Building a Web Page

I love the Internet. I love having nearly any piece of information at my fingertips. I love going to Wikipedia to brush up on the Diadochi (the successors to Alexander the Great's empire), the Battle of Chickamauga, or the life story of Ralph Vaughan Williams. I enjoy browsing sports message boards like HF Boards or Real GM to see what fellow sports fanatics think about the latest trade, winning streak, or slump. I appreciate that I have the ability to keep up with all my friends on a daily basis through internet chat, sparing my ears the pain of long phone calls (not that we would call each other anyway).

That said, I have been more than happy with being a relatively passive participant in the internet age. I don't tweet, don't do podcasts, have no desire to sign-up for Myspace or Facebook accounts, and have never had a blog (until now). You can imagine my horror when my digital anonymity was to be challenged by my Information Technology class, in which I not only have to blog, but also have to build my own website.

Let's be clear, I am great lover of technology, and have always been a bit of a troubleshooter when it comes to computers, but I know NOTHING about building websites. I don't know HTML, have never had to FTP anything, and am aesthetically challenged when it comes to page layouts, colors, backgrounds, fonts, and anything else you can slap on a webpage. Had I tried to build a website in the past, it likely would have turned up on one of those "10 Worst Websites" lists you see across the web from time to time. So my first assignment for LS 560, that of building my own website, was sure to be a bit of an adventure.

As it turns out, the assignment is actually a bit fun, albeit stressful. The book we are using as a guide, HTML 5 Step by Step, by Faithe Wempen, is easy to follow and provides some pretty helpful practice exercises to get you started. There are also a lot of great resources on the web, though I particularly recommend W3 Schools, which has been a huge help to me, especially getting started with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). If you're looking for help getting started on your own website, definitely don't come to me, there are much better tools available to you all over the internet, but feel free to tag along as I try to make mine look remotely presentable. To check up on my turtle-like progress over this semester, head over to http://bama.ua.edu/~jdkeyes.

Blogging, Take One

Welcome! My name is Joshua Keyes, and you have somehow had the (mis) fortune of stumbling upon my blog. I am currently a graduate student, working toward my MLIS (Master of Library and Information Studies) at the University of Alabama. The primary purpose of this blog is to post my thoughts on several articles relating to information technology as part of my LS 560 (Info Technology) course, but I hope to use it beyond completion of the class. Thanks for stopping by.