Rodent Regatta

Patience

Dave is more patient with me than I am. I think I’m okay being the designated HTML newbie! I want to graduate to the next designation sometime soon. I’m beginning to understand what I call the pure HTML stuff. (Thanks Dane, Dave, Russ and Jenny.) What has not completely gelled (yet) is how macros fit inside templates and how templates work together to render a page. When I ”view source” (something my browser has started allowing only intermittently – why?) I’m seeing the ”after effects” of a theme’s templates and the macros of Radio doing their work. At least those are my conclusions. That ”flow” of information to yield the rendered page in HTML that the world sees is what I don’t yet grasp! Hurry, Russ!!! <kidding, sorta>
The rest may be distraction with ”toys!” Two examples come to mind. Jason Kottke has done some nice design work on his site (in my opinion). Look over on the right where he has a list called ”Not Recommended At All.” See the ”more links” link at the bottom. Click it. How did that get done? Yeah, javascript, but who-what-when-where-how? Is this ”gadget” useful or important. Or, are these displays of what designers can do in hopes of getting new projects?
Same set of questions with Lance Arthur’s glassdog site. Go there, scroll down the page and watch the left hand menu of links slide into place. Gimmick or is there some piece of knowledge and skill behind the scenes that has real utility, rather than simply a high coolness factor? And what about all these *.shtml pages? I can only imagine what I might once have thought ”shtml” stood for. (I might have even called someone that much earlier in my life!)
Am I into the truly advanced stuff and beyond the HTML newbie stage? Maybe. And, judging from the sites I’m seeing, any notions I have about making money in HTML/web design are fatally flawed. So, where can all of this lead? Is weblogging to be an interesting hobby for me? Is it merely a tool for self-publishing my writing? Is there a business somewhere in this stuff? Where to focus the attention is what tries my patience.
I love it, but at some point, I’m going to have to designate this fascination as hobby or work! Wouldn’t it be great if it could be both?
Thanks for the link, Dave. I do love this stuff!