Delays
Well, I guess it was only a matter of time before someting like this happened. I’m currently behind schedule. School, especially finals week, was a big time suck that diverted a lot of my free time towards homework, studying, and group projects. I only had a week between finals and starting my internship, and then after a week on the job I launch the website and YouTube channel.
I was already cutting it close for time and was being really ambitious about what I wanted to accomplish for launch, but now I have to cut my losses and prioritize the “needed” features from the “wanted” features.
I am five days from launch and will not get everything done in time. I’m not too bummed; I still got a lot done with the time I had. I revamped the website layout and made everything a lot cleaner-looking. However, I really wanted to launch with a few more features and fix some bugs. Oh well, c’est la vie.
Bootstrap
For those who don’t know, Bootstrap is a front-end web framework originally made by Twitter. In 2011 it went open source and was released for the general public to use and develop. It has since become the world’s most popular web framework.
A front-end web framework is a set of tools that programmers can use to build better websites faster and more efficiently. Bootstrap is responsive, meaning that it adjusts to different user screens and devices. Try it! View this post on a laptop then adjust the browser window. Or, view this on a smartphone then on a tablet. The website layout adjusts to keep looking nice but none of my code changes.
Bootstrapping the website was definitely time consuming due to the learning curve, but it is quite powerful. My website definitely looks better after being Bootstrapped, and I haven’t even finished. It’s a great tool and I recommend it to any web developers out there. You need to customize Bootstrap and make your website stand out because almost everyone uses Bootstrap, but it’s definitely worth it in my opinion. Here are a few before and after pictures.
Google Forms
I like Google. They make great productivity products and are quite user friendly. So, when I realized that my website setup wouldn’t let me make my own contact forms, I decided to go with Google Forms.
They’re simple to use, easy for me to track, and are quite efficient. I can even program them to sort and filter answers to automatically create the output that I need. Google Forms are also very customizeable, which lets me implement a…
(Custom) Captcha
This is a Captcha. It’s a security feature that makes sure only real people interact with you. Bots, mindless computers that scour the Internet to try to break things, are not fun to clean up after. Thus, Captchas.
I tried using the standard Captcha, but realized that I couldn’t do it the right way. Captchas use a two-step verification, but I could only do the first step. So, Google Forms and custom Captchas. It’s as close as I can get with my current setup, but I’m satisfied.
What Is Planned?
I plan on quickly finishing the website, emphasis on quickly. I was quite ambitious with my website goals before launch, but with the time crunch and with some bugs that have cropped up, I am forced to postpone some features until after launch.
So, I will finish Bootstrapping and styling the website. Then, I’ll try to get some feedback from friends and make changes as necessary based on their advice. Finally, I will try to get at least one video, maybe two, up on my YouTube channel. Definitely feeling the time push, but I feel confident about launch. I’ll launch on time, albeit with a few postponed features.
Retrospective
While I can’t get back the time I lost, I can realize that ambitious projects (and projects in general) are bound to hit snags here or there. Yet, my ambition is not wasted; all the features I want will eventually be built. But, with launch looming so close, my priorities must adjust accordingly.
Bootstrap is a powerful tool with a decent learning curve and I’m happy I used it. The fact that my website is a static site (there’s no back-end computer to process user requests) has definitely affected my development decisions. Maybe in a few years I’ll move to a different hosting service, but right now I’m happy with my website.