Help a n00b out please

[Hoonigan]

Hey guys,

It's me, and guess what, I'm back for some more advice, if you don't mind.

I've got the possibility of landing myself an "IT Consultancy" job at the company I work for, which will be a good step up for me, and hopefully my first foot on the ladder on my way to getting a decent qualification.
But basically, I've got ZERO qualifications and/or skills in the way of coding or PhotoShop or anything liike that.

The lad that is leaving currently runs the website (not sure what programs he uses)
He also does some basic networking around the buildings, sorts out our payment backend, all of that kind of stuff.

He essentially just makes everything electrical/computer-ish work..

What I'm here to ask for are some good guides on learning HTML quickly to a decent-ish level. And also any guides on learning PhotoShop. Are there any free versions of this that I could download anywhere?

The website(s) in question are: www.toolsandtimber.co.uk and www.thealpacaclothingco.co.uk, are these particularly difficult websites to put together? If so, how long would it take for a complete novice to be at a level of keeping these websites running and improving them?

There's a lot to explain, and I don't know what people need to know, but basically, I want this job, I love the company I work for, and I see this as a good opportunity for me to take steps towards a career in IT.

[scaryjim]

OT: Met the guys from Alpaca clothing a few years ago at the Tory party conference. Nice bunch

back on topic: Hard to tell just by looking on the surface how complex either of those sites will be to maintain - it depends on whether they're content managed or hand coded. They don't *look* hand coded to me, which probably means you're looking at some kind of server-side code to generate the page. Whether that's written by the bloke who's leaving or is just a standard content management package is impossible to tell.

TBH, if you have no current skills in web development, you're not going to be able to do a couple of weeks of online study then just jump straight into hand-coding elegant web sites. Same with Photoshop (if you're looking for free packages GIMP is the most powerful free image editing package, but personally I use the simpler Paint.NET for web graphics); it takes a long time to develop even reasonable Photoshop skills. OTOH, if they're both handled through standard content management systems, it's not really any harder to maintain them than using Publisher or Powerpoint - but you won't be learning much about web development on the job.

You really need to talk to the bloke who's doing it currently and find out what he actually does. And think carefully about whether you really want a position that you yourself admit you probably don't have the skills to do: if you love this company, do you want them to have an enthusiastic amateur responsible for all their IT and websites? Do you really want to be the one responsible if things go wrong and you can't fix them? I understand your enthusiasm for developing your career, but this might not be the best choice for you or the company....

[virtuo]

Thought that URL rang a bell, I actually helped out getting the payments system up and running on the timber site a few years ago!

You'll be taking on a couple of eCommerce sites - being brutal, it's not something a beginner really wants to do, specially if the company is expecting maintenance and customisation.

If I recall correctly (and I might not), it's not an off-the-shelf platform either (custom ColdFusion?) So you'll get very little help if something goes wrong.

If your main task would just be maintaining products, running reports etc. Then it's just a web-based interface like any other website that you'll learn quickly, I'd suggest getting a freelancer in for any heavy coding.

As for Photoshop, I think you can still get it as a 30-day trial, my personal opinion is you either use GIMP or Photoshop - the skills aren't really interchangeable. I'm a Photoshop veteran and have to use GIMP occasionally, and I'm always lost.

Unless you are developing new sites, I guess you'll mainly be resizing or touching up product images, which is pretty basic stuff that GIMP will do well. So I'd suggest going with that unless the company already has a PS license.

[Hoonigan]

Hi guys, thanks for your responses.

Scaryjim - They are a very lovely bunch in The Alpaca Centre! Get on with them all really well.

I understand where you're coming from, entirely, it's a mammoth undertaking, but with Cumbria being such a technology blackspot, I feel this could be my chance to get my foot in the door.
Maybe I need to wait a little while, and learn as the company evolves. I could maybe look into doing an online course in HTML coding, and try to learn PhotoShop CS5 from YouTube (Apparently this is a very good way of learning that.)
I reckon if I picked up the skills on my own, and then displayed that I can do it in 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, however long it takes to learn, I could possibly discuss getting myself a place developing their website.
It's a very small family business and I've put a lot of effort and time in lately to try and prove my worth, which they've recognised and now want to pass some responsibility over to me.

I do want to try and worm my way into this industry, but need to be prodded into the right direction....

Does anyone have any suggestions of a good way of learning HTML? I work Monday to Saturday every week, so there's no chance of learning through the day, it would have to be at home, online and on an evening.

Virtuo - We use Cold-Fusion on the Timber website and Magento on the Alpaca website. This obviously complicates things and makes it more difficult to learn, but is it possible to do courses on these?

I underwent some training on something called MailChimp today, this is the online software that we use to send out our newsletters and emails. This involved some basic HTML, which I kind of understand, but again, I definitely need to do some specific online training on HTML coding, in my own time, to try and wiggle my way into this industry.

[virtuo]

We use Cold-Fusion on the Timber website and Magento on the Alpaca website. This obviously complicates things and makes it more difficult to learn, but is it possible to do courses on these?

I underwent some training on something called MailChimp today, this is the online software that we use to send out our newsletters and emails. This involved some basic HTML, which I kind of understand, but again, I definitely need to do some specific online training on HTML coding, in my own time, to try and wiggle my way into this industry.

Magento is nice if you don't have to install/configure/develop for it yourself! If you want to keep your head above water, you'll want to learn the Zend framework (which has a learning curve that Eval Knievel would whimper at). Plus you don't really want to be learning both CF AND PHP at the same time.

HTML is good in that all you need is a text editor (try notepad++) and a web browser. The basics are simple enough and there's always a reference for what the basic elements do. People slate w3schools, but it's brilliant to get you on your feet. I've found the best way to learn is just tinker. Build a kitchen-sink page with as many different elements as you dare. Tweak them, see what they do and how they change on-screen and how applying CSS rules influences them. It's not going to look pretty but you'll start getting a good feel for it. Think of a basic project or web site you could build and see how you go.

Another good idea is to look for some generic/basic HTML5/CSS templates online and inspect the code, edit bits, note the differences, rinse and repeat.

PHP is fairly easy to work with, especially if you've got a handle on any kind of c-style development then it's pretty easy to do the basics, but you are a long way off Magento-level code. I'd recommend having HTML nailed down first. And don't forget JavaScript while you are at it - it pays to have a bit of experience here too. The PHP Manual is actually a good place to start learning, it'll get your first hello-world app and most of the function references have good example code and useful insights in the comments sections.

I've not used ColdFusion extensively, but it's kind-of XML based, which might be an advantage as the structure of the code is sort-of similar to HTML (also being XML based). If you find a learning resource for it, I'd suggest looking at ColdFusion 10, as I'm guessing that's the version your existing shop is built on (and CF11 is a nightmare for running legacy apps from what I've seen).

[Peter Parker]

If you've no programming, web development, or design experience then you're in for a very tough time, and it sounds like you'd be the only person working on the technology.

I've been building websites for over 15 years, and currently run a very large newspaper's web development team, but I wouldn't want to be the sole dev for those sites. From the other messages it sounds like the skills you need include :-
* HTML, CSS, Javascript
* Graphic design
* CFML/Coldfusion
* Zend/PHP/Magento
* Email marketing/MailChimp
* E-commerce & Security
* Probably some database work
* System administration

So .. everything. That's a big ask for an experienced developer, never mind a beginner. There's a heck of a lot to learn, and I'd say that CFML is pretty much a dead language these days (no offence to your company or those still using it, but the stats aren't favourable).

However, if you are committed to this, try the following :
https://www.udacity.com/courses#!/all - the course materials (videos etc) are free! There's a good intro to HTML and CSS, and JavaScript Basics

Those courses at Udacity alone could probably take up a few months of your weekends, and that'd cover the first line in the list above !

Perhaps you can talk this over with a manager at your company? If they're losing their tech guy and don't have a replacement, then it might make sense if they can invest in some training for you, or allow you some self-study time? Even if they find a replacement, having a second person with a bit of knowledge helps. That way they don't have all their eggs in one basket.

There's many other online courses, but I think these are rather more academic than practical in many cases :
https://www.edx.org/course-list/alls...nce/allcourses
https://www.coursera.org/courses?ord...stems,infotech

For things like CFML specifically, I'd just search Google for "cfml tutorial", "php tutorial" etc.

Best of luck to you!