Look what we have here...

Could it be? A new site design?

After enduring much pain and toil, I believe this new layout is finally ready for release. Even better, I've upgraded to the latest version of WordPress (which, of course, I suggest you do, too), which allows you to automatically use WordPress to drive your ENTIRE SITE. What does that mean? Well... nothing for you, really, but for me it means that I can make upgrades and changes even more seamlessly than before!

Anyway, I'm going to bed... I might post more stuff tomorrow. If anyone finds any weirdness with the site, feel free to comment. (All 2 readers.) Please don't mention the black background or the fact that the whiteness cuts off on the home page. My next job is to figure out how to make the white always reach the bottom of the window, even if there's no content.

Welp, I've officially started college at a community college nearby. If I don't know you, you don't need to know the name of the place! Most likely, you haven't even heard of it if you live outside Indiana, but anyway...

I signed up for a full 13 hour semester and, so far, it's pretty nice. Officially, I'm taking Microsoft Network Specialist as a 2-year degree that I can transfer anywhere else for a 4-year degree if I need to. I haven't thought that far ahead yet, though. They said I'll get A+ certified and Microsoft certified during this course, so I'll have a ton of certifications in my resume once I get this over with. There are two other network courses, too: Cisco Network Specialist and Network Security Specialist. All three are nearly identical in their schedules, except each one has its own 2 special classes. Microsoft has 2 Microsoft-related classes in the 3rd semester, Cisco has 2 Cisco-related classes in the 3rd semester, and Security has 2 security-related classes in the 3rd semester. The rest of the time, they're purely identical, and I may decide to take all three.

Now, here's my schedule for those of you who WILL ask why I'm not online certain times:

Information System Fundamentals - Internet Class

Basically, this teaches me how to use a mouse, take screenshots (which was literally my first assignment), and all that boring stuff for people who've never seen a computer before. I have this every week, all week, and I just have to finish my assignments by the next Monday. They say internet classes are bad for people who put things off until the last minute and need to talk to people to figure things out... But someone made an interesting comment to me. Since I'm homeschooled, I already know how to do "independent studies". I'm a visual learner and I do things as soon as possible. I'll have absolutely no problem with this.

My first assignment was to take a screenshot, post an introduction message on the discussion board, and reply to one other person's post... Great. Enforced board posting. You know I hate webboards, don't you?

Programming Logic and Design - Internet Class

This is also an internet class that I just have to get done by certain times. These won't at all interfere with my online time, with the exception of slow responses and idling, but I'll be online nevertheless. This is pretty much a class to learn how programs work (more or less) and how to design program concepts using flowcharts and boring stuff like that... It'll be interesting, since they say this class has a very high failure rate in a CLASSROOM. How much more harder will it be online? Then again, I'm not the usual college student who doesn't know how to program, aaam I?

My first assignment was to read the syllabus and various class documents and answer specific questions and submit it. A nice assignment that gets you to read all the rules and teaches you how to use the online classroom program. I was also forced to make an introduction post on the board, and respond to TWO (that's right, TWO) other people.

I told people I love Nintendo and am a huge gamer, which got lots of responses, yay! I really didn't have trouble responding to other people, because we actually had some common ground.

Basic Algebra - Wednesdays, 6:00pm to 8:50pm

This is my first "real" class. I failed to pass this class during the placement test, and these computer courses require Algebra 111. But I'm not ready for that, so I have to take Basic Algebra, which is Algebra 050. I'm supposed to be taking 111 right now, but I can't, so I'll be doing that during the summer to catch up for fall classes. This is going to be an easy class, because I know most of the chapters up until the last couple of weeks when we get into quadratic formulas and stuff. That's where my studies into math usually ended.

My first assignment for here was to pretty much just answer 92 questions online and submit them. I aced the first two sections, but missed a question on the last section because I didn't reduce the fraction. Blargh. It was confusing me, because they never asked you to reduce/simplify the other fractions. (I tried, and they said it was the wrong answer.) So I'm kind of ticked off about that... 100%, 100%, 97.3%... Ugh.

Micro Operating Systems - Thursday, 6:00pm to 8:50pm

I don't know what this is, because my first class is in about an hour and 45 minutes. I believe it's pretty much just to warm you up to the fact that there are a bazillion different computers out there with different interfaces. I think it also gets into how OSes work with computer hardware and all the basic ideas behind operating systems. This has the potential to be really fun, because you're supposed to have lab time with each operating system. We'll see how that turns out.

Critical Thinking - Tuesday, 6:00pm to 7:50pm

I start this class later in the semester, from March 12th to May 5th. Pretty much explains itself... I had to take this as a dumb filler class. I could've picked between lots of other lamer sounding classes like "Learn How You Learn" and "So This Is Your First Year In College" and other weird stuff like that... And then the advisor listed off Critical Thinking and I'm "ooh, that could come in handy with computers... approaching problems from different directions", so I signed up for that. I've heard it's really hard, but that's good, in my opinion. I DID come to college to learn, after all!

So there you have it... I have to leave soon for Micro OS, so I'm gonna wrap this up! I shall tell you about all the crazy impressions I got when I get back... or sometime after that. Sooo, see ya'.

I'm thinking of tweaking my site a little... Perhaps completely redesigning it. But I'm having a hard time figuring out what I should cater to... PCs are as diverse as the people using them, so I don't know how to size up my site.

Here are a few of my ideas:

Make the site dynamic width. That means that my site expands content to fill whatever size your window is. This is harder to code, but, if done properly, can be the best layout. However, I have a tendency to use banner images, and if I use dynamic width, then the banner image won't stretch to fit in the window either... It would repeat itself and look ugly or... it wouldn't repeat itself and have ugly empty spaces beside it. I could design an incredibly wide banner, but that's... not exactly a good idea either, since it has the potential of being a very large download.

Make the site fixed width at 800x600... Which would be as my site is at the moment. It stays the same size no matter what, and it'll fit in the fullscreen window of an 800x600 user. This is usually considered to be the most compatible layout, if you want to support everyone. Basically, there'd be no change in the layout... Just some color modifications.

Make the site fixed width at 1024x768. This would give me lots more room to work with, but people with 800x600 monitors would have to scroll side to side to see everything. But this would give me more area to put stuff in, which would technically be better for me, and possible make the site look less cluttered.

Even if the I make the site dynamic width, I'd still have to pick a minimum resolution to support... Either 800x600 or 1024x768. This would be the point where the site would stop shrinking, so as to prevent squishing all the content into a giant column of unreadable garble. I would go with dynamic width in a heartbeat, but... Banner image. No way to make it look good while giving people the ability to make the screen as wide as they want.

So... I think I'm going to compromise and do fixed width 1024x768. Give me more room, but lock the size. People with 10 year old monitors will have to scroll side to side to see all the information.

I realize some people might have legitimate reasons for using 800x600. Like if you honestly can't see the text at any resolution higher than that. But I also know several people who use 800x600 because they simply don't WANT to upgrade. I think there's very few people visiting my site who seriously cannot use anything higher than 800x600, if any at all, and I think the people who DO visit my site with 800x600 are either too lazy to upgrade, don't want to upgrade because "it's good enough", or for some other reason just don't like anything else.

So... I'm going to give readers a few days to comment on this post and tell me which layout they'd prefer, and to tell me which resolution they use. If you use 800x600, tell me WHY IN THE HECK YOU'RE USING A 10 YEAR OLD TECHNOLOGY. It's a sort of poll so I can figure out what people are using. I guess I could install one of those statistics monitors to see who uses what, but... I don't know of any for WordPress.

I spent my 2007 countdown reading Nintendo stock reports and listening to my favorite Okami track. You know... In case you were actually wondering what I did for New Year's Eve.

Personally, I think it's an overrated holiday. It's just another day. Not something important like Christmas or Thanksgiving. Mostly, it's just an excuse to get drunk and "make plans for the new year", as if that's the only time people can make plans or something.