If I were to teach web design, Brian Miller’s Above the Fold: Understanding the Principles of Successful Web Site Design would be my choice for textbook. You won’t learn HTML5, CSS3 or jQuery in this book, but you’ll learn about whitespace, grid, typography and design elements for the web. Miller also provides great screenshots of web sites to illustrate his points. For instance, Apple’s homepage is a perfect example of showcasing products above the fold, which according to Jakob Nielson is where users spend 80% of their time looking for information.

My golden ticket for VaultPress has arrived today and I signed up immediately to secure “At The Center of It All,” an active, engaging site for GW School of Business.

The initial intention for “At The Center of It All” was to replace our bi-weekly newsletters, but the site has evolved in such a short period of time. We now post news, events, publications and video on a daily basis. My colleague who is the associate director of media relations is doing a fantastic job of keeping the site fresh all the time.

When we launched the site, I have to use Lunarpages to host WordPress because the University server doesn’t run on PHP & MySQL. Since the University is not supporting us and we’re hosting WordPress outside of the school, I am responsible for the site. Although Lunarpages is hosting both Visualgui.com and iLoveNgocLan.com over eight years without any issue, I don’t want take the risk with the University’s web site.

Now that the site is being backed up by the WordPress experts, I don’t have to worry much anymore if something goes wrong. For $15 a month, peace of mind surely is VaultPress’s most popular feature. VaultPress is a great service and I am sure it will be successful. VaultPress is another reason I am strongly rooting for WordPress.

2/22: “Learn the word ‘aqua’ in Portuguese (water).”

2/24: “He is a great soccer player. Great control of the ball (great coordination). Played with flashlight project on the wall. Very happy :)”

2/25: “Sometimes when he wants something he grabs us by the hand and ‘direct us’ to whatever he wants to do. Very playful.”

You didn’t want go into your class yesterday. You looked a bit grumpy until Brit, your classmate, came up and gave you a hug. You smiled and joined the class. You’re a lucky boy!

Heather Armstrong brings in quite a hefty income for blogging on Dooce.com about poop and spit up. New York Times reports:

[Heather Armstrong] is the only blogger on the latest Forbes list of the Most Influential Women in Media, coming in at No. 26, which is 25 slots behind Oprah, but just one slot behind Tina Brown. Her site brings in an estimated $30,000 to $50,000 a month or more — and that’s not even counting the revenue from her two books, healthy speaking fees and the contracts she signed to promote Verizon and appear on HGTV. She won’t confirm her income (“We’re a privately held company and don’t reveal our financials”). But the sales rep for Federated Media, the agency that sells ads for Dooce, calls Armstrong “one of our most successful bloggers,” then notes a few beats later in our conversation that “our most successful bloggers can gross $1 million.”

Wow!

It doesn’t take long to fall in love with the British soul-pop singer Adele. In fact, the opening track, “Rolling In The Deep,” on her sophomore release, 21, hooks you right in. Who can resist the smoky, sexy voice complemented with the damn catchy beat? The second track, “Rumor Has It,” gets even better. In addition to the memorable melody, the hypnotic drum claps and the savor jazz keyboard lick, the punchline is dead on: “You made my heart melt, yet I’m cold to the core / But rumour has it. I’m the one you’re leaving her for.” On the slow pop ballad, “Don’t You Remember,” so pours her heart out more like an old soul than a twenty-one-year-old girl. 21 has a few stalled moments, but the album is definitely worth listening.

Mood: happy, chatty, playful
Enjoy: Story time, outside

Notes and reminders: had fun during project of ripping paper and making balls. Fine motor skills. Very sociable. Great sense of humor.

I dropped you off to school today and noticed your painting posted outside your classroom. While your classmates splashed paints all over the canvas, you had three dots in yours. You must have picked up your minimalist style from me.

You’re using more Vietlish nowadays:
“fish an (eat)”
“chocho xe lua (train)”
“more nho (grapes)”
“mo (take off) jacket”
“red xe (car)”

You also learned to count: mot, hai, ba, sau (one, two, three, six)

People who cut through the malfunctioned escalator line at the Metro while everyone else waits in line. They just walk right up to the escalator as if no one is around.

Parents who don’t take their shoes off at the mall’s playground. What’s the point of taking off the kids’ shoes if the parents don’t? Adult shoes are less dirty or something? It makes no sense to me at all.

Guys, please pick up the toilet seat cover when you take a leak even if you have good aim. If you don’t want to lift up the cover, at least wipe off your own piss when you’re done.

Over the weekend, I reread John Allsopp’s Developing with Web Standards and found things John covered a year ago still work today. Highly recommended for web designers.

I will be in Tampa, Florida next week for the 2011 Building B-Schools Symposium. The last time I attended, Facebook and Twitter were hot topics for Business School and indeed they were exploded. I am excited to see where higher education is heading.

Our new 2011 Sienna clocks in over 5,000 miles in less than three months. Dao loves the van so much that he doesn’t want to ride in the old car anymore. He falls asleep in the van in less than 10 minutes of driving and he could sleep through four and a half hours straight.

This two-column design forces me to write longer than I normally do because the short sentence would look weird slipping up.

John Cloud points out an interest definition of hypersexual disorder from the proposed APA (American Psychiatric Association):

…you have an illness if you spend so much time pursuing intercourse or masturbation as to interfere with your job or other important activities. According to the working language of the diagnosis, “repetitively engaging” in sexual behaviors when you are anxious, depressed or stressed would be considered a major warning sign for the disorder.

The article goes on explaining several rehab methods including “chemical castration.” To keep your mind off sex, all you need to do is finding something you feel passionate about like blogging, designing web sites or spending time with your kid.

In a more serious note, aren’t most men addicted to sex? We just have different ways of dealing with it. Cheating simply ruins your marriage and marriage doesn’t necessarily go with sex. It took me quite a while to learn that marriage goes more with sleeplessness.

Dao and May hung out again over the weekend. We dropped by Linh’s place on Sunday for the kids to play together. As soon as Dao saw May, he yelled out her name, ran toward her, gave her a hug and kiss. We had lunch and stayed for about two hours before the kids were winding down for nap time. We drove back to m sister’s house and Dao napped.

Yesterday, we met again at The Playhouse Cafe in Harrisburg. Twenty minutes later the kids got bored so Linh suggested that we hit Port Discovery. What an awesome place for kids. There are tons of activities for them to do. I can’t wait to take Eric, my little nephew, to it. I am sure he’ll enjoy it.

We only get to know these cool places through Linh who discovers all these spots for May. The more time we spend with the Linh and May, the more we admire them and the more we enjoy their company. We’re very grateful to have them as friends and definitely looking forward to the future getting together.