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Aloha! Well, here it is, my second report! Whoa, big whoopee huh? Well to me it is, so let me at least tell you what you're going to encounter during your venture into my wonderful second report. This report is on Web Designing, and what you should or shouldn't do as to the construction of your own homepage. I'll let you know how I got started, where I'm at now, and even give suggestions to the next generation of Dr. James' cyber-community. I'll tell you, when I first got started, I didn't even know where to begin, but now, I think I've gotten a good enough feel for Web Designing and cyberspace in general. So allow me to try and help you on your construction of your own homepage, and read on for my personal suggestions to you!

The list below is going to be some of the thoughts that ran through my mind as I checked out the site: "http://www.glover.com/" so it may seem disjointed, but if you check out the site, you'll probably understand what I mean.

This is pretty cool stuff. It takes long to download, but how the hell does he make his guy point to the different parts?

Ha! I'm not even done with the "sucky" section and already I'm laughing! This guy is funny.

The pictures for the Disneyland vacation haven't even downloaded yet and it's funny already. This guy is crazy!!!

Well, the pictures weren't all that funny after going through them. Not terrible though.

Is this guy gay?

I'm not even paying attention to your stupid "mine" stuff or whatever it is. Boring. Basically just some bullshit about what you're doing with your homepage. Never mind that. No need to explain!

Pretty interesting stuff, this sucky to savvy thing. True!

I like those arrows on the side so you can go to the next one if you're already done reading the present one.

No way I'm looking through your mining stuff.

Okay! Now that I've finished going over this site, I've come to the conclusion that this guy is wacko! No, actually, this site is pretty cool. The purpose of this site, as I see it, is to get people to think before they embark on creating a super-web-page! Glover gives many examples of "what to do," and even more of "what not to do," giving the user a good idea of how to construct a good web page. The best part of this page is that I believe and agree with most of what he's saying.

Contained within the page are several different links, all of which are amusing to an extent. The first one I checked out, Top Ten way to tell if your page is Sucky, was rather interesting and true. Here, Glover talked about how to distinguish whether or not your page qualifies as being "sucky." The only problem with this list, I felt, was that a lot of 'em are about graphics or things concerning graphics. If you're a person unfamiliar or unaccustomed to using graphics, then you may not understand what he's talking about. I am one of these people and so I didn't like this section too much.

The second link I looked at was Disneyland pictures. I found no real reason for this section of his page, other than getting to know a little about the designer. The pictures were funny at first, but after a while, the time it takes to download to pictures are too long to wait, and the initial comedic aspect falls off. I'd still recommend checking out some of the photos, however, for they are rather funny.

The next link, Sucky to Savvy, was interesting because Glover gave us an idea of what to put on our pages to improve them. Some of the suggestions were right on the money and so this is a good place to look if you're wondering how to better your page for the viewing public.

The last link I checked out, a little personal information about the designer, was rather boring to me. I mean it's interesting to know who this person is and what he does, but I don't think it's necessary. I don't think we, as visitors, really need to know the specifics of who he is. But then again, it is his page and so I guess he can put whatever the hell he wants to on it.

So my advice to you, as to the perusing of this particular site, is to go ahead and check it out. There are many interesting tips as to the betterment of your homepage, but also, I'd suggest checking it out simply because the designer is a little bit crazy and funny to look at. This is definitely one of the funnier sites I've looked at, so go ahead, knock yourself out!

After going over Dr. Leon James' paper entitled, Social Psychological Principles of Home Page Architecture, I selected three ideas which I thought were the most interesting to me. The first, Psychological Characteristics of Hypertext Links, talked about the psychological aspect of creating a homepage. Basically, what Dr. James spoke of here was of the three different approaches to looking at links and their uses.

Dr. James stated that, "The affective feature of links refers to their motivation." This feature explains how the person felt when they established the link. The affective feature shows what kind of person is putting up these links, or in other words, it's a more personal account of why the link is there.

The cognitive feature, according to Dr. James, "refers to their argument or implication." Through this feature, one can get into the person's brain. This is the feature spoken of to try and figure out why the person put this link in. What new things are waiting on the other end of this link? What new things can you show to your accessor?

The sensorimotor feature shows more of the physical aspect of the link. What it looks like, how appealing is it to the accessor. This is basically the "looks good, so I'll try it," aspect of links.

I felt this was an interesting analysis of what psychological aspects play a part in selecting where or when to put in links. It also shows the different features involved when establishing a link and makes the reader think about why they put in certain links.

Another part of the paper which I thought was interesting was the section on Informational Content of Home Pages. Here, Dr. James states that, "In general, we try to achieve two important results with a Home Page. One is that it should be clear (unconfusing), informative and useful. The other is that it should be beautiful, with a creative and entertaining style."

This is an accurate portrayal of why we create homepages. We want to express ourselves in another form, and so why not over the internet? What we must remember, however, is that what we want to do, and what we should do are two different things.

Say you want to put in pictures of all your friends and relatives, your car, your house, etc. This is all fine and well, but you must also be considerate of your audience. Some people say, "to hell with them," but I believe people put up their home pages so others can visit. So make sure it's clear to your audience.

This doesn't mean that you should only put in things which are crystal-clear and omit things which show the real "you." By all means, include things which will express to your audience who you are. All I'm saying here is that you should think first, before just putting anything up. Remember that almost everyone who is looking at your homepage doesn't want to wait a day for your picture to load. Be considerate, yet eccentric. It's difficult, but try to accommodate everyone's interests.

This ties into the last section which I thought was interesting. In Stylistic Features of Home Pages, Dr. James spoke of making visitors wait for loading times and of the background colors and music etc. He states that, "As a rule of thumb, I would say that anything more than 10 secs is too long to wait for a Home Page."

I must agree with him here, as many a time I've had to wait for this big stupid picture to load before going on and looking over the entire page. This is the most irritating thing, in my eyes. Why should I have to wait for a stupid picture of you and your dog? He goes on to give suggestions as to reducing loading times and on choosing backgrounds. I suggest you check it out.

So basically, in both Glover's paper and Dr. James' paper, the same things are spoken of, to an extent. They both give important and informative suggestions as to how to construct a good homepage. They both speak of cutting down on loading times for pictures and icons, and they both talk about having pages that cater to the audience. The difference, I felt, was that Glover tried to show the visitor through his own site, while Dr. James decided to explain and show in words how to go about doing these things. Both sites are tremendously useful to the beginning Web Designer and so look them up!

So I guess now it's my turn to talk a little bit on Web Designing, huh? Well, I should probably start by telling a little bit of how I got started, so here's how it goes.

Before this semester, my usage of the internet and cyberspace was about as extensive as my knowledge on how to successfully complete a heart transplant. I knew nothing. All I knew was that Cyberspace existed and that you could find all kinds of neat pictures and information over the internet. I knew all of this from what my friends and my mom told me though, not from experience. So I was a little overwhelmed when I actually got started and began my first search.

I wouldn't say that I needed much help in learning to use the internet, for I'd watched before. The part that I did need help on, however, was on constructing my own homepage. I had to go through many internet exercises, lined up by Dr. James, in order to get a feel for the HTML (internet) language. I spent many tireless hours trying to complete the exercises, but I now feel that it was time well spent.

So anyway, after going through the many exercises, and just looking at many different homepages, I constructed my own, with a little help from my friends. This, I feel is key. Don't try and do it all on your own. Ask your friends for suggestions, get help from whoever is willing to lend an ear. Don't be a superman, be a Clark Kent!

Well, after a while, I finally got my page up. What I know now is that the homepage is never complete. You always should go back and check on it, add new things which you feel might add to your page, but don't go overboard. At the present time, I'm in this stage of deciding what is correct for my own homepage. Believe me, this is not an easy task, but one which can be accomplished as long as you take the time.

As for me, I think I'll be constantly checking my homepage in the future and adding or taking away what I feel will, or won't, be useful. I don't think that I'll get into the field of Web Designing, but I'll probably continue doing it for fun. It's a good stress break, if you don't get too serious about it.

So, for all you Generation 6-er's out there, the suggestion I have for you is to have an open mind. Don't go into this class thinking you know everything, or thinking you don't know anything. Just go into the class and allow Dr. James to help you along with whatever it is he'll be touching upon for your semester. Look over our Generation 5 papers and also those of previous generations for clues. We're not just putting this up for our health you know. Most of all, have fun. Don't take this whole thing too serious, or you're liable to end up killing yourself. Go with the flow!

And Dr. James, allow your students to explore a little more. Maybe allow them a period to suggest what topics they'd like to go over. Don't just assign them a paper to do, ask them what it is they're interested in Other than that, your ambition of creating an online generational community is becoming a reality, as far as I see it. Keep it up!

I looked up some links which may be of use to you when deciding on how to construct your own homepage. Check these links out for tips on how to build a good homepage.

Web Issues - This link lets you know what you can and cannot do when constructing a web page. Very useful and informative.

Information-based Future - This link explores what the future holds, as far as freebies while copying things to put on your own homepage. Not really related to my report, yet informative as to where the future of cyberspace may be heading.

Netscape tips - This is a link with the winning pages of Netscape's competition on building a homepage.

Homepages of the world- Exactly what it sounds like. A link to give you ideas on different homepages throughout the world.

That's all folks!!!

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Report 2	Introduction	Principles	Psychological
	Become	Annotated
Leon's Page	My Home Page	409b Class Page

If you have any comments or reactions to my paper, feel free to e-mailme. I will take in to consideration all suggestions to further enhance my report.