Carol's Blog

Thursday, April 11, 2024
I updated my Amazon Affiliate Program to be able to earn from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom (via OneLink).

Wednesday, April 10, 2024
Somehow, I missed the notice from the Amazon Affiliate Program that any image links created with SiteStripe (which is what I had been using to create my affiliate links) will stop working as of December 31, 2023. So, my links have been dead (without my knowledge) for a few months now. I really hate to have broken stuff on my site. I'll try to figure out what to do and get this fixed very soon.

Tuesday, April 9, 2024
I'm now more than halfway through Precalculus on updating my lessons to a responsive design. I decided to break my two-audio-file lessons into two pages (Parts 1 and 2), so I'm taking a few days to do that. In July 2023, I bought a tiny condo (called ‘SeaGlass’) close to my daughter so that I could be a more regular presence and help in my granddaughter's life. Being a ‘nearby Grandma’ is the best!

Tuesday, February 7, 2023
My own server now loads the PlayFair and Oranienbaum fonts that are used in my new responsive design, instead of loading from Google Fonts. Thanks, Ray!!

Sunday, February 5, 2023
I've just switched my entire site from Google Analytics to GoatCounter, for faster page loads and more privacy for my users.

Saturday, February 4, 2023
My update to responsive lessons is going well—I'm up to lesson 15 in Algebra II. I'm only able to update one lesson each day—it's a lot of work. I have to re-think every wide element, and I also have to look at every case in every exercise.

Today I figured out how to serve Google web fonts from my own server. I haven't implemented it yet, but most of the work is done. I'm working hard to make my site as self-contained as possible!

I also found a super lightweight alternative to Google Analytics: GoatCounter. I'm now using GoatCounter for all my responsive pages, and (for the time being) keeping Google Analytics on my original pages. Pages load much faster with GoatCounter, as compared to Google Analytics!

Monday, January 16, 2023
I've finished updating Geometry to my new responsive style, and am beginning Algebra II. Making progress!

Friday, January 6, 2023
My server has been changed to IONOS!!

Monday, September 12, 2022
I'm working steadily updating my lessons to my new responsive style, but it's reasonably slow going. I'm up to lesson 45 in Algebra I. Moving forward, I suspect I'll average about one lesson per day (at least until I finish Algebra I).

Sunday, July 17, 2022
A really important day for me!! After many months (years, actually) of work, I finally have my first responsive web page live: Expressions Versus Sentences. Check it out!!

I've also written up a series of tutorials showing how the responsive page evolved, starting with Lesson 1: Designing a Responsive Web Page (HTML & CSS Only) . Now, to start applying the responsive template to all my lessons and pages!!

Sunday, February 13, 2022
A belated welcome to 2022! Since breaking my wrist on Christmas Day 2021 (with wrist surgery on January 5, 2022), I've gotten behind on some things. (Typing isn't very easy with a broken wrist!) Time to catch up...

In January 2022 I discovered that the Bard Prison Initiative is using my Algebra book. I had noticed a large number of books sold (about 60 on the same day), and suspected it was being used for a class. Shortly afterwards, I was contacted by Joy Sebesta (and then Amy Shapiro) who will be teaching the course. Since the inmates don't have internet access, I created a supplement for my non-print algebra lessons for them (and then made it available to all my users). I've also just finished a local version of my Algebra course—no internet required—for the Bard students to use. This is something I've wanted to do for a long time, and I'm glad to have had this ‘prompting’ to finally get it done! Eventually, I hope to make it available to all my users who might benefit from having a non-internet version of my Algebra course.

In early February, I started back to my ‘Alex days’ (taking care of my granddaughter two days each week here at Pebble). The absolute worst part of breaking my wrist was that I had to stop having my days with her for a while!