The H8ers Club

In this post we will be talking about setting up your platform for web-design. This will be based on the windows operating system.

The programs you will need for this platform are as follows

Wampserver : Most of the best content management systems are written in php. It is a very easy language to program and learn. Wampserver turns your computer into a mock web-server and here you can test your designs and php codes. It is one of the most user friendly server out their at the time of this writing.

Html-Kit by Chami : Another user-friendly program that lets you write html, php or any code you can think of, it even has FTP (File Transfer Protocol) built in. Their library of plugins are beyond comparison for a free program. You can download the free version or you can buy a liscense for the HTML-Kit Tools( also known as Build 300 ). You can find out about HTML-kit Tools by clicking here. 

Paint.NET : What’s web-design without a image editor? Well this program is by far one of the best image editors on the market and is one of the reasons I have not fully integrated to a Linux operating system. Linux people may scream Gimp, but if you want user friendly Paint.NET is where it is at. I really don’t have to say much about this program because it will speak for itself. If any programmers from paint-mono is reading this I am here to help. 

FireFox : The only web browser that has IE shaking in it’s boots. Like Paint.NET this browser can speak for itself. After downloading, open Firefox and get these two extensions Web Developer ( Awsome addition to your browser and can help you validate your local CSS and HTML files ) and Live HTTP Headers ( This one will help you if you are having problems with your javascript or any program that sends information to and from your different web pages ). Firefox already comes with an error console that can help you diagnose your html or css or javascript problems. Plus you will always need different browsers for testing because no two browsers show css alike. IE7 and Firefox seem to be the two the should be most concerned about at the time of this writing.

Optional Programs

Core FTP LE 2.1 : A secure FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program that doesn’t have any ads or pop-ups associated with it. I like this FTP program and use it on a daily basis.

If you feel you have hit a snag please leave a comment with full detail, nature of the problem and I will comment you back with help for the problem you have encountered.

O.K. Now that you have these programs lets set them up in Chapter 2.