Generally, I’m pleased with the way the website has come together and proud of myself for learning so much and coming so far in just a few months. I’m looking forward to starting on another project. This one will be far more complex, especially if I can make what I see in my head and what I can think of incorporating, materialize in the digital world.

But the real point is that I’ve learned enough to remove the fear of trying and now I’m ready to learn more.

I was proud of myself for breaking out of the unimaginative early blog design.

I skooched the footnotes right just a bit, but I really don’t like all the empty space on the left-hand side of the pages, so I’m not going to move them in any further. And the images could be better, but given what I was working from, they’re pretty good. I really wish I could have been able to scan from the original photographs, but even if they still exist, there simply wasn’t time. I’m just glad I had some version of them to work with at all.

<<heavy sigh>>

So, seventeen pages of content with forty-five images. That’s what my masters’ thesis has been reduced to. I hope it’s interesting to anyone who might stumble on it someday. I’ll leave it up at least through the year…maybe longer. I thought about putting contact info up, too, but didn’t really want to encourage a Viagra-selling bot email inundation. If someone really wants to find me for questions, comments, criticisms (all of which I’m up for), there are a few ways they can do that and they’ll figure it out.

I’ve been really impressed with the projects my fellow graduate students have created. I know that I learned a lot and I’m a little proud of myself now. I think I’ll only get better and someday I may look back at this first web project and say “Yikes!” (kind of like I do when I come across something I wrote about fifteen years ago).  It’s been fun…stressful sometimes, but really fun. Certainly “better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick,” as my grandfather used to say. Great man, my grandfather.

stupid IE

on a lighter note – if you Google “Carmichael Battle Wyoming” I’m right there at the top with my “sandbox” and my final project websites. Yippee, right? I know. I’m probably the only one who will Google it this way. But I’ll take my victories where I can find them.

I definitely think it’s important but I’m not sure what my options are or if I should be worrying about it right now. I plan to leave the site up for a while, so maybe I’ll add the search in a week or two? I’ve looked at the Google search utility and I think it may be suitable. Only thing is, unless I want to pay $100/year, I’ve got to allow ads to appear on the “results” page.  Is that annoying to users? What will this say about my credibility? Not that I’ve “hung my hat” on the content of this definitely entry-level website – it is 10 years old, after all,  and seriously weeded down from the original. But I do want it to be a good website and reflect well on me, particulary since it’s my first such effort.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? I really think a website without a search feature is next to useless and will only drive a potential user away. Maybe all the ads will say about me is that I’m a fiscally challenged graduate student. What do you think?

I moved my old files around, so all my “project/task” files are on one server and my final project is on another.

My final is all right here if you’re interested. I may still add another image or two, and fix an image caption or two, but that’s no big deal compared with what I’ve been through, er, I mean, got to do all weekend.

I still can’t get the “skip nav” to work properly, but if I can figure it out, I’ll only have to change the main.css. Once I finally figured out how to reduce the opacity of the background image, it turned out I didn’t like having it under the header at all. Too distracting. At least, to me. So, that was a few hours wasted for this go ’round, but next time I’ll know, right?

OK. Now I wait for Tuesday’s “preliminary” review of final projects. I’m first up on the first of two nights…

But now I simply gotta get some reading done! I do have another class, ya know. But not tonight. Time for sleep.

At least, that’s what I keep telling myself so that I won’t psyche myself out.

Now it’s time to turn to the many pages of content and images to finish up my final project. I’ve managed to trim my 80 typed pages into about 14-16 web pages, made up of much shorter paragraphs. And I’ve got roughly 20 images or so…maybe more. I don’t know. I just scanned everything because I’d rather have too many sources than not enough. There won’t be bells and whistles on this site. I’m saving those for my next digital project.

I hope this works…

Look at this project created by a group of students in a digital libraries course at Simmons College. It’s about a year old, so maybe I’m late in “discovering” it, but I think I’m seeing it far differently than I would have last fall anyway. Clean, simple design, with high functionality. I’m a very inspired fan.

And if anyone can help me with my linkages, I’d appreciate it. The link from my “Image” assignment to my “Design” assignment doesn’t work. Here’s how I’ve coded it: <li><a href=”http://mason.gmu.edu/~lcarmic3/../design/”>Design</a></li>

This is what I was told to do, since I’m asking it to go out of the “Image” folder, and back down to the “Design” folder. I’m sure it’s something simple. It usually is. I’ve double-checked my folder hierarchy in my “Site” folder and in the upload on the server. Fortunately, you can get to the “Design” page from my Portfolio “Home” and from my “Type” assignment.

So, here’s the “Design“…

Oh, and I’m thinking up another project, a Depression through World War II web archive based on something I was thinking about during Clio I. But it will be more complicated and since Professor Petrik advised against doing something new, it will very likely be an “after this class is over” project. But if I can get a skeleton design up before the end of class, I’d love feedback on that too.

Stay tuned…