Well, I supose the value of creating an RSS feed is that when you add, or change, the content on a page, or site, the people who have subscribed to that page/site are informed of the change. If it's an article they are given the title, and a brief description of, or sometimes, the whole article. For my site I will be placeing an RSS feed on my Events page(s). This way my subscribers can know when new events come up, or when there are changes to existing events. It might even turn out to be a little reminder of upcoming events.
Microformats: About
This is the about page of the website Mr. Batchelder showed us. In my research this site kept coming up, so I put it here so you could see it too.
Video: Guide to Microformats
This a a video that explains a little about microformats.This was very useful to me, and I think it will be to you too.
Why microformats?
This is an article about microformats. Very informative, and a little funny too.
Microformat: 100 Articals
This is a blog that has a list of things to go and look at about microformats. There are some very good links here.
My Thoughts on Microformats
The purpose of these is still a bit fuzzy to me. I get that it is an easier way to give people information, but only if they know about it. Only a handful of people know about this stuff right now, and most of those people are the one's doing the coding. It looks like we are trying to make this the next big thing in web, but I think it's going to take some time to get the masses to use it on a regular bases. Even though I will be using it in my code, I more than likely wont use it in real life. Mostly because I wont expect it to be on other sites. But maybe that will change in the future.
Ok, so I have decided to stay with my original site plan, you know the campground, and save the zodiac for later.
Here are the five(5) sites I researched for my final.
1.) www.kuler.adobe.com
- I choose this site to help me find and create color schemes for my site.
- The most useful part of this site to me was the fact that I could create color schemes from my own photo's.
- I plan to use a color scheme that I created, or found here on my site.
- I choose this site to help me get ideas for layouts.
- I found it very useful to see some of the things you can do with css.
- I intend to implement the use of background images.
- I used this site to help get ideas as to what my park might offer.
- I plan on using this site to help me with my site content.
- I choose this site to get some layout, content, and color scheme ideas.
- I find that some of the layout ideas are interesting, and I might use some of it.
- I choose this site to get some layout, content, and color scheme ideas.
- I liked their use of photography on their home page.
- I plan on using some of their information in my web site.
Ok, so I've been doing some thinking, and I'm not sure if I want to continue with the campground site. I really like this new approach of having content first, and then designing around that. I have been playing around with the notion of creating a Chinese Zodiac site for a while. I have this awesome book with a lot of good information in it and I would like to take some of that information and put it on a web site. It would be great to be able to pull up this info anywhere without me actually having the book with me. Of course I might also use other sources too, and not just the book. I was wondering if this sounded like a good idea or not. Also I would need the teachers approval as will. So what do you say? Is it OK?
Understanding CSS Positioning
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Ok, so there are three articles here, but it is the first two that this blog response is for. I just put the third one up for those who want to know more.
The first one started out with a good refresher of what block and inline elements are. I haven't dealt with that stuff in a long time, so that was good. All the articles are have great links scattered throughout for more helpful information on particular topics, which was very nice. I really liked the fact that the author put in what Internet Explore has problems with, and I quite enjoyed the fixed position bit. Very funny. However, I still don't understand the authors explanation of the z-index. And to be quite honest I still don't quite understand the four different types of positioning and what there good for. I guess I might need to print this up and go through in more carefully, with a highlighter maybe. I found out in the second one that you can clear different ways, and that you can put a clear in the same div tag as the float. I will probably never use it that way, but it is good to know these things. I can't believe that tables were discussed. Especially in such a new blog, but I guess some people still want/need to know about them. I just skipped over that part myself. Hope you can get something out of these.
I have decided to do a web site about a camp site of my own creation. The name of the place in Gillenwater Campgrounds, and I plan on using lots of photography in it. The goal is to make people want to come to my campgrounds by showing, and telling them how awesome it is.
SEO Best Practices for Coding Your Website
Semantic markup and Semantic coding Guidelines for SEO
Well, here we are again. More articles to read and another blog to write. So here we go.
If you take a look at the articles liked above you will find some very good information on semantic coding. As a matter of fact the first article led me to the second article. In these articles I learned what semantic code was and what it's good for. Apparently I was already using semantic code and didn't even know it. That is just the way I was taught. I didn't know that putting your title in an h1 tag helped with SEO, but know I do. It's good to know why we do things. I also learned that putting your CSS and Javascript in external style sheets improves loading time and helps with SEO as well. I just thought it was a better way to organize all your code. And I do like good organization. There is also a very good list of semantic code elements in both articles. I hadn't even heard of most of these things before. I might just have to print out that list and try and use these things more. Well there you have it. Two good articles and some interesting things I learned from them.
(Hope this was the type of blog response the teacher was looking for.)
Still not entirely sure what the teacher wanted, but here are 2 interesting and helpful articles I found.
Ten Commandments of Web Design
A Design Process Revealed
(This is an article he had us read in the last class. If you haven't read this yet you should.)
This was a very interesting article, and one that we should have read in the first class. I would have liked to have know some of these things a bit earlier in my design career. Although I have learned most of these steps in previous classes, some of them are new to me. I have been introduced to Competitive Analysis before, but it was never really stressed as being a part of the design process before. I have never even heard of the Typography or Imagery steps before. They are both very interesting ideas for steps, and one's that I plan to try out for myself. His Composition stage is a bit different though. He is either combining the rough and color comp stage, or he just skipped over the rough completely. I really do like his idea about focusing on detail on the top first and then working your way down. I usually just do that by section. All in all I found this to be a very informative article about the design process.
In this entry I will be outlining the process I went through to get my six(6) design comps. I did it a little differently here than I than I usually do, but the outcome was the same.
1.) First, in class I drew 10 thumbnails for my Home and a secondary page. (five for each).
2.) Then we get in groups of four(4) and made comments and gave suggestions. I found this new part of my process very helpful and enlightening.
3.) Then I went to kuler.adobe.com and looked up, and created, some color schemes that might work for a camping site. I ended up with six(6) different color schemes to choose from.
4.) After that I went into illustrator and first created a rough wireframe for one of the home pages. I then chose which pictures to import and did so. Then I tested out some of the color schemes tell I found the right one for that layout. I also tested out different fonts till I found one that I liked. I also spent a lot of time with placement and aesthetics. After all was chosen and in place I created a secondary page with same scheme.
5.) I repeated step 4 two more times.
Here are the five(5) sites I researched for my final.
1.) www.kuler.adobe.com
- I choose this site to help me find and create color schemes for my site.
- The most useful part of this site to me was the fact that I could create color schemes from my own photo's.
- I plan to use a color scheme that I created here on my site.
- I choose this site to help me get ideas for layouts.
- I found it very useful to see some of the things you can do with css.
- I intend to implement the use of background images.
- I used this site to help get ideas as to what my park might offer.
- I plan on using this site to help me with my site content.
- I choose this site to get some layout, content, and color scheme ideas.
- I find that some of the layout ideas are interesting, and I might use some of it.
- I choose this site to get some layout, content, and color scheme ideas.
- I liked their use of photography on their home page.
- I plan on using some of their information in my web site.
Yeah, I agree that some of the applications at this point are limited, because Microformats aren't a widely known concept,... read more
on ISL Week 7: Microformats