Background, Image Map, and More

The web site has a new look; I’ve learned how to add background images. The main page has a background picture I took in Wyoming (near the Big Horn River) that is 70% transparent (done using Photoshop). The image on top of it is from the Lockhart Ranch farther downstream on the river in Montana if I remember correctly. I’ll have to change the image in a couple of weeks because there are more than three lab assignments in the course.

Lab 2, just completed, had the goal of creating a mini-website with at least four pages, background image, different fonts and colors, and navigation links (e.g., Home). Beyond that any content was acceptable. Hence the rather eclectic mix of subject matter. I also gave the Lockhart Ranch image and image map, which defines specific areas of the image as clickable links (also known as hotspots). Move the mouse over the image and you’ll see the mouse pointer change to a hand and a little pop-up box with Lab 1 or Lab 2 appear. Click and you go to the appropriate web page.

Our intrepid instructor walk though an example where he explained some computer terms (bit, byte, nybble, word), so I played off of that a bit (or a nybble). I also took an HTML exercise that appeared in this blog earlier and re-jiggered it. If I get really clever (and learned in the tools of the web) I might rework it again using an animated map.

A bit of trivial drivel: at the bottom of the home page is “Palestrina Build 20100202”. This is a version indicator. Rather than using Revision A or Version 1.2, I chose the typical software development convention of using a build number. All the pieces of the web site that you see now regardless when they were created, together represent a single “build” of the web site as of 2 February 2010 (20100202 = YYYYMMDD). Because I like music, I also threw in Palestrina because he died on 2 February.