Finished

This is my last blog post, and I think I might add some extra words here about the project; for me, this course is like a suicide mission. Or it was... I was told I had to work on computers, using technology more difficult than word and powerpoint, which was the extent of my knowledge on computers. The Planning and Research however, was relatively easy. I enjoyed learning about other things on the computer, especially the pictures editing, which I have always wanted to learn. I spent too much time on my Planning and Research, since I did not know about the timings. Thus, by the end of my first year in this project (Year 10, June 2010) I had done nothing but Planning and Research. Problemo Uno.
During the summer holidays, I worked on the designs, creating five basic designs and then choosing the best one with my client. I am quite proud of my designs, or I was until I had discovered at the end of my testing, that it was not good enough.
It was the Implementation that I failed at, in my point of view. I used a professional website maker's template, and he talked me through the steps of PHP and JavaScript. I then used his template and added all my pictures and created the slide show. I asked my client for the information and she supplied a few articles (or the beginning of them) for me.
Thus, I have learned a lot from this project. I cannot say that I enjoyed it very much. I am not a computer fan; I still read, surprise surprise for a teenager in the early 21st century, and don't spend much time on my computer or in front of the TV. However this experience has taught me a lot of valuable skills. The first one is that I shall never create a website for anyone again. The second is that I could, if I needed to.

Evaluation

I have finally finished my testing and am now commencing on my Evaluation. My teacher told me it should be around four pages (or more) so I have a lot of work to do. I think that personally, my project is relatively acceptable, although I think it could be improved with a better design for the blogs and a better filing system. From my survey, I discovered that the majority of people disliked my website because the navigation was difficult for the blogs. I am quite disappointed with that; I spent too much time on my Home Page and left the other pages blank.

Testing

I have worked quite hard on my Testing, however since my end user is not sure about Commercial Use, I have no opportunity to test and thus evaluate my end product as a commercially done. However, I am now almost done with my testing. The next stop is Evaluation.

Testing

I am now going to commence my testing. I require 4 different fields to complete:
1. In House Testing
2. In the Field Testing
3. Evidence of Commercial Use
4. Conclusion
I am now beginning this.

Photoshop

I have now finished one of my pictures on Photoshop. It has a transparent background so that I can put it on my website without the ugly white background.

Website Template

I am going to use a template of a website for my own. I am now adding pictures and text. I am finishing adding the slide show soon as well. I am taking printscreens of the work, cropping them and then putting them on word document.

Making my Website

After much struggle creating the website on my own, I finally went to see a professional website maker, who sat down with me for many hours (many, many hours) and helped make my website with me. As I mentioned earlier, I did this website using the combination of the following
PHP as my scripting language. I also used Javascript for browser interaction like slideshow, HTML for presentation and Sqlite for database for data storage.
About: PHP & Sqlite
SQLite is a database used for storing the data (like comaping with xls). The advantage is I didn't need to create a html file for each content. Whenever I needed to add a new content, all I needed to do was to add a new row (like in xls) in the Sqlite database.
PHP is a scripting language which helps connecting to the database (SQLite) and output the html
Although I had researched Tutorials for Dreamweaver, I didn't end up using any such software (because the professional told me it is for beginners) but I wrote all codes in the text editor (like notepad) I have used PHP & Sqlite to make sure your website is easily maintainable even for the next several years. If I had not used these, my website would be much less interactive (as in, if I used independant html files). Creating individual html pages for each content is very time consuming with so many dis-advantages. For the slide show, I used a 3rd party javascript plugin to generate the slideshow - http://caroufredsel.frebsite.nl/