Website Design Eureka!

For anyone that studies and practices webdesign, if you don't already know about what I am going to mention please prepare yourself for one of the most EUREKA! moments of your career so far.

 EVERYTHING IN HTML IS IN A BOX.

 If suddenly like me you get hit by a shit ton of 'aha!' bricks you will no doubt have a grin across your face as you can know create that border you wanted to create because you now understand that everything is just a box in a box in a box in a box.

Text is in its own box

Images are in a box

lines are in a box

Boxes are even in a box.

 If you don't get it study the image below and realise that these attributes can be applied to any element.

Enjoy!

New Blog: http://10000hourcountdown.blogspot.co.uk/

As promised my progress blog.

http://10000hourcountdown.blogspot.co.uk/

For those that do not know, read my first article on the 10,000 hour theory then my second one on getting started again. I essentially have this 'outline plan' to become a master of computing by spending 10,000 hours of my free time studying Computer Science. To make the 10,000 hours measurable, in a way that can be contributed to human knowledge as a whole I set up the 'sister-blog' linked to above that is essentially a work diary, detailing what I studied for how long and a brief overview of what I learnt in that time period.

10,000 Hours Re-visited

Click here to be linked back to the 'article that started it all'.

 I am genuinely disappointed I stopped logging my progress with CS in relation to 10,000 hour time limit. I guess if I start again and consider it a type of social experiment on myself providing a kind of online diary detailing my hours as they go down over the next couple of years, almost like a dev blog but of a person, then it may provide some structure and a bit of evidence to what can be achieved with 5 years of your life.

 I worked out the other day, assuming you're about 20 you have about 12 periods of five years left in you. Which if you consider that you have had about 4 of these periods so far, thats a long-cat long time.


 As I'm sure a few of you know I study self-help books as well for another project I am working on and one of the most consistent messages that comes up in regards to making something of yourself is to 'always be working towards the big picture'. For instance you have always had an obsession with building finger boxes but you think oh I don't have time.. etc etc.. So instead of reading 'phat hoes magazine' on the way to work buy 'finger box boxers magazine', read it, make notes, study it! Keep gearing every little element of your life towards that big dream of yours. It gives your life real purpose to have a focus point, you can easily push through the mundane bullshit of day to day living much more contented than your fellow drones because you have a purpose, you are going to be the best finger box maker in the world, and sure whilst conditions may not be perfect now, you're making them perfect, you are doing what you can with what you have.

 All motivational speeches aside the problem still remains to spend your time becoming a better finger box crafter and to become that master of the art that you envisage yourself to be you are going to have to put the hours in every day to get there. So thats where I am at, conditions are not perfect, work seven days a week, relatively no spare time but I have been inching forward. I veered off the pre-determined path of 'just study hardcore coding and become beast'.. That didn't work I fell at the first hurdle I found it too steep a learning curve so I had to go back a few steps and re-plan what I need to do.

 THE RE-PLAN

 The re-plan basically consisted of me re-evaluating the way my mind works and optimizing my work schedule around that. I found that my mind (probably due to computing) has become very used to immediate gratification. It wants to see something physical straight away and a long time studying theory is like death to my mind at this point. I therefore tried to find what is something that will give me coding experience but have a tangible, immediate outcome that's usable and still a productive use of my limited time. Website Design, is where I settled, it has all the elements my mind needs to settle into a routine. Its difficult enough to still be considered a challenge but is simple enough that I can get the results I want relatively quickly.

 With my new direction I had to incorporate it into my bigger 'overall' plan which is to become a 'master' of computer science (I appreciate, a ridiculously broad goal - but it will become clearer the closer I get to the goal I'm sure -_-). So I decided to take the 10,000 hours and break them up. Logically I would break them up into 1,000 hour sections. My first and only clear goal is to be able to create modern looking website with relative ease. So that is that 10,000 hours is the real goal. 1,000 hours is the day to day achievable goal.



 I will create a main blog that details brief diary like entries that summarize what I learnt when I was learning every time that I sat down to learn. Taking off the minutes/hours of the total hours. So if any of you are interested in the day to day progress I am making watch this space as I will post a link to my diary blog here soon enough. My first major focus will be on website design so expect the majority of posts appearing on this blog for the next few months to be mainly on that theme, I will however mix it up where I can.

What is a float? - A float is a term that is constantly over complicated.

 A float was something that used to really puzzle me. It was never properly explained on the video tutorials I used to follow when trying to pick up C. It used to constantly stump me and every definition I ever looked at just over-complicated the matter even further. For anyone else who is also baffled by a float, your misery ends below.

 A float is literally just a number with a decimal point... Thats it.


The term float is an abbreviation of a floating point number. Floating point refers to the decimal point being able to 'float' between the digits of a number being defined. Simple really but if you follow the Wikipedia link you will see how unnecessarily over-the-top their definition becomes... well I take that back their definition is very precise and proper its just very hard to understand if you don't have a good backing in mathematics, which we all (aspiring computer scientists) should really have.

yep...

 Just a little bit more information from me that I believe will help you; an integer can only hold single values and the way an integer is stored in your computers memory is different from a decimal number. A number with a decimal point is slightly more complicated to store and it therefore requires more space in the computer's memory than a plain integer. If you are trying to make efficient programs a little tip I learnt is that floats take up a a fair bit more memory in comparison to an integer so if every byte counts try and use integers rather than floats. Peace out and best of luck for your studying this year.

CSS is the reason your website sucks

 CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) have been something that I have been putting off learning when building and designing websites thus far. Honestly it has probably been like the biggest error of judgement on my part so far. I was fiddling trying to make semi-cool looking frames for about 2 weeks until I realized anything not relating directly to content is really the sole responsibility of CSS. If anyone is thinking of taking up website design (I highly recommend doing this) start with the basics of html then move to learning CSS as quick as possible it may save you about two weeks of your life.

 I will be posting how to make a basic CSS sheet that will allow you to create a visually impressive menu bar then a main frame on which to place your content. It took me too long messing around in HTML to get anywhere close to what would be considered a pretty old school looking site, I spent 1 hour this morning reading CSS on the train into work and figured out how to easily do what I had been racking my brain with over the last few weeks.

 Even though computing is frustrating when you reach those 'aha!' moments it becomes all worth it, so hang on in there and keep fighting the good fight.