REM Runner versus the World Wide Web

HTML coding is not my idea of a good time.  Until about a month ago, the words – “Domain,” “Server,” “Hosting” and “FTP” were meaningless to me.  I never wanted to know about the cryptic inner-workings of the World Wide Web; I was happy to leave all this to the “computer geeks.” All this changed about a month ago when I set out to design my own website.

At first, the project seemed “fun.” Using a simple program on my Mac called iWeb, I picked out pictures and fancy fonts.  However, the excitement quickly faded when I realized I wanted my site to do things that iWeb didn’t have pre-made boxes and pages for. Was I being greedy to want my site to play multiple videos on one page?  Could I make a “prettier” navigational bar than the one provided?

I searched google to find answers to my questions – and found Cedric Giger’s iWeb FAQ, which has become my bible of sorts. Cedric’s site and eBook not only answered all of my questions, but informed me that I could do more with iWeb than I ever imagined — allow people to share my site on Facebook and Twitter? Yes, please! Set up a mailing list? Hurray! The possibilities were endless; all I had to do was follow Cedric’s instructions meticulously.

I slowly built the pages of my sites with photos, links, videos, a mailing list and comment box. Cedric’s treatise simplified things incredibly, but I still had to learn some HTML and basic web terms to individualize and publish my site.

Each step of the way, I was amazed to see things actually work! I ran into a few snarls, but eventually, after a month’s sweat and tears – I logged onto www.julieflygare.com and saw myself smiling back from the web browser.  It was a moment of personal triumph. REM Runner versus the World Wide Web – I won, with Cedric’s coaching!

I hope you will enjoy my site, especially the Videos page featuring a News Profile of my story of running the Boston Marathon 2010 – as reported by Meaghan Corson (major thanks to Meaghan for providing these videos for my site!). Please share on Facebook, join my mailing list or send me comments, I love hearing from you.

3 Comments

  1. The Dreamer on January 19, 2011 at 12:47 pm

    Someday I need to sit down and redo my website….perhaps time to do it using something more than Notepad.

  2. Meatloaf on January 19, 2011 at 4:11 pm

    I already signed up for the mailing list 🙂 Looks great, Jules!! xoxo

  3. thomas.flygare on January 20, 2011 at 6:36 pm

    Cool website, Julie!!

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