The Fall semester will be busy and exciting. I can’t wait to launch the final project for my MA. I will close out my chapter as a student and transform into teaching.

I will be teaching three different classes combined into one. Here’s the break down: 17 undergraduate students for Web Design and Usability (AVT 415), five graduate students for Web Design and Usability (AVT 519), and one graduate student for Advanced Web Design (AVT 619). With 23 students in three different classes seemed overwhelming, but I had figured out how to run the class after months of thinking and preparing for the course. I will have a teaching assistant to help me out so that will be good.

Because I have other things going on at work and in my personal life (more on that when the time comes), I asked to take off teaching in the fall, but they could not find a replacement. I didn’t want to see the class gets cancelled and let the students down; therefore, I decided to move forward with it. It will be a challenge, but I am looking forward to it.

Last Monday I woke up with a migraine. Đán woke up with a fever. Đạo woke up and didn’t have to go to camp. Since all three of us stayed home, I decided to take them out for some light activities so their mom could do some work and rest.

We went to the park and they could play mini golf. I still think golf is extremely boring, but enjoyed watching them played. Then we took the train ride. Something about sitting and holding my sons on both arms and feeling the breeze took away my migraine.

In several occasions, the train ride had released my stress even for just a short five minutes. In that short period, mind was so clear and focused. Life felt simple and I treasured every second with the kids. I just closed my eyes and held on to them slightly tight. Not because I were afraid that they would fall of the train, but I needed the affection.

If I were to have five minutes left in this world, that how I would spend my time.

Today Professional Web Typography completed its 90 days online. Nothing much happened except for the endorsement from the prominent web designer Andy Clarke. After he tweeted about the book, a few people had contributed $10 each according to his recommendation.

Truth be told, I have tremendous respect and admiration for Andy Clarke’s contribution to the web community. I reached out to him when this book was still in beta to get a quick blurb from him. Unfortunately, I never heard back; therefore, I thought he didn’t find the book useful or the time to read it.

I contacted him again after hearing that he would mention anything that related to web design on his podcast Unfinished Business. He responded this time with enthusiasm for the book; therefore, he must have missed the first contact I sent him.

The new dean has a new vision for the George Mason University School of Law: Learn. Challenge. Lead. In his letter to the staff, he wrote, “We want prospective students to know that they will receive an outstanding legal education (Learn), be taught to critically evaluate prevailing orthodoxy and pursue new ideas (Challenge), and, ultimately, be well prepared to distinguish themselves (Lead) in their chosen fields.”

To support the new mission, the website needed to be repositioned. The first step was to make the design bolder; therefore, the layout needed to expand to display larger graphics. The previous layout was designed on the 960 Grid System. Fortunately all the dimensions were measured in em units; therefore, the layout scaled accordingly when the width increased from 960 to 1140 pixels.

To showcase Mason Law’s exceptional location, faculty, community, and career services, a homepage slider is needed. After thorough research, I chose David DeSandro’s excellent Flickity, which loads fast, provides flexibilities, and works with responsive images (Picturefill). I highly recommend Flickity for responsive slideshow.

In addition to the slider, the new Mason Law homepage features larger type, richer colors, and bolder visual elements. The footer of the site incorporate the striking tagline: Learn. Challenge. Lead.

For typography, Myriad Pro is the only typeface chosen, but its extensive family gave the design tremendous flexibilities. The story pages (location, faculty, community, and career services), for example, use heavy weight to incorporate typography into photography. I enjoyed making editorial designs for these pages.

For the work behind the scene, I cleaned up the templates to simplify the design and make the layout more consistent. CSS is not as organized as I would have wanted, but I am glad that I wrote it from scratch; therefore, I knew exactly where to find things. Sass is a huge timesaver. Making changes to a large site like this could have been a nightmare if I were to rely on a CSS framework.

Giving the short timeline (less than a month) and the number of people involved, I am satisfied with the new changes for the website. The iterations were small, but they made a big impact. Everyone on the committee, including the new dean, is pleased with the repositioning.

Mấy tuần vừa qua ngày nào lái xe đi làm và về sao giờ làm cũng thấy một bà da trắng khoảng 40 đứng ở đèn xanh đèn đỏ xin tiền vì lý do không nhà. Nhìn bà ăn bận lịch sự không giống như những người rách rưới không nhà. Bà ấy đứng ngoài trời nóng (90 độ F) hơn 8 tiếng đồng hồ mỗi ngày không biết xin được bao nhiêu tiền. Không biết người đẹp có nhiều cơ hội lấy lòng người hơn hay không? Có lẻ cũng có ăn nên ngày nào cũng thấy bà ấy xuất hiện ở đó.

Norton tackles sex, race, gun, and technology with an unfiltered sense of humor. His jokes are brutal but brilliant. For instance, he praised Joan Rivers and offered to eat her pussy. Watch Contextually Inadequate on Netflix for some dark, entertaining comic.

Two weeks ago we went to Sears to buy a dishwasher. Less than half an hour we closed the deal. The salesman asked me for my email so that Sears could provide the status of the delivery and installation. I gave him my email, but emphasized that I did not want any email promotion and he agreed.

When we got home that day, I checked the old dishwasher and for some odd reasons it worked again. I went back to Sears to cancel my order. Everything went fine, except now I am stuck with endless sale promotions.

The first promotion from Sears read: “Get $10 off $20. Jump online today!” No, thanks. Unsubscribed. The next day, another one read: “Jump on it! Get $10 off your $20 online purchase.” No, thanks. Unsubscribed again. A few minutes later, another one came in: “;-) Seriously, you made the list! Since we think you’re awesome… Enjoy Super Summer Savings!” No seriously. Don’t wink at me. I don’t want to be on the list. Unsubscribed again. The next day, another one came in: “[SURPRISE!] You’re seriously going to love this: Cyber Monday NOW :-).” No seriously, I am not going to love it. I was surprised indeed that I had unsubscribed three times with the confirmation that I had been successfully unsubscribed and yet I was still getting promotional emails.

With frustration, I tweeted at Sears and its social media team were on it immediately, which was good. After providing my name and email, they confirmed that my email had been removed from all the mailing lists, which sounded great except today I got another one from Sears: “We’re not lying! ▷▷ You’ve officially hit it big: find tools & equipment by trusted brands.” No, you fucking lied. I sent a message to the social media team that I was still getting promotional newsletter from Sears and their response was: “Donny, it can take 7-10 business days for the messaging to stop. If after that time you are still receiving messages, please let us know.” What? It takes 7-10 business days to be removed from a fucking online newsletter? They have to go and track down the physical database or something? This is ridiculous. My only solution now is to filter anything coming from Sears straight into my junk box.

The summer course, Introduction to Web Design, ended yesterday with students presenting their final project. The websites, in which they came up with the concept, designed, and coded, turned out well given that all six of them had no prior knowledge of web design.

My goal for the course, which was compacted into into eight  weeks, was to train students the foundation of HTML and CSS. In the first three weeks, I covered all the chapters in Jon Duckett’s HTML & CSS: Design and Build Websites. In each chapter, I selected the practical features that they would use the most in real-world projects. In addition to two exams, I created five exercises based on the code demo covered in class.

In parallel to learning HTML and CSS, students had to come up with the concept for their own site. They had to write a proposal, gather content, and create a sitemap, wireframes and mockups. The final website must be hand-coded, functional, and responsive.

Once we were done with with the book, they began to create the mockups and code their final site. The most challenging part of the course was coding; therefore, I only gave them one project to do and plenty of time to code. They struggled a bit, but everyone pulled through. I am happy with what they turned in. I hope that I had given them enough basic knowledge so that they will continue to improve their HTML and CSS skills after the intro course.

Here are a few mockups the students have created.

Dusting off my political category because the election is here. The Republican party is already getting fired up with 17 men and one woman running for president. With Donald Trump entering the race, he is making the election more interesting and entertaining. I hope he stays in the game until the general election. 2016 wouldn’t be fun without him. He should definitely consider third-party run if the GOP doesn’t support him.

An intriguing history of the development of the English language. Ostler traces back to key figures including Noah Webster, Lindley Murray, Robert Lowth, and William Bentley Fowle who played the major roles in shaping the usage of language. From controversies to rules to criticisms, Founding Grammars is a delightful and informing read on the wars on words.