好像是去年初的時候，心中出現了個奇怪的疑問：「下雪是什麼聲音?」問了一些人，他們都說：「沒有聲音。」雖然一直想要去驗證，可是每次下雪的時候我都在睡覺，這至少證明了下雪的聲音沒有很大。

今天早上在弄早餐的時候，Chloe在上班路上傳了個簡訊說外面在下雪(然後她差點滑倒XD)。我興奮的咧!

起床把電腦、硬碟、桌燈和音響關掉，然後把咪咪丟出門外，我想好好地聽聽下雪的聲音。

沒有聲音。

果然是沒聲音，不過，外面實在是安靜得有點詭異。雪，似乎把一切的聲音都帶走了。沒有風聲，沒有車響，沒有鳥叫，更沒有人煙的迴聲：一種很真實的安靜。

我喜歡這種安靜。

I can’t remember making much of a resolution at the beginning of 2008, nothing that’s trackable anyway. This year, I’ve made a couple of resolutions on both personal and professional levels.

Professional

1. Lean to use Illustrator to an intermediate level
2. Create a simple Flash-based website/webapp

Using the pen tool on Photoshop has always been a weakness for me, so in 2009 I plan to practise using the pen tool a lot more with Illustrator, creating vector graphics. And as I continue to embrace the power of JavaScript libraries, I think it’s only fair that I allow myself to dabble in Flash as well and see what it can do apart from creating animations and play video.

Personal

1. Get into a regular sleep routine
2. Exercise 3 times a week

2008 has been a rather ‘unhealthy’ year for me. Having moved out to live on my own, working at home has meant that I’m pretty much working at the oddest hours, and sleeping too. Adil gave me a nickname: ‘napster’ at one point for the number of times he’s heard about me taking long naps during the day even before he met me. The Lent attempt to drop the habit of laying in failed. I’ve also been less engaged with the dance rehearsals and lessons. Now with Virgin Active charging me £64.95 per month, exercising 3 times a week is only fair.

Side projects

There’re a couple of projects that I want to either round off some existing projects, or start on a couple that I’ve been having in my mind.

1. EnTrip mobile See Entrip.
2. Weight-gain tracking Although it’s not a resolution to gain weight, I believe a regular sleep and exercise routine will allow me to put on weight anyway. So, I spent a couple of hours last night puting together an application to track my progress. This should be rather interesting.
3. File transfer interface This is to allow myself to upload/download/share files that I wish in an unlimited way with public/private privileges.
4. Something that uses the Twitter API It’s possible that I might put this together with the file transfer interface, but it’s uncertain right now.
5. StillLive.NET rebrand A major rebrand and site-wide redesign is on the way…

How about everyone else? Any resolutions for the coming year?

It all started when I was reading on the Future of Web Design site and admiring the on-site snow flake effect that certainly looks Flash-y but in fact uses the jQuery library. Reading on about the team behind FOWD: Carsonified, I then started reading about their recent (2007) rebranding efforts. Quite a job well done I must say. Not only for the the rebranding itself, but how the process was made transparent and shared with the community. Good job Elliot!

On finishing the reading, I stumbled upon an entry that the founder Ryan Carson posted:

If you’re educated and wealthy enough to be reading this blog (which is true as you’re reading a computer screen), then you’ve got a massive advantage in life. You have the power, the wealth and the education to actually choose what to do with your life. Most of the population of the entire world doesn’t have that ability. You and I are lucky to not be fighting to stay alive day-to-day. So if you’re not doing something that you believe in - something you can be passionate about - then do something for me.

Quit.

Don’t waste time @ Carsonified

The good thing is, I’m already a believer in the notion that you should do what you are passionate about in life. The bad thing is, it seemed to have got me into a situation with two pitfalls.

1. I’m doing too many things because I love them all, and it kind of drains me out a bit.
2. I’m not doing enough on any particular ‘thing’ to make sure I get somewhere with it.

The first one is recently starting to get to me because I know I’m only going to get interested in more things, and before I know it I’d be trying to build a home studio to do some recording. A bit luxurious, but it’s been at the back of my mind for some time.

So I gathered together the kind of things that are occupying most of my time at the moment:

• Web design & development: project work, general read-and-learning, and an upcoming site-wide redesign
• Dancing: teaching, rehearsal, and some upcoming performances & competitions with the FuNkoLoGy crew
• Brand strategy consulting: regular contract work with Promise and a looking out for career down that path

And this is where the second pitfall comes in. At the rate in which the economy is going down, I can’t be thinking about doing all those things when the one that I’m most experienced in - dance - isn’t really getting myself much well paid except the huge amount of joy I get out of it.

(Fortunately) Promise contacted me yesterday for another short contract to work on some new projects. The projects sound interesting already, although I shouldn’t really be taking on something else to delay the other projects on hand. Too bad the recession is hitting everyone quite hard and I couldn’t get a guaranteed longer contract, but I think the early January start with them will be a great opportunity for me to push myself on getting the other web design projects finished beforehand, and really start balancing bits of my life and look out for myself.

Having moved into the new condo for almost a month, internet still hasn’t been set up at home. I could have blamed myself for not getting the acts together in time, but I have chosen to join the public grudge towards BT’s inefficiency and unreasonable pricing in activating landlines. Considering I was also down with the flu for a weekend, the lack of internet access was rather frustrating at the beginning, but it’s made me rethink about how much I need (or, don’t need) the internet. I thought I’d start on how I’ve managed to continue the freelancing web design business and completed a website (pretty much) without internet access.

1. Develop locally

Be it Mac or PC, make sure you have the complete suite of softwares. If your work is more graphical than technical, make sure you have softwares such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash etc. If it’s the other way round, you’d need a fully equiped developing environment.

For PHP and MySQL developers, WAMP is very well recommended for PC users, and MAMP for Mac users. Without any surprise, LAMP is probably ideal for Linux users. In whichever case, a good HTML editor is required for CSS manipulation, and no one does it better than Dreamweaver. I am yet to try out the new Dreamweaver CS4, but CS3 suffices for most of my job requirements. One may argue that you can do all that Dreamweaver does with Notepad, but there’s no harm relying on the auto-complete, colour coding, and code management features.

Oh and of course, for Firefox users (and I don’t see why you shouldn’t be using Firefox), Firebug comes to the top of the list for one of the must-have plug-ins for local development. It features a full range of features for editing, debugging, and monitoring HTML, CSS, and JavaScript live in any web page.

2. Reduce, Reuse & Recycle

According to Web Designer Issue 150, 82% of readers would affect how they advise clients over using Flash content with Google’s capability to index SWF content. I personally started with JavaScript libraries a year ago when I first came to touch with being a web designer. It pretty much creates most of the effects and features that I wanted, and I was also happy with the fact that it runs fully on iPhone Safari when Flash content isn’t supported on the device. If Flash was also supported on iPhone, which I believe will only be a matter of time before it is, I’d definitely change my view on using Flash content.

Meanwhile, for the lovers of JavaScript libraries, be it MooTools, jQuery, Prototype, or script.aculo.us, make sure you have a latest copy of them in your computer. And I mean all of them, uncompressed. I started off as a happy MooTools user, but it was only a matter of time before any developer encounters a less than familiar language/framework that he or she must work with. As is the case for one of my clients, It has recently been required for me to learn to use the jQuery library. Fortunately I am still in the realm of JavaScript libraries, and it wasn’t too hard to pick it up. Good thing was that I had a full copy of it in my computer, and when I wasn’t too sure of any syntax or features, I can always go back to the original package, and check how the features have been built. Having said that, you’d need a reasonably good understanding of the language.

The main point is, when you need to produce any piece of code or layout, or when you are unsure about how to use a feature, go back to another piece of code that will show you how. As simple as it is, you’ll find yourself not relying on Google so much and gaining a deeper understanding of the tool that you use.

3. Plan ahead and use your online time wisely

The most common sympton for overly internet-reliant web developers is that they feel the need to upload everything of every phase of their project to a test server and test it. I used to be like that, before I one day wonderfully bumped into WAMP that is. The truth is, as long as you are aware of bandwidth issues with internet connections, you’ll do fine with a local server and Firebug.

As precious as £2.50 for 1 hour of internet time, make sure you plan your phases before you show the clients your work. If you need to, type the emails on Notepad before you hit the internet cafe, and schedule the phases and meetings with the clients. Normally this would also help in making sure you cut the slack and get the work done on time.

Bonus cake - Back up your work.

Taken from Internet Duct Tape:

“Hey, can you check out the latest version of this file to see if my changes work?” Except it’s never just one file, and the changes never work the first time. Checking code out into your working copy is not just an interruption, but can lose an entire afternoon trying to re-achieve the state you were at before updating that “one file”. Having multiple directory trees (hard drive space is cheap) can remove this problem.

Now I generally keep my code in three batches: Working, Stable, and a Current version that is kept in WAMP’s ‘www’ folder. In cases where a code goes horribly wrong, at least you’ll have something to revert to.

回到台灣剛好整整十二天，這次回來老實說有點過忙。匆忙著與家人朋友見面續舊、體驗台北的生活，也花了一半的時間工作。被人說了是工作狂，我也不知道該回什麼。與其說是放假回台，其實只是趁不用在辦公室上班的這三個禮拜帶著工作到台灣而已。

現在搭乘捷運從淡水要回台北，也終於有點空寫些什麼。最後一個晚上，可能會去喝一杯，也有可能會回家去看新的霹靂遊俠。

總之這次回台灣行程很倉促，雖然說想吃想見的大部份都有吃到見到，但是基於惰性還有大部分的人都忙著工作的緣故，還是有幾個朋友沒約出來。妙麗，特別是妳，等我下次回來再約妳出來！(要不然妳趕快來倫敦啦~)

至於對台灣的想法：天氣很熱，來了兩次颱風很衰，幾米音樂劇很讚，豆漿、小籠包、蘿蔔糕、火腿蛋餅、燒酒螺、干絲、醃小黃瓜、紅燒牛筋麵、東區粉圓、花生豆花、胡同日式燒烤、麥當勞玉米濃湯、五更腸旺、麻辣鴨血、炒牛肉漢堡、雞肉飯、田雞湯、滷肉飯、花枝粳、大腸包小腸、碳烤臭豆腐、糯米腸、孔雀蛤…還有很多家常說不出的菜都很好吃，下午茶店很悠閒，誠品很優靜，Primo很酷，柯南很好看，房裡冷氣很涼，Q-be 跟糖糖都很可愛，三重很遠，工作很多，高鐵很快…

嗯，暫時就先這樣 =P

睡了三個小時，一大早起來跟其他房客聊了一下之後，我就帶著全部的行李往時代廣場過去了。Michael NY是個不錯的地方，便宜方便又自在。還要多謝YY跟小麥的推薦，到時候他們去希望也會同意。

搭上地鐵後，心裡一直在想著昨天我到底跟R女約在什麼地方見面。記得是在42街，不過不確定是在第五大道還是第七大道，唯一記得的是約在某家 Quicksilver 的門口。想到她說過是約在時代廣場，看了一下地圖，就直接往第七大道42街過去了。重點：茫的時候如果跟別人約，要寫下來或是存在手機裡，要不然會忘 XD

一大早到時代廣場，沒有前一天的大雨和整街的傘頂。天氣，晴；行人，怠。我站在時代廣場的一角，R女傳了簡訊過來：「I’m running.」XDD

見了面後，她要去 Starbucks 買杯咖啡，基於某些因素不怎麼喝咖啡的我，跟她進了去，而因為店員不小心多作了一杯，出來的時候兩個人手上都拿著一杯咖啡。為什麼我不喝咖啡呢? 因為我在去 Coney Island 的路上一直都很想睡。咖啡，會讓我想睡。一路上，經過布魯克林大橋。在白天，看起來似乎沒有晚上的燈光那麼絢麗，但是還是顯著她的巨大。

Coney Island，我不太懂那地方的歷史，但是有片沙灘，有小食攤，有紐約最好吃的熱狗，還有大概是紐約最舊的遊樂園。從昨日的暴風雨，到今天烈日的海灘，R女下了海，不過我決定待在沙灘上曬太陽聽音樂。原因：我沒帶泳褲。在沙灘上睡了一陣子之後(鼻子有點曬紅)，吃了熱狗在遊樂園晃一晃，時間很快就到了下午1點。其實遊樂園最大的雲霄飛車還沒搭，不過為了要趕飛機，我只好決定離開，而R女也跟我一起離開。

R女一路上聊著一些她在紐約的一些事，說著她不想離開紐約的心情。對我來說，雖然在紐約只過了一天半，感覺好像待了足足一個禮拜。紐約，跟倫敦很像，生活永遠不會停止，而永遠都會有新的故事在轉角等著。

時代廣場，我們下次見。

So…今天的行程原本是這樣的：

早上去 MoMA 等 10:00 開門，悠哉地參觀一遍後，去 Broadway Dance Center 上 1:30 ~ 3:00 的課。從 3:00 去 Sheraton 看 Microsoft Surface 的實機，然後晚上 7:00 再去 Downtown 的 Brazilian Cachaca Club 聽巴西爵士樂。

結果呢，一切都從鬧鈴開始，紐約成了一個充滿驚奇的城市。

怎麼說呢，昨晚睡覺前，我在 iPhone 上設了早上 8:00 的鬧鈴。可是呢，我完全忘了我是直接修改通常禮拜一到禮拜五的鬧鐘，所以理所當然地並沒有在禮拜六早上 8:00 響。早上 9:30左右醒來後，打消了去 MoMA現代美術館 的念頭，跟原本要見面的 Annie 講了一聲，就去樓下吃早餐了。原本要襲擊東岸的Hannah風暴，似乎還挺寧靜的，外面除了一點烏雲外，其實天氣還不錯。

到樓下時，民宿的老闆已經在跟另外兩個日本住客吃早餐聊天。講到我取消去 MoMA 的行程的時候，他提議我去洋基棒球場看一下，因為在今年球季過後，洋基棒球場就要關了。可惜，我到的時候球場的遊覽已經開始了，如果要看下一場，我也趕不及去上跳舞課。這次到紐約，如果行程打亂的話，再怎麼說我也要去 BDC 上個跳舞課。在地鐵上，一路一直看著手錶，然後不停著對地鐵圖跟路面的地圖，只求到時候不要走錯地方或是迷路，因為其實我離開棒球場的禮品店時已經有點晚了。

Broadway Dance Center，322 West 45th Street，在第八跟第九大到之間。一進去，其實給的感覺跟倫敦的 Pineapple 沒有差很多，只是裝潢比較新，然後有幾台液晶螢幕放在那邊播課程表跟 Studio 的上課內容而已。可是上完一個半小時的課之後才領悟到，紐約這邊上課跟倫敦有兩個很大的差別：比較便宜、比較難。不過，因為這裡對於舞者來說是一個踏上舞台的墊腳石，大家都為了能夠站在鎂燈光下而非常地努力。看得出來，大家在課外也有很努力在練習。

上完課走出大樓的時候，轟，下起雨了。這場暴風雨實在是下得有點大。拿著輕型雨傘，外面在下雨，雨傘內也因為質料的關係在滴水。走進 Starbucks 借用網路查 Sheraton New York 的地點後，我就快步地走過去了。走到 Sheraton 的時候，鞋子跟褲管都有點濕，所以在大廳坐了一下等它乾，才去門口旁邊的 Bar 看微軟新推出的 Microsoft Surface。

找了一個從長島來到曼哈頓度週末假的家庭搭訕，我跟他們坐了下來，一起玩那 Surface。如果你還沒聽說過 Microsoft 在美國各大 Sheraton 推出 Microsoft Surface 的話，可以看看 Microsoft Surface - The Possibilities 的影片。感想：嗯‧‧‧很好玩 XD

離開 Sheraton 的時候是差不多 5 點多，其實雨已經大到讓我開始在想，我是不是該回房間休息。開始往地鐵站走的路上時，我突然想到剛才在去 Sheraton 的路上有經過 Marriott 跟旁邊的 In the Heights 音樂劇，是民宿老闆跟我推薦過的。說是有拉丁音樂跟舞蹈還有街舞的結合，覺得我會喜歡。所以呢，抱著探索的心態，我就往劇場的方向走過去了。

在 Marriott 旁邊的時候，遇到了一個賣黃牛票的男人，我問了他有沒有 In the Heights 的票。

「賣完了。」他說：「可是如果你在 5 點半前到劇場門口的話，他們每天都有在抽獎送便宜票。」

一樣，我抱著好奇的心態，走過去看是怎麼一回事。到了的時候才發現，門口旁邊排了一大堆人，等著要抽獎。不過看門的跟我說，其實不用排隊，我在門口那邊等就好了。等到五點半時，一個人拿著一個桶子跟一疊紙走出來。基本上，每個人只要在紙上寫自己的名字，然後需要多少張票，就可以參加抽獎。這個時候，旁邊一個女的 (此稱R女) 跟我打了聲招呼，問我要抽多少張票。

「我一個人，抽一張票。」

他說，他也是抽一張票，我們倒不如都寫兩張票，然後如果我們其中一個人抽到，就兩個人都可以看了。我想，他一定來很多次了 XD 長話短說，後來拿桶子的男人抽到了她的名字，所以我跟她兩個就約 8 點直接在戲院裡面看。她要回家換衣服，而我則是到 Marriott 去曬乾我的鞋子跟買新襪子。走在暴風雨中這麼久，其實腳已經在鞋子裡游一陣子了(囧

看完音樂劇後，R女提議去喝杯咖啡或喝杯酒。R女是俄國人，從小在德國長大，不過也在紐約待過半年以上了。一個人在紐約無所事事，基本上我其實恨不得想要到處晃晃逛逛，看看紐約的生活是什麼樣子。去了一家酒吧喝了幾杯後，我們又搭地鐵往 Greenwich Village 去一家咖啡廳喝東西聊天。

R女其實再過幾天就要回德國了，有點捨不得紐約，想到處去去一些景點。晚上各自分開前，她提議了明天想去 Coney Island 看看海灘。原本打算隔天去補看 MoMA 跟 Apple Store 朝聖的我，還是決定過一個普通人到紐約經歷不到的旅行，所以約了隔天早上在時代廣場見面。

凌晨 3 點半回到房間，我還有 3 個小時可以睡‧‧‧

因為公司新的規定，這個禮拜其實時間管理進步了很多。週末到紐約，也能夠好好放鬆一下。

這次飛往紐約，最擔心的應該就是出入境時海關的刁難了。因為手上拿著不同的身份與護照，為了海關的拷問，還特地在下班前換了學生裝。不是制服，只是把上班的那套換掉而已。基本上學生都比較不會被刁難，把讀書的藉口搬出來，就沒什麼好問的了。

不過，另外一個發現是：女公務員比較好說話 XD

半夜十二點到Newark的班機，現在在等進曼哈頓的火車。明天Hanna風暴會到，雨大概會下一整天(已經開始下了)，但是還好大部分的行程都是在室內的。

現在呢，只希望能夠順利找到飯店…

從上次更新算起，也有兩個月了。這一陣子，除了忙著工作以外，剩下的時間都在養精蓄銳。公司的人，實在是有點操。

又或許，只是我比較拼而已。

這幾個月來，我從網站設計架設做到品牌行銷策略，然後最近又做回網站跟寫程式的工作。十月初開始，也會有兩三個小的project要忙…

（剛剛收到電話報知有人跌下樓梯，bless）

一個人住、上班的生活，其實很好，只是在沒什麼人陪的時候，比較容易累。但是，還好前一陣子在家附近發現了一家日本居酒屋式的餐廳 - 「舞」。不僅是吃的道地，老闆齊藤先生也是個很熱情的人。

現在是希望在年底前夠回台灣一趟，要不然，也有差不多一年半沒見家人了。

另外，最近開始用起一系列的Apple產品:Mac Mini & iPhone。現在就是在舞吃小菜，用iPhone打網誌。改天再跟大家報告使用心得

There is a Jewish story, an ordinary Jewish joke.

A father was teaching his little son to be less afraid, to have more courage.

“Jump,” he said.”And I’ll catch you,” and the little boy trusted him, and the little boy jumped.

And when his father caught him he felt filled with love; and when he didn’t he was filled with something else, something more.

Life.

- April Epner (Helen Hunt), Then she found me (2007) -

So it happened to be Helen Hunt’s 45th birthday yesterday, and I watched Then She Found Me (2007), her first directed film, and Bobby (2006), in which she also stars.

I like Helen Hunt. As Good as It Gets (1997) was probably the first film that I watched that she stars in. To be honest, I can’t remember much of it, and will most likely watch it again.

Then she found me reminded me quite a lot of P.S. I Love You (2007), but without all the music. It’s much more quiet, and less tear driving. The storyline seemed to be moving on a bit too slow, but all ties up quite well at the end. Defo a recommendo.

Bobby, on the other hand, although quite enjoyable, kept me wonder whether the film was meant to portrait the hotel industry, racism in America in the 60’s, or Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination. The plot was very ill-focused. My verdict remains neutral for the film except Helen Hunt is still fabulous.