I am looking forward to the three-day conference, Computers in Libraries 2012, next week. The program featured some interesting topics including web and mobile development for library.

I will also be attending the five-day training for Red Hat System Administration I (RH124) on the first week of April. This is the skill tI need to pick up for my current job. I have learned my way into Linux by reading books and with the help of the previous developer. I am hoping to gain more knowledge and confidence through the training.

The main navigation for Visualgui has been reworked on small screens to allow more contents showing up on mobile devices. As much as I liked the colorful menu on the previous version, this is more user friendly.

FancyZoom, which being used mainly on the graphic section, is replaced with FancyBox2. FancyZoom worked well for what I needed, but has not been updated since 2008. In addition, FancyZoom doesn’t work with Infinite Scroll, which are used on both sites and motion. FancyBox2, on the other hand, has been reborn with CSS3, responsive design and integrated slideshow. The script loads faster than the previous version and works well with Infinite Scroll.

FancyBox2 is now also used to open Flash files on the motion pieces to improve the user experience. Infinite Scroll breaks the back button; therefore, visitors would lose their spot if they click to view a slideshow. Now they just launch FancyBox and close it when they are done viewing. This is also an issue for the site section and the easiest solution is to open a new window. I know that opening a new window is not recommended, but it makes sense in this case. Users go off my site to see the work I have done and then close the browser when they want to get back to my site for more samples. This method makes much more sense with Infinite Scroll.

I haven’t thought of a major redesign for Visualgui. I did a realign a year ago and still enjoying the simplicity of this site. It allows me to do what I would like to do: showcase my work, add new graphics weekly on the homepage and just write. As you can see, I write quite a bit on this blog and I hardly reread for grammar mistakes. I would love to because every once in a while I reread some of my posts and I can’t even figure out what I had written, but time is nothing I have plenty of these days. With two kids, the only free time I get is from 11pm to one in the morning. At that time, my brain is half asleep and half fried. As a result my posts are not as polished as I like them to be, but I still appreciate the ability to just write.

Santorum:

I believe and I think that the right approach is to accept this horribly created, in the sense of rape, but nevertheless, in a very broken way, a gift of human life, and accept what God is giving to you. As you know, in lots of different aspects of our life we have horrible things happening. I can’t think of anything more horrible, but nevertheless we have to make the best out of a bad situation. And that is making the best of a bad situation.

This might sound wrong on many levels, but just imagine a rapist raping a girl and telling her, “Look bitch, I am giving you a gift from God.”

After launching the web site for Renew Body Contour, I am so tempting to get the treatment myself. Thanks to a week straight of Eden Center’s diet (usually a bowl of noodle soup or a big plate of rice with avocado or durian smoothie), I now tipped over 150 pounds, which is the weight I thought I would never exceed. I know I am fat when I weight more than a pregnant woman. It’s definitely not a good thing to work so closed to a vibrant Vietnamese food area. I need to stick to my mixed greens, chicken, tomatoes and grapes. I also need to get back to jogging again. The weather is too damn nice.

I broke so many resolutions already. My wife just sigh when I tell her that I need to stop eating recklessly. On Tuesday, I went to James Hoban’s with a few of my closed former colleagues. After a few gin and tonic, I went for a big bacon burger. Man, it was heaven-sent. I couldn’t resist the temptation because I was so happy for one of them for taking on a new job four months after me. We worked together and the circumstand and the situation pulled us tighter together. That’s something to be pondered in another post.

I rolled out a major update on George Mason Law last night to improve the user experience on small screen devices. The massive amount of links on the header and the navigation take up the entire screen on the iPhone. When users clicked on a nav item, they couldn’t tell that the page is being loaded below the screen. I have pondered upon the issue for a while and finally figured out a solution.

I made the logo smaller and moved the entire header and navigation to the bottom of the page for small screens. I added two links at the top of the page: “skip to content” and “skip to navigation.” Users can get direct to content or navigation with just one click or tap. With the smaller logo and navigation out of the way, the content is now moved up higher on the small devices. For large screens, I moved the entire header back to the top of the page using CSS absolute positioning.

What I really like about this approach is the improve in accessibility and SEO. Users with screen readers don’t have to go through all of the nav links to get to the main content. Search engines could also get to the information much faster because the content is higher on the page.

The beauty of the web is that we can still make changes after the site has launched.

My father-in-law is advocating 70 Năm Tình Ca Trong Tân Nhạc Việt Nam (1930 – 2000) to his friends and family. I started to listen to the first part on my way to work this morning. My commute is probably the only quiet time for me to focus on the program. I find it informative so far.

Có những niềm riêng làm sao nói hết.
Tôi viết rồi, rồi tôi lại xóa tôi ơi.
Tiến thoái lưỡng nan, đi về lận đận.
Tình không xa nhưng không thật gần.
Rừng xưa đã khép, rừng xưa đã khép.
Tôi lần mò leo mãi không qua được vách nghiện.
Để gió cuốn đi, để gió cuốn đi.
Hãy cố yêu người mà sống.
Và như thế tôi sống qua từng ngày.

In my freshman year in college, I had a young professor for my first English class. One of our weekly assignments was to read any piece in the New Yorker and write a summary about it. At the time, I knew nothing about design and marketing. I didn’t take the New Yorker seriously because of its cartoon illustrations. Furthermore, I didn’t understand a single thing I read in the magazine. The articles were so long and I got bored just looking at the pages I have to go through.

The young professor was really helpful though. Because she lived on campus, sometimes she invited me to her place to correct my massive grammar mistakes, something I don’t seem to overcome. I was in her class for two semesters in a row and I loved them both. Another assignment I enjoyed doing was keeping a daily journal. She then collected the journal on Friday, read them and wrote back her comments. Come to think of it, she is responsible for my addiction to blogging.

Even after I graduated from college, I never enjoyed reading, but I forced myself to read tech books to learn computer skills. I started getting into reading around the time I began my interest in blogging. I read mostly non-fiction books because I thought that if I spend time reading, I better learn something out of it. I read jazz books because the subject interested me. Then I finally figured out that reading is the best way to kill time like when I get stuck in a doctor office or riding on the train; therefore, I try to take a book with me whenever I go. I just hate waiting.

To find interesting topics for my blog, I started reading online. New Yorker then became one of my favorite sources. I read most of the articles posted online, but a year or so ago the New Yorker limited its online publications to its subscriber. I knew it was time for me to get the print edition. I kept pushing it off until late last year when my niece had a fundraising for her school. If I subscribe to a magazine, the school will get 40% (or something like that). Killing two birds with one stone, I couldn’t refuse. Since then I have always looking forward to Wednesday to read the New Yorker.

What I like about the New Yorker is that I read and learn something new every issue in addition to its political coverage and music review. I appreciate the level of detail in the pieces. I should have subscribed to the New Yorker a long time ago and I don’t think I ever want to cancel my membership. Then I read Raffi Khatchadourian’s “Transfiguration” last week and realized is it good to know all this information?

The excellent piece details the process of transplanting a face to a young man who was shocked by high-voltage power. He was burnt so bad that the doctors had to cut off his mouth, eyes and nose. They had to put temporary pig skin on his face to help him heal. Then there’s an account of a woman who took too much sleeping pills then collapsed. After she woke up and tried to smoke a cigarette only to find out that her whole mouth had been eaten by a dog. This is one of the reasons we will never have any pet in our house.

Sometimes I feel like ignorant is a bliss. The less I know the better. Being a parent every little thing makes me paranoid. What happen if something like that in the article happened to my kids? I was doing the dishes the other day and I turned on the food-waste disposer. Then something occurred to me. What if one boy tells the other to put his hand down there then turns on the switch?

When we bought the house, one of my favorite features was the laundry shooter. It’s great because we can just throw dirty clothes down to the basement. I was holding Cu Dan on my arms the other day and staring at the laundry shooter for a minute and thought what if Cu Dao decided to give his little brother a slide from the top floor to the basement? It’s damn near impossible to do, but the thought occured in my mind.

Then there are sharp toothpicks found around the house. What if one guy decided to poke his brother’s eye out with the toothpick to see what happened? Then the door to the basement, which hardly shut tight. What if one decided to push the other down the basement?

I talked to Dana about my paranonia and she felt the same way, especially about the toothpicks. I am really glad that I am not the only one. Still, reading things that happened to other people give me a chill. That’s also one of the reasons I don’t watch the news. It just creeps the shit out of me.

When you’re married with two kids, what you get for Valentine is something really hot and it is not hot love. That’s right, I got a big hot pot and nothing complement it better than straight shots of Tequila. I am referring to Baluarte Tequila, not Tila Tequila. Now I am bloated, but I got my Cu Dao to keep me warm. Life can’t get any better than this.

I recieved an inquiry from a Vietnamese lady about a web design project last Thursday. On Friday I called her around 11am Eastern time to find out more about the project. She woke up to answer the phone. She saw my New York number and told me she didn’t realize that I am in the east coast. She thought I live in California. I explained to her that with web design she doesn’t need to work with someone locally. I have clients all over the States. One time I even had a client in China.

In any rate, I didn’t get a chance to ask her who refered me to her. I emailed her after the brief conversation over the phone, but she hasn’t responded. If you made the referral and are reading this post, I just want to say thank you.

Almost all of my clients are through referrals. The great thing about recommendation is that I know I have been trusted; therefore, it’s much easier to work with the referred clients. Most potential clients who come to my site would probably see the design I have done, but they probably don’t look under the hood to see how I coded my page.

I prize myself in giving the clients the most up-to-date technologies so that their site will be in good shape in years to come. Now every new project will include HTML5 Boilerplate and responsive design as a standard offering no matter how large or small the project is.