Developing a Digital Identity

It’s hard to explain my excitement for this module. Building websites is one of the most marketable skills right now. Everyone needs a website. Whether for a business or portfolio, having a well-made website gives you an extra edge of professionalism. That is why I was ecstatic to get into that lecture hall and hear Omar (our lecturer) say that we would be building our own reflective portfolio website. The website that you are currently on. And can I just say, thank you so much for being here :)
In this lecture we were given a basic introduction to the module and to HTML, CSS and good web design practices. After that, we went into the seminar session where we got to practice using HTML and CSS by playing around with a template that was provided for us.

Our second lecture. The second. What do I have to say? Well, we looked a bit more into CSS and HTML. It was alright. However, I enjoyed the lab session more. In the lab session we were meant to do some sort of code validation type thingy. But that didn’t seem that fun. So instead I just worked on my website. Progress has been good. Today I added a flex box container on my index page to display my journals in a more interesting and visual way. I’m feeling good about my website. It’s coming along well. I want it to be something I can be really proud of and hopefully use as a portfolio after I’ve completed this module.

The website is coming along. My index page looks good. I think next, I’ll sort out my about and contact pages. Making a contact form isn’t too hard and the about page is light work so hopefully I’ll get that done in the next week or so.
The lectures are making sense. I’m understanding the content. I am about halfway through a LinkedIn Learning course on HTML anyway, so a lot of the content is the same. After, I finish the HTML one I’d like to do a CSS, and a JavaScript course. Ooo, JavaScript. That should be fun. That’s what I’m most looking forward to in this module. When JavaScript is done well in a website it just elevates the whole thing. Takes is from a B class website to an S class site. Very exciting stuff.

End of week 4. This last week I’ve added a CV page and made a contact form for my website. Although I need to add the JS for form validation. So that’s my next undertaking. Got to learn a bit about JavaScript. We haven’t got on to JS in the lectures yet but hopefully we will soon. Anyways, in today’s lecture we were looking at the difference between inline, embedded, and external CSS and which one has priority over the other. Btw, inline has highest priority. We looked at some CSS functions and some other stuff. Honestly, I can’t really remember. It’s been a long week. But what I do remember is the Kahoot we did today. We did it in teams and our team won by an absolute landslide! GO TEAM MUNCH!

I’ve made my journals pages now. They are pretty nice I can’t lie. Simple and functional. I want to think of some cool interactive things I can add to my website, while keeping the dependencies to a minimum. Also, I need to edit all my photos to have different sizes that will dynamically switch depending on the viewport size. This will make my website more efficient. Overall, making good progress, on track to complete the website long before the due date.
In the lecture today, we covered pseudo classes, fonts, and other text formatting. This kind of stuff adds a bit of pizzazz to the website if you will. Oh also, I REALLY need to add comments to all my code, so I’m going to make sure to get started on that because I already have quite a few un-commented pages. Wish me luck with that. It will be long!

Today we looked at usability in terms of web design. The thing about good web design is that not only does your webpage need to look good. It also needs to be intuitive and make sense. There is a rule called the ’15 second rule’. This states that someone will spend 15 seconds on average looking at a webpage before clicking off of it. Other studies say slightly different numbers, but it is usually less than a minute. So, if you can’t grab the user’s attention or easily show them what they are wanting to see in less than that time, you’ll lose the visitor to another website. Good web design involves putting the most relevant information ‘above the fold’. This is especially important for eCommerce websites.

I’ve been making some big additions to my website. I’ve been adding lots of features, but I still need to add social media buttons, and I’ve got to make it more mobile friendly because right not it’s kind of a nightmare to use on mobile. I might try to rebuild the website from the base up but for mobile first. During the lecture we were looking into the CSS box model, so borders, margins, and padding. Padding and borders I fully get. But margins are still a bit weird to me. Like the way it was being described, it sounded like it sometimes worked but sometimes doesn’t… Or maybe I just wasn’t listening properly. Oh well. Talk next week.

In today's lecture we were looking at page layouts. Basically, how to use the float attribute. So, you can make HTML elements float to the left, centre, or right, etc. This will make them move to that part of the screen. In the seminar I was trying to make a universal header and footer by just using HTML. I think it could be possible using an iframe element, but it is pretty messy. A better way to do it would be to implement it server-side. However, our websites are just meant to be local. In other words, it is outside the scope of the model. Next year we should be looking more into server-side web development which will be exciting. In other news, I would say I’m 80% of the way to having a complete website and I have learnt so much through this process. I think my next website will be 100 times better. Part of me wants to just restart so I can build it from scratch and build it really well. But I’m not going to do that… I might. We’ll see.

I woke up late today. I set my alarm. But missed it and had a dream that I was late to university. I might have talked about having this kind of dream before. I’m not sure. Either way, this is not the first time I’ve had this dream but in this one it was 11am and I remember saying in my dream “Why is it always 11am?”. I think this is happening because every time I don’t start my day early, I feel like I’m missing out on something. I feel like I’m missing out on the most important time of my life. My youth. I’ve realised that now. So, as soon as I awoke, I got right out of bed, had a shower and was on the road 10 minutes later. I’ve noticed that my mental attitude is far stronger when I busy. Specifically, if I’m busy working towards my long-term goals.
In the lecture today we were looking at lists, links, and placeholders which was pretty simple stuff. Anyways, I’ve pretty much finished my website. Just need to finalise the form validation JavaScript and then I’ll be done!

The hippocampus is the part of the brain responsible for the spatial representation of an environment as to facilitate navigation.
The navbar is the part of the website responsible for organising and facilitating the navigation around different pages.
This parallel is something I thought about during the lecture today where we were looking into the construction of a navbar in HTML and CSS. We looked at how to structure it as an unordered list and how to style that list. However, I generally prefer to use flex boxes as it allows for more control over where and how the navbar elements are placed.
My website is 99% complete. I’ve added an embedded map to the contact page, I’ve finished my form validation JavaScript, and I’ve almost completed all my journals. I can say with confidence that by this time next week I will have fully completed my reflective portfolio website.