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What is a "web designer"?
The field of website creation is a vast one, with many different skills needed to complete a single site, ranging from creative design, to imperative programming, to natural language content creation. With so many different skills needed, it is often hard to figure out what one should learn when trying to apply themselves to a certain role, for example that of a web designer.
The web development tools I use
There are a wide variety of web development applications available, from simple plain text editors, like Notepad, to all-in-one IDEs like Dreamweaver and Coda. Everyone has their own needs and preferences, but these are the tools I find myself using most of the time.
HTML v XHTML
HTML and XHTML are two markup languages used for describing web pages. They are based on two difference markup standards, the former the older SGML specification, while XHTML is based on XML. When writing up web pages, we (basically) have a choice between these languages - so which one?
Quick tip - CSS3 resize attribute
In Safari and other webkit browsers, the textareas are resizable - you can click-and-drag at their corners to change their dimensions. Ever wondered how you could turn that off, or even apply the behaviour to other elements?
A simple implementation of byte-pair encoding
Byte pair encoding is a simple but (sometimes) effective algorithm for compressing data (especially textual data). Best of all, it is very easy to understand! Therefore, in this experiment I have created a simple Python script that implements byte pair encoding on files.
Digression - a diagram of organic reaction pathways
Following on from part one of my series of chemistry visualisations is a useful diagram detailing the components of many common organic reactions, that typical high school students may come across in their work.