Monthly Archives: September 2004

Think Outside…

★ Posted on at 05:23 pm ★

… the square you live in. Motto for the month probably?

I just added some functional changes to the site. On the sidebar now you will notice the actual thumbnails of the pictures I’ve put on my Photography section. Before, it was just static text that while functional, did not convey the message for people to click on it to go take a look.

I’ve been thinking more like a web developer in previous months than actually thinking like what I think would be closer to the point, a web user. It has been an obsession of mine to adhere to web standards and following strict guidelines when building pages. This is a good thing, only to the point where it breaks down my creativity as I think of the easiest method to implement something, rather than thinking up the feature first and then only worrying about how I’m gonna implement it.

I’ve decided to change all that, hence, the thumbnail images on the sidebar now, to increase awareness of the existence of the photos which in turn makes it slightly more accessible. This is the influence of having done Marketing in my final semester at school. ;)

Heh, thinking of it, my website was like a teenager trying to grow up. I wasn’t sure of what it wanted to express, so it was pretty directionless and trying to figure so many things out at once just confused it all the more. At this stage in time, my website has matured a little, and knowing its identity, I can slowly iron out issues I’m still unhappy with and hopefully, make this a more functionally useful and friendly site for myself and those who visit it.

Of Long Ago

★ Posted on at 07:32 pm ★

At work today, we got a job to print someone’s family history. Heh, it was rather fascinating, just looking through the 300 odd pages of the book. The book was about some guy who lived in the mid 19th century and you have a family history tree dating back to the late 17th century, probably originating from England. Not sure where along the line the family moved over to Australia. For some odd reason, I was sort of reminded of the book Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, the abridged version I had to read in highschool.

Looking at myself, there isn’t much to trace back to. I have cousins who can trace their roots back to a certain province in China, but for me, the furthest I know off are my grandparents, and that’s just the early 20th century, not more than 90 or so years ago. Compared to the guy mentioned above, my history’s pretty recent. I wonder what it’d be like to actually find out who my ancestors were. If it were even possible to meet them, I’d probably have a hard time communicating. I speak with my grandmother in Hakka, although my ability to speak in that dialect has waned over the years I’ve spent away from home.

Jack of Many Trades

★ Posted on at 11:08 pm ★

It’s been a long day. Hmm.. or maybe a long week.

Woke up early to open my boss’s shop this morning. He had to go attend to some personal business, leaving me and Vincent to look after the shop. There wasn’t much of a problem, just that when things can go wrong, they do go wrong. Wanted to go into these in detail, but that would seem a lot like complaining. lol: A little tired to complain about these things.

Just to summarise, today was a jack of all trades, master of none, doing anything and everything that required my attention.

Was the usual cashier, your friendly staff, telephone receptionist (talking to a client who wanted a quote on something, but usually the boss does these things, heh.. I’m in no position to offer any quotes), desktop publisher (had to reformat a document in MS Publisher.. on a side note, I think people should be trained in using MS Word or be banned from using the program.. the document we received to do in booklet form was poorly formatted and not even in the correct page setup!). Was also the computer repairman who needed to fix his friend’s computer just because he never did a full scan of the HD everytime he crashed his computer. Also the web designer finalising some details for a client regarding a website, and preparing to do another one over the course of next week. Heh, all work and no play makes Mak a dull boy. Probably, enjoying the work now but getting really tired from it.

Kinda stoned at the moment. So many things to do, so little time. Heh…