For the past couple of weeks I have been working on a new web site which I have now recently launched. The site is intended to provide its users with informative, educational content including tutorials, articles and more. It also features a web site showcase section where you can browse through the categories and pick up some inspiration on the way.

URL: TutorialCart.com

If so, why don’t you head on down there and check it out. I’m open to all comments and suggestions you may have so if you have something to say either comment on this post or alternatively, contact me via the site.

I look forward to seeing you there - remember, if you like it that much you’re welcome to create an account.

Nobody’s perfect and as a web designer/coder myself I don’t claim to be a professional or anything close to that. But there has been a few times where people have given me code to work on or to look over and there have been some really annoying things which are easily avoidable.

So here is just a small list of some of the things which can quite easily annoy a coder and have annoyed me in the past on many occasions.

1. 1,000+ lines of un-commented code
   - Im sure this is quite a common issue and most probably almost every coder will come across it at some stage. Too often have I been involved in scripts which have consisted of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of lines of code without a single comment to explain what it does. This usually tends to be the case when the original creator no longer works or supports the script and has therefore left it for someone else to take on. Because he/she was the original creator and did not pass on any hand-written notes he/she may have had (if any) then he/she is the only person who knows what the heck the code is doing. Yes it is possible to figure it all out but that can take hours and hours depending on the size/complexity of the script.

Continue reading »

Yes that is my name, Michael Morgan. The reason behind me doing this post is quite simple.

In search results for “Michael Morgan” in Google and Yahoo not a single result is to do with me - not in the first few pages at least. What I want to do is be the number 1 position for searching for “Michael Morgan”. If you’re wondering why then I don’t really know. I suppose it would just be pretty cool to come up as position one for my name. Also it gives me a chance to test out my SEO skills :p.

I’m not going to make any drastic changes to this blog to rank higher for the term “Michael Morgan” but will instead use incoming links to do the majority of the work. I may make a few minor adjustments throughout the blog to increase keyword density but that’s about it.

Lets see how it goes.

The last few days I’ve had a break from working on Sokial; had to get some other things sorted first. But prior to that I really dug in to the core of the code and have made quite a few changes to how I originally planned it. The code is now ‘module’ based if you like; meaning that every (well most) feature/element of the sites functionality can be enabled/disabled as required. Doing this means I have much more control over the code so if there are ever any problems (I’m sure there will be a few bugs) I can get it sorted as quick as possible. The new code also makes use of a nice templating system to output everything to the browser so the design could in theory be changed in a matter of days (if I worked in it full on) without any real hassle.

I’m also going to be implementing some pretty advanced customization options for the users profile. Again I’m not giving too much away right now but they are pretty cool.

I would like to thank all of those who have entered their email address Continue reading »

As I explained in a previous post I am currently developing Sokial into a social based web site. One of its features, just like almost every other social based site is that the sites users will be able to have profiles. These profiles will be able to be customized in a wide number of ways, one of which is its colour (background, links, text, etc.).

Right now I am unsure about one particular thing with regards to customization. If a user was to customize their profiles colours, for example if he/she changed their background to black, should every page then show a black background for that user? Or should it be just the public profile page? Or perhaps it should only be the profile page and its related pages.

So I’m going to ask for your opinion on this. Please cast your vote. Also post a comment if you have any further ideas or suggestions regarding this issue. Continue reading »

I have just uploaded a temporary message onto Sokial while I continue to work on it. Originally Sokial was a general forum community however due to inactivity as well as my interest in developing the site further, I have made plans for the site and am currently putting them into action.

Over the past month or so I have been working on it. I’m not giving away too much information right now on exactly what the site will contain however as you probably have already guessed it will be a social based site. There is still a lot of work to be done right now so don’t expect the site to be live anytime before mid September.

As for those of you who are interested in the project you are welcome to enter your email address on the Sokial front page. By adding your address I will keep you up to date with any important news regarding the project. You may also be chosen as a beta tester prior to the sites launch so you could be one of the first people to use it live.

If you have any comments or suggestions don’t hesitate to let me know.

Ok so I know it’s not PHP’s fault but for the past 2 hours I’ve been working on a script and I’m getting nowhere. I’ve been working on this project for about 2 weeks now and this is the first real problem I’ve come across. I just can’t seem to get it right. Let me explain…

I have two tables - ‘modules’ and ‘user_modules’.

The ‘modules’ table basically consist of an ‘ID’ and ‘filename’ column. The ‘user_modules’ table consists of ‘ID’, ‘userID’, ‘moduleID’, ‘order’ and ‘location’.

The basic idea behind the script is to allow the user to select which modules he/she wants to display on a page and in what order. There are 3 possible locations for the modules which I am identifying with numbers 1, 2 and 3 in the ‘location’ column.

On my page I first have a query to the database which is pulling every row from the ‘user_modules’ table as well as those from the ‘modules’ table where ‘user_modules.moduleID’ equals ‘modules.ID’. I have then built this into an array with this structure. Continue reading »

I have been developing web sites for a number of years now and although I still have a lot to learn I feel that I know enough to get along quite smoothly in the web design industry. After realizing this a couple of years ago I decided to give commercial web development a go and therefore devoted more of my time to working on client projects. Because of this transition from being a freelancer to doing everything through my company I have picked up a few tips along the way. Hopefully this post will inspire those of you who may be interested in starting up a company in web site development or perhaps even for those who simply wish to improve on their skills and tactics as a freelancer.

Here, I have compiled a short list of some of the things which I think are vital to being successful when it comes to being a web site designer especially if you want to do it for a living. These are in no particular order and if you have anything to add to any of my points don’t hesitate to let me know. Continue reading »