Well, it’s finally here. The end of the semester and the end of my days at VIU. But of course, this doesn’t mean the end of my learning opportunities. While classes may be over as of the 9th of this month, my propeller is going at full throttle to keep myself moving forward and learning new things. I’ve even signed up for a digital illustration class (some might call me driven, I just call it a last ditch attempt at staying on the Island!). I have subscribed to a web design magazine from the UK (“.net”), as well as some digital magazine sites (Smashing Magazine, Website Magazine) for inspiration and education. I have joined some discussion groups (Designer Talk on LinkedIn, ZU on Facebook), and crowdSPRING blog/freelance site for further inspiration, education, and networking opportunities. Once I get “settled”, I will be joining some professional organizations as well to further my networking.
I have been recently reading Andy Clarke’s book “Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design” and one suggestion he made that I think I’m going to do is start keeping a scrapbook of things (images, fonts, etc.) that catch my interest. Inspiration for design can come from anywhere so while I keep snippets of items from the ‘net, it would be worthwhile to keep other non-virtual ideas too.
The Bear site is up and running. I’ve managed to significantly decrease the load time (approx. 15s less!) on the site by deleting unused modules, extension, and templates from the site. I’ve also archived a significant portion of old blog posts which were causing some bogging down on the home page / blog section of the site. I’ve also determined that one of our social networking plugins was causing a great deal of drag on the site so I’ve moved to a different option which ultimately I think will be better in the long run anyway as the previous option only worked on one social network, and the newer option gives the option of using up to 60 different networks!
The user manual is looking good. I received a copy for editing/review purposes last night and went through it with some suggestions and revisions for Reiko. The client is already using the site and has made many posts already which is wonderful. We did have a little snag when she initially started testing the site which was easily rectified but it was a good eye opener as to what client’s can do to a site! As a designer/developer, I know how things should work and I know the parameters that are allowed so it’s a good eye-opener (user testing! ha ha!) to turn the client loose! With that in mind, the suggestions and inclusions to the manual definitely have to take into consideration those “little things” that we, as the developers, take for granted.
My client is not very forthcoming with material for my project in DIGI 320 so I have had to make a quick change of plans in order to having something suitable for my final project. So I’m working furiously on creating a portfolio site for myself. I’m stretching my boundaries and trying some different techniques so I guess I’ll see on the finished product if they worked or not! 
I’ve also resolved, along with my networking, etc., that I will keep this blog going as part of my continued evolution as a designer/developer and use it to give back, somehow. I’m not sure how I’m going to do this just yet, but something will come up.
My PHP project feels really loose – I’m sure that I will have it to a happier place by it’s due date but at the moment it’s still pretty rough. Some concepts are definitely starting (am I being optimistic here?) to take hold, but there’s still a steep learning curve ahead of me. On that note, I’m going to work on that further and wrap up this blog post!
