The long and arduous process of going from knowing nothing about coding or graphics or web layouts to creating a website isn't easy. I had to learn everything for the first time, thankfully the web is amass with information about web coding and web coding standards and the true saving grace, rapid development frameworks, namely CakePHP and jQuery. Here are some of the highlights of going from zero to creating a place where everyone can congregate to ask questions, get inspired, and tell stories!

 LYMterviewer: What tools did you use to create your website?

 nlofaso: The site was created entirely with open source applications. There wasn't a need to pay for a single piece of software while creating the site. Here's the list of the great applications I used:

• Komodo Edit - Open Source version of Komodo IDE - A Spectacular code editing application great if you need support for multiple languages. Komodo has error checking, tool tips, and code completion built right in. It is, by far, the best open source code editor I've ever used.

• VirtualBox - VirtualBox is another open source version of a production app. VirtualBox is great for hosting virtual machines on a single laptop. I used virtual box with 2 images, one Ubuntu device that hosted my "dev" server and one Windows machine that I utilized for testing different browsers worked with the site.

• Gimp -An open source graphics application. Gimp can be closely compared to Adobe Photoshop, the difference in price is astounding though. Gimp is free which is better than spending a few hundred dollars, the choice was easy. Gimp has a great base of support online also which eases the learning curve.

• Inkscape - One of the best vector editing programs i've used, open source or not. Inkscape is easy to learn, easy to use and produces some very high quality graphics. Again, Inkscape has a great support base online, just Google "inkscape tutorials" and you'll see.

• Open Office - I primarily used Draw within Open Office. I found that while creating the data models for this site, being able to use a Microsoft Visio style application made visualizing database models really easy.

• Ubuntu Desktop - Ah, Linux, the poster child for open source. I used the newest Ubuntu linux distro for hosting the site locally on my dev server. The advantage to Ubuntu is that for a user new to Linux looking for all the power and capability without the learning curve you can't go wrong. I was able to set up a fully functional (LAMP Linux, Apache, MySql, and PHP) server in under an hour without much of a need to know how to use the command line.

 LYMterviewer: What was the inspiration for your website?

 nlofaso: The idea came to me when reading an interview in a magazine and being fascinated by the back and fourth discussion between the interviewer and the interviewee. I thought to myself "shouldn't everyone have the opportunity to have a professional interview, not just the uber famous?" I decided the answer was yes, and set off to create this site. The design is simple and straight forward. Let everyone post simple questions for other people to select and answer and in the end have a great magazine style interview that's all their own on the topics they want to talk about. Now everyone gets to be famous and tell their life story to the world!


 LYMterviewer: What resources did you use the most when creating your website?

 nlofaso: There were a lot of valuable resources out there especially when trying to learn how to code.  My primary resources were the:

• Cake Google Groups Site
• CakePHP manual
• CakePHP API
• jQuery Google Groups Site
• jQuery Website

The biggest thing to remember is never be afraid to ask questions.  I've never seen a better, more helpful group of people than the group of people who develop and support CakePHP and jQuery.  They're patient and will help you with any questions you have.


 LYMterviewer: What tools and processes did you use to test your site's functionality?

 nlofaso: My goal was to test everything on every browser version.  This is where an application responsible for virtual machines is extremely valuable from both a monetary cost and time cost perspective.  My choice was VirtualBox.  I had 3 standard images running on VirtualBox to test how the site would look in each browser, they were set up like this:

• IE6, Opera 8, Safari, Firefox 2
• IE7, Opera 9, Google Chrome
• IE 8, Firefox 3

I named them all accordingly so I'd launch the correct virtual machine when testing.  I'd also recommend, based on the power of your system not running more than 2 virtual machines at the same time, for speed purposes I kept it to one at a time. 

Once I had my 3 virtual images to account for the most common browsers, I put together a standard list of validation points items like:

• Page layout and alignment
• Text sizes and styles
• All forms are functional
• Graphic appearances (Namely IE PNG transparency issue)

I wrote specific test scripts to review on each browser, based on the fact that I would be reviewing numerous browsers, I wanted to keep consistency between each.  As I reviewed each test script, I made specific notations of exactly what issues I found and what I did to find them, this made going back to fix them a lot easier since I would know exactly how to recreate them.  I can't stress enough to write test scripts out and use them, it helps to be sure your consistant in your testing.


 LYMterviewer: What process did you follow?

 nlofaso: The process was fairly straight forward, but extremely important.  This is the basic process:

• Define Requirements - Here I basically stepped through my design.  I took steps to define what I wanted the site to do and what was to go into the initial release as opposed to future releases.  The key is to stick to this, when you're on your own developing a site by yourself there is no one to keep your scope in check.  By writing it down and keeping it available for reference it keeps you from falling into the dreaded "scope creep" trap.

• Define Database Structure - I took the time to actually visually map out my database tables and map each table to the next.  This was probably the MOST VALUABLE step I took.  I can't even tell you how many times I stepped back to review those graphics and how much time they saved since I was able to visualize the linkages and relationships between tables.

• Define Cake Models - This one is specific to CakePHP and was simple based on my database graphics.  I had visually available every relationship between every database table whether it was One To Many, Has and Belongs to Many, etc..  I was able to produce my basic models very quickly.

• Bake - This is another CakePHP specific step. I used the built in bake command to establish my base controllers and views.  This is a great jumping off point for designing the rest of the site.

• Design Layout - Now that I had a site that was basically functional I took the time to define the site's layout.  This is important to do early and be happy with early.  This helped to save time later because I didn't have to step back through views to make any adjustments after the fact.

• Modify Models, Views, and Controllers to meet Defined Req's - This is the the meat and potatoes section of building the site.  This is where I spent at least 60% of the time and where my focus was up until the launch of the site.  This is the actual construction of the site to meet my initial requirements.

• Move Site from Dev to Production - This was a 48 hour process to settle everything in production.  I spent at least 5 - 8 hours researching hosting providers to make sure they met my requirements.  My main 3 requirements were native support for CakePHP or support without severe modification, scalability, the hoster should be able to handle bursts in usage as well as increased site utilization without any concern for crashes, latentcy, etc. and reporting tools, I wanted the inherent capability of knowing where my users were coming from, when they were using the site and how often they were using the site.   I decided on a virtualized hosting service who provided all three capabilities to me.  Based on my experience with virtual machines I know the capabilities are there for scalability.

• Secure Advertising - I did a lot of research here as well.  The biggest question is CPM vs click throughs.  I decided on a larger more reliable service to start which also meant having to go for the click through instead of a CPM site.  I did get turned down a lot at first for lack of content.  My biggest suggestion here is just stick to it, secure what you can up front and once you can show hit rates and content look to secure better rates and advertisers.

• Get the Word Out - This is the hardest part. How do you sell your site to people without a verbal conversation?  How do you get media attention without lots of users and how do you get users without media attention?  Its a formula I'm still working out, but it seems like to start, word of mouth is valuable and don't hesitate to use smaller more local media outlets to start.  Look through some corporate press releases and take a stab at writing your own, then send it out and see what happens.

• Never be Content - This is the most important process step, don't get cocky and don't think your done.  Always look for ways to enhance and promote your site and keep doing that.  Just be sure if its an enhancement you do it on a dev server first and don't touch your main site until you can find a window where utilization is low.