Over the past ten weeks or so, I had created two hypertexts that were available for public viewing. These hypertexts required me to write essays and incorporate web design for the overall product.

Before this endeavor, I had some background with web design. I maintained a personal website (blog and information about myself and things I liked at the time) about ten years ago. I started out with basic HTML tags and formats, but eventually used Cascading Style Sheets. I even dabbled a little bit with image alterations. My main tools for image creation was Microsoft’s Paint and Jasc’s Paintshop Pro (now made by Corel). I wasn’t very talented, but I thought it was good.

Since it had been almost ten years, I completely forgot how to create CSS and HTML by hand. Thankfully, I was able to use KompoZer to create all my hypertext webpages to bring my ideas to life. The content of my webpages ranged from personal to public.

For my personal hypertext, I focused on the topic of success. I had a short essay I had written in an earlier English course that I wanted to update. I thought it would be appropriate because my ideas of success and what others would think about it pretty much sum of my educational and professional path in life. Keeping in mind that this was going to be available for anyone to view definitely changed the amount of personal details I wanted to share. Instead of successful examples being from my own life, I incorporated prominent individuals who could also be associated with the ingredients I had outlined for success. Upon reflection of this work, I feel like my essay was not the best I could have done and the webpage design was a lot plainer than I originally had hoped. I think that if I had still remembered much of my CSS and design concepts from my past, I would have created something more visually appealing. If I could change the design of this hypertext, I would use a different banner and center all the content. In regards to my essay, I felt uneasy because it wasn’t like writing any other essay. Each sub-topic of success that I wanted to write about had its own page of the hypertext. Readers can jump around and read whichever part whenever they want. So it’s harder to keep a cohesive flow going because the essay component online is not sequential. If I change the essay, I will try to incorporate more transitions that make sense in the online format so that the overall project seems more collective, but it still reflects my essay as if it were a printed document.

The difficulty I had with the transitions of my personal hypertext really influenced the way I approached my podcast hypertext where I addressed a public venue. I created a podcast audio of a tour of the Mountain View public library. Since this was completely impersonal, it was easier to create. I am pleased overall with the general design of this work because the colors are inviting and I figured out how to center the content (which I had wanted to do with my personal hypertext, but didn’t know how at the time). Since I kind of had a better understanding of webpage navigation now, I let my essay components be more independent from each other. The topics of technology, art, and community resources at the library are all common because they can be witnessed at the library, yet they are all different. I feel like my essay could use more of a focus on how these resources help maintain or improve issues in the community. Between my two hypertexts, this podcast project would be my favorite.

Currently, I am working on an analytical hypertext with a couple other Internet Culture analysts. My hope is to use my experience with the personal and podcast hypertexts to create an informative and thought provoking work focused on game addiction and Cory Doctorow‘s For The Win. Then after that, I plan to rework the above mentioned hypertexts to better reflect my writing.

I love to write – poems, short stories (not one of my faves, but I still like it), impromptu essays, and analytical essays. All these are traditional English fair and I feel like my best work isn’t shown as well on an online medium as it could be in print. I think I can only get better from here though since the Internet has been evolving. It makes logical sense to me that advances I can make with my online essays can only improve the way I also write traditionally.