June 25

Monday June 25, 2007 5:45 am Lethbridge

It is +8 C with a high forecast of +16 C. Sunrise 5:25 Sunset 21:43 Hours of daylight: 16:22

A. Morning Musings

5:45 am

I am still in the throws of figuring our the details of designing this page using the <div> tag instead of the <table> tag and then using CSS to position the various "boxes". The links to the previous and next pages are still causing me problems. The fact that there are difficulties is a good indication that there are still some nuances that I have failed to grasp. Focusing on this activity is causing havoc with my original plans as most of my time is being spent on this rather than on the other activities that I identified at the start of the week. Hopefully I can recover my original goals before the week is over.

We were hoping to do some birding today but the weather forecast is for showers and rain. We will see how it goes as the day unfolds.

Now to brew a cuppa and begin.

B. Plan

Immediate	Description	Time
Literature	Continue reading "By a Frozen River" by Norman Levine	1 hr
Technology	Read & make notes for chap 8 of "Teach Yourself XML in 21 days"	1 hr
Technology	Revise the design for this page using <div> tags and CSS	3 hr
Science	Read & make notes for chaps 3 - 4 of "The Canon"	2 hr
Mathematics	Review sections 1 - 3 of "Algebra: Abstract and Concrete"	1 hr

C. Actual Learning Activities

6:20 am

The first Learning activity for today is to see if I can fix the remaining problems with the design of this page. I think the problem has more to do with the CSS commands for positioning the items than with the <div> tags themselves.

4:20 PM

I struggled with the CSS for about an hour, making some progress, but not yet getting a clear understanding of the positioning commands. Now to see if I can do better this session. The first step is to closely examine the sequence of the CSS commands. I am concerned that the cascading feature is interfering with some of the explicit commands.

7:45 PM

I think I finally have it! The two page links at the top of the page are absolutely positioned by the coordinates of the top left corner of the box containing the link. The two page links at the bottom of the page are relatively positioned within the box containing all of the content for the page. I think it is fair to say that I now feel confident using <div> tags to design a web page layout.

That is enough for today. I will think about planning the remainder of the week tomorrow morning.