At http://www.glover.com/, Jeffrey Glover gives web designers tips on making web pages in his own unique way. Glover has set out to make the WWW a more interesting place to visit by pointing out some aspects about hompages that make them boring, annoying, or just as he puts it "sucky." He does this in a humorous way. Some of the topics he covers using "Top Ten" lists are Top Ten Ways to Tell If You Have A Sucky Home Page, Top Ten Ways to Improve Your Home Page, Top Ten Ways to Improve Your Netscape Browser Experience, and (not a top ten list) Do's & Don'ts of Web Site Design.

• In Top Ten Ways to Tell If You Have A Sucky Home Page, Glover describes the some of the properties of a bad home page. Some things that are included are use of overblown pictures, blinking text, shameless self promotion (resume online, your page on your own hot list). Included with each element is a "Suck-O-Meter" which gauges how distasteful each of the elements are.
• In Top Ten Ways to Improve Your Home Page, Glover tells people ten ways of improving their homepage. Some of the things he tells the reader are common sense things, such as using thumbnail images instead of posting the original (#8) or being careful of the kind of background images (#10) that are used. Other things are not as common sense as people would expect, such as being careful of using frames (#7) or being aware of the potential viewer's window size (#9). In every case, he provides the solution to the problem, and sometimes gives step by step instructions on how to fix it. For instance, in some of the graphics related problems, he provides steps using Adobe Photoshop to correct these problems.
• In Top Ten Ways to Improve Your Netscape Browser Experience, Glover provides people with hints of how to use Netscape properly. I found this site to be one of the most insightful ones on the site. It tells you a lot of things that people may not know, such as Netscape is not free for all people (#10), and how to use helper applications (#5). Some advise is very helpful if it is not too late, such as "Leave most of your prefs alone" (#8), which is really not to helpful for those who did not touch their preferences and too late for those who messed it up. Otherwise it is a very helpful page with a lot of useful tips that most people who are using Netscape will find helpful.
• In Do's & Don'ts of Web Site Design, gives some guidelines in some things that should be done and should not be done with a homepage. This is a page that every web page author should visit before they start making their own pages. Glover especially focuses on things that will help speed up the loading of webpages. Such things as encouraging the use of small image maps and discouraging the use of large image maps, the intelligent use of Java, and preaching the restraint of outlandish design elements that take time to load will make everyone's web crusing experience more pleasant.

The overall purpose of this page is to help people develop more efficient and pleasing web pages, by making them more faster to load, and helping people realize some of the more annoying features of their web pages. This page, also probably is the expression of Glover's pet peeves about the WWW. Somethings that Glover is clearly annoyed with is pictures of your pets posted on your web page (I agree), pages that consist only of links to other pages (I really agree with Glover on this one), pages that really are irrelevant, and the use of bad graphics. The last two are very much emphasized throughout his pages. In Glover's "Do's and Don'ts" section, he stresses the importance of having unique content on your webpages. He finishes the section with a example of his friend which is a webpage designer but does not have her own webpage because she doesn't "have anything intresting to say." One of Glover's pet peeves is a page with just "Links and an E-Mail address" on them. I would like to extend the example by stating that it this phenomena gets worse when people link pages that just also just have a page full of links, most often the same links. Five entrees on his Top Ten list of sucky webpage elements have to do with bad graphics (#10, 9, 8, 6, 4). Also 50% of his entries on his "Top Ten Ways to Improve Your Homepage" is about graphics (#10, 8, 6, 4, 3). On the bottom of each section, he warns people of unauthorized use of graphics on his page. The reason why he is so picky about graphics is because he himself is a graphics designer and made everyone of the graphics pieces himself.

Principles That I Understand

1. Graphics: One of the main things that Glover stresses is graphics. This is understandable because of the fact that he creates all of his own graphics. All of Glover's suggestions concerning graphics are to insure the the viewer can clearly understand the text and to reduce download time for the pages. One of his suggestions are to create thumbnails images and put those on your page. What a thumbnail is is a small version of the full size picture. This way the viewer can preview the image before downloading the full sized version. As Glover puts it "[This] may be your favorite graphic, but it wasn't very nice to make us have to wait for it." He also kindly remindes us that changing the image size paramiters in the html tag will not help because the browser loads the full sized version and resizes the image to fit the paramiters. Therefore, you still have to wait for the whole picture to load.
2. Another graphics related issue is the fact that background images are too dark to be able to read the text (which defeats the purpose of the page). But instead of just throwing away a perfectly good piece of graphics, Glover tells you a way of lightening the graphics. The only problem is that these instructions are for Photoshop for Mac, and many people may not have Photoshop (very expensive software program) or they may not have Macs (not one of the most popular computers, but he's a graphics designer and for some reason, they like Macs).
3. Also Glover recommends that you include "Alt," "Height," and "Width" commands with your image tag when you make a webpage. The "Alt" command will tell the view what the image was about if they did not choose to load that particular image. the "Height" and "Width" command tells the browser how big the image should be and will leave a space for the image and continue to load the rest of the page. This will allow you to read the text of the page while you wait for the rest of the page to load up.
4. Glover preaches the proper use of image maps. Although image maps look professional and cool, if you use them the wrong way, it will frustrate the people using them. In other words, don't up two links on a image map that takes up the entire page. Use common sense when creating an image map. Be clear on where you are suppose to click.
5. Another thing that I can understand is how iritating such elements as blinking text, scrolling marquees, and ticker-tape status bars. One of the most annoying is the ticker-tape status bars (the one that has scrolling text run down where your status bar used to be) because of the fact that you lose your status bar. You cannot see where a link goes to when you point to it using your mouse. Blink and the scrolling marquees, on the other hand are just issues of personal taste, and used be used with discression.

Dr. Leon James, our instructor, has a webpage titled "Home Page Architecture: Social Psychological Principles." Here, Dr. James explains the psychological aspects of a web page. He describes himself as having two homes, one in which he lives in (physical house) and another one online, on the Internet. He continues to explain that just as he spends time maintaining his real home he must also spend time taking care of his home page on the Internet also.

I started creating webpages in the Spring of 1996 as part of my ICS 101 (Information Computer Science) class that I took at the University of Hawaii. Through this class, I was introduced to the finer aspects of the Internet (I was dabbling with the Internet for about one year before this) as part of an assignment, we had to make a Web Page. Called the Wine, Cheese and Loco Moco Page, it was a page advertising a fictional restaurant that served a various assortments of (if you haven't figured it out) wine, cheese, and Loco Moco's. Through creating the page, we learned how to embed images, do forms, tables, and lists of various sorts. Inspired by this assignment, I headed out to create a homepage of my vary own. I created The Right Stuff homepage. Within The Right Stuff page are links page, a autobiography section (This is an outgrowth of another ICS 101 assignment), the Yukiism page. In the Yukiism page are various saying and phrases that I collected and created that I sort of live by (hey, Forrest Gump had "Gumpisms" and Newt Gingrich has "Newtisms," so naturally, I have Yukiisims). The page that I am proud of is the Zard Lyrics Page. I decided to create the Zard Lyrics Page because of two things. I wanted to make a page that was relevant and contributed to the Internet (just like Glover, I was sick of pages that was not relevant) and because I am a big fan of the group. For those who is wondering who Zard is, they are a popular Japanese rock (JPOP/JROCK) group under the B-Gram label in Japan. On this page, I translated and romanized their lyrics from all seven of their albums. I am also currently managing my church youth group's web page (Kalihi Union Church Post-High Web Page).

Some of the most difficult things that I went through at first was to come up with ideas to fill your web page. Creating your personal homepage is very easy. All you have to do is write about yourself and put some fun links to other pages. But besides your homepage, creating something unique and interesting that people will enjoy and come back to was very hard. The ideas for the Yukiism page and the Zard Lyrics page came after creating web pages for a while. But once you come up with a idea, and create the page around the unique idea, the results are very satisfying.

As for the future, I plan to continue to update the Zard Lyrics page as long as the group continues to release songs. As for my youth group's page, I plan to start delegating responsibilities for managing the page as for I will have to leave the Islands to attend graduate school on the Mainland. I plan to incorporate some new technologies (Java? Active X? VB Script? Dynamic Pages?) as they get more reliable and as people start to use it more and the connections get faster. There is always the possibility of creating webpages for other people as a part time job as I become more competent in the use of graphics.

My advice for the students in G6 and beyond is simple. Let your creativity flow when creating web pages. Never settle for the ordinary when the extraordinary is possible. But always realize the limits of current technology. If you create something that goes beyond the current capability of the Internet (especially bandwidth) no one will be able to fully enjoy your creation. In other words, don't make it so big that it takes forever to download. I also have believed in creating a page that is clean and pleasant to look at. Don't clutter the screen with useless graphics five frame panels when a simple list of links works. Creating and maintaining webpages may take time and energy but the the fruits of your labor will be worthwhile. As for advise on the Generational Curriculum, don't procrastinate and wait for the last minute and also if you don't understand ask questions. You may not understand it but someone else may and they may be willing to help you.

My advise to Dr. James, our instructor for this class, is to