Hello fellow readers and Miss Sha,
Here is my report for the Assignment 1.
I was pretty excited and thrilled when Ms.Sha first told us about this Assignment 1. I have always been interested in this kind of tech-stuff, especially the HTML coding. I used to fix the HTML codes for my blog template, so I knew a little bit of the basic HTML coding beforehand. However, it was a refreshing journey all over again for me as I got to learn the HTML codes from the basic. To start it off, I would require a partner. I wanted to work with someone who I could get along with well (to avoid more difficulties in completing the task due to previous bad experiences of working with incompatible members) and someone who also has the basic knowledge of HTML coding so that we could learn from one another. After looking for some time, Sarah and I teamed up after realising that each other had not found a partner yet. Then, we arranged a time for discussion and brainstorming.
Sarah brought me to this lovely place called Nuin Café in Bangi, where there was wi-fi connection and a very comfortable ambience. There, we thought of the theme for our webpage as we did not want it to be too common after all. I suggested to make it a photography website, as we could use the photographs that we both took for Basic Photography subject last semester. Sarah was okay with it. As we continued to think of what else to put on the HTML page over dinner, Sarah suddenly suggested that we made it an Adam Lambert-related page instead after she listened to Adam’s song “Mad World” that I played for her. Me being a huge Adam Lambert fan of course, agreed without hesitation and I began showing Sarah my collection of Adam’s pictures and songs. Sarah also suggested to embed a background music to complete the website and I agreed. We referred to the HTML help book that Sarah had borrowed from her brother on how to upload or embed a background music or MP3 playlist. We tried several ways, including copying and pasting the embed code from websites that provide free service for music player, but our attempt was still futile. At last, with help from our classmate Woei Hoa, we managed to embed the background music.
It was a good experience of sharing knowledge and helping one another in times of need. Like Ms.Sha puts it, this is the idea of the whole learning process in IT class. For this assignment, we visited a few websites such as search engines Google and Yahoo!, free webhosting website Bravehost and also Aimini.net, where we downloaded the song for background music. Of course, we needed to use Notepad to type the codes and not forgetting, Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox to make it (the webpage) happen. I personally prefer to use Internet Explorer (on my pink Dell laptop) while Sarah uses Mozilla Firefox (on her Macbook). We also referred to website for HTML colour codes. We decided to use the free webhosting service from Bravehost because of its nicer link. For example, it is http://www.paulineandsarah.bravehost.com compared to Geocities’ http://www.geocities.com/paulineandsarah. Sarah has used Geocities before so she suggested that we stick to Bravehost instead for a better service (excluding the advertisements that are pretty annoying and disturbing on the webpage).
It was actually fun for me, this whole assignment, because I got to learn another new thing. In the beginning once I’ve created an account for free, I was like, “Huh? How to upload on Bravehost ah?” as it was only the first time I used this webhosting service. I volunteered to upload the HTML document onto the web, after Sarah had sent me her part and the coding was done. I wanted to ask someone on how to use the service provided, or how to upload, but in the end, I was a bit too shy to ask as I was afraid that people would laugh at my “silly-ness” so I managed to learn how to upload the page by myself. I felt proud of my own achievement as I like to learn to do things by myself. *Smiles*
There were a few difficulties that I encountered while doing the HTML coding. Well, what would life be without some challenges right? I got pretty frustrated of course, but what I accomplished itself overruled that down feeling and lifted up my spirits once again when I saw the final product – the webpage. Ta da! Life is a rocky journey indeed. One of the difficulties we faced was adjusting the background (the Adam Lambert wallpaper). We found it hard to adjust the size and also the alignment (Is there such thing?) for it. I uploaded the picture on Flickr to get the URL for coding, but the size shrunk and it looked horrible (it was “tiled” instead of centralized). Me being a perfectionist (erm, almost! =P), I couldn’t accept such flaw and kept working on the code and fixing the size of the background. (Oh yeah, before that, I edited the wallpaper I downloaded from American Idol’s official page using Photoshop.) After so many futile attempts that I almost gave up on even putting up a nice background, I thought of Photobucket, where I also have an existing account. I uploaded the wallpaper and got the code. It was perfect. The image size was big as it originally was, unlike Flickr that had a maximum image size. I was beyond happy. (^_^) However, the setback is, the image takes longer to load on the page compared to Flickr’s. I also learned how to make the background stay “fixed” from the book Sarah brought.
Another difficulty I encountered was the border-gone-wrong for Sarah’s table of self-introduction – there was only a single line on the right side of the table border whereas it should have been double line. I even consulted Ms.Sha about it and she took the time off to check the HTML coding for me but still, we couldn’t find where the problem lies. I myself had tried many many many times to fix and retype the codes, but nothing worked. So I guess I had to leave it that way, although it pains my heart to see such a flaw there!! Sorry, the perfectionist gets to me. One other problem was discovered when I visited our webpage link using a desktop (17-inch screen). I was a bit surprised to find the alignment and all had gone out of place, the fonts and images as well. Only then I realised that the size of the computer/laptop screen will affect the alignment and arrangement of webpage contents. And Ms.Sha confirmed that fact. I had re-edited the type of fonts used and hopefully, Ms.Sha would get to see the webpage as how we wanted it to be, as how it was viewed from our laptops (14-inch screen). (It is crazy how the codes can go berserk on you and drive you nuts, you see.)
One last thing regarding difficulty encountered that I want to mention is the problem of uploading the song (Adam Lambert’s Mad World) for the purpose of background music. Perhaps my Internet connection was slow or crappy that day and night, I just couldn’t seem to upload the song onto Bravehost for the URL link. *Sighs* However, help arrived from the same classmate who taught me about embedding background music, Woei Hoa. He helped me to upload the song on his Bravehost account and gave me the URL needed. I hereby would like to thank him once again for his help. Ms.Sha, I hope that you viewed our Adam Lambert webpage along with the “sound effect” as well. Then only you would get a better “feel”. *Teehee* Moving on to the blog and report process, there was not much difficulty faced in creating a blog or posting a post as it was a pretty simple process. The only challenge in this area was on what to write/include in the report. Hoho. I just sincerely hope that my long report is sufficient as it is to enable me to score good marks for this assignment. *Wink wink*
All in all, for the conclusion, I would say that I have learned quite a few interesting techniques/skills and more than just basic HTML coding. I now know how to create a marquee on the webpage, embed background music and also adjusting the background plus the miscellaneous settings here and there. Most importantly, I have improved my level of patience as it took me hours to finish the coding (and there I was, thinking it would be easy-peesy and would only take less than an hour considering that I already had in mind what and how I wanted the webpage to be). I kept reminding myself of the phrase “Patience is a virtue” when doing the assignment. And guess what? I really enjoyed the process and the result? Satisfaction of own accomplishment. If I were to do this all over again, I hope that I could successfully fix the “cacat-ed” border and also improve the overall design of the webpage. Understanding myself well enough, I know that I could do a better job if I keep pushing myself. Last but not least, I would like to thank those who have helped Sarah and me along the way and also, Ms.Sha for her guidance on completing this assignment. I now feel very relieved (and excitedly await Assignment 2, the group project, hmm). Hope you have enjoyed reading this post and sorry for the long entry. I am a long-winded person. Hehe. =P
Have a great day~
P/S: The following links are the websites used for this assignment:
http://www.google.com
http://www.yahoo.com
Here is my report for the Assignment 1.
I was pretty excited and thrilled when Ms.Sha first told us about this Assignment 1. I have always been interested in this kind of tech-stuff, especially the HTML coding. I used to fix the HTML codes for my blog template, so I knew a little bit of the basic HTML coding beforehand. However, it was a refreshing journey all over again for me as I got to learn the HTML codes from the basic. To start it off, I would require a partner. I wanted to work with someone who I could get along with well (to avoid more difficulties in completing the task due to previous bad experiences of working with incompatible members) and someone who also has the basic knowledge of HTML coding so that we could learn from one another. After looking for some time, Sarah and I teamed up after realising that each other had not found a partner yet. Then, we arranged a time for discussion and brainstorming.
Sarah brought me to this lovely place called Nuin Café in Bangi, where there was wi-fi connection and a very comfortable ambience. There, we thought of the theme for our webpage as we did not want it to be too common after all. I suggested to make it a photography website, as we could use the photographs that we both took for Basic Photography subject last semester. Sarah was okay with it. As we continued to think of what else to put on the HTML page over dinner, Sarah suddenly suggested that we made it an Adam Lambert-related page instead after she listened to Adam’s song “Mad World” that I played for her. Me being a huge Adam Lambert fan of course, agreed without hesitation and I began showing Sarah my collection of Adam’s pictures and songs. Sarah also suggested to embed a background music to complete the website and I agreed. We referred to the HTML help book that Sarah had borrowed from her brother on how to upload or embed a background music or MP3 playlist. We tried several ways, including copying and pasting the embed code from websites that provide free service for music player, but our attempt was still futile. At last, with help from our classmate Woei Hoa, we managed to embed the background music.
It was a good experience of sharing knowledge and helping one another in times of need. Like Ms.Sha puts it, this is the idea of the whole learning process in IT class. For this assignment, we visited a few websites such as search engines Google and Yahoo!, free webhosting website Bravehost and also Aimini.net, where we downloaded the song for background music. Of course, we needed to use Notepad to type the codes and not forgetting, Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox to make it (the webpage) happen. I personally prefer to use Internet Explorer (on my pink Dell laptop) while Sarah uses Mozilla Firefox (on her Macbook). We also referred to website for HTML colour codes. We decided to use the free webhosting service from Bravehost because of its nicer link. For example, it is http://www.paulineandsarah.bravehost.com compared to Geocities’ http://www.geocities.com/paulineandsarah. Sarah has used Geocities before so she suggested that we stick to Bravehost instead for a better service (excluding the advertisements that are pretty annoying and disturbing on the webpage).
It was actually fun for me, this whole assignment, because I got to learn another new thing. In the beginning once I’ve created an account for free, I was like, “Huh? How to upload on Bravehost ah?” as it was only the first time I used this webhosting service. I volunteered to upload the HTML document onto the web, after Sarah had sent me her part and the coding was done. I wanted to ask someone on how to use the service provided, or how to upload, but in the end, I was a bit too shy to ask as I was afraid that people would laugh at my “silly-ness” so I managed to learn how to upload the page by myself. I felt proud of my own achievement as I like to learn to do things by myself. *Smiles*
There were a few difficulties that I encountered while doing the HTML coding. Well, what would life be without some challenges right? I got pretty frustrated of course, but what I accomplished itself overruled that down feeling and lifted up my spirits once again when I saw the final product – the webpage. Ta da! Life is a rocky journey indeed. One of the difficulties we faced was adjusting the background (the Adam Lambert wallpaper). We found it hard to adjust the size and also the alignment (Is there such thing?) for it. I uploaded the picture on Flickr to get the URL for coding, but the size shrunk and it looked horrible (it was “tiled” instead of centralized). Me being a perfectionist (erm, almost! =P), I couldn’t accept such flaw and kept working on the code and fixing the size of the background. (Oh yeah, before that, I edited the wallpaper I downloaded from American Idol’s official page using Photoshop.) After so many futile attempts that I almost gave up on even putting up a nice background, I thought of Photobucket, where I also have an existing account. I uploaded the wallpaper and got the code. It was perfect. The image size was big as it originally was, unlike Flickr that had a maximum image size. I was beyond happy. (^_^) However, the setback is, the image takes longer to load on the page compared to Flickr’s. I also learned how to make the background stay “fixed” from the book Sarah brought.
Another difficulty I encountered was the border-gone-wrong for Sarah’s table of self-introduction – there was only a single line on the right side of the table border whereas it should have been double line. I even consulted Ms.Sha about it and she took the time off to check the HTML coding for me but still, we couldn’t find where the problem lies. I myself had tried many many many times to fix and retype the codes, but nothing worked. So I guess I had to leave it that way, although it pains my heart to see such a flaw there!! Sorry, the perfectionist gets to me. One other problem was discovered when I visited our webpage link using a desktop (17-inch screen). I was a bit surprised to find the alignment and all had gone out of place, the fonts and images as well. Only then I realised that the size of the computer/laptop screen will affect the alignment and arrangement of webpage contents. And Ms.Sha confirmed that fact. I had re-edited the type of fonts used and hopefully, Ms.Sha would get to see the webpage as how we wanted it to be, as how it was viewed from our laptops (14-inch screen). (It is crazy how the codes can go berserk on you and drive you nuts, you see.)
One last thing regarding difficulty encountered that I want to mention is the problem of uploading the song (Adam Lambert’s Mad World) for the purpose of background music. Perhaps my Internet connection was slow or crappy that day and night, I just couldn’t seem to upload the song onto Bravehost for the URL link. *Sighs* However, help arrived from the same classmate who taught me about embedding background music, Woei Hoa. He helped me to upload the song on his Bravehost account and gave me the URL needed. I hereby would like to thank him once again for his help. Ms.Sha, I hope that you viewed our Adam Lambert webpage along with the “sound effect” as well. Then only you would get a better “feel”. *Teehee* Moving on to the blog and report process, there was not much difficulty faced in creating a blog or posting a post as it was a pretty simple process. The only challenge in this area was on what to write/include in the report. Hoho. I just sincerely hope that my long report is sufficient as it is to enable me to score good marks for this assignment. *Wink wink*
All in all, for the conclusion, I would say that I have learned quite a few interesting techniques/skills and more than just basic HTML coding. I now know how to create a marquee on the webpage, embed background music and also adjusting the background plus the miscellaneous settings here and there. Most importantly, I have improved my level of patience as it took me hours to finish the coding (and there I was, thinking it would be easy-peesy and would only take less than an hour considering that I already had in mind what and how I wanted the webpage to be). I kept reminding myself of the phrase “Patience is a virtue” when doing the assignment. And guess what? I really enjoyed the process and the result? Satisfaction of own accomplishment. If I were to do this all over again, I hope that I could successfully fix the “cacat-ed” border and also improve the overall design of the webpage. Understanding myself well enough, I know that I could do a better job if I keep pushing myself. Last but not least, I would like to thank those who have helped Sarah and me along the way and also, Ms.Sha for her guidance on completing this assignment. I now feel very relieved (and excitedly await Assignment 2, the group project, hmm). Hope you have enjoyed reading this post and sorry for the long entry. I am a long-winded person. Hehe. =P
Have a great day~
P/S: The following links are the websites used for this assignment:
http://www.google.com
http://www.yahoo.com
