Hello, World!

Studio Umbrella Inc. has entered the blogosphere! I have been toying around with this idea for some time now. “Should I”, “could I”, “would I” type of thoughts and reluctance. It’s tough to keep up a blog. It’s a commitment that have to be able to keep going. To continue writing and sharing thoughts and ideas. But I decided to give it a shot. :) So I decided to set aside an hour a week to share my thoughts, ideas and knowledge with you and hopefully you will enjoy it and find it interesting and maybe even helpful. Beware: I’m not a writer/author/copywriter, and so I’m sure that there will be grammatical errors and such, but I hope that they won’t be that bad and you’ll be able to bear with me.

Of course, being a web designer and developer for nearly 10 years gives me the experience and knowledge in order to have my own opinion and outlook on the industry and to know the processes, trends and technologies used. Although I do not profess to be an expert in the field, or an inventor, I do have the ability to recognize good quality design, to learn and grow as a designer and developer and to use the huge amount of information, tutorials and examples that are out there in the internet. So I think that I could be of use and help to you out there who want to know a little bit more about websites.

Web development is huge. It’s the basis for the internet and the only way that it can even exist because, without it, we only only have a blank, empty browser to stare at (would there even be a browser to begin with?). It’s like having car but with nowhere to go.  We’ve gotten so used to it that imagining a world without is nearly impossible. How was I able to do anything, to know or to learn anything instantly beforehand?

There are so many aspects in building a website, which I will get into in future posts (that is, if I persist!), and so many different ways of building them. So many types of coding languages, platforms, operating systems, browsers, screen sizes and devices. And there are so many different uses for websites - personal sites, blogs about any subject you can think of (and some that you can’t even imagine), online stores, portfolios, corporate websites, informational websites, dating sites, gaming sites, gambling, pornography, financial related websites, current events, gossip and more and more and more… as you probably well know, the list is endless and still growing.

Like buildings, all of these sites needs a designer, an architect and a contractor. And there are so many different options out there to choose from. So many different standards of quality. So many different styles of design. So many types of services and packages. You can get them for free and you can pay for unique, customized websites from a freelancer or from a large, established company. So how do you know what to choose? What will it cost you? Is “free” really free? Is paying tens of thousands of dollars the same as paying two thousand dollars? How do you know “quality” is really quality? The questions go on and on and I will try to clear things up a bit, from my own, humble opinion and perspective.

So there you have it, I have finished my first blog post EVER :) I hope you enjoyed my initial attempt of short ramblings of thoughts and ideas to share with you.

* For those of you who don’t know, the phrase “Hello, World!” that I used as the title to this first blog post: It’s the first program developers use to test code that they write. For programmers, seeing the two words on the screen means their code can compile, load, run and they can see the output. It is known as the first example in nearly every programming language and represents the birth of computer programming.