Online courses all seem to share one flaw… To put it bluntly, they piss me off… Inconsistent information, outdated materials, poor explanation of key concepts, and, sometimes, patently incorrect information. But if I stop to think about it for a moment, it’s actually a feature.
I’ve taken advantage of a lot of online curriculum. I’ve been active at freeCodeCamp, Udemy, Udacity, Codecademy, Code School, Coursera, Khan Academy, and edX, just to name a few.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve typed a long, angry tirade about inconsistencies or impossible questions only to delete the whole thing as soon as I calm down. (Well, a few might have been submitted 😳)
It’s a problem, but it’s really a feature. If we coast through a course from beginning to end without ever needing another site, it might result in a smoother experience, but we wouldn’t learn much. It doesn’t matter how good the course is. We need other perspectives or more detailed information from multiple sources. More importantly, we need to learn how to find information without a guide. And, especially in IT, we need to be very good at sorting out conflicting information and correcting errors in code and documentation. Without these supporting skills, the learned skill can’t be effectively applied on the job.
There are many published opinions on the value of IT certifications when you’re looking for a job. If you do a web search, you’ll find ’em. They range from “it depends on the certification” to “they’re absolutely essential”. Well, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that certifications are nearly worthless.
Those who write about IT certification usually have something at stake. Either there’s a financial incentive or they want to emphasize their own expertise. The point is, you can’t trust ’em. I can’t really say I’m that much different… My Front End Certification from freeCodeCamp is the only "education" item I can list on my résumé. It’ would benefit me greatly to convince people that my certification is very valueable, but I guess my honesty is my downfall. In this digital age, that certificate alone isn’t even worth the paper it’s not printed on… And, wouldn’t you know it, I’m unemployed.
When you apply for a job, the employer’s only questions are "Can this person do the job?" and then "How well?". Education doesn’t even really matter, but, chances are, the first person to look at the stack of résumés isn’t going to be the technical manager, but a hiring manager. They might not be intimately familiar with the job you’re applying for, but they know the posted requirements… x degree, y years of experience, skills a, b, & c.
Since there’s been a lot of popular commentary downplaying the value of traditional education, your application won’t necessarily be deleted without the degree, but a degree holder (even in an unrelated field) will still be considered before anyone with only a certification… Someone with more experience will always be considered before someone with just a certification… Someone with demonstrated skills will always be considered before someone who picked up their skills earning a certification… Do you see the pattern? It is only when all other things are equal that a certification will be a benefit.
If your résumé does make it to the technical manager then the priorities are rearranged a bit. At this point, degree and certification are meaningless. It’s all about skills and the experience applying those skills. This is the critical stage, and this is where "it depends" comes in. Projects built while earning a certification can effectively demonstrate your skills, but not the certification itself.
And this is the moral of the story… A certification program can be a great tool for picking up new skills, but it’s only in the application of these skills that we become valuable to employers. If traditional education is an option, consider it carefully, but the rest of us need to focus on building our résumé, not collecting certifications, long before we start the application process. Even if you’re building projects to earn a certification, make ’em good because you may want to show them on your résumé some day.
I recently spent some time researching and testing free WordPress hosting services. My goal was to find information for people who have never had a website before. I’ve used 000webhost before, but I hadn’t checked out any other options in many years. I figured it was time to do a little comparison shopping. From this experience, I drew some interesting conclusions.
3 months: Paid hosting with a well-researched, reliable privider that provides the right features for your
I expected 000webhost to be worse…
The first time I used 000webhost was probably close to 10 years ago. I haven’t checked any other options for free PHP hosting in years. In that time, a lot has changed on the web and I expected a competitor to stand out by offering better features. Instead, I discovered that other hosts typically provide an antiquated cPanel management interface that feels slow and sluggish by comparison to today’s responsive single page applications. 000webhost has an easy to use interface that works and responds well.
I expected WordPress.com to be better…
WordPress.com should be the prime example of Automattic demonstrating their flagship product at its best. Instead, they’re presenting WordPress as if it was a Freemium commercial product instead of Open Source Software. With limitations on themes, no plugins, no direct monetization, a significantly altered administration interface, and too little information about their hosting service they do little to create a positive impression of either WordPress, the software, or WordPress.com as a hosting provider.
However, WordPress.com still offers the quickest and easiest path to a WordPress-powered site. Create an account then choose a subdomain name and your site is ready for you to use. If you’ve never had a website before, this is the best way.
Then what?
As I mentioned, this information is only for absolute beginners. If you’re serious about your website, you need paid hosting with a reliability guarantee and a support team. Define the needs of your site’s business model and target audience. Then you need to do research. There are many different types of hosting and thousands of competing hosts, all offering different services. You’ll need to consider page loading speed, storage space, server reliability, and many other factors. You can’t choose easily without some education and experience.
