Journal 39: November 9

I'm wondering if we are near the end of desktop computers. I mean, laptops are just as powerful now. And much more versatile. Yes, desktops are ideal for school computer labs. And offices. But, really, nearly everyone owns a laptop now. At least most business people and students. Heck, MSU requires students to own one. So even the places that make sense having desktop computers could get by without them. I, for one, won't really miss them.

Journal 38: November 9

With my site progressing, I'm starting to wonder what will happen to it after I leave MSU. I mean, I would love to keep and update it after I graduate. But it's saved in my AFS space and hosted by MSU's Web site. I guess that means if I want to keep it, I'll have to pay for hosting. I know I had free domain hosting for a Geocites I had when I was in high school (I had my own .com), but that expired after a year and wanted payment. I may have to look into free or cheap hosting again in a couple years.

Journal 37: November 9

I'm still not sold on my Web site for my final project. I mean, the design is fine, the content is fine, I'm happy with the ideas for it. It's just the color scheme that's bothering me. My favorite color is orange. I think it's a fairly warm, inviting color. It represents individuality, hard work, and it's pleasant to look at as long as it's not too bright. But I don't know if everyone agrees on those things. Orange also looks like Halloween when paired with black, which is not okay 364 days of the year. It's too bright for white text, looks bad with red text, etc. Basically, there are very few colors that will work with it in a color scheme where orange is the background. Pretty much purple, blue, and green. Now, I don't really care for the color purple. Blue is great, but people could easily get the text confused with links. That leaves green. A green and orange color scheme looks really good. For the non-colorblind. Oops. I guess that's one of the prices to pay for maximum accessibility.

Journal 36: November 9

I'm a little stuck on a decision I'm trying to make.

My poor little computer is starting to die. Of course, it still runs. It just runs a little slow, simple tasks it used to perform give me the Spinning Pinwheel of Death, and some of the not-so-technological aspects of it (the latch, battery) are starting to cause trouble. Also, I'm going to purchase Dreamweaver and Photoshop before my senior year, so I can take Advanced Web Authoring without having to go from my apartment to a computer lab every day. There's no way my Panther OS X will survive these kind of programs if it can't even run iTunes consistently anymore. Oh, and I have under five gigs of memory left on my hard drive and a full external (deleting my music collection is not an option). Basically, it's time for a new computer.

So I've decided on getting a Macbook Pro. It's the new version of the durable computer I've had since late 2002/early 2003, and I'm hoping for similar luck this time. I mean, if I get four years out of my next one, I'll be more than happy. If I get six years, like I did with my current one, I'll be overjoyed. I think it just might work out again.

Here's the deal... It would be wonderful, but not necessary, to purchase the notebook next semester. I can get away with waiting until the summer if my PowerBook holds out, but I'm not sure if that will happen - again, it's starting to die. But it looks like Apple is coming out with a new version of OS X (Snow Leopard). Of course, its release date hasn't been announced, and bloggers are saying it should be at least the second quarter of 2009. Normally, it should seem obvious that it's worth waiting for. Except that I'd be getting the first version of Snow Leopard. That means glitches galore. Should I wait even longer, and put off taking Advanced Web Authoring until Spring 2010? Should I purchase it next semester and use the last version of Leopard? Should I take the risk that the first version of Snow Leopard won't have too many glitches, and that simple update downloads will suffice?

It's kind of giving me a headache.

Journal 35: November 9

I make it sound like CSS has been perfect for me in my previous post. Let me assure you, even though CSS has been easier than I expected, it's also presented its share of problems. For example, I've been stuck for a couple weeks on a fairly major issue concerning its implementation. It seems certain aspects of my Web site don't translate across browser platforms. Equally frustrating is the fact that everything works as it should in Safari, but is messed up in Firefox. That's just backwards.

But, try as I might, I'm not able to fix these little problems. I've coded everything correctly in CSS, and then coded it to do the exact same thing in HTML, just to make sure everything is as it should be. It's still wrong. And frustrating.

Journal 34: November 9

I recently completed a few lessons in CSS. It used to be something that scared me: HTML was hard to learn and I wasn't sure if I could handle new code so soon. After the past couple weeks, things aren't so daunting. Sure, it's new code - it's just not that hard. It's also very easy to make a CSS template for your site. It allows the author to only need to consult one style sheet for design issues. Even though I didn't foresee it happening this way, I'm still spending significantly more time on my HTML pages than my CSS ones. I consider this to be a good thing.

Journal 33: November 9

Okay, I've gotten past the temptation to create a bad Web site for a final project. How is this? Well, in my attempts to make a good site, things have gone wrong and made it bad anyway. Considering the amount of effort I've put into it so far, it's frustrating to have such things happen. I think that flushed the temptations out of my system.