Eureka Moment!

Edwin was talking about Eureka moments on the blog today and yesterday I certainly did have one!!

In a chat with 2 fellow students from other subjects (Greg and Yani) we were discussing all things currently foreign to me such as PHP/CMS/MySQL etc... Those words or abbreviations had often been tossed into conversations between me and the web designer who used to work at my company i.e. the one who inspired me to take up the Net studies degree in the first place (who sadly has now moved back to the UK). Anyway, so he would explain stuff to me and say things like 'oh don't worry the CMS will take care about that, but I'm sure you will learn more about that down the track'.

I'm happy to say that from my conversation with Yani and Greg via MSN yesterday I am no longer scared of those words and can now start to imagine developing the types of sites which a client would want.

I had feared that I would never be able to do freelance web design as I knew that people would be asking for things like forums or search boxes and 'dynamic' web stuff. I thought all that type of stuff was way beyond me... but alas... Yani and Greg explained to me in laymens terms all the stuff I had wondered... What is PHP, why do I need a CMS etc...

For example, http://drupal.org/ which is free CMS which can help you put together a site which is edited by the client. Very handy.

Here is a screenshot of a site which Yani has been putting together using Drupal. This is the URL for the site, but it is still in the making and requires a login to see the pages in development. http://www.imagonullius.com




The CMS allows you to build a log in type system and only authorised users are able to change and upload content.

Here's a screenshot of the login area:



Kind of like a blog style. I found this to be a HUGE breakthrough in my learning. Because now when I do my usability testing and someone says.. 'oh I think you need a search box' I won't cringe and thing... 'ummmm.. yeah.. sounds good.. but.. I don't know how to do that....'. I can design away knowing that I will be able to build in basically anything they ask for! Hooray!!