Finally, Lynda Weinman and Jeff Van West come out with Adobe Illustrator CS: Hands-on Training. This is the only book that gets it right for me. I must admit that I am an illiterate when it comes to Adobe Illustrator. I have no problem with Photoshop but I have been struggling with Illustrator for years. I have been reading books after books but still failed. How am I getting by all these years? Flash has been saving my career; however, I have to get over the learning curve of Illustrator if I would like to create more advanced vector artworks.

Why did I choose Hands-on Training over other books? I had the same learning problem a few years ago with Dreamweaver 3. I read the manual and several other books but still didn’t understand it. Fortunately, Dreamweaver 3: Hands-on Training came to rescue. I spent five hours reading that book and was able to grab the concept of Dreamweaver inside out. Now once again, Lynda and Jeff help me overcome Illustrator learning curve with their approachable style and lenient instructional manner.

Even though the book comes with exercise files and demo movies, Lynda and Jeff do not required readers to follow the CD-Rom exercises; therefore, they provide detailed screenshots of every step along the way. I am the type of person who cannot read and go through tutorials at the same time. As a result, any book that relies only on exercises (hint, hint) to get the point across will not do it for me. I am sure many others have similar problem as well but if you can read and do exercise at once, you will appreciate the tutorials and the bonus demo movies accompanied with the book.

So if you’re new to Adobe Illustrator, this book will save you time and money. If you need to get up to speed with Illustrator CS swiftly, this book is for you. If you’re like me who needs to get over the learning curve, this is it. The Hands-on Training series is still one of the best instructional books out there in the market. I am recommending it undoubtedly.

The following little sites at Vassar get clean new codes with a bit of design touch:

Copy Center
Telecommunications
Message Center
Post Office

I am sure the Vietnamese folks already enjoyed Manh Quynh’s translation of Cai Luong (Vietnamese Opera) into English. Let’s see how others would react to it.

Before More Eric Meyer on CSS released, I downloaded all the source codes from the companion web site and study them to see if I can get by without reading the book. As a web designer who works with CSS on a daily basis, I could understand the codes presented; however, I am glad I have read the book. Otherwise, I would have missed out the concise and simple methods of presenting complex CSS driven web sites. It’s amazing how Eric Meyer makes intricate CSS layouts seem so easy to accomplish.

More Eric Meyer on CSS features 10 hands-on projects that could easily tailored to your own work. For instance, the first project fits perfectly for someone like me who is currently retrofitting all the Vassar College table-based design web sites to CSS layout. Whether you want to make a beautiful weblog, design an attractive homepage, or create nice round corner tab navigations, you’ll be in for some real deals. Project 10, Designing in the Garden, is simply an inspiration. It’s persuading me to design a version of Zen Garden for myself.

After following Eric’s step-by-step logical approaches to CSS, I have confident in pulling off any complex layout properly without any hacks to get the right visual design. Furthermore, the flexibility in his process demonstrates the power of separating content from presentation. In project 6, with a few tweaks in CSS, he has turned the CSS-driven drop-down menus from vertical to horizontal. In the Branching Out section at the end of each chapter, he encourages readers to rearrange the layout or further enhance the project with a few edits in CSS.

If you have a basic concept of CSS and would like to put your knowledge into practice, pick up this book. If you are new to CSS, I suggest you pick up his Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition before diving into this book because Eric doesn’t allow basic explanations interferes with the flow of the projects. This book is very focused and if you don’t have basic understanding of CSS, you might get confused. However, if you understand the basic, you’ll appreciate the brief and straightforward explanations the book provided.

It’s my birthday so I treated myself with a new design for iLoveNgocLan.com (anticipation theme).

Eric Meyer’s Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition is my new best friend. This book is unquestionably invaluable because of Eric Meyer‘s in-depth knowledge of CSS. He had done an amazing job of covering both CSS2 and CSS2.1 side by side. It is extremely helpful to see what has changed from version 2 to 2.1. The major different I have noticed is many elements have been dropped. For instance, text shadows did not make it into 2.1 because of the lacking of support from browsers.

The most essential part of Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide is how Eric Meyer keeps the future in mind, especially with the forward thinking of XML where CSS will play a major role in presenting XML’s presentation. Not only he gives clear and concise explanations, he also provides examples to demonstrate how designers would style an XML document.

If you would like to code proper CSS, you will appreciate the careful attention to detail this book provided. Whether you are new or veteran to CSS, you will appreciate the power of what CSS2.1 can actually accomplish by reading this book. If you’re looking for references, you will appreciate the comprehensive coverage of CSS. Whether you’re a web designer or web developer, you will appreciate the time Eric Meyer had devoted into this precious book. He is truly a CSS guru. Now that I have read the Definitive Guide, I can’t wait to dive into his More Eric Meyer on CSS for some hands-on projects.

It takes me quite a long time to fully appreciate Norah Jones’ aesthetic work of art. Her Feels Like Home album takes my breath away as I head home last Friday evening. The best time for me to totally enjoy music is when I am on the road. So when I hit the freeway at 80 miles per hour, I just let the music takes over me. Inspired by the second album, I had to drop by the record store to pick up her first album Come Away With Me before driving back to Poughkeepsie. It surely made the trip much pleasurable and quicker. Now I am enjoying both albums back to back.

Of course, Jones’ exquisite vocal is the key ingredient that I am hooked on; however, the elegant musical elements (drums, bass, piano, guitar, and violin) truly enhanced the aesthetic experience. These simple yet graceful instruments meshed perfectly with Jones’ lovely voice to produced beautiful compositions. The sound engineering is flawlessly balanced that not one of the musical elements overshadows the others and together they have created an exceptional experience. Each time I listen her albums, I tend to separate each element to enjoy its individual aesthetic qualities. For instance, one time I dedicate my attention only to her voice and the lyrics while other time I simply focus mainly on her piano, the acoustic guitar, or the beats.

While both Come Away With Me and Feels Like Home are enjoyable, each album stands out independently. Come Away With Me has that slow and jazzy sense whilst Feels Like Home has that country and uplifting mode. Creepin’ In just makes me want to do Ho-down. My favorite track from Come Away With Me album is I’ve Got To See You Again and What Am I to You? from Feels Like Home. Of course, other songs are beautiful as well but those two stands out the most for me.

Totally disappointed. I was looking for some hot action and there was more talking than fighting. Kill Bill Vol.2 focuses on the relationship between the Bride (Uma Thurman) and Bill (David Carradine). The love story between two people for 2 and half hours is a long time. This shows how much Quentin Tarantino loves his own work. The first few chapters are long and boring. He should have cut down some of those and save some time for the final fight between the Bride and Bill. The final fight is disappointing. Is Quentin Tarantino getting burned out at that point and decided to wrap up the film quickly?

The best part of the film is the action scene between the Bride and Elle (Daryl Hannah). The training scenes with master Pai Mei (Gordon Liu) are pretty hilarious. Lastly, the little girl, Bride and Bill’s daughter, is so adorable. She gives us a few laughs. Personally, I don’t like Vol. 2 as much as Vol.1 even though the storyline is more solid and the characters have some dimensions. I am all about kung-fu flick with hot beats. By the way, RZA gives wonderful scores for both volumes.

Chris Rock definitely ain’t never scared when he rocks the stage. He speaks his mind and he surely doesn’t give a fuck as long as his audiance laughs. I wish rappers would lyrically assault Rock so I can hear him murder their ass in comedy. Rock takes shot at Jermaine, “the greasiest Nigger you have never seen. When Jermaine is on TV, I have to wipe the grease off the screen.” Rock rips Michael Jackson apart by describing how he would look after a month in jail, “When the perm grows out of his hair. The shit all nappy and gray.” He busts cap on Janet’s tittie, “40 years old tittie, your man’s tittie. 20 years old tittie, community’s tittie.” And of course he takes on R. Kelly, Kobe Bryant and many more.

Rock is just way too hilarious. His point of view on relationship hits straight on the mark even though it is biased toward women. The focus is always on her and he is absolutely right. Once you’re married, kiss all your dreams good-bye and “make the bitch happy.” Good relationship is simply eating and fucking. The longer you’re with someone, more eating and less fucking. It’s all about married and bored or single and lonely.

If you have seen Bring the Pain and Bigger and Blacker, you can definitely recognize Rock’s patterns. His main topics include hip-hop, politics, gun and race. The United State governments hate rap music because they are clueless about rapper killers. George Bush’s answer to gay married, “Fuck them fagots.” Rock loves to pick up chicks at abortion rallies because “you know they are fucking.” White people makes gun, no problem; Black rapper said gun, congressional hearing. His view on Affirmative Action, “I don’t think I should get a job over a white person if I scored a lower mark on the test but if there’s a tie, fuck them. You have 400 years head start motherfucker.”

Chris Rock is still the funniest man in America. He’s confident and he mastered his work. He is best at what he does best. Some thinks his hardcore hip-hop stage pose gets in the way. I don’t find it annoying at all. In fact, I don’t find him to be as hard edge as Martin Lawrence, Jamie Foxx or other black comedians. While some thinks the black and white issue is old, I think it is still relevant today. Racism still exists in America. And if you think he is sexist, you’re dead wrong. He is just keeping it real. Chris still rocks.

Retrofitted the Disability and Support Services site to make it accessible as possible.