I’m proud of myself for time well spent during the past holiday season. After passing my first Java course I spent the first week of the holiday learning more about Java applet programming.My text book touches on applets and GUI (graphical user interface) applications and we learned a lot about GUI’s – pronounced gooey like candy – during the semester. I wanted to learn more about the artsy side of the web applications of the language. With just a few slight changes in code, GUI’s and applets can be made interchangeable with each other. So that was fun and it kept my brain in gear with the subject matter.

I also freshened up my HTML and XHTML skills in week two. I want to be able to start customizing my blog more than I have in the past and be able to start new projects more capably in the future so this was also a beneficial exercise. I even coded in my practice applets into my practice web page.The HTML book I checked out touched on basic CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) the code that allows you to manipulate colors, fonts, layouts and other things that HTML wasn’t meant to beyond a certain point. You notice the two or three column layout now common to most sites? CSS creates that for you.

I have a separate CSS book that I checked out so as to learn it really well. Gonna have to find some other time to get into that one though now that the spring semester is in full swing again. So, what are you taking action on to improve your blogging and coding skills in 2008? Don’t stagnate jump into something new and learn an advanced online skill. Happy writing!