Trịnh Công Sơn’s “Mưa Hồng” has been translated to Chinese and it sounds quite Chinese.

My hosting provider Lunarpages notified me that they will be upgrading default PHP 5 instance from the version 5.2 to the version 5.3.16 on Wednesday September 12th. Not sure if the upgrade will take Visualgui offline, but the server migration, which will happen on October 8th at 5:00 PM PST, will for about 4 hours.

We have a few plumbing jobs include replacing the water pressure valve and the main water valve. If you know any good plumber with reasonable rate around Fairfax area, .

I took off work yesterday to do my homework and I spent the entire day working on one assignment. I still have to write an essay for another class. This week had been insane. When not working fulltime, I am catching up with freelance projects and doing my school work. I hardly have time for the boys and that’s just killing me. I tried to wrap up everything today and then spend the next few days with the kids, but I am still not done what I needed to do. I am also trying to rebalance my time and make a few changes to my priorities. As much as I love to follow the election and writing about it, I am going to put the blog on hiatus once again. Since I have to write an essay for my class every week, I am going to post those instead. We’ll see how things go.

Haven’t blog for just a week and I really miss it even though I was able to catch up on some readings and freelance work. I now have a few drafts in my head and will write them down in the next couple of days.

As I said many times, I still love having my own blog even though social media has taken over the space. I am glad that Jeremy Keith shares the same sentiment:

But there’s a more fundamental difference between posting to Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, or Google+, and posting to your own blog. Unless you’re using a hosted service, your blog belongs to you.

Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress, said the same in various interviews when being asked about blogging. At the end of the day, your blog belongs to you. As WordPress continues to grow, I am positive that blogging won’t go down like Flash had any time soon.

Every time I think of taking a break, I ended up blogging more than usual. Yesterday was the proof. School will start in two weeks and I am very excited. Next Tuesday I will be taking a full day workup learning InDesign. The workshop is free and will be taught by two graphic design students. I peaked at their work and very impress. Hope I can learn something from them. I never thought that I would InDesign, but I better get myself prepared since I am going to learn about graphic design.

My goal before attending school is to focus on getting my freelance project finish and catching up on readings. The freelance gig is coming along well. I am very excited and can’t wait to share it with everyone. My list just keep getting longer and longer, but here’s are the books that I hope get through:

• The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman: This is recommended read for my seminar class.
• Inventing the Medium: Principles of Interaction Design as a Cultural Practice by Janet H. Murray: This is a required reading for the seminar class.
• Net Work: Ethics and Values in Web Design by Helen Kennedy: I picked this one up at Mason Library. Didn’t realize it costs $95. Wow.
• Active Literature: Jan Tschichold and New Typography by Christopher Burke
• The New Typography (Weimar and Now: German Cultural Criticism) by Jan Tschichold
• Anatomy of a Typeface by Anatomy of a Typeface (94) by Alexander Lawson
• Bibliographic: 100 Classic Graphic Design Books by Jason Godfrey.

I still haven’t gotten a response from my professor for the books I need for the Advanced Typography class. Well, hope you all are having a great summer. Enjoy it while you can.

Last Friday, I spent forty-five minutes at Staples playing around with the Nexus 7. I like it. The interface is very initiative. Unlike the Kindle Fire, the touch response is quite accurate. The size seems to be perfect for reading. Then I decided to make the purchase, but it all sold out. I went to Office Max, but they only carried an 8gig, not 16gig. The salesman told me it would be cheaper to get an 8gig and then get a SanDisk card to upgrade to a 16gig. I thought to myself, “Is this guy for real?” I hope he’s not saying that to other customers.

On Sunday we were at the mall and I dropped by GameStop to see if they have one. The cashier told me they had one with 10% discount special. I copped it immediately. Since I already have a gmail account, setting up the Nexus was very easy. As I played with the device, however, I noticed the latency in the feedback. The response started to act weird like I was taking to a screen I didn’t touch on. It gave me a flashback of the horrendous experience on the Kindle Fire. Something was not right because I didn’t have that experience at Staples. Then I recalled when I first opened the box there was no wrap. So I called GameStop and asked if the device had been used. They said yes and that was the reason I got 10% off. I was furious. No one told me that when I bought the device. I don’t want to pay $25 less for a freaking used device.

I took Nexus back to the store, but my wife didn’t put the charger back to the box. The guy told me I could go to any GameStop to return it. So I went home, grabbed the charger and went to a GameStop closer to my house and guess what? They didn’t take it because the store is too small. I had to go back to the original store and that had to be my last stop at GameStop ever again.

Now I am still debating whether I should get the Nexus 7 or the new iPad. I love the retina display on the new iPad, but it’s a bit too big for reading, especially when lying down in bed. I guess I should wait for the iPad Mini to drop.

Tôi không lạnh lùng hoặc thờ ơ mà chỉ tự kiềm chế bản thân. Có thứ không thể miễn cưỡng được. Tôi phải đối diện với sự thật và không còn mơ tưởng nữa. Không biết nên vui hay buồn. Giờ đây tôi không có quyền lựa chọn vì tôi không muốn đánh đổi hết tất cả để thỏa mãn cá nhân. Điều tôi có thể làm được làm sao cho điều đó không còn cần thiết nữa. Nhất định sẽ được. Tôi sẽ làm được. I know I can. I know I can.

When redesigning Mason Law web site early this year, I knew that I had to have all the navigational links at the top. For the desktop version, I fulfilled that requirement, but my real preference is not to have them all at the top. I wanted the contents to be more prominent and that was how I structured my markups: content first, navigation second. This is one of the things that responsive design is so appealing to me.

Once I met the desktop requirements, I get much more creative freedom for the smaller screens. This is the reason mobile-first approach is important. For the Law web site, the best, or my preferred, experience is when the browser is at 739px or lower. That’s when the navigation gets out of the way and you can get to it by hitting on the menu button.

In the next design, which I have already been thinking a bit, I will go for a minimal set of links at the top. Yes, the new site is only up for six months and I am already planning on a new design. I feel as if I have adopted this baby.

James Surowiecki on “Downsizing Supersize:”

Currently, on a per-ounce basis, large drinks are much cheaper than smaller ones—which encourages people to supersize. The soda ban should shift this. Two sixteen-ounce servings are bound to be more expensive than one thirty-two-ounce serving, which creates another disincentive to drink more.

I am guilty as charged on this one. I used to get Starbuck’s venti ice coffee. Now I am getting the trenta cup. It’s ridiculous. I rarely get the frappacino, but I go all out whenever I do because it is so expensive for a tall size comparing to a venti size.