A bit of aggregation for your ass~ a few blogs with useful tips, first-experiences, and troubleshooting for all you new iPhone users out there.

Lifehacker.com’s Adam Pash puts out a list of essential iPhone apps

Brian Lam of Gizmodo.com gives us an inside look on the new multi-tool for today’s tech-hippie [my clever-elongated-nickname for the iPhone].

Josh Hallett has 3 posts so far on his iPhone adventure.

Dave Winer and his experience so far.

Rob Scoble and Chris Page talk about iPhone on Kyte.tv.

Thomas Hawk is having some iPhone difficulties.

Take care! More posts to come on web design and iPhone craze. Vacation should be ensuing shortly for myself. Much needed.

I had covered some steps one should take before beginning to build a website. Planning, structuring, and designing a ‘floor plan’ so that the actual build is as trouble-free as possible. Lets take this a bit further.

So you designed a floor plan which exhibits some basic form and content for your site. This is the framework. These are the blocks upon which to build all else from. The cornerstones if you will. It may seem simple but the process of forming a foundation is not. It takes careful time and planning. One of my first websites, I went into without a plan and without a foundation. Probably one of the worst design decisions I have ever made. I ran into so many problems.

There were compatibility issues when viewing the website on different browsers. This was due to incompatible coding which can happen if the HTML, CSS, XML, PHP, or any other language happens to have a typo or alternative syntax. I began building the website on my local server so that I could design and build without having a separate host to rely on. Having a local server can be very useful for those of you who wish to design locally and then export to an online server. Options for establishing a local server on your PC include using Microsoft SQL Server or a process which I used in order to stray from MS. Download the latest version of PHP, latest version of MySQL, and the latest version of Apache personal web server. Here is a walk-through of the installation because it can get a bit hairy for the inexperienced users. The problem I ran into with designing via a local server was transferring it to the web. After careful research I realized that I must export and import the mysql database, copy and upload all files, and then dig through the code to change paths from my local server to the web server.

As you can see there are quite a many problems one can run into. I will continue this web design series with a short tutorial on upgrading the look and usability of ones current site.

So, you want to design a website?

Everyone and everything is using the web and all the resources it has to offer. Some use it for recreation, some use it for revenue, and others use it for reference or utility. I am one of those who use it for each of those and more. Being an amateur web designer [extremely amateur], I have run into many problems and difficulties involved with putting up a website. Their are many important steps to take before even beginning to put the site together. As I have learned from many others, building a website is very similar to building a house.

First of all, do you really need to build a house? What is your purpose for building this website? Let us say you are building a website to inform your audience of your organization be it a business or non-profit or cause or whatever. Establish a goal for yourself. Now comes time to draw up the floor-plans.

Will this be a D.I.Y. project or are you willing to hire someone. If you decide to hire someone take your time in finding the right person to get your idea across. DIY is a different story. You should decide and plan out what you want your site to have and be able to do. Evolution and growth is of the utmost importance as many websites which are not built with growth in mind tend to confuse and irritate their users when down for maintenance and updates.

Will your site be dynamic in nature or fairly static? A static site involves a simple, in comparison to the dynamic alternative, framework which leaves ample time to concentrate on aesthetics. Dynamic sites often find themselves using what is called a Content Management System or CMS. Many are available free of charge on the web such as Mambo, Joomla, Xoops, Lotus Workplace, Fluid CMS, Blogger, SixApart, etc. These handy systems are usually powered by PHP, AJAX, and XML markup languages. The reason these languages are special and more powerful than the traditional HTML markup language is that they use combinations of variables, strings, and flexible rules [programming lingo] all the while incorporating HTML to "build doors, windows, hallways, and rooms for your house".

Draw out a site map. Start with the ‘home’ page in the middle and work your way out from there. Remember to loop connections back to the ‘home’ and other important pages. Here is a quick example I drew up in paint.

This should give you a good idea of what your site will be made of. How many pages, what pages contain, and where you have room for expansion [hopefully everywhere]. It also closes up any holes you may have because nobody wants to walk down a hallway that leads nowhere.

There are many applications and software available which streamline web design into an easy-to-use graphical interface, for example MS Frontpage, Dreamweaver, etc. Do a simple search for "web design utilities" and there will be a few hundred hits available. I do recommend the Adobe Creative Suite but I am merely saying this because I enjoy their layout and interface. Frontpage is for the basic users who want basic results. It can be used to create super pages but is often referred to as the AOL of web design apps.

We now have the base of our plan. We will continue to build on this framework a little more before beginning actual construction. To be continued…