I’ve just finished http://hpronline.org, the online version of the student publication Harvard Political Review. I think the site looks pretty nice, and it did take quite a bit of time to complete. The best thing the website has going for it is not merely the design, but a dedicated group of students who are willing to update the articles, pictures, and other content.
It’s true for any website – without useful, dynamic content, even the most attractive website will disappear into oblivion.
It’s almost graduation time. Good bye Harvard! (soon)
Today:
I know this blog post lacks any depth whatsoever, but yay!
Ever see this annoying button before?
I believe that a good website should not be run on Flash. Sure, it can have trivial flash components, but not Flash for the menu, navigation, and content!
Nonetheless, Flash allows designers to make very visually appealing websites with effects that are not possible with simple HTML/CSS and either cumbersome or unfeasible with Javascript. Furthermore, there’s no need to tinker with stylesheets or test browser compatibility for hours on end.
So against my principles, I am experimenting with a Flash version of my website. It’s started off simple and redundant, but I will develop it more in my free time. The hardest part is of course the graphics. You can see my project at: http://darrenhe.com/flash.
I’m getting bored of these posts, since they seem to be every few days now. Wordpress-based site: http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~hrec/.
I finally am making some changes to my own website!
Logo has been changed and I have added a right side picture for people with big enough monitors to see it. Kat’s doing some graphics for me – I’m excited!
Also made some graphics for Services and Portfolio, and I’m thinking of replacing that rainbow thing on my home page to a flash animation. I only put it there to take up space anyways.
Just a day after finishing the HCCG website, I started and finished the website for the Harvard College Global Heatlh and AIDS Coalition (http://hcs.harvard.edu/hac/).
For this website, the users wanted to be able to 1) easily edit the static pages and 2) have a blog. My solution was to use Wordpress to maintain the entire website. Thus instead of integrating Wordpress into a website like I’ve done for my own website and for katherinejhan.com, I’ve done the reverse.
Used the pixeled theme from Wordpress, modified of course to make it suitable for a static content view. Best part is that non-code content changes are easy (and mostly done already!)
Just finished the website for Harvard College Consulting Group (http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/hccg/).
Pretty straightforward website, simple CSS-based div design, with PHP calling the header, top menu, left menu, and footer. Google analytics integrated in the footer, and both the CSS and XHTML validated with W3C the first try!
Most importantly, it should be amazingly easy to edit for future classes of Harvard consultants! Just have to modify the page in question, and there’s a clearly visible div called “content.” Everything ugly is hidden in the PHP headers and footer. Yay for bloat-free, non-CMS websites!
New York Times Article Skimmer
H’s gchat status brought to my attention the New York Times Article Skimmer prototype. It’s supposed to give the experience of “reading the Sunday Times, spreading out the paper on a table.” Rather, it gives me a headache.
On widescreen monitors the article boxes are too wide. On any screens, “skimming” becomes “head-turning”. I would rather see articles in a list:
Normal Layout: Eyes scan each article from left to right, head moves down the page between articles
Article Skimmer: Head moves left to right as well as down. Uncomfortable.
So my scraping attempts didn’t run so smoothly, and to save time, I just used an iframe. But at least I can fit the full contents and not have to worry about formatting. There’s also some other stuff for fun. The BMI calculator is just a joke (by joke I refer to the comments – the actual calculation is accurate).
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My First Vista Sidebar Gadget
I just made my first Windows Vista sidebar gadget! Granted, it’s very simple: all it does is list some of my favorite links. But it’s quite convenient (more so than bookmarks), and it even matches my website color scheme!
Developing Vista Sidebar gadgets is really easy. I think it’s suppoed to be based on Windows SDK, but it’s really just HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Anyone can make one!
For more information, check out: http://gallery.live.com/devcenter.aspx.
Microsoft made something easy and straightforward. Cheers!