Sunday, January 08, 2006

Driving the Porsche

Our web tech, Phil, is responsible for all the macho web site coding in cold fusion and maintaining the technical aspects of our product database and the really techie-geeky things like that. The look-and-feel, as well as the content, is primarily my responsibility (along with Cindy, who helps out more than I can even thank her for). My web skills are entirely self-taught over the past couple of years. It's kind of been on a need-to-know basis. I recently upgraded my web software to the latest version (Dreamweaver and Fireworks, for those who care). Fiddling around with certain files helps me to learn the new tricks and tips of the new software. I started off small, and Phil and I joked about how I had taken over a little of the driving of the web site. As I progressed, so did the joke. After I took the next baby step of changing a design or two on the web site, I called Phil and joked that I used to just drive the Chevette, but I had upgraded to driving a Honda. Later on, I called Phil to ask him about how to do another trick. After he explained it to me, he told me he had just given me the keys to the Porsche.

Well, I've been speeding along in the Porsche for the past couple of days. For most of you, it's probably not a big deal - or even very noticable. But for me, it's a huge step. I've been adjusting the graphics of the site template. For example, we used to have a series of pottery-related pictures at the top of the page. I've changed that to a clay-colored texture background. Overall they are very small changes, but I have been learning a lot that will help me make bigger changes that are going to increase content and functionality of the site as I continue working.

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