HTML

I have taken alot of courses and workshops over the years in HTML. I find it is much like learning a foreign language, in the sense that if you don't use it you forget it. Still, I have also found that there is no need to keep all those tags and rules in my head. Once you learn the basics of how to structure a page, it really is just a matter of knowing where to go to find instructions on how to do specific things you can't remember. Obviously, if creating HTML is a core component of your job, it helps efficiency considerably to not need to be looking in a book every time you want to code something. But, if HTML is something you only use infrequently, then once you grasp the key concepts keeping some HTML resources handy for reference is sufficient. The resources provided in D2L this week were sufficient for completing the assignment requirements. I also referred to Dave Raggett's websites on basic and advanced HTML and some CSS, which are very clear and easy to follow:

http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide/

http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide/Advanced.html

http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide/Style.html

There is also an excellent series of tutorials on HTML 4/5 with CSS available through the UA VTC site. This is an amazing resource for UA students which I wish I had more time to explore and learn from.

Learning Styles

I liked the article by Richard Felder and Barbara Soloman on "Learning Styles and Strategies" in this week's reading. It was sort of like a personality test for learning. I am a ASVS learner based on their brief descriptions - Active Sensing Verbal Sequential. Particularly when it comes to technology, I am definitely an active learner who prefers to just jump in and start trying things. That is also generally my approach to projects. I hate it when coworkers simply refuse to try something or won't even start a project because they assume it is impossible. I am a firm believer in pilot projects and test phases. I also strongly identify with the description of a sensing learner as someone who doesn't like "courses that have no apparent connection to the real world." No wonder me and philosophy didn't get along. I think I am a good strong middle ground when it comes to visual versus verbal learner, although with technology I may lean more towards visual. I definitely find the online tutorials and video demonstrations more helpful than the reading which frequently makes no sense to me. For some reason, even just hearing it versus reading it seems to make a difference. I also think I fall somewhere in the middle on the sequential and global learner scale. I do like linear, straightforward assignments and I can follow along even when I don't see the big picture yet. But once I grasp how something works, I do like to think outside the box and can often find ways to make software for instance work in novel ways.

Users and Groups

This week our assignments and readings focused on administration of users and groups. We had to do the same basic tasks of adding new users and groups and setting permissions using three different interfaces, Gnome, Webmim, and the CLI. It was all pretty straightforward and mostly about can you follow detailed directions. The only hiccups on the assignments I had were due to typos when using the command line interface. Once I got over my Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy moment and stopped panicking, I was able to figure out pretty quickly why things weren't working. It was usually just due to one letter being off, which is kind of frustrating but easy to fix. The umask numbering system is going to take some getting used to, but I think it is doable. I don't know that I need to understand intricately really anyways, so long as I know where to find the information and can set permissions as I need them. I actually had a harder time wrapping my head around the discussion of the set user identification attribute. I don't know why because it sounds straightforward enough, but the explanation just did not make sense to me. I am hoping it will click at some point. I think this is a situation where I really just need to understand the concepts and possibilities so I can accurately express to my IT administrator what my needs are. it is not likely that I will be setting these permissions myself, at least not at my current job.

Hands-on with the CLI

This weeks hands-on experience with the CLI was actually kind of fun. It made me nostalgic for my BASIC programming class in high school, although it also recollected my angst over my final project program not working and it taking me DAYS to figure out that it was all because I had typed a lowercase l in place of a 1. The teacher couldn't even find the mistake! Scarily, I actually found the Linux CLI easier and more enjoyable to work with than the vim interface and commands. Maybe I am just spoiled to Microsoft Word 2007, but I found the vim terrible to work with and can not fathom how it could ever be efficient to use. The far as CLI commands go, it was all pretty straightforward and everything worked as the tutorials described them. I have to admit that configurations I have done on my computers using Windows GUI were easier in some sense, but that is probably just because I am more familiar with them. I think the configuration possibilities in the Linux environment are actually more flexible and powerful though. The Windows GUI works great so long as you don't want to do anything to complicated or out of the ordinary. The Linux CLI seems like it could accommodate pretty much anything you could think of a valid command for.