Web Design and Development

Upon the Subject of Dynamic DNS

March 11, 2026January 30, 2011 by Dan

noip.com is still around. DD-WRT is still around too, if you have hardware that supports it. But if you’re trying this in 2026, I’d suggest using OpenWrt.

In order to give people an easier way to get to the web server I set up was time to give it a hostname.…

Upon the Subject of Web Servers

March 11, 2026January 30, 2011 by Dan

Now that I had the computer and the network taken care of, it was time to turn the setup into a web server. Here we get into territory that’s pretty close to my job. So to make things more interesting for me and to help others in the IT 566 class I decided to look around for good tutorials and see if they actually worked so I could pass them along.…

University Website Venn Diagram

March 16, 2026August 1, 2010 by Dan

A reminder that what you think should go on a website may not be what people are actually looking for.

https://xkcd.com/773/

University Website Venn Diagram - xlcd..com/773 — Description from xkcd – People go to the website because they can’t wait for the next alumni magazine, right? What do you mean, you want a campus map?

…

New UT Libraries website

March 10, 2026September 5, 2007 by Dan

Added March 11, 2026: Thanks to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine for saving copies of things I worked on years ago.

I’ve been pretty busy spearheading the redesign on the UT Libraries site. (lib.utk.edu as it appeared in September 2007) It officially launched August 13th and it’s a slow process getting a site that big with dozens of people involved updated to a new design.…

Library Podcast… file extension issues

March 11, 2026May 4, 2007 by Dan

Added March 11, 2026: A reminder of the early days of podcasting.

I’ve been working on putting a podcast up for The Commons at work. Which is a little harder than it sounds. First I had to figure out podcast RSS feeds.…

Templates, web design, and work

March 10, 2026February 10, 2007 by Dan

Added March 10, 2026: I added links to older versions of the sites I was talking about here using Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. Otherwise this post was all dead links and no context.

When I started my job at Hodges, I knew 95% of the designs I came up would have to fit in the UT template which is heavy on text, brown/beige, and table based, with minimal CSS.(…

Web design pet peeve – click here

March 11, 2026January 26, 2007 by Dan

Added March 11, 2026: Jakob Nielsen pioneered web usability, and now in 2026 there’s been plenty of time to pick part his ideas. For example “Jakob Nielsen was right… but also wrong”.

But I’ll definitely defend the recommendation to not use “click here”.…

Dreamweaver vs GoLive

March 11, 2026September 22, 2006 by Dan

Added March 11, 2026: I kept this post just for historical interest and nostalgia.

The battle is here. With Dreamweaver and GoLive now both owned by Adobe, what will get included in Creative Suite? The answer is… both.

CS Premium will include both GoLive and Dreamweaver.…

Work Work Work

March 11, 2026September 9, 2006 by Dan

Well I’m starting to get settled in at Hodges. Still waiting on keys to my office, which may not matter since I may be moving offices anyway. Still don’t know quite what I’m doing yet, but I do know I’m the only person in Hodges whose sole job is designing web sites.…

On old browsers and operating systems

March 12, 2026January 6, 2006 by Dan

Added March 12, 2026: Twenty years later, I hope I’m still keeping up with current technology and nobody thinks I’m the one who’s stuck in the past.

I know someone who insists on using Netscape 4.7 on Mac OS 9.2. Not only that, they insist on telling other people how good Netscape 4.7 is and telling people they should design their sites for Netscape 4.7.…