Thursday, November 8, 2012

Welcome Webmasters!

Hi all of you AYSO webmasters out there! My name is Jen and I will be here to help you with everything and anything web related! I am the Manager of Digital Media and Graphic Design at the AYSO National Office and have been working on websites since 1997, so I have been through most of the trends of the web, and can help with just about anything related to your websites.

We'll have a wide variety of information in this blog, from simple HTML and how to place an image on your website, to advanced things like fun and interactive modules you can put on your website. We'll help you get your websites found on search engines, as well as help you make sure all of your Region's most important information is listed on your website.

We chose to go with a blog over a newsletter to help encourage a community atmosphere. Feel free to comment, ask questions or answer other people's questions. I will help with as many questions as I can, but others are encourage to put in their two cents. After all, the web is nothing but a giant collaborative effort, right?

Here's a little bit of background on me before I start posting away. That way you can see what my professional background is and where my strengths lie.



I graduated from college with a degree is Studio Arts - Multimedia. My first website was for a band in 1997, and since design editors did not exist then, it was done completely in HTML (self-taught). I also created my own graphics for the website, which sparked my love of design. I interned at PBS-KCET and Sony Studios and got my first job at a large, nationwide insurance company. There I learned the art of server-side programming with PHP (also self-taught). I did a couple year stint in Miami, FL where I worked for a small design agency, working on company branding, advertising and website design/maintenance. Fast forward a couple years, and I'm back in LA, working at another design agency on projects including Yamaha and complete websites designed and built from scratch. I completed R&D for the Sons of Anarchy iPhone app and did some post-production on the show Community. Now I bring my skills to AYSO where we try to futher our digital footprint as much as possible. Below is a list of my skills/topics.

DESIGN
Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Publisher, Paint, Fireworks

BROWSERS (includes troubleshooting and design issues)
Internet Explorer 6 - 9, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera

WEB
HTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, jQuery, Dreamweaver, Clubspaces

MEDIA
Adobe Premiere, iMovie, iDVD, Quicktime, video import/export

OTHER
Facebook (tabs, contests, etc.), Pinterest, LinkedIn, iPhone Apps

We hope you enjoy this blog and the content presented. I look forward to all of the conversations and interaction around a topic I absolutely live, breathe and love! 

2 comments:

  1. Well, cool. I guess I get to be first to comment, and I'll pose question.

    I've inherited a website that's been neglected. We've gotten through the fall, with fixing the critical stuff, but I'm looking to do a complete rewrite. That's largely because the site was done with FrontPagem (ugh, and I don't run Windows), it's not really possible for a non-techie to update content, and the site isn't close to responsive design.

    What are your thoughts on platforms? I'm considering Square Space. The existing hosting provider has WordPress as an option. My selection criteria are a) something where non-technical people can update content relevant to their aspect of region management (perhaps with a workflow, but that's not essential), b) solid security, c) looks good (generally), d) supports responsive design and good rendering on a variety of devices, e) easy for me to set up and maintain, and f) cost.

    By way of background, I've been in the tech business since paper tape and punch cards. I've done development of primarily intra-net apps (perl CGI, VB ASP.net, Drupal, PHP), and I've managed groups responsible for Internet-facing apps. I'm currently an Enterprise Architect working on my CISSP, and want to use this as a chance to get boned up more on CSS (as needed) and HTML5 technologies.

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  2. @DaMoose I would say skip the square space and just go straight to WP. Hostgator has a nice one-click wp install and the server handles wp nicely. A few hosts give false RAM errors with wp. That leaves the cost at about $3-4 per month. I have some themes I can suggest for use on an AYSO wp website. You can see our wp AYSO website at http://wegoayso.org

    If you need any help with hosting or theme selection/install/setup, let me know and I can lend a hand. I can also provide discount hosting.

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