Hi. I'm Andrew

Designing for User Experience Poster

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 00:01:00 -0800

I’m a firm believer that “UX” is a verb- not a noun. It’s a process, and I believe that if documented and followed correctly, it’s a process that anyone can have a reasonable amount of success with. As professionals, we need to shout these solutions from the rooftops- not keep them as guarded secrets. To that end, I’ve outlined my personal process when designing for user experience and compiled it as a poster for your office wall.

via 1sixty.com

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Linux Job Opportunities

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 14:00:00 -0800

Based on the latest data published below, are you prepared for a job working on Linux? via linux.com

I'm thrilled to know that this is a growing trend. Linux FTW.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Jam Session: Shiela and the Insects - Quick to Panic (Cover)

Sat, 17 Dec 2011 19:25:00 -0800

with Jay Carreon, Mathew Wong, and Miguel Saballa.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

A different vision of the world

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 05:33:43 -0800

Permalink | Leave a comment »

What goes wrong with CSS

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 08:34:00 -0800

CSS grows with site size. Depending on your site, this can be a serious issue — not just for performance, but because CSS is code. More code tends to lead to more problems — maintaining code size is a serious concern.

CSS best practices encourage what would otherwise be bad programming: repetition, bad grouping, loose coupling. Again, if you treat CSS as code that needs to be maintained, reviewed, and refactored, these are negatives.

CSS is often contextually unreadable. For example,.about .main ul li li amight be very clever CSS, using a nesting in the markup to trigger a style, but it’s very bad code — without a strong understanding of the HTML, this code can be ambiguous, and its HTML target hard to pinpoint.

CSS encourages overrides, which are the death toll for maintainability. The more styles you override, the more styles you will eventually have tooverride again.

CSS encourages bad coupling and distant dependencies — for example, let’s say all LIs inherit a margin-bottom we set early in the CSS, and the features we code design with this spacing in mind. Despite the fact that the art director says a particular feature MUST look the way the comp looks, said feature now depends on a very remote line of code, a line that anyone might change without realizing the consequences.

Found at Viget.com, CSS Strategy Square-off.

The approaches highlighted, OOCSS & SMACSS, in the article are also what I consider to adapt going forward with CSS development/authorship.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Scalable and Modular Architecture for CSS

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 11:44:00 -0700

SMACSS (pronounced "smacks") is more style guide than rigid framework. There's no library within here for you to download or install. SMACSS is a way to examine your design process and as a way to fit those rigid frameworks into a flexible thought process. It's an attempt to document a consistent approach to site development when using CSS. And really, who isn't building a site with CSS these days?! Feel free to take this in its entirety or use only the parts that work best for you. Or don't use it at all. I understand that this won't be everybody's cup of tea. When it comes to web development, the answer to most questions is "it depends".

via smacss.com

Permalink | Leave a comment »

The Kindle Fire, Unveiled

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 08:25:00 -0700

via techcrunch.com

Will this be marked as the end of paper books? Will this invite future iPad market? No one knows. As the device is being priced at $199, I'm sure it'll become a big hit. I quoted below Amazon's CEO, Jeff Bezos, letter which can be found in their website.

There are two types of companies: those that work hard to charge customers more, and those that work hard to charge customers less. Both approaches can work. We are firmly in the second camp. We are building premium products and offering them at non-premium prices.

Although, I own a Kindle 3, which they re-branded as Kindle Keyboard, I found this device as amazingly great. It just saddens me to think that I've bought Kindle pretty early. I shoud have waited for this.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Roaming around on Sunday afternoon

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 02:16:00 -0700

Had a walk at Orchard

Took an early dinner at Wendy's

Gone to church.

Took a peek at Formula 1. We haven't bought tickets, though.

IMG_0010.MOV Watch on Posterous

And heres what we've captured. The blazing cars are just amazing.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Brogramming at work

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 09:13:00 -0700

MJ and I tried brogramming at work. Maybe this is the effect of too much caffeine and sugar-free Red Bull intake.

Caught up brogramming again. Thanks to Raymund Tuquero for this capture.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Our Best Practices Are Killing Us

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 10:02:00 -0700

Our Best Practices Are Killing Us via Slideshare

For years, we have been suffering with the myth that if we just tried harder, our CSS would stay clean. Each time we start a new project, we valiantly follow best practices and commit ourselves to writing beautiful code. Then, a few months into the project, we're once again faced with a mess. Maybe it was the contractor who committed crappy code? The project manager who would never give us time to refactor? The truth is that our best practices are killing us. In this talk, we will debunk the best-practice-myths that are making a mess out of our sites.
Nicole Sullivan @stubbornella

The flawed best practices.

What are those flawed best practices?

Classitis!

Never add an non-semantic element

Or, a non-semantic class

Use descendant selectors exclusively

Sites need to look exactly the same in every browser

There are a lot of points you can get from this slide. One point is that when I get around favoring ids over classes, I found it hard to override the CSS rules or selectors. Specifity becomes really hard to manage and on some point I'm relying so much on the !important derivative which is just the end of the game for overrides. I highly recommend front-end developers and web designers to read the slide and internalize the points it tries to convey.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

How Green Is Your Internet?

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 09:40:00 -0700

Thanks to Mathew Wong for the link.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Jam Session: Foo Fighters - My Hero (Cover)

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 09:09:00 -0700

Alright! For this time around, we our cover is My Hero from Foo Fighters. I personally posted this one 'coz our lead guitarist, Ego, is proud enough to share this at Facebook, however rough it sounds. As I have observed, our later session gets better and better. I believe, with constant practice and a lot more sessions, we can produce even better and improved and cleaner covers.

So listen to the cover above and enjoy. Thanks.

On a sidenote: I'm still not convinced that my vocals has improved. I need to practice more big time. :)

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Mosaic Music Festival 2011 featuring Razorback

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 08:08:40 -0700

A live performance of Razorback playing the their song entitled "Giyang." Performed at Mosaic Music Festival 2011 at the Esplanade Theater on the Bay, Singapore.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

How well does your browser support HTML5?

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 03:00:00 -0700

Found a website that test the capability of your browser in terms of HTML5 support! For the test, Firefox vs. Google Chrome. :)

As of this post, the winner is Google Chrome.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Unboxing My New Kindle 3

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 22:35:00 -0700

See the full gallery on Posterous

Finally bought a Kindle 3 for myself. Just wanna share with you how I unboxed this toy. So why I decided to get one? It all happened when I saw one of my colleagues tinkering on his Kindle. I found out that he bought one for his kids. I've borrowed the device for awhile and found it to be interesting. Then I ask: "Where did you bought this?" He said: "From one of the malls at Causeway, Jurong. There's a computer shop in there." And since I was amazed at it, after the work, we rushed and bought one for myself.

Although, I've purchased recently books on web design and development, there are one point that triggered me for buying this toy. On one hand, I found books to be heavy when I read while on journey in MRT. Another, I'm super distructed and can't focus reading on a PC. You know, Facebook, Twitter, Greader and get my attention so easily.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Jam Session: Rage Against the Machine - Bulls on Parade (Cover)

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 08:27:00 -0800

I was on the back seat and made the video coverage during the heart-pumping "Bulls on Parade" by "Rage Against the Machine" cover we had. This time, Jay Carreon, was on vocals who delivered the song very well. The amazing guy who scratched the guitars was Ego Faylona. Jed Hatamos and Mathew Wong rendered very well on drums and bass respectively. Great jam guys.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Toughest place to be a Bus Driver

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 00:56:00 -0800

London bus driver Josh West heads to Manila, the world's most densely populated city, where, with his host Rogelio Castro, he braves the chaos of the streets in a Jeepney.

via Youtube

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Who does that server really serve? - GNU Project - FSF

Sun, 20 Feb 2011 07:05:00 -0800

On the Internet, proprietary software isn't the only way to lose your freedom. Software as a Service is another way to let someone else have power over your computing.

Background: How Proprietary Software Takes Away Your Freedom

Digital technology can give you freedom; it can also take your freedom away. The first threat to our control over our computing came from proprietary software: software that the users cannot control because the owner (a company such as Apple or Microsoft) controls it. The owner often takes advantage of this unjust power by inserting malicious features such as spyware, back doors, and Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) (referred to as “Digital Rights Management” in their propaganda).

Our solution to this problem is developing free software and rejecting proprietary software. Free software means that you, as a user, have four essential freedoms: (0) to run the program as you wish, (1) to study and change the source code so it does what you wish, (2) to redistribute exact copies, and (3) to redistribute copies of your modified versions. (See the free software definition.)

With free software, we, the users, take back control of our computing. Proprietary software still exists, but we can exclude it from our lives and many of us have done so. However, we now face a new threat to our control over our computing: Software as a Service. For our freedom's sake, we have to reject that too.

via gnu.org

Permalink | Leave a comment »

The proposal

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 08:40:00 -0800

Sharing some of the snapshot of another milestone of my life. My marriage proposal to my ever dear girl friend. If you haven't asked, I am in a serious relationship with for, 9 years, with Mary. And now, I'm bringing our relationship to the next level. More serious, indeed. :)

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Jam Session: Juan dela Cruz - Beep2x & Balong Malalim (Cover)

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 22:53:00 -0800

Lots of fun with our informal jam session happened last 29th of January with the Jay Carreon Trio. In the session we have Jay Carreon on guitar, Mathew Wong on bass, and Jed Hatamosa on drums.

The trio where early at the studio which was situated at the vicinity of Chinatown, so sorry I forgot the studio name. I was a bit late but when I got to the studio, the Trio were playing the songs to be covered. Two from Juan Dela Cruz band, one from Radiohead and one from Beatles. I had a the pleasure to sing two of Juan Dela Cruz band's famous songs entitled "Beep beep" and "Balong Malalim" (The video which is embedded in this post). Just don't mind my cracking voice, it's just an informal session anyways. :)

Jay Carreon who was an awesome guitarist and one heluva great singer who sung the refrain portion of the Radiohead hit song "Creep" which can be seen from here, http://youtu.be/QqtGs_G6Hhg . He also sung "Helter Skelter" from the legendary band Beatles. The performances of Mathew and Jed where also tremendously great. Both also played so well during the session. And before ending this post, I'd like to thank Tito Edoria for covering this momentous day. Tito sung with us but, for some reasons, he opted not to upload his video. I hope he'll join with us on the next session.

Thanks Jay Carreon Trio for inviting me and sharing my hidden talent with you guys. I look forward to another sessions to come. :) Rock N' Roll.

Permalink | Leave a comment »