rackIT @ GWD

I really had a great time talking with you all today… thanks for your interest in IT and internet technologies.  Below is a brief compilation of links that might be of interest to those interested in web design, web development, and other related technologies.

The World Wide Web Consortium develops web standards such as HTML. CSS, XHTML, and more. Their main site can be found at http://www.w3.org/ with more specific links to html and css at http://www.w3.org/standards/webdesign/htmlcss - this link – and site – are particularly useful as information on usage, several tutorials, best practices, and tones of working examles are presented. I also like the section on AJAX.

Wordpress is an open source blogging platform released under the GNU/GPL v 3. This means that you can download the source code, learn about it and modify it and re-distribute it as needed. It is a great application to learn about html, css, and php because it has well structured code and is well documented. There is also a strong international community to offer support through forums, IRC (#wordpress on freenode), and more. Although Wordpress was designed as a blogging platform, the many modules and customizations available can make it a light-weight content management system.

Drupal is another excellent open source platform to learn the nuansces of HTML, CSS, and PHP. Drupal allows for the design of rather complex web applications though a solid code base, extensive module availability, strong community through forums and IRC (#drupal and #drupal-support on freenode), and a powerful API. The Drupal CMS is used by the White House, British MTV, Sony, and many more.

The best way to learn is to explore and have fun.

Apple has had the soft gui (apps that make you go “WOW”) and the hard gui (hardware aesthetics that make you go OOOH!) down for some time – it’s because one company has a hand in both that provides a tart and tender user experience. I’ll bet good money that at least two people from hardware/software sit on one another’s team at Apple.

Windows, on the other hand does the soft gui well and then licenses anyone, and their brother, to handle the hardware — no aesthetic “OOOH!” here, and just a tad of the wow. The result is this disjointed stepchild of a system that everyone is buying.

Dell and HP have, of late, been making tentative steps into this “OOOH!, But I am disappointed that I couldn’t find any information on the HP series that impressed me enough to spend a half our looking at their wares by following an ad to see a slick box with all it’s machined inlays of critters, flora, and whatnot, with procs to make it so, yet a simple search acquired nil. How’s that for marketing, but for the fleeting whims of inept copy?

I currently run kubuntu on pc hardware; a desktop and a laptop. The utilitarian hardware design in my desktop pc is more than compensated for by the myriad customizations available through Linux, as are the general lack of balls in the laptop. Both systems are tools that are custom-fitted for me and what I do everyday, letting me be comfortable in my work, while making the 8 to 12 hours a day that I spend in front of these screens more efficient than I once could ever have conceived – all without the premium cost of branding. – Yeah! Go FLOSS!

This is what it all really boils down to, in my eyes:

Windows on a pc is like some jeans and a t-shirt. It's comfy, and it works!

Apple is a three piece Italian suit from that swanky boutique. Wow that's slick. Who can take in the cuffs?... How much!?

Kubuntu on the pc is the finest of three piece suits that is custom fitted by thousands of tailors from around the world. We're cheap and easy, if you know the right crowd. Then we all look good!