Exercise 2 : HTML 101

HTML 101
Group:
Evin Lachance
Navdeep Sahota
Meerie Park
Scott McAllister

To create a webpage, all you need is any text editor, such as Notepad, TextEdit, Smultron, or Dreamweaver and you need to save it as an html filetype so that it can be identified as a webpage. HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and is a markup language.

The basics of starting a webpage:
HTML uses a series of tags to describe webpages. The tags are keywords surrounded by angle brackets like . They come in pairs like:

and

; the first tag indicates an opening tag and the second tag is the closing tag.
Here is a very basic HTML document.

My First Heading

My first paragraph.

You always start the entire coding by using and end it with , this identifies it as a webpage. The tag allows you to add information that is NOT going to be shown on the webpage but it contains information such as title, keywords and css style codes. The tag body allows you to add content to the webpage.

Useful Site: http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp

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The CSS Layout – Group: Evin, Kyle, & Navdeep

Here is a link to the CSS layout on my website – http://imagearts.ryerson.ca/elachance/Courses/Group_Project/CSS_Layout.html

Here is the link to the slideshare presentation on how to do it – http://www.slideshare.net/kylleses/css-lay-out

THANKS!!

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The Last Digital Step (step 4)…

My digital foot. That right there confused me so much at the beginning of this process. What actually is it? How come I never thought of it before? Pre-assignment I had never realized that what I put on the internet can be accessed by anyone that is looking. From my Facebook, to my Twitter, to the site I made in grade 10, everything is up for the world to see by just a click of the mouse.

In step one of this assignment, we were asked to search for our name on different search engines to gather data on our digital foot print and what they says about us.

Here is the actual post that I created in response: https://evinlachance.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/digital-footprint/

To just some up the post I began by entering my name in Google, 123people, and Pipl. Then from that I got a sense of who I am on the internet. From what I learned about my footprint, was that my footprint was made mostly of leisure actions preformed on the web (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace), and on occasion an article would appear about my extra-circular life (volunteering and school). Overall I was happy with what I saw, I appeared top on the list, and none of my links were incredibly embarrassing or self-damaging. Due to this step I learned about what a digital footprint actually was, and what was good and bad in it. This allowed me to judge it.

Within the same post we were also asked, “ would you want an employer or teacher to see that? what do you want it to show and say?” I replied by saying this: “I would not want an employer or teacher to see it. I feel that I need time to develop my digital footprint, and at this state I have more social leisure links than professional ones. If a person were to search for me I would rather have more professional links.” Honestly, this is the best response for the question at hand. What I’ve learned from this response is the need to research who I am, and how I perceive myself is how others will. And in this case if I see more leisure sites than professional, others will this see this, and If i see this as a negative, others will mostly likely see it in the same sense. through this I can develop my digital foot print.

The next step consisted of trying to get one of my more professional links to the top of the list. I choose to try to get my WordPress blog to the number on spot.

I kept a small journal about what I did, to accomplish this goal: https://evinlachance.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/trying-to-be-first/

From this process I learned that when dealing with Google the more hits you get on your site the higher it will go on your list. I have also learned that meta tags will help optimize the selection process, if I link to that site from other sites it will become more popular, and if I tag keywords into my blogs such as evin & lachance. These seem to have worked for me cause if you plug-in evin lachance in Google my WordPress blog will appear first. Ahh sweet success 🙂

Over I feel this experience was well worth it. I learned about my digital footprint, how I should look at it, and how I can manipulate it.

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Sites that ‘work’ and sites that don’t…

Due week 2 3: Step 1: Post examples of websites you think work well, explain what does work and does not in terms of navigation, content, look and technical abilities.

So I am on a search to find inspiration from other portfolio sites, in which I will then create my own within the next couple of weeks.

Sites I did like:
First off I’d like to say that I liked all the examples because either the whole site or parts of it caught my attention. I defiantly want to pull and use some aspects of them when I create my own site.

http://www.karenkavett.com
• I enjoyed this site a lot. The create Karon is a youtuber who frequently post videos on the site. When she posted a link to her portfolio I was inclined to go. My first reaction to the site was a positive one: I loved how the bigger part of her information is on one page, I enjoy the simplicity in her design, it is very individual and you can find everything needed clearly and efficiently. The only thing that I do not like is when you click to see her designs a new window pops up, my only reason is that sometimes people will have other windows open and it may get lost, so I would have everything on one window.

http://www.dreamerlines.lv/
• Out of the three this was my absolute favorite! Its bold, eye catching and it keeps the viewer engaged. His layout for the site is superb on one page and when you click to see different parts of the site it slides down to show you. Everything is on one window which I enjoy, and it is not crowded with useless information. I am also fond of the quote he uses and then selects key works from it to be links for different portions of his site. Easy to navigate and fun to explore!

http://www.gummisig.com/
• This site is very much like the Dreamerlines site. It is very basic, with only key information needed in a portfolio. It is fun to look at and also used the same link technique to go to different sections of the site. I love the design being bold and contemporary, except that I feel the use of Helevetica was over done. This teaches me to choose nice readable fonts on my site because it helps with the look and practicality of the site.

Sites I didn’t like:
For this portion of the assignment I am choosing to look at bad sites, see what I don’t like about them, and then do the opposite in my site.

http://www.angelfire.com/super/badwebs/
• Yes, I did type into Google “The worst site ever” and then choose the second link. This site has only one word to describe it: HORRIFIC. From the moving orangey brown colour, to all the moving objects, to so many boxes with type in them, to that ‘earworm’ of a song that automatically plays in the background, this site almost scares me. Though it does show all of these things, it is accompanied by a list of the things not to do on a site. Lets just saying I am going to do what this site tells me not to do!!

So this experience has been good. I have gotten inspiration to start my site. I want it to look clean, with eye catching designs that will engage the viewer. Preferable one window, only simple and concise information about myself (not a full length story), and enough room to let my work be displayed. That’s not to much to ask for right? But before I get too ahead of myself I must first learn how to HTML …

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