Week 1

This is the first week of the course. I am looking forward to learning about web design. I am a little intimidated by it, to be honest, but this week's reading in Creating a Web Site: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald helped me feel a little better. The book is written conversationally and explains the essential basics of web design in an easy-to-understand manner. As an undergrad, I designed one web page for a class, but that was a long time ago and I'm not sure I remembered. However, reading MacDonald's text showed me how much I still remember how to do from a class I took as a sophmore (in 2006).

One element I really like so far about Creating a Web Site is the section in each chapter, "Frequently Asked Questions." This section covers important and interesting elements. For example, I like Chapter 2's discussion of "What if I really do want the text "" to appear on my Web page?" (p. 35). I wouldn't have even thought of this question, but I suppose it is a problem someone may face.

Chapter 17 is about Blogging. I have never blogged before. I chose "Blogger" as my blog because MacDonald suggests it in his text! I must admit that blogging really is as easy as he said it would be, "Creating a blog with Blogger is ridiculously easy" (p. 512).

I think MacDonald's conversational tone will be really helpful for me, someone who is not used to Web design.