Shane Hudson Dot Net http://www.shanehudson.net Just another WordPress site Thu, 03 May 2012 11:09:45 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Getting Started In The Development Community http://www.shanehudson.net/2012/05/01/getting-started-in-the-development-community/ http://www.shanehudson.net/2012/05/01/getting-started-in-the-development-community/#comments Tue, 01 May 2012 11:04:04 +0000 Shane Hudson http://www.shanehudson.net/?p=151 Programming/web development is hard. Really hard. All those foreign concepts that you have to learn before you can even write “Hello World!” or add a sidebar to a website. This article attempts to explain the best ways to find the information and how you are expected to behave in the development community (hint: correct spelling and grammar is important).

]]> http://www.shanehudson.net/2012/05/01/getting-started-in-the-development-community/feed/ 0 The Importance Of Writing http://www.shanehudson.net/2012/04/23/importance-of-writing/ http://www.shanehudson.net/2012/04/23/importance-of-writing/#comments Mon, 23 Apr 2012 21:25:05 +0000 Shane Hudson http://www.shanehudson.net/?p=143 Writing is one of the most important things anyone can do, whether you wish to write a diary, a novel or even just well formed emails. Everybody has their own reasons for writing, but it is something that everybody wishes they could do well. This is not going to be an article to help you or to discuss anything, instead I am just going to write it as a blog post to talk about why I want to improve my writing ability.

Why I Want To Improve

I have written technical articles in the past, many people have commented on them and some are linked to on my articles page. That page however is very bare compared to what I was planning. I wanted to have loads of articles to help people learn as well as provoke discussion from those more experienced than I. The reason this has not happened is that I do not have enough confidence in my writing. Also, I think Twitter has made me so good at being concise that I go on a tangent whenever I write anything longer than 140 characters!

Another reason why I would like to improve my writing abilities right now is that I am in my first year of University. So it will not be long before I am needing to write very well written essays, if I do not improve then I will not be able to write my explanations as well, resulting in lower marks.

From a more business point of view, being able to write articles to be published in places that have a lot of readers would be very good for my web presence, which is important as a freelance website developer. I have tried writing an article for Smashing Magazine, but although I have a solid idea for the article, I cannot write it in a way that I would be willing for everyone to read.

As an aside, I would also quite like to improve my vocabulary. It is more elaborate than many already but I rarely know when to use the words without sounding pompous and also being able to make sure the article is accessible to most people. Also, I could do with improving my spelling!

What I Currently Do To Improve

I often attempt the Creative Copy Challenge, which I strongly recommend, but I can never think of something to write that makes sense and is interesting. Often I see the prompt words and just think of ways to string them together rather than a story that includes them.

Think. Yes I know it is bad, but I am constantly thinking of writing and then deciding not to. I could definitely improve there.

How I Would Like To Improve

Now I will admit to having an ulterior motive. The wonderful James Chartrand, has recently announced a competition for two people to join the Damn Fine Words writing course. This is a course I have been wanting to go on since it was released, but at $1,599 that has not been possible for me. Hopefully this post will show her that I would really benefit from the course and am worth giving the prize to.

Things Being Better At Writing Would Allow Me To Achieve

  • Stronger web (and print perhaps) presence
  • Make more sense both when writing as well as speaking
  • Write at least one book
  • High grades on my University essays
  • Higher confidence in my writing
]]> http://www.shanehudson.net/2012/04/23/importance-of-writing/feed/ 0 A Basic Guide To Passwords and Social Engineering http://www.shanehudson.net/2012/02/01/a-basic-guide-to-passwords-and-social-engineering/ http://www.shanehudson.net/2012/02/01/a-basic-guide-to-passwords-and-social-engineering/#comments Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:22:20 +0000 Shane Hudson http://www.shanehudson.net/?p=74 Heavily inspired by Kevin Mitnick’s book “A Ghost In The Wires”, this article is an introduction to security for actual users rather than system administrators.

]]> http://www.shanehudson.net/2012/02/01/a-basic-guide-to-passwords-and-social-engineering/feed/ 0 Putting It All Together – By Making A Button http://www.shanehudson.net/2011/03/26/putting-it-all-together-by-making-a-button/ http://www.shanehudson.net/2011/03/26/putting-it-all-together-by-making-a-button/#comments Sat, 26 Mar 2011 17:31:14 +0000 Shane Hudson http://www.shanehudson.net/?p=69 While answering questions about CSS on Dream In Code I realised that a lot of people were able to add a background or even float a div, but they were not able to put it all together into something actually usable. So I created this tutorial that focuses on how adding styles to an element can quickly result in something fairly aesthetically pleasing.

]]> http://www.shanehudson.net/2011/03/26/putting-it-all-together-by-making-a-button/feed/ 0 The “Comprehensive” Guide To CSS3 http://www.shanehudson.net/2010/02/23/comprehensive-guide-to-css3/ http://www.shanehudson.net/2010/02/23/comprehensive-guide-to-css3/#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:06:04 +0000 Shane Hudson http://www.shanehudson.net/?p=53 This article was originally going to be the one article to cover everything CSS3. Then I realised why nobody else had done it.. “everything” is an awful lot. But although it did not get as far as I wanted, it is still useful reference material and fairly well explained for beginners.

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