Moving from HTML to XML and beyond!

This week I spent some time learning XML (Extensible Markup Language). It's very handy for containing or describing data, instead of describing how things should look, which is the job of HTML and other flavors of HTML. Of the various learning modules that I looked at, I still like the w3schools.com website, at least for XML and HTML. I like the format and I am able to try things out and see how they work right away, instead of being more passive in learning. The YouTube and UA Computer-Based Training videos were useful, but not quite as effective for my learning style, I think. I do think that the UACBT videos were very helpful and gave me a good chance to review material after reading about it. The pace of the UACBT videos were quite good - no so much on the YouTube "Just Enough XML to Survive" video.

I also spent a good deal of time working on the setup for the practice server. The Dell is doing fine now, and I use it and the VMware both these days. I figure that I can practice on the VMware, since I can take "snapshots" and go back if I make a mistake. I can't do that on the dell machine, so I want to be prepared when I work there. The biggest problem this week came with the introduction of some new FTP software on my Mac. I upgraded Transmit and figured I could just plug and play. I kept getting refused from my own servers when I tried to connect. I eventually exhausted all other possibilities and then took a second look at the new software interface and I had missed a new menu bar that allows for selection of FTP, sFTP, etc. Once I found the sFTP option, I was good to go and got my files all uploaded and downloaded without further incident.