nerdcereal.com

I’m bored with plain old html. It can’t really “do” much. It’s basically like a piece of paper; you can make a cool lookin’ piece of paper but ultimately that piece of paper doesn’t do anthing. There are many ways to make your webpage “do stuff” and I’ve been exploring them all. CSS was the first but its interaction is limited to rollover links. I also learned Flash, but that’s kinda cheating because it’s a separate program on its own.

Scripting is what I’ve been looking for to make webpages that “do stuff,” be it client- or server-side. I’ve been studying JavaScript for the purposes of simple DHTML. I’ve gotten as far as showing/hiding stuff in different ways. It’s pretty simple but it’s a start. My ultimate goal would be to make some DHTML like Google’s customized home page.

I’ve also been dabbling in PHP and MySQL for the ultimate purpose of creating CMS applications or a blog (like WordPress!). I tried blogging on LiveJournal but I didn’t like it because I couldn’t see the gears that made it turn (and I wanted it hosted at my own domain—call me vain).
That’s why I’m excited about WordPress. I can see what’s going on and sort-of reverse engineer it to learn how it works. I view it as another way to learn PHP and MySQL. I’m still going to work on my own app from scratch but I don’t have to wait forever to see a best example.

It was actually even easier to install than they described. It probably would have been a tab bit harder had I not had a minute amount of PHP and MySQL experience before. But it was a breeze. It was totally expecting to get hung up on something but I didn’t.

So there you have it. I’m entering the wonderful world of blogging. First item on my list: overhaul the look & feel of this blog to match nerdcereal.com.