For years now I have been mooching off of the online world. Just taking, taking, taking and never thinking of giving back. Well now, I have made a step in the right direction. I finally purchased some webspace and intend to begin learning like I should.
I have always blamed the fact that I have used post to hosts as my inability to or desire not to, try and create something good, or to learn more about the web, applications, and the design process. In case you don’t know, post to hosts are sites like http://core-fusion.net that offer webspace to people who meet a monthly post requirement on their forums. While it is good for people who just want to play around, develope small things, and teach their kids, it has been my experience that they are unstable and slow to respond to your problems. Core-fusion was one of the better ones that I have used and would recommend it if you just want some free space. Post to hosts like Roxr.com are now gone, probably due to legality issues. I think Roxr was run by the same people who manage Rapidshare.
A few weeks ago, I had already promised myself that I was going to do this as soon as possible. After a meeting with Alex Hillman and Bart Mroz, two of the three founding partners of Round3Media, I was even more excited and compelled to do so. They mentioned that I should be blogging like crazy, which I already realized, but I was having trouble adjusting to the fact that I would have to use some known CMS rather than something I whipped together myself. I did, and still do recognize the fact that I am, at this moment in time, not capable of writing something flexible, manageable, automated, and secure enough that I wouldn’t have to use a CMS like WordPress.
With that in mind, and already having used WordPress before, I set out with that option. So here I am.
What I want to do:
First and foremost, I want to learn. Learn everything that I can. I guess this leans on the side of take, take, take, again, but at this point it is necessary.
Secondly, I want to share. Share things I find, what I am doing, where I am going, who I have met, what has been discussed, all so that the world can progress and grow around me and through others.
Finally, I want to give back. I want to be able to mentor and/or be able to help people with furthering their learning and developing of ideas. However, there are no promises in this category for the time being.
What I am most interested in learning about:
Graphic Design - color theory, typography, Photoshop, etc.
Web Design - Why pages are laid out a certain way, why the code works the way it does (I have experience in HTML and some CSS), best practice
Web Development - Writing applications for the web (this is probably furthest out on my timeline)
Photography - self explanatory
If you have resources, please share them with me through commenting. That way others will be just as able to benefit from them.