Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates are some of the biggest names in the tech industry and they were also dropouts. Using them as examples, it’s been going around on the Internet that you can still make it big and earn billions even if you don’t have a college degree.

Is a degree actually that important in the world of tech?

(Image Source: udemy)

A year ago, Yahoo! CEO Scott Thompson was revealed to have lied about his degree in his resume. Instead of a degree in computer science and accounting, he didn’t actually do computer science in college. The fact that he was previously CTO and President for PayPal didn’t help. He resigned 10 days after the matter was revealed, citing "health issues".

The conclusion we can draw from this is, Yes, a degree is important… to head a company that you do not own.

Intelligence Gathering

Funny business aside, I decided to dig a little deeper and direct my attention to Web designers and developers instead. The Internet knows all, if you know where to find your answers. Mine took the traditional route: I emailed a few of our (Hongkiat.com) authors to ask for their opinions.

If you are at that crossroads in your life, wondering if you need a degree to have a good career in web design and development, read on.

Recommended Reading: 25 Useful Books For Web Designers And Developers

The baseline

Generally, to have a good career in web design and web development, you can never stop learning. At the end of your four years of torture in university, there is the tendency to think that "I’ve learned all there is to learn"… only to come out into the real world and realize, "I’ve been learning outdated technology!"

Actually "a lot of the languages (PHP, MySQL, jQuery, MongDB etc) can be learned without needing a college degree," writes Jake. Anything that has to do with building for the Web in terms of practical use cannot be tied down with a syllabus or taught to you by a teacher.

It’s not like medicine or law – human anatomy doesn’t change overnight, and technically, lawyers (or senators) make their own laws, and they seem to be taking their time. "This field is so big, and grows at such a rapid rate, [that] almost all universities get left behind," writes Victor.

The Curriculum

Web design and trends evolve through shorter shelf-lives due to tons of competition online but when it comes to universities, you may find that they don’t even "offer you what you want to learn about, just a combination of a few computer-related (on the surface) topics," writes Thoriq.

"When you DIY on your own education, you get to pick the niche and specialisations you see a future in," he adds. Nancy writes, "the Internet provides tons of information an any topic you need, so you can learn everything from home." Basically, you learn on your own time and your own dime.

(Image Source: JOX)

Note: And you have the web development industry to thank for that so please support your altruistic web designers / developers who share their codes and ideas with you without charge.

So you’re saying I can skip university?

Well, not quite. For starters, you would miss out on a lot of things. Not all universities are created equal but they all mold you to multitask, build social skills, provide you with great networking circles for future opportunities, and basically churning a more organized you.

To add to that, Alvaris writes, "university is just a place to master your self-learning ability". If you want to take the self-taught route, you need to know which direction you are aiming for, but the good thing about self-learning is "you can move at your own pace and study the things you really care to learn." (Jake)

Traditional, Degree-Loving Companies

If you are not content with just working online from home, preferring instead an office setting with colleagues and watercooler gossip, then you really should go for a degree. All the respondents brought this up, but Alvaris summarizes it (best) as follows, "although web design is very modern and tolerant, most companies that hire in-house web designers are still traditional, so they will request to see your academic certificate."

(Image Source: Jason McKee)

Learning is hard!

Another reason to go for a degree is that not all of us have the motivation to learn something on our own. "Some people are just not internally motivated to teach themselves because it is extremely challenging," writes Jake. In a structured education (although it may lag behind) we learn the basics, then the intermediary and the advanced materials, the current trends and what lies in the near future.

In self-learning you see no start or no end. It’s a beautiful, perfect mess of everything and nothing, and it’s up to ourselves to figure things out. The short of it, "It’s not for everyone." (Jake)

So should I or shouldn’t I get a degree?

It depends on what you want to do with the degree. If you want to dabble in the corporate world of design and development, you probably need that piece of paper (plus a ton of creativity). If you want to be your own boss (mostly because you cannot work for someone else – Alvaris) then having a graduation scroll may not be that helpful.

If you don’t like studying (let’s face it, no one likes studying – Kay), then remember that even self-learning is a form of study, if you will, "a skill almost every professional should develop" says Arfa. Plus, it’s also more cost-efficient (Thoriq, Jake, Alvaris, Victor, Kay) and you don’t waste time on topics that do little to help you advance in web design and development.

Of Debts and Degrees

For what it’s worth, some universities are still producing high-rank fliers who continue changing the world with what they do, but a good education is (ridiculously) expensive. See student debt in US breaching $1bil to get an idea.

Addison writes that most of her fellow graduates are heavily in debt with student loans, and probably will be for the rest of their lives. "The only real way out is to be entrepreneurial and take matters into their own hands, which shockingly few schools really teach you to do." Yet should. As a compulsory subject. And featuring technopreneurs if possible. Just an idea.

Conclusion

Having a degree is no shortcut to success (in fact, there isn’t really a shortcut of any sort to success – diploma mills be damned) but it serves as a yardstick of your capabilities.

Even Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates didn’t drop out from just any university, it was Harvard (how easy was it to get into Harvard?). And Steve Jobs never really fully dropped out of school (the fees were too much of a burden for his parents.) He still attended classes that interested him, a calligraphy course to be exact. If you love that beautiful font you see on your computer right now, that’s a result from Jobs‘ love of beautiful typography.

Note: Singyin thanks Nancy, Alvaris, Arfa, Kay, Thoriq, Victor, Jake, Addison for their feedback and insights on the topic at hand.

You have probably been told that staring at bright computer screens for a long period is bad for your eyes. You might reply that we have dark themed websites and the dark backgrounds are cutting down on the damage caused. Plus, dark themes can make anything look a whole lot cooler.

If you work on Dreamweaver a lot, you might like this particular tip we have for you. We found a way to change the HTML view on Adobe’s Dreamweaver into ‘night mode’, thanks to CS6Shortcuts.com.

This is a really cool trick for coders, designers or developers working on Dreamweaver. It works on Adobe Dreamweaver CS6, CS5.5, CS4, CS3 and on both Windows and Mac platforms. And if you don’t like it, it’s easily reversible.

Here’s how you set it up.

Changing Dreamweaver Coding Theme

First, you will have to download this Colors.xml file, the file that will change the colors of the HTML tags and its elements.

Replace Colors.xml file

With Dreamweaver closed, navigate to the folder where the Colors.xml file is.

For Windows XP:

OS hard drive > Documents and Settings > [yourusername] > Application Data > Adobe > Dreamweaver > Configuration > CodeColoring.

For Windows Vista:

OS hard drive > Users > [yourusername] > Application Data > Adobe > Dreamweaver > Configuration > CodeColoring.

For Windows 7 & 8:

OS hard drive > Users > [yourusername] > AppData > Roaming > Adobe > Dreamweaver > en_US > Configuration > CodeColoring.

For Mac:

[username] > Library > Application Support > Adobe > Dreamweaver > en_US > Configuration > CodeColoring.

Upon entering the CodeColoring folder, you’ll see a single Colors.xml file.

Rename the file to Colors_Original.xml. By doing this, you can keep the original file, for if you want to revert to default settings.

Move or Copy and Paste the Colors.xml file into the same folder.

Changing Background Color

With the light colored text settings inserted, you will have to change the default background color of the code window from white to black.

To do this, open Dreamweaver and press Ctrl + U to open the Preferences. Look for Code Coloring on the right panel and change the Default Background color setting to something dark.

A pure black background might not work so well because it will contrast with the white text too much, so a color like #2B2E46 works really well; you can experiment with other dark colors to find one that suits you best.

Revert To Default Settings

If you do not really like the change, the process is easily removed.

Remove the just inserted Colors.xml file. Then, rename the Colors_Original.xml file to just Colors.xml.

Then in Dreamweaver, press Ctrl + U to open up the Preferences, click on Code Coloring on the right panel and change the Default Background from black to the color white.

Icons are one of the many important components of a successful mobile application. The icon is the thing that distinguishes an app from anothers. Beautifully crafted and designed, it could attract users at first sight. We as developers and designers have the job to ensure that the icon, will be displayed well on the device. The best way to test it out is by displaying the icon on the device itself.

Recently, we stumbled on an App that can help you preview your icon directly on the iPhone and iPad. It’s called Ikonica, and it is available for both Mac and iOS in the App Store.

Recommended Reading: 38 Beautiful IOS App Icon Designs For Your Inspiration

Pairing Device

Assuming that you have installed the App both on your Mac and iPhone (or iPad). You will be given your unique 5-digit PIN to pair your Mac with your iPhone (or iPad).

Enter your PIN.

Preview Icon

To preview, drag-n-drop your icon to the Ikonica icon within the status bar. Make sure that the icon is a square (the width and height is at equal sizes).

If our Mac and iPhone are connected, the icon will instantly show up in the iPhone. As you can see in the following screenshot, the icon is displayed in three different sizes, and you can see how it is displayed in the (1) home screen, in an (2) icon group folder, and (3) within the menu.

Within the Setting menu, you can change the icon name, and change the background by swiping to the left or to the right. You can also pick a background from the Photo library.

Room for Improvements

Technically, Ikonica has filled the basic necessity of its purpose that is Testing/Previewing Icon. But, here are a few of my suggestions for improvement that I wish to be available in future versions.

Generate Icons. Hopefully this app can be used to increase productivity as well, rather than only for testing. If the app allows users to generate icons for iPhone and iPad, for retina and normal screen, this app would certainly be so much more powerful.

List of Uploaded Icons. I uploaded several icons, but I can’t figure out how to retrieve them. Perhaps, adding one more menu to show previously uploaded icons would be really useful to track how far we’ve gone.

No Glossy Finish. The icon is shown without the gloss effect. Technically, iOS lets us show icons with or without this effect. So, the ability to test and compare the icon under this effect will help the designers with their design decisions later on.

Final Thought

Without this app, we’d have to crop the icon into proper sizes, create a dummy page with apple-touch-icon link tag, upload it to a server, bookmark the page.

Using Ikonica, it’s a snap. Overall, Ikonica is a handy tool, particularly for icon designers to preview their icon design directly on the iPhone or iPad, which is useful for showing off the icon design to clients and peers.