COOLDRMONEY NEEDS HELP!!

[CoolDrMoney]

Hey so the liquor store I work at is interested in hiring me as the person to do some web design for their site and to maintain it. I'm putting this topic here incase I need any help with what my employers want. You've seen my website and I know Dreamweaver fairly well so it's not like you'll be teaching me from step 1 or nothing (unless I need to know Java or something to achieve what Im bout to describe).

So so far the plan is to have this website to show our monthly deals, write ups on wines, etc. All that I can do no problem. They want to do email blasts as well and I assume the best way to do this is to collect their emails, keep a textfile with all of them on my computer, and just forward it to everyone. The problem is if each customer wants to keep their own emails private. I haven't forwarded many emails so maybe I'm wrong, but doesn't it say who the email has been forwarded to in the email? If this is the case, what's an easy way to send out a mass email while keeping the email addresses private to each customer?


The other thing is were discussing compensation. I'm thinking about just telling them to give me a substantial raise for website maintanence. RIght now I work there as a CSR for 8$ an hour and I was thinking about asking for 11 or 12. If they don't like this idea then I was going to get them to sign a contract saying an amount theyd compensate me for. How much should I be asking for in this? And is the 11/12 dollars an hour thing good?

Plz help thx broz

[W.A.S.I.M.]

id say go for the 11/12 $ p/h

[rtil]

in the web design world, $12 an hour is chump change. but since you're not a real web designer, and you're working at a liquor store, i suppose that's fair enough. a $4/hr raise is huge.

dreamweaver is a bad web design tool imo, but if you can't code from scratch then it will have to do.

mailing lists are done strictly server-side, and collecting e-mails will require at the least a little bit of php work. there are some services out there that can manage mailing lists for you, and i'm sure some of them are free. i don't know specific names but i'm sure a little googling will help.

however, if you would rather manage it manually, sending a mass e-mail while hiding addresses is pretty easy. you just BCC (blind carbon copy) the e-mail to the mailing list. BCC e-mails are hidden from all the recipients.

[CoolDrMoney]

in the web design world, $12 an hour is chump change. but since you're not a real web designer, and you're working at a liquor store, i suppose that's fair enough. a $4/hr raise is huge.

dreamweaver is a bad web design tool imo, but if you can't code from scratch then it will have to do.

mailing lists are done strictly server-side, and collecting e-mails will require at the least a little bit of php work. there are some services out there that can manage mailing lists for you, and I'm sure some of them are free. i don't know specific names but i'm sure a little googling will help.

however, if you would rather manage it manually, sending a mass e-mail while hiding addresses is pretty easy. you just BCC (blind carbon copy) the e-mail to the mailing list. BCC e-mails are hidden from all the recipients.

Big help! Thanks Rtil I think I might just BBC them until maybe I get sick of it and will ask for help.

Also I prefer coding from scratch actually but I'm by no means a professional so dreamweaver may come in handy. My whole website however was all coded from scratch and dreamweaver hasn't been used on it at all.

As far as moneys concerned, they might want to separate my services from my liquor store work. In this case what amount should I ask for keeping in mind it's my first REAL web design job?

[GhostingFish]

A great place to learn php FAST

http://www.youtube.com/user/phpacademy

[rtil]

if it's separate then you might want to charge commission per hour since i imagine it's going to be something you're doing on your own time. professionals wouldn't go less than $18, but i think you should ask for $16 and they will probably try and talk you down. i wouldn't go too low, you don't want to undersell a special service like that. most people can't design a website if their life depended on it

[billy]

also the best thing about freelance web design is you can lie about how long you spent working

[GhostingFish]

also the best thing about freelance web design is you can lie about how long you spent working

 wow

[CoolDrMoney]

Well I got the job so Ill probably be posting in here much more often!

If I wanted to include a search function to find all the wine in our store, would that require PHP or somethin?

[rtil]

Well I got the job so Ill probably be posting in here much more often!

If I wanted to include a search function to find all the wine in our store, would that require PHP or somethin?

yes, and you'd also need to store the types of wine in a database of some sort. you can do this with text files or you can do it with an actual database like mysql

if you have more than .. say, a couple hundred types of wines, you're going to want to use a database. otherwise, searching will be sluggish and difficult to manage.

[GhostingFish]

A great place to learn php FAST

http://www.youtube.com/user/phpacademy

[billy]

this is really what you want
http://www.w3schools.com/php/default.asp

[rtil]

don't get everything from there.. it's good for the basics but a lot of their examples are amateurish or unsecured. php.net is one of the best online documentations of a programming language, and tizag has some good tutorials as well.

[CoolDrMoney]

It says I should know Java to dive into this and I don't know jack about Javascript. Is it necessary to learn PHP?

Also it doesn't seem to mention MAC as a compatible platform. They have PHP and MySQL and shit like that for MAC right? I start this next Tuesday

[GhostingFish]

It says I should know Java to dive into this and I don't know jack about Javascript. Is it necessary to learn PHP?

its not necessary for php. Javascripting is great for making sites a little more dynamic.

[CoolDrMoney]

I thought Java was just good for like chat and stuff like that

[rtil]

java and javascript are two entirely different languages. you don\\\'t need to know any java, but you should probably know a little javascript. i recommend you learn basic javascript, learn what the DOM is and how javascript interacts with it, and check out jQuery.

and i\\\'m not sure what you mean when you ask if they have PHP and MySQL for macs. PHP and MySQL are server-side languages, and by that respect they only need to be installed on the server in order to work.

if you need a local testing environment, you need to look at getting something like XAMPP, which basically installs a mock server on your hard drive in which you can test via localhost.

[CoolDrMoney]

oh I mustve misunderstood the link Billy sent me. It was sayin like PHP is free and its multiplatform but it didnt mention MAC lol Idunno

Also there a good Javascript site? I only know HTML and some flash. Don\\\'t know didly about Javascript and PHP. I\\\'m reading up on the PHP though.

By DOM do you mean domain I am big old noobie to all this!

[rtil]

well php isn't a program, it's a programming language. a program would compile it.

i'd just google javascript, there's so many websites out there that offer code snippets and tutorials. it's been a while since i've looked for them.

dom = document object model. it's how the browser organizes the elements and hidden variables on a page. javascript can manipulate it after a page has loaded. it's how you get menus, fading effects, form validation, etc..

[CoolDrMoney]

Sounds very nice! I just assumed you used flash for that but the loading times are kind of annoying for flash based sites so this is good to know