It’s amazing how wrongly I was doing things and not even realizing it, and how wrongly I was thinking about HTML in the first place. I had no idea that as a markup language it was defining the meaning of content in such a nuanced way. I was thinking about it and now I have a very different and greatly enhanced understanding of how to build a web page properly, and more importantly, how to go about learning more. One of the most important things I learned in the class was not just tidbits of code and principles required to complete the assignments, but a knowledge of the vast array of resources for expanding my knowledge in the future. I did myself a disservice by not embedding myself in the class until the end, because once I hunkered down and began working on my page it rekindled my interest in web design altogether. Although, like anything involving coding and computers, it could be frustrating at time, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and will continue to build on my webpage in the future. Randy, I sincerely hope that you keep your “professor page” online even if you do not continue teaching so that I may use it as a resource in the future. Actually, I may go ahead and save the pages so I have it on my hard drive.

I’ve got to give props to Ken Landefeld. He built a great website and his presentation was very amusing. He definitely went above and beyond the call of duty when creating kenlandefeld.com, and I’m frankly amazed at how dramatically he altered his starting wordpress theme. The end result of his modifications looked nothing like the initial theme. I share in his desire to keep the website from looking too “bloggy.” Too many website have sort of a generic, almost magazine like look about them and he successfully made his design definitively his. I also got a kick out of his drawing depicting his caricature in a Target uniform. Having worked retail myself, I can identify with his pain.

Another website I particularly like is thesingleplate.com by Megan Edwards. Even though she claims to be nervous about public speaking, she came across as very confident and organized during her presentation. I worked with Megan on a group project last semester in digital imaging, but I had no idea that she used to be a professional chef until this class. I like to cook myself, and fancy myself an amateur chef, so I particularly liked her website and will probably try out some of her recipes one of these days.

The most entertaining presentation to me, by far, was Neil Garcia’s. While I have no idea how he is going to pull off the goals he is setting with exquisiteleisure.com, his charisma during his presentation almost convinces me that he will. Then again, as he pointed out during his presentation, he really only needs one or two customers a year to make a career out of Exquisite Leisure. While what he was proposing sounded a bit too good to be true, listening to him reminded me of the expression, “he’ll outlive us all.”

www.thefingerprint.net

My design is pretty minimalistic. That could change, but right now I see no reason to have a busy complex design for a relatively small website that is already focused on displaying art.

I originally tried to get the domain fingerprints.com(.net etc.), which was a bit too optimistic seeing as how I just got security companies regarding fingerprint recognition hardware, and a few variations had been squatted by greedy developers. As I explained in an earlier post, my grandfather had set up a correspondence between family members called fingerprints. I settled on thefingerprint.net, which was adequately catchy and still referenced my family history. I can look at at it as reading like “The fingerprint,” meaning my impression on the web, or “The finger print” (with the pause), to suggest a printing press.

The most useful things I learned in the class were css and php, as they are powerful tools for web design. While wordpress is a neat phenomenon, I feel that it stunts creativity and contributed to a homogenization of how websites look.

I still have a lot of work to do before i give my presentation, but I will have woven my different pages together by Friday.

Link 1

Link 2

Link 3

link 1

link 2

Anyways-

Link 1

Link 2

Link 3

Task 2 – Gallery page 2

Task 3 – Gallery page 3

Task 4 – Gallery pages

Task 5 – Gallery pages

Task 6 -Gallery pages

Task 7 – Integrate into wordpress, or add php to my own design.

Task 8 – An about me page with photo, contact information, and a link to my myspace page. Create an email account on my webserver (ericfinger@thefingerprint.net). Also add a links page with my favorite sites.

Further modifications will be needed, several more gallery pages.