Working EVEN HARDER.

Hi again. Yes, I realize it is pretty late for me to be posting right now, but I've literally spent the l last... four hours straight working on my glossary! Technically I am done, but I wanted to add a few extra things to the page. I tried to access FileZilla to get my file uploaded, but for some reason I can't seen to sign in!

Well that sucks... I suppose I'll have to wait until tomorrow to figure out what's wrong—apparently there are a few little issues with FileZilla right now.

Today was another work period for us for the glossaries, the last class time we got... which also explains why I am posting at such a late time. But I did manage to make some progress during class, and so I am finishing up the rest now.

On another note, tomorrow is Picture Day! Which means we all get to (not) dress up and (not) smile sweetly at the camera! Argh... don't like Picture Day much. But at least I can get my TTC Student Card tomorrow.

Well, because it is Picture Day, I guess I should go get some sleep, so the bags under my eyes aren't too bad tomorrow. Good night!

Working Hard!

I've been working very hard these past few hours on my glossary. But it's not that the assignment is hard... just very tedious. There are so many words we have to both brainstorm and find definitions for! I'm trying my best to finish as much as I can tonight.

Today was a brand new, gloomy (it rained. hard.), but nonetheless interesting day at headquarters. We didn't discuss much today; everyone went straight to work on their glossaries, intent on finishing. However I'm pretty sure no one finished within the period. And so now here we are... or here I am, at least. Still working hard.

As for our completed autobiography assignments, I am still waiting anxiously for my final mark. Mr. Arkin is working hard as well, trying to mark all SIXTY of the assignments. Just imagining all the HTML codes makes me dizzy...

Well, that was pretty much it for today. Oh, we also started using a new program called DropBox. I must say, it is really a life-saver—no more need for a USB! You should go check it out. It is useful, trust me!

So, have a nice evening sleeping... while I continue work on my good-old glossary.

The Start of Something New

First off, it's a brand new week! Second of all, ignore the fact that the title is a HSM song. Third of all, ignore the fact that I actually know that.

Haha. Anyways, it was indeed the start of something new at headquarters today: we are about to start learning about programming! I am very excited for this. But as things were, we had to make sure we knew a whole bunch of glossary terms first, before we moved on to actual programming. So today in class we started to brainstorm definitions for 20-some words.... I'm still not done yet! It's quite hard to actually come up with a definition for all these words—we all know what they mean, but it's just so hard to come up with actual words to explain it!

We also took a note on the three types of HTML lists today. They are ordered lists (<ol>) and unordered lists (<ul>), which use list items (<li>), and definition lists which use definition terms(<dt>) and definition definitions (<dd>). Of course the glossary that we are making—which will be put live on the web, on our websites as well—is a definition list.

So that was my ICS2O day today. Now tomorrow... it's a LATE START again! Funny, so will the next Tuesday, and the next, and the next... wow. Awesome, no?

Then, Thursday=Picture Day! I'm not overly excited for this, but it means time to get a TTC card, so I suppose that's a good thing...

But anyways right now, I'm just looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow morning. ;)

Finished! *Applause*

As I write this, everything is officially complete! From the autobiography itself to the peer-marking, all of it is ready for Mr. Arkin to mark! Now I suppose I can finally relax, while waiting anxiously for my final mark... Wait, that's an oxymoron right there.

But anyways, before I can go have a "relaxing" weekend, I want to reflect on this journey... the first of many. I'm guessing that it was because it was a first that there were so many ups and downs. On that first day, I wasn't even totally clear on what I was supposed to be doing! If I do say so myself, I think I made huge progress these two weeks. I went from being intimidated by HTML and not even knowing what the heck CSS was, to writing and basic codes of both efficiently!

I learned so much these few weeks in class. From basic tags to special character entities to the definition of paradigm, everything was completely new and exciting! It was really cool to see a webpage evolving from literally nothing... I definitely didn't expect Notepad to be able to create so much. Now I can brag to my friends that I created a webpage from scratch! xP

Although numerous frustrating problems sprang up right up until the very end of this journey, I have to admit that overall, it was really fun. First I thought of the idea, then I planned it out, so it was just a matter of creating the final product on a blank slate.

Along with creating my own webpages, I was able to help out a few of my other classmates, which I was really glad to to. Also... I played DJ for Studio 218 today! ...Actually all I really did was put together song suggestions into a playlist on YouTube. BUT STILL. DJ H-Z in the house!

So, in conclusion, I'd like to say that really, this is just the beginning - the paving stone for future, most-likely-more-complicated projects. I really enjoyed this whole experience, and am looking forward to more exciting projects!

DJ H-Z signing out! x]

The Following is a Paid Commercial Message...

In this world hides a mysterious being.... Known to others only as "H-Z", she has been slowly taking over the world. Unknown sources say she has a special power: the ability to change the thoughts of anyone of her choice! Well, now she's come out with a company - Mind Games Incorporated! For a small sum of money, the thoughts of one person you choose can be yours! For more information, you can check out her website.

Hi. How're you doing? Well? That's nice to hear. I'm fine as well. More than fine actually... my assignment's done! Today we spent the entire period working on them again, so I made some more finishing touches - yes, I'm a perfectionist like that - and uploaded the final version onto the web! So that is some awesome news for you. Plus...

I created the playlist for Studio 218 tomorrow! Based on song suggestions from classmates on our class Wiki, the playlist is now complete! Yay!

So... that's pretty much all there is. Tomorrow is Friday again! Wow, the week has flown by. It's been a nice week, but still... thank goodness it's coming to a close again. :)

Autobiography=Complete!

Yes yes yes! My autobiography is officially complete! I finally finished the finishing touches today, and then validated all my files once again. I can actually say that I am done now... hooray!

Today in class we didn't talk about much... we pretty much went straight to work on our autobiographies. Other than that we didn't do much else.

Oh wow, gotta go again. Sorry to keep doing this... but once again, my assignment is complete!

Re: Yesterday and Grade 9 Day

First off, about yesterday's post: I spent too much time working on my website, so by the time I got around/remembered to post on here, my mom was yelling at me to go to sleep. Therefore I didn't really get to make a proper post. So here's a more detailed recap of yesterday.

Yesterday we discussed client-server architecture, which is basically how your computer's browser (the client) sends a request to a web server, and then how the server "honours" the request by sending the requested information back to your browser. We also learned the meanings of some new words, like paradigm (a way of thinking). It was a pretty brief explanation; we are going to talk about it more in-depth another time.

Today at headquarters, Mr. Arkin cleared up a few things regarding how to link to files in both a "parent" and a "child" folder. This was very helpful because we were going to be making many sub-directories in our production directory folders, so that clarified a lot of questions. For the rest of the period, we worked some more on our Super-powers Autobiography assignment. There is now a deadline for it: Friday!

After lunch leads me to the next part of my update: Grade 9 Day! This afternoon was designated as Gr. 9 Day, an event meant so that we could "socialize" more. While we didn't really do much of that - we mainly stuck with our own homeroom class throughout the afternoon - there was a free BBQ(!), so that was pretty nice.

Well, that pretty much sums up my day! I've taken to posting a little earlier now, to prevent posts like the last one. So now it's time for me to go make some finishing touches on my autobiography... good night.

By the way, for some reason, the post times on this blog is a bit messed up right now: it's early by 3 hours! I'll look into changing it soon.

Website Update

Guess what? The weekend's over! D: So that meant back to classes today, and a brand new week at headquarters.

Shoot. I gotta go now. Quick update then: today we talked about client-server architecture, and then a bit about some more page mechanics. Sorry! I'll try to be more concise tomorrow.

Studio 218 and Character Entities

Today at headquarters Mr. Arkin introduced a fantastic, new "tradition" to us: from now on, Fridays will be Studio 218 days! Let me explain: from now on during Friday's classes, we will be allowed to play music! It is up to us to come to a consensus on either a playlist, or a DJ who will create the playlist for that day. I am a total fan of this idea, because I've always loved playing music while I do my work! I'm glad we will be allowed this at least once a week now.

We also learned about Character Entities today: special codes in the HTML so that you can differentiate between characters like double quotes and quotation marks (if you're thinking what I'm thinking, I didn't know they were different things either!). I also learned today that there are not only hyphens, but also "en-dashes" and "em-dashes"! They get their name from how long they are: en-dashes are the length of a capital N, and thus em-dashes are the length of a capital M. Very interesting...

Today was definitely a cool class; the character entities that we learned about today make our webpages look a lot more professional. But now... it's the weekend again! Time to go catch up on some lost sleep... signing out. xD

Thumbs Up for Keyboard Shortcuts!

Today's main topic was modifier keys + keyboard shortcuts! They are used mainly for efficiency - you don't have to switch from mouse to keyboard, or back. Although I already knew many common shortcuts, I still managed to learn a few. Here is all of the ones that were mentioned to day (which may be useful for you too!):

- Ctrl + c = Copy
- Ctrl + v = Paste
- Ctrl + x = Cut
- Ctrl + o = Open
- Ctrl + q = Quit program
- Ctrl + w = Close window
- Ctrl + s = Save
- Ctrl + z = Undo

- Alt + space = Pull down application menu
- Alt + tab = Switch programs
- Alt + d = Desktop/Switch back
- Alt + F4 = Close/Quit

There! Those are the common keyboard shortcuts we learned today. Hope you will find this list of some help as well... not having to switch back and forth from mouse and keyboard is indeed a lot faster - a good way to save time on CS homework! ;)

Becoming Very Computer-ized...

The computer is officially getting to me. After all, I am spending more than 3 hours on it everyday. I suppose tired eyes and a sore back are not very good symptoms? Ah well, all the work's been paying off, as all my webpages have been officially validated!

Today at headquarters we once again settled down to work on the home pages of our websites. Mr. Arkin gave us a Trouble-shooting Checklist to help us with any problems with validating our HTML and CSS. Since my website homepage was already done and up on the web, I spent the period doing some minor tweaking to my CSS. And then...

SILENT READING TIME!

I had this book that only had a few pages left, and I desperately wanted to finish it, so I'd waited and waited for this time to come. During those 20 minutes, I finally finished the book. By the way, if you want to check it out, the book is Scrambled Eggs at Midnight. Fantastic read!

So anyways, today was generally a good day, and I managed to get my website cleared up. So far it's been a pretty smooth journey... can't wait until tomorrow to find out what's next! :)

P.S. http://touque.ca/EC/ICS2O/students/2010-09/ICS2O7C/ZhangH/ ... read it!

I Understand Why it's called BEEP Test Now.

Yeah yeah, I know my title has nothing to do with CS, but I'm pleased to say that despite a few minor setbacks today, my website is doing quite well! Today at headquarters, we first had to partner up and discuss any problems we were having about uploading our website onto the web (via a program called FileZilla). Thankfully, neither my partner or I had had any problems with that, so instead we talked about some issues with the websites themselves.

I had a few problems with my sidebar, but that was solved quickly. However because today was a shortened period (because of late start), I didn't get much work done in class. Instead, I fixed up my website at home.

So that was my CS day. Now about gym... As you heard from my previous post, today was the dreaded Beep Test... First off was the actual running. I managed to make it to 4 before giving up. At that point my lungs felt drained, and my throat was... not feeling good, let's leave it at that. At least I managed to reach the pass point! -.-"

Next up was the sit-reach test. That was actually pretty easy, so I managed to clear it really easily.

Luckily time was to our advantage - we didn't manage to get to the push-ups or sit-ups! Even if that means we'll be doing them tomorrow, oh well!

Well, I gotta go now, so, have an awesome night, and... I'm really looking forward to tomorrow. >:/

(A Whole Lot More) Progress on My Website!

I am happy to report today some awesome stuff regarding my website and project:

1. I was finally able to make A LOT of progress today! The coding of HTML and CSS is starting to seem a lot easier than before.
2. My website is up and running! With the exception of one page that I haven't completed yet, all else is cool, and live on the web! You can see my website here. The super-power autobiography project is also on one of the website pages.

I'm really glad that I am finally beginning to understand HTML and CSS a lot better. It makes it so much easier to design and create these webpages. There is still a lot more I want to learn though - hopefully by the end of this course, we will learn some more complicated and elaborate web design techniques.

As you can probably tell, I'm in a very good mood right now. However, I have been working the past 2 hours straight, so I think I will go take a break and stretch my legs out! Tomorrow is a late start, which means more sleep for me (thankfully)! So good night!

An Excrutiating *huffs* Weekend *collapses*

Hi. How's your weekend been? Don't even ask about mine.

This is gonna be short and sweet, because I need to get back to working on our actual assignment, but here's a basic recap of what my weekend was like...

Saturday:
*get up*
*go to Canadian Tire*
*eat lunch*
*go grocery shopping*
*eat dinner*
*work on website*
*plop down on the floor before making it to bed*

Ok fine, that last part wasn't true. But after spending the whole day running around and the whole night in front of the computer, my head was spinning a little. As I sank gratefully into bed that night, I thought to myself, it'll be a peaceful day tomorrow. Understatement of the Year? I think so.

Sunday:
*get up*
*go to Church* - this was the only nice part of my weekend, I should mention (I'm Christian by the way, if you were wondering). However Church did end pretty late, around 2pm.
*go back to Canadian Tire, to return what we'd bought yesterday*
*go grocery shopping again for what wasn't in stock yesterday, only to find that there was still no stock*
*eat dinner*
*work on website*

Does something look familiar to you? I basically spent my entire weekend doing the exact same thing each day! Can't do anything about it now though... it's pretty much over now, and tomorrow it's back to school.

1 Thing I am Looking Forward to This Week: Late start on Tuesday = sleeping in!

1 Thing I am Definitely Not Looking Forward to This Week: Tuesday is the dreaded BEEP TEST = I am going to fail the test, thus failing gym.

Funny how two polar opposites can both be on the same day. Joy?

Calm Waters and TGIF

It's FRIDAY, which means I have successfully endured the first week of this journey! Today was a calm day once again at headquarters, as everyone sat down once again in front of a computer screen to try to make the best out of what they knew about HTML and CSS.

Unfortunately Mr. Arkin, having disappeared yesterday for Rosh Hashanah celebrations, did not grace us with his appearance today, which meant that any questions we had for him had to wait. Most of us though, myself included, wanted to get started ASAP on the HTML/CSS project that was linked to what we had learned: create our own website, then create a webpage about a fictitious superpower that we have! (The details of the assignment can be found here.)

Now you may think this assignment is pretty straight-forward. I would've agreed with you, had we had been allowed to use an awesome program called Microsoft Frontpage! But, because life just has to be difficult, OF COURSE NOT. Instead we had to, using all that we'd learned (and additional info from the Internet if wanted), code a webpage from scratch! This really proved to be easier said than done.

With most of the frustrating moments wiped away from yesterday's class, I managed to get off to a nice start, after checking out various HTML and CSS tutorials on the web. When the period was over, I had managed to create a nice layout for my to-be website! I plan to work on it more during the weekend.

The most awesome part about this assignment is that once our websites are finished, we will actually be able to post them up, live on the web! I will be sure to post the link on here as soon as it's up. I can't believe I'm actually on my way to creating a real website! Yay!

For now, even more Yay! because TGIF! It has been a tiring week, full of learning and getting to know new things at VP, so I'm really glad the weekend is finally here. Time to go relax for awhile before tackling this assignment... SO have an awesome weekend, and I'll talk to you later!

Ever Heard of Blind Leading the Blind? Haha.

In a spout of short-term memory loss (that happens to me a lot), I forgot to mention that Mr. Arkin was going to be away today! He left to go celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, with his family. Yesterday when class ended, we all wished him "shana tova", or Happy New Year in Jewish. He also gave us a lollipop, in the tradition of eating something sweet during Rosh Hashanah celebrations. So Mr. Arkin, wherever you are, because today is the actual Rosh Hashanah, shana tova!

Today was a nice, calm day at class headquarters, as everyone settled down to experiment with HTML and CSS codes. I was really glad for this day because we were able to finally settle down and work at our own pace. I decided to begin with HTML, because it seemed a little less intimidating than the CSS.

I was able to create a basic webpage about our first three days of class, with a main heading, and three subheadings. I then wrote a few lines about each day, to try out the paragraph tags. That seemed quite easy, I thought to myself. It was time to move on to the basics of CSS.

I got the general idea of CSS fine: you type in what you want to add stuff to, e.g. the body in general, or the heading(s). Then you can change a variety of things - the font, font style, or text colour. Oh, excuse me. The font color. Because CSS just has to be American! Hmm... guess the Americans are still a step ahead of us. -.-

Anyways, enough of that rant. After grasping the basics of CSS, I wanted to experiment with a little more - like making the paragraphs under each subheading a different colour (ahem, color). However, that idea - for some reason which I still don't understand - did not go as smoothly as planned. I tried changing things, moving around tags, but still, I just couldn't get that little bit to work. Even the CSS Validator said my code was perfectly fine, but it just would not generate what I wanted it to.

Before I could experiment some more though, however, I heard a cry of frustration as the guy sitting two seats to my left leaned back from his computer, exasperated. Being the OCD-ish person I was, I had to go see what was wrong, and whether or not I could help.

I recognized the HTML problem immediately: some of the end tags didn't have a slash in them! All was well a few moments later after adding in the slashes; the webpage opened up exactly as expected. I was glad that with my measly skills, I had actually been able to be of some help to someone else.

Returning back to my own work however, I still couldn't figure out what was wrong with my coding. That was when my neighbour turned to me for help. After helping her successfully generate her webpage, my other neighbour asked me a question as well! I felt like a blind person helping another blind person - I didn't understand this very well either! However, I tried my best, and was actually able to figure out what was wrong.

Helping out a few more people with their various HTML and CSS codes - some successful, others not quite - I returned to my seat, exhausted from staring at the white screen of Notepad. Just as I was about to go back for a final attempt on the most important webpage of all - my own,

BRRRRRRRRIIIIIIINNNNNG!

Oh goodness, the bell! ...With the last of my energy, I dragged myself out of class. At least the blind man - correction, woman - was able to help the other blind men/women... Hopefully, in the right direction.

20 seconds later...
Hmm, what's my next class?
*takes out schedule*
OH C*** IT'S GYM?!
*dies*

I Am TOTALLY Not Confused

Boy. Today literally felt like boot camp. We were given a "crash course" on Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). But let me give you a little rundown of what really happened day 2 at headquarters...

Teacher:
HieveryonetodaywewillbelearningHTMLandCSS!Nowlistencarefully:webpagesaremadeofelements,elementsareidentifedbytags.Betweenatagandanendtagiscalledacontainer,thenyou
havethistagandthisandthenyouaddatitletagandthenthere'sthebody.ButwaitI'mnotdone!Youcanaddalinkhereandlinkittothis:theCSS,tomakeyourpageookprettierand BAM, you have a webpage! GOT IT?

Everyone: O_______O

OK, maybe that was a little exaggerated. But because we had to cram three days' worth of lessons into one hour, most of us were feeling quite shaky about this whole ordeal when class was over. I was really glad I had read a bit of the webpages we were supposed to only preview the night before; it helped me to understand a whole lot better what was going on.

After all of that was over, we had a few minutes to relax and take a breather. We were told to expect our first assignment in the days ahead: creating our own website using only HTML and CSS! In addition to that, we have to write an fictitious autobiography about ourselves and a "super-power" that we have. We must then create a webpage for what we'd written. This would be our first shot at writing HTML and CSS. Even after being dazed about the "tutorial" we'd been given earlier, I was still very excited - it was going to be a cool challenge.

Speaking of the challenge, I want to get a head start on experimenting with the HTML and CSS, ahead of tomorrow's class. So, I guess I'll leave it at that and head over to Notepad. I still have a long way to go before I can master even the basics of web design, so I'd better get started ASAP!
I'll update tomorrow as to whether or not I have made any progress. So keep posted!

This is Just the Beginning...

Today is the start of a new journey for me - an adventure into the world of computers. Not that computers are a foreign concept to me; in fact, I've probably spent more of my free time on computers than anything. But this journey is going to be different, because it will be about more than knowing how to go on Facebook, or playing a game of solitaire. This adventure will be to learn the power of the computers themselves, and how to put those powers into my own hands. And today, we begin on square one.

As I walked into our headquarters, room 218, clutching my schedule and a map for dear life, I had no idea what to expect. But soon I settled into my seat, waiting anxiously for class to start. We were given a little introduction to start things off - a general summary of what to expect throughout this journey. When I heard that web design - HTML and CSS - was part of the mission, I became very excited. We were then given a little assignment to do at home. The session ended soon after that, so there wasn't much time to discuss what we were soon about to embark on.

As soon as I got home, I started to work on the assignments given to us. First we had to create an Wikispace account. I handled that in a matter of seconds. Next was the even better task: create a blog and write up a post!... And so here I am now, telling you about this new adventure. You can keep up with all that I will be learning and working on right here. But for now... I'm signing out.