Final Summary

My original idea was to create a website for landscape architecture students and professionals to put their portfolios on the web.  This website would teach people how to design their own customized website.  After creating their site, the client would then be able to connect with different employers and firms who could search all these different sites.  This could help students and prospective employees for possible career opportunities.

However my original idea has changed throughout the course of the semester.  Instead of just gearing the website towards landscape architects, I decided to gear it towards all design professions (i.e. architects, interior designers, landscape designers etc.).  After receiving some comments from my peers I realized that many of the other design professions besides landscape architects also lack portfolios online. 

Another aspect of my idea that has changed is teaching people how to create their own website.  I decided to create different templates that people can then customize to look the way they want.  I will still have a step by step tutorial for those who are willing to learn basic web design skills, but I will not require it in order for someone to create their own personal website.

Certain computer software and programs will be needed in order to make this idea a reality.  Operating systems including Windows, Mac OS, and Linux can be used by my employees as long as they are able to support Adobe products.  I will also need a Linux based server to host the website because it is open source, there are no license fees, and also no viruses.  Photoshop which will help create the website itself, but also the templates that the clients will use to create their individual sites.  Security software will be needed to protect my computers and my clients’ computers.  We do not want any loss of data due to viruses, worms, Trojan Horses etc. When clients log into their accounts on my website, they should make sure that they have a secure password.  I will provide a rating system when clients sign up to how strong their password is.  This is extremely important because there will be credit card transactions on this website.  Also, accounts for different social media websites will help me promote this website as well as keep my followers up to date on different events related to the different professions. 

In order to make this idea into a reality there are a few things that I would need.  The first thing is that I need to build on my HTML and CSS skills.  I also would need to learn Javascript and hire a small team of graphics designers and programmers.  I would also need to upgrade my own personal computer as well as make sure that my team has all the software they will need to create and maintain the website such as Photoshop.  I only have a laptop right now and it cannot handle a lot of the computer graphics programs.  Some people will need to maintain the website while others will need to handle the social media websites.  I would also need to buy a server and a domain name.  Once all this is done we are ready to get these portfolios online.

    

Computer Security - Lecture Blog Post

My entrepreneurial idea is to create a website which would cater to students and professionals in design fields (such as architects, architects, engineers, interior designers etc.) and help them design their own portfolios online, using different templates that can be customized.  The site would also allow users to connect with other users and different companies for prospective job opportunities.

Keeping your computer secure has been a big issue over the past decade. It is important to protect yourself especially when putting information up onto the Internet.  For my website there are a few things that I can provide in order to keep not only my client’s information secure, but mine as well.  This includes keeping all your anti-virus, malware and firewall software up to date. It also includes password security.

Anti-virus, malware and firewall software are essential to protect your computer.  It would be devastating to my business to get infected with a virus, Trojan horse, worm etc.  This software can prevent any infection that may want to harm my computer and will not let me spread any viruses to anyone else.  My clients should also take precaution when trying to protect their computers.  Since my clients will be paying to create their website, “https” will be needed so that the credit card transactions will be secure.

Password security is an important measure that needs to be taken seriously.  For my clients, I would encourage them to use a strong password which is not something easily guessed or brute forced by a hacker.  When registering and coming up with a password for my website, I will include a rating system which will be able to tell people how strong their password is.  This would include using different combinations of capital and lower case letters, symbols, numbers, long password length, and not using common passwords such as “password”.  

Operating Systems - Lecture Blog Post

My entrepreneurial idea is to create a website which would cater to students and professionals in design fields (such as architects, architects, engineers, interior designers etc.) and help them design their own portfolios online, using different templates that can be customized.  The site would also allow users to connect with other users and different companies for prospective job opportunities.

I feel that having a Windows, Mac, or Linux operating system would be necessary to create this website layout.  For me, I would need a Windows operating system because this is the system that I am proficient in.  I would allow my employees to choose which operating system they would want to work in because everyone has their own preference.

As stated in a previous post, we will be using Adobe products such as Photoshop to create the different layouts for the website as a whole and the clients’ personal websites.  Adobe products require either a Windows or Mac operating system.  Adobe programs will be needed to do all the design layouts and color choices.  Both my employees and my clients should have a Windows or Mac operating system so that they can run Adobe programs.    

In order to put the website on the Internet, we will need a server.  The operating system I feel is best for the server is a Linux operating system.  Unlike other server operating systems, Linux is open source which means that we can change the code as much as we need.  Linux also has no viruses which is really good because then none of our computers and our clients computers will be infected.  Lastly there are no license fees associated with the operating system. 

Blogger Review

http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/

1st Web Designer – Web Design Blog is written by Dainis Graveris who is the CEO and founder of the blog.  Graveris has knowledge of writing, programming, designing, freelancing, social marketing, managing, and marketing.  He has six years of experience in the web design field and is only twenty three years old.  He is also is the head of a team of experts who also help work on the blog.

This blog was founded in August 2008 by Graveris and it is geared towards web developers, web designers, bloggers and freelancers.  The blog posts talk about tutorials, inspiration, discussion/opinion type articles, roundups, case studies, interviews and design news.  It also keeps the reader informed about upcoming trends and how to deal with them.

Overall I think the actual blog is well organized and contains posts that talk about useful information.  I like the fact that if you want to read about a certain topic, they have it organized into the navigation at the top of the page.  The writing for each of the posts is easy to read and follow, despite a few spelling errors.  I also like that the posts contain a lot of images which is nice because then you can see examples of what they are blogging about.  However it would be nice for the text size to be a little larger because they use so many images in their posts that both start to compete with one another.  Lastly when reading the posts, I find the advertisements on the right side of the page to be kind of distracting since the images are large and colorful.

As a whole, I think the blog is a great, useful tool for web designers, bloggers and freelancers.

Photoshop - Lecture Blog Post

My entrepreneurial idea is to create a website which would cater to students and professionals in design fields (such as architects, architects, engineers, interior designers etc.) and help them design their own portfolios online, using different templates that can be customized.  The site would also allow users to connect with other users and different companies for prospective job opportunities.

Photoshop is not only a program that is widely used by design professionals, but it is also used by web designers.  Design professionals may use Photoshop to edit or enhance images, create different layouts, or draw images from scratch.   Web designers use it for their website layout and possibly editing images or content.  For my entrepreneurial idea, Photoshop would be a necessity for the design of the overall layout of the website. 

Photoshop would help me decide on the layout, color scheme and would also help me edit any other content I would want to upload as well.  It is important to see how the website reads on the page and with Photoshop you can see almost exactly what will appear in the browser once the coding is completed.  You can see if all the images and text line up the way you would like and check all the proportions.  The splice tool would allow me to cut out certain portions of the overall layout so that I can get the exact size of the images that I need.

Photoshop would also be used for the design of the template layouts that clients will be able to purchase.  The templates will be able to work with different color schemes which I have created, but will also give the option to have the client create their own color scheme through the website once it is purchased.   If the client owns a version of Photoshop, they can edit their own content before uploading to their website.

Competitive Analysis

My entrepreneurial idea is to create a website which would cater to students and professionals in design fields (such as architects, architects, engineers, interior designers etc.) and help them design their own portfolios online, using different templates that can be customized.  These design professions do not have many resources for putting up online portfolios that cater to their specific needs and wants.  The site would also allow users to connect with other users and different companies for prospective job opportunities.

http://www.bigblackbag.com/default.asp

BigBlackBag.com is probably the closest portfolio website that I found to my entrepreneurial idea because it caters to photographers, designers and artists.  It also allows the user to customize their own website and gives them their own unique domain name.  The difference between my idea and this website is that my site as stated previously, allows users to connect with one another and also with other professionals for job opportunities.  Another difference is that my site is geared towards both students and professionals and is specifically for design professions.

http://carbonmade.com/

CarbonMade.com is for anyone who wants to create his or her own portfolio.  It is an easy to use site that allows users to upload all their content and customize parts of their online portfolio.  When I looked at some of the sample portfolios, the layouts looked very similar to one another.  Also, each portfolio had “carbonmade” in the domain name.  My website would allow for more customization and would allow users to pick their own domain name.

Overall I found some websites that are similar to my entrepreneurial idea, but none were exactly the same as mine.  BigBlackBag.com and CarbonMade.com both allow users to create their own custom portfolio websites, but neither is just for design professions.  Also, neither site allows users to connect with one another.  However, these sites did give me some ideas of other things that I can include on my website. 

Computer Hardware - Lecture Blog Post

Design professions such as landscape architects, architects, engineers, interior designers etc. do not have any resources for putting up online portfolios either.  My idea is to create a website which would cater to students and professionals in these design fields and help them design their own portfolios online, using different templates that can be customized.

Computer hardware will definitely be needed in order to create this website or any website for that matter.  Websites, especially ones dealing with a lot of graphics like ours, need computers that will be able to handle a lot of this kind of work.  Computers that cannot handle a lot of processes and programs running at once will not only cause many headaches, but also will not work for this kind of business.  There are three computer hardware components that I think are really important with my website portfolio business.

When designing the website, the computers that we will be using should have a lot of RAM.  They will need to be able to handle a lot of programs running at once.  Graphics programs in particular can slow a computer’s performance down a great deal.  The more gigabytes of RAM on these computers, the better off we will be.

Another piece of hardware that the computers should include is a lot of hard drive space.  When designing the actual website layout, graphics software will most likely be utilized for the overall design.  I know from personal experience that graphics files can take up a lot of space on the hard drive. 

The last component of hardware that our computers will need is a really good graphics cards.  Like I said before, this is a very graphics intensive business so a high quality graphics card will be needed for our computers.