has been over 3 years since I started this blog. Starting this blog represented my decision to go all-in and commit to my passion as a web designer. At about the same time I had quit my day job as a marketing manager in Buffalo, NY and ventured into full-time freelancing as a web developer. Originally I only wanted a simple blog where I could post my thoughts and experiences while designing, learning, freelancing, etc. In addition to learning how to write a compelling article, this blog served to document my journey towards reaching my ultimate ambition which was to position myself as a candidate worthy of competing in the NYC job market. Getting to NYC was always my goal. Having to write publicly on a blog forced me to thoroughly understand what I was writing about, and thus to learn it. It was this understanding, this perspective, that allowed me to realize my ambitions.
How to Connect with Eclipse to a Subversion Repository Hosted on a MediaTemple DV Server
I’ve spent countless hours trying to find info about this topic, combing through blogs time and time again, trying to complete this seemingly simple task. Since I’m going through the process again, I’m going to document it in hopes that it may help you (or future me) should we find ourselves in this predicament again. I will be operating under the assumption that you already have a Subversion repository set up and you just want to connect to it via Eclipse.
How to Install & Run Multiple Firefox Versions in Windows Simultaneously
When developing websites, you need to test in multiple browser versions, at the same time. Fortunately Firefox has an easy way to do this.
How to Set Up Apache Virtual Hosts on Mac OS X Snow Leopard
I have written before about Setting up multiple virtual hosts in WAMP on a PC but I need to to the same thing now for my iMac for local web development. I’ll cover which files you need to change and where to find them.
Advanced Blog Marketing
In my opinion, one of the most effective marketing efforts you can employ to sell a product or service online is a blog. Whenever someone asks me if I can help them start their “ABC Company” website, I’ve always recommended starting with a blog. The reasoning is simple – if you know your product / service: prove it to me. If I’m interested in your product, and you’re writing about it, I’m much more likely to trust you.