Non-tangible Design

I enjoy a design interest that has no tangible result. There IS a result, but one cannot physically sense it with a finger touch. One can read it as you are doing now. It is website design and publishing,

My interest started way back at the beginning of the personal computer and World Wide Web (WWW.) internet days. I’d guess in the early to mid 1980’s as I don’t remember an exact date.

It had to be after I bought my original IBM PC and was doing real computer work, like text editing and data base creation,

I was writing the newsletter (the Voice Coil) for my Amateur Radio Club, The Mahoning Valley Amateur Radio Association, one of the oldest amateur radio clubs in the world, Founded in 1919!

I was club president and one of the other “computer nerd” hams challenged me to produce a “web site” for the club. In those days the source code was strictly Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML). 

From that point on, I have created and managed at least a hundred or more various sites. Probably not a huge number for a professional with staff. For me it is 95% hobby and a dozen or so professional business sites. 

I could probably write a book on all the experiences, but will not do that here. Just a mention that web site design has been a very long and enjoyable part of my design interests. 

Currently I have 48 domains and sub-domains active, with 17 registered root domains. Sub-domains share a registered “root” domain and don’t require further registration.

Today all my websites are published using CMS (Content Management Software) using a connected but separate data base. 

The original HTML only sites could be published with about 15 files or less. The CMS systems today easy have 10,000 files and 1,000 directories and sub-directories. (and a data-base)

A few popular “free” CMS systems are: WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. Follow the links for more information. There are many others. It’s a very large playground out there. There is a world of add-in tools and functional additions to the basic system with all these CMS.

I have purchased some commercial tools, but most of my activity is with “freeware” systems but even they need a rented server and paid domain name. Amazon Web Service (AWS) is one of my main support tools. 

So… I claim Website Design as one of my QuantumDesign interest. Not tangible so I can pick it up and examine in my hands. But still an intensive intangible DESIGN effort.