I have made a few web pages in my life, but most are pretty darn simple with minimal code snippets. I’ve built a skeleton database using MySQL and PHP. I have set up phpBB, Drupal and WordPress sites, hacking them in order to get them functioning the way I need. However, I haven’t had the chance to really “build a website”, at least not by my own definitions. Well, this has got to change now, as I’m a little tired of hacking templates to get them to do what I need. As much as I would like to focus strictly on my graphics work, the world won’t let me… for now.

So begins the geek streak.

I’ve started reading this HTML, XHTML & CSS Visual Quickstart Guide that I picked up at the local thrift store. It was published in 2007 so I’m sure that some of the information is outdated, but most is still valid. I’m about half way through it and it’s helped solidify my pretty loose knowledge of CSS. Once in awhile, I put the book and my highlighter down in order to verify some stuff on the computer. HTML5 is something I keep referring to, in order to compare to XHTML. Trying to get a feel for what the future holds.

Boilerplate appears to be a good template of standards to start with. There’s some HTML5 code examples out there and even a test site that gives your browser a ranking based on the number of HTML5 features available.

I think that once I finish with the boilerplate demo video below, I will walk through this code demonstration of common HTML5 techniques.