learn xhtml & css

another aspect of web design. I truly love to design web pages, but really need something new to learn. I feel stagnant and need to learn something new.

I have a few books from the library, but not sure they will suffice. Wish I could take a course, but they are way too expensive!

I just finished a book on creating web pages for kids. I figured this would be a good start, but it turns out I’m not that much of a beginner ;)

Anyway, I need more practice to bring my pages to a minimum quality and to continue advancing on two/three goals that depend on this. I just wish I could be better at html to then go into css, xml, and even java. I’m a bit stuck :S But I’m shaking it off :S >S <) :)

argh

I started a ‘refreshing course’ by doing some tutorials at http://www.htmlgoodies.com/. I bought their book 8-9 years ago and, of course, many things were outdated, but they have updated and expanded them in their website. I’m liking it; it’s very easy, and I already got started in the page I want to post.

I wish the website had ‘numbered steps’ for the tutorials. I’m very methodical in this respect, and I very easily get lost in the maze of links and options :S I could still jump around and skip if I’d wish to, but numbered steps would be a great plus. After this I’ll go onto CSS.

and I realize I haven’t the faintest idea what I’m doing.

honest.

I haven’t written about any of my goals much recently, so I intend to catch up.

I finished my first dumb little Web site for my class, which was a Web version of my resume. The instructor had us do some kind of odd things to the format that I would never do for an actual professional resume, but I think he just wanted to make sure we learned certain skills. Anyway, after much angst and some lost sleep, it is done! I’m not sure what I was so worried about, other than not being perfect. Mostly, coding is just tedious.

We have another assignment coming up to do a bigger, fancier Web site. We are supposed to make it about something we love, so I am going to do a site on dogs in literature. I think assembling the content will be great fun.

I’m finding this process of learning and trying to use xhtml, CSS, etc. really intimidating and scary. I’m de facto avoiding it, Queen of Procrastination that I am. I’ve got to get over this fear and face it. I’m taking an excellent class with a very good teacher, so I really have no excuse for being so wigged out. Ack.

wish me luck!!

There are a lot of great resources out there, just go to Google and search “html tutorials”, “css tutorials”, or “xhtml tutorials”.

Now I’m a web designer! I make $15/hr with my job!

Also check out my page on learning xhtml, css and dynamic html at: http://www.squidoo.com/xhtml-css/

I’m a visual designer, but I use xhtml and css in my freelance work all the time. CSS is such a breath of fresh air! No longer being constrained to image slices held together in cumbersome html 3.2 and 4.0 tables with heavy complicated javascript rollovers. It’s a little ironic, in that now that big bandwidth is here, xhtml and css finally allows for the once mythical, beautifully designed, yet only 15-20k sized page. A dream for 28k dial up users—though, now everyone is “accelerated” 56k and highspeed. Anyway, learn it! Just do some google searches for: learn xhtml (or css) and (css or) xhtml cheatsheet. In addition to Jeffrey Zeldman and Eric Meyer, get this guy’s book: “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug.