Hello Prof. Lawley,

Should this portfolio start from our elementary school experience? I guess I'm asking what exactly is an "academic portfolio", or what kind of information should/shouldn't it include? Should it be more like and extended resume or an academic history, or both (it's flexible)?

Thanks,
Christian

Good questions, Christian.

It should focus on academics relevant to your graduate program. That may end up being only your graduate work at RIT, or it may include undergrad or grad classes elsewhere.

The idea is that you're creating a site that will serve as a kind of introduction to faculty members you want to work with for your thesis or project. It should showcase your skills and interests.

Do you have an example of an annotated CSS? I usually comment my Style sheets, but this sounds like you want something more indepth than what would be in the comments.

Professor Lawley,

When would it be possible to obtain some feedback about our first project so we don't make the same mistakes this time?

Are you concerned about whether or not we use the web safe color palette? I know there are still some users who need it but given the audience I'm hoping it's not required for this project.

Could you direct me to a site that provides sufficient information about optimizing images for the web?

Cher, here's an example of what I mean. I'd like an actual HTML page that includes the content of your linked CSS, and provides explanations of what you're doing with it.

Vince, yes, as I said in class, I'll be providing you with gradesheets on the first projects, even though they won't count towards your grade. I had hoped to have those done this weekend, but have come down with the flu; you should expect to see them Tuesday or Wednesday of this week (via email).

No, you don't have to use a web safe color palette.

There are a number of online tutorials on image optimization; this one seems fairly generic. But the program you use will also be a major factor--Fireworks MX (which we use in 320/741) is very effective at optimizing images.

Since a web safe color palette is mentioned (though it's not required for the assignment), I just post a link for those who are interested.

Professor Lawley,

What do you consider "appropriately commented code?"

I'm sure you discussed this in the prerequisite course and I would love to hear your ideas about appropriate documentation. For programming languages it seems appropriate to document much of the code since the comments are removed when the code is compiled and the code often is not as self-documenting as possible. Since commenting html increases the weight of the page when the language is straight-forward I'm not sure how much documentation is appropriate. Please share any conventions you are aware of in addition to your feelings about the issue. I have often wondered about this.

Prof. Lawley,
So far, my pages validate with the html validator using 4.01 transitional. When I validate the css using the style 2 profile they validate also. Using the style 1 profile I get one error: "Unknown pseudo-element or pseudo-class hover ". Is it okay if the pages pass with style 2 css and not style 1?

As we head into the final stretch of our midterm project, it occurs to me that I should validate a few assumptions.

I’ve been focusing my work in three areas simultaneously:
- Style and formatting
- Features/functions
- Content

Now that time is running short, I have to decide carefully where to focus my effort.

My assumption is that Style and Formatting would have the most impact on my grade. After all, that’s what the class is about, isn’t it?

Next, comes Features and Functions which is closely related to style. However, because this is dependent on coding skills, I’m assuming you we won’t lose too many points if we have limitations in this area. (Some of us, more than others based on where we are in the program.)

And finally, the content, which I assume you want to be clean and spell-checked, but, if our work doesn’t end up on the New York Times best seller list, well…, you’re okay with that.

That’s roughly right, isn’t it? If not, please let me know. Although I’d like ALL areas to be perfect, time being what it is, I’d like to put my best effort where it counts.

Vince, because these are assignments rather than production sites, I'd prefer to have you err on the side of over-commenting rather than under-commenting. In particular, anything that you spent a lot of time and/or effort getting right should be pointed out to me in the code, so that I'm aware of what you've done.

Joe, CSS2 validation is fine.

Robert, the class is not just about "style and formatting." The first half of the class is focused on design, but that includes both the technical aspects of designing with CSS, and the information architecture aspects of design.

I tried to be clear in the list of grading criteria what aspects I'd be focusing on in this project, and all of it is based on the material we've covered in class up to this point.

As I did with the ungraded assignment, I will look at all of the areas that I list above. I give A's when the work is consistently excellent. There may be some aspects that are not excellent, but everything has to be at least competently done.

Sorry -- I misspoke when I referred to "style and formatting." Regardless of what I typed, in my mind I was referring to "design".

Still and all, I have an inferiority complex regarding my writing. I'll try to get over it.

I am unable to upload my portfolio or the content of one link on my page (the CI button, in case you noticed it being a broken link). I will keep trying and hopefully i ll have it up by class time (provided grace stops giving me a bad time sometimes today!!! (thank goodness its not due til wed - ill most definately have everything up and working by then!!)

Steph

(by the way, the doctypes are causing me problems in the use of other browsers - the same issue one of the classmates was having a short while ago with mozilla.....though I am reading various materials on standard html usages in hopes of finding a solution to the problem.

Professor Lawley,

I understand your reason for why we should use many comments in our code since these are not production sites.

One of my goals for this project was to keep the page weight to a minimum; therefore, I removed the comments from only one page (the home page) so there would be one page with the minimum weight. This file does not have all of the commenting that is provided in the others but I am hopeful you will accept this since it is only one page and it was purposely left out.

Excerpt: This is a web based “academic portfolio” for Fuyuko Takegawa, showcasing the academic interests and technical skills. The site should have a minimum of five pages. Divide the content up into appropriate “chunks” of information, and design the site in...
Read More: Project Specifications

As I said to you in the previous class, my midterm site won't be on RIT server but will be at http://rit.takegawa.net

In my portfolio I included links to some multimedia projects that are in another directory. The html for these projects was generated in Macromedia Director. I'm sure they won't validate since Director doesn't include a doctype when it generates the code.

Also, I used just one looooooong css file for the whole website. Is it a good idea to make multiple css files for a website?

I did also if nothing else it made creating the anooted style sheet easier... But I used SSI so I only had one style sheet.

** Anyone know how to validate pages created with Server Side includes?? **

Fuyuko, as long as you've linked to it from your personal site, that's fine. (Although, as we discussed, for the final project it will need to be on the RIT server so I can look at backend code.)

Joe, the validation problems for the pages with shockwave won't affect your grade. And yes, one loooong CSS file is fine, and often preferable (although it can be helpful to break the long page up with comments indicating what's doing what, as they do here, on A List Apart.

Cher- If you validate the pages on the server, the validator will run through the outputted HTML, which should give you appropriate validation results.

I am having serious problems getting the styles. formats, etc etc to be viewed the same in both IE and Mozilla browsers. Mozilla tends to display things kind of out of place and it is frustrating. I would hate to lose points over mozilla's stuborness but what can i do.... :-

Steph

Prof. Lawley,
Can you give us some idea about what our final individual project will involve? I haven't found any info about it here on the class web site. Maybe just enough so we can begin to think about it?