Metro Design

Web Site Development

Current Projects:

How not to design a site.

Gale.jpg After being injured on a job Gale Morgan left off being an electrician, went back to college, studied computers (CIS/IT), and now is a web developer (Metro Design) in Sacramento, California.

Among the sites that Gale has developed are a number of sites for different departments at American River Community College, the Industry Education Advisory Council, and the Sacramento Resident Advisory Board.

Gale has been active in the Sacramento Apostolic Faith since he moved to California in 1987. Five of kids that came on the church bus driven by Gale are now California electricians

Web Developers:
Web Developers are involved in every aspect of a website. They may have all of the skills required for a Web Designer, but those skills are not necessary in order for them to do their job. They have all of the skills necessary for a Webmaster, but have supplemented those skills with programming knowledge. A Web Developer has at least one programming language (such as C#.Net, VB.Net, or Perl) or scripting language (such as PHP or VBScript) that they prefer to work with, as well as some knowledge of database design and access. These skills are used to create complex custom websites with personalization and dynamic content which are facilitated by programs or scripts that run on the server and determine what content will be sent to the browser.
Web Developers tend to come in three varieties, front-end developers, back-end developers, and those rare few that excel at both. Front-End Developers generally focus on styling, usability, and accessibility provided by developing Markup, CSS, and JavaScript. Back-End Developers focus on functionality and extensibility provided by developing data models, the overall site functionality and structure, and application programming interfaces to both.
Most Web Developers have very solid logic skills and a solid grasp of the concepts that govern the entire field of work. Any artistic talent is ancillary to these skills. In short Web Developers make the website work.
Webmasters:
Webmasters are primarily concerned with the creation and maintenance of websites. Webmasters may have all of the skills required for a Web Designer, but those skills are not necessary in order for them to do their job. Webmasters can handle any or all of the following items: domain registration and maintenance, creation of HTML/JavaScript/CSS, building the folder structure of a website, creation and maintenance of content, adding/moving/removing of pages in the website, installation and configuration of a Content Management System (CMS), adding or removing of modules in a CMS, and the aggregation of website statistics from a log file. Most Webmasters have some artistic talent in addition to a solid grasp of the concepts that govern the whole process. In short, Webmasters make the website happen.
Web Designers:
Web Designers are primarily concerned with the visual appearance of a website. They can handle any or all of the following items: layout, graphics, fonts, colors, and/or menus. Most of this work is done in a graphics program of some sort, and the rest is typically done in some sort of WYSIWYG editor, although many know how to write their own HTML/CSS. The fruit of their labor is usually handed off to a Webmaster or Web Developer for inclusion in the final product. Most Web Designers are very artistically inclined. In short, Web Designers make the website look good.