Lesson 3

I just skimmed through Chapters 5 & 6 and they look pretty heavy duty and also look like they require some work, so I'll come back to that later. I actually did look at the websites for Lessons 3 and 4 last week, so I want to catch up on those first.

ICANN: I had no idea coordinating web page addresses was so complex. I am happy to see the process is fairly transparent. At least someone is looking out for the good of the Internet. As far as design, I find the design very pleasing. Interesting choice of colors, with the turquoise blue and then the other blues and grays. I do like the buttons at the top instead of on the left hand side. I also like the use of lots of blank space. There's a lot of information on the site, but it never feels cramped.

Internet Traffic Report: Very interesting! I found the FAQ most helpful. They actually answered my questions, which hardly ever happens. Simple, basic, easily comprehensible. I will have to check this the next time my Internet seems slow and see what's going on. The graphs are very appealing and helpful and it's nice to be able to look at the raw data.

Internet World Stats: Wow! A good site to know about; it may be helpful if I ever need statistics about Internet usage. It seems very basic, simple and clear -- always a good idea when dealing with statistics. I really like the graphs -- very helpful in conveying the statistics.

CAIDA: No strong opinions about this one. The material seems quite boring and it's a little hard to get past that. It's a little difficult to figure out what they really do. Again, I am surprised at how basic the website is for a bunch a people who are obviously very technologically advanced. Again, I note the use of lot of white space. The larger type is a plus also, when dealing with so many complex topics.

PEW: This is one of my favorite websites so far. Maybe because I just love what they do, but it seems to strike such a nice balance between information and aesthetics. Certainly, they have a ton of information to convey, but they don't cramp it all on the front page and they leave room for lots of white space. I love the typeface and am making a note to come back to this one The colors are pleasing and it's relaxing to look at everything. There's just enough color to brighten it up in spots, ut it's not ever overwhelming. There are many things I would like to emulate here, although I'm assuming it's a good design. I guess the readings will bear that out. I hope so, anyway, because otherwise it means I don't have the ability to tell good design from bad, or I'm fooled by bad design. I like how they have their archives divided into sections. Most archive sections are difficult to find and use, but this one is very usable. Lots of interesting things here. Whoever is responsible for putting this together certainly has a good editor's deft touch, both from a content as well as an aesthetic perspective. At least, that's my opinion right now.

Nielson: Right off the bat, I don't like those ads flashing at me. It makes me feel like the site is more commercial in nature. But obviously there's a lot of good information here and this would be a good site to explore when doing competitive analysis or while putting your own site together if attracting visitors is important. I'm struck with how popular the color blue seems to be on a lot of these websites.

USF Style Guidelines: Not bad. I've never been crazy about the dark green, but I like the rest of it. And again I'll note the use of lots of white space. I like the way they break the information up and highlight the paragraphs.

Lesson 2

Four weeks into the semester and I'm already 3 weeks behind with the blog.  Research Methods is kicking my butt; I had no idea the workload was so heavy in that class.  If I had deadlines for this class I would really be in bad shape.  Still, I don't want to fall too behind.  So, this is a weekend to catch up.  I still have no idea about what kind of website I want to design.  I'm torn between doing something personal, which would be a really valuable tool to show to prospective employers, most of whom seem to want some minimal level of website developing skills, and doing something a little more interesting (at least to me).  Maybe a hybrid kind of site where I can showcase my projects, but with several pages of something that is of more interest to me, such as something highlighting social software and how it is being used in libraries.  That should not be too overwhelmingly difficult.  

What's really frustrating me is I can't get my wireless Internet to work.  I've been in my new condo since January 1st and I just can't figure out what I'm doing wrong, especially since I've set up my wireless twice before.  Working in a chair tethered to the modum is not really the best environment for doing the work for this class.  I need to figure out what I'm doing wrong with the wireless before I can really move ahead comfortably here.  Anyway, I started this weekend by reviewing Chapters 1 and 2 in the Missing Manual book.  This was pretty much a refresher for me anyway, since I took Dianne Austin's class last semester.  Except that I never did get my links to hyperlink properly!  So I feel like I want to go back to the Portfolio Page I did and get that to work right.  Once I get caught up with the reading, I'll do that.

But anyway, as far as the reading is concerned, I found the part about View Source very enlightening.  As far as HTML is concerned, I'm wondering when it will feel natural to me.  I found Table 2-1  with the basic HTML tags VERY helpful.  I feel like I want to copy these pages and post them right next to where I'm sitting.  The Common Mistakes section was very helpful also.  I need to remember to refer back to this section if I have problems.

W3 Consortium:  For a website that states that it's leading the web to its full potential, it looks so "low-tech".  I'm kind of surprised.  I don't want to misjudge it.  Honestly, the content looks a bit over my head.  I'm not sure how I would use this website.

W3 Schools:  Wow.  Overwhelming with all the tutorials, but it looks like it might be helpful.  Once I start to really get into the website (and once I've caught up on the reading) I will come back here.

Since I already uploaded a Portfolio Page and some other files onto my USF website last semsester, Ch. 3 was a good refresher.   I found the commentary about web editors very interesting.  I've downloaded both Dreamweaver and Nvu.  Interestingly, my free trial of Dreamweaver took forever to download.  I had to do it about 3 times before it worked.  Nvu took about 15 seconds.  Is there a reason for this?  I found the process with Dreamweaver very frustrating.  I don't want to start off biased about Dreamweaver, especially since Dr. Simon likes it so much, but that kind of frustration can really bias one's view of something.  As I said before, I plan to experiment with both and then decide, which I will do as soon as I get caught up on blogging about the lessons.

Lesson 1

I just received the Principles of Beautiful Web Design a few days ago through Interlibrary Loan and got caught up on the reading, so now I need to catch up on my comments.  It looks like a beautiful book, almost "artsy".  It's nice to think there are people out there who are actually concerned with what their web pages look like -- there's so much bad design out there.  The website is equally beautiful and almost deceptively simplistic.  I like the colors and the way you get the arrows pointing to the different effects on the website when you roll your pointer over the words "layout", "color", "texture", "typography" and "imagery" in order to demonstrate how these terms translate with respect to a web page.  

As far as the Missing Manuals website, what a great idea!  It looks very basic, but I think that's helpful so that the user doesn't feel intimidated.  The content looks very helpful.  I will definitely have to come back to this as I get more into the actual work of creating the website.  Nvu I already looked at and spent a little time with a few days ago, just playing around.  So far I feel more comfortable with it than Dreamweaver, but I want to give both of them a real try before I decide which to stick with.  Kompozer and gimp did not really appeal to me.  I did not like their colors and there was really nothing to draw me in.  Once I've spent some time with Dreamweaver and Nvu, I will come back and look these websites and the software over again.  Right now, it's like asking me to correct the grammar in a foreign language I'm not familiar with!

The Smashing Magazine website was really overwhelming with so much stuff!  I wish I had all day to explore it.  Maybe I can spend more time with it while I'm on the desk at work.  It just seems like a really dense website -- although it all looks very helpful.  The fact that they have all their post in alphabetical order is very helpful.  It's hard to believe there are so many tutorials!  I feel so unknowledgeable!  I guess that's why I'm taking the class.

My comment about the 2 advanced.com website is:  Omy god!  It's absolutely fascinating, but I had a hard time figuring out what the purpose was.  It almost looked like a game.  It was really cool how the links opened, but it seems the real purpose was to impress clients who want a really technologically advanced website.  It certainly impressed me, although it took me awhile to figure out what the real purpose was.  

The famous website awards looks like it has a lot to look at.  I just spent about 15 minutes and I really could spend hours.  I will have to come back to this one also.  Similarly, I will have to come back to the Web Pages that Suck website.  Once I get a little further into my design -- actually, into thinking about my design at all, which I have not, I will have to come back here for a refresher about what not to do.  All, in all, a lot of websites to look at and so much information it feels quite overwhelming.

As far as the blogs are concerned, I tried out WordPress and thought I would like that one the best because so many of my favorite bloggers use it.  However, once I tried Blogger, I found I liked it much better.  I just found it much easier to use.  So here I am.  I really want to play around with changing designs, colors, etc. -- the look and feel of the blog, but I just haven't had that much time to play around lately.  I have to keep reminding myself that substance is more important right now.  Get the substance down, then I can play.  The substance needs to drive the aesthetics, not the other way around.  At least, this is true for me.  I'm also one of those people who doesn't usually know how they want something to look unless I see it first.  So I'll have to try out most of the options before I get a sense of what I like.  I looked at Zoho Writer also, just to see what it was.  It actually looks like much more of a blog.  I may come back and give the word processing option a try.  The NYT article was intriguing and certainly excellent praise.  But Blogger had me at hello.  It's hard to explain it.  

Experimenting with Nvu

Just for the heck of it, I downloaded Nvu.  It feels a little less complicated, so I'm going to play around with that for awhile and see if I prefer it to Dreamweaver.  Dr. Simon said he really likes Dreamweaver, and it does seem like it does absolutely everything, if I can just figure out how to use it.  Sometimes when you're just learning, it helps if the tool is really basic.  I don't know if I'm ready for the "bigtime" yet.  I'm really curious about the differences, so once I've spent some time with it, I'll have to write about that.  Am I avoiding catching up on blogging about the lesson?  Yes.  I guess that will have to wait until later this week.

Experimenting with web software

I just downloaded and tried out Dreamweaver.  Since the only software I've used before is SeaMonkey, it felt kind of like I was behind the dashboard of an expensive foreign car after being used to a very old Volkswagon.  It was actually kind of intimidating.  I did experiment with type and colors and just played around with it for a little bit.  It's going to take a lot more to get me comfortable with it.  I have no idea what kind of website I want to create, so I just need to keep playing around with it and hope it starts to feel more intuitive.  I did watch the first tutorial, and I thought that was really helpful.  I think I need to watch it again.

That was easy!

I have the feeling I may be doing this -- changing the templates -- alot until I get the right "feel".  But right now, I need to focus on content, otherwise I'll waste a lot of time.  I will note I actually tried Wordpress first.  So many bloggers seem to be using it.  Now that I've tried Blogger, I'm finding I actually like that better.  It seems easier to use.  I may continue to fool around a little big with Wordpress as I have time, just to compare them.  Right now, for me, Blogger seems to be really simple.

Playing around with the options is addictive!

I could be doing this all day until I come up with the most pleasing scheme.  I will definitely come back and do this later.  Now I'm trying the edit function, to see if I can come back and edit a post later in order to reword it, correct it or add to it.

Taking the first step is the hardest

Up until now, I've resisted doing a blog.  I'm not really sure why.  Maybe because everyone seems to be doing it?  I wonder if I really have anything that interesting to say that others would want to read.  But this is supposed to be for my benefit, and it certainly seems easier than keeping a journal as a Word document, which is what I did for my supervised fieldwork and Preparing Instructional Media.  So, I'm welcoming myself to blogging.

Now that I've tried this a few times, I've discovered it's painfully easy.  I think I'll try the saving option now.

Learning how to change settings

Somehow the big dots don't look at good on the actual blog as they did on the template.  This MUST be changed, and I will now figure out how to do it!