Twenty Four Pages Per Second

Wanted to post an update, which is long over due, about the web page I made. The logistics are done! After some kicking and screaming, a few tears and a couple of paper cuts I got exactly what I wanted out of Dreamweaver. The site went live a while back, you can check it out here. I got a bit antsy and did it a little earlier than I had originally intended but no complaints. Actually, getting a working site made it all that much easier to see what worked and what didn't work without a lot of time manually uploading files through a school server.

A little about the site:

My itch of an idea, that came to me last summer, was a site dedicated to reviewing books and the movies they have been made into. Granted, the idea originated with my Writings by Me blog that was started for an English class and I had intended to carry the idea on straight through the blog. I new it would collect dust otherwise, and that is precisely what it is doing now. The idea for the reviews got a little bigger than I thought blogger could handle, and since I new I could build a computer, I figured why not give building a website a shot.

So far I have three reviews posted. Two by me (Where the Wild Things Are and Twilight), and one by Jonathan (Silent Hill). I have two other reviewers lined up and they are currently working on The Mist and The Secret Life of Bees. Originally it was supposed to be just books turned to movies, however, with very little effort, I was convinced to also include comics and video games. I may even branch out and include plays, but that is something to add later.

The site also includes a bunch of other stuff... well... at least the potential to have a bunch of other stuff.

I have reviewer bios. Just a quick glance at those that are contributing, some recommendations they have for the audiences reading and viewing pleasure, quick access to the reviews they have written, and potentially links to their own blogs and web sites.

Author Links/Movie Links/Game Links, all of which will act as a sort of in site favorites bar including home pages for the title/author reviewed, wiki pages, articles about said title/author, videos, LPs, and whatever else can be found that may be of interest. At first I only included an Author Links tab but there usually isn't one author for a video game, and you technically give the director credit to a movie. At the moment only Maurice Sendak is updated. I'm hoping to post various links to the other authors and media by the end of the week.

Next is the Fun Stuff. This area will take readers to IMDB and other review sites that are found interesting, of use and just plain entertaining. Also included is at least one comedy web site, with a potential for more to come.

Right now the Facebook link is inactive (well, it will reroute you back to the home page.) Once there is a bounty of content, and all the links are properly active, readers will be able to follow the site via Facebook. I may do Twitter, I hear it is a thing, but I haven't really been sold on the idea yet.

Further down on the list of things you can find on the site is Project Northwoods, this is a site and book by Jonathan. I am a huge fan of his work, and true, I may be biased, but it is my site and I can do what I want with it. Next up is KZiegler Design. The logo at the top of my page, that was her handy work. Hoping to get a few graphics from her soon to help break up the monotony of text, but we will see.

Lastly, because the site costs money to be hosted I will be including advertisements. These will be affiliate programs so the only way I get paid, and the site gets maintained, is if readers click on them and make a purchase. I am aiming for things like iPage (the web host service I use) Amazon (Kindle) RedBox (DVD rentals) at the very least. I'd also like to use NewEgg,  Barns & Noble, and Best Buy but I will have to look into if I can use competitors.

That is it for the website.

On a side note, other than needing a very regular dusting, the computer is still running strong and beautifully. However, with the web site and all, I might look into adding a dedicated hard drive for my files. That might be the next adventure.

Moving on: A Web Page

So I am taking an English class that is focused on DIY culture. For this class, not only are we engaged with reading and writing about DIY, but we are also getting first hand experience. For the first half of the semester we focused on hand craft. I crocheted a scarf. This last half of the semester we are looking into digital craft. We've played with photoshop and dreamweaver (more specifically html and css). For my final project I am going to be constructing a web page. This project kills two birds with one stone. I've been mulling over an idea for a web page (possibly even making it a business) for some time, using it as my final project gives me the excuse to start doing it now instead of putting it off until this summer. I like how this has been working out for me, just last year I had an itch to build my first computer, my laptop crashed, and I had a legitimate reason for not putting it off any longer.

To start with web design, we worked on the course page in class as a template. I was successful at changing the color scheme, adding a banner, renaming the page and links, adding more links, and putting the second side bar on the right side of the page. There is still plenty of work to be done.

For today's goals I wanted to rename all the files, currently they are too long and I can't fit them all into dreamweaver at once. There are 13 pages to be worked on simultaneously, as of right now. I also wanted the page to center in the browser, instead of left align what it is currently doing.

I honestly thought centering my page would be the quickest task to complete, and renaming the current files a bit more time consuming. Boy, I was wrong. Between a handful of google searches that provided less then useful help, a friend, and the instructor, all I have been able to manage is centering my banner and completely fucking up the rest of the page.

So after an hour or two of looking at coding, experimenting, trying to compare what I have to template codes, I was damn near in tears again. I blamed it on the lack of breakfast and took a break for lunch (it was 10am). While I was out and about I headed over to half price books to see what they had to offer on web page development books and guess what I picked up! Dreamweaver CS3: In Easy Steps and HTML: In Easy Steps. For those of you following along it's the same publisher of my Building a PC book. Already I feel more confident about my web page building, I mean if it worked for building my computer how can it fail at getting me to build a web page?