HTML &me;

I've pretty much learned HTML on my own, though not taking a formal class wasn't for lack of trying. I approached my local community college about 10 years ago and -- believe it or not -- the respsonse was, "What???"

Between friends and online assistance, like WebMonkey, and checking out source code, I've usually been able to make my pages look how I want them to look. I started with Geocities in 1996, using their online text editor and also Netscape 3.04 Gold's editor off-line. Guess I'll be moving all that to another server sometime soon; I see Yahoo! is going to shut down GeoCities.

I finally jumped on the blog-wagon in late 2003 with Blogger. Though I never learned any scripting, or how to create CSS, I could use the templates and then edit to my heart's (and the extent of my knowledge or trial-and-error) content. The most frustrating thing now is that I do not have enough knowledge to work in the new templates, so I'm stuck (for now) with the widget templates.

About two years ago I set up a domain, installed the free WordPress, but unfortunately have not had time to really learn all I need to know to work easily in that environment. I hope to have time soon to do that. Having it does provide me space for photos and files... and actually, I think I remember I have already copied all the GeoCities files there -- but the work up updating all the links will take *SO* much time!

I'm glad to have the links to more advanced coding tutorials provided in the unit lecture and assignments this week. Even paging through the basics, I learned things (like in the future certain tags will require closing tags that haven't needed them in the past -- so I'm closing my paragraph tags in this post), so I plan to keep working through the tutorials.

I like to work in code rather than WYSIWYG. It's like knowing a secret, akin to working on the command line versus working with the GUI.

Learning Styles

I consider myself fortunate that I am able to learn from the written word, and might go so far as to say I learn that way best, except that I also learn well by class lectures. I do *not* like to work in groups in artificial situations, such as group projects for classes! In real-life, working in groups is fine with me, though I prefer my responsibilities to be clearly outlined.

What confuses me about the way learning styles are most often defined is that to me, learning by reading is a visual style -- it is my eyes doing the work, not my ears, not my hands, and not someone's mouth. I think Felder & Solomon rather than to identify "learners" actually identified elements of learning. How people learn is a fascinating subject to me; Psychology of Learning was one of my favorite courses as an undergraduate.

The variety of presentations in this course keeps the material interesting, and provides materials at different levels of interest/ability to the students. If one wants to pursue more in-depth look at the topic, the source is readily available.
I probably use the tutorial videos least -- to this point -- as said, I prefer reading text.

Pick Your Style

Creating the new users in the server and desktop platforms of Ubuntu this week went smoothly, following the instructions in the class assigments. I forged ahead to the assignments only lightly reading the class lecture and readings, planning to do in-depth reading/reviewing during an upcoming road trip.

It was so quick to do create the user by CLI, I think it would be my preferred method. However, one has to remember the correct command and syntax. With the GUI formats of the Ubuntu desktop and the Webmin interface with the server, it is a much simpler, albeit longer, process using menus and dialog boxes.

The most frustrating aspect of using the server interface so far is the "hiccup" -- something which doesn't appear to work one moment and miraculously works at the next use.

Playing catch-up

Nothing like three days being sick and a weekend out-of-town without (unexpectedly) Internet access to put one way behind...

I have had no luck at all, despite several reinstalls of the VM server, at reaching the VIM tutor. However, I managed all the Nano edits with no problems (other than typos). Following the last re-install, the sudo aptitude install vim-runtime appeared to execute successfully, but not the sudo aptitude install vim-full. I am anxious to know if the other student, having the exact problem as I, has had any further success.

The question was posed, "why don't you need the sudo command [to reconfigure the .bashrc file]?" The .bashrc file is located in my home directory, so I have permission to edit the file. No one else can edit the file without employing the sudo command, however -- unless the permissions are changed (I think).

It has been so long since I have edited files with MS-DOS, I really do not have any memory of exactly how it compares to Nano. I do recall writing and editing .bat or batch files, for results much like the alias command used in Assignment 2 of Unit 3 -- i.e., using one command to reach another.

Using batch files, I was able to create a text menu in DOS that presented upon boot-up, and the batch files corresponded to numbers on the menu. Selecting a number ran the batch file, which generally executed the steps necessary to begin a process or program. Somewhere, I actually still have that stuff on a floppy!

As noted in the lecture, I've used Notepad extensively within Windows to edit (or peruse) source files for internet documents, either my own or those of others.

I feel a bit like a wallflower. Invited to the party, but Vim Tutor won't dance with me.