Great USA Web Development Magazine

Fiction? Yeah, fiction. How about some good stories….made up stories. Funny made up stories. Serious made up stories. Satirical fiction. Watch out Cervantes and Swift!

Yeah, something not true……but so true you wish it was true. I don’t know, some story about some web guy who gets mixed up with the mafia. Maybe a web gal who has to create a design for aliens from the Andromeda Galaxy. Something outside the box….the box….do we truly know what “the box” is? Is our outside the box really way deep inside the box for most of us? Nice to think otherwise, I suppose.

Haven’t even seen fiction  in .NET or Web Designer…..something to talk about….something to reflect upon….and something that makes us think: “I love my job.”

Wow…..the idealism is raising it’s head in a big way today…..maybe I should pull back a bit? Nahhhh…..enjoy the moment….reality will be back soon enough.

Cheers!

Hey! Good News! Found a magazine, a quarterly about web development…..in the USA. Actually, it’s about WordPress in particular and it’s called The WP Candy Quarterly. Received my first issue about a week ago. Read it cover to cover. Some good stuff.

It’s not ideal…..it’s strictly articles….no letters to the editor, no cartoons, no book reviews, not much about coding…..but the articles were good….and it’s in the USA and it’s about WordPress and I love WordPress.

So I’m really hoping The WP Candy Quarterly becomes wildly successful so it can be monthly and maybe expand to include a lot more: fencing, fighting…..true love even.

It’s a start.

Some good satire in a web magazine would be great. Let’s not take ourselves too seriously…or at least let’s not sound too serious. Let’s have some fun! Make me laugh……and satire can be serious and make you laugh at the same time.

Maybe it is a crappy design….but tell us it is in a way that  makes us laugh while seeing the truth behind what makes it a crappy design.

One of my favorite satirical comebacks has its origins with Samuel Johnson. When a woman complained to him that her fingernails were always getting dirty in London, he replied: “Perhaps, madam, you scratch yourself.”

Perhaps.

One of the best things about .NET and Web Designer is the information provided about trends, what’s new, where the internet and particularly web development is headed. I can thank these magazines for alerting me to:

• jQuery (& jQuery Mobile)
  jQuery has become a big part of my web development toolbox.
• Web Fonts
  Have started using this for a number of my clients….no doubt this will become a standard in future years.

I can also thank them for making me rethink my focus on things like:

• Usability
• The Mobile Web
• FLASH
• Accessibility
• Progressive Enhancement
• Relationships with Clients

That’s what I’d want in a great USA Web Development print magazine. I don’t have to research this stuff on my own. Once a month I find out what’s happening, what people are predicting….and who’s been wrong about they’ve predicted. I can code, program, bill, keep my clients happy and the editors and writers of this web magazine will do the rest.

Come quickly, USA Web Development Magazine.

Controversy is good. It’s fun. Particularly when we’re not involved. Outside looking in is sometimes better than inside freaking out.

That’s where letters to the editor come in. Watch the debate. Someone writes an opinion piece and a few of us, tell the rest us, what they thought about it. Excellent. A great Web Development Web magazine in the USA would print not just the glowing letters about all the great articles, but even the ones that criticized the magazine for missing a great point or putting out a sub par issue.

Bring it on!

I was able to start and make it in business based on one book that I read: PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites by Larry Ullman (2003 edition). Learning PHP and LAMP was recommended to me by a seasoned IT guy, so I went to Amazon, read the reviews and settled on this book. I built several of my own sites using Ullman’s techniques and when that first job finally came my way (and “finally” was well over a year), I was ready, or as ready as I could be, to do the job.

Book reviews in a Web Development magazine would be invaluable for both seasoned professionals and those just starting out. They could alert us to great books and steer us clear of bad ones.

Wouldn’t that be great? Maybe some New Yorker type cartoons that pertained to web developers and programmers? Good satiric ones. Maybe even a full-blown comic strip? You know something Dilbertish that I could photocopy (I wouldn’t want to cut it out for fear of ruining this awesome new USA Web Development magazine) and tape to my office wall for my own amusement and the amusement of a client or friend?

I’m laughing already.

My issue of Web Designer arrived today.  Can’t wait to read it.

Yup, can’t wait to see all those ads for hosting….in the U.K., all the references to British law and the internet and multiple references to London and web agencies.

In reality it is true: I can’t wait to read it….but I’d love to also be reading a USA Web Development magazine with a bunch of ads that pertained to me, sitting here in my Southern California home trying to make a living building and programming websites…….in the United States of America.

Yeah, that would be nice.

So Smashing Magazine, which isn’t a magazine at all, has this article entitled: “Print Magazines for Web Designers, Digital Artists, and Photographers”.  It lists two web development print magazines: .NET and Web Designer……that’s it. Nothing from the good ‘ol USA…..because…..there isn’t anything.

If there isn’t some new news soon, this blog is going to be VERY boring……unless I turn this into a reality blog…..a reality blog…hmmm…okay….4 arrogant web developers each have to build a tatoo website and in the process prove that they are ruthless, uncooperative and Lombardi-like in their ideas about winning. Tears, backstabbing, boobs and pecs should do the trick. Stay tuned………

Okay, this is depressing….it shouldn’t be, but it is. I put this website up about two weeks ago….quickly….slapped this baby together in a couple of hours. I go to Google today and search:

usa web magazine

I’m number 2 on page 1. Disgraceful! Right above Smashing Magazine which isn’t a magazine at all, but a website. It’s a website people, not a magazine. Somebody should tell them….it’s embarrassing….a little like Yahoo…..did they even think about that?

Anyway, nothing to report…..no new magazines. Nada. Got my .NET today…..love it!