And the penny drops

Ching Ching, the sound of javascript clicking into place is wonderful. (but have you noticed its only small change falling, the more valuable dollar coins are still on the brain-shelf out of reach.)

I am looking forward to next term actually doing real hands on work and developing more presentable skills. Most of this term has been directed into printing reams of paper to read, file and promptly forget.

Happy Winter Holidays
Cheers

Image: 'The news said the pound is falling again'
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68134711@N00/2190737968

how annoying

Not Happy

I really want to open my own web design company next year with multi-nationals as my first clients, and so I need all the technical methodologies and methodological technics I can get my hands on.
NOT!

I really really wanted to know about HTML, CSS, JavaScripting hands on stuff. If I was home schooling, right now I would probably be learning how to build my page with tables, and using page frames. So class room teaching is good news. Document subjects are not.

Cheers anyway
Image: 'untitled'
www.flickr.com/photos/22491060@N00/175825372

Still Struggling

The despair of it all! I get things eventually, sometimes easy, sometimes I have to work at it.
But I am missing a synapse or two in my logic thinking while dealing with JavaScript.




I get it, I go away, and it all goes into a black hole, and I have to work at getting it again. Like a junk yard, I know I saw the thingymabobit just here a moment ago, where did it go?

image from FlickrCC "Black Hole 1603" http://www.flickr.com/photos/31358653@N00/207548891

May the Algorithms be with you

Sounds like a religious sect.

I'm an Algorist, and believe in the Algorithmic Trinity:
The Almighty Sequence , the Great Selection, and the Holy Repetition.
May the brackets obey you.

After 30 years of Maths, and yes I do use pythag's often enough to refute the teacher saying "as if we really need it in real life...." (Electrical maths is based on the power triangle and trig) I have to get out of thinking algebraically and get my head into the parsing phrases, and follow those loops! What-If-Else? huh? In Maths and stuff its always been If-Then.

Its going to be a struggle to shake of auto pilot.

Image: 'FSM 5206'
www.flickr.com/photos/18734838@N00/480996244

How Ordinary

Thanks Peter, Anybody reading this would think that I didn't have a life!

Firstly, I need more time! Working, Family, Dodging kangaroos, blah blah whine winge blah.

The complete course entails more than I expected, despite my first phone conversation when I enquired niavely if I could attend successfully just one day a week, and home school the rest, and I was assured by a "yeah". That was very cheeky of you!

I find that it is very challenging, the subject moves along quickly some days, but with all the resources available, any issues can be re-visited at home.

Your blog is exetremely useful as a reference to past links, and the fact that if I miss any classes I can brush up before next class.

And squeezed this one in last minute

G'day

I can't do assignments in class time, got to have coffee to do an assignment, and no Coffee allowed in class, ya know dat.

Very helpful lesson in css template from blueprint, It is something useful to play around with . Now that assignment 1 is committed to the server, I can look at fixing up this blogspot as it really is a fugly presentation to look at.

First priority is to catch up on sleep (really late nights tweaking pages)and give my eyes a rest as they are seeing the real world in pixelated 3D vision right now.

Happy Holidays Guys

Too Much, Too Late

Just when I think I am on top of my assignment, less then 2 weeks to go I may be able to fluff it enough, then you throw in a validation lesson!
Nasty fact learn't: just 'cause it worked in the browser doesn't mean it passes.

Now I got to work harder and scratch more hair while I continuously cut&paste/upload/check/@#%^*swear/change/deload/upload/change/cut&paste/
more@#*&^%#swearing/and do it again, over & over & over.

And Yes!! The complete satisfaction when the little blue icon is MINE at last!!!!
Ahhh, that makes it worth it...


Incidental note: Half hour of tutoring is worth 4 hours of equivalent reading, and as much as I would like to explore PMOG further, I ain't got the time right now, but perhaps in the holidays I could come back as something better than a stoat...

Back to Ground

Whoa, it can be very repetitive to pull out the ten things exercise and update it with new material after each lesson, but I suppose it really is the best way to learn.
I have noticed its becoming easier to fault find my css & html coded pages as now I can recognise some of the symptoms that reflect my mistakes and go straight(ish) to the problem, or maybe I could just be having a very good sight day.

The background detail definitely gives scope to improve presentation. I still have to hold back though, it is very hard to resist throwing in as much decorative stuff as possible just because I can. Tables are fun to tabulate, but a large table can be a pain to input information. I am sure there is a way to import from an excel sheet....I hope???? Gotta look that option up, sometime.

I thought that I had a huge amount of time when I first read the assignment specs, it's the end of March and now I am in alarm mode. One weekend left to work in! Where did the time go?

Incidental lesson: Don't sit near the KKK man (Klass Klown Kevin) if you feel like having a serious study day. Just joking Kevin, your good value for comic relief. Cheers & Happy Easter!

Now My Head Hurts.

Aha, every lesson a new trick or three, and another dose of panadol for the overloaded brain in the afternoon.

I find that the css is surprisingly limited in border styles. The basic 10 can be manipulated in several ways which give infinite varieties in colour, thickness ect, but ho yawn humbug.

One chore I have found very important is making sure that my files & folders are tidy. That means going home and doing housekeeping and re-organising directories, and deleting those annoying auto back-ups on editplus, which I can't troubleshoot to turn off properly. Hey did you know that edit-plus 3 is out?

Incidental Lesson: Refresh the code page before looking at the browser version otherwise you will spend an hour trying to sort a problem which does not exist anymore!

Interesting class but not interesting blog fodder.

And cheers to some more FTP'ing!

The day started out weird, my car was unreg'd in the morning, I forgot my phone which was next to my thermos of good plunger coffee, my biro had leaked everywhere in my bag, and I was feeling a bit of a loser because I couldn't ftp from home. This was a big sad event as I had spent a few hours trying from several different ftp clients.
Anyways, by the afternoon I had my car legalised, I forgot about my phone, the biro ink had dried, purchased some better coffee, and had ftp'd successfully.

At home, before Monday's class, I had tried Filezilla & Smart FTP Client, (2 others which I only spent a short amount of time on and deleted quickly). On Monday night I used FileZilla and had a fabulous time enjoying success with a glass of wine.

• The name of your ftp client Filezilla
  
• The URL you got it from Didn't look at the time....but on second glance: http://filezilla-project.org/
  
• any installation woes you encountered Very quick!
  
• some comments on its ease of use I found FileZilla easier than Core FTP or Smart FTP. FileZilla also proved itself to work so much better from my chair in the Tafe room than Core FTP. Filezilla also had a very basic interface which made it much easier to navigate around at a glance. Onya Zilla ! If you wanted computer jargon about how much mb's or Hz's or Rams ect, I can't tell you. I'm happy it works.
  
• $ Free for you and me...(Payment requested for business use).
• the platform(s) it works on Windows 2000, XP & Vista/ Linux / Mac OS 10.5 or newer.
  
• the install file size In properties, it said 1.62kb, but next line it said 4kb on disk. I assume 4kb is closer to the real deal. I looked for the size in the download site, but it didn't have that information where I could find it. Only spent a few minutes tho.

I think the xhtml'ing is very interesting. I like the progressive challenge of trying to present a better looking layout, but its a real effort to puzzle out the subtle mistakes that can cause such grief with the final look. On the bright side they say that Brain Strain keeps you from the brink of senility for longer.

I think its a case of each week going back over past stuff ('specially with the ten things project) and improving each entry with updated improvements, time permitting. I have read several blurbs about web designing, and have seen quite a few examples, where the web developer was very clever but put so much into the page, that the purpose of the site was totally overshadowed. I wont suffer from that mistake for a few years yet, there is still so too much to learn!

Biggest lesson for Monday: Don't you ever touch the external hard drive until the computer is turned off cause it makes the teacher go "tut tut tut!" and the computer sad.

Cheers till next week....

Another Day, Another Tag....

3rd Lesson.
I behaved and I listened to directions for the first half of the day, until I thought I could jump ahead and second guess the next few steps......WRONG! by then its really hard to back pedal and catch the gist again. (But I did in the end).
The html'ing is fun and low brain strain, the challenge is finding the omitted closing tag, or missing comma, to make the page work. I am reading ahead a little but not too much as spare time is very scarce.
Lessons are getting easier now that I can navigate around the system. Did you know that I spent the first day fretting because I could not find the "directory" until I realised its just another name for "folder"? I am learning much more about the background programs in windows XP in the last few weeks then I would have reading a book all year.
Are we supposed to comment about all classes? I haven't been to Tuesday yet, but Donna has given me some notes (thanks Donna!), I have not made contact yet with Denise. Wednesday morning is great fun, Photoshop sure beats paintbox! and Steve's class in the afternoon is heavy reading, a lot too legastic for fun, but wading through it anyway.
As this is a blog, and not an English lesson, I will apologise this once only for any made up words or misspelling that you may have encountered so far. If you are offended, continue visiting my blog at your own peril!!!.

Hello All

This will be an extremely steep learning curve as I navigate around this totally unfamiliar site.
Where is the "delete/back pedal" button ? And the "find how to do it" button?

1st lesson: lots of introductions to teacher, class members, some translations of computer codespeak into long hand English language and of course html tags and how to write a basic html page.
(also learnt: how you should not write on a computer board upscreen with white board markers!!!)

2nd lesson: extension of html coding, linking web pages and installing images, intro to uploading pages to web server.
homework Q: What is the difference between PASSIVE & ACTIVE re: ftp site managing?
Being as Brief as possible:
Passive means the client initiates both connections with server, hence the server remains passive.
Active: Client initiates connection on servers command port and server initiates connection from its data port.
Not sure yet what are the pros & cons or applications. I'm hoping Peter can elaborate in a simple manner......