It's been an interesting day of file building and image designing today! My front page is very basic right now. I'm trying to decide where I want to put things, but think I decided that I want to have the navigation bar on the left side of the page. Once I have some of the content decided I can build more sub-sub folders :o)
I tried uploading my files to the mlis server but got this error message (I'm using FileZilla)
Status:Resolving address of mlis.stkate.edu
Status:Connecting to 140.225.55.247:21...
Status:Connection attempt failed with "ECONNREFUSED - Connection refused by server".
Error:Could not connect to server
I'll try again tomorrow afternoon.
The articles for this week were interesting. Especially the one about terms & vocabulary that library patrons find confusing.
Also, the article that said you shouldn't have a link to the page you're already on because it might be confusing. I think I've seen this on sites before, though. Ones that have a banner at the top of the page with a link to the homepage even when you are on the homepage. I don't think that's confusing, but maybe that's just me. It IS nice to know what page I'm on, though, and having tools like breadcrumbs (page>>subpage>>anotherpage) can be very helpful.
Major challenges this week...none, really. (except maybe uploading my files if I keep getting that error message!) Putting together what I have on the pages so far was fairly easy, though I have to admit I was excited when my external link opened in a new tab :o) That's one code I'd never used before. I like that the text book lays it out so you can just copy the code into your own file.
Not sure if I can call this an "ah-ha" moment but I'm starting to understand when to use the "../file" element. Most of my files are in sub-folders of sub-folders so I had to use this a few times. Trial and error! :o)
As a note: I may be late for class this week. One of my favorite authors is doing a signing in Stillwater at 5pm. I'm going to try to be there early, get my books signed, and go. But, I don't know how traffic coming out of Stillwater will be at rush hour...
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Learning Blog 3 note
One more thing:
I used the "list tag," but it wouldn't let me use the "ordered list" or "unordered list" tags. Must be a Blogger thing.
I used the "list tag," but it wouldn't let me use the "ordered list" or "unordered list" tags. Must be a Blogger thing.
Learning Blog 3
It's been a busy, busy week! Lots of school work and such. But, I did manage to spend time planning my website project.
The articles about information architecture were very interesting and helpful with my planning document. In the past when I created websites, I never really planned in advance. I had a basic idea and built from there with whatever came to mind! I understand now that a lot of planning goes into creating a successful, professional website that meets its users' needs:
And lots and lots of other things to think about and plan before diving in!
I think my major challenge this week was time management! Fortunately, I managed to get everything done in time and I like my planning document (I think I included all the necessary pieces for the plan...>
Some of my "aha!" moments of the week came from the textbook: discovering what FTP means and does. Also, the destination anchors. I've seen the # used before and knew it meant to take you to a specific place on one page but didn't know what it was called or how it was done. Very interesting!(and helpful for some of those websites with lots of text/sections on a single page. It's nice to "jump" to certain areas without having to scroll down the page, searching.)
One thing I'm curious about is the "_blank" target attribute. Wonder if that is for opening new tabs or just opening a new, full window. I like having links open in a new tab. Haven't had time to experiment with this yet, but I will and I guess I'll see what happens!
I'm super excited about my website! I think it will be a lot of fun to put together the content and experiment with all the new HTML codes I'm learning.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Learning Blog 2--part 3
A couple things I learned while building my "Head First Lounge" page examples:
-It helps to have different folders and files saved to the same place :o) In my case, to my flash drive. (this was also one of my "ah-ha!" moments.
-I didn't know about "../" to return to another folder (to go back and "up" a folder). But, I'm still trying to understand why it's necessary? If I want to "Return to Lounge" from the Directions page, why couldn't I just use "<a href="lounge.html">" instead of "<a href="../lounge.html">" ??
-It helps to have different folders and files saved to the same place :o) In my case, to my flash drive. (this was also one of my "ah-ha!" moments.
-I didn't know about "../" to return to another folder (to go back and "up" a folder). But, I'm still trying to understand why it's necessary? If I want to "Return to Lounge" from the Directions page, why couldn't I just use "<a href="lounge.html">" instead of "<a href="../lounge.html">" ??
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Learning Blog 2--part 2
Success!
What I did was create a Head First Lounge folder (on my flash drive) and lounge.html & elixers.html files with the HTML code given in the textbook. Instead of trying to download the images from the Head First website, I used one of my own cocktail images (moved from My Pictures in the Head First Lounge folder). The most difficult part of this was creating the folders and making sure the files were in the right folder. But it all worked! The image shows up, the link to the elixers page works, so I'm feeling good about this :o)
That being said...I'm doing all this at home on a PC. But, I think everything will transfer in one way or another onto the Mac at school.
What I did was create a Head First Lounge folder (on my flash drive) and lounge.html & elixers.html files with the HTML code given in the textbook. Instead of trying to download the images from the Head First website, I used one of my own cocktail images (moved from My Pictures in the Head First Lounge folder). The most difficult part of this was creating the folders and making sure the files were in the right folder. But it all worked! The image shows up, the link to the elixers page works, so I'm feeling good about this :o)
That being said...I'm doing all this at home on a PC. But, I think everything will transfer in one way or another onto the Mac at school.
Learning Blog 2--part 1
So, I'm trying to do the example given in chapter 2 of the text book and it tells me to download the lounge.html source files from the Head First website. When I click on the Chapter 2 code link, it wants to download a zip file...then tells me "Please purchase WinRAR license". Umm...really? I understand <a> element coding so I think I'm going to skip purchasing the WinRAR license... I'll ask about this in class tomorrow. For now, I'll play around with creating my own lounge.html page in Notepad.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Learning Blog 1
So this is my introductory blog, giving you a little info about me:
I'm a second semester MLIS student, focusing on youth services in public libraries. Although...I'm sure I'll end up being some sort of reference librarian because I'm obsessed with finding answers to random questions... I never realized how often people ask reference-type questions until I took the reference class this summer. On Twitter, on Facebook, from family members...It's not that people specifically ask me the question but I feel the need to at least try to find the answer.
Anyway...I'm still thinking about website ideas. I'll probably make the page by myself (as opposed to working with a group), somehow combining my interest in teen services (homework help and readers advisory) and reference. Suggestions are welcome! :)
Like I mentioned in class, I do have a little experience creating HTML websites (VERY basic ones...). I think I've made 4 or 5, but I couldn't tell you the addresses, though they probably all still exist somewhere in cyberspace. They were just for fun. All made before I turned 25, if that tells you anything :)
Since I'm a writer (unpublished, but revising my second novel for agent submissions later this month) I want to have more sophisticated web design skills so I can build a personal website. Having a web presence is so important for authors and a professional-looking website says a lot!
Can't wait to learn more and am excited to start experimenting!
I'm a second semester MLIS student, focusing on youth services in public libraries. Although...I'm sure I'll end up being some sort of reference librarian because I'm obsessed with finding answers to random questions... I never realized how often people ask reference-type questions until I took the reference class this summer. On Twitter, on Facebook, from family members...It's not that people specifically ask me the question but I feel the need to at least try to find the answer.
Anyway...I'm still thinking about website ideas. I'll probably make the page by myself (as opposed to working with a group), somehow combining my interest in teen services (homework help and readers advisory) and reference. Suggestions are welcome! :)
Like I mentioned in class, I do have a little experience creating HTML websites (VERY basic ones...). I think I've made 4 or 5, but I couldn't tell you the addresses, though they probably all still exist somewhere in cyberspace. They were just for fun. All made before I turned 25, if that tells you anything :)
Since I'm a writer (unpublished, but revising my second novel for agent submissions later this month) I want to have more sophisticated web design skills so I can build a personal website. Having a web presence is so important for authors and a professional-looking website says a lot!
Can't wait to learn more and am excited to start experimenting!
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