My daily doses, Zeldman.com, is going through another redesign. The new look is just straight out clean and simple. So far so good!

Web Standards Meetup

On Thursday, Feb 6 at 8:00 pm, there will be a meetup right here in Poughkeepsie NY for designers/developers to discuss web standards. Sounds interesting? Check out the site for more info.

Vassar’s Community Works Campaign

$68,360 has been raised by Vassar’s fund-raising campaign to help local human organizations. Thank you for your open heart. Please continued to support us. Click here to learn more.

After hours of fine tuning, D3studio is finally valid xhtml and css.

Gossip Folks

That little asian girl from Missy Elliott video is so cute. Her attitude is perfect for the video.

Rice Bowl Journals

Member of Rice Bowl Journals.

Here is a good debate on undesign and minimalistic. What more can I say? Less is more. I am crazy about clean and simple design. According to Albert Einstein, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

This is so Wrong

While surfing around htmlgonebad, I came across Tuan Anh parody web site. It bothered me to see people mocking him like that. I respected him for his unique individual. He inspired me during his concert in 1993. At the end of the song, Mot Thoi Mien Vien Xot Xa, he kneeled down and broke into tears. I could feel him. The overall of the song was about how the Vietnamese fled to different countries after the war and how we missed our homeland. At the end he screamed, “thua me, thua me, thua me, que huong minh da chet roi me oi, me oi, me Viet Nam oi…” Translate: “Dear mama, dear mama, dear mama, our homeland is dead, mama. Mama, the mother of Vietnam…” So to whom ever put together that site, please get to know him as a person instead of his appearance. Like we all say “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

The web group went out to the Pub for lunch today. This is the first time our group (Carolyn, Kara, Keisha, Meg and myself) gets to go out together ever since I started working for Vassar. The food and the services were great. Kara, Keisha and I acted a little silly after we had some drinks. It was fun though. I think we should do it more often. Thanks Carolyn (our boss) for treated us.

Latest movies

The latest movies I watched are Gangs of NY, Catch Me If You Can, and 8 Miles. Honestly, I didn’t really like any of them. Especially Gangs of NY, it was horrible. I thought Martin Scorsese and gangster movie are a good combination but not this one. The story line was so predictable and played out. The ending was so disappointed. Decaprio and Diaz were terrible. Daniel Day-Lewis was the only good performer. Next, Catch Me If You Can was not as bad. The paste of the movie was a little bit slow but somewhat funny; however, I loved the opening animation. It was fantastic. The music was great and I loved the way they treated the typography where the lines formed together with the text. Lastly, 8 Miles was alright. Eminem lyrics were the only highlights of the movie. Anyhow, these are just my opinions.

I decided to include the photography section because I was inspired by the China project. The photos are incredible, specially the medical section. Much respect goes out to “Whit” H. H. Whitlock for his open heart.

Yes, the new version is finally here. I wanted to redesigned this site so badly but didn’t know which direction to take. I was struggling whether to Flash or not to Flash. At first my intention was to Flash so I mocked up several different versions; however, I changed my mind at the end because most of the work I do at Vassar College is geared towards usability and accessibility. As a result, I wanted this site to reflect what I do; therefore, I ditched Flash and used css and xhtml. As the site turned out, I am glad that I took this route. Any ways, I would love to hear what you think.

New on the Vassar Web

• Religion Department designed by Keisha
• Information Technology designed by Kara
• President designed by Kara
• French Department designed by Donny
• Powerhouse designed by Donny

My Tam

“Tinh yeu den em khong mong doi goi gi. Tinh yeu di em khong he hoi tiec.”

It means something like this: “Love comes around, I don’t wait for it. Love passes me by, I don’t regret it.”

Those two verses stuck in my head. My Tam sweet voice brings me back to the nice and warm Viet Nam everytime I listened to her music; even though, Poughkeepsie, New York is cold and lonely. She is currently my favorite singer along with Dam Vinh Hung and Ly Hai.