Other than that I don’t have much to update except that I’m going to Thailand for a week on thursday! pics update when I get back :)

These past few weeks I’ve been busy with my new apartment. earlier this month I’ve decided to leave the nice and quiet Queenstown in the west for the more lively Bishan up north. I’m pretty sad to leave since my current apartment is nice and cozy, but I get to really live in my own place since we have the whole place instead of just renting one room. the downside is, my bank account is currently weeping from all the ~$4k apartment related fees I have to fork out last month.

The new apartment is a nice location and have good layout, but it was painted rather sloppily. My room had this odd blue and white theme to it, which makes it look rather.. theme park-like to me. So I decided I can’t live with this and got the owner’s permission to repaint.

the original state of the room. that blue is going to be so hard to match with anything. plus note how dirty the white walls are!!

So we applied a white primer on the wall to cover up the dark blue paint. Looking much better already!

I chose a light blue color called Mountain Dew by Nippon. I was actually expecting more blue grey and lighter than how it turned out above, but I don’t mind it.

I put two coats of the paint just to make sure everything is covered up.

I haven’t completely moved in yet (the paint smell is still lingering around), but I’ve finally cleaned up the place a little and put the furnitures together. Still definitely a work in progress, but it looks much neater to me already, especially compared to the “before” state :) Now to put up some frames and decorations on the wall. I was originally thinking of getting white decals, but maybe I’ll just put some black and white frames on the wall. Also thinking of getting a side table and some bedside lamps, plus replacing the curtains.

Stay tuned for more progress!

dashboard-wise, on the blue theme, i’m not noticing any major difference except for minor UI things (like the “view site” button is missing, the “right now” tab is styled slightly different, etc). But, looking at the codex page you can see they’ve added tons of new features. the multi-site management is an exciting one since i’m sick of having to create separate installation for each site i want to manage. then there is also the custom post type and menu management feature, which i’m excited to explore on my next blog theme!

WordPress sure has come a long way since they first started. I believe I’ve been with them since version 1.2, which is their second release ever, back in 2004.

anyway, enough nerding out. i have lots to update for this blog but now is not the right time. I need to get my life together first before I put anything on this public space.

wish me luck! :x

oh! I did go for a haircut today at Shunji Matsuo Studio in orchard rd. This is my second time getting a haircut there and I’ve been nothing but pleased with them. I’ll write a review soon =)

The first noticeable change immediately after I logged back into the dashboard is the dashboard design itself. It differs just slightly from their 2.7 versions, but the blue dashboard is made even more noticeably blue by changing the background to light grey. I also did notice the proclaimed “faster speed” (even before I read about the new features) since.. well, everything loads fast now!

Anyway, to find the list of new features, just head to their 2.8 codex page. I’m excited to try them all :)

to remedy the perpetual tired and frustrated-ness, i decided to channel my energy to something positive. like getting rid of something that frustrates me, and the easiest one to deal with right now is giving this blog a face lift. the old layout was starting to really get on my nerves!

It’s actually not really a major change (the general “feel” of the layout is still the same: soft, cloudy and fluffy) but I feel like it’s an improvement. I’m still using the same color scheme because I like blue as website color and gradient is nice. It’s a different shade of blue though.. more green/aqua blue than the baby blue i used before.

I call this theme “Clouds in the Sky” (for pretty obvious reason), made yesterday and coded today. The clouds are made using generic photoshop shapes. the fonts on the header is Buffet Script and Gotham Narrow Bold. The web 2.0 icons are made by Fast Icon.

Anyway, I’ll try to blog more often! also planning on implementing my tweets to this blog. yes, like everyone else I’ve caught the twitter bug (find my link on the left!). to be fair, i’ve actually had my twitter account since last year but didn’t start using it until twitter suddenly became the cool thing to do. because, well, social media websites are only fun when a bunch of your friends are on it…

the internet being down proved to be a good thing as i finally made a new layout for this blog. and, get this, i even made a comment template… yes, finally! people could leave comments again! not that anyone would cause I have no friends (really), but I quite like the comment template I made so I hope someone would.

today I finished the 3rd sequel of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, which means I am almost finished with the entire series! I actually played the series out of order – 4th, 2nd, 3rd, and now the 1st. i liked them all, but i have to say, so far i like the 4th sequel the most. although, i’m not sure if it is considered a sequel or a spin-off since the main character for the 4th sequel is no longer Phoenix Wright.

you can’t really see much change right away since the layout is still the same as before. so why did it take me so long you ask? well, that’s because i completely re-coded the whole thing, CSS and javascript and all, so that it isn’t as messy and half-hearted as before. the new coding is much cleaner and more up to the current web standard… or so i think. if you had seen the code of the previous layout, you would’ve cried :P

also, i cleaned up the mootools script i’m using for the effects. it was REALLY messy before with unnecessary syntax because i didn’t quite understand how to use it. i still don’t, but at least it’s better now. i also decided to make the boxes of each “pages” smaller. before this, they should take up the whole screen (unless your resolution is larger than 1920×1200, which i doubt). i find that making the boxes smaller adds more color to the screen, and making it not so boring.

another big thing is that i revamped the way my works were displayed before. the previous way was just… frankly, quite ugly. the slider animation didn’t even work properly (again, due to my lack of knowledge of mootools) and the page looked really boring in general. now it’s been improved.

anyway, so that’s what i was up to today! damn, time flies when you work on something you love doing. loveeeee webdesign :)

I was previously hosted at the-protagonist.net, and I have nothing but good words for them. they are VERY affordable and very reliable, especially at merely a couple bucks a month. i highly recommend them to anyone with a tight budget who doesn’t need that much monthly bandwidth (and honestly, most people do not need THAT much unless your blog gets 500++ views a day or you are hosting some large files)

Thanks for letting me move in Nico-chan! ;D

I have been with wordpress since their early days. v1.2 is the earliest i can remember, back in 2004 if i’m not mistaken, when i first bought my own domain. I’ve just barely upgraded to v2.6 a couple months ago after putting off upgrading for years, and i was pretty amazed back then. now i am prepared to be amazed again :)

i used this nifty little guide to upgrade in three easy steps. it took less than five minutes.

ok, gonna look around now. toodles!

edit: wow, the flash uploader for pictures works!!! i’m so happy :D i don’t have to upload them one by one anymore! :D :D

here are pics from New Year’s Eve

Me and my mommy! gosh the white boots makes me look so short.. but i swear it’s really cute in person! :(

yayyyy new years :) with Nico chan

toast to 2009! i didn’t actually finish the champagne though cause i was super full…

i found this useful article on how to get rid of the hack, and i’m changing all my passwords just in case. i don’t think anything were compromised… but even if it was, the passwords i used on this domain is thankfully my generic password, which does not work on my “important” stuff.

as you can see, everything is now fixed. i think i’ve removed everything mentioned on the article. i’ll also upgrade my wordpress version since obviously the one i am using right now (2.6) isn’t very safe!

anyway, what have i been up to lately? i have tons of pics to put up. here’s a quick preview:

• Went to Sarah Brightman concert with N on Dec 20th. LOTS OF PICS to come! she was awesome :)
• Went to a couple holiday parties, also with N and my family (honestly, from now on whenever i do stuff you can safely assume it’s with N and/or my family. i’ve been a hermit. i haven’t even seen Kat since my NYC trip, which was like.. what, two weeks ago?!)
• Was sick this week. yes, even on christmas
• splurged on karmaloop.com sale! was pissed when i found out today they raised the discount to 60% off. i bought stuff when it was 50% off >:( anyway, i have a repcode if anyone wants to shop there! it’s ME6639
• Went to Christmas eve mass with family, then off to spend x-mas with N’s family. they got me gifts! :) so thoughtful! saw a couple of movies: Slumdog Millionaire, Curious Case of Benjamin Button, 7 pounds and Religuous (a documentary by Bill Masher). all were a worth while watch.

anyway, MERRY CHRISTMAS everyone!! i hope yours were as great as mine :)