The trouble with the web is that it moves on so quickly. Just when you think you've got your head around the basics, some new essential technology comes along and you're out of date again, struggling to catch up.

Anyway, I've been playing with HTML and CSS since November 2005. I don't pretend to be good at web authoring, or to understand the code really, but I do enjoy playing with it and trying to make things look pretty.

www.gingerjo.me.uk

Obviously I've put this website together. It's not technically demanding and I'm sure it has many faults. It's really designed to show off my holiday snaps so my mates can see what I've been up to - if they are interested. If they're not, then it's a scrapbook for me to look it.

www.gingerjoblog.me.uk

I added the blog just to see if I could get it to work. Initially I uploaded it and configured it etc myself, but had continual problems trying to update it by ftp. I gave up in the end and ordered it from my web host. Much simpler. All the same I'm too lazy to write blogs on a regular basis so it's a bit of a white elephant. Still, it's the experience that counts.

www.canen.me.uk

This is my Mum's website which I try to keep up to date. I also pester her to get her friends to add pages about their border collies (canen collies and decendents thereof) to make the site a bit more meaty. I've been trying to persuade her that she should add a few pages for memoirs - she has some very funny stories from down the years, but she's not having any of it.

My Employer's website

I'm also responsible for a large number of pages of the website of my employer. Obviously I don't have to worry about design or templates for their corporate site which is just as well because it would be far beyond my rudimentary coding skills. I just have to worry about whether the text is up to date, interesting (well informative at least, I can't guarantee interesting) and whether the images look good for the section I look after.

Learning HTML and CSS

Work paid for me to take a couple of short courses which is how I got started with all this:

HTML and Website Design
Introduction to Dreamweaver

They're only a total of 18 hours teaching in each course (two evenings a week for 3 weeks), but it's enough to get you off to a flying start. You can get a good book or two to develop more.

I tried to do an Open University course, TT280 Web Basics - Design, Development and Management, with a view to completing the Certificate in Web Applications Development. I was doing well, but I never had time to complete the final assignment because I was so busy at work (I was doing loads of overtime, rather ironically to develop a new website for them). I failed to complete the course.

I am intending to have another attempt as I would very much like the 10 credits. I don't think I'll do the rest of the Certificate now though. The OU reckons that you can start the course without knowing anything about HTML. In my opinion this is rubbish. The course is 12 weeks long with no extensions. I already knew most of the HTML they taught, but still struggled to keep up with the pace they set for learning the design and management side of things. I dare say that the other units within the Certificate are the same - if you don't already know it you'll have to work much more than the recommended 8 hours a week to keep up. It's a shame because the Certificate looks great on paper.

It does however give me even more respect than I already had (which was rather a lot) for folk who manage to complete degrees with the OU. That must take some serious self-discipline and determination. Give me a classroom any day - I'm far to lazy for distance learning.

The textbook is fantastic though - well worth the £30 it costs (although you get it free with the OU course). It walks you through all the major HTML elements in a sensible order. It doesn't say much about CSS, but there are lots of other books which cover CSS so it's not really necessary.