I thought that when I graduated, one of the first things I would get would be a decent job at a reasonable pay, and start down the path of careers, work, and assorted insanity. Little did I know that the resume I turned in a few weeks ago would yield an actual job. Thank you shitty retail, screw you Electronics Boutique, and I laugh at you Target, because in the middle of a minor recession for the technology sector, I have found a job. Not only that, but the job is in a technical field, doing technical things, but I am also getting a decent pay compared to what I was making at ASAP. That doesn't mean I dropped ASAP though, I don't want to burn that bridge because there are some good references there.
I have been there for two days now, the first being more of a welcome and a small meeting with the project manager, today being actual work and learning about what is done / in progress. I put in a couple hours setting up sendmail for drupal (the blog they use), and then also worked on the scheduling / calendar problem that seems to be the bane of my existence. I am thinking that the solution will be more of a hack than an actual solution, but that is because the software was meant for blogging, not for scheduling. However, since I am not currently being paid (in class instead) I am trying not to think about it. This mentality is going to take a bit more work. It's not that I shouldn't think about problems outside of the workplace, but unlike my previous job, I actually have hours allocated for the purpose of solving these sorts of problems. It's odd. I used to spend so much time outside of ASAP planning and drawing up ideas and diagrams; I never billed it because I was a tutor first and formost.
Currently, I am using lynx, and while I appreciate its simple, don't-do-anything approach, I am realizing just how inaccessible the web is. If this is any indication of how a text-reader works, then there is a large part of the internet who can't do anything. Just introducing JavaScript complicates everything. CSS seems to aleviate many of the problems, since most of the issues are layout, popup, and image oriented. Alt Text is critical and well labeled links are equally important. I'll probably come back to touch on this later. The effects of text-only browsing seem to be many of the same problems that WAP sites face. The solution isn't to make a better mobile browser, the solution is to make a more accessible page.
Since this discovery, I revised the HTML and CSS for felocity.org, making the page render half-way decently in text based browsers. I think my next revision will be a completely documented CSS file, which means I will be able to skin the site without having to manipulate my content beyond the css. It should prove to be an interesting project.
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