The first assignment consists of two parts; the first part requires building a website and the second part requires capturing three images from ArcMap. The start of this assignment was a little bumpy because the file transfer application was not installed on the machines in the pod. During this time, we focused on becoming accustomed to the tools ArcMap and ArcCatalog. As a new user of GIS, I felt like I struggled to understand how to get information into the tool. I guess I was expecting the information to already be populated in the form of a general map. The best way I can think to describe this is: I was expecting ArcMap to work like Google Maps in which you immediately have a map with various information, then you manipulate from there. Part of the lecture gave a tutorial on designing the word document that would eventually be saved as a webpage and be the basis for the webpage. After seeing some example webpages from other students, I was not pleased with my work so far. Interestingly enough, I work in IT and have experience modifying existing websites via FTP, but I had never built my own website. I quickly redesigned webpage, then started the process of creating my website via the detailed instructions from UNM IT. I found the process to be much easier than expected. Once I had the website, I began working on gathering images from ArcMap. Again, I struggled to figure out how to make something useful appear on the screen. I was eventually able to find various map types such as normal map view and topographic view. Once I had the images, I saved them to a word doc and resaved as a webpage. The next step was to link homework 1 to our main website. I found this part most difficult because originally, I thought the homework would need its own directory under my webpage. I was able to create the directory, but was not able to set the permissions for public viewing correctly. I asked Asifer to help and he informed me that I did not need to create a separate directory for this. Once I put the homework in the correct folder, everything was much easier. Overall, I am pleased with my first attempt. I plan to make small changes to my homepage as time permits.