Microformats
» Written on February 11, 2007 at 7:59 AM «
Are now available on the About section of this site, specifically, my vCard information and my hResume. What odd names, for incredibly perplexing formats. Even for microformats, as the term goes. Yes, I am aware that the hResume specifcation isn’t exactly finalized yet, but hear this: I henceforth make the bold prediction that it will be.
Bold, isn’t it?
If you have absolutely no idea what that last paragraph of geek-oriented rubbish was about, know this; microformats will change the world as we know it, though maybe not cure the problem of utter stupidity. It’s indeed an interesting proposition, though, and unless you have a good reason to otherwise, it might be wise to click on a few hyperlinks in that paragraph above to venture forth into the unknown and perhaps find out more.
It’s been a little while since I’ve actually made such a humongous change to the actual structure of the site, which kind of shows in the changes to the code, which, if you’ll kindly hit Ctrl-U (Assuming you are, of course, using Firefox), will notice to be more semantic than my usual methods of coding. There’s still a long way to go, of course; I need to change quite a few more CSS classes in the site stylesheet before I’d consider this particular update updated. As it is, I’m through for the weekend, and for the night.
It seems that I still have an Economics tutorial unfinished, alas. I wasn’t exactly planning on trading stocks and shares anyhow.
Anyway, you’ll notice that the sidebar content for some of the pages has changed slightly. Expect more changes to take place as I brainstorm all sorts of different widgets to be placed into positions that might seem aesthetic. Though perhaps not to the average user. More importantly, however, I’ve decided to license this entire site, including all of the works in the gallery under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 license, which may prove shocking in retrospect, considering this website is a portfolio of sorts, and I doubt people usually think royalty-free and proprietary works go in the same sentence. I am, however, an avid advocate of anything that has to do with the phrase open-source, and as such, such a statement proclaiming it so isn’t really anything new to me, plus it makes the index page look so much sexier.
Besides, all my works on deviantART and Flickr were already being uploaded with the same licensing terms, so I guess this shouldn’t really come as a surprise. Except for Zazzle, of course, but only because they don’t have an option to make it so.
You’ll also notice the addition of a few more icons to the site, which I had previously put forth into vectors but failed to decide on their usage. They are now being used, so look around and rejoice at black-and-white bite-sized icons.
Now I have to focus on the next task at hand: updating my other sites to fit in with this newfound love for web standards. I can already taste the hot dogs I’ll be polishing off while working on it, which has gotten rather bad in the past few days, or weeks, actually. It seems that my solution to these sugar-induced comas of pure madness aren’t exactly working out.
No, I haven’t been working on ReBorn or Hard Life as of late; school’s literally ripping my guts out through every open orifice that my tortured soul provides.
I congratulate m...
» Written on February 10, 2007 at 2:27 AM «
On a job well done indeed; the blog now has a plethora of additional content to bolster its already formidable bank of thoughts, along with a few other cosmetic changes.
Where to begin?
The most obvious change, of course, is the introduction of sans-serif text into the sidebars, which is kind of a slight contradiction to the ideals that I had for this layout. I had intended for the entire site to contain only, and only serif typefaces, but I found that, over time, the readability of such a typeface (Georgia, as a matter of fact) was less than desirable. It has now been changed, and hopefully it will be embraced.
Now about that content. You’ll notice the new search bar, which actually makes use of Google to search through this domain for terms that you deem relevant, and desire to find more of. It’s been a very, very long time since I last dealt with HTML forms, so I hope my attempt at giving it some spice went off well. At least now searching my own blog for stuff will be easier.
You’ll see that posts now have a slightly different template, with a brand-new post footer, complete with an additional permalink to each post. Also, at the very bottom of the entire page, I’ve added the indispensable “Last 10 Most Recent Entries” section, which should help you navigate the site better if you happen to subscribe to this blog via RSS.
I also had to design a few icons to go with the upgrades, as you’d probably have realized by now. Many of them went unused in the end (I had a really great idea for a search bar and submit button before deciding to scrap them in favour of just plain CSS, I still have them on my hard disk though) but the main additions are the new search icon, the permalink icon and the ‘Written By’ icon. Not much, but hey, designing 16 x 16 px stuff isn’t exactly a walk in the park. A couple more may be coming with additional updates.
If you’re thinking that the serif fonts aren’t the only thing that’s changed, you’d be right. I’ve just converted about 75% of this site’s stylesheet to use em units instead of pixels, as I had previously been advocating. They do happen to involve some approximation, which would explain why the site may appear slightly different from what you remember.
I’m still working on getting my labels working; it appears that Blogger sites not published via their own servers are not able to make use of the new ‘Layout’ features that have come with the new Blogger upgrade. I do, however, have an idea for a half-workaround, and I’ll be testing that very shortly. As soon as I get my eyes away from the screen for a couple of minutes for a break; I’ve been doing this for about 4 hours straight now.
You may also be slightly disgusted with the sidebar content on the other pages; I’m working on that. Expect more diversity in those dratted right columns soon.
And yes, this site still validates fine and is cross-browser compliant. Except for the PSP and other handhelds, though; I’m also planning to work on that, along with a print-friendly version.
Amazing just how much effort goes into making a simple template for a site, isn’t it?
It pains me grea...
» Written on February 9, 2007 at 6:44 AM «
The way I’ve been procrastinating over publishing my thoughts on servers distant recently. Not to mention my recent binge on sustenance.
I’m currently in the process of reading up on Blogger’s labels, and hopefully I’ll get a working implementation of it up on the sidebar soon; this new ‘widget’ stuff that Blogger has seemed to embrace seems slightly confusing. I can only hope it’ll be by this weekend; if it persists, I may not be able to keep up with its paces. By the time I’m done, though, it’ll be much easier to sift through all of the crap that resides on my personal little space of Sitesled’s servers.
Another modification to this site which I am considering is changing the units from pixels to em units, which may seem slightly over-ambitious to some. I am, however, aware of the benefits that such a modification would bring to this site in terms of standards and usability, and I hope to be able to make the transition as smoothly and as painlessly as possible, the latter being probably impractical, in all senses of the word.
Much has happened in the world of the Intarweb since my recent extended absence; we’ll touch on that later. Right now, though, it’s school that will dominate this particular section of postage. If you’re allergic to such flavour, you may want to scroll down. Really quick.
I’ve just had a rush of four, almost non-intermittent tests for the past week, spanning all manner of academic subjects and skills. I wouldn’t be complaining about this if it weren’t for the fact that two of these tests merely proved themselves to be outstanding examples of how our educational system here has almost completely failed in its implementation of, well, education. And that’s not even taking into account the fact that one of the tests was organized by a tutor who thought that it would, somehow, be beneficial to already-overworked and sans-paid students.
I did try to study for them, really, I did. I didn’t even touch the computer for the past few days, my only contact with technology being my Sony PSP acting as a music haven of sorts, and my XDA as a communications tool. Somehow, though, it’s never enough, and in the end, remedials will ensue, something which I have managed to opt out of through last year’s results, but will probably will ensnared into again this year.
I really don’t understand the point of remedials. We stay back about 2 or 3 hours doing nothing, while waiting for the session to start. When it does, it’s basically a session to test your endurance at listening to a droning man or woman ineffectively attempt to “go through” or “debrief” a certain tutorial worksheet that you may or may not have done. Do tell; if I have indeed achieved a 100% success rate in completing said tutorial, why would I need a debrief of it? If I didn’t understand it, how the fuck did I manage to complete it? On the other hand, if I didn’t attempt the tutorial at all, what the hell is the point of going through it and leaving me to wonder about the mysteries of life?
The concept of remedials is not so much as stupid as it is shocking in my society. What a true learning session should be like, in my opinion, would involve active participation from students, and I don’t mean badgering a tutor with fucking stupid questions throughout a session; a remedial should be conducted in a way that allows everyone to understand and take in the concepts that the tutor wants to convey in the first place. A tutorial shouldn’t be a re-iteration of what you already fucking know, it should be something that you can immediately relate to, without any prior knowledge or instruction. When I view good tutorials on CSS and HTML on the web, I can immediately understand them, even if I have no prior knowledge of what CSS and HTML are. When I go over my lecture notes for hours on end, I end up concluding that it’s a complete fucking waste of time, even if I exert every last ounce of mental capacity with the sole intention of comprehending the information within. Is this a mere coincidence, attributed to my background with computers? I think not.
You can probably tell by now that I chose to opt out of a certain remedial session today.
Last.fm has recently gotten itself a spanking new update to its interface, and I must say, I pretty much like it. It’s much more streamlined now, meaning it’s easier to find songs and such and to play them immediately, without a plethora of links to navigate around with before getting to the actual stream.
In other news, Steve Jobs has publicly called for a rethinking of DRM policies, which could spell the end of this much-ridiculed and annoying protection protocol. I personally advocate the complete and utter destruction of any DRM-like protection on software/hardware of any sort, and such a development is encouraging, to say the least. Now, if only the same could be said for Trusted Computing, I’d be a happy man.
I’ve recently taken to installing all sorts of crap on my Pocket PC, which has resulted in, uh, unforeseen consequences, one of which includes a dreaded reset loop, in which my PDA continues to soft reset itself continuously until the battery dies out, and soft-resetting it manually does nothing to avail the situation. So far, I’ve been unable to determine exactly which application I installed is causing this little problem, but the problem isn’t exactly critical at the moment, since it doesn’t seem to happen with any sort of frequency, though it is worrying. I’ve found that removing and replacing the battery temporarily cuts the loop short, but short of hard-resetting the thing, I haven’t found a better way to get around this yet.
No artwork for this post, I’m afraid (I do seem to be posting at least one picture with one post for the past few entries, don’t I?), but I’m working on a couple of things at the moment, along with meeting deadlines for school-related rubbish, so I hope it’s understandable.
At this rate, I&...
» Written on January 10, 2007 at 7:51 AM «
Going off on a social networking frenzy is slightly out of character for me, I must admit, but at least my name appears much faster on Google now. Along with the few other new listings that have now appeared on the front page, under those sites which actually recognize my own humble little domain here.
There’s been a lot of happenings since I last met my faithful blog management system, but among the many, you will probably notice the new link on my Extended Life to deviantART. I’ve been avoiding it for quite some time, due to the over-excessive-crazy amount of furry art that exists on said servers, not to mention the fracas that transpired over the events of last year, but no longer. I’m tired of searching through Blogger and my previous posts for scraps and bits of pure genius that I might have posted earlier on (I don’t always, uh, save all my work), and I think I’m finally going to start using deviantART as my personal area for stuff that I do when I’m completely out of my mind.
Of course, some of those works may also happen to appear in my official portfolio. There is indeed no cause for alarm. I mean, it’s still work, isn’t it?
Such as this particular one that I’ve been working on for the past 3 days, which is also my new wallpaper:
I do seem to be going off the deep end on illustrations lately, don’t I? Rest assured it is nothing permanent; as is my commitment to the Hard Life comic project. (I know I haven’t updated it in a while, trust me, I am doing a bit of my own juggling over here already.)
Anyway, as for the latest illustration to come out of my works, I’m thinking of starting something else to both make this blog slightly more varied in content, and to test myself on my skills of free expression: a sort of article column, where I’ll be occasionally posting extended walkthroughs over how I construct each and every one of my works. They won’t be actual tutorials per se, mostly because I suck, and also because I most definitely won’t be able to sustain an entire step-by-step process narrative. It’ll be more in line with an extended description of the process used to create my own pieces. Not to say that they’re any good, but I’d like to see how well I’ll be able to phrase my own workflow in mere words. That is, of course, assuming I even remember what I actually did.
I’m planning to kick-start it in the next post, actually, and I hope it’ll give me something else to do occasionally other than rant about the injustice rampant in today’s world. I did take some screenshots while today’s piece was still in WIP, and I think they’ll come in handy. (For trivia purposes, today’s piece took about a total of 12 hours to complete over the span of 3 days, the hair taking up about 6 of those. I really, really suck at doing detail work in vectors; that’s something I need to practise more.)
Stay tuned.
Impulsive decisi...
» Written on January 8, 2007 at 6:25 AM «
Have been made recently, courtesy of yours truly. But let’s have a go at this in chronological order.
Today was the last day for the 2007 Junior College Year One Orientation event, and I was there with my D50, and my last few hours of pure bliss. I shall miss being allowed to miss classes, very, very much indeed. On that thought, it’s worth noting that I arrived at school on Friday a few minutes late, as I had to greet my sister at the airport. Yes, she’s finally back from her crazy school/vacation in Montreal, and I swear, I’m scared now of what might happen if I go overseas. The way she keeps babbling about stuff, non-stop, it’s almost as if she’s hysterical about things.
If you’ve been looking at the index, you’ll also notice two extra additions to the list of sites that have this little portfolio linked on it. I expect to add more in the coming weeks; submitting my site to directories is indeed refreshing, but tiresome. And I worry about the day Sitesled hosting goes down permanently.
But see, I digress. Back to the orientation. So today I was at the orientation, with, uh, other agendas in mind.
What you see there is none other than a Nikon 50mm prime lens, with a maximum aperture of f/1.8, needless to say, very big. Now understand that I have been viewing photos on Flickr taken with this very lens, and reading a huge discussion thread exuding its very qualities, and you may comprehend my decision to blow 185 SGD (120 USD) on one for my own D50 camera.
I was testing the lens out before I bought it during the orientation event, as my friend happens to own one of them, and I was immediately hooked on it. So much that it will probably replace my kit lens as my default configuration. It really is that amazing.
You can view more pictures and a small, if glowing, review of it over at the Hostile Intent forums.
Anyway, it’s not over yet. Remember Spiff? It’s time for a little illustration work.
From a little snapshot at Pasta Fresca:
And after three hours (or so) of work, along with Jeremy Soule:
Yeah, if he agrees, I’ll see about coding a new blog template for him like I did for my class:
Anyway, I think 56K connections will probably be cursing and swearing at this particular post, plus since I don’t have a pass-go-skip-classes card anymore, I’ll be working on my undone assignments if anyone needs me.
Such is the life of an illustrator.
EDIT: If you’re wondering, the text actually says, starting from the left collar (your left): Chief Jiao Delivers Justice With Great Skill And Dexterity. Words Are His Swords, Wits Are His Shields, Death Is Your Destiny, and no, he had no input on said slogan. Except for the first phrase, which is kind of a running joke, for lack of a better term.
The aftermath
» Written on December 28, 2006 at 8:31 AM «
Of a crippled Internet is starting to have its effects. All over Asia, already the whiners have started to prevail. It’s a frightening thought, to say the least, to imagine that this is what the world has branded “the next generation” of such an iteration, such consumers who imagine everything in the world can be solved by complaining as loudly and to as many publications as possible.
Very, very sad.
I will extol a new tidbit today, however; my PC, after enduring my mom’s ritual spring cleaning session, ended up dead. Dead, in the sense that when I hit the magical button of mystical power, such power would not heed my call, as if it were lost in the circuits of time. I was rigged with fear, knowing the implications of such a consequence, as last year had already proven. Back then, I had to take the rig all the way to the city for an inspection, after having failed to start it in any way possible, and it was then that it decided to work at the store’s power outlet, negating an unnecessary trip and slight humiliation.
So I had attributed the problem then to condensation of sorts, that had perhaps settled while my mom was using the mop on the floor in search of dirt foul. Knowing this, I left the power on for it to warm up, hoping fervently that my scheme would yield results satisfactory.
Yield they did, and here I am typing about it, and resolving never to let my mom mop the floor in the study room again without some restrictions of sort in place; who knows, next time it could be something far worse.
As you might have guessed, ReBorn 2.0 hasn’t had any significant updates yet, but the floor of my house appears to be somewhat brighter. And more slippery. Dangerously slippery.
Slippery enough to warrant a new purchase of modern footwear, I suppose. I’ve been thinking about getting a proper pair of shoes for some time now, not running shoes or boots, but perhaps somewhere in-between. Something that keeps the rain out, and yet retains enough rigidity for athletic usage. (Even though I don’t exactly run a lot, but whatever.) So far, I’ve had a look at Merrell, Danner and Caterpillar-branded footwear, and I was this close to making an actual purchase of some Caterpillar shoes today, only to find that the last pair they had in my size had mismatching shoes, with colour casts that were, in a word, horrifying.
Any other suggestions?
Anyway, I’ve also been active in my Flickr account, having uploaded a small batch of photos, some of which I took today at dinner with my family in a nice little cosy restaurant (Sizzler, actually) in Suntec City. You know, the place which houses the biggest fountain in the whole wide world?
Sometimes I wonder if anyone even cares about that fountain. I mean, it’s just water. The font they used for the word “largest fountain in the world” doesn’t even suit the theme.