KaiSchaller.com

I finally have my very own copy of The Zen of CSS Design by Dave Shea and Molly Holzshlag. I’ve been wanting this book ever since it was published a while back (the exact date escapes me), but it was at a time where I just couldn’t justify the cost of any more computer books. I was in a bad habit of buying books that looked interesting, getting on with the initial flip-through, then leaving them on the shelf after being distracted by more urgent matters. I didn’t want this to be one of those books, so I held off, figuring that

1. I would be able to give it the attention it deserved at some point in the future and
2. The price would come down slightly from $40

It turns out I was half-right; I don’t really have more time but I am more dedicated, and Amazon.com had it marked down to a more affordable level for my poor college budget. Note: Hastings had actually marked the book up to $45. Shame on you Hastings, no link for you.

I’m still working my way through CSS Mastery by Andy Budd in my spare time; it’s one heck of a great read.

Here’s the way I want things to work out over the course of the next year and a half: I’m going to take a 5 hour chemistry class over the summer in order to be able to fulfill all additional graduation requirements during the fall semester. This means I’ll have my BS in computer science in December and be done with school for the time-being. After that I will take some time to visit my family in Germany — I haven’t seen them in a couple of years and would like to before I dive into my career. All of this time I’ll be working on my portfolio (for web work) so that I can find a decent (and fun; fun is very important) job in the San Francisco Bay area. This means improving and fine-tuning the XHTML and CSS knowledge I already have, but also getting a much better feel for design.

I think one of the biggest challenges will be getting the ideas in my head to be accurately converted into a PSD; there’s always been something lost in the translation because I “build” them differently depending on if I’m thinking about a design or actually trying to create it with Photoshop.

While I have a very heavy course-load this semester I’m still finding the time to do whatever I can in my free time. Currently I’m reading CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions by Andy Budd, which is an incredible book. So far it seems to be the most practical CSS book I’ve ever read, maybe I’ll be able to give a full review of it once I finish.

That’s it for now, I’ll keep you updated.

Hi everyone, I’m back. I have a lot to tell you about, but I don’t think I can lay it all down via keyboard right now — I’m pretty tired.

As a sidenote, I was a bit hesitant to use someone else’s theme, as this is a blog about my journey to becoming a web expert. But in the end I figured it was better to go with this than stare at the boring default theme. School is keeping me very busy at the moment, but I’ll sit down and create a look of my own once I can find the time.

To web standards!