Philosophy & Methods

My philosophy for building websites is pretty simple: "Keep it simple." One of the most frequently accessed websites in the world is also one of the simplest, Google. I think we can learn a lot from Google.

On my websites you will not find proprietary code that will look different if you use Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Opera on Windows, or even if you use a Mac or Linux!! You will not find flashy intros and graphics that take forever to load even on broadband. Here's what you will find...

• Consistency

All the pages in a particular part of the site have a similar look and feel, including fonts, graphics, and colors.

• Clean Code

I prefer to work directly with pure code. Whether it's HTML, CSS, or whatever, I avoid using an editor, like FrontPage, whenever possible. Editors generally insert a lot of extra "stuff" into code that is not really necessary. By avoiding them, I have more control over the actual code and make smaller files, which make the website load faster.

• Ease of Navigation

Menus are grouped logically and are the same across each section of the website. You can quickly and easily get to different parts of the website without clicking the Back button on your browser over-and-over.

Below are the programs I generally use when working on websites:

• PSPad - Text editor
• SmartFTP - FTP client for uploading files
• Adobe Photoshop - Image Editor
• Microsoft FrontPage - WYSIWYG Editor
• Nvu - WYSIWYG Editor

Website scripts and packages I use:

• SPGM (Simple Photo Gallery Manager)
• Wordpress - Blog
• phpBB - Message Board

Consistency...

Different browsers, same webpage.  Click on image for a larger version.