More CSS galleries listed my site

October 8th, 2008 • Uncategorized • No comments

Since this week started I’m delighted to discover that more sites have accepted my website to be shown with other great designer’s work. I am very grateful of them and proud of my progression as a designer.

I hope with these new found credentials it would be easier for me to find a job that is more creatively demanding (as well as rewarding).

Website is showing up on galleries (1 for now)

October 4th, 2008 • Uncategorized • No comments

Yesterday I finished polishing the graphics. The leaf was previously a Photoshopped stock image, which frankly look kinda crappy closely. The title graphic (front page) that shows artist block being broken was previously too abstract and lacked detail, and I spent a two whole days creating nice-looking, original graphics to remedy that one as well.

Then today I submitted my site to a bunch of CSS Gallery websites, hoping to at least get accepted in one so I know that my work is worth being looked at.

I basically worked in the dark for months on the recent redesign, the last TRUE redesign of my site happened back in years. The past year was filled with unfulfilled designs that rots in Photoshop files. And as you all know if you keep working on a single thing it looks less appealing as time passed… lol.

I thought about using PHP for the site, or style Wordpress, but since it was suppose to be portfolio + contact only the work seems to be overkill for the scope, and of course in time this part (the Wordpress part) would be integrated with similar theme.

Sorry that this blog still look rather plain! (However I wonder, the current blog appearance is quite easy on the eye, maybe I should keep it the way it is?)

Anyways, finally one site is showing my work as of now, several hours after I “spammed” those galleries at www.csszone.org. (Thank you for the acknowledgment!)

I know my design skill is still someway away from the better design I see out there (though it is kinda hard to compare styles), but I am now more confident that I did come a long way and I did improve a lot and I know that I am on the right path forward.

P.S.> *Shake Fist*

Finally over…

October 3rd, 2008 • Uncategorized • No comments

The process of self-packaging is finally over.

Website, portfolio and resume were all completed yesterday.

Now job hunt.

The grind isn’t over, but I see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Interactive Fiction - Something You Might Want to Try

August 30th, 2008 • Uncategorized • No comments

I think I got into the Interactive Fiction thing back around early 2000, but even then the graphics of games are very good - Diablo and Starcraft came, I was addicted to Command & Conquer - Red Alert. It really is due to various circumstances that I got in touch with a medium that could be described by outsiders as basically typing a bunch of commands in a console window, and reading the outputs.

The first IF (Interactive Fiction for short) I obtained was by downloading a text game from Download.com that got good ratings (and I was bored of other free games). There weren’t P2P back then, and CD burning was only exclusive to people who could afford the expensive burners - and I was in middle school, broke beyond comprehension: like usually I have $5 under my name.

I was also still on dial-up, and ADSL/Cable was still a commodity item, so IF really fit the bill - it was free, it was small in size, and I got off on a good start because the first work is a good example of IF - and so it was also enjoyable.

I wonder if you can call Interactive Fictions “games” though, personally I think if not for some puzzles it really is a story/narrative that you experience/participate in.

No doubt IF could be confused with “choose-your-own-adventure” books, especially those that have “if you choose to do X, flip to page XX, if you choose to do Y, flip to page YY” sort of books. Because almost all of those books are for kids, I think most people have this misconception that IF is also some silly kid’s stuff.

Of course that’s wrong, as IF is just like any other medium, it could cater to any audience it designs to be, and boy if there wasn’t a lot of good stuff floating around, from old commercial games that was kept alive (Infocom stuff) and new games developed by the community, many of which are amazing in terms of quality and I got a lot of enjoyment out of those.

Time passed and I think I must have gone though a dozen games (and burning away much of my free time with it)… eventually I started playing less and less and after my old computer has gone bust with all data lost on the dead harddrive, I stopped playing at all.

But now I randomly started reading about it again online and it seems the scene really has shrunk.

I seriously wish someone would find some way to introduce IF to a broader audience, personally I think every book reader is a potential fan of IF, even better if you’re a sci-fi/fantasy fan as a lot of works are produced in those 2 genres.

I think the best way for IF to grow is

A) Capitalize on eBook (eInk technology) Craze

eBooks like the Amazon Kindle are getting popular now, with their black and white screens they’re really not suited to things other than texts, what could be a better way to entertain yourself on it than with Interactive Fiction? I assume one would either port it to the platform (could be difficult), or write a web-based front end so people can browse to the site on their eBook (though I think only Kindle does this currently) and play just like that.

B) While at it make it an online app!

Yep, I think Interactive Fiction should be made to be able to play online, possibly with the option of creating your own account and have saves stored that way.

With obscure products like IF, it really is important to let people passing by get a taste of it IMMEDIATELY rather than getting them to download dubious looking programs to run those files.

C) Other stuff..

Go completely open source. I mean it, I think the entire system should be open source and even get to be listed on Sourceforge / Google Code. What IF needs is exposure! I only knew about IF by chance and most of my friends don’t know anything about it, and would probably dismiss it as a variant of the silly “choose-your-own-adventure” sort of thing.

Better designed graphics, interface and website are direly needed, I mean seriously most of those sites have like no style applied, it look like some obscure educational page for personal use….

Also better organization of contents, a starter-pack of simple but enjoyable IF packaged with necessary reader, and also a library of IF that user can search based on rating, genre, date… etc. Also implement commenting so people can start discussions about said IF right there on the webpage!.

Rants = Off

Yeah anyways I really enjoyed IF in the past and I really feel sad hearing about its decline in what was already limited community.

Power to IF!!!!!!

EDIT: Just remembered, the first game I downloaded and got me hooked was “World’s Apart”. I don’t remember if I finished it, I don’t even remember the details involved, but I knew it had very nice engrossing atmosphere and setting.

Brand new design coming soon

April 17th, 2008 • Uncategorized • No comments

I got to say that I have something truly amazing up my sleeves for the new design. I think I finally found a way to combine the aesthetics that I appreciate most in an organic design.

Read more »

Forum overran by spams

March 12th, 2008 • Uncategorized • 1 comment

I haven’t checked my abandoned forum for around 2 month, and its been swarmed with spams and more than 600 users who only have spam links in their profiles.

I should have known….

Anyhow the board is disabled and all spam posts deleted, good riddance.

Importance of Backing Up & Flash MX 2004 No Longer Works

January 16th, 2008 • Uncategorized • No comments

While saving my flash file, Flash MX 2004 failed spectacularly. Now I have a broken file, AND my Flash MX 2004 no longer works even after a re-install.

This probably means I’ll have to start working on my Macbook Pro now….

It would be a pain to switch DVI cables back n forth btw. my PC and my MBP, but KVM switches cost almost as much as my 20″ Dell…

Life sucks, people move on.

Time to get crackin’

January 8th, 2008 • Uncategorized • No comments

Yeah, I need to get to work ASAP.

Today I’m going to sleep early and wake up early for a jog to school, plan my schedule for the rest of the week and then more stuff… (including peer eval)

Right now I need to finish working on getting my stuff organized.

Damn it

January 5th, 2008 • Uncategorized • No comments

I just don’t feel like working on website anymore…

Right now I think I’ll use this heavily modded Sans-Serif Racer theme for a while, since it looks clean and stuff…

I need to plan more, more plans….. more…..

Blog System Decision & Theme Investigation

January 4th, 2008 • Uncategorized • No comments

To be frank I was rather reluctant to use WordPress again for my blog, it just got that “everyone has it” kind of feeling.

However there’s seems to be no avoiding it, since the only other alternative that looks promising - PivotX 2.0 - is still in Alpha, and it would require way too much effort on my part to make it work well without me spending an obscene amount of time wrestling with bugs and adding custom features when in the end I’m just doing double work along with the Pivot dev team, so why bother…

I have look around the net looking for themes will code (aka - features that I needed) in order to make my own theme as quickly as I can. It might sound fishy, but why do yet more duplicated work when there are nice people out there who already has the functionalities down and pat.

This is also one of my gripe, there’s just so much duplicated work out there. I’m not talking about healthy competition between similar product, but lots of simple, obvious solutions that works and works well; yet people was forced to think of other solutions to the very same problem due to copyright, patent, or state secret; and not just to make a profit, but in order to enable people to solve the problem without submitting to the often barbarous terms of the people who found the solution before them.

Arghh… I’m going off topic, anyways I have decided on which theme I’m going to jack functionalities from, so now I’ll go and reverse engineer my hearts out.

To-Do:

1. Choose theme to base my editing on
2. Create Mod index page
3. Making sure Wigets works
4. Additiona functions
5. Final Polish