I have actually completed my personal start page; it is wonderful to have everything on one handy page when my browser opens.  I’ve  also removed some items from the left sidebar, since they are now living on my page. It feels good to actually remove an item from the ToDo list, for a change.

In addition to my favorite links and constantly used sites, I have some RSS feeds, Phone contacts, a perpetual monthly calendar, a weather box, AIM, a wonderful to-do list that I can add tasks to and delete completed tasks from without needing to edit the template each time (what a joy that is!), and search boxes.  In short, everything I use constantly is immediately handy, and I’ve set Firefox to open my personal page as the only home page.  The template I’m using is the same as Kate's and I followed her general guidelines with some tweaks of my own as I became more confident.   The links are standard html  links, which does help.

I was not too familiar with the coding in the template, since I’m not used to XHTML, but once I got into it, I found it very similar to the code I’ve been working with in my Blogger templates.  I kept in mind the need to save my work frequently, and I was able to catch and correct several errors before the template was damaged.  Firefox was a big help, because I could load and change between various tabs as needed, and I used Crimson Editor to code the links and scripts I used.  I especially like the idea that the page works even without being uploaded to a web server; that makes it truly mine.  I’m considering whether to add categories to my page; doing so may mean they will be easier to edit (or perhaps not) – time will tell.  For the time being, I have elected not to use the compactable headings script that is so useful on my blogs since I like the “open” look of the page as it is. If it begins to be too crowded, I’ll need to decide what to do about it.

I’ve already done some minor formatting tweaks to the start page, and it’s good. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I am somewhat amazed at how problem-free making the page was overall. It is already coming in handy.