AcadEmi

I found the process of creating a website to be far more appealing than I had anticipated. Despite the brief moments of aggravation, the general procedure was almost soothing, and each new skill represented a triumph. In my enthusiasm, I planned a site that was perhaps more complicated than necessary, with the result that I did a lot of copying & pasting & revising tables and ended up with a less pleasingly streamlined final creation than I’d envisioned. This is something I will keep in mind in the future, but achieving a less than perfect product dimmed my sense of accomplishment only very mildly.

Along the way, I experienced the usual frustrations. Sadly, in two instances these frustrations arose from my inexplicable inability to keep Powerpoint & PDF straight. Tabling was perhaps the biggest challenge; although I managed to create a table for my home page that is reasonably close to what I had planned, I never managed to achieve an attractive layout on some of my other pages. Despite these minor setbacks – which wasted a little time and made me feel like an idiot but were otherwise harmless – the process went relatively smoothly.

I realized, moreover, how many small decisions go into creating even a very simple website. Choosing brief titles for my pictures was rather a challenge: should I indicate the title of the work of art, or should I give information about the link embedded in the image? In the end, I decided to describe the work rather than the link, trusting that the navigation would be reasonably self-evident. The one exception on my home page is my image for “Music,” which I left labeled as such because there was no particular significance to the album cover I chose other than appearance.

One of the highlights came when I finally lined up the complicated table on my home page correctly – a minor achievement that nonetheless proved highly satisfactory. But my most exciting moment came late last night. I was tinkering with the layout of one of my pages when it occurred to me to attach an audio file. The accomplishment of this was heartwarming enough, but it got even better when I succeeded in opening the file in a new window so that it didn’t bring my entire presentation to a screeching halt. It really is the little things in life…