Then one day I joined Twitter.

It took me a while to get into it. Finding the balance wasnt easy for me but I ranted about where I worked and I started to make tweets turn into followers…and more followers meant more people who knew the industry.

So for 2 years, I’ve been interacting with these people, talking, ranting and laughing at the web, the people in it, the redesigns, the new techniques and the latest meme. It’s been fun. I feel like I know these people. We all seem to get on and are out to help should we need it.

The web is cool like that.

And then a week ago. New Adventures happened.

This was the first time I saw the community in action outside of the internet. It was inspiring.

I’m quite a shy person to begin with but people were engaging (well most were but that’s another post for the future) and although we were chatting face to face, it felt like we were friends before we’d even met. Quite strange. It was here that I realised that I wasnt really alone and that we’re not all working against each other for work but rather we were all in it together and we were trying to make it work for all of us.

Now I’ve been doing some freelance in Manchester of late. I’d met a few guys before Naconf a few weeks back. We had a pint and pizza and it was nice. A one off maybe?

Anyway in Manchester, I was free for lunch. The agency I am at, I’m fairly new so being the shy guy I am thought I’ll just slip out and grab a sandwich. Then it hit me.

I knew a few people in Manchester. I wonder what they are doing. So I tweeted and @gablaxian responded (he always does) so we met for a pint and a chat. We did it 2 days on the trot. It was great. Someone I hardly knew took the time to grab a pint with me.

Last night, I went to a small do in Liverpool called BigSwig. I caught the train with another front end chap called @madebymagnolia. We met up with a load of other front enders from Liverpool/Manchester/North West. Again, it was like mates around a pub table.

This is turning into a long winded and boring story for many but the point I think I’m trying to make is that in my head, the community is a new and exciting thing. Obviously its been there for years, I just never took it to the next level.

I feel part of something now. I feel part of a community.

I started out writing a whole story about the days in Nottingham but gathered not many would read it, so instead…highlights.

Wednesday highlights

1. John and his exploding cans of Guinness.
2. The girl on the train with perhaps the shortest skirt ever ( my best moment).
3. Catching up again with old faces and meeting new ones at the curry. Nice to meet Rachilli finally. And she wasn’t wearing that god awful coat either. Tim Harbour, Jon Gold, Anthony Casey, Ginger Jamie from Newcastle/Leeds/Hull, Alex Sexton and Robert O ‘Rourke, Tom J Nowell and so many others.
4. Dylan trying to retrieve a bowling ball and falling on his arse as he slipped on the lane floor.

Thursday highlights

1. Talks by Dan Moll, Naomi Atkinson, Travis Scmeisser, Robbie Manson, Cameron Koczon, Trent Walton, Denise Jacobs and Frank Chimero. Best of which was Dan’s but they were all good. Some positives and great advice to take from all of them.
2. Seeing my old mate Jon from Blackpool and catching up with @malarkey (snazzy hat)
3. Meeting more people off Twitter – a few mentions. Ben aka @ilmv and Shane aka @shanegriffiths are two of the nicest people I got to meet. Jake Smith IS Justin Lee Collins and Cole Henley looks as cool in the flesh as he does his avatar. Others but only briely were David Roessli, James Greenwood, @Mr_Stezz, Denise Jacobs, Paul Annett and Jon Hicks ( I shook his hand but that counts as meeting to me. He won’t remember me mind.)
4. Free booze.

Friday highlights

1. Getting home to shit load of emails and no milk.

Sad that I didnt get to meet all my twitter contacts. Laura Kalbag, Zach “la” Inglis and Elliot Ross (and others I am sure I forgot), you managed to escape. Next time it is.

All in all, a great time was had. Would have been nice to have met newer faces but it’s hard I guess trying to keep up with so many people.

@colly.. same time next year please.

Starting this week, I began getting to know Javascript. Being able to do some jQuery is fine but I’m seeing more and more roles require Javascript so that has to go top of my list.

Then comes WordPress. There is so much I don’t know about this badboy that I need/want to know. I want to push on with this as I see no need to use any other CMS.

And finally PHP. You could argue that it’s not a required skill for front-end development but it would be nice to be able to add this to my bow especially with WordPress.

So that’s it, Javascript, WordPress and PHP. Getting to know you.

So what have I learnt, what are my standout moments?

1. Responsive design.
This year I started to use media queries. I’d heard a bit about them and I’ll be honest, was very perplexed by it. But I had two very good teachers in @malarkey and @simon180 who have given me invaluable support and knowledge in applying it to my own designs. I’m still getting to know it but I am smitten with it.

It is still a new way of working but I expect it to be used by more and more people in 2012. I also expect the hype around it to calm down and before long, responsive will just become the norm.

2. How hard freelancing can be.
I’ve touched on this before but running a business is hard. It’s made hard by the fact that you rely on other people to do things for you. This year financially has been tough. Getting people to pay up for work seems to be a harder process than I realised. The emotional drain of sending email after email and seeing no effort on the other party’s side can send you loopy. Especially when the sites are live and being used. It’s not just me, I know that. The problem won’t go away either.

Something else that was a drain was relying on work coming in and it then not appearing. Nothing is guaranteed these days so come 2012, I’m not going to be making the mistakes I made this year.

3. Designing in the browser
When I worked full time in Chester, it was expected of us to provide PSD’s of all designs. Fine if its 1 or 2 but I was once asked to provide close to 100 designs for pages that were essentially the same but for images and content. At the time I said no, I built the template and we added content via the backend. Saved me hours / days even. I got a severe bollocking for “changing from the plan”.

This year I made the conscious effort to spend less time designing sites in Photoshop and focus on building in the browser. It has paid off for me. I spend less time worrying about layout and less time tweaking and amending stuff that will be done in code.

There is no right or wrong way when designing / building. It’s what works best for you.

4. The community
An up and down year it seems. But every week, you could bank on some argument or other. The majority of the time I enjoy conversing with everybody but sometimes it’s a drain hearing the trolling and the nit picking. Hopefully 2012 will be focussed more on the good work the community and the industry gets up to.

I’ve made some very good friends though and come February, I will have met a few in the flesh. Despite the fact that the majority of us are competing for business, it still amazes me how sometimes people can go beyond the call of duty to help.

5. WordPress
I knew very little of WordPress until @simon180 showed me the power. Through his guidance, I’m really starting to get to grips with it. It’s a great setup, easy to use and the support for it is fantastic. 2012 is a year I want to push on and get to the next level with it as I doubt I’ll use any other CMS again.

So that is it from me for 2011. A big thanks to everyone who have been in touch, who sent me work, who listened to me moan.

Enjoy Christmas.

Communication.

Is it me or are people just really bad at it? Twitter, emails, you name it. People seem to not bother anymore.

I follow a fair few people on twitter and a fair few follow me. One thing I’ve always tried to do is reply to anybody who gets in touch. I genuinely feel bad if I miss someone. I don’t ignore people intentionally, my door is always open as they say.

I’ve contacted a load of people in the past and got nothing back. Some were about work, some were answers to questions, some were questions themselves. Maybe they didn’t get my email? Maybe they were not online and missed the tweet?

Who knows.

I sent a load of emails out earlier this month to agencies in my local area. In all about 15 emails went out introducing myself, what I do and seeing if they worked with freelancers. 1 got back to me.

I’ve read over and over what I put and what I wrote was polite, straight to the point and they had enough evidence of what I could do so I know I wasn’t offensive or cocky or didn’t give them enough detail.

I found the same last year too when I was looking for a job. Hardly anyone got back to me. Not even a thanks for your email, we dont have anything / we will keep your files on record.

It wasn’t just email. Twitter users are just as bad. For some companies, they are selling Social media as a service yet their own social media awareness is shocking. Some asking if freelancers are available and not even responding to your tweet. Even down to tweets congratulating someone or asking a question about something that person is doing.

I hate moaning would you believe. I’d rather we all got on with our lives and did what we are paid for, but at times things happen that shouldn’t. Twitter is a great platform for keeping in touch, engaging with people, and the majority of people I engage with are fantastic people yet I see some that clearly want to self promote and not engage, many only engaging with their innercircle.

Maybe if we eradicate some of the above, there will be less bitterness in the industry.

But finally I have something that allows me to hide and show what ever category I want and where.

For example, this site. My blog posts are in their own category. Also, my portfolio pieces are blog posts too but have their own category. I don’t want my portfolio posts to appear in either my blog or the archives so I need to hide them.

So simply, I added this just outside the loop.

?php query_posts ('cat=-4'); ?>

Basically, its saying don’t show category 4 which is of course my portfolio posts.

Another option is to use

?php query_posts ('cat=3'); ?>

That is saying only show category 3 which is my blog posts category

Simple eh?

Is there a better way that you know of? Let me know.

This is a site I designed and built for myself as a side project. Basic premise is I ask designers / developers a set of questions and they answer them. And merge into one website. Goes live in a week or so once the CMS is complete.

I designed and developed this site for local printer KinchPrint. Built on WordPress.

Another project with Cheshire based agency MASSmeeja we designed and developed this WordPress driven website for The Northwest Institute for BioHealth Informatics.

Working with Cheshire based agency MASSmeeja we designed and developed this WordPress driven website complete with a splash of jQuery.