Somewhere out in marketing land someone has been trying to sell people on the idea that installing a CMS, such as WordPress or Drupal, will somehow make all your Webmaster or Web Designer needs go away. If you’ve believed this, I’m sorry to tell you, but unless your site is just text, you’re probably wrong.

While you can hire a Web Developer or Agency to build out a custom theme for your CMS, you’ll still need someone to maintain the site. Even if that person is only plugging in content they’ll need to touch HTML and CSS at some point. If you don’t believe me, try building a complex table with any WYSIWYG editor in Drupal the next time you really want to post that excel data online and you’ll either settle for a simple table or you’ll kick the project over to your web person so they can style it for you, or at the very least add in the proper Class=”blah” tags where needed.

And that’s just for general page information. If you, like most groups, ever want something built out that that requires anything from different links on the side bars to a block or widget of additional information, you’ll probably find that you need someone who actually knows how to work with modules like Views or Panels for Drupal or Widgets and Page Templates if you’re using WordPress.

Unfortunately many business managers out there hear the words Content Management System and they think that their receptionist or office manager will just be able to simply copy and paste the Word documents he sends over into the companies CMS backed website and magically it will look just the way he wants. Sorry, unless it’s text only, that won’t happen. This is why you’ll more than likely need to hire a Content Producer at the very least.

Oh, and we haven’t even gotten to the actual Web Operations part of a site, which is probably the only portion of your website you could most likely outsource to a hosting company.

/rant off

Unfortunately, Governor Brown has signed into law the bill that we emailed you about earlier today. As a result of this, contracts with all California residents participating in the Amazon Associates Program are terminated effective today, June 29, 2011. Those California residents will no longer receive advertising fees for sales referred to Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com. Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned before today will be processed and paid in full in accordance with the regular payment schedule.

You are receiving this email because our records indicate that you are a resident of California. If you are not currently a resident of California, or if you are relocating to another state in the near future, you can manage the details of your Associates account here. And if you relocate to another state in the near future please contact us for reinstatement into the Amazon Associates Program.

To avoid confusion, we would like to clarify that this development will only impact our ability to offer the Associates Program to California residents and will not affect your ability to purchase from Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com.

We have enjoyed working with you and other California-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program and, if this situation is rectified, would very much welcome the opportunity to re-open our Associates Program to California residents. As mentioned before, we are continuing to work on alternative ways to help California residents monetize their websites and we will be sure to contact you when these become available.

Regards,

The Amazon Associates Team

Amazon Notice of Contract Termination Due to Potential New California Law

Hello,

For well over a decade, the Amazon Associates Program has worked with thousands of California residents. Unfortunately, a potential new law that may be signed by Governor Brown compels us to terminate this program for California-based participants. It specifically imposes the collection of taxes from consumers on sales by online retailers – including but not limited to those referred by California-based marketing affiliates like you – even if those retailers have no physical presence in the state.

We oppose this bill because it is unconstitutional and counterproductive. It is supported by big-box retailers, most of which are based outside California, that seek to harm the affiliate advertising programs of their competitors. Similar legislation in other states has led to job and income losses, and little, if any, new tax revenue. We deeply regret that we must take this action.

As a result, we will terminate contracts with all California residents that are participants in the Amazon Associates Program as of the date (if any) that the California law becomes effective. We will send a follow-up notice to you confirming the termination date if the California law is enacted. In the event that the California law does not become effective before September 30, 2011, we withdraw this notice. As of the termination date, California residents will no longer receive advertising fees for sales referred to Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com. Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned on or before the termination date will be processed and paid in full in accordance with the regular payment schedule.

You are receiving this email because our records indicate that you are a resident of California. If you are not currently a resident of California, or if you are relocating to another state in the near future, you can manage the details of your Associates account here. And if you relocate to another state in the near future please contact us for reinstatement into the Amazon Associates Program.

To avoid confusion, we would like to clarify that this development will only impact our ability to offer the Associates Program to California residents and will not affect their ability to purchase from Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com.

We have enjoyed working with you and other California-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program and, if this situation is rectified, would very much welcome the opportunity to re-open our Associates Program to California residents. We are also working on alternative ways to help California residents monetize their websites and we will be sure to contact you when these become available.

Regards,

The Amazon Associates Team

Thanks California… :/

Before we get started it’s worth noting that my initial search started with taking a look at Comptia’s Server+ and Network+  exam overviews. While both seem to cover a great deal of information, they both are geared towards mainly the hardware and connectivity issues rather than a focus on web, which was the goal for my searching. I then went over to Global Knowledge and took a look at their Cloud Computing Essentials course, which does cover some very key and relevant concepts for those interested in migrating to a cloud environment, but there is no certification offered and it’s far from complete or specialized.

Google was my real guide in this search and resulted in me finding www.w3schools.com, which should not be confused with w3c.org. The site looked promising as they had many tutorials and if you’re at all interested in learning the basics of web coding it’s a decent place to start. However, I stuck out my tongue when I saw their information saying to use <b> for bolding text. For those that arent’ aware you should be using <strong>, yes it’s more typing, but it lets readers know that there should be a strong emphasis on the word. The same idea applies to their information on using <i> instead of <em>. Also, because this is a pet peeve of mine, if you really just want to style text without applying any meaning to why it’s styled then why not just use some CSS?

I next came across webprofessionals.org which offered numerous courses on specific topics but a few things rubbed me the wrong way on each. The site has a weird setup for their exams. You pay them $95 via Authorize.net and then they’ll contact you within 48 hours to tell you where to go to take the exam. Um, no thanks. I don’t want to pay almost one hundred bucks and then find out that the nearest test is two states away. I’m sure they have places that are local to me, but I’m not someone who is going to pay for something unless I know what and where I’m getting it. Also, you can’t select what course you’re paying for and the description lists several exams, but not all of them, so does the price include the Professional Web Master Certification or not? If not, how do I buy that one? Their site information needs to be a lot better here, it feels too much like a scam.

Finally I came to www.ciwcertified.com which was the most promising of the purely web certification companies. However, their gimmick seems to be the selling of Certification Pathways. So you’ll end up taking at least two courses to get a basic certification from them. I don’t really have an issue with this, but then I took a look at their Website Manager Pathway, which consisted of having to take their Foundations (makes sense), Site Designer (good), Server Administrator (sure), Javascript Fundamentals (ok) and Perl Fundamentals. The last course through me for a loop. While chances are you’ll use Javascript at some point on any website you work on, Perl is a bit more specialized. If it were up to me I’d want to substitute a PHP course in place of Perl as it’s much more common, but there doesn’t seem to be an option for this available. Even an ASP course substituted in here would seem to make more sense than Perl as a mandatory course for certification, but neither PHP or ASP is a language course offered. It’s worth noting that the Master Website Certification is being retired this month from CIW, so we’ll see what is offered next month.

While CIW is probably the most promising looking one out of the three, I’m a bit disappointed that I can’t recommend any of these certification courses or companies. I wouldn’t waste my time and money on them and I don’t think any web person should either. At least not until they revamp them to cover information that is more useful and relevant to what web designers and developers actually work with.

If I were to create a web course pathway I’d want to start with web fundamentals, which would cover concepts for hardware, software and cloud. The next series would include HTML, CSS and Javascript courses which, along with at least one other specialized course, would complete a basic “web design certification”. Specialized courses would be covering CMS’s, accessibility and security. You’d have to choose at least one of those three, but this way it’d be relevant to what you specialize in doing.

This path would then be followed by a course covering a LAMP setup and install, with optional courses for more in depth learning of Linux, Apache, MYSQL and PHP. Alternative Windows, ASP and .NET courses could be available as well. This would complete a more advanced “web manager certification”.

Unfortunately I don’t see anything that exists like this online or off. If anyone would be interested in contacting me to work on setting something like this up for students and professionals I’d love to help out. Until then, save your money or spend it on something else.

Pressing the Chromebook’s power button instantly turned the machine on and I was almost immediately within the Chrome browser. I decided to try to emulate a typical day in my life at the office. I visited my websites and logged into to the CMS. Everything worked just as it does as if I was using Chrome on my desktop, but then I hit a snag. As a website manager I don’t have any way of uploading files to my websites, such as Drupal or WordPress Modules. While in WP I could at least update modules, but unless you’re using a Drupal 7 based site you’re stuck. Also, with no console, I couldn’t even log into one of our web servers if I needed to restart a runaway process.

Work definitely won’t get done on a Google Chromebook, so I decided to move onto something more casual, such as budget planning with the wife. While I had no way to upload a file to my Google Docs I was at least able to view and edit them from within the Google Docs site. This was fine for the most part as my wife and I keep our budgets within a very simple file we originally created in Excel. While it has calculations that reference other sheets within the document everything was ported over to Google Docs just fine. Unfortunately our resumes always seem to lose a lot in translation, so I’m not sure I’d want to rely on that to use as a submission if we’re ever job hunting.

Next I decided I’d have some fun and see what kind of games I’d have the option of playing. Since the Chromebook is nothing more than a browser this left me with all the many free to play cheesy flash based games. I first tried Iron Grip: Marauders and then Astro Empires. Neither is designed to compete with your desktop games, but they provide a fun way to pass the time and are free.

It’s hard for me to give an overall rating of this device. On one hand if all you do is want to surf the internet, playing browser games, emailing friends, watching YouTube videos and Facebooking, this device is great. Grandma will love it.

However, if you actually even think about doing anything else, such as applying to job websites where you need to attach your resume, use any business software or need utilities for web operations, then this device is probably not for you. I know many people like to say they only fall into the first category, but I don’t know anyone who actually only uses the internet to read and watch things. Most people I know require some interaction with others, even if only through digital means, and the Google Chromebook just isn’t designed to deliver this.

You have more options and capabilities on a smart phone such as the Droid or iPhone than you do on Chromebook, and because of that I see no reason to recommend one, unless you have excess money you just want to spend on a new toy.

While I can understand that many search engines want to cut down on the amount of spam sites that pollute our search results, I would like us to take a breath, hold and exhale. I think a great write up that conveyed many of my same opinions on this matter was done here by SEO Theory.

And yet, by the PBS-Ickipedia definition, just about any news organization that publishes a 150 word blurb about breaking news must be a content farm, right? Wouldn’t Twitter be a Content Farm? And Ickipedia itself, right? – Michael Martinez

Personally, I think people are going a bit overboard when they claim sites like Examiner, eHow and Answers should be blacklisted from search engines. They aren’t any different than Yahoo, Google News, Mashable or even Slashdot. There is a difference between SEO and Spam, just as there is a difference between Content Farms and User Generated Content sites, though it’s not always easy to describe the difference, as one user elegantly put it:

It reminds me of art and porn – we know it when we see it and everyone defines “it” differently. – marcohmann

Many companies, since about 2008, have been issuing salary freezes, reducing worker pay or compensation and if you’re in the technology industry you’re more than likely not being given a chance to train in new skill sets, short of taking on several other responsibilities from the departments “restructuring of resources”.

So how do you know if your job sucks? Your job probably sucks if you can say yes to two or more of the following (and you have been getting great reviews, such as 4/5 or 9/10 on performance evaluations):

• You didn’t receive a pay increase, or received less than 4% this past year
• Others in your department have left or been laid off, but the company hasn’t hired anyone to fill their role and instead delegated the tasks to you or others
• You have taken on new responsibilities, but not been compensated for it, through either employer paid training, salary increase, bonus or title change
• You’ve been working for the same company for over three years and not been promoted or given an opportunity to advance
• You’ve been working for the same company for over two years and they will not pay for any training or education in your field (assuming you are not a contractor)
• Work and life balance is starting to become unbalanced with sixty or more hours a week worked

If you’re experiencing more than one of the above, chances are you should start looking to jump ship. There is no reason to stay with a company that isn’t as invested in you as you are in them. The employer and employee relationship should be treated just like any other relationship; you’re both in it to gain something from the other and help each other grow.

So what do you do when you’re stuck? Don’t be afraid to move on.

In 2009 when I was unhappy with my current work environment and the state I was living in, I quit my job, packed up my stuff, moved and got a new job. But maybe you don’t have that confidence, it’s ok, quitting and moving states isn’t for everyone, and it won’t always work out. Another option that I’ve used and suggest is to keep your online profiles updated, at least update them every three months if you’re not generating enough response. I currently get between two to four calls a week from recruiters as well as several emails throughout the week. It’s a good ego boost and it helps to gauge your position’s salary range.

Eventually you’ll get a few you like, you’ll apply, hopefully then interview and if offered, you bounce out. But again, don’t’ be afraid to quit your job for a better offer. Even if you know it’ll only be a temporary move until you find something even better, you don’t have to settle for doing something you don’t like or being overburdened and underpaid with no advancement opportunities.

Get out and get ahead. You can always roll over your 401k to the next company, or just keep an IRA.

With that said I realized, after some pressuring from one of the voices in my head, that it’s probably best I invest some personal time in developing from scratch my own unique website template. I’ve already decided to continue to use WordPress for my personal sites, even though I work exclusively in Drupal these days. My opinion on these two content management systems is still that same as it was almost a year ago.

Needless to say I still need to go through the content of this site sooner than later to update information, as well as I’ll be migrating the content I wrote for SanJose.org to here over this coming weekend. This definitely has put a cramp in my gaming habits, especially as I have been enjoying Rift very much lately.

However, I find lately that it might be worthwhile to look into acquiring a personal assistant, which oddly enough, is something I don’t yet have a plan on how to go about. I’ve hired writers, artists, designers and IT contractors for various projects over the years and each time I knew the requirements of the project that was needed, how much time it would take and what I was willing to pay to have this accomplished. But with a personal assistant, I’m at a loss due to consistency with requirements.

With a writer or artist, you have something you need written or drawn and you have a deadline and it gets done. With a personal assistant it’s to help me with the not necessarily day-to-day tasks that come up that I require someone to organize and handle, such as scheduling my appointments, responding to inquiries and, when needed, running pickups and deliveries. All things with a fluctuating ebb and flow, while one week may require 20 hours, another week may only require 6 hours.

The other variable I run into with a personal assistant is that I would need them to have a broad skill set, or at least familiarity with the various projects I have on my plate. So they need to be capable of understanding both the creative mind of writers and designers, as well as the technical speak and capabilities of web operations and mobile applications. This requirement here is something that could result with a significant chunk of my time being dedicated to training, and then I am not saving time.

So my thoughts on this are jumbled clearly, and if anyone who has been in a similar situation or hired a personal assistant before could share their opinions with me, that’d be greatly appreciated. Just fire away in the comments below.