About Me

hi_waveing

Hi, I'm Riley!
I'm a aspiring Software Developer based in Manchester, UK. I'm a self tought developer, who can't wait do learn another skill! Since my first hello world I fell in love with programming. I'm also a photographer and know my way around Adobe programs. Few years back I was learning groups of people basics of photography & Photoshop which was my fav thing to do untuil I discovered programming! I always loved computers and new software & hardware, new games. Since I was a kid I wanted to build my own computer, instead of buying a laptop. I always tried to fix things, especialy all the electronics, so now instead of bendin CPU pins I can break a program, yay! I'm also a rock music lover, and myself play guitar and bass guitar, not to good at it, luckily never been in a proper band so not too many people had to hear that noise :)

Contact

githublogo linkedin portfolio email

Unit 1

Outcome 1

Describing the purpose of IT in modern business

  • Safety - Cyber security
  • Organization/ Planning
  • Enables small business to be visble
  • Helps to grow businesses
  • Allowes to contact people from around the world better than ever before

Describing methods, skills and resources needed to complete digital projects successfully – what do you need to make projects successful? What tools? What skills?


The basis of all of the succesful project is a good preparation and a proper plan. With the use of tools such as: "Trello"/"Jira" we can plan our work and share it with our teammates. Next, we need to manage the project with flexible mind, dividing the job accordingly to the persons needs and abilities. The project manager needs to check on the team to assure that there will be no delays and everything runs smoothly. Finally, after the project is finished it should be put out to testing and the feedback should be given to the team, if there are wny issues to be fixed. You should be not only organised, knowladgable but also creative and approchable.


Plan and carry out tasks using IT – e.g. making your website. How will you plan it? Include a link to your trello board.

logo

Describe the risks that might impact digital projects – what causes digital projects to fail? Why?

  • Failing to plan
  • Lack of effective communication
  • Copyright issues
  • Not testing resulting in errors in the code
  • Overdoing, which can fail to meet the deadline

Describe how you would go about selecting and using IT systems and software – how do you select the right kind of technology for the job?

For backend projects I would probably use linux as it is the most common among dev ops/backend devs. The language would depend on the type of project, but mostly I would use javascript as it is one of the most popular ones and the one I am most familiar with.
Frontend projects could be done on any of the OS, I'm usually working on windows/linux. My favourite tool is vscode as it has very useful plugins – build in emmet which makes writing code faster, live server which enables You to see all the changes done on the website as soon I You save it without needing to reopen. The stack on frontend project always is: HTML, CSS, JavaScript. If needed I would use CSS pre processors - SCSS or frameworks like Tailwind or Bootstrap. To make things better I'd choose right frameworks/libraries for javascript – React/Angular/Vue.


Describe and provide analysis on how Your chosen technologies have helped you achieve Your outcomes. How has trello helped you plan and how can git and GitHub help with your codes version control

  • Using HTML helps build the "skeleton" of a website & add all the text content, links, lists etc.
  • Using CSS helps makes the website looks nice, edit everything from the layout, fonts and colours to any media added and even animations
  • JavaScript is the muscles or should I say the brain of the web page.
    I can control anything in both HTML & CSS and make website more interactive and responsive byt controling the DOM.
  • Using Trello helped with planning the project and tracking the progress.
    I have not used it before but it will stay for good even for non tech related planning.
  • GitHub & GIT are one of the most important technologies a developer can use.
    Using version control allows me to save myu project (repo) in the cloud and have a backup & feel safe.
    GitHub pages are an amazing tool that allows us to share our website and keep it online to share without a need to buy a domain or hosting.

Describe legal guidelines and constraints that impact digital projects – How does GDPR impact digital projects?

GDPR is very important and data safety should always be a priority, however it can hinder the progress of the project as the data needs to be accesed can be stored among different people that we would need to contact, instead at one accessible place.
The safety of the data is also dependent on what we do after the project is finished and how we dispose the data we don't need.
GDPR regulations, can also make some parts of the project impossible to complete if We can't make sure they will be a 100% secure.

Outcome 2

Review the ongoing use of IT tools and change approach as needed – in making your own website, are you happy with the tools you used? E.g. Visual Studio Code, Trello

  • Using Trello helped with planning the project and tracking the progress.
    I have not used it before but it will stay for good even for non tech related planning.
  • VSCode is extremly helpfull. Build in emmet helps to write code faster, live server plugin allows me to see the changes I do on the website "live" without a need to refresh a website all the time.
  • Another useful tools for me are Adobe Photoshop & Adobe Xd they help me resize images/graphics change colours, build a coulur pallete and build a website before I will actually write the code. Design isn't easy and the visual really helps with creating a good looking app.

Describe whether the IT tools selected were appropriate E.g. Visual Studio Code, Trello

I couldn't imagine working without VSCode, even though there's many other programs. All the plugins and even the theme and the fonts and colorfull snippets help me to code.

I would not expect Trello to be as useful as it was - especially when planning the page before writing any code.


Assess the strengths and weaknesses of your final project – are you happy with your website? Why? Why not? You should review it on the website itself in the interests of openness. What would you change?

Strengths

I think I have done pretty well. I think thue code i write is readable and clean. I really like CSS and being able to do onclick events etc. in JavaScript, few lines of code can change so much!
My main focus was to create a clean & responsible webpage.


Weaknesses

My weaknesses is digging in too deep sometimes. I often find myself trying to use something I have not use before which can result in too much time taken off the main thing. Buut I'm aware of that. All the new (well almost all!) shiny things are ending up on sticky notes on my wall to try it out in other projects.


What would I change

If I would have more time, I'd add some CSS animations & more JavaScipt but JavaScript wasn't in the challange, since the group only learned html & CSS


Describe further improvements you can make to your project

I can add some animations, maybe some graphics, more than just few svg waves :)
Also some more JavaScript events to make website more interactive.


Review outcomes to make sure they match requirements and are fit for purpose

Reviewed, I hope it's all good.



Outcome 3

Review the benefits and drawbacks of IT tools and systems used in terms of productivity and efficiency – could you have been more efficient when making your website? How? Could you have done it in teams?


Usefulnes of the tools

Like I described in Outcome 2 I found all of the tools used very useful.


Could I be more efficient?

I could be more efficient If I could have prepared all of the written content first before I made the "Project" part of the website. It was hard to create not knowing what to include inside.


Could you have done it in teams?

Yes of course! It would take some extra time to plan and divide the tasks between the team mates. All tough I feel like in such a small project it's easier to work alone.


Describe ways to improve productivity and efficiency

More planning ahead. Especially when it comes to responsive layout of the page, I changed it few times during writing the code.


Develop solutions to improve own productivity using IT in digital projects – what would you do differently next time? Team work? Use of Slack?

  • Use of Slack for smaller lower priority things & sharing files.
  • Zoom can help as You can have proper conversation and it's easier to communicate.
  • It can also help with "live coding" or sharing any ideas, presentations using share screen function.

Describe how you would go about testing digital solutions

  • Testing the webpage on all the browsers
  • Testing the webpage on all kinds of devices
  • Testing responsivness of the page on every resolution:
    • Large desktop screens
    • Smaller desktop screens
    • Landscape tablet screens
    • Portrait tablet screens
    • Landscape smartphone screens
    • Portrait smartphone screens
  • Testing website for any errors, checking, everything that is "clickable"
  • Showing demo of webpage to fellow devs but also people who don't have any experiance and are just looking at a " nice webpage". They may find mistakes that we wouldn't maybe notice?
  • Security testing in case if using any forms or anything that's asking for users data.

Unit 2

Outcome 1

Describing the content and layout for each page

  • Since it's a small page I decided to go with the one page design.
  • I kept it pretty simple with a small logo and plain responsive navbar.
  • I've made a big header showing some nice svg waves.
  • Than the project content itself. I split it in unit 1 & 2
  • I put text content of the outcomes in seperate boxes to make it look cleaner
  • Than I created a small section for About Me part
  • Added social icons & a small contact form so everyone can contact me without the need to open their email page.
  • Finished with a small footer in a svg wave. With a link to the top of the page.

Describing copyright and other constraints affecting websites

Copyright is someones right to their original work.Only the owner has the right to reproduce the work, so anytime anything is added on the page we need to make sure to check the copyright of photo / graphic / art we're adding to our page.

All the GDPR related informations are here.


Describing access issues that need taking into account - describe issues that people with disabilities may face when using webpages and how we can overcome them.

There can be a lot of issues for people with display to acces and view the page.
So we can make sure to do at least:

  • Right text size
  • Proper contrast between text and background
  • Clean & clear websites, with visible titles and headings
  • Add alternative text to images
  • Make links visible and clear to identify
  • We can add audio and or video for deaf community
  • Make forms accesible by making it easy to navigate, add clear instrucions

Describe which are the appropriate filetypes for websites

We have the obvious - html, css, javsscript( and frameworks) files that the browser reads.

If it comes to media files we have images (example jpg, png, gif) video files (avi,swf, wmv, mov, mpeg), audio ( mp3,wav, ogg).