From there I continued with school projects.  I did the Gender Outlaws Website, which didn’t end up being quite what I was looking for, and certainly can be worked on some more.  And also a bit of a draft site for TR By Hand, which also didn’t end up being quite what  I wanted.  That needs to be developed further, to provide the kind of content management that I’d like to have for that site, as well as the styling that would really suit the material.

Since then, there hasn’t been a whole lot of work done.  I created the TR By Hand Blog which is starting to look like it might get updated on a more regular basis shortly.  Still trying to get Tricia to be comfortable about the blog, and posting and stuff.

Also I have been working on a website for Ward Street Place which is coming along slowly, but surely.  That site will not be updated and may be moved right off of the Armispian Systems site in the near future.  The styling is pretty rudimentary, as I more like to work with the code than the styling of the site.  I am really not a “designer” more of a “developer”.  Unfortunately most people don’t see the value of development, and are not designers themselves, so will probably be looking mostly at the designs of my websites, rather than the development end of my websites.

Stuff that drives me batty, most people never notice.  Some of these things are: Sites that claim to have valid HTML/CSS when they are clearly not (sorry no examples at this time); sites that use tables for formating when all of that could be done without the use of formatting that is problematic for screen readers and such (eg. Google, Web Page Layout Using Tables); and sites that do something that produces a website that is not accessible, when doing such would not dramatically change the function, or the design of the site (eg. using flash to present something that can be presented in HTML easier and more easily accessible).

Sometimes I wonder if I should lower my standards.  Produce what people are looking for and are willing to pay for.  Then I also realize that will probably never happen, that I’ll never lower my standards.  I’ll just have to accept that educating people is worth the time that it takes to explain why things are better the way I want to do them, rather than going with something like WordPress for a basic website.

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What have I put together?  Darn good question, the first document I put together was a 1 page outline of the kind of work that I have to do to pull a website together.  That really is just something that will help me schedule my time through the process of developing the websites that I will be designing, but also give the client some idea what degree of work is involved in building a website the way that I build them.

The second document I created was based on that which just went through in more detail just what all the various “major steps” of creating a website are, and why they are so very important.  This document I think is very useful for my clients to see as they see what they are paying me for.

The third document is about what I will be looking for on our first meeting.  Now in some cases this information will be presented at the first meeting as there is little opportunity to present it prior to that first meeting.

So with all of this together, I believe I am ready for my first meeting with this new client on Monday.  And how this job goes will help me determine just how useful this information is.

So here we are, ready a day ahead of when I need to be ready, and all is looking good.

Also, I have been working on the computer that used to be the Rasku Services computer, but as Rasku Services no longer exists, it’s the Reino Rasku computer.  Put a few hours into that, which is really great.  I do some of my development work on that computer, so some of the time I put in is helpful in getting the computer working as well as I can for when I’m here and don’t have my own computer here.

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I’m pretty sure I’m going to re-develop this document as it really is designed for someone who thinks very much like myself. Not that this document is going to go away, but I’d like to have something like a 10 page package to hand out to clients when I first meet them to explain to them what I’m doing, with this being one of the pages.

This is just a brief outline of what is involved, it involves 9 major sets in “development” and one major “post development” step (totally optional, but willing to provide that for my clients).

Off of the major steps there are 22 minor steps in development, and 6 in post development, with 2 sub steps in the post development.

I really hope that my clients will look at this and actually be interested in working in this manner. It’s quite possible they will not be as this may look overwhelming.

The reason I’m doing this work is because I am meeting with a client on Monday to start the development process. I don’t know how “well” it will go in terms of schedule, but somehow it will work out, even if I do end up being a week or so late with the development.

The timeline looks a little tight for being able to develop it in a “timely manner,” but it looks like it will be possible, even with the work load of school that I currently have.

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