BEGINNER'S
WEBSITEBUILDING
TO
101
AN OPEN SOURCE LIFE EXPERIMENT
L
atent Bloomers
Back in the days I realized for the final time there is no place I fit into, I started looking for new ways and places to both work in something I'm drawn to, and get treated and paid equally to what I give of myself.
Actually, I was looking for a place that will not abuse me. A terror-free workplace.
I couldn't find a place like that.
I couldn't even find proper definition of how I'm being used. I guess the fact that I am subject to "the workplace needs" but it is never subject to mine is nothing to be alarmed about.
So, here I am. Packed with logic, conscience, experience, and endless good intentions of
MAKING THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE.
BACKGROUND
At first I tried all sorts of pretty nice options and opportunities, which will all be discussed on this experiment, like matched betting, answering surveys, and many more.
Although some of the things I tried are perfect gigs, they are in fact... gigs. I mean, I could not really earn a living out of them the way I tried it - I had to put a lot of time and effort to get these things rolling and profiting.
I don't know if they could grow into anything, should I have invested what was needed, because I decided to quit going for the gigs and head to the career.
My options: Website.
All I needed was a computer, a domain, website building knowledge, content, and social networking knowledge.
Great.
I had almost none.
Except for content, which I only now realize I didn't really HAVE.
I HAD DATA.
A lot of it. But as I will show you, data is in deed a very close friend, but it is not content. So I basically had nothing.
I had to define the beginning, but I could only do that after experiencing site-building as a beginner.
I bought this computer and a domain, and just
While building this site, processing knowledge, and editing data, everything collided into a great example of Open Source Life practice - Building a profiting website from scratch, depending only on my specific abilities and accessible opportunities, and pay the results forward.
This in fact meant two desired goals:
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Learn and create a profitable website according to my specific needs and by using the sources that are opened to me.
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Become an open-source myself, and give access to the products of the site and/or its activities.
Nice story, but no happy ending. YET.
GOALS
Using guides, videos, and all kinds of instructions, I have experienced data overdose (will be covered here).
At some points I would forget what I was looking for, and sometimes I would get mad at inconsistencies of the editor, or mess for hours with things that I would dismiss by morning because of bad functionality, or just being ugly.
I mean, the problem wasn't poor sources, or questionable content, on the contrary - I had to figure out that creating my perfect site can only be done by reducing the amounts of information that is being offered, and the use of that information.
Talk about low consumption.
Then came the idea of a guide which will cover all subjects under create your own website, but,
FROM A BEGINNER'S POINT OF USE.
This guide should not hold information like the editor's help, or the affiliate program support. It should hold the final outcomes of the trials and errors that have been made through the process, and formed into tools and tricks that the pros are not aware of using, since it's already in their DNA.
This guide should translate native-level language into fragments of simplified directions.
I was thinking Machine Language!
This guide should be a Beginner's handbook, written by a complete beginner -
BEGINNER'S 101.
STRUCTURE
READY
When first started, I found countless guides, instructions, source-codes, and information I would never think of, right at reach of hand.
Much of what I found was helpful, and I found myself getting back to it often.
It could be on how to build my site, how to make a living of it, designing, social networking, marketing, affiliates, SEO, copyrights, privacy, protection, reaching audience, and all you can think of when you think of profitable website.
I can have all the information I need.
It's beautiful and inspiring.
But I do not have the time for trials and errors on every piece of instructions and methods, that will (and should) be the blueprint of an organically looking and functioning website, like the one I have in mind.
I needed a condensed file of the DNA of the constructing methods. And I needed it to be divided into macro units of related source-codes, and ordered around a main concept that is part of a bigger process.
Like chromosomes during cell division.
When I have that, it wouldn't matter which cms I'm working with, what content does my site deal with, what is the purpose of the site, or who are the people I talk to.
This time, Biology to the rescue.
GO
The appearance of Beginner's 101 (and Ongoing Experiment in general), its functionality, and obviously its content, derive from the site's content pages which are Latent Bloomers, Equality, and Open Source Life.
Because of the same reason, it inherits a wide, parallel setup of a global interest - a pivot, which around it evolve multiple related topics, that may or may not be pivots themselves.
The content pages have both formal and informal content fed to them.
Usually (and as for this stage), you will get to formal original content like posts, reports etc., spontaneously.
That formal content will always have its supporting meta data, sources, attributes, and ways to access it, participate, or contact.
As you go through the site you will see and be able to use the below elements:
GET SET
During this experience, which became an experiment, I kept detailed documentation of the processes. The resulting documents can be sorted according to the learning process/es that are the base of each case study.
For example, choosing a host involved learning that I need a host, what is a host, what are my needs, what are my options, what I need to do in order to extract the most out of my accounts and plans, how do I stay on the safe and legal side, and what are the terms and limitations I have to comply or work with.
As my learning process includes analyzing every piece of information that is suspected to be of a contribution (which is basically EVERY THING), the documentation contains source literature (articles, books, guides, cites, websites, references), public media (images, videos, music, applications), and personal content (original posts, media, products, attributes, progress) - All of them are presented and accessible across the site in several forms, which I am still learning and working on (I guess you've already noticed).
Up to the present stage of the site's evolution, and the integrated experiment, the focus was mainly on the actual site building - design and functionality, but all the while I was laying the foundations for future main focuses like SEO, Affiliate Programs, Privacy, etc.
The result transformed from a link placed on a homepage, that lets you download my writings, to a dynamic system that you can navigate to from relevant spots throughout the site to watch various types of personal content, including the guide I write right at this moment...
CONTENT
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Original posts (introductions, columns, reports, papers, questionnaires)
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Personal notes (anecdotes, reminders, glimpses)
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Notifications (publications, classes, etc.)
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Brainprisms - my thinking process narration, like this one. You will be directed to them, or be able to locate and access them.
CONTENT
SOURCE LITERATURE
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Articles, guides, books, codes, answers, cites, websites.
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Images, videos, music.
SOURCE LITERATURE
COURSES
As I went along studying and practicing what I learn in Building My Own Website, I've noticed the formation of these shots of phrases, like self-directed instructions, that were the final result of messing around for hours with... well, almost everything.
Usually they were... are, hitting me as an inside voice that is kinda sick of the time-spending on learning to speak the editor's language, or understanding again and again that I am yet far from where I think I am or should be.
Going over my documented thinking process reveals that these phrases, that were in fact the outcome of the process, are being utilized by me in the ongoing creation of Latent Bloomers.
Breaking down the instructions into snippets of simplified codes that weren't specific to my characteristics or the site's content, was the mediate stage between planning to write Latent Bloomers (BC) Handbook, and deciding to make this handbook look like that:
Each stage in my site building
CMS
EDITOR
SEO
DESIGN
GETTING STARTED
NEEDS
DISCUSSION
What is the right approach for defining your needs?
What is the information you should gather prior to defining your need?
How to acquire that information?
Forming a method.
IN A NUTSHELL
Tools and suggestions for defining the needs of yourself, and eventually your website.
IN A NUTSHELL
Tools and suggestions for searching and choosing the best host according to the predefined needs.
HOST
DISCUSSION
Hosts, plans, benefits, support
DOMAIN
DISCUSSION
Providers, options, names, plans.
IN A NUTSHELL
Tools and suggestions for defining the needs of yourself, and eventually your website.