Daily I scourer Dice, Monster, Door64, Career Builders, Austin Recruiter, the list just goes on and on. Between the economy and my current location in Windsor, CT I am finding it very difficult to be seriously considered for a position.

Any recommendations out there? How did you get your first full time Web Developer position?

So the website that I will be discussing over the next few weeks is a limo and hotel reservation service. As the client described it to me, it is Orbitz for limos and hotels only. The front end will include user accounts, hotel and limo listings, search capabilities, payment processing, “event planning”, detailed pages about the limo or hotel, and of course the typical business pages (about, contact, FAQ, etc). The backend administration will have its own user management that will allow the client to have vendors that can come to the site list their limos or hotels. From this backend site, a vendor will be able to view reservations, sales, and their inventory on the site.

This website is exciting for many reasons but specifically because it covers most aspects that could go into a website: database, data harvesting from that database, payment processing with SSL, backend administration, and front end design.

Before jumping into the coding and design, I always like to sit down with a pen and pad and layout the database structure as best I can along with the necessary “technologies”, specific functions, and any foreseeable hurdles. As usual, I will be using PHP along with MySQL to build the site. I am a big fan of AJAX and hope to incorporate it as much as possible. For the time being I will be using shared hosting for the site. As I usually do, if the website brings in high traffic I will move it to a separate hosting account.

The biggest hurdle I foresee is building the reservation system and database structure. The system will need to search through limos and hotels for availability and display that availability effectively.

The website is just getting underway and I will posting all my progress as we go. Please check back often for more technically orientated postings once I get into the guts of the site.