As to the design, I have to thank a good friend, Luis Ponce de Leon, for taking a look at where I was and helping me to see ways to improve, even going so far as to do a quick mock up for me. I am not a designer and so I always need an extra push to get things a bit further along. I also used LESS for writing and then compiling the CSS, I don’t think I’ve fully grasped all I can do with it, but I’m getting there. Twitter’s Bootstrap has such great layout options. I used that for the basic structure and it made life so easy. I love a good framework if it is right for the project. OOCSS is making an appearance for margins and padding too because I’ve come to love it so much.

I know I still have work to do, I need to refactor the CSS to really get it down to size and I also have one visual thing that is bothering me, but who knows if anyone else will ever notice it. I’ve switched my sans-serif font choice and I’ll wait to see if I still like it in a week. It’s responsive, but I know that there are areas to improve on that front as well. I’ve tested it in the latest version of Safari, Chrome, Opera and Firefox and IE9, all in all I haven’t found anything major that’s wrong in any of them, so I think I’m good on the browser front. I also want to add in some basic structure support and text only support for the older versions of IE, but frankly based on my users stats, that can wait a bit. Is a personal site ever really done? Probably not, but I’m fairly pleased with this one right now. I’m sure next week I’ll be tweaking it though.

As of now, I’m open for business and looking for front end development work. I hope to be pairing up with designers in the area to help them complete client projects and of course anyone else who needs some good old fashioned code written. I have a big project right off the bat, for which I am exceedingly grateful. Plus, I’m just plain excited to work on the project; the people are fantastic and the project is exciting and will definitely push my skills.

In addition I feel fortunate for a few people in my life who have pushed me and asked me the right questions at the right time to help me get here. Good friends who push you are so valuable, as is a husband who is nothing but supportive.  I am also grateful for the community both here in Portland and online, because every time I’ve asked for advice or help, I have gotten answers without hesitation. It is still nothing short of amazing to me when people I admire take the time to answer my questions. The internets is the best!

Here’s to an exciting 2012, filled with projects and code. Thanks to all who’ve helped me get this far.

This theme keeps coming up in things that I am reading. First in The Great Discontent interview with Noah Stokes, he talked about the experience of going to Brooklyn Beta and being challenged by business leaders to think about how we as a community can use our skills to change things in healthcare and education. I read a lot of different thoughts online after Brooklyn Beta that reverberated the theme of doing something larger.

Then I got the second issue of The Manual and read the piece by Cennydd Bowles. It struck the same chord, Cennydd calls for great design, human centered design.

Great products also meet the needs of society as a whole. So we should design for the good of the web, for the good of design, for the good of the world.

-page 56, The Manual, issue 2

And again he reiterates:

In this new environment, we’ll see personal success defined through the success we bring to other people’s lives.

-page 56, The Manual, issue 2

In the final essay in The Manual, Josh Brewer sums up a lot of what is being said about design leading today.

The era of great design teams is upon us. It will be led by men and women who challenge what we think is possible, inspire us to do more than we believe we can, and encourage us to be even greater than they are.

These leaders free us as teams to reach inside ourselves and create what has never been seen or done before.

-pages 83-84, The Manual, issue 2

I in no way feel like I understand fully how I can and should be participating in something that not only is exciting and fun for me to do as work, but also would be contributing to something much larger than myself, but I do know that I’m now on the lookout for what it may be. I not only want to help create beautiful things that function well, but things that will meet a real need. Because I am tired of the chatter about the next great app that connects me to my friends, I have more than enough ways to connect with people online and in reality, I should probably step away from the screen and connect in person more often. So this week I’ve been contemplative and I’ve been wondering a lot about what this means for me. The desire is growing in me, now it is time for me to figure out what to do. Also, as I prepare to make a large change in my professional life, where does this fit in? That’s what I’ll be thinking about over the next several weeks and probably months.

Update: Just after I posted this, I watched a fantastic video and reread a recent article. They tie in perfectly with the ideas above. Wilson Miner’s talk from Build 2011 is amazing and for a small donation you can see all the videos from the conference, it is worth it for this talk alone. In addition, Cameron Koczon’s A List Apart article is fantastic. We are in a time where lots of people are thinking about design and design as leading the way. It’s exciting and provides a lot to think about.

1. You never know when you meet someone how they may be an important connection or relationship later on down the road. As I have talked with people this week it has been amazing some of the really amazing leads and connections that are happening. Plus the ability to even make change happen for me is because of a connection that I hadn’t talked to in years who contacted me out of the blue.
2. This is a small town, especially within the sub community that I work. BUT that being said, folks are the most generous people, always willing to chat and answer questions and for that I am so very grateful.
3. Connections, relationships and people are what it is all truly about. The rest falls into place from there.

This was hammered home to me throughout this week. And then today I read this:

I’ve said it before & I’ll say it again: Act like the person you want to be, not the person you think you are. Action –> Reaction –> Proof

— Whitney Hess (@whitneyhess) January 12, 2012

Whitney said it so well, and she is right. So as I realize that people around me are awesome, I’m doing my best to return that awesomeness as much as possible.

So in the next couple weeks I will be soldiering on and trying to get my project built out over the weekends. But I have to say, this is the farthest I’ve come and I have also figured out how I learn this stuff well, I need problems to solve and exercises to do and I’ve found tons. Thank you internets, you are the best for all you offer for free!

In case anyone is wondering, here’s my list of resources that I’m using:

• Eloquent JavaScript – It is so awesome to have this all in one in the browser and I’m half way through.
• Codeacademy – I love the way they do the exercises, basic, but it’s been good to get me going.
• Professional JavaScript for Web Developers – I still like having a reference type book and I’m reading it too as I look things up as I work through the above.
• JavaScript Enlightenment – This is going to be a main focus as I work through objects next

The other thing I ran across today was this from Jeremy Keith and it just reinforced my decision to learn Vanilla JavaScript rather than jQuery – there may be many times where that is much more appropriate or easier.

I also want to thank the folks who have encouraged me, you know who you are, and it has kept me going. (Especially some help from down under!)