Just over 2.5 years ago, I developed a curiosity into how websites are developed and designed. A few weeks ago, someone asked me what tools I used to create my website as well as this blog. That is a dangerous question to ask someone who is still learning by doing. However, it did make me realize I needed to take the time and record a few of the tools and the process I use if only for my own reference.

I started in the summer of 2007 by reading a book on HTML. I started coding a few pages, and using some open source software created a few static pages. That was simple, but time consuming. I soon learned there were programs (Adobe Dreamweaver) that would make this process simple. With an interest in photography as well, I purchased Adobe Creative Suite . The programs, which I use in the Suite, are Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and Fireworks.

The next step was to take a course in Dreamweaver. Locally, I took a one-day course at the Computer Training Unit at North Carolina State University. From there, I also relied heavily on the support forums at Adobe while experimenting with Dreamweaver. In addition, I subscribed to a hosting service-Blue Host, and was finally able to get a website up and running on the web.

Once I felt comfortable creating a basic website, I turned my “focus” to learning Photoshop. I quickly realized it would take a lifetime to learn and effectively use all of the features of Photoshop to their full potential. I found a few books by Scott Kelby that covered the basic features, which was all I needed at the time.

Almost one year later, Adobe released Photoshop Lightroom, now in version 2.0, which I now use more often than Photoshop. In addition to having the basic post-processing as Photoshop, Lightroom has a few features that have an advantage over Photoshop. Lightroom is excellent at organizing and creating collections of photos, has a “Develop” module to make needed adjustments, allows you to create both HTML and Flash based galleries / slideshows, and has a FTP upload function so you can upload a web gallery directly to your site.

In late 2008, I wanted to learn how to make a website interactive, so visitors could leave messages, etc. This required knowledge of MYSQL/PHP. This is where I hit a roadblock. I was able to learn the basics, create databases, and contact forms for my site. Nevertheless, this required more time than I had now. Therefore, I put MYSQL/PHP aside, and looked for other ways to make a site interactive. This is where WordPress came into the picture.

WordPress is an open source blog publishing application. WordPress has many excellent themes on which to develop a blog. After a year, I decided to go with the Thesis theme, from DIY. I put a link to this blog on my website, and thus use the blog for contacts and communication.

That brings me to this past week. I wanted to improve on the galleries that Lightroom produces. There is a plug-in for Lightroom “Slideshow Pro for Lightroom” that I started using the last few days. It provides for a bit more flexibility and ease in creating and embedding slideshows into blogs as well as websites.

Finally, for most photos I use a Nikon D300. I have not yet mastered all of the features, but hope to over the Holiday vacation coming up. After that, I plan to return to learning MYSQL/PHP.

Still learning. Not enough time

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Updated mcgregorlink today.  No new content, just trying a different color scheme.  In doing so decided to change this blog design to match.  Please contact me if anyone has difficulty reading the text with the new background.  Always tweaking.

Adobe has a great site located here to help select color combinations for websites, as well as other uses.  It is a good resource to select colors that work well together.  You can go to kuler to register for free.