Category: Web Development

I have an Associate in Technical Arts in Web Application Development degree, and I’ve built websites with a variety of tools (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, WordPress, and Wix amongst others).

My tech stack includes:

  • HTML
  • CSS
  • JavaScript
  • jQuery
  • PHP
  • Visual Basic
  • Microsoft Office (Project, Excel, Publisher, PowerPoint, Word, and SharePoint)
  • Adobe Creative Suite (InDesign, Photoshop, PremierPro, and Audition)
  • AutoCAD
  • Mailchimp
  • WordPress

 

Some video work today

Carl Setzer

I spent some time this morning trimming this video out of Trinity’s service last Sunday. A local choir, the Evergreen Ensemble, performed with us; their music was stunning. As I was watching (I was running media that service), I thought “I want to pull this out and post it on our socials”. So, I whipped open Premier Pro and made this little piece to share (posted on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok).

I am always pleased when I get to create fun projects, even small ones like this. Though I’m no master of Adobe stuff, I enjoy getting in with this stuff. For a bit of creative diversity I used Canva to create the thumbnail. I’ve come to deeply appreciate Canva’s simplicity. It makes creating something like this fast and clean.

I do love creating content and managing websites and social media. I find this work delightful and fulfilling. I guess I should find ways to get more of this in my life.

Thinking About Code

Carl Setzer
a man and a woman using their laptop in a bar

My fellow blogger and online friend Bernie Michalik posted today “On futzing around with code“. A key thing for me was the reminder about how much I enjoy coding. To be clear, coding is most enjoyable when it WORKS. Over the years, I’ve had a lot of fun building programs, tweaking things, and exploring how it all works.

Currently, though, I struggle with coding. It is deeply frustrating when it doesn’t work. As I step back and look, I see it’s challenging some of my deepest insecurities. Computer programming is for “smart” people, and I have some deep insecurities around this. More things to work out, I see.

So, when the code doesn’t work, it rattles those old fears, those old pains. Then I get angry and frustrated quickly, driving me to quit my project. My stubborn streak often brings me back, and I never regret coming back and getting it to work (I guess two negatives do make a positive). Figuring out these bugs makes me feel like a wizard. It’s amazing! But the downs are awful.

I think when I decided to study web application development, with the goal of launching the next part of my career there, I put a huge amount of pressure on myself. That robbed much of the fun. If every time I’m building something, I’m focused on how this will help build a programming career. When I’m in a beginners mind, curious, having fun and not concerned about the end product, coding is still fun.

Reflecting on Bernie’s post, I think I need to dive back into code, but focus on having fun. Just enjoy the work, the journey.

More Web Dev Projects

Carl Setzer2 Comments
data codes through eyeglasses

I didn’t post yesterday, so I’ll post about the project I did yesterday and the one I did today. Yesterday, the project was for an Animated Countdown timer. Using CSS and JavaScript to create this animation was pretty cool. My consternation came from a bunch of mistyped elements in my code. Finding those little glitches (like typing “igm” vs “img”) gets wearying after awhile.

Today’s project was an Image Carousel. I only made one code error, but it was a sneaky one. The images would not sit well in their frame. Turns out, I tried to set the size to 500px, but I had a stray “1” in there (1500px…opps). Once I found that, viola!

These are rather small projects, where I’m mostly trying to refresh my understanding of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. I want to be far better than I am, even if I don’t end up becoming a coder. I really enjoy this and want to grow.

I also am working on Google’s IT Support Professional and Project Management certificates. Both of these are valuable skills, and useful things to understand regardless of role in IT.

Another of the 50 Projects In 50 Days

Carl Setzer2 Comments
Screenshot of 50 Projects in 50 Days Notes App Project

Ok, I got distracted from the 50 Projects In 50 Days Udemy Course. It’s been over a year since my last post with one. I’ve been working two jobs for the past year, so that’s my excuse. However, I want to get back at this as I still want to better my developer skills.

This project is titled “Notes App“, which is, well, a note-taking app with interesting elements. First, we use the “Marked” library to enable mark-down capabilities. Second, it uses local storage. So, this was a pretty cool project!

I still hope to eventually move into web or software development. This is fun, if often frustrating work. But, man, you feel like a wizard when you figure this stuff out. Once I’m done with this class, I’m leaning towards studying Python, though maybe I should dive into other web technologies (React or Svelte, perhaps?). One of my attractions to web development was the ability to continue to grow. There’s always something to learn. Always!

Thinking and Re-Thinking Domains

Carl Setzer
close up shot of a typewriter

Now, though, as I’ve spent so much time becoming a web developer, and have built my own page over at GitHub, I think it would be great to have domain that ties in with that work. So, CarlSetzer.com has been a blog for ages. The whole thing started over at Blogger, then I ported the domain over the WordPress years ago. And it’s a WordPress site to this day. So, with those two things, I’m wondering what I should do regarding domains.

Should I create a new domain, say CarlSetzer.blog for this site and use CarlSetzer.com as a hand coded and tech/professionally focused site? I have a hundred business cards coming with CarlSetzer.com as the address, so it makes a lot of sense to shift the blog. Plus, it has solid SEO with my name.

So, what do you think? Change this here blog to CarlSetzer.blog and make CarlSetzer.com into more of a business/tech thing? Or register CarlSetzer.io or something like it for the tech-biz side of my life? I’m really looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Another #50ProjectsIn50Days Project

Carl Setzer
close up photo of person typing on laptop

Got back at it today and tackled the “Double Click Heart” project. This one counts the number of times you click on the featured image, along with a little heart animation. What impressed me the most on this one was seeing how the heart animation was mostly CSS. It’s also nice to feel my understanding of JavaScript settle in deeper.

I feel motivated to finish this course. Now I’m past the half-way point, and have blocked time to get this finished, I’m starting to wonder what I want to do next. There’s so much more I want to learn that choosing a path is challenging. Do I go deeper still into vanilla web development? Do I explore Angular or React? Or do I go a different direction and look to Python? I’ll write about that as I hash it out!

Also, I’m looking for a new role. Ideally, one that utilizes my tech skill set. However, it seems that more people want to talk to me about my admin skill set. Well, that’s fine. I will continue to grow and develop as a developer. It’ll be interesting to see where all this takes me. If you’re looking for either a web dev or a administrative assistant/project coordinator in the Seattle area, let me know!

Onwards!

Todays #50ProjectsIn50Days Project

Carl Setzer1 Comment
woman sitting while operating macbook pro

Today’s project, titled “Github Profiles“, is a tool that pulls information from Github (if you’re not familiar with it, it’s a site where developers load their code. We do that to show code samples, to share our work with others, and to work collaboratively). This tool uses Github’s API, where we can select whatever elements we want from the profile to display on our own site. For this project, we opted for our name, profile picture, bio, number of followers, number we’re following, the number of repos (repositories) we have, and then the 10 most recently updated ones. Check it out! And feel free to use my username to search by: carlsetzer.

Using APIs is really fun for me. And, in this one, Brad Traversy (the instructor), introduced us to Axios.

The amazing part to me is after learning so much, there’s just so much more to learn. That’s one of the reasons I chose this path: continuous learning! But there are times it gets overwhelming. Just dive in, move forward, and grow. So, onward!

Being Strategic With Social Media

Carl Setzer
facebook application icon

I’ve known people whose business is dependent completely upon a single platform. YouTube is a huge one, but I also see people 100% dependent on Instagram, TikTok, or even Facebook, for their business. I’ve been thinking a lot about that recently.

A friend of mine, due to the LastPass hack, lost access to his YouTube channel. Then there’s the drama over at Twitter, with people being banned from the platform on the whim of Mr. Musk, and I can continue. So, I hope you’ll understand that I highly recommend that you DO NOT rely 100% upon a single platform where you have no control.

Social media sites are great tools for connection, but they’re best for directing people to a website. One you own, you control. Encourage folks to subscribe to a newsletter, or the website. Then, by combining your website with blog posts and newsletters, and you have a very powerful tool to stay connected with your audience even if you’re blocked from a key social channel. Also, if you have a website connected to your social platforms, your audience has a way to find and reconnect with you if you lose access to YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, whatever.

I particularly like sites built on WordPress, as it’s extremely portable. Wix, Squarespace, and the like are tied to a single provider, too. With WordPress, I can port my website to another hosting company with relative ease (related: make sure you back up your files somewhere other than on the hosting platform).

Be strategic with your digital portfolio. Be prepared for various calamities, as well as for the eventual falling out of whatever must-use platform the people abandon next. Technologies evolve. Audiences evolve. Platforms evolve. Business sustainability requires you to be thoughtful and strategic.

Developing as a Developer

Carl Setzer
apple laptop notebook office

I’ve been continuing on with my “50 Projects In 50 Days” project. Since my last post, I’ve added 3 more:

Slowly but surely I’m growing my developer skills. I have realized that some of the video trainings move too quickly for me, but taking a moment to pause from time to time and process what I’ve done helps. I’ve also started reading Eloquent Javascript to get an alternative style of information absorption. Also, I ordered “Cracking the Coding Interview” today, as coding interviews are an area of anxiety for me (I know this is not an uncommon feeling amongst developers). These will be my foci for the next few weeks.

Now, beyond that: I’m still mapping that out. Do I want to deep dive into web development? I’m still not sure. While pursuing my ATA, I took classes in Cisco Networking and desktop support. I really enjoyed that and wonder if there might be opportunities to incorporate that into my career. Perhaps dev ops?

Data, database theory, and design were other key areas of my studies, plus, I really enjoyed them. SQL is SO cool! (Nerd acknowledgment). Another option I’m evaluating is Data Analytics. I would like to add Microsoft’s Power BI Data Analyst Associate certification this year as well.

I also studied Amazon Web Services, but just “got my feet wet” as the adage goes. I would like to go further with Cloud Systems, whether with AWS, Azure (I am a Microsoft Alum, after all, and live in Microsoft Land), or Google (I utilize Google extensively in my day-to-day work, seems like a logical fit). And, after watching several videos about 2023 IT Trends, cloud computing is one of the key growing areas in IT. Since I already have a little bit of training, diving deeper and getting some certifications sounds wise. AI and Machine Learning are things I want to, eventually, study, I am just not sure when.

Tiff In Tech’s look at Top IT Skills for 2023

So, that’s where I am as I map out my 2023 plans. What do you think? Any advice? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

Happy New Year! I finished the Drag N Drop Project

Carl Setzer
person holding smartphone while using laptop

Well, Happy New Year everyone! Today, I completed another project in my 50 Projects In 50Days series. This one, Drag N Drop, grabs a random photo from Unsplash, then move it between different boxes. And I created effects styles for the different elements (drag over, etc) . A pretty neat feature/ability.

So, more this is another exploration into JavaScript, which is where most of the functionality of the project comes from. Though I’m not sure I want to be a coder, career-wise, I do want to get better. And I’m not sure how much more JavaScript I want to study. Perhaps I’ll dive into Python soon. It nothing else, it’s more data for my Github page.

On another note, my current contract has been extended to the end of January. Additionally, the plan is to make the role permanent after the next Congregational Meeting. However, it’s only part-time, so I am looking for a full-time gig somewhere. I’m open to a range of roles, from exec support/admin work to project management to web development. My main goal is to have a continuing education budget. Let me know if you hear of anything.