I will be returning to my teaching duties this fall at Moore College to teach the Web Publishing course again in the Computers For Digital Media curriculum [for more info on how to sign up, see Moore's web site]. I had a wonderful time teacing this course last fall and look forward to a new crop of students.

The class mainly focuses on getting a hands-on feel of web design, with a concentration of CSS, XHTML as well as design theory and project management and completion. The hope of this course is to build on the previous experience that the students have had [fundamentals in HTML, CSS, etc.] and prepare them to work either as an in-house web master or even to venture out to do freelance work on their own.

For more info, feel free to review the course notes from last year.

Bad For Democracy is the title of the new book from University of Minnesota Press, written by Dana D. Nelson. I was happy to contribute one image to this title. For more info, visit UMP’s web site.

It was my pleasure to photograph the 2008 Summer Fest of ISB, held in Baltimore, Maryland. ISB threw a wonderful event full games, rides and activities for kids of all ages [adults, too!]. Enjoy a few shots from the event.

I had the pleasure of photographing for ISNA this past weekend down in Baltimore, MD. The event showcased a variety of speakers with topics addressing the wide variety of issues facing Muslims in the American context. The convention was a success and I had the opportunity to meet and acquaint myself with many new people. Here are a few shots from the event. Enjoy.

The Muslim Education and Converts Center of America [M.E.C.C.A.] held a fundraiser at the Hudson Valley Islamic Community Center, in Lake Mohegan, New York, this weekend. M.E.C.C.A., is a non-profit organization that specializes in educational efforts for new Muslims. They’re based out of New York City. It was my pleasure to photograph the event. I wish them well on their efforts to provide these much needed services to new Muslims. Enjoy the photo gallery.

Saturday evening’s gig played host to Stars of the Lid, a duo specializing in drone-based sound scape music. The concert was hosted by The Gatherings and was held at St. Mary’s Church, located in West Philadelphia. A genre of music that is not normally associated with live performance, the music was very moving and emotional, with the selected pieces tying a string throughout the repertoire. A few shots from the event.

Monday evening at Columbia University had a special book signing and talk featuring Shaykh Hamza Yusuf of Zaytuna Institute and Richard Bulliet, professor of history at Columbia University. Bulliet’s book, The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization, was a feature of the talk. The even was hosted and moderated by Anisa Mehdi. Here are a few shots from the event. Enjoy.

It was my pleasure again to photograph Zaytuna Institute at their NYU Minara program: For God & Country, featuring Shaykh Hamza Yusuf and professor Khaled Blankinship from Temple University. The event was an all-day affair with profound words uttered by both illuminated speakers. Please enjoy these few images from the event.

I have been given the task of bringing the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Design’s IT web site up to spec. The site’s main function is to provide info on the mission of the IT staff as well as an info portal for the students, faculty and staff who all have various IT needs. Once a collection of static and jumbled pages, the site is on its way to becoming a dynamic site that will be driven behind the scenes with a CMS.

Upgrades came in the form of a template-styled layout, where all pages with adhere to a central style sheet for content layout and control. Code has been upgraded to modern XHTML and of course, CSS. There are plans for implementing RSS and other XML uses as I continue to upgrade the site.

One of the biggest challenges has been just bringing the sheer volume of content up to date. There are literealy hundres of old, static pages of which each has to be evaluated as revelant or not and if so, upgraded. I have also functioned as copy editor on this project, examining countless old pages and pdf’s and extrapolating the pertinent info from the bloat. By striping the content out of pdf’s and inserting them back into the site, this has allowed me to make it keyword searchable, increasing its value as an info portal.

Aside from textual duties, I also provided some graphic support, creating a bank of images to be used throughout the site. Most notably, a bank of rotating images has been implemented on the home page, randomly changing each time the home page is accessed. Flash has been avoided to ensure the highest possible accessibility. While not about style, I felt it was important to try and add a splash of color and graphics to the site to lessen the feeling of info/text overload.

Often the case when coming into a preexisting environment, I had to work within specific guidelines for upgrading the site. Navigation had to match the previous style in both look and color [the left-hand nav bar]. Also, the University-wide navigation at the top also had to stay. The left-hand nav was converted into a server-side include and a buggy javascript was removed and instead, a lean designated list was used. This has helped ensure that the site will be accessible not only to modern web browsers but also other hand held devices and mobile phones.

The new version of the site was launched January 17th, 2008. The upgrade is still going on, as I’m converting more old pages and incorporating them into the site. Stay tuned for further updates.

It has been my pleasure to have taught the Web Publishing course at Moore College this term. All of my students really showed a keen interest in a subject that has a lot of subjectivity to it! Web design is not easy to learn as it is not a standardized entity. I myself continue to learn and grow in my efforts to keep pace with the way the web grows in its own amorphous way.

Teaching is a really rewarding occupation and I felt very blessed and rewarded by this semester’s effort. I can only hope that whatever errors I may have made will be taken in stride with my desire to impart knowledge to a tricky field. All of the work that I looked at this term from all of the students was really inspiring and I hope that all of them will continue to grow and create. They truly set a high bar in terms of teaching pleasure. I am already looking forward to next term’s course. For those who are curious, you can visit the course notes here. Until then, best of luck and congradutatios to a job well done.