Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Python programming

So I decided to get myself a basic understanding of Python. There seems to be tons of stuff you can do with it and I like how simple it it.

I'm doing some of the beginner tutorials at the Python website. The 1st and 4th tutorials are the ones I've mainly been looking at.

Monday, February 26, 2007

Finished Chapter 3 of HFHTML

It was mostly about block elements,inline elements and lists. Block elements skip a line before they are displayed. Some common block elements are paragraph (p) and blockquote.




Saturday, February 24, 2007

The two kinds of knowledge

The two kinds of knowledge are classical and current.

Classical is things that have to do with timeless principles. For example, integrity is on of those things that is important to know about.

A current form of knowledge is something that is modern.

If you were a computer programmer, classical knowledge would mean that you can make the program you want using a language. The current knowledge would require you to know a modern language, such as Python or Perl.

I'm adding Python to the mix

I've decided to learn Python too. I'm doing some of the beginner tutorials on python.org. It's been a sweet experience so far. I'm liking the syntax of the language and the philosophy behind the design is neat.

I'm adding it because I want to learn at least one real programming language in addition to the web stuff. I'm not sure yet how to make something that really does something in Python yet, but I know it's possible.

Stuff I'd like to make:
something that runs daily tasks

Friday, February 23, 2007

Finished Chapter 2: "Meeting the HT in HTML"

This chapter was all about pathing and making links. I learned that ".." means go up to the parent folder. Similarly, "../.." means to go up by 2 parent folders.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

1st Chapter of Head First HTML

I did the 1st chapter of Head First HTML today. It was nice and easy and actually quite fun. I made two pages as the book instructed: one for the "Starbuzz" drinks and another with the "Starbuzz" mission statement (Starbuzz is the name of a fake coffee place that needs a website).

Switching to "Head First HTML"

I'm going to abandon the CSS lessons on w3 so that I can instead learn from the book "Head First HTML". The book is about 500 pages and covers HTML, XHTML, and CSS. It is written in a style that is easy to understand for a beginner. I'm only on page 8, but I like it a lot so far. I'm thinking of writing a post or two for every chapter that I complete. The book is 15 chapters long, so it will take about 2-3 months to finish all of it. I'll aim to finish by May 21st.

If I go back to the w3 tutorials, my next lesson to do is: CSS Font Properties in the CSS tutorial.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Finished all the XHTML tutorials

I finished all the XHTML tutorials here: this is the summary of what I just finished.

Next is CSS, then probably some JavaScript.

Monday, February 19, 2007

I'm half way through the xhtml lessons

There wasn't much content in the first half of the xhtml lessons. The one I'm on now is about "DTD". So far, the main differences between html and xhtml seem to be that xhtml has strict rules like: close all tags, only user lower case letters, etc.

I also ordered two html books to aid my studies. One is called "Head First html" and the other is "html and xhtml pocket reference". Both are published by O'reilly, and I hear they make good textbooks. I'll be able to judge that for myself soon.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Finished all the html lessons on w3

Nice. xhtml is next, followed by css, then probably some dhtml and javascript.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

How to write more clearly

http://www.ai.uga.edu/mc/WriteThinkLearn_files/frame.htm

This is a nice power point lecture about how to write and think more clearly. One of the things I re-learned was to start paragraphs with a sentence that summarizes the paragraph and to do editing as the last step.

A typical writing strategy could be: write a draft, re-write, edit/format.

Finished all the beginner lessons

The last few lessons were all about colors and background. Now I'm on to the advanced html lessons, then xhtml. Nice!

Friday, February 16, 2007

Tables, Lists, Forms

I just did these 3 lessons. They were not very fun. Learning html is not the most fun thing, but I think making a website will be much more interesting. I'm want to read through all the beginner lessons to get an overview about the main html functions.

I'm thinking of creating a personal website for me, sort of like a personal portal for me. I'll have all my links there, some pictures, maybe a poem or two. That will be my first project. I just need to blaze through a few more html lessons. I also want to do the xhtml and css lessons.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Frames lesson

Frames are used to display multiple web locations in a single window. The navigation frame seems to be the most useful.

Here's the lesson I just finished. w3 frames lesson

html lesson on links

http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_links.asp

Just finished the lesson on links. I learned about anchors, which seem to be most useful for creating a table of contents or something similar.

I also learned how to link to a page and how to do a combined "link and open new window" link.

I don't quite get what the point of the name anchors is.

In summary, the tag "a" defines an anchor (link or a name).

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Just finished a html lesson about entities

I just did another lesson on w3. It was about "entities" in html. It was a pretty quick lesson that mostly just gave a bunch of examples of entities, which are things that you need to type in a shortcut or code to display in html (ie. something like a cent symbol, which isn't on a keyboard.

You write an entity by typing in either: &space or &#40 (& followed by a space or & followed by the number symbol (#) and a number).

That's it! Pretty straight forward.

Monday, February 12, 2007

What I'll use this blog for

I just decided I will use this blog for these things:

1. To help track my progress in learning web technologies (html, xhtml, xml)
2. To practice typing
3. To type random thoughts of the day when I feel like it

Today I did an html tutorial on w3. I did the formatting lesson, which showed different ways of formatting output (like how to use an address style format).

Quantum physics quiz

I just finished an on-line quiz for my quantum physics class. They are only fifteen minutes long, so I find them to be kind of stressful. Next I am going to work on my signals assignment, which is due tomorrow.

This blog is basically for me to ramble about anything I feel like. The title is "make something people want", but I'm not going to start focusing on that yet. First I'm just going to write about whatever I feel like, then eventually it will be more focused.

I'm working on getting a personal web page set-up, so I'll post the link when I'm done. In the meantime, I've posted links to NetLibrary.org and to paulgraham.com. Netlibrary is a service provided by my local library that allows me to view a collection of thousands of ebooks. Paul Graham's website has alot of essays that he wrote, many of which are related to the topic of how to start a start-up.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Firefox browser

I just downloaded Mozilla's Firefox browser. I like it so far. It makes me feel good to use it. Some of my posts my not have much of a point, that is because sometimes I am just practicing my typing. You see, my typing skills aren't great. I don't type in a formal style, so I am trying to learn now.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

WebKEW

WebKEW

This blog has a lot of great content on it about how to make money on the internet. It's written by Marshall Brain, the founder of www.howstuffworks.com.