About Learning
Getting something into our adult brains' long term memory takes some repetition. The people that make commercials figured that out a long time ago. When an adult wants to learn a new language or new set of knowledge, one useful technique is to take the information, reorganize it and put it in a hierarchical structure such as a mind map. By putting it in your own words, reviewing it initially, particularly before bedtime and again upon waking. Make as many associations as possible in order to store it to your long term memory. Neurons that fire together, wire together.
Also, when learning a programming language, a step-by-step action approach reinforces the learning in another way, creating additional linkz to your long-term memory. Early in my engineering/programming career, I had a strong desire to share my mistakes and to learn from others. This site is the culmination of both my dream and learning experiences.
The structure of the informational part of this site is a combination of a mind map and a menu. The vertical menu shows ASCII text for most items and then an image of a mind map for some of the more detailed lower partitions. I've included a list of Linkz to authors I liked in each section. Seeing the same information in a little different way cements the concepts into the brain's long term memory. Hopefully these special authors will add to or expand on the knowledge I've presented.
You can access all the information on one page by hovering your cursor over the active links and their sub links. The outline or structure was done first as of 2009-01-28. Next, I started the CSS section and use only CSS language and no scripts. Sections that start with a 'z' as a prefix have not been completed yet. I am adding more on a daily basis until I migrate all of the mind maps I have created over the past several years. I used the free FreeMind software to create the mind maps.
The Why of Linkz
Today, the problem is that there are two many walls of information. There is the wiki approach, where everybody is in charge of authoring. This method seems to work for a lot of situations. There are the global searches of Google, Yahoo, and Mahalos. Your search finds you anything and everything in the universe. There is the Delicious or Digg approach where people add tags to their favorite links. Then there is content authored approach. When you find an author that writes in the style you like and communicates in a way that you understand whether you are a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learner, you develop a trust. You want to go back again and again. There's that funny word, trust. Trust is earned. The examples work. The style is clear and easy to follow. You look at the source and see that the author used principles espoused in the writing of their own code! It is my hope that the information provided will meet your needs for all learning styles.
Sometimes when searching for info, we find one link leading to another to another. This leads to confusion. We have forgotten the purpose of our original search. My approach in this site is to provide enough theory, illustrations, and coded examples that will eliminate linking elsewhere.
Having said that, I realize that this is an almost impossible task since we can always look further. Linkz provides additional research information. It does help to hear, see, or try the same thing in a little different way. There are some very creative information sharing sites. When found, I share the link! In the past, we have stood on the shoulders of giants. Now, we fly on the strands of the web. Don't get caught in the endless linkz.
Cheers, Fredz Dearman
Announcement
2009-07-1, finished CSS section.
Next, will add the membership section with PHP.
Please make sure your passwords are complex. The cornflicker virus can crack simple passwords!
In the menuing system, when you encounter the symbol , that's the end of the horizontal thread.
To make images bigger, use the CTRL key and a +/-
To get your screen back to normal, use the tool bar for your browser's zoom.
Updated browsers give you the best viewing experience. see ESPN's "the short answer"
Mozilla Firefox (FF) has the best viewing experience, particularly with the menu alignments. Opera (OP), Internet Explorer (IE) and Chrome (CH) are also done with the same code, without any adjustment. Differences are shown in the CSS section with recommendations. I don't test in Safari, so please forgive.
Please contact me at 
this is not a link
This site is designed for people who want to learn.
