Websites: Week 6

Urban Dirty:

Urban Dirty: http://urbandirty.com/

A free stock photography website for “slimy” and “gritty” and other textures.

The slimy black mold is not one I would want to use for my library website. We already have a mold problem. Eww.

What looks like a pizza that was dropped on the floor six months ago. . . no.

I liked the black “splat” on the cement wall, even though there was some organic matter visible there, too. I do like this one, though. I like the color and it’s not too upsetting.

I like this one, too.

I’m interested in the color schemes that are shown beneath each image. Apparently, you can use Adobe Swatch Exchange (ase) files in your illustrator program. I am attracted to many of these, but my website is geared toward rural youth. A few images would fit the bill.

Best Textures Flickr Group: These images make me want to grab my camera and go out in search of textures. I would love to have free time and the luxury to let myself and my mind wander. Some lovely stuff on there.

Torley Textures: The colors are fun. I liked few quite a bit. The realistic wood paneling made me laugh. I want to use that for my Teen Lounge page for my library site. It was funny, though: After spending some time there, I wanted to go back to the Urban Dirty site. The computer graphics became less appealing to me, while the realistic textures were more compelling. Of course, which you choose would depend on the theme of your web site.

Deviant Art Textures: I wasn’t as thrilled by this one; I’m not sure why. I thought I would be really excited by the paper textures, but they didn’t do that much for me. On the other hand, the abstract images really appealed to me, especially the ones that incorporated plants and natural colors. Again, I felt inspired to take my camera around the library.

Conflict: Looking at these images makes me want to do something a little less like a Hallmark card. If I were doing a website all about me, that would be a little easier, but I’m doing one for the young adults of the library. That means staying close to the image/brand of the library, which is definitely not edgy. I guess I have to think of the library as my client. Their image is clean and the logo is beachy. Our website is cartoonish. I wonder how I can design my site so that it reflects the feeling of Hastings and the community of its youth (definitely not “beachy”). Something to ponder. Hastings is definitely a more “down to earth,” by choice or otherwise, place. Our building, though charming in some ways, is old and crumbling. I like all the texture ideas I get from thinking of our old building, but I doubt our administration would be thrilled with the “peeled paint, rotted out window sash” look. Hmmm . . .

Texture King:

This site has a lot, including plastic, glass, and grunge. The more I look at these sites, the more I think that I would like to to the "peeled paint, rotted out window sash" look. What would be fun would be to take pictures of all these textures around the library and have the kids find them. I'm having very basic technical problems, certainly caused by user error. For example, I can't get my font consistent in this post. The thing that is really bugging me now is that Pamie told me how to get photos on here: Don't cut and paste. Instead, put picture on desktop and upload. I can't figure out how to upload!

Grunge Textures:
Even before I read anything on this site, but I was immediately struck by how much I liked the look of it. I like the warm oranges and yellows and the old paper look. I like the navigation bar: easy to locate and read. The whole layout and look is pleasing.

I find myself getting inspired again to go around our old library where there are surely plenty of interesting textures. My favorite so far: brick. Who knew that I could get inspired staring at brick walls? I was surprised that there were only five files on paper. Maybe paper is out of style right now. I also liked the "tombstone" and "other distressed surfaces."

Grunge Style (smashing magazine): Interesting background on The Letter website: A paper towel.

I like the darklight home page with its rolled ink and hand drawn elements. I really do like the Web 2.0 and grunge mixture. Web 2.o is too shiny and clean. Getting sick of it. I just wish I knew how to create these effects. I'm still trying to figure out the most basic style sheet. I need to go to special education for web design.

Photoshop Tutorials on creating web textures: I need to take a class on how to use Photoshop. That could be a whole semester!
The tutorials that appealed to me were how to make old paper and how to make a leaf background.

2007 Web Design Trends: I looked at this site yesterday and wrote about it, too, but I guess I didn't save because nothing I wrote is here today. This web trends page makes me feel like almost as soon as I learn how to do something, something new will come along to replace it. I guess the feeling is one of futility, but I should try to look at it as skill building.

Web 2.0 tutorials: All kinds of tutorials on how to do button, badges, and special (shiny) effects. I like the "dark" ones best. I guess I would describe them as dark backgrounds with some of the shiny stuff on top.

Screen Resolutions Worldwide: They say that a good rule of thumb is to go as low as possible (800 x 600 or even 640 x 480) for accessibility. However, sizes are becoming less uniform as technology progresses.
Highest screen resolutions worldwide are found and Scandinavia and Central Europe.
Average screen ratio (indicating wide screen): Wider ratios are found in Denmark, U.S., Belgium, and Italy.
Technically, this is interesting. For my purposes, creating a website for the youth of a small, rural, poor area, low is a good idea.

Progress: Figuring out my major malfunction

I think I'm figuring out what my major malfunction is with this class. Not only is all this stuff new to me, which causes anxiety in itself; the big problem is that I'm having difficulty with subject matter around which I am trying to build this page. I wanted to have this web design class apply to my work as a Young Adult Librarian so that I could get the most out it. The problem is, I am floundering in my work. I am trying to figure out how to get the teens to actually be part of the library and want to come to our programs.

Here is the difficulty I face. I work in a very poor, rural community. On the one hand, I have circumstances working in my favor, because the library is one of the few places kids can go. We are just about the only game in town. In fact, one of the problems we face is that the teens use the library as a club house. Currently, we hold what is called Teen Lounge every afternoon and on Saturdays. The kids play games on our Play Station 2 and an occasional board game. My problem is getting them to come in for anything else. I did have a successful photography project in July. Since then it has been pretty dry. (Interestingly, most of the participants in the program were not the library regulars.)

This is what I would like to have on my page if things could work as I envision:

One page devoted to Teen Lounge: There we could have pictures of people playing Madden '09, doing Dance Dance Revolution, and Guitar Hero. We could also show people playing Monopoly and snacking. We could show me putting in new furnishings to make it appeal to teens.

One page devoted to upcoming events. For the month of October, for example, I would highlight our bullying program and our program on sexual harassment. I would get some images from Allison Rose of her doing a presentation. I could solicit anonymous quotes from teen about what those two topics mean to them. Same with Safe Night Out program: get quotes from people who participated in past years. Pictures of the blank leaves that people will be putting their definitions on. Halloween: pictures from past years.

One page devoted to poetry: The kids from the Rec. Center are now using the library in the afternoons while their roof is being repaired. Once a week, a writer comes and work with them on poetry. They are planning to publish a book of their work using a grant. I believe it comes out in November. They already have a website. I would like the library to host an Open Mic event so that the kids could present their work. I would also like to put some of their work on our website and have a link to theirs.

One page devoted to kids' art. We already have plenty of photos from our Picture Hastings event. They came up with some great stuff. I would also like to solicit works that they've done on their own.

One page devoted to Teen Readers Advisory. Right now, we have no such thing. One girl expressed interest in participating in a book club. I need to contact her and see if she still wants to. My fear is that now that school has started, she is wrapped up in that. That brings me to my next point. One big hurdle I'm facing is making contact with the schools. I want to start with the English teachers first. So far, this has been a HUGE challenge. I don't hear back from media specialists I try to contact . . . Teachers are just so busy and harried. How do I make meaningful contact? Should I write personal letters? I want to make it a positive for them. How can I make their jobs easier? Do a database class on the Literature Resource Center or the Biography Resource Center? Ask the teachers to tell me what projects their students will be working on during the year and provide them with the resources the library has on those topics? Back on topic: We could use this page to talk about the book club and to post teen book reviews.

One page devoted to goings-on-around-town. Because this is such a tight-knit community, that might work well. For example, I am going to help out at the teen night that the Rec Center is putting on. I could take pictures of that. I could even start a teen corpse of reporters to cover such events.

Okay, I now have six pages. My big challenge is getting teens to participate enough to put material on those pages. That, I'll repeat, is what has been making this class cause so much anxiety for me. I haven't figured out how to do that.

BTY: links I want on my site: one to juice up the truth, and one to continuing ed. resources.

Action plan:

Talk to Terry about contacting one teacher at the high school. That may be the best way to get my foot in the door. Terry has done a lot of substituting, and she know someone who would be willing.

Put out the word that I'm starting a book club for teens. Call Madison first. Ask if she's still interested and what day is good for her. Maybe Saturdays? I'll provide snacks. Then call everyone (all 5) who participated in the summer reading program. Read that book on running YA book clubs.

Put out a "looking for art" sign. Tell Madison, too, as she has used the library to photograph her art. Make the art page relevant to the library by soliciting suggestions for art programs by teens.

Talk to Miss Kim on Tuesday about having the library host a poetry reading event.
Visit her kids' website on Monday.

In the meantime, I will put up dummy information and images until I get real ones.


Finally, I have a direction!

Chapter 9

I have been working on Chapter 9 for two hours this morning. I have gotten through 11 pages. On top of that, not all of my exercises are turning out correctly.

This is a new learning experience for me; I am usually not this uncomfortable, slow, or out of my element. I get more behind each week, which causes dread to creep up. I feel compelled to write about this so that I can try to assimilate this new experience into something I regard as positive. I'm the kind of person who still has dreams about not making it through a crucial class in high school, so this steady falling behind is a struggle. But what else can I do? I have to spend enough time to try to make sense of this. I was picking up little pieces of the puzzle as I went along, but now I'm wishing I could go back to the beginning of the book and start over. Then I would build a more complete picture. But how can I when it takes two hours to get through new material?

I have revisited chapter 6 in bits and pieces, but I think it would help me to read that whole thing again now. I think that is the compromise I will make. I will go back to Chapter 6, and then continue plodding along through Chapter 8.

Meanwhile, though I very much enjoy the Principles book, I am still in the middle of Chapter 1. I feel like my struggle with learning the rudiments of Creating Web Sites takes precedence right now. There will be more of a point to understanding the elements of design when I can actually apply them.

Starting Over . . . Again

Because my knowledge is so rudimentary and I don't have the big picture yet, I inadvertently cause big problems by making little mistakes. And because I don't want to get tangled up again, I would still prefer to scrap everything and start from scratch. As I gain confidence and knowledge, I will be better able to fix mistakes as I go on.

I messed up my home page that I had been working on in the KompoZer by replacing it with something I was practicing. Oops. Rather than try to redo that one page and reconnect it to my links, I threw everything out and started from scratch. I am also going back in the book to chapters that we were working on weeks ago and doing those again. It's helping to build the puzzle, but I really need the world to stand still for one week while I work on this.

Practicing with Chapter 8

There is still a jumble in my head. I'm going by the Creating Web Sites text now rather than the Kompzer tutorial. I created a table and a corresponding style sheet. At first I named the html part tablepractice.html and the css part tablepractice.css. I put them both in the public folder in SSH. By the way, I think I pointed to the style sheet by puting a link tag in the html part.

I deleted everything in the public folder so that I could see if this would look right on the website.
Well, it didn't. The style sheet properties weren't there. So, I thought, "Well, maybe you just have to name it index.html and index.css." I did that. It still didn't take. But in doing that, I accidentally got rid of the main page I had been working on, so I guess I have to start over.

I guess I want to know how I can do these little practice exercises with style sheets and see the results without messing with the website I'm working on. I'm under the impression that I can only test them by putting both the style sheet and the html sheet that points to it in the public folder in SSH.

There may be a very easy answer to this. I am exposing my struggle and lack of understanding, but, oh well.

Week 5

I am working through the KompoZer tutorial that I got off the web. I am going point by point with a fine tooth comb so that I don't end up in a confused mess like I did before. The tutorial is simplistic, made for the real "dummy" beginner. But that's what I am, so that's fine. I am going to tunnel through that while I continue to read the text.

Oh. The text. I think this text is wonderfully written. It is very understandable, with reminders of where to go to review. I think the book is perfect. However, I haven't been able to keep up. In order to really understand, I find that I am only able to do a chapter a week. Each week I fall a chapter behind and plow ahead, turning back when necessary.

While the KompoZer tutorial is for people who just want the site up, the text explains the mechanics and the best way to set things up on the code side. Probably many of the things I am doing blindly with the tutorial would be strongly advised against in the book. For example, the book teaches that external style sheets are the way to go, keeping your style rules separate and therefore easier to tinker with later if you want. In the tutorial everything is mashed together.

I think I will go through the tutorial, see what I come up with, and then start over building from the other side. Though I am not where I should be in the class, I am learning a lot. It's just very uncomfortable to be behind. I just have to keep putting in the hours, accept where I am, and be thankful that I am learning this. On to chapter 8 . . .

Week 4 sites

Could it really be week 4? I fall further and further behind every week. I am just going to try to get the most out of this class as I can (at my level). What else can I do?

Web Style Guide, 2nd Ed. - http://webstyleguide.com/index.html
I very clean, organized way of approaching web site construction. It addresses the functions of a whole team in building a site for a client. Things that I can take away:

Know your goals and mission - How will the site help that mission? ID two or three most important goals
Have a blueprint
Build an inventory for your content
What will your audience feel upon leaving your site?
How will you maintain it?

I am now on the site development process, but I have to go to work. More later. . .

I have decided that rather than make lists and copy everything I read, I am going to record here the things that stick out to me most. Here goes:

Construction of pages is one of the LAST parts of making a page.
Consider network bandwidth of your visitors. (I work in a poor, rural area.)
Statistics on user traffic?
Site editor must know the rules of protected material.

* up to information architecture

Universal Usability: http://universalusability.com/access_by_design/index.html
I am all over this bandwagon: making websites not only accessible for all, but usable by all (including those with cognitive and other challenges). One thing to do is to strike a balance between engaging and overwhelming the user. An example using a Netflix site points out the importance of simplicity. Of interest was the point that the site focused on services and content rather than branding and design. At this stage, I can't help but keep it simple, but this is still a good advice to keep in mind.

Use HTML. If you want more interactive stuff, make sure you use all accessibility features.
Make functions keyboard accessible. Actionable elements must follow a logical sequence in the code.
Adapt to the users environment, e.g. use pages that adapt to fill a user's window.
Use fallbacks
Use high contrast colors that will still be readable in variable conditions.
Use layouts that adapt to different window widths. (I don't know what this means yet).

Learning to Crawl (Again)

I've been trying to think of an appropriate analogy for my difficulties and this learning experience. I have used rat in a maze, but I'm starting to feel like Silly String, or something that keeps going back and forth, this way and that, does not know the beginning and is just running back and forth blind until everything is a big cluster f*** (pardon my French). If I were a baby learning to walk, I would have crawled just fine, gotten up on my feet, been wobbly (as is espected). . . But then I would have wandered out into the road and been run over and completely mangled. Forget learning to walk; my legs are mangled and in pieces.

What does that translate to? I have to scrap everything, and I mean everything, and start all over. I can't get my page up, when I can, I just get a white screen that says Idex of/ on the top, I can't get pictures to show up. The more I try to fix things, the more they go awry. I have spent countless hours, like a rat in a maze, and I have been on the verge of tears at least three times. I even fantasize about dropping this class.

Right now the server is down. I have an appointment to talk to Dr. S. today at twelve. I have wiped the slate clean and I am rebuilding. Here are some notes on my remedial progress:

1. Your public-html folder is your main directory folder. You must upload all of your files into this directory. (Duh.)

2. Index.html is the main file, not folder, file. That is the first file opened by your browser when you type in your web page address.

3. To stay organized: Create folders for different file types, e.g. folders for documents and images.

4. After creating website, connect to myweb.usf.edu using SSH.

5. Do not upload the folder containing your files. Instead, double click to view the files inside the folder. Do the same for the public_html folders on the right. Ignore any index.html in the public_html folder. It will be replaced with your new stuff.

6. Now visit your website.


I started over making the Shakespeare page that is part of the online tutorial for Kompozer. I did the simple exercise, but when I went to look at the web page, it wasn't there. Neither was my SSH allowing me to connect. I called Academic computing, and they said the server is down. Hence I am here venting and reveiwing.
3.

Lesson 4 Website Critiques

Web Style Guide, 2nd Ed. - http://webstyleguide.com/index.html
Keep this one for future reference. Easy to navigate with straightforward explanantions of the process of building and maintaining a page. It is informative to learn what building a site is like with a site team rather than by yourself. There are many practical considerations and things to do to keep everything on track. Such things include building an inventory of content, defining your content and scope, and meeting your user's needs through your site's organization. I wish I had all day everyday to work on this class because I really would like all the pieces flying around to come together and make sense as a whole. It's that darn full-time job that gets in the way.

Trying to Regroup

I've hit a major bump in the road. I am stuck and am needing to call for road-side assistance (that would be academic computing).

I cannot get my page to publish from composer. I had been able to get stuff on my page by using the drag-and-drop method in SSH. The graphic wasn't showing up, though, and still isn't. On top of that, the web page is now all white with a giant Index of / on the top.

I am trying to remain positive. It is very difficult. I have been over the USF tutorials multiple times, read the text, been over web tutorials on Kompozer. . .
I've tried starting from scratch.

I am trying to remain positive. It is difficult, for I feel like something must be wrong with me. My brain must be deficient in some way. I feel like a rat in a maze. I feel about a smart as a rat, too. Those poor rats. . .

I now am weeks behind in terms of what my webpage should look like. I will keep reading the text and going to the websites. I will do what I can do.

Notes: Chapter 5 and 6

Things that the novice needs to learn:

1. How do you adjust the size of your browser window? MacDonald says that your page should be usable in a window that's 640 X 480 pixels. It should look its best at 800 x 600. It should still look respectable at sizes above 800 x 600 as higher resolutions (1024 x 768, e.g.) are increasingly common.

2. The difference between structuring a document (arranging it into sections like headings, paragraphs, lists) and formatting a document (making the sections look different.)
Logical tags (structuring) describe kind of content: headings, paragraphs, ect. WHAT it is.
Physical tags (formatting): italics, underlining, etc. HOW it is.
Style sheets are used for formatting.

I'm doing the exercises in Chapter 5. Even though I do exactly what the book says, the things don't look right. I noticed that after I worked in the tag window, looked at the preveiw and went back, the tag window looked different. I don't know what's up with that, but I'm trying not to get too upset with it; maybe it's just something that Kompozer does.

I've hit some snags and they are very hard to overcome. Today is Monday, the start of a new week, and I am still on last week's reading of Chapter 6. I spent all day yesterday trying to fix what are probably minor things, like making my picture show up on my web page. I sent out an S.O.S. letter to Prof. S and Pamie because I did not understand what their instructions were. Chapter six is LONG and it seems to be taking me an inordinate amout of time to do these exercises. I need to become fluent in this stuff, though, so I'm going on with chapter 6 and hoping that I'll be able to catch up somehow. There are only so many hours in a day, and I have to work.

Chapter 6
CSS rules: selector {property: value}

Cascading refers to the way the browser decides which rules take precedence when you have multiple sets.
The steps at the bottom of this list overwrite those above:
1. Browser default
2. External style sheet
3. Internal style sheet (inside the head tag)
4. Inline style sheet ( inside HTML element)

External style sheets are best.

USF Web Guidelines

It looks like there are some things that you must include on your website if it is hosted by USF. Some things are common sense, others are not. These are:

1. A USF Logo, preferably on the upper left side of your banner, must be on every web page.

2. The logo must link back to the USF home page.

3. Every page must include a link to the USF home page.

4. Every web page must include contact information of the person who manages the site, including a phone number (really??) and email, preferably in the footer of all pages.

5. Users must be able to link from any sub page back to the home page.

6. They recommend that certain things be in the top right of your banner, e.g. a campus directory, but I think I'll skip that. It will start to look like the whole subject of my page is USF.

7. All pages must have meta information for keyword and description.

8. Every page must have author's name and email address in the head, whether meta or not.

9. Pictures must be the correct height and width specifications to allow for quick downloading. (I don't understand that yet.)

10. Make sure you use ALT tags.

11. I just love this part: Features and technologies that are browser specific can be used in a "sanitary fashion." Ha.

12. Frames are strongly discouraged. I don't know what a frame is yet.

Now I'm reading about how to use HTML meta tags. All USF web pages must have them for keywords and descriptions. See http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2167931#Example%201



Meta tags give you some degree of control as to how your webpage is described by search engines. Inserted into the head area of your page, they communicate information not on the page itself, such as what character set the browser should use.



New phrase: Reverse bar: At the very top of the screen it's the blue bar. This one has in it Blogger: Instructional Graphics - Create Post - Windows Internet Explorer. Whatever info you place in between the title tags will show up there. (Title tags are not meta tags.) The text you use in your title tag will be what shows up when crawlers show your listing. The text will also show up in bookmarks.



Back to meta tags:

http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">

Above is my practice using the meta description tag. (Oh, never mind. It won't let me show you.) Some crawlers will support this. Google will make up its own. Some people just make this tag the first few sentences of their body copy.

Most crawler ignore the meta keyword tag. However, if you use the word, e.g. see above, "teen lounge" in the meta keyword and in the body, your page might be boosted. Unfortunately, with a word like "storytime," the only way to boost the page for "story time" is to put both in the meta keyword and use both representations in the body as well. Sloppy looking. Anyway, don't obsess over the meta keyword tag. There is a BIG MAYBE as to whether using it will actually help your ranking.

A meta robots tag will ensure that your page is NOT indexed.

Lesson 3 Website Critique

ICANN - http://www.icann.org/
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.
A non-profit established to maintain stability and interoperability on the
Internet, it cooridinates unique Internet addresses around the world. It coordinates the DNS, the Domain Name System.
(I am learning a lot from this site. The language and presentation are easy for a novice like me to pick up.)

Things I am learning: Registrars are companies that compete with one and other for your domain name.

I like the Glossary of Internet Terminology. I can reference it when reading. For example, I quickly found that gTLD stands for generic top level domain. What does that mean? Examples are .com, .net, and .org. These can be registered without restriction. They were created, along with four others (.edu,.gov.,.int.,and .mil) in the 1980's. Seven more were added in 2001 and 2002. Some are sponsored, meaning they are regulated by the community of which they are a part, while the unsponsored
TLD's fall under the jurisdiction of ICANN. (I think I got that right.)

Anyway, just going through the glossary from a to z is good for learning new Internet vocab. It's also good for reinforcing the terms that you hear on a daily basis.

Internet Traffic Report - http://www.internettrafficreport.com/main.htm
Shows numerically the global flow of data and reliability of connections. If you are having trouble reaching sites, you can check the traffic report to see if it is a global or a local problem. The Global Index measures the response time of servers,
Internet traffic, in paticular round-trip travel time, is measured with a test called "ping." The router is like a traffic cop. Packet loss measures the reliability of a connection. Packets are sent along the router. If they don't all make it back, that is "packet loss."

You can look up various routers around the world and see their index. The closest one geographically is in Georgia. Is that where I'd look to see if I am having slow response time?

Yesterday the ISP that our library uses (Windstream) had a nationwide outage. Our internet was down all day. I'm thinking that this would not be something reflected at the ITR since this seems to be measuring routers.

Pew (non-profit research center) - http://pewresearch.org/
A "fact tank" that analyses trends in society through polling, news analysis, and other measurements. A couple of the projects that look interesting to me are the Pew Internet and American Life Project and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

Nielson Net Ratings (private research center) - http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/ I still need to go to this website. I am getting into a little trouble with falling behind because I'm hitting snags with trying to create my pages. More on that elsewhere in this blog. Let me find out where. . .

Shakespeare's Webpage

What a difference a day makes! I just re-did the first parts of the Kompozer tutorial and now that I have less time pressure, the result is ever so much better. I put the text, a quote from MacBeth, and did all of the exercises that I could before I started to get saturated. I found a color picture of Shakespeare and put that in and created links. If I do say so myself, the colors that I chose looked pretty good in the end. Another rudimentary attempt, but so much better than yesterday.

First Draft: I have a lot to learn

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This is what it looks like when you cut and paste the first draft of my web page to this blog. Unfortunately, it doesn't look that different at the site, either. Let me try to put a link in:

Oh, wait. That won't work, because my website will be constantly changing. Never mind. I will continue on with the on-line Kompozer tutorial.

AARRRGGGHHH!

Wc3 Website: In terms of design, I like this. While there is a lot of information, it is divided in a very organized way, not overwhelming at all. This is an example of with the title in the center and then the page is divided into 3 equidistant columns. The colors are mellow and go together nicely. I very much like the glossary of terms in the left column. It’s a nice place to start without feeling an avalanche of information.

W3 schools http://www.w3schools.com/default.asp: I am learning something as I Iook at these sites. One thing is that I don’t particularly like red on white. This site especially makes that clear, although my feeling may reflect more on my insecurity and mental state than anything else. Here’s why: Although the site looks easy to navigate, I feel sort of overwhelmed as I look, for example, down the left-hand column. There are several lists of tutorials, the titles of which are in red. Underneath each title it says, “Learn a, Learn b, Learn c, Learn d,” and so on. It makes me feel that I have so much to learn, and I do! In the very right had column, everything is red. Maybe red reminds me too much of the red pen in school. I find it unsettling. I will keep this site in mind, but I am getting along great with the texts right now, and I don’t want to get bogged down with the tackling the same, very-new-to-me information in a different format.

The Heather Dodge Webpage: This is a nice convergence of tutorials for those attending USF School of Information Science and for those using Blackboard. I learned everything a while back through trial and error.

Reading: I am getting along very well with Creating Web Sites. This is the kind of information that could through me into a panic because it is so alien to me; however, the presentation is perfect for me. I am understanding everything thoroughly and am actually enjoying it! I read chapters 3 and 4 on the way down to Tampa in the car, so I haven’t had any play time yet on the computer with the exercises. I am also very much enjoying the text that focuses on design. It just goes to show that the presentation is everything. It can alienate you or invite you in and make you feel glad to be there.

I just made the most God-awful first draft web page and it took me all day!!!!! It has a few badly placed items on it and I can’t figure out how to manipulate them. I have read the book thoroughly and have been spending hours at an on-line tutorial. What is wrong with me??? Am I going to have to drop this class?