IT/Librarian Youtube video

I thought this was cute so I wanted to share the video.
Here is the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWY8OBMlroI

Work in progress

Nothing is ever perfect the first time around, but I've gotten my website to the point where I'm satisfied. I know that I can continue to work on it over the summer and I bought a domain name from www.justhost.com. It was $40.00 for 2 years but I can keep my domain name forever. I just didn't want to go into all the experimental transfers while I know that everything takes longer on the web. For now I'll stick with http://alarrive.myweb.usf.edu it seems like a reliable server.
I hope the site is useful and user-friendly. I tried to include all the sites and tips that I found useful as I went through the program, it was good to reflect. My commentary for the site can be found in a previous posting. My summary of the work is to be patient and go slow. Sometimes when I rushed I would make silly mistakes, I liked to watch the youtube video from Tutvid on a constant pause, play and rewind.
I value my experience with making this site but wish we would have had a few more face to face classes of instruction, especially for CSS. The assigned book tells you what CSS is and why its valuable but it does not tell you how to make a CSS sheet. I heard the WC3 school is useful for some extra tutorials but I liked hearing the audio rather than switching back and fourth.
I know not everyone likes to use a CSS sheet but its a useful thing to know.
Dr. Simon, thanks for giving us a focus for every lesson.

Discussion Board Posting

Lesson 2- Planning a website
I thought the W3School was fairly straightforward but it was a little distracting with all the side panel facets. It was a little difficult not to get to distracted by the additional text on the page.
I liked how they broke the tutorials up into individual categories, it not only directed my search but also help me some some associated vocabulary terms in each list.
I also liked the list of references for html programming. These tags are interesting to know should I ever look at web design from a more advanced level. I will know what things mean when I look at a page source.

Lesson 3 - Creating a Publishing a Web page
The Pew Research site I found to be informative but overwhelming. On the Keytrends section of the database http://pewresearch.org/databank/keytrends/ a study is presented over the number of adults who have begun to go online in the U.S. It was amazing to see the numbers have jumped from a mere 20% in 1995 to 75% in 2008. It's only a matter of time before this number rises even more.

The Internet Traffic report was easy to read and very visual. It does not provide the same extent of information compared to some of the others like the Internet World Stats but it's a quick guide. I wish that it presented more information about the Middle East and Africa.

The Internet World Stats was easy to read and provided a good spectrum of information but should have used more side facets. The scrolling was a little bit excessive. However I did like the extra resources section at the bottom of the page.

Nielson was a bit difficult to navigate. There was a lot of information just like Pew but a little less overwhelming. When I went to places like measurement--> online, I expected to find more measurements but http://en-us.nielsen.com/main/measurement/online was frustrated that the site was leading me around a site maze.

Caida was distracting with all the blue links on the homepage. Too much small blue font to shuffle through for any kind of meaning. The online data statistics was difficult to find. I did not get far with the research, data, or tools tab.

Lesson 4- Elements of Design- Layout
As I was reading through the web style guide, I liked how Patrick Lynch mentioned the importance of a user-centered approach. He said that design tends to be measured in qualitative terms so there is no exactness to it but the designer should keep the users in mind. It is best to keep it in a way that is understandable and clear. So often, it seems that people get distracted by add-ons, this is not always the best approach. Sometimes it may be best to be simple.

Lesson 5- Elements of Design -Color
I've always tried to have an eye for color but I never thought about all the factors involved. This website really brought out all the scientific elements with the physics and the color wheel. With so many different color combination I liked the section about color contrast. The color contrast analyzer was sited as a helpful tool http://www.colorsontheweb.com/colorcontrast.asp which I liked and the explanations were even more helpful. I liked the advice of high contrast colors for text but the advice that green is hard to read on red, red is hard to read on blue and yellow is hard on blue. This website can help me as I select some of the best colors for my site.

Lesson 6- Elements of Design- Texture
I liked a lot of the website this week, they supplied many good ideas and downloads. The delay design had a good example of texture as its own background. It was nice that they put a solid color overlay over the middle of the frame for the text. I think this helped to calm down the busy-ness of the texture. I'm a little bit weary about textures for my site just because it can make or break a site. It really is going to take some time to pick out textures and appropriate colors to match.

Lesson 7- Elements of Design- Typography
I was scanning through a lot of the sites for week 7 and it made me think of word art. I really enjoy the presentations where font is varied to attract the attention of the viewer. In the same way, websites can affect the user who sees the different fonts. It is better to stick to a limited amount of fonts but good to make certain items stick out by using a certain kind of font.
Comic sans has always reminded me of a font an elementary teacher would use for announcements.
Typewritter font always seems like a detective type of font.
Cursive fonts usually remind me of fonts that are attached to something fancy, like a menu to a fancy restaurant.

For anyone who is interested in learning more about word art I've found this website:
www.wordle.net check it out for guidance on making word art.

Lesson 8- Elements of Design- Imagery
The Gimp freeware is a good thing to know, I've been avoiding the photoshop download because I don't want to slow up my computer, Ive resorted to paint.net and simple other paint programs but the gimp program will really be helpful as I continue my design especially for the banner. I had found some banner sites, but not really satisfied. I'll have to see if this works any better with the design aspect.

Lesson 9- Advanced Topics
I have already seen the video Dreamweaver tutorials that were released by Adobe. I think its helpful hearing instruction from the horses mouth. They have released similar videos for Flash. There is a trained Flash expert who leads through basic lessons. It can be a very helpful tool.

I also wanted to comment on the free web editors. These are helpful sites to know, but I wanted to know whether we should just steer toward Dreamweaver. I know that it is nice to list Dreamweaver skills on a professional resume but how useful is it to list these other editors?
I had been working with the school website as my domain name but I think I'm going to finally cave in and buy a domain from a host website. Once I do this I'll have a couple domains that I can play around with, so maybe I can play around with some of the free web editors in the future.

Lesson 10--Comic Relief
Comic Relief has been a constant theme for my blog, I viewed the ok/cancel site and plan to use an image for one of more recent postings. I think humor is an important element in any project and I've enjoyed looking through the various comic strips online.

Lesson 11- CSS Remix
I liked the CSS Remix site because it was direct and went straight to the point. If I liked the visuals of one site i could just click on the link and see the site and then look at the code. This is a good site for brainstorming design ideas. This will be helpful for future sites and I would recommend this site be used in earlier weeks. It was good for me to see the final product so that I could get an idea of how I wanted to design my own site.
When I designed my own site I looked at a youtube layout background that someone had used for their page. It used various shades of blue and I liked the look so I decided to incorporate the same look in my own site.

Lesson 12- Smart Webby
The smart webby link was helpful but I would share this earlier on in the semester. I think its helpful that it provides tutorials to dreamweaver and provides templates, I could definitely use this in the future. In class I said I used Tutvid and this really helped me, it's a similar site, I wished that I would have been exposed to tutvid even earlier, it helped ease my mind and provide me with a starting place.

Tah Dah

I can finally say that I'm satisfied with my website. Sure there are still some glitches to work out, but overall its functional and looks okay.
I got to this point through lots of late nights and tutorial watching. I found the Tutvid tutorials really helpful. These videos helped provide me with a guide to make a CSS page (http://www.youtube.com/user/tutvid?blend=1&ob=4#p/c/6AB99A9D9B942950/21/hBWiS6soZfs). Once I developed a functional CSS page with colors that were well-suited to my border (a blue theme). I was ready to start plugging in a lot of the information that I had previously started typing into word. I also had found a list of websites that I wanted to include.
CSS and Setup
So I attached the CSS sheet onto a new html sheet and got the advice from a tech guy that I needed to copy the code from my CSS index page into my new html in order to continue to the running theme.
I used the code that was between the tags and I pasted it into my new html and arranged the page in a way that was applicable to the information.
IMAGES
I found a lot of the pictures on a flickr account, they were old posters from a public library. Here is a link or you can type vintage library posters into flickr. I put many of these images into my image folder into my site root. From there I was free to insert images and drag them around or resize them within dreamweaver. Inserting a table was a really helpful way of arranging the text next to the image. The table shows up invisible unless the settings are changed.
LINKS
To link out to another site I highlighted the text and either went to insert--> hyperlink and pasted in the URL or I used the link option in the properties tab. Once my website was up I made sure these links worked. I chose to link out certain images like the banner and I tried to put in a CSS rule to get rid of the blue border around the image.
I played around with a lot of colors, it was difficult to set the CSS rule for the link color because light blue worked great on the blue side of the wrapper but not on the light colored right side.
FUGU
Once everything was saved and I had linked all the pages to each other through the navigation bar I decided to upload my page to the internet.
I entered ssh.myweb.usf.edu (though I had some frustration when I didn't remember that ssh was required and then I suddenly remembered).
I entered my net ID and then I was connected. Then I opened the public_html folder and I dragged my newly saved html pages, CSS, index and images all into the public folder.
The WEB
I went to http://alarrive.myweb.usf.edu and viewed my website. It wasn't perfect the apostrophes don't view well on the browser and the wrapper on some of the pages don't scroll all the way to the bottom but I know that I can continue to work on it. My next goal is to learn drop down with the navigation. I know there is another tutvid tutorial for this feature and I look forward to learning.
EDITING
I have been editing throughout the week, each time I edit I know that I have to reload my images onto Fugu. I've had to change my left side of the wrapper to a lighter blue so the links could be more visibly seen; to do this I just went into layout.css and changed the left wrapper color rule.
Editing Nightmare
Tonight I wanted to make some last minute changes before class and I went to view my page in the global view feature. The peach colored wrapper was completely gone! I don't know whether it was the preview feature or something that was deleted. I am holding back on uploading any changes for fear of a dramatic disaster right before class! Therefore I know that there are some things that still need editing, but I'm holding off for now. I can't risk such a big change after so much work. I'll have to try it again when I'm not in such a state of shock.
I hope you enjoy the site!

Gimp the banner

There is a great sense of accomplishment after creating a product that you like. After many hours of frustrating experimentation with Gimp, I would like to explain how to make a successful foggy looking banner.


Step 1 Create new and then select a color and choose the paint bucket option. I painted the layer blue but any color will work.
Step 2 Time to Render. Go to the Filter option I chose the render option of Clouds and then I selected fog. Choose the desired color of the foggy look and the level. You will have a foggy overlay on the blue background.
Step 3 Always remember to save and the undo button is your friend.
Step 4 With my new banner look I selected the text button under tools. It may be frustrating if you don't know how to change the size and font. No worries, look at the toolbox palette, under the color box option select the box that says text. This box will provide all the text options.
Step 4 After you've selected decide if you want to play around with any of the selection option. I moved the top layer ever so slightly to reveal the solid blue background in the corner.
Step 5 Merge the layers.
Step 6 I found a book image in a public domain, I opened the image in a separate box. From here, play around with the image- I chose the selection tool and inverted the image to select only the book pages.
Step 7 Under the image option scale down the image to the preferred size and then copy it and paste it onto the banner. Drag the image to the preferred location.
Step 8 Remember to save! Add to website's image folder and insert the banner into the CSS page.

Tutvid

In the past I've constantly been playing around with Dreamweaver, playing with colors, ideas, templates and then I tear it all down. I'm never satisfied with my set up. When I went to class last Wednesday I realized that I really should have had more to show, but the truth is I keep stalling.
I originally began with an idea about a Language pathfinder- I began to write up some text but then got tired of that idea and switched to an idea about LIS new students. Originally, I was just going to play with colors as I go along but I spoke to a friend about Cascading Style Sheets. She said they helped with her design and layout throughout her whole site.
I remember reading about these things in the book, which tells you what they are but not how to make one. Some of the websites that were provided through the course might help me a little further with this, but honestly I really enjoy video tutorials. I like seeing all the images on the screen.
I found this one website and tutorial called Tutvid http://www.tutvid.com/tutorials/dreamweaver/index.php These tutorials are all very clear and helpful.
Right now I'm finishing up the last bit of my content and this next week I will spend working on a solid design.
I have figured out how to make banners in Gimp but am still experimenting with all the color effects- I like the Render option.
There is still a long way to go but I'm more confident. I know that website construction is not that hard but its just so tedious and time consuming. I constantly walk away thinking if I start now I'll just get sucked in or I'll get frustrated when I can't figure out how to do something. However, I'm happy to say that the tutorials have calmed my nerves.

Caving in

After all my plans to post on my USF website address I have finally changed my mind. This website will eventually fade away, so I might as well purchase a site now so that I can advertise myself well on my resume.
I've considered a few and investigated the book's suggestions. Most of the book ideas were priced at $4.95/month with sites like Brinkster but cheaper reliable web hosting sites exist.
Here is a link by Web Hosting Geeks that list some of their recommendations. The Web Hosting Pad says that it is only $1.99/month but it only offers that rate for someone who buys in for 3 years. I'm tempted but still unsure. There are other sites that offer a year for around $3.50/month. I've included a few other sites with some reviews that have helped guide me to a decision.
b2 evolution
already hosting
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