The first of my 52 weekly projects (for the backstory, see “The Plan (at least for now…)”) is up and running! Take a look at http://dev.kobayashicoding.net for this week’s website. This will be the base site from which all future projects can be launched.

This week’s site was derived from BootStrap‘s “Fixed Top Navbar” example. I changed the title and branding, modified the navigation bar to use buttons instead of list items with URL links (the buttons don’t work yet – that’s next week’s project), and I changed the text in the “Jumbotron” box in the middle of the page.

Next week’s project will include making the buttons work using Javascript functions to modify the text in the Jumbotron. And, if time allows, I hope to add a footer to the page as well.

You may wonder why I’m concentrating on BootStrap for the first couple of weeks, when my stated goal is to develop websites and web apps using WordPress and Django. The reasons are that (1) I want to become more familiar and facile with HTML, CSS, and Javascript (all of which come into play), (2) I want to learn to use a major web development framework effectively and efficiently (and BootStrap certainly qualifies as such a framework), and (3) BootStrap integrates nicely with Django’s templates to display web pages, reports, and forms.

That’s all for now. I hope you’ll visit again next week! My goal is to have these posts published by noon on Wednesday (yeah, I missed that this week by a bit).

Sometimes, the only way to do something is just to start doing it. I’ve read that if you want to be a writer, just start writing – it doesn’t matter if anyone wants to pay you for it, or even read what you’re written, just the act of writing makes you a writer. I think it works the same way for web developers – if you want to be a web developer, just start creating web sites and web apps. So, that’s what I’m planning to do.

My plan is to create one web site or web app per week for the next year. My hope is to do some work on them every day (except Sunday). These first 52 web sites/apps will appear in the kobayashicoding.net domain, and I’ll write blog posts about them here and link to them. In the beginning, most of them will be really, and I do mean really, simple. As I get more accustomed to the tools (I’ll be using PhpStorm from JetBrains, NetBeans from NetBeans.org, and Git with repositories at BitBucket.org) and more comfortable (and confident) with the technologies (primarily HTML 5, CSS 3, JavaScript, BootStrap, and Php at first, along with AJAX and other web technologies over time) I suspect – well, hope – that the site and apps will increase in both quality and complexity.

I also plan to keep this site (https://kobayashicomputing.com) updated at least weekly with project updates and links, and also with a new theme, new visual elements, additional widgets, some forms, and WordPress Plug-Ins that I’m trying out.

Finally, because there is no time like the present, I will begin today! Actually, I’ve already started with this blog post. I’ll begin in a few minutes with the first web project by creating the appropriate sub-domain at DreamHost.com and the necessary folder structure on my hard drive.

Stand by for more…