Project
In September of 2016, I decided to build myself an academic website. While I fully intend to write one from scratch, hopefully within the 2016-17 academic year, the current status of the project is that I spent some time refreshing my brain on HTML, learned some CSS, and used a tutorial to build a basic page to use for the time being. The website is live here. This is mostly thanks to the help of a couple of colleagues, sen and Zak, who provided me with serious resources and consultation through this process. I did not document this project as I went, but I wanted to write it up anyway, for future reference.
HTML and CSS
My first step was to usee the following resources, combined with a Codecademy HTML and CSS course (which ironically has been taken down, but it was replaced with a new course, which would have been far more useful in the end) to refresh my brain on HTML5 and learn CSS for the first time:
Wat are dis?: The Internet
At some point while learning HTML, I got a bit sidetracked, and spent some time learning about the internet. It’s FASCINATING. Everyone should do it!
- How web servers work
- DNS
- An Atlas of Cyberspaces
- the NTT Internet BGP Visualization
- BGPlay
- Underwater Fibre Optic Cable wiki
- Arpanet wiki
Actual Web Dev
On recommendation from sen, I decided to use a Hugo template to build my first website. Important note: I did not need to know any Go to use a Hugo template. Their website is way misleading.
Some of the things I DID need in order to even begin:
Once I was all set up, I picked a theme – I chose Freelancer, in part because sen had recently updated zir website using Creative, and I really liked the outcome (see it [[http://www.sen.cx/ | here), but didn’t want mine to be actually the same.
Some of the other resources that I used:
- FontAwesome
- Chrome Web Developer Tools
- Top 50 Free Icon Sets from 2015
- Zen Minimal Outline Icons
- Transmit
- the W3C HTML5 validator
Branding?
I also ordered some business cards from Moo. Now I’m a real professional, or something.
