Well so far this class has been confusing to me, not because the instructor is unclear, but because a lot of the references are so foreign to me. I was fighting for my books, student loans and so many things that I fell behind in class. I find myself constantly having to go back and look up different terms that just don’t seem to stick in my head. So far I’ve learned the basic tags for getting started in H TML. Also, I have had a lot of luck using the Expressions software thankfully. It’s quite easy to use and wonderfully designed, and best of all, it’s free.

So far what I’ve learned in this tutorial has been the ground work for building a website, as I have stated before. But there are things I didn’t know about before that was different when I was working with HTML before. Such as: Strong and Italic accents. I remember when they were simply BOLD and ITALIC or perhaps that was BB code.

I have thought about where web design is heading, and it’s funny to me. Soon it seems like most of it will be automated, to the point that it might even become obsolete due to the high use of Java, Flash type of stuff. It’s like computers are becoming faster and faster, and are able to handle the flashier type of sites now. Though I’m not saddened by taking this class thinking in such way, I know that HTML will always be the ground work for anything designed on the web.

As far as jobs for web developers, they are so numerous, but I know it’s great for a lot of graphic designers to be versed in HTML! Then they might be able to apply their skills with graphics in Unisom with their skills in HTML design. Web design companies of course always need talented designers in HTML and many businesses have websites these days, so people always want a skilled person who is knowledgeable in HTML.

As for myself, my goal is to ultimately own my own business doing photography touchups, web design, graphic and logo design. I want to be able to take advantage of all the technology we have available to us via the internet and really put it to great use. My dream is to be a designer, to apply everything I learn into my craft and push for gaining the respect of my peers in the field.

Well the HTML history has been interesting, there's a ton of stuff that I didn't actually know about this process. It's funny cause I spend so much time on the web, yet I don't know how it worked. Anyway, what I've learned this time around is linking to other pages. That was the one I was worried about, and I'm glad I figured it out. It was scary as all can be. The other one I'm still struggling with, which is the one I wish was easy to figure out is the image tag code. I'm a photoshop designer and this one would help me a ton. It's just a very confusing one for me, and I think it's going to take a lot of application and useage of it to help me on my way. The start page was fun to make, I made a little logo with it, nothing elaborate, but just something unique to the plain text that I see a lot of out there.

To answer the question on all the revisions and such, from what I have learned, the web has been around for almost 20 years using this particular language. One of the key things I think has been the ability to link to pages all around the web, this is what gave us the most power on the web. Millions and millions of people could finally share their love for dogs, or stamps. Of course I'm an old fossil, I remember using the netscape page way back in the day, I think what everyone was excited about it for, was because it actually supported the new Java language. I know I was thrilled about it. Of course, a lot of the problems with these different browsers, was that the second you developed something for IE, it would look different on Netscape. I think what ultimately happened was developers were so sick of that problem they finally worked on a universal language for HTML, which is XHTML and thank god for that, because what we are doing now, would of been so difficult back then.

I guess in finality, I think the direction we are going with the internet is so limitless, it's really hard to say what it's going to end up at. I mean I'm still such a novice to this that my feeling is that soon there's going to be programs that completely do everything for you but create pictures. It's crazy how far we've came so far, and I can't wait to see what's to come in the future.