The minor delay in updating is most likely due to general busyness at work and at my night class, as well as working hard on the things in my to-do list (which *laughs* has been organized). It has been added on to, so it’s more of a wish-I-could-do-it-all list. At the moment, the Icons category is of lowest priority, and my site revamps the highest. The past few days have been more or less devoted to the remaking (yet again) of Total Venus Destination, so it should be fully updated in the next couple of days. I can’t get much done between work and night classes, but I do attempt. My goal for the summer is to design ‘final’ layouts for many of my sites. Many are them are going into archive mode, meaning it will very rarely - if ever - be updated again. Most of what I want to do is already listed on the to-do list, so I won’t go into detail.

July is usually an incredibly busy month. Work and night class both pick up the pace, so I suddenly have everything to do and the workload is up to my ears. I do like to keep myself busy, but there never seems to be a middle point. Usually it’s either incredibly boring, or incredibly busy. For the next two weeks of work, I have an important informational interview with one of the top IT managers and a cruicial intern poster presentation that requires much time, devotion and creativity, especially with my competitiveness. For my night class, the next two weeks means an exam, several quizzes and a group presentation, perpetually landing right behind my poster presentation. All of these are on top of my usual work, which has also picked up quite a bit since the beginning of May.

Work-wise, the development of the website itself has been temporarily halted. The priority for the past month or so has been the Adobe Intelligent Document Platform (IDP). Adobe is basically evolving PDFs into a more interactive program, where viewers can show/hide certain portions, drag, zoom and rotate 3D models, and even incorporate Flash into them. Furthermore, they developed a Policy Server that manages tight security on the PDFs. Examples include: watermarks that only appears at a certain DPI to prevent plagiarism, password protection (even from admins), Timestamp approval, 256-bit encryption algorithm (which, if you know anything about encryptions, has been estimated to take about 149 trillion years to crack via brute force), literally self-destruction after a specified amount of time, and more. It’s pretty amazing stuff to be working with, though I haven’t delved deep at all yet.

The Adobe form I’m working on in Adobe Designer serves as an alternative to the HTML/Coldfusion forms originally created. The Adobe form combines what would have been 5 separate forms, into one PDF and has quite a few show/hide functions, along with value passing and database transferring that requires some Java/Javascript coding. I’m really enjoying it, seeing as it will actually be useful to clients. This is my main project for the summer, although I still have the website and other side jobs as well.

Hopefully I can get everything done before the summer ends. @.@ This is where real time budgeting comes in. XD

Well well, after two years on the convenience that is Livejournal, I decided to bring back the good o’weblog. It might just be a spur of the moment thing, but it might also be a true blue revival. I found out that I was greatly missing being able to do multiple skins for my blog, thus improving my design skills while giving viewers some customization options. I hope to be updating this weblog once or twice a month, when I can afford it. My Livejournal will still be updated, but with more of a loose tone, while this blog will attempt to be more professional. 

That being said, we can’t have a revival without something new to show off, can we? I worked on this weblog from late last night to tonight, with a few pauses in between. Unfortunately, I overwrote my old entries while attempting to upgrade CuteNews. Interestingly, the upgrade wiped out everything but my 961 spam comments.  However, I was able to rummage through Google and recover about 16/23 entries. It’s definitely better than none. These entries are below, though I have yet to backdate them. CuteNews doesn’t seem to have a backdate option, so I will have to manually edit the news page later.

If you have cleared your cookies out anytime during the past two years, the layout you should be seeing right now is the fourth one on the skins page. I wanted this one to be simple, clean and refreshing, so I hardly modified the images at all. I know, roses, so overrated and overused. XD; But there are always other options.  At the moment, I’m still configuring around a bit, so small changes may occur over the next few days. There is an “Avatar” option for CuteNews, but I’ve had a chance to figure out how it works. I’d love to have an icon per entry, it would be very similar to the LJ icons.

*gaps* Google is taking over the world. Not that I mind…:3

So, I found out that the host for my Venus shrine, Sam, is switching domains. I’ve kind of concluded that this is a little pet peeve of mine - the switching domain thing. I for one, really dislike changing URLs. When I was picking hosts, I was always looking for one that seemed least likely to change domains every 2 months. I looked for ones that didn’t look like they were created simply because they wanted to jump on the bandwagon and follow the “I have a domain and I can host” trend. I understand that one may get bored of their domain name after so many years. But still, I always try picking a domain that I figure will last a long, long time. Why? Because after a while, you’re kind of known by your domain. Since alias/names tend to be mimicked or shared, people are more likely to know you by the domain you own instead of your alias. After so long, people tend to associate you with your domain (or maybe that’s just me ). I guess I fail to see the point of a fresh domain name every so often. …and another thing, it’s such a hassle to change DNS servers and gah. I don’t even have the patience to switch. @_@;

This brings me to my small dilemma then. I’m debating on whether I should stick with Sam’s new domain, or move it to aiNET. The actual shrine is still on Sam’s new domain (she didn’t switch hosts), so I don’t have to re-upload. But having it on aiNET practically ensures that I’ll never have to move again. *ponders* Any opinions? ^^

=_= My legs have been sore for 3 days now, ever since the busy weekend last weekend. My best friend, along with her friend, road tripped over to stay for the weekend. We ran around Chicago for 3 days, walking the majority of the time. Now even when I don’t move a muscle, my legs still hurt. ._. I’m also really tired. I drove my dad to his Endoscopy session yesterday morning. Waking up at 7am wasn’t fun at all. I drove him back afterwards, mainly because he had so much anesthetics he slept through the entire ride and didn’t remember a thing. He went straight for the toilet when we got home and threw up. :/ (all these are normal symptoms though) Now I have to do it all over again. My mom has her Endoscopy session tomorrow. =_=

Only 1 more week before the new semester begins! ._. I have so many mixed feelings. Time flew by so fast.

And so…my crazy dream continues… =_= - Shindou Shuichi, Gravitation

Hai. The long summer days are seriously dragging now. I’m quite sick of living with adults - namely “parents” - in the house. As much as I love them, there are times when they can be the most annoying people on Earth. Getting away from it all, must be something like paradise - or as close as I can get to it. Thankfully there are only two and a half weeks of summer left before the new semester begins. I do have a feeling though, that as soon as school rolls around, I’m going to be complaining about it and wishing it was summer again. *laugh* Seems we can never be satisfied, ne?

Also, I am disappointed in myself for lacking the willpower to study like a mad school girl over the summer, and I presume I’m going to feel the consequences/backlash of it once school resumes. Yes, aside from daily lectures from my father, I too know only too well that studying now will aid me greatly later. Still, knowing the consequences fully, knowing everything, I still cannot make myself study. Why is this? Why is it that sheer boredom and the luxury of being lazy is more enticing than studies? I think if there were one thing I could change about myself, I’d increase my willpower. ~_~

That said, my summer has not been completely lacking activity. I devoted about a month and a half of my time to pay a tribute to someone with more willpower than I: Rock Lee - of the Naruto legacy. Hence I proudly present the latest addition to the aiNET collection: Surpassing Genius. Yes, I’ve been wanting to shrine him for a while now, but failed to do so during the school semester. What an amazing character. I haven’t seen anyone like him in all my years of watching anime. Long story short, he kicks major ass - literally. For the long story, go visit the shrine and spread the Lee love. XD

It’s been a while since I’ve done a shrine, and it will be a long while before I do it again. I don’t know if my skills have become rusty. The style I attempted to incorporate into the shrine layout is a little new for me. The book outlining was made from scratch using only vectors in PSP, and the rest either came from GettyImages or manga covers. I also included some material used in my other layouts (pro-layout recycling here), but the overall theme is suppose to be a book. The navigation are the Table of Contents. As for the sublayout, I reverted to simplicity, having only tables. I hoped to make the pages look more orderly and load faster. Normally I don’t fancy tables, but I’m rather sick of frames right now.

Now I still haven’t finished my school organization’s website, and already the URL has spread around and one person has emailed me with suggestions about the site. Quite direct and blunt, it seems. I was slightly irritated, though the person probably meant well. I’ve gotten to the more boring parts of the site, such as rearranging the massive image gallery. This is the part where I wish I hadn’t signed up to be the webmaster of the organization. @_@; Ah swell. I don’t think I’ve bitten off more than I can chew yet. Hopefully there won’t be too much work for the site during the semester. I’m doing this for free, after all.

In regards to Tea, I’m sincerely glad that you don’t take offense. ^_^ I enjoy visiting Inuyasha shrines, and I’ve been to your Sesshoumaru shrine numerous times in the past. I find it an amazing shrine. Truth is, a great shrine can be created for every character, no matter how unrealistic they seem. It’s part of the fun, speculating. Thanks for sharing your opinion.

I think I’ve found a new approach to character shrines, one that I will start exercising. Nowadays shrines have the standard Info/Media/Site approach (and I do it too). It may just be my being anal and all, but I’m starting to dislike that approach for my shrines. Perhaps it’s too typical, or too overused. I don’t want to keep the same standard for all of my shrines, because after a while they lose their significance and value to me. It’s kind of like sweets. Once you have too many, it starts getting annoying. I’m half-set on scrapping some of my shrines since I’ve become somewhat detached to a few of them. Yet I can’t bring myself to throw any away. My resolution is to be pickier on who/what I shrine, since I don’t find a lot of characters or anime I truely like and have an obsession for nowadays. I want to keep each shrine unique and have a different style, not only in terms of layout and organization, but also in the content I produce. Because each character is different. Because I enjoy analyzing them and speculating. However 2D they are, they still have many characteristics that reflect our own. I refuse to do a shrine unless I feel I have much to say about a particular character and I am willing to analyze and speculate and enjoy it while doing so.

I’ve come to this resolution for a while already. I guess the reason why I’m bringing this up now is, I see a lot of shrines now, boasting that they are “the first English shrine to so-and-so,” and they all have the ridiculous notion that the fact is incredibly impressive. When the Info section loads up, I’m nearly always disappointed to see a only a few sections, such as Stats, Deeper, Name Meaning, etc. etc. I suppose I’d rather analyze characters from a more complex anime such as Evangelion or Utena, than from anime such as Inuyasha. Forgive me, and I hope no offense is taken, but some characters are simply not as realistic nor as interesting to speculate as others. That’s why there are all of these wonderful, diverse shrines and fan sites out on the web. I can’t say though, that everyone makes fan sites for pure enjoyment of analyzing a character or series. The result, a good majority of them are half-assed attempts that eventually end up forgotten, like 80’s clothes.

I’m glad that I can truthfully say, for almost every shrine/site I’ve made so far, I truely adore the character or the series. There was a time when I wanted to shrine every character that was remotely interesting. I’m glad I got through that phase quickly and didn’t do anything too devastating. Though I don’t plan to update most of my shrines anymore, I’m in no hurry to toss them out or forget them. They did more than show and share to the world my interests. They shared how I think, how I perceive at people, events, and life, even improved my writing skills. XD

I suppose through all this rambling, the point I’m trying to make is: you may not see shrines spewing left and right at aiNET in the future. You may not see many updates on my shrines. But at the same time, there won’t be big long hiatuses. Sure, school and work might get in the way, but it always has, hasn’t it? I’m always cooking up something, looking for new or unique approaches to do things. After all, this is also a part of my life.