15 February, 2010

Homepage Redesign

My headfirst dive into web design began in high school, with a custom Myspace layout and a primitive "blog" at Xanga. After transferring to Temple University and taking our required Computer and Information Science (CIS) course, I created my first homepage. But as I am looking forward to graduation, I realize that Temple won't continue to host my webpage on their servers, and honestly I'm not even sure if they will let me use my @temple.edu e-mail address anymore, but that's another topic...

With this in mind, I purchased the domain name amypospiech.com and a hosting package, but then the question in my mind was, "what the heck do I put up there?" It was actually quite intimidating at first - with no limits on what I could do creatively or technically, I spent a few months just sketching ideas and keeping notes of things I liked on other portfolio sites and personal pages, as well as business sites and blogs. I then scrapped it all, came up with a totally original theme, added in some signature Amy style and at long last came up with this:

My new website!

I designed the theme around my favorite (abandoned) building in Philadelphia, the Divine Lorraine Hotel. It was built as an apartment complex in the late 19th century in a French Renaissance style, transformed into a hotel in 1948 under Father Divine and the Peace Mission Movement, and closed in 1999 when it was sold to developers (and subsequently re-sold for a hefty profit, but nothing to show for it yet). You can read about it here.

Knowing me, I will probably change this a few times a year (ha, ha) because after looking at something for too long, I get the crazy urge to go back and redo it all again. However, if anyone has suggestions for improvements, I'm all ears!

04 February, 2010

Your TU Tuition: Printing Quota Changes

According to Computer Services, "All currently-enrolled Temple University students receive a free printing quota." But free always comes with a price.

Did you notice that the cost to print a page in our computer labs is now only 7 cents, instead of 10? However, after we use up our printing quota of 300 pages (funded by the $125 technology fee included in our tuition), the rate jumps back to 10 cents per page. That's the fine print.

So now it's more important than ever to print double sided and watch how much you print, especially as midterms approach. And when printing PowerPoint presentations or class notes, print multiple slides per page, or multiple pages per sheet if your eyes can stand it.

It seems that this is Temple's way of balancing the budget.

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