Learning new tricks

The first thing I worked on after we got engaged in January was the website. We bought a domain and I got cracking.

I used to build websites often in college (though they were all crappy), so I began by:
1. refreshing my memory on html commands, frames, etc.
2. teaching myself to use photoshop and dreamweaver (again)
3. figuring out more complicated technologies (css, cgi, server-side scripting, etc.)
4. trying to come up with a layout.

My first attempt was using a dreamweaver layout:
This took me probably 6 hours of work on the design, and then a bunch of time filling in content. I thought it was pretty cute (and fun), but the colors weren't quite right, and it kind or looked like a little kid made it.

So I started over....

My second (and what I think will be the final) attempt I created by adapting stuff I saw online.
This took me 3 hours on the site design, and another 4 hours teaching myself how to make forms, first using perl, then using javascript, and finally succeeding with php. I am pretty happy with it. I like that I created it myself, because it means I can make sure the website matches everything else!