how did you became the webmaster that you are

[king_coy]

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guys, istoryahay ta about how you became webmasters para inspiration din to those aspiring, including me.

just fill in the blanks na lang:


career before you were a webmaster, web designer?
how did you trained yourself and eventually became what you are right now?
your fave softwares for designing sites?
future plans and dream projects?

any additional info and insights are very welcome. thanx.

[$dbpasswd]

Career Before:
Mural and Canvas Painter
(The oil paints became more expensive and scarce. They messed up my pants too, leaving permanent stains. Then I discovered how neat it is to work with a computer: fast undos and no mess!)

Training:
I knew there were uses for those Help menus on the big softwares! Most people tend to ignore them.
From there I moved on to downloading PDF files that were otherwise expensive on printed books.
So, to be honest, I was simply self-trained: both in graphics and coding. Any schooling would be for documentation. I learned PHP coding out of sheer necessity because I knew building dynamic web sites requires it and partnering with a programmer is a headache.

Softwares:
My workflow for the graphic side:
Adobe Illustrator -> Adobe Photoshop -> Adobe ImageReady -> Adobe GoLive

My workflow for the code side:
Adobe ImageReady (HTML/CSS/Javascript output) -> Zend Studio

For Testing:
Internet Explorer 6, Mozilla Firefox 1.5
(The principle is: if Firefox and IE displays it right, the rest of the browsers will follow. Right?)

Dream Project:
A web site that sells my projects well enough to pay for a broadband service and a decent life.

[king_coy]

thank you so much for your input. at least, you were not that selfish to share some of your secrets. :mrgreen:

[flashfreak]

I started making scripts way back in late 1990s, the mIRC phenomenon. I used to make nasty mIRC scripts before (well, like other newby scripters and coders destructive stuff always comes to mind). I used to have this personalized mIRC script called MonkeyScript. Yeah, you can say I was one hell of an IRC addict. I had this Undernet channel called "#3Monkeys", where all my friends got together and throw around some good `ol hearty, mushy, cheesy, kinky (yeah those were the days) and funny convos... While in my spare time before, I used to make skins for winamp 2.0 (or was it 3.0...) using MS paintbrush. Imagine creating a gradient pixel by pixel. First winamp skin I made was Deftones. Sad to say backing up files wasn't in my vocabulary before.

In December 1999 I joined StyleAssembly as co-founder and started to indulge myself with Flash 4. F1 or the help file was the only reference I had before coz internet was scarce and I didn't have the money to pay for an expensive dial-up service. Since then my attention was stuck with flash all the way up to now. Photoshop became a day to day tool for me in 2002 until now. It was the time of the great pioneering cebuano websites hehehe... I remember creating multimedia presentations for various events like Miss Cebu, Jamaican Nights and the likes...

My life as a pro web designer started in 2002 when I was hired by MITSUMI Cebu. There I got my experience in different kinds of pressure and how to handle them. It was one a hell of an experience for me coz I managed to learn PHP and MySQL.

2003, I went back to StyleAssembly and made some multimedias again. This time it was for corparate presentations.
2004, CeBu!TV hired StyleAssembly to become its post production house. Yeah, the "Around the world with Bunny Ludo" program ID was one of my creations.

Now I work as head web developer at VC Exchange, and at the same time a freelance web designer.

All those knowledge I learned, came from self-study... and until now, I'm still a college undergraduate. tee-hee ^_______^

Dream Project
To lose some weight... damn I'm getting too fat. ^____^ And to have beautiful kids, 4 would be nice.

And that's my story, hehehe. Anybody can be a web designer, if you put your mind and heart to it.

[flashfreak]

And.... I really don't like to be called a webmaster. It sound soooo... ghey ^_______^ web designer perhaps, would be a suitable title.

[rj325]

@flashfreak: wow, mka.inspire and motivate sad mu story dah, specially kay ur an undergrad.

[flashfreak]

^ thanks bai. It's really not that uncommon to most. I have friends too that are undergrad and still it didn't stop them from doing things they love. I love my work. Like ballers get payed to play their favorite game. ^______^

[j4l4ni]

if web designer ba is.. kailangan talga an mgaling sa image editing ?

[celtic_predator]

I think "creative" is a more suitable word for a web designer's job.
Skills from Image editing to animation can be acquired through experience.

[BeoR]

I'm not really a web master or web designer... just a newbie administrator... like flashfreak, I too was once a part of Style Assembly... fast forward, in pursuit of my goal (which was to put up an online community), we created iSTORYA.NET and here it is now...