Category Archives: 2017 Summer class

Jane’s Final Pitch

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Pitch for Final Project

I have been traveling more and more frequently in the past few years, and keep telling myself that I should blog about it. Well… what a perfect opportunity! So for my final project, I plan on creating a personal travel blog for my final project. It will include pictures of places I’ve been as well as stories, reflections, and reviews or recommendations.

Goals:

  • Create a unique and personalized travel blog that is responsive and dynamic
  • Program an interactive world map with pins of places I have been and plan to go
  • Link to my Google calendar, “Upcoming Trips”
  • Gather info from visitors on where they live and ask them to share their favorite place ever traveled to
Audience:
While I would love anyone interested in learning more about the places I go to read my blog, I’m realistic and assume it will mostly serve as a memory journal for myself and a “what’s Jane up to these days” resource for close friends and family. But I will develop the site for all world explorers.
How I’ll achieve my goals:
  • I will select a theme within WordPress and manipulate the HTML and CSS to develop my blog, including creating a child theme.
  • I will upload photos I have taken during my trips and write stories about my adventures.
  • In searching Google and WP plugins, I have seen a few interactive maps that are similar to what I have in mind. I am hoping I will be able to play around with PHP to get something to my liking.
  • I’ll need to find a calendar plugin that links to iCal.
Theme: Writee
Track: Front-end and a little back-end;)
Planned modifications:
  • I plan to play around a lot with the style of my site, including changing font colors and sizes, adjusting opacity of overlays, and changing background colors. I will also likely need to fix spacing.
  • Find and manipulate a plugin for an interactive world map that allows me to select a city, drop a pin, and link the pin to one of my posts. I want the pin to look like a colorful sewing pin, not the Google bubble, so wish me luck!
  • Alter a comment box plugin to include fields for where the person lives and their favorite place ever traveled to.
  • Find and activate a plugin that links to my Google calendar and make some modifications for look and feel.
URL: www.lifesurfeited.com

 

Cheers,

Jane

Final Project Pitch

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What’s it About: For my final project, I will be creating a combination of a personal site and a food blog. On my personal/food blog site, I will feature posts about recipes I’ve made, tricks I’ve learned along the way, as well as my personal thoughts on a variety of issues (food, TV, shopping, cooking, etc.). For example, I want to be able to include the following on my blog: my resume, my aspirations, an about me section, links to my social media accounts, recipe of the week, recipe of the month, and reactions to popular TV shows. In order to attract a larger audience, I will also curate content from external sources and will be hyperlinking to other sources. My post types will include: blog posts, pictures, videos, and quotes. I hope to be able to customize my site to be very interactive and keep audiences engaged while they’re on my site. While I want to focus more on the backend, I also want to keep in mind the user’s experience.

I’m looking forward to working on this final project for several reasons. First, I have always wanted to start a personal blog of some sort and have never gotten around to it. Secondly, I’m a foodie and totally obsessed with food, the Food Network, Insider, Tasty, you name it. I own more cookbooks than any 25-year old should. So, I want to be able to bridge my various interests and hobbies and combine them into a cohesive site. Finally, in the future, I want to be able to point potential employers to a side project I’ve worked on and developed. I think it will show how the skills I’ve learned both in this class and the Georgetown PRCC program have helped me become a well-rounded PR and communications professional.

Audience: I see my audience being millennial women in the DC area between the ages of 18-25. The way I envision my final project to be should speak to women in the area of a similar age and keep them engaged and entertained for the duration of the time they’re on the site.

Goals:
  • To build an interactive site with compelling content
  • To bring other DC women to my site interested in reality TV (sorry!), cooking, and food!!
How I’ll achieve my goals:
  • By updating my website with various content that the audience can interact with. For example, creating an integration (or plugin) to my Instagram account.
  • By allowing for the audience to like, comment and share my conent
  • By linking out to other dynamic sites and giving my opinion on recipes and restaurant
  • By incorporating go-to and new DC, VA and MD restaurant reviews
Theme: Kale
 
Track: ?
Planned modifications:
  • Addition of plugins:
    • 1. Instagram feed
    • 2. Contact Form
  • Creation of a child theme that will include updating the front-end capabilities including the fonts, and layout of the page.
  • Creating 3 post types for different types of content: (these will include custom fields that are applicable to each post type)
    • Recipe
    • Restaurant Review
    • TV Review
URL: threecheersfourfood.com
**I’m open to any and all suggestions! Let me know how to make this website even better!**

PHP…Easier Said Than Done

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For our PHP Codecademy assignment this week (though I accidentally completed it early!), I was pleasantly surprised as to how simple moving through the different modules were. Greg pointed out in class that it definitely could be our growing knowledge of various coding languages, which I certainly hope is right, but I also think that this particular Codecademy assignment was also a lot less buggy than jQuery, so I could have just been feeling the pains from completing those projects in a timely manner.

Though the assignment on Codecademy was simple, I found that incorporating it into our website page was very difficult. First, I wasn’t even sure what kind of PHP I would be able to add in a simple manner onto my page (should I try to code something to show up on the page? Or just add back-end elements that wouldn’t be seen on the client side?). After Googling I was able to piece together a very rough contact form, but the syntax for coding this also proved difficult. It might have been easier had I done the Codecademy assignment closer to the date the project was due, but I felt more in the dark about starting this assignment than I had in other previous ones. Perhaps this can be discussed more in class.

Final Project: I have decided that I’d really like to add on to my current website and make it a portfolio/profile page about myself for potential future employers. I’m excited to dive back into HTML and CSS (languages that feel a lot more comfortable to me) to build out the bones of the page, and then do some digging about what additional elements I can include with PHP, jQuery, and more to make my page more robust and custom. Looking forward to seeing everyone else’s projects as well!

Midterm Analysis – New Project, New Languages

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My interview with Emmanuel Kenabantu was a fascinating take on how coding fits into real-life scenarios within the scope of work needed for various businesses — in his case, his non-profit organization clients. SharePoint was not a program I was familiar with, and I definitely had to do my research pre- and post-interview to find out more about what the program was and what its capabilities were. Once I was able to get that information under my belt (it was more digestible than I thought it would be), it was very interesting to hear how Emmanuel used coding and web design to tweak the forms, documents, etc. as he needed.

One of the programs that he mentioned using was C# (C Sharp), a coding language we have not yet learned and I’m guessing likely won’t be within the scope of this class. However, I wanted to know more and some quick googling and asking of friends helped me learn more about it and what it is mostly used for. ASP.net was another unfamiliar term, so I had to look into that as well.

One of the biggest things that surprised me was how small his team was on this project, and how quickly he was able to get it done with such a short-staffed group. Perhaps this is common in the non-profit world especially, but I would assume that a project of this magnitude (though perhaps it is not actually as complicated as it seems?) would take a lot longer to complete. I was definitely impressed by his ability to make quick work of this assignment, and present it cleanly and without bugs to his clients.

I definitely want to go back and ask him more questions about his background as well as how he got interested in coding and web design, and have inquired further with him — I hope to hear back soon and update my midterm post as soon as I possibly can.

Learning How to Communicate with a Server

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Like many of the other posts this week, this week’s lessons on PHP in Codecademy were pretty simple and straightforward. I’m guessing that has more to do with familiarity than with ease. I really am amazed at how much I know or understand about programming in such a short amount of time. It’s starting to feel like learning a new romance language — once you have a grasp on one, the next is somewhat intuitive albeit particular.

I don’t really have too much to reflect on this week. I haven’t had a chance to read the WordPress articles yet, but an eager to. And eager to start playing around with PHP and WP more in class on Wednesday night. And get a good sense of how WP works, what it can do, etc. Then from there, to begin building out my final project.

I am (probably too) excited to start working on my final project. I know I have some more practice and learning to do, but I really think a lot of what we have learned so far will begin to make even more sense and all come together. I am planning on creating a travel blog which I have been thinking about doing for years now. And I can already see al the interactive and style possibilities that I would have never even considered before taking this class.

Anyway, happy 4th everyone. Enjoy and be safe.

Cheers,

Jane

PHP as compared to jQuery

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When completing this week’s assignment, I have to say I was constantly waiting for the tough PHP lessons to role around and, to my pleasant surprise, all four Codecademy sessions were pretty straightforward and easy to complete. Similar to something I mentioned in some of my JavaScript/jQuery lessons, the concepts and logic behind PHP coding made sense to me. If you have the term “array” and then list several objects, items, numbers, etc. that list makes up the array – logical. Similarly, an “if” “else” statement is pretty direct. Depending on the first variable, the computer should execute the code behind “if,” otherwise do “else”. What I liked even more about PHP as compared to JavaScript/jQuery is that the actual execution of the code is also relatively simple (thus far). I think the loop content was especially easy to execute as compared to jQuery coding. It has clear variables linked to clear actions (e.g. the first in line is the starting point, second in line is the end point, and third in line is how much you should add or subtract each time to move from start to end).

I think the one piece of PHP I hope to gain a better understanding of is how, exactly, it differs from jQuery and in what instances we should use one as opposed to the other. I understand that PHP is meant for the server, whereas jQuery works with the web browser, but I am still unsure when we should use each in our coding. Is one preferable for a larger piece of code? Is it a matter of the coder’s preference to use once versus another? What are the pros and cons to each if they, ultimately, achieve the same task just in different languages? I think this will become clearer as the class goes on, but at the moment that is my biggest outstanding question as relates to PHP.

I am also pretty excited to start work on our final assignment! Originally I wasn’t sure what type of website I would want to build, which made the task feel daunting and uninspiring as building a website just for the sake of it seems like a lot of work. Once I thought of a recipe blog, however, I realized that is something I would enjoy updating, maintaining, and potentially sharing with others one day, which makes the project much more fun.

Because I’m All About That PHP

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This week’s Codecademy courses were not bad at all. In fact, I found them way easier than JavaScript and jQuery. I actually liked doing it because I found it to be the most flexible of the courses we had. It didn’t feel overwhelming. The only part that was frustrating was the very last exercise of the 5th course. I was having so much trouble with the echo.  I pressed “reset” over and over again until I realized Codecademy was telling me what my errors were on the right side of the screen.

After doing several of these courses, I realize my problem is that I can do the code, but I want to learn it fast and right away. When I was at an event this past weekend, I spoke with a woman who works at a foundation that works with women in tech. I mentioned that I was learning code and she commended me because she said it takes an “extraordinary” amount of patience to be able to do it.

Reflecting on it all now, I realize that’s my biggest problem with web development: getting flustered and having patience. In an age where we want things fast and right away, it’s hard to look back at your problems and figure out the one mistake that you did wrong. It’s probably a sign that I need to think twice, slow down and take my time. I’m lucky I got through it.

The readings this week were interesting. I worked some with WordPress at Wake Forest and through building my own website. The information that stood out to me the most were the debugging, what themes do, what they are made of and the plugin.

I also thought our class last week was interesting. After downloading and working some with MAMP, I’m excited to learn more and grow my skills in technology. I’m slowly but surely getting better at this coding after all!

PHP Lessons and Introduction to WordPress

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I found this week’s Codecademy lessons on PHP to be much easier than the previous lessons on jQuery and JavaScript. I was able to move through the lessons without too much trouble. I’m still wondering what the exact purpose and advantages are of using PHP (other than users not being able to see all of your HTML code because it is being run on the server instead of in the browser), but perhaps this is something we will address in class this coming week. I found Greg’s lecture on PHP and his step-by-step tutorial for setting up a local server on our laptops to be very helpful, as I am typically able to comprehend things better when I have the opportunity to directly and immediately apply the steps and skills being taught.

The introductory lecture about WordPress also urged me to think in greater detail about what I’d like to work on for my final project site. As I detailed in my brief pitch post, I’d like to use this as an opportunity to create a blog about the topic of running, which will serve as a sort of digital/online accountability partner on my quest to run a full marathon in 2018. I’ve been having some trouble getting the motivation to run consistently over the last few weeks, and I’m hoping that having this site as a place to document my training and progress will motivate me to get back on track.

I went ahead and did a few of the readings that are now listed on the syllabus for next week, and I found these to be very useful in terms of helping me to decide how I want to structure my final project site. The reading about creating plugins was interesting because I think I’d like to attempt to create a plugin that links between my Strava profile and shows my most recent run. I did a little bit of research and found that at least one Strava plugin for WordPress already exists, but I’m hoping to either create my own or to customize an existing plugin in some way. Further customizations to my site might also include creating a child theme, which will enable me to alter some aspects of my site’s theme. I’m a bit confused about when it is appropriate to create a parent theme versus a child theme. WordPress indicates that if I want to make extensive customizations, then I should consider creating a parent theme, but I’m not exactly sure what is considered to be extensive. Is there a clear explanation for when it is appropriate to create a parent theme versus a child theme?

Overall, I’m looking forward to learning more about the features that WordPress offers and seeing how I can apply them to my final project site.

PHP and WordPress Intro

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Compared to the past couple of weeks — having to navigate JavaScript and JQuery — this week’s Codecademy lessons on PHP were actually fairly simple and easy to understand. Besides the foundation I could draw on from our previous work, I think what really helped was that I was very conscious this week about spacing out the work and coding a little each day. I know several of my classmates have been experiencing issues with Codecademy being finicky in these lessons, and I ran into a similar issue for the first time this week when the site took too long to read the for loop I created. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with the program and eventually had to reset the code and refresh the page several times for it to finally work.

Overall, I think the one thing I’m still really struggling to understand with PHP is its function: how it fits in with the other languages we’ve learned and  how all of these come together to form a website. I understand the idea that PHP is read by the server and HTML, CSS, and JavaScript by the browser, and I understand the functions of the last three and some of the functions of the first. However, I’m struggling to see the big picture and exactly how we’ll be utilizing all of these in our final project. Hopefully, as we delve more into WordPress and our individual sites, this will become clearer.

This week, I also started delving into the WordPress readings, as suggested, and the reading on themes really helped clarify some of my lingering questions from last class — like what exactly the difference is between a theme and a plug-in. I hope to finish most of these readings before Wednesday.

For the final project, I submitted a pitch for creating a personal site. I am looking forward to this week’s closer look at WordPress so I can get a better understanding of what I want. Right now I’m worried my ideas for what to create and how to modify my site will either come out too ambitious or not ambitious enough.

I might love PHP

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This week was a very pleasant change of course. PHP is awesome! I really enjoyed the Codecademy lessons, and I’m excited to implement my final project.

I never thought I would care about back-end development. But this week proved me wrong.

Overall, PHP on Codecademy was much more digestible than JavaScript. I felt like I was able to understand all the concepts, which usually doesn’t happen in the lessons we have.

I’ve said before that I thought I’d like front-end development more, I’ve found that PHP really explains the “why” of what’s going on. I thought front-end stuff would be easier to pick up, but PHP was clear and concise.

This class has been hard. I’ve grown a lot in the last couple of weeks and I cannot explain how nice it felt to understand what was happening. I feel like I was carrying a boulder up a mountain and finally was able to stop and see the view.

I’m looking forward to what we have coming up in the next few weeks. While JavaScript was challenging, and the slide show gave me a panic, this is a much nicer process.

God bless PHP. And God bless America.