Daily Gripe - amateur web designers

Why is it that anyone who owns Dreamweaver or some such software assumes they are a professional web designer? They begin advertising their services, sometimes for outrageous prices. In some cases, these (often young) amateurs actually do have some talent, but more often than not, their own websites are very childish and sometimes downright disasters.

Case #1: A young person who cannot even spell advertised that he would build sites for a fee. A sample of his writing skill: "i built websites." He claimed he had built many sites. When asked to provide links to sites he had done, he said he had done one for his mom who bought it from him. His mom? Nice, Mom. I appreciate your boosting your child's confidence, but to encourage him to go into business because he created one website?

So I tried to visit his site. I could not get in there. Something on the home page was hanging up my browser. BTW, I have IE, the most commonly used browser, which can handle anything reasonable. I couldn't get past this logjam. He explained it was a media player and his mom wanted it there. Ok. So I asked for an internal link so I could get in. He provided a page with the extension ".php". Now this is a format for things like forms, guestbooks, etc. Not appropriate for a static webpage. Again, I was unable to view the page. Another person tried as well, and found the same problems. She was able to get farther than me, and discovered very oversized photos.

I have to rant about spelling. This young person cannot spell, or doesn't try. I shudder to see what the site looks like if I ever get in there. There's nothing that peeves me more than poor spelling and grammer on a website. I can forgive an occasional misspell, but across the board is unacceptable. Hey, I'm not a perfect speller either, but I keep a dictionary handy. Capital letters where required, commas, periods, and paragraphs are simple things that make it readable.

I believe texting will be the demise of proper writing. Young people are so busy texting, they are forgetting how to form a sentence with fully spelled words and punctuation.

The next major fault of amateurs is images. As mentioned, this site's photos were way too big. For someone with a slow connection like me, that's a sin. A web designer needs to have the software and knowhow to properly optimize images. Even in this day of high speed connections, there are still many out here on dialup, and any webmaster worth his salt will build for everyone, not just their own computer.

So how do you tell a young person he doesn't have the talent or skills to charge for his work?

Case #2: A little over a year ago, I took over the maintenance of a club website. It was designed by a someone who charged professional fees for their services. This wasn't a pro, it was just a person who had web publishing software. I don't own any special software. I read and write pure HTML. In order to work with this site, I had to go through the entire thing and rewrite it. I had to weed out unneccessary and redundant code so I could see where the hell I was. I bet I cut the file size by half! This webmaster did have a good eye for design, but didn't have a clue as to how a webpage works. I preserved the original look of the site with a few tweaks. It's clean, loads fast, and easy for me to maintain. BTW, I'm not charging for this service. It's my contribution to the club.

Just because you own the software and built yourself a site, it doesn't make you a professional. Professionals earned (usually) the right to call themselves pros by taking classes, and proving they have the skills. Even though I have most of the skills, I'm self-taught and don't consider myself a pro by any stretch. Why do these people think they are when they don't even have the skills? All they have is some software. And they can't spell!!!

The Ultimate Scam

scam: To defraud; swindle to obtain property or services unjustly. A fraudulent or deceptive act or operation.

Our great country was founded on one of the greatest scams of all. The Constitution guarantees certain unalienable rights and freedoms, but something actually took them away. Organized Religion. Religion is one of the richest businesses in the world, supposedly separate from government, and yet it enjoys tax exempt status, and has input in every government decision.

For whatever reason, man has always had a need to believe in something greater than himself. In the beginning, myth explained things that early man couldn't explain. Along the way, certain myths became doctrine perpetuated by powerful men. Doctrine became law. Freedoms were taken away, and despicable acts were employed to enforce the law, and ensure the powerful retained their power.

And then came the Bible. A collection of stories and myths that became belief and law. So strongly did the powerful enforce this belief, it now commands most of the world. No one knows who wrote the Bible (although they say they do), but how can they know unless they have a time machine? Aesop's Fables or Grimm's Fairy Tales could just as easily have been the basis for a religious text, having been written by numerous people of which we know little about. So who's to say the Bible wasn't just a collection of bedtime stories? Well, the all-powerful Church said this is Truth. Gullible and frightened people went along with it, and the Church became richer and more powerful.

Don't get me wrong. I think the Bible is a very good book of rules to live by. Do not kill, do not steal, etc. And maybe a fractured history, although riddled with myth. But hey, so is the Illiad. There's some evidence that the New Testament was written in response to the political times (the oppressive Roman empire) and has no relevance in modern times. If this is true, and it makes perfect sense, religion was based on politics.

We are currently in one of the worst economic situations in history, and taxpayers are paying the price for the fixes. However, one of the richest sources of tax revenue isn't required to help. Organized religion. The Church is tax exempt under the cover of charity work, but seems to have more money than even big business.

Businesses can write off their charity contributions, and gain some tax relief that way. Organized religion is big business. Why is it not required to operate in the same manner? Churches have employees to pay just like a business. They own land and buildings (expensive land and buildings!) just like a business. People pay to use their facilities and services which generates income just like a business. Business has political ties, and although religion is not supposed to interfere with government, it's a well-known fact that it does. Organized religion manages to use its wealth to sneak around the restrictions to get its agendas accepted. Religious agenda becomes the law of the land, and they don't have to pay.

Religious freedom? It doesn't exist. We are supposed be allowed to practice our faith as we please, and that includes not having faith. Organized religion has dictated what we can and cannot do, even if we don't believe in it. Non-believers are supporting the Church through taxes and government decisions. Perhaps more than the members of the Church.

So why are we, the people, allowing this to happen? Because most of us don't have the money or power to do anything about it. Our country is in big trouble as the very things it was founded on are being eroded away in favor of those in power. Yes, religion is the Ultimate Scam.

In The Beginning.....

.....God created....... oh wait, that's debatable.

Fair warning to readers who stumble across this. I am an agnostic and liberal child of the 60's. I'm opinionated, and confess to a little intolerance for some things. Rants will happen.

If I offend anyone, I apologize in advance. But not too much. This is my opinion and you chose to read it.