Monday, June 27, 2005

The 4th Week

Today is a fun day! I gotta learn CSS in class. I was actually taught some from my previous work and was very lost at that time although few websites have been put up by me.

Tonight's CSS lecture reminded what I have learned, plus the new stuff. It is good that Sharon went through step by step how this CSS thing works. Now I have a better idea why I was done this and that with CSS. So far, this is the class that I enjoyed the most in the whole semester.

I am looking forward to take the Website Design II in Fall. Can't wait to be one of those from the CSS Zen Garden. Horray!

Monday, June 20, 2005

The 3rd week

This is my 3rd week of the class. I have read and practised the exercises through chapter 6 at this point.

Last weekend, I spent so much time to write a paper about academic dishonesty. After the doing some researh of cheating, collusion, plagerism and fabrication, I learned that most of schools had highly concerns about the students being dishonest in schools.

Today, Sharon has taught us something new. It was FIREWORKS! The program was very similar to Adobe Illustrator, but Macromedia version. This was my first time to use it. I drew a cutie cat that we will use in the future class.

Monday, June 13, 2005

My 2nd Week

This is the second week of the class. So far, so good! I enjoy it very much although the class is 3 hours long. There is a trick - if I work faster, I can go home earlier.

The class have gone through the Dreamweaver MX 2004 HOT book from chapter 1 to 4 as of today. The material has covered how to manage the site in Dreamweaver, upload files to the USB drive, local computer and the school server, insert images, link the navigation, create the hyperlinks, change color for the background and text, write meta tags and description, etc. I found that it is very useful to understand how a basic website is created from doing the exercises.

I am looking forward to learning more advanced skills to create my own website in the next few weeks.

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Blogger Exercise #1

1. What is the Internet?
Internet is tool to let people to communicate through the computer, cable or phone line without seeing in person. It is worldwide. People can use it anytime and anywhere as long as they have the connection.

2. What is the Web?
Web is a pool like another world, but digital, with different information, shops, things, users, etc. You can shop, talk, browse there.

3. What is design?
Design is to create or innovate something new. It can be subjective by different people's point of view, culture, genders, characters, background, etc.

4. What makes web design different from other types of design?
Web design is digital, dynamic, accessible anywhere, no printing, easy to edit & update, non-traditional, web-browser-publishing. It uses hex color, RGB and pixels, while print uses CMYK and inches.

5. What qualities must a web designer possess?
A web designer should have design sense, strong in color system, grid system, composition, etc. design skills, plus know or understand how to code a website, the usability of the website, and update the trend of web-related news.

6. What personality traits do you feel web designers must have?
Open-minded, challeging, creative, technical, organized, sensitive, etc.

7. What makes a good website?
A good website should have good color system, good composition, easy to navigate, user-friendly, dynamic, eye-catchy, good topics, search engine friendly, etc.

8. What makes a bad website?
A bad website design to me is boring, bad color usage, dated coding, broken links and images, poor layout, get the user lost.

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

My 1st Class

After several years working in print and website design business, I finally go back to school to further my study in website design and development at North Lake College in Irving, TX. I am very excited about it.

Sharon Huston, who is the instructor, seems to be very stricted on the homework, deadline, copyrights, rules, etc. I will try my best to remember all she has said in the class.

My first Website Design Class started on Monday 6/6 from 5pm to 8pm. I have learned to compose a very simple webpage for my dinner plan. However, starting from Wed, the class will end at around 9 to 10pm in the whole summer. Yes, 10pm, no kidding!!! I guess keyboard and mouse will be a good dinner choice from now on. Although the class last for 5 hours, and sound very long and intensive, I am looking forwarding to being able to create cool websites at the end of the summer.