I'm sure maybe one or two of you are waiting in baited breath for news on my first couple of days at my internship. Well wait no further. ;) I'm interning for this small marketing company that runs a few E-Commerce websites. The first day was sort of information overload day. I got the rundown of the business and I got an idea of some of the things they wanted me to accomplish. One of the main products that they are marketing an herbal pill called Maca which is touted to be an herbal version of Viagra. They also have a memory foam pillow out there.

The whole operation is pretty laid back, I can pretty much wander in and out any time I like, though I have to at least try to coincide my time with the main web design guy since he's the one dishing out the work which isn't tough because he's there every day in the workweek and he wanders in around 10 to 11 am. The owner of the operation formerly was a photographer for Playboy and now he's doing web based marketing which I found cool.

I've been given the keys to the office, which is pretty much a loft unit converted into an office space. The building itself is split between businesses and residents and it's about a 3-1/2 block walk from the train which is not so bad. I think I described the inside before, one huge space with a counter at the outer perimeter that serves as a desk for the computers. There's a small kitchen area and the living room has been set up with a backdrop for photography though I don't really think any type of photo shoots happen in there..

For the past couple of days I have been working on client-slide form validation using Java Script for the Maca site. In semi-laymen's terms I put in some code that loads with the web page in the browser to make sure required and valid information is filled in like email addresses and the like. If the user's input doesn't fall within specified parameters, a dialog message box will pop up saying that the information entered was incorrect or there was missing information. Some validation was already set up on the server side, but it seemed to increase the response time when submitting the form, so I added the client side script validation on top of that.

So now when someone submits a technical support request on that Maca site or adds their email to the mailing list, that person cannot proceed unless the required fields are filled in and a properly formatted email address is entered. I'd totally link to that site, but I don't want my employers seeing the links back to my diary in their server logs. =p I may post the links in my student website when I get a chance as a sort of online resume. I'm not sure if I can put some of these links on a paper resume though since the product is being touted as an "herbal Viagra". Seriously, there are references to "large erections", "satisfy your partner in bed" and "have a better sex life" the like all over the site. Oh god, this entry is probably going to wind up in some perverted Google search. =p

That's not the only stuff I will be doing however. I'm going to be involved of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). For small E-Commerce websites, Google is their lifeblood because almost everyone who surfs the net uses it to find stuff. The goal is to arrange information on a particular webpage so that Google's web crawlers (programs that automatically visit web pages and follow each and every link possible to help populate Google's search engine) can pick up the most relevant information and ultimately wind up high on Google's searches.

The "Holy Grail" of SEO is to reach the top of the first page in a Google web search. I of course know a little bit about this with my experience in coding this diary. Although diaryland itself is pretty well crawled by Google's web search spiders, I tweaked the meta tag code enough that when my username "liquid mojo" is searched on Google, the link to this diary shows up at the top. That only scratches the surface however, supposedly there is a TON of other stuff you can do to optimize a web page. Once I get the hang of this I may do some of this stuff on the side.

One of the other things I will be doing is helping to launch a porn site. Yeah, I know "herbal viagra" and now online pr0n. Grrrreeat... I'm going to have to get "creatively selective" when putting together my new resume after this internship, like "added form validation for an herbal supplement website" or "assisted in the launch of a multimedia entertainment website" =p

I'll probably have stellar professional references after this gig as well. I heard from the main technical guy that the last intern kind of complained that he didn't get to design his own web pages for the company. Like hello, you are an intern. Be happy you aren't making a ton of Xerox copies, Stapling TPS reports, fetching Starbucks for damn office yuppies and getting yelled at for getting the venti, half-caf, no-whip, soy-milk latte order all screwed up, when really it's the person(s) that ordered that kind of Nazi latte that's all whacked.

The really whacked part is that this guy didn't know HTML all that well, which is a good skill to pick up if you are going to be a fucking web designer. He probably built all his pages using a WYSIWYG program like FrontPage or DreamWeaver, which is all well and good, but man if you are going to do this for a living you got to at least know HTML. =p

But anyway, the last couple of days have been pretty exhausting as my brain which has been taking it easy since I got laid off early March suddenly got quite the workout. The good part is that this internship is an affirmation that I made finally the right choice in terms of finding a career I can enjoy. If I wind up getting paid doing this stuff, I would have found my calling. I definitely think this internship has provided me with the spark I need to get my ass in gear. I may ask for Friday off to start on my final projects and begin cramming for my final exams in 2 weeks. It's really getting down to the wire now, but I think if I jump on it this weekend things will be cool. Anyway gotta wrap things up and get ready for work.