Does anyone know good online Web Design course?

Hi all. My name is Robin. I'm an artist and I have been using Fireworks for a number of years, but not to it's fullest and wanted to learn more about using masking and filters and stuff like that. Unfortunately for me, I live in a very remote area with no schools close by. But I did find out the nearest community college, 50 miles away, offered some courses online so I signed-up. I took a full-load last semester, but the classes sucked. I made the Dean's list and still walked away feeling I'd hardly learned anything. The sad part is those were the only online classes I they offered. To take anything else I'd have to be there in person and that's not going to happen. Does anyone know of any online courses Web Design courses (that include e-commerce?)

Thanx ya'll,

R~

I am no expert but have you tried (Adobe press) or lynda.com they both have good material for learning Fireworks as well as other software.
I'm currently enrolled in an online college but I must tell you there is no such thing as an online college that has regional accreditation.

From my experience they are expensive and you can't transfer the credits to universities. But I am learning a lot.

Sincerely;
E

I want to learn e-commerce and [possibly] how to get ads on my sites. I've got to look into those lynda tutorials. I've seen them around for awhile.

The lynda ones are great. You could also go to Youtube and do a search for whatever you want to learn on whatever program it is (ie. do a search for "fireworks tutorials" or "adding ads to website using fireworks" or something similar). You'll find that there's a ton of free videos out there that show how to do just about anything with any program you're looking for.

Hi Stevealmighty~sorry for the delayed reply. I've been away (death in the family) I learned of quiet a few free tutorial sites from my community college course. However, I felt like if I am PAYING them to teach me then why should I have to go elsewhere to learn it. Grrrrrrrr....My problem is that I have an old version of Fireworks and I'm not sure if I can make it do what I want. In the new Fireworks program you can create a "master page" which automatically creates your link bar or icon's to each new page you create. You can basically create your entire site in it (Fireworks CS5) then you import it to Dreamweaver to ftp upload it to the net.

I hear those Lynda tutorials are pretty good. I assume I'm just going to have to bit the bullet and purchase the newer software. If you are a student you can get it for more than half-off retail ($450.00 from Journey.ed)

I hear ya...I'd see if you can't try to figure out a way to do it with the version you have now. More often then not, there's a way to "backdoor" things in older versions that are standard in newer versions. On the flip side, if you're planning on making money or doing web design professionally, then you should indeed "bite the bullet" and get the newer version. Of course, you could look to see if an older version will do the same thing that the newer one will do (see if you can't do the same thing in CS4 that you can do in CS5 with the auto linking thingy - it might save you a little cash to buy an older version that'll do the same thing as a newer version).

One last thing is that you might want to look into a package deal from Adobe. They bundle their software with a variety of other software so that you can get a few programs a lot cheaper than you can get one program. This works great because it auto installs the Adobe "dynamic link" which allows you to send your work from one program to another without having to save it, close it, reopen it in another program only to make a modification, save it, close it then open it in your first program yadda yadda yadda. While it may seem like it only saves you a few steps, it actually allows you to keep your history states (etc.) so that you can make changes to it with ease.

Hope this helps!

http://tutsplus.com/ has a nice series courses. I think it is something like $20/month to gain access to their courses, source files and ebooks. Take a look on their site to see what they offer.

THANX Jenesis. It always amazes me how much information there is out there ~ half the battle is just finding it! I recently purchased the Adobe Suite CS5 Premium edition. I've laid-out my web site and almost ready to export it over to Dreamweaver. THAT should be fun. I hear if I'm not careful it will be full of code-bloat. Just something else I'll have to learn about

Yeah tutsplus is a good option for online web Design related course. You may visit their site and can find what is the response from there side.

Hi there. Thanx for weighing in ryansmith1. I've pretty much given up on designing sites from scratch. I found the template site WIX.com is seriously easy to use and I can do most of the things I wanted to do to begin with only easier with their templates. I can drag to resize; change font color/size; change background color/wallpaper, etc. all without having to code a thing! However, it does help to at least have an idea of what goes on behind the scene's.

I looked at your Website Development link. It looks very nice. Can I ask what program(s) you design in?

Hi Robin!

I feel your pain - I live in the country 75 miles from the nearest Wal-Mart so needless to say I'm not anywhere near a place that'd offer classes, so I'm really confined to what I can find online.

 

I'm into web development & graphic design just as a hobby, not necessarily to make any money so I prefer free sources. These are my top three favorites that add stuff all the time:

 

http://abduzeedo.com/

 

http://psd.tutsplus.com

Has both free content and premium content. Click the dropdown next to the logo for other Tutsplus sites including illustrator, photography, web design, wordpress, game development and tons more!

 

http://w3schools.com

 

I also look to deviantART for tutorials, walkthroughs, and techniques.

 

Best of luck!
wayvdesigns.deviantart.com

Hey there KittiDS, thanx for the links! The web is so vast ~ I know the information is out there it's just finding it. I will certainly see what they have to offer.

 

Thanx again!

I want to learn e-commerce and [possibly] how to get ads on my sites. I've got to look into those lynda tutorials. I've seen them around for awhile.

The most important thing you need to know about e-commerce is "the more visitors you attract, the more you will sell!" Now, to get more visitors, you will need to tailor your content to enhance the details of the products you are trying to sell and if can you accomplish this successfully, you will realize a high search engine ranking for keywords and key-phrases that apply to your product line. Unfortunately, there is no magic bullet to be successful in this area and I would never believe those "I can guarantee you a top 10 Google ranking claims either." So, honestly and details relative to your product(s) is the best place to start. Now, as far as website building goes, the search engines really don't care what your site looks like as it exclusively relies on content to rank it. So, as far as advertising goes, if you are looking to run external ads (like from Google), they can be easily done and they offer a very simple tutorial on how to get involved. I speak from many years of experience in this area, and at one time, I had almost 300,000 web pages indexed and I was making a ton of money as an Amazon.com associate (1997 - 2005); however, the experts caught up with my tricks and the search engines got smarter and I was out of business by 2009. Just an FYI, that I was using a script to extract content and build my webpages automatically. Anyway, good luck.