Ain't it always the way...

Sooo, as mentioned earlier, i spent a fair bit of time today "updating" the look of this blog, as
well as testing my new-found css skills.  True, most of the work was already there, but i've
built on that with what i know.  I wanted to re-design the site with my knowledge, what i've
learnt so far, and no searching for help on google.  I was happy with what i had created.

I then realised that Blogspot had a "blogger beta".   Not one to miss the boat or anything, i immediatly looked into it.  And there are a few features that would come in handy, HOWEVER, in order to take advantage of the new layout features, i'd need to rebuild the site as there's no way to import the current design.   So i may be working on that over the next few weeks.

I Must admit, i am really enjoying web design at the moment.  I first got into it 8 or 9 years ago.  I was a big fan of UK Garage music, but had trouble finding any decent websites purely because they didn't exist.  So, whilst browsing through the magazines at a local news-agent, i found a magazine with an article called "build your first website".   Armed with some demo software (Claris home page to be exact), and the magazine feature, i got started.

At this point in time, it was the summer break between terms at college, i was having great fun designing, and was learning & redesigning my website on a weekly basis.  Finally it got to a stage that i was happy with and it started gaining hits.  

About a year (and several redesigns) later, my UK Garage website was quite popular.  I was getting a couple of thousand hits a month and i was happy with how things were going.  On top of that, i had formed a partnership with a friend of mine to run an artist promotion agency.

With this, i also started receiving requests to redesign other peoples websites.  It seemed as if i was always behind my computer tapping away at the keyboard in Dreamweaver, knocking out graphics in Fireworks, or perousing the web for inspiration!  And i loved it!

Anyway, after a couple of years (2002), i met my wonderful girlfriend and my time spent on websites dwindled.  At around the same time, the use of CSS & XHTML started to become popular.  More & more websites were popping up with accessability in mind, proper functionality.  All of a sudden, webdesign was more than some hefty table layouts & some round corners.  As i mentioned though, it was at this time that i stopped designing.

Over the past 2 months (ever since reading an article on devlounge.net, i've become hooked on webdesign again.  I've lost count of the amount of hours that i've spent tapping away on this keyboard recently working on table-less layouts, closing tags (grrr) and scouring the web for tutorials. 

And the one tool that's REALLY helped me do this is my Kingston U3 Datatraveller pendrive.  Due to it's U3 capability, i can carry around my notepad application (EditPad Lite) & my FTP program (FileZilla) wherever i go, and i can design from any internet-enabled PC with a USB drive!  I couldn't recommend these things enough!

So, after spending 2 months working on CSS & XHTML, learning, and reading, and reading some more, i can definatly say i am REALLY enjoying myself.  So much so, im already working on 2 other websites.  I've completly removed all tables, and im excited about launching them!  I guess i better get back to it!  Wooo!