Week 6: New Location

We will be meeting at Ross House in Alameda. It is located at 45 Ross Rd. We will try to get the snacks up by 9:15 and then start the class at 9:30.

A couple links

• http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/07/27/css-specificity-things-you-should-know/ -- An excellent article about CSS specificity. This is something that is the root of many bugs so I encourage you to take a look at it. If you don't want to read the whole thing, then scroll down to the Star Wars section.
• http://youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE -- An interesting video about Web 2.0.

MYT 2007: Week3

Unfortunately, Abe and I will be gone this Friday. Tom Wang will be teaching about CMS systems (ezPublish). For week 4, we will continue talking about front-end development. Please check out the links that Abe posted in the previous entry. Here are some more links for you to look at:

• http://www.csszengarden.com/
• * http://www.cssbeauty.com/
• http://www.developersnippets.com/2007/07/15/css-show-wonders-in-designers-life/
• * http://www.alistapart.com/
• http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_reference.asp (bookmark this)

* has RSS feed


For HW (due next week - 7/27):

Finish the in-class assignment from last week. You don't have to follow Abe's example exactly, but do make sure you have a sidebar (hint: use the width and float properties). Don't worry about implementing the horizontal nav bar if you don't have time, we'll go over that in class. Go ahead and try it if you're up for a challenge though. It has to do with floating and block/inline elements.

Make sure you install and play around with Firebug (http://www.getfirebug.com/), you can use it to analyze other web sites to see how they do things.

MYT 2007: Week 2

Please create an account at del.icio.us (if you don't already have one), a social bookmarking service. Once you've done so, please grab the delicious Firefox extension. Now, you're able to go to any page and directly bookmark it to your delicious page!

First task
Please bookmark the Gracepoint website and your ministry website (to your delicious account, of course), if there is one... sorry Praxis. Hopefully, you guys know the urls for those two websites by now. Also, play around with the tagging component on delicious.

Second task
Please bookmark the following sites:

• HTMLDog's Intermediate CSS Guide
• Box model
• CSS Layouts
• CSS Shorthand guide
• Clearfix (clearing float containers)

After you've done all that, please visit the first link and read some of those tutorials.

Why delicious
Having an account online is especially useful if you use more than one computer (eg, a workstation and a home computer, or if you're using someone else's laptop at class). However, even if you only use one computer, this is still beneficial. For instance, when you need to test out different browsers (and as a web jock, I guarantee that you will experience this) or if you're at a friend's house and would like to show him/her something from your bookmarks.

Firefox & Extensions

For those who haven't done so already (eg, those who weren't here last week), please install the latest build of Firefox and these extensions:

• Web Developer
  
• Firebug
  

Resources

Text Editors

Here are some text editors that we've found to be useful:

• Textwrangler (free for mac)
• Notepad++ (free for pc)
• Textmate (~$50 for mac)

Tutorials

MYT class lecture notes can be found here. If you missed the first day of class -- or if you thought it was a bit too fast-paced -- then I would strongly advise you to check out HTML Dog. Please look at both the beginner html and beginner css tutorials.

MYT 2007: Week 1 HW

Part 1

Ahoy, web jock grasshoppers! Since you are expert view sourcers and professional firebug inspectors, there is a secret way to find this week's homework. The homework is as follows:

1. Create an account at www.blogger.com
2. After you've created one, post the url of your blog (eg, http://webjocks.blogger.com) to the comment section of this very post
3. In your "About Me" section, make sure to put a link back to our Gracepoint website (similar to what we've done here)
4. Play around with blogger!
5. Failure to do so will result in an F in the course. =D

That's it for part 1!

Part 2

Download an RSS reader, or use Google Reader.
Add the following links to your reader:

• Smashing Magazine: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SmashingMagazine
• Design Meltdown: http://feeds.feedburner.com/designmeltdown/uecD
• Pastor Ed's Notebook: http://feeds.feedburner.com/gracepoint_notebook
  
• Web Jocks (of course): http://feeds.feedburner.com/webjocks
  

I (Abe) personally use Vienna (free, mac-only software) and allow my feeds (~40 different ones) to refresh every six hours. We'll just get started with these four and work our way up. =T

Hopefully, this week's homework isn't too tough!