Category: General
Well, my website has been down for awhile as I have been working on the redesign. This is it! What do you think? There’s lots of changes with this redesign. Obviously, the overall look of it. But there’s more to it than that of course. I thought I would go through what I have done and learned through this process.
Custom theme!
My previous design was a child theme that I created off of Thematic, a theme framework. At first I liked child theming, but after learning how to create my own themes over the past few months in my directed study at VIU, I have a new love for custom theming. With creating your own theme, you have complete control over everything, and you don’t have to use CSS to hide things, or force things to be a certain way. There’s a lot less clunky stuff going on I guess you could say. You can also include or exclude certain components, such as comments.
A couple books that have helped me out with custom theming are Smashing WordPress: Beyond the Blog and Smashing WordPress Themes: Making WordPress Beautiful, both by Thord Daniel Hedengren. Both are great books, and I highly recommend them. There is a 2011 edition now of Beyond the Blog as well. And, I also can’t forget the help of the WordPress Codex.
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Ah, the end of the semester. It’s a relaxing feeling… sort of?
If you were following me on Twitter, you’ll know that the strike at VIU did happen, and it lasted a month. It started on March 10th, and we were back in class on April 12th, with a semester extension to April 29th without a formal exam period (actual class end date was April 11th followed by exams).
So that was a quick couple weeks to finish things up! All of my profs were really accommodating and flexible which was great. 🙂
I’m glad summer is here, I get to work more now and have some more free time, maybe. 😛 I’ve got one, maybe two, projects lined up right now. Speaking of projects – I added three to my portfolio! They’re all for the Media Studies department at VIU. Two of them were for my directed study (Digi 405) where I focused on WordPress theming. The other was a project I did in the Spring of 2010 as my first project working with PHP, and this semester I gave it a new look, and added some new stuff to it. Go check ’em out! 🙂
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It’s been awhile since my last post. I’m not very good at blogging I guess. But my busy schedule keeps me, well, busy!
I’ve been working on lots of projects, not only for my classes but for the Media Research Lab and the Media Studies department. I’m the MRL Student Manager, so I get to work on lots of things, and it keeps me super busy, but I like it a lot! So, shortly after the end of the semester I should have a few new projects up on my portfolio. 🙂
However, the end of semester could come a lot sooner… or at least our reading week may be extended. There is an impending strike at VIU, and the deadline is March 4th. I’m on reading week right now, and potentially we could have classes next week to only have no classes the follow week if a strike does occur. I have my fingers crossed that the strike does not happen, or if it must that it doesn’t last long. If it does last awhile, I personally do not mind if the semester has to be extended a bit, but I just don’t want the semester to get cancelled all together.
But I am keeping myself busy (which isn’t hard to do), and continuing to work work work away like nothing is happening. It’s all we can do really. Just wait and see what happens!
With some of my projects, I’m really getting my hands dirty with WordPress. I should be a WordPress Wizard of some sort by the end of the semester! I’m in love with WordPress, it’s just awesome. I’ve been working a lot more with just PHP again as well, and I’m hoping to get into OOPHP before the semester comes to a close.
I think it’s just 12 weeks left until the end of semester. No, no, I’m not counting down… 😛 (Seriously though, I’m not because I enjoy school, it’s just flying by so fast already!)
I’ve already got a load of work to do, and it’s quite overwhelming. I don’t know why this semester feels busier than last. I guess it’s just the courses I’m in. I’m enjoying all pretty well so far. I’m taking a video class (Digi 280), a class related to news (Medi 311), a game theory class (Medi 265), and I’m doing a directed study that I have yet to start as it hasn’t gone through, but for that I will be focusing on WordPress (Digi 405). On top of that I have three jobs (two school-related), so you can imagine how busy I am! But I enjoy every minute of it. 🙂
On another note, I have removed all my old blog posts – those actually came from my other WordPress.com blog that I use for school when I have to make weekly blog posts for classes. I will (or have by the time you might be reading this) add an icon in the footer to follow me on there if you like. I’m doing so because I want to share some of what I am doing in my educational career, but I think it’s a great way for anyone interested in the program I am in to see what exactly goes on in the classes. Sometimes course descriptions really don’t give you a full understanding of what will be covered in a course.
Anyways, this is a short one for now… lots of work to do! 😉
…until my holiday break is over. Time is whizzing by!
I had a busy but great semester. Unfortunately I didn’t get around to posting another update back in November. I would say the end of October through the beginning of December is the busiest time of the fall semester.
My major project for the fall semester was for my JavaScript class, and I worked on it together with two other students in the class. We got a lot accomplished but we’re still not done. I think partly it is because we really didn’t start working on it until near the end of October. We actually spent about 8 hours on the two “study days” between the end of classes and exams to get more work done. You can get a lot accomplished when you’re one of the few people actually in the building! We’re still able to get a grade for the class, but because the project is for the VIU Media Studies department, we are going to continue working on it outside of class time next semester to finish and launch it hopefully by the end of January or so.
Anyways, I don’t really have much else to say! I’ll try to update more next semester, but I can’t guarantee anything. 😛 I’d like to write some tutorials as well to share, but I’m not sure what I’d like to cover just yet. I may hold off on that until after next semester, but we’ll see. Something may come to me before the semester begins!
I’d also like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, and a happy, healthy 2011! 🙂
Well, I’m not very good at blogging. At least not right now, when I’m busy!
It’s the middle of the semester, so I’m right in the middle of one of the busiest times of the semester. November is going to be a very busy month as I have a couple major projects going on, as well as all the other little assignments and readings, etc.
I feel like I am managing my time very well though, and I’m not getting behind which is important!
I do have some news though! I have been accepted to the VIU Exchange Program! I will hopefully be going to Australia next year for a semester exchange! I’m very excited about this, and soon I will be applying to the university I want to go to.
Anyways, this is just a little update for y’all. I can’t guarantee anything, but I’ll try to give another update before the month is over. 🙂
