Ever seen a website that looks more like an ad or poster than an actual website? As in, the content and design feel more like an image than an actual web page? If you have, then you’ve probably come across a static website. A static website is a site where the content remains unchanged until the person who coded it actually changes it. A user who is limited in the knowledge of web languages will not be able to modify the text or style of their website. For this reason, static websites have dropped considerably in the past few years. Yet they remain the cheapest and quickest websites to code because they don’t need to be designed with a content management system. Blogs, on the other hand, are dynamic. A dynamic website is a site where its content changes over time using a web application. This can be done by a person having, as mentioned previously, a content management system installed on his or her server (like Drupal or Joomla).

Wordpress can be found online, downloaded and installed for free [...] Continue Reading »

Filed under: CSS, HTML, Web Design, Wordpress by Ricardo Pomalaza
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When you hear people talk about megabytes and gigabytes, what do they mean? Well, a byte is a unit of information. What kind of information? Binary. Computers interpret the binary input (the “1″’s and “0″’s) as “off” and “on” switches. This makes it simple for the computer to process large amounts of data. It is what I like to call “machine talk”. A byte is a collection of bits. A bit is short for “Binary Digit”. It is the most basic unit of storage in hardware that can only accept two possible states. Hmm, two possible states…wait a minute, like either a “1″ or a “0″? Correct. So, a bit is a binary unit. A byte has 8 bits. “Byte” is just a name someone thought of to name a bunch of bits.

So let’s go over what we’ve learned. A bit contains either a “1″ or a “0″. A byte stores eight of these things. Nowadays, we don’t only store text, but pictures, sounds, and even entire movies. Thus, the use of bits to count information has become too [...] Continue Reading »

Filed under: General, Technology by Ricardo Pomalaza
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If you know how to type in a word editor or check your email, then you’re more than ready to start learning how websites work. You just have to be patient and motivated enough to learn. Basically, the internet works like this. When you enter the domain name (the “www.com” thing) in your browser’s address bar, you’re making a request to a DNS (Domain Name Server) to give you information. Your browser is asking it a simple question. Where is this page located? The DNS answers the request in the form of an IP address. An IP address is a label, like a phone number, of a computer in the network. For example, my computer’s IP address is 69.125.75.114, and if you go to whatismyipaddress.com and type it in, it will give you a map and locate my computer in the world.

Filed under: General, Web Design by Ricardo Pomalaza
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The People of Sparks is the sequel to The City of Ember and starts off where the latter left off. Lina, Doon and about 400 of their people manage to escape from Ember and rise to the surface. After a while, they stumble upon a village called Sparks. The people there have managed to survive after a great “Disaster” which the Emberites are completely ignorant about. At first, the leaders of Sparks agree to help the Emberites because they see them in need, but as food and other resources grow scarce, they are forced to change their minds due to increase tension and accusations from the villagers and the seemingly violent attacks that hint towards war. In the end, the reader is not sure whether the two surviving cultures of the Disaster will learn to live together or perish. A great sequel to DuPrau’s earlier work. Readers won’t be disappointed.

Filed under: Fiction, General by Ricardo Pomalaza
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Jeanne DuPrau is the author of the four Books of Ember. You can visit her website by clicking here.

The movie City of Ember may not have done so well at the box office, but the novel written by Jeanne DuPrau and the following books after that were, in my opinion, a big hit. If you haven’t read the story, it centers around a curious young girl named Lina and an astute young boy named Doon, who are both at the end of their preteen years in the far future. In the first book, they live inside an underground city called Ember, built several hundred years in the past by top scientists and engineers in hopes of preserving mankind before nuclear war, disease and climate change end up destroying the world. The people of Ember have no memory of this nor any other knowledge from the past.  They only know what these architects have taught them for generations through ancient books. Unbeknown to the citizens, these “Builders” actually left them [...] Continue Reading »

Filed under: Fiction, General, Writing by Ricardo Pomalaza
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Out of all things, a designer must first solve a communication problem. Whether it is a logo or a website or a magazine cover, a designer’s job is to deliver the client’s message to the intended market.  By doing this, a good designer helps build the client’s identity. Just look at any Macbook or iPhone for example. Apple’s “half-bitten apple” logo identifies their products distinctively as theirs, even though it has changed color over the years. Today, graphic design is a term used to encompass a variety of skills and positions. In the film industry, graphic designers help create advertisement for movies. In the web design field, a designer must keep up to date with new web technologies as well as know a handful of scripting languages. The average salary in this field is between $20,000 to $40,000 depending on years of experience. That is, of course, if you’re on a salaried position. Many designers, like myself, can also choose to work on their own. This career choice is known as freelancing.

Take the time to [...] Continue Reading »

Filed under: General, Graphic Design, Web Design by Ricardo Pomalaza
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