You do not need to have an education or be a journalist to know how to write. Writing is a skill that gets better with practice. It helps influence the way we speak and the research needed to verify the facts of our statements. But, writing is actually the reflection of your thinking. There are various forms and techniques of writing but the most important thing to remember is to write as if you are talking to your friend. When you think about how you speak to your friend, you speak fearlessly from the heart and you also get to the point immediately because you don't want to lose their attention. The messages therefore are simple and focused, using the fewest words you can. Overall, people will differentiate you as a great think with valuable assets because of being clear and convincing.

"I'm not a writer, I'm a....", how is this going to help me in my career?
We all want to be heard and we all have ideas that we wished others would take seriously. Most people wish they were part of something bigger. By practicing writing, you can be heard and eventually make an impact within your career or through some other form of media. Writing helps brings those words to form and since it is written down you can read it and see if it makes sense, how it sounds, and bring confidence. Sometimes, writing can have an unexpected change in your life and you never know who will read it and what type of response you'll get.

Lets Get Started And Practice

Remember the type of media (blog, email, novels, articles, etc.) you write in will also change the way you have to communicate to reach your audience. For example, people who read emails skim through the content quick. Its important to have headlines, bullets and shorter paragraphs to improve quick readability and to display the content clearly and concisely.
Here are a few key tips for writing:

Practice Makes Perfect
This isn't new. It is important to practice. The more you write, the better you'll become. Writing will become easier, more fluent, and faster. Don't fret if it takes 10 hours to write your first topic. Just remember that repetition is a way at improving ones skill.

Say It Out Loud
Tone is difficult to convey, especially in emails and fact based topics. It is valuable to say that when you read out loud you can find those weak areas a do a quick edit before it becomes published. Does it get to the point, does it flow well, and/or will people understand you?

Make A Powerful Headline
Spend time writing your headline. A good rule of thumb is to make sure your headline can capture your audience attention. If it doesn't, they won't take the time to read your topic.

Read Other Authors
Don't forget to read other people's writings. When reading other authors, keep an eye out on how they write and what they write about. This will help you bring out your voice within your writing and become passionate about the topic as well.

Have Other People Read Your Work
Get a trusted friend, family member, co-worker, etc. to read your writing. Make sure this person will be honest to you for feedback. This will help you get thicker skin and bring up controversy. You should then be able to provide supportive content to further strengthen your work. Proof-reading for bad grammar and poor spelling is important and will also be caught within this stage. When you are willing to let others read your content, it will build your self-confidence and practice of your skill.

Just remember, writing can be learned through practice. Don't give up. Keep on trying and get your voice heard. Who knows, one day you may find your work highly recognized.

Every year we hear about the trends of coding. These trends are forced upon the developer as, "Oooh this person did this and I want it too", or "That is very neat can you do the same for me?" What always happens in a situation like this is the client isn't happy when they get what they asked for. There are many reasons for unsatisfactory client or a poor site. Many of the reasons do lead back to two most important questions: "What is the goal of your site?" and "Who are your target demographics?". After those questions are answered then you can dig further into finding what would be the most appropriate site for your client or for yourself.

What type of site do you need? Flexible, Static, Dynamic, Something Else?

The trends in determining your method of code development should make you want to code a site because it is cool. You should bet determined to use that method because it'll meet the needs of the website's goal and be user friendly. Don't get stuck with a cool site that is awful to use. Here are some common trends that should be understood before immediately jumping into coding:

Responsive Site
Responsive sites seem to be the hottest trend right now. It is because it's width flexes based on your screen resolution, providing and optimal experience for both desktop based users and device users. However, you have to decide what type of elements and effects you want to give up and/or change. Even some of the design will have to change because you are having to consider load time and resolution on the phone. To determine if you or your client needs a responsive site, it is best to see how much of your demographic is accessing the site via device. Also, it can be determined to by the goal and what the site is about. There are many examples of responsive sites: Smashing Magazine, A List Apart, etc.

Wordpress, Drupal or CMS based Site
CMS sites can be templated or customized. The main first stage of building a custom template (and even installing) is done through someone with coding skills. These CMS are easier for clients or users who don't have much coding knowledge but want to be able to update their sites on the fly. They don't want to deal with have a developer (usually because they don't want to pay for someone) and gives them more control over the project. This is good for clients who are constantly in the need of changing their content and photos. Most CMS comes with types of versionning control. This is something as a developer if you go along this path you must do your research of which tool will be best suited for you or your client. You've probably seen many types of cms sites... That t.v. show called Katie for example uses wordpress, and The sound Post instrument shop uses Drupal.

Dynamic Site
Dynamic sites can be seen in two ways: Heavily with JavaScript functionality or Server side driven data. The JavaScript websites provide a different experience. Nike used it to create a scrolling site with dimensional appeal. Nintendo MarioKart used JavaScript to create a path to move the user through the site. Server side sites content changes dynamically based upon any changes that occur on the server. Amazon is a good example of this as it can tell how many of an item is left in stock and update it accordingly.

Basic Standard Site
The basic standard site is just simple html and css. There could be some simple JavaScript as well. This site is usually manually updated and maintained by someone with coding knowledge. Basic standard sites are not often updated, mostly informational, and don't need for additional server driven data.

A Few Other Common Trends

We have seen many common trends in the elements of coding. Don't forget web 2.0. You know who you are. Everything has some type of sheen/shine. Starburts and bubbly icons were used lots around that time. But, that is just the start and a minor design aspect not the code. so, lets get down to some of the coding trend elements that can also have an affect on your site.

Accordions
Accordions came into popularity when users found out they have another way to compact content into a website without actually displaying it all at once. It helped with some usability issues and also organized what should be most important and displayed. Accordions found their way into navigation as well. Demo.

Sliders
Sliders are used to portray several elements within a time sequence or manual click through. Sliders are commonly seen in banners. It is used to help engage a user within the site. Demo.

HTML5
While HTML5 seems to be of the talk today, it isn't fully compatible across browsers. If you are interested in using HTML5 there are a few things to consider and research is a must. I'm not going to go into details on this as there are already so much on this topic.

I hope this helps you as a developer to open your eyes and discover that trends don't always cut it. There has to be thought and reason into why you decide to use the methodology in coding.

I'm very excited to say that SilverFox Interactive finally got another redesign and has been coded to be responsive. This was a challenge as I had to re-think a lot of what my site use to have and how I want each element to shift around based on screen size.

Screen Sizes

So, what does responsive really effect on a website? That is pretty much based on the user experience and the strategy of your content. On SilverFox Interactive, you'll notice that the navigation will change when the browser/screen resolution gets smaller. The right column will either shift down below the left column content or not be visible when the screen shrinks. Elements that are floating will become stacked. Also, you'll see the images changing in sizes or disappearing all together.

Responsive Images

I think through my studies on responsive design, images was the most uninformative area of topic. There are so many ways of trying to get the images to respond and size accordingly but they aren't cross-browser friendly or they just plain suck because of all the extra coding and hacking to make it work. To me, it seems like no one has a concrete idea on how to make images responsive in a most effective way.

The homepage has a responsive rotating image. Again, this was slightly difficult to comprehend since there wasn't a really effective and clean way to get images to size properly. But, it is working and seems to be what I was looking for.

Javascript

Most of the javascript on this site is jQuery. I had tried to stick more to personally coding and not using many plugins. This was just to help build up more of my own javascripting skills more than anything else. The projects page has a type of hopups windows, which is all hand coded javascript - not a plugin, to showcase my work. It uses an overlay to dim out the background content and helps the user focus on the detail content that is placed above the overlay.

CSS

I also used more css based styles versus images. Drop shadows and rounded corners are all css. The displaying and showing elements based off of screen size is also css driven.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my site and had a chance to look around. Feel free to contact me with any questions.

It is very common as a web developer to be faced with many types of programming languages or coding techniques. There are many times when a developer has to learn some new method or language at expedite pace. Sometimes, this creates a daunting task and questions we face constantly. What should I learn? How soon will I need to learn this? I need to learn this asap, but how? Where are the most reliable resources? How should I grow and become more within the field? These questions are just the tip of the ice berg.

Practice and Patience

I and a few other fellow developers have recently been facing these questions as well. At first it can feel overwhelming. But, the answer is always right there in my face because it is what I do as part of my career. And, the other designers, developers, and companies to whom I follow their blog postings, also have come up with the same thoughts. Vanseo Design has mentioned in his blog about that it is about getting out of the worry state and just do it. Just by taking on a task to build a site, the skills and techniques used to complete it will become part of the pattern in your learning process.

A while ago, I remember reading an article from Wired that stated how important it is to learn in increments and learning to pace your studying. By practicing the code technique you choose to learn and breaking it down into smaller pieces, you can achieve to reach the goal of gaining the education/knowledge you are striving to gain.

Evaluating

The evolving technology drives a web developer to learn more and achieve higher success within the field. But, it isn't always about inventing the new wheel. UX Magazine discuss the importance of strategic thinking and problem solving. Using your resources and creating that leadership to motivate others to pursue answers is another method to make others feel that they have authorship. What is learned now comes from your team (or other individuals in the field). When evaluating what you want to learn, it is important to remind yourself that good leaders don't know everything. They just know how to use their resources and where to look.

When growing in the field, it isn't always about code and design. It has to do with looking into ourselves. You can slap any title on your name, but if you aren't willing to put the effort as an individual to grow and gain knowledge to help drive success, your title will never measure up. I believe that your passion to grow will also determine the type of knowledge and method of learning you will choose.

Hopefully, this has helped opened your eyes a little that you aren't alone when facing these questions. There are answers and methods to achieve anything you want to learn. The big key is to stop worrying and just do it. Remember to pace yourself, otherwise you can hit burn-out really fast.Lastly, evaluate your goal of what you want to learn and where will this take you in your career. When combining these together, success becomes easier to see and within reach.