Mayhem & Chaos: The Blog

Without a doubt, a logical and structured layout is the best way to go. Not only because your layout varies between browsers, but also because CSS has a lot of ways to position every element you have. Today we wanted to share with you some quick tips on how to avoid easy pitfalls when creating your CSS layout.

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This post is inspired by friends and colleagues that I have met along the way that, like me, struggled to make the leap in to CSS and/or other forms of development upskilling.

Back in 2002, I worked for a small, very small company that was seeking a web designer. Just to make my point about how small the company was, we were in the filing room, another co-worker had a desk in the kitchen (a joke on to itself) and the owners in their offices. There I met a Bruce Gemberling, who would become a mentor of sorts.

At that time I was still fresh out of school and developing sites in Dreamweaver using tables. When Bruce noticed that he instantly jumped on my back about it and said you need to ditch tables and get with CSS, along with other programming languages. As you can imagine, I found it hard to break out of the comfort and “reliability” of using tables. Basically, I was too lazy to really jump in the deep in. But, much like the same way I learned to swim, I jumped in!

Since then, I’ve not only become very proficient in my coding of CSS based layout, I’ve been asked to come and speak at my old school. That’s going on almost a year now and I’ve really grown even more since then. I’m venturing in to Ruby on Rails and Django/Python. I’ve gained more knowledge of PHP and MySQL. I’m in no way, and I stress no way saying that I’m any sort of guru or know it all. Like I said, I’m still learning and every layout, every line of code is always different for me. Where I work now is a great place for me to really get back in to the deep end and see where my mind can take me. But, this post isn’t about me, it’s you or someone you know that’s been on the fence about jumping in.

One thing that I quickly realized when I had the opportunity to speak at my old school was that, though they preach “real world” education; the fact of the matter is they are not. I’m sure the same thing can be said about most career orientated schools: I learned (way) more out of school then ever learned in school. This is why I think it was tough for not only me, but for those fresh out of school employees to just jump right in to something new. I mean, you went to school for all the time only to find out your employer doesn’t want Flash, they need SEO, SEM and every other three letter word they didn’t teach you.

You spent all that time, all that money learning what they told you was what’s important in today’s industry. Truth be told, they’re not even teaching CSS. Not even a basic class in CSS, semantics, etc. If my memory serves me correctly, I can remember one class, briefly touching on the fundamentals of CSS, but nothing close to doing a whole site in CSS.

Where am I going with this? Well, it’s not to put any blame in the schools; they’re limited on teachers who want to teach CSS and the real important things about our industries. Most schools only offer the tools of the industry and nothing more. So, it’s up to you to really get out there and take control of your career. No one is going to hand out jobs, and the days of company loyalty and 20+ years on the job are over.

I was speaking with a good friend of mine just the other day and he was talking about leaving his current job. I worked with him there for about a year and half before I moved on and he was there about a year longer then me. The thing that caught my attention was what he said, “…I’ve been there so long..”. So long? We’ve come and passed the time of the aforementioned 20+ years on the job. 2-5 years is what looks to be the average for most people in our industry. And what’s driving those people to move on or move up? Obviously: better pay, more benefits, fun work environment, etc. But how do they get all those things? I think that too is fairly obvious. They know more now then they knew when they started at their previous employer.

I don’t think anything I’m saying is new or innovate by any means. I just think, that if you happen to come across this and you were or are in a place where you doubt the validity of development upskilling, it well help assure you it’s not that big of a leap . Remember that it’s only sometimes who you know that gets you the job - but most of the time it’s what you know. I had very little networking or connections to my previous jobs. I got them based on what I knew and how I presented that knowledge. I try never to come off cocky or “holy then thou” because I know that 4 years ago, I knew nothing. And the best part about remembering that is that the guy that knows more then me now - also knew nothing at one point.

So, stop reading this post, check out some blogs and tutorials for what it is you want to learn. It may feel like you’re diving into unknown waters, but there is always someone there, a good mentor, who will pick you up and keep you afloat. Maybe one day that person will be me.

It’s been sometime since I’ve written something, but it took my disappointment of the new Indiana Jones movie to get my blogging. *Warning, SPOILERS Ahead*

Today was a pretty good. Our boss rented out the Alamo Draft House here in Houston and treated the company to a private screening of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull or should I say Scully? I’ll jump right into it. ALIENS? What. The. Hell?!

I’ve defended Lucas many times over but this was just…just..wow. ALIENS? Me being the historical fan, I’m fully aware of the ridiculous theories that aliens came down here and populated a hybrid, slave race or Humans. I’ve seen/read lots and lots of conspiracy theories on how the government is in league with these aliens to harvest a mass drone population; and looking around, I can see how someone could buy into that. But, for Heavens sake, WHY, oh WHY did it have to be the main plot of this highly anticipated, 20 years in the making of a movie?

I think what really set me off is that we at the office got to have an Indiana Jones marathon in preparation for the movie today. I had all three movies to watch back-to-back and get all giddy about going to see it with my wife and co-workers. For that, I’m grateful and of course for the boss taking all of us. And, judging by his tweets tonight, he wasn’t too impressed either.

Alright, lets start from the beginning, literally. The opening scene was a CGI gopher or what-not. Yes, A CGI GOPHER. That’s probably one of my first and biggest complaints. This movie did not need to have so much CGI. It’s Indiana Jones for Pete’s sake. Second, it was fairly obvious that Mutt Williams would be revealed to Jones’ son. But, it was so very anti-climactic. Hey, by the way he’s your son. Oh, really? Alright, lets go get the bad guys. Which leads me to my next gripe. The villain, or lack there of was just simply a joke to all villain in movies. Cate Bland-chet was a cheap Natasha, of Boris &, spoof. I wasn’t impressed, nor intimidated by her character.

Characters and bad acting aside, the fact that they tied in aliens to this movie was just out right silly. The Ark, the Holy Grail, the Occult were themes of the first three films. Now, one could argue and say that the cult of alien followings would make for a good theme for this movie. I would have to agree and say that it would be a good theme…for the next X-files movie. The climax of the movie was very reminiscent of the climax of X-files - did any else catch that?

I’m all for revamping a good movie and breathing new life into it. Rambo, in my opinion did a great job of it. Balboa, not so much, but eh. Halloween did it right. But this was just a shame. A down right shame.

Overall, if I take away the Indiana Jones aspect of it, the movie was fine. But for Indiana Jones, finder of the lost art, savior of slave children in India and patriot of the Holy Grail, it just did not fit. Other then Harrison Ford and the other returning characters, I feel that this was not a true Indy film.

I’ve also read a lot about Shia’s character, Mutt, coming back and continuing the Indiana Jones adventures. After seeing this movie, I really hope not! One plus: Shia didn’t have his “NO, no, no, no, NO!” moments in this movie.

Mr. Lucas, I’m a huge fan of your work, but please, please stop ruining the movies I’ve grown up on. Lord forbid you remake or make a sequel to Willow. I’ll be crushed!