Advice - Intro to Web Design

Optimus Prime

Hey, was hoping i might get some advice from you guys, i have a couple of websites setup using wordpress, i dont have much experience creating sites from scratch other than messing around myself with Dreamweaver and expression. I have edited a lot of stuff on the wordpress sites and learned a bit myself that way but im looking to do a course to improve etc.

Im lucky in that my job will pretty much send me on any courses i want, i was hoping to find out what you recomend i should do first, ive been asked if i want to do Java course but i was thinking maybe it would be better to try get something in PHP first though? Or is there something else i should start off with totally? I did a HTML course about 10 years back!

Im really interested in learning this but im unsure where i should start there is so much out there!

lil_lisa

Well for the basics the best website around is www.w3schools.com
Start looking at asp.net, php, css, ajax, javascript. These tools/languages are very big right now in web design. Download yourself a free server like this one:

http://www.chsoftware.net/en/useware/mowes/mowes.htm

and start playing around with it yourself and see what you can come up with. You will probably want to look up MySql too!

Evil Phil

If you're going to do PHP the Zend certification seems to be well respected. I also believe that the iBAT (No that's not a thing for hitting Apple geeks with) in Swords have a good PHP course.

Fergaloc

Your best shot to become good at web design is to get a good book

For PHP and MySQL - PHP and MySQL Web Development and Edition 2

For C++ - C++ How to Program

there are many other good books out there just have a little look

Evil Phil

What has C++ got to do with web design?

Fergaloc

ohh sorry i was thinking of programming languages , forgot that it was web design sorry bout that

Optimus Prime

Cheers guys, ill get the books and im pretty sure i have a php course lined up with work too.