The Making of the Page

On this page is an overview on the components of this site. First of all I must remind you that I am an engineer, this means that some of the things here could have been done in an easier way. However as well as being a showcase, the homepage was a chance for me to learn something new, especially XML.

Since I wanted (once again I wanted, not needed) a dynamic page I used a scripting language called php. I can't remember what PHP stands for (for more info go here). Some of the things here couldn't have been done without the usage of such scripting language, such as the date and the visitor count (no big loss I'm sure).

With a scripting language I was also able to use 'templates'. What are templates? Well you can see that each page in the site has a similar look and feel to it. That's what I mean by templates, with php I was able to just make one copy of the most used elements (such as the menu and the headers) of the page instead of having to copy the same elements over and over again.

I also used an XML database for my data (although some purist might say that I DID NOT use XML, since I have yet to define a DTD. Using PHP's XML parser does not count). Did I really need a database? Probably not that badly, but I feel that adding data to a database is much more preferable than writing it in html. Some XML data are the Publications and the acknowledgements (see below).

If anybody wants to know more about the homepage, you can contact me here.

I would like to acknowledge some of the people and software that has helped me put out this site. Hosted on Apache on Linux. Scripting language - PHP. Text Editor - Crimson Editor, JEdit, vi. Picture Editor - GIMP. Roof of Labtek V Picture courtesy of Veriy.net. NSpace Icon courtesy of Flickr User Jolantis . Mapdaze Icon courtesy of Flickr User heiwa4126 . Algoshop Icon courtesy of Flickr User tim_d . Auto Grader Icon courtesy of Flickr User ilmungo. Autrobb Icon courtesy of Wikimedia . WTG Icon courtesy of Flickr User dotbenjamin .

Thanks to Dini for the critique on the color arrangement. Thanks to Lia for the idea about the 'Reza according to some of his most prominent friends' page. Thanks to Elfan for the idea about buying a recorder so that I can record my lectures and making it downloadable. Okay so all he wants me to do is to buy a recorder so that he can borrow it. Thanks to Rinda for the painful comments :). Actually I can't really remember what her comments were, but she did comment on something. Finally, thanks to IF-ITB and CSE of MSU for letting me make and host this page here.