Creating Web Sites Chapter 8: Linking Pages

One of the easier things on creating my website was linking pages or adding links to my site. In my project, I did both options. I had a home page, dc, marvel, battle and contact. The last one as a link to my email address in case someone wanted to send me an email. The other links were internal and linked to each other. I made sure that the navigation bar was consistent from the right size, color and placement on the screen. I could have created links using images and not text. At the time of creating the project, I did not want to create a potential problem as I had a hard time with placement of images and text on the same page.

 

Creating Web Sites Chapter 7: Adding Graphics

The big news that I learned about adding graphics, which someone advise me on my blog, is how it needs to be up loaded to the server where the site is located. Yesterday, I had my website presentation. One of the things I discussed was the problem I had with the have the text and graphics being aligned properly. While I was able to use Dreamweaver to create and upload my website, it is not as easy to things around. If you haven’t seen my site, click here to visit my page.

 

ICANN Site Review

Let’s begin with what ICANN stands for: Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Their responsibility is to ensure that all addresses that we type in the address bar of our browser is unique. For example, you have the www.whitehouse.gov and www.whitehouse.com sites with the same name but they have two different addresses like 64.86.106.143 and  74.84.194.59 and they definitely have two different types of content. 

As I went on to read more about ICANN, at one one point, there was a listing of things ICANN does not do:

ICANN doesn’t control content on the Internet. It cannot stop spam and it doesn’t deal with access to the Internet. But through its coordination role of the Internet’s naming system, it does have an important impact on the expansion and evolution of the Internet.

It sounded as if ICANN should have been named ICANN’T. ICANN’T control content on the Internet, ICANN’T do this and ICANN’T do that and so forth.

I did start to wondered how many unique IP addresses ICANN had to deal since we have mobile phone, blackberries and other devices which can connect to the Internet. There are an article on their site, click here to read, which deals with this issue. IPv6 allows ICANN to assign more unique address than the previous IPv4.

IPv6 is the addressing protocol that increases the unique IP addresses from the 4 billion available in IPv4, to more than 340 trillion trillion trillion.

This is just a staggering amount of IP’s that one can even comprehend.

 

 

Creating Web Sites Chapter 6: Style Sheets

As you have read in the previous blog entries, I have finally started my webpage. Keeping that in mind, Chapter 6 deals with CSS or Casscading Style Sheet. But what does CSS mean to me?

From what I am reading and my understanding of CSS is a way to boost or a richer way to display your site. An analogy comes to mind as I am going through a drive-thru at McDonald’s. I place the order for the meal that I want and I get exactly what I ordered: burger, fries and a drink - this is HTML. Place the same order again but now CSS comes into play. When I pick up my meal at the window, it’s SUPERSIZE. It’s still the same burger, fries and drink but only better. If I am wrong, please tell me if my analogy is incorrect.

There are three types of CSS that I need to keep in mind when I apply them to my website:

1. External Style Sheet: As it is names, this file is kept separate from the HTML document
2. Internal Style Sheet: The file is embedded within the HTML document
3. Inline Style Sheet: This file is kept inside the HTML Tags

You may say the 2 and 3 are the same but there are not. Here’s another food analogy. 1. External – think of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with three slices of bread. The one in them middle separates the peanut butter from the jelly or the CSS from the HTML. 2.Internal - the peanut butter and jelly sandwich is made with two slice of bread. The peanut butter and jelly are put together and touching each other. 3. Inline – the last sandwich has the peanut butter and jelly all mixed up together. Here, you can’t tell where the jelly or peanut butter ends or begins.

Okay, I need to get me some fud.

 

 

DC Versus Marvel Website – Rough

This is what I was able to design using Dreamweaver today. Notice, there are no bells or whistles on the web page. I just wanted to see how this would look. I was able to do the preview in the browser but that is it. The next challenge is to have this upload to my USF site. I have the SSH Secure File Transfer Program and I was able to log in without any problems. I need to know what is the next step. Does each picture and text have to be uploaded separately or as one page? That is my next research dilemma.

 

Creating Web Sites Chapter 5: HTML Text Tags

I’m still treading through the material which for the past week has not been easy. My son had to be taken to the ER because some idiot at his daycare gave him a brownie which was bad bescause he is allergic to eggs. A few days later, I was struggling with a head cold. When I finally get down to reviewing this chapter, this picture summarizes my overall feeling. It’s clear on some points but fuzzy most of the places. I curse you HTML. I curse you.

Moving on, there was a good reference block of some general tidbits to keep in mind for my web design.

1. Split your text into small section - this part referred to how readers of web pages usually don’t like reading long paragraphs. Keep what you want to say short and to the point.
2. Create short pages – when creating your web page, if it takes more than two full screens to see it, break it up to a smaller page.
3. Divide your content into several pages – linking all the smaller pages will be something more than the content I will have to make sure it works properly. This will give the viewer the option to view the content in any order. REMEMBER THREE CLICK OR LESS TO GET TO THE INFO.
4. Put your moust important information in the first screenful – For those who read comics, the first page is referred as the SPLASH page which is usually a full page graphic to get the reader hook. The first web page screen has to invoke the same rush.
5. Proofread, proofread, proofread – this is sumthing dat I suk @ ’cause my thughts coom to quicklee b4 eye wright it dawn propurly.
6. Don’t go wild with formatting until you understand style sheet – I know this is referring to CSS Casscading Style Sheets but that all that I know.

 

 

 

W3C Site Review

Looking over the site for W3C at first glance, I am totally overwhelmed with the amount of data presented on the site. Basically, this is a consortium where their main goal is to develop web standards.

To lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing protocols and guidelines that ensure long-term growth for the Web.

First, I did not know such an organization even existed. However, this would make sense to have some type of standard practice or for some organization to help form consistent web protocols. If you take a step back and remember the war between Betamax and VHS. These were two different formats to record and watch recorded material. Each one had specific machine to play the tapes and could not be interchanged. Flash forward, we have the regular dvd, HD dvd and Blu-Ray dvd. Here is another, yet similiar battle, with Blu-Ray leading the pack as the new standard. This then begs the question, how will I be able to use this site as a resource? Markup Validation Service.

By going to this link: Markup Validation Service one can enter a web page to check its validity. Think of this service as a spell check like on a word processor program that check for any grammatical errors. A caveat needs to noted here, just because the site may check the page and finds no errors does not mean that the web page is a good page. Going back to the word processoring program, if I working on a paper, I could be free of gramatical errors but content of paper may be poor. This needs to be kept in mind when creating a web page.

 

Creating Web Sites Chapter 4: Power Tools

Dream Weaver… I believe you can get me through the night
Dream Weaver… I believe we can reach the morning light.

As I am struggling to understand HMLT editors, Dreamweaver falls under the catergory of WYSIWYG. For those who don’t know WYSIWYG stands for What You See Is What You Get which basically means that I can create a web page and layout the graphics the way that I want to with little no HTML. Once more, time is pressing down on me. In fact, I am working at my own library on my day off which is also my wife’s day off. The problem again is in having just the one computer. I have Dreamweaver installed but this limits me as to when I can have play around with some of my ideas.

I was thinking on how best to approach my problem. I did some quick research on Dreamweaver and found this support site. It’s called Dreamweaver FAQ.com which was easy enough to find. Below is a static web page which, once I create one, I can then apply it to the other pages I need to create. This will allow me to keep the web site page consistent throughout. The specific link to this tutorial was found here: Static Page

 

Creating Web Sites Chapter 3: Putting Your Page on the Web

From this chapter searching for the right name is the main issue that I am facing. Never mind the fact that I am really behind on my web project since I have only the one computer at home. (I am desperately waiting for the rebate check to come in and buy a new laptop.)

Putting this aside, when I first tried my hand at creating a web design, I also struggled to call this site something that was unique and original. Since I wanted to have a site with lots of information about scifi from books, tv, and other mediums, I know that this would be a huge site. Scifi had to be part of the name but not so different from other familiar names like the Scifi Channel. My nickname from my wife is Monster. The name sort of stuck with me ever since we’ve met 10+ years ago.  Oddly enough, I called my site, “The Monster Scifi Show.” There was a concern that people may have an idea that my site was about monsters. The monster part of the name, while it’s my nickname, was more in keeping with something huge and enourmous on the subject. The name fit nicely with the theme of what I was going with. Alas, the site wasn’t hugely popular due the time constraints to update the site on a more timely basis. Thank god for blogging which I was able to carry over my little franchise to a better format.

Now, for my project for class, DC vs Marvel. I went online to check on the name to see what results I would get. As you can see, I provided some links below. My concept, while not unique, much more different a standard bulletin board or database. I want to have some type of meger which includes some great artwork of each character or fight scene between the two groups. As, I flesh out my ideas, I’ll post them. C’mon stimulus check! 

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/allender/dcvsmarv.htm

http://newkadia.com/?Comics=1059

http://forums.superherohype.com/showthread.php?t=250341

http://en.marveldatabase.com/Marvel_Versus_DC

 

Creating Web Sites Chapter 17: Blogs

When it comes to blogs or blogging, I find this option much easier to maintain than a website. About two years ago, when I was working on my MBA/Marketing, I did a business plan where I included a website to help promote my podcast. While the site was nothing fancy, I wanted to have an ongoing variety of scifi topics. Blogging was my answer to gain a great attraction for my fan base.

In this chapter, I went to the site: www.andrewsullivan.com to check out the content. I noticed that he had a site meter icon on his blog because I also have the same meter on my blog as well. I clicked on the icon to see his stats. At the time of this blog, he had already received on 47,000 hits on his blog today. Before I started getting depressed by the numbers, I have to remember that one, he belongs to The Atlantic magazine and the online version of this periodical has a seperate section for Andrew’s blog. Two, the content on his blog is more political in nature than mine. (Although, I did find this entry on Star Trek: The Next Generation http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/05/sex-on-star-tre.html - closet trekkie?)       As you can see from my stats, I am nowhere near the amount of hits Andrew is getting and that’s okay. I have not been writing blogs for very long. In fact, mid July will be my 1 year anniversary of writing my Monster Scifi Show blog. When I first started out, I would be lucky if I had over 20 hits in one day and 100 in one month. Now I am close to averaging 1,500 visitors a day and nearing 200,000 hits since last July.

This chapter also goes on to mention using Blogger. This is not to say that I hate Blogger but for one of my other classes, I had to use this service. While I am more partial to using WordPress, Blogger does have some features that you can easily insert into your blog. The downside are the limited numbers of templates one can choose from. You can insert videos but only on the very bottom of the blog. I pefer to have the option to insert the video link into specific entries.

Towards the end of the chapter, there are a few good suggestions. The one that I’ve had the most success would be commenting on other people’s blog. I try to write something more that I like on someone’s entry. When they read what I wrote, more than likely they will come to read my blog. If I’m lucky and they really like the content, I might be added to a blogroll or a favorite listed on their blog. In addition, I would also pingback on some of their entries if I wanted my readers to go to the source of a great entry.