The Wilson Project

And Now This Message From The Author…

Sorry for the three month delay. Usually reasons: work, personal, and fencing. I would say that nothing has changed but that would be a bold-faced lie. As a matter of fact, more things will be changing in the next six months than the last year.

Writing

• Finally starting work on The Information Layer, with the first part ready Saturday, August 6th.
• Writing a few more blog entries for CDG, one this month
• One very important blog entry for TWP this month, currently writing now

Conferences

Going to a number of events during the last couple of months of this year. Two of the most important are in the month of October:

• jQuery Conference in Boston (October 1-2. 2011)
• An Event Apart DC (October 24-26, 2001)

Exhibitions

In short, been really too busy to go any art exhibitions in the last couple of months. However, there are a few that I am trying to get to before they close in September.

• Designing Tomorrow (National Building Museum, Washington, DC) – about the world’s fairs in 1930′s
• Talk to Me (MoMA, NYC, NY) – design exhibit about interaction between objects and people
• The Allure of the Automobile (Portland Art Museum) – automobile design during the last century
• The Colour of My Dreams: The Surrealist Revolution in Art (Vancouver Art Gallery) – various works from the Surrealists

Work

As I mentioned before, many things will change. How much/what kind will be detailed more in the next TWP blog entry, called “A Love Letter.”

Indirectly, eventhough Project Charles ended in April, the Delta version of this site will be completed by the end of the year (if nothing else drops from the sky…).

Fencing

Well, fencing will be…fencing. Practice three times per week, one competition per month. Still working out the schedule for 2011-2012 season.

Music

Due to my work schedule, missed out on attending Met’s performance of Berg’s Wozzeck. However, looking at the 2011-2012 schedule, will be marking my calendar for the following operas:

• Satyagraha – Philip Glass opera about Ganhdi (November 2011)
• The Makropulos Case – Leoš Janáček opera, based on a story by Karel Čapek (May 2012)

Apart from the classical scene – Elbow comes to DC in September (Yeah!!!)

That is that I have for the next couple of months…

And yes, I will be taking a vacation. Back to the PNW (Portland, OR/Vancouver, Canada) for my birthday.

What’s that sound? That’s the sound of my Google Calendar crying like a baby…

Tagged as Canada, Charles/TWP, conference, fencing, jquery, music, NYC, opera, Portland, TWP, Vancouver, web development.

Endgame

After two years this month, I have decided to end Project Charles in April. This will also mark the 10th anniversary of The Wilson Project.
Mar 14 (Twitter)

Depending on the ever changing schedule, Project Charles will be ending this year, if not sooner. After a long two years, I should be happy.

I'm exhausted.

I've carried this thing around, weathering all the stuff that gets thrown at me in the course of human life. This project became the internal motor of change, reflection, and experimentation. And a number of people have really benefitted from the results.

The basis of Project Charles was redesigning The Wilson Project with the state of the art techniques in front-end development. No, we are not talking about the dazzling canvas experiments and all the fireworks. It was about learning all this new stuff to be able, like an experienced chef, to use this wider pallette to improve their work. Well, I'm still doing that. But Project Charles brought about an urgency to the process.

Well, that urgency has come full circle. It's at a point where this project needs to end in order to go further on with other things. And since The Wilson Project Site is a working blog (and soon-to-be) portfolio site, I needed to end this thing to start doing new projects. And basically, I just need this monkey off my back. So why am I writing this blog entry?

Because I feel that the need to apologize [to myself].

This project was started with the idea of using XSLT via Symphony CMS. It's a very interesting application that I am sure will grow and improve. The cast of characters over there are currently working on the third version as I am writing this.

Now, I'm in a time crunch. I cannot, at this time, learn XSLT and learn a new CMS without some focused time and effort. Unfortunately, considering the numerous hiatus periods in this project, that will never happen. So I took the hard choice and decided to move the project back to WordPress to speed up completion. I'm relieved at be removed of this burden. But I also feel sad, as I made some sort of bad compromised to complete this project. I know I shouldn't, but I'll live. I may feel bad for not completing the project in the way that I wanted fully but I have to move on.

The other reason for Project Charles was conceptual. The "residue" of studying and observing the work around me of interaction design and front-end development. Yes, I have a few ideas that I've squirrel away.

It's called The Information Layer.

Ideally, Charles would have been the best demo, especially with Symphony/XSLT. But with the external changes of the last two years, there is a real need to share something now and not wait further down the road for an actual demo model.

So, I'm shipping now. Everything can wait.

I need my life back.

Tagged as Charles/TWP, CSS, CSS3, Design, front-end, html, html5, TWP, web development, WordPress, xhtml.

EOY

As I am writing this, I am looking at a fabulous view from my hotel room in what some of my friends call my second home of Vancouver, Canada. Part of me needed to get away to here do some end-of-the-year evaluation and some focused thinking about 2011. Then again, I allowed myself to relax a bit during these last days of 2010 (and I watched the Canucks beat the Flyers 6-2 Tuesday night at the home area…)

But there are some things that occurred during the year that I need to mention before the final ball drop closes the year 2010:

Fencing

If you had asked me at the start of the year if I was going to start fencing again, it would have been a firm “NO.” There was no motivation to start again and no one was really asking to do so. And all the focus that I had with fencing went into my work, which paid off big. Irony, the only people who ever asked about me starting up again were my co-workers at CDG.

Well, after two years, I decided to try fencing again. It has been the only sport that I have some liking to. Not to mention, the least likely to get bored at.

Another bit of irony is that I restarted with Olde Town Fencing, the club I left almost four years ago. Despite that, the warming response made the comeback easier. Definitely a reminder of why I fence in the first place.

Despite dealing with various injuries the last month, I am determined to continue my progress and actually compete again after a 2+ year absence.

Travel

This year:

• Savannah, Georgia (IxDA Interaction 10)
• NYC for opera (The Nose and Lulu) and design (Cooper-Hewitt)
• Seattle/Canada (Victoria and Vancouver I)
• For my first time, travel outside the Americas with FOWA/London
• Of course, Vancouver for end-of-the-year

For next year:

• Boulder, Colorado for IxDA Interaction 11 (February 9-12, 2011)
• NYC for opera with Nixon in China (Adams) and Wozzeck (Berg)

Project Charles

Basically, stops and starts. At one point, it was dead in the water. At one point, I almost considered ending the project. However, I caught a break (and some motivation from Tame Impala’s InnerSpeaker album) and did the complete site mockups. Started to work on the HTML templates but delayed due to technical review from the last two conferences I went to. Both made me think about what I was doing and in the end, the decision to make some more substantial changes in my work.

Restarting work on templates in early 2011 and hopefully finishing the new site by The Wilson Project’s 10^th anniversary in April.

Work

High point was three conferences:

• IxDA Interaction 10 in Savannah, Georgia
• An Event Apart a few blocks from my office in Washington, DC
• FOWA in London, UK

Lots of work, punctuated with four blog entries and some other minor additions to the blog.

However, lots of reflection on my work process, especially considering many of the changes that affected my position as a UI/Front-end developer.

But more about that in the next entry in this blog…

Epilogue

In the end, I remember about ten years ago that I started what would become a 20-month unemployment period. Now, at the end of 2010, thing have changed so much. A number of things that I first experimented with such as XHTML and building pages without table layouts are now not only accepted; they have become the gold standard.

Now, with Project Charles heading for the finish line (?) in April 2011, more changes are in the pipeline for the next couple of years. Hopefully, 2011 will be a good one, not only for me, but for my family, friends, and especially my co-workers at CDG.

Happy New Year 2011 from Vancouver, Canada!

Tagged as Canada, CDG, Charles/TWP, conference, Cooper-Hewitt Museum, fencing, FOWA, front-end, IxDA, London, NYC, opera, Savannah, Seattle, Vancouver, web development.

London and Back

Just re-entered the country, after a week in London for the last FOWA (Future of Web Apps) conference for 2010. Take a while to settle down (not to mention get back to a regular sleep schedule). Spending a week going through all the notes and ideas from the conference. However, all this information will be slowly integrated for the remainder of this year. I was able to get some sightseeing, as well as going to The National Theatre (Hamlet) and a concert (BBC Symphony @ Barbican).

Now, going home to DC to a stack full of work at CDG.

Later.

Tagged as conference, CSS3, FOWA, html5, javascript, jquery, user interface, web development, xhtml.

Another Blog Entry for CDG’s Book Club

On the train back from NYC last Sunday (8/22), I got a chance to write not only the last blog entry (26.08.2001) but also one for CDG. In this case, it is the third CDG Book Club review. The book was Jeremy Keith’s HTML5 For Web Designers, a brief intro into the hottest topic on the web – HTML5.

To buy this book – go to A Book Apart

Interview with the author Jeremy Keith from The Big Web Show (5/7/10) – http://5by5.tv/bigwebshow/2

BTW – The author will be in Washington, DC for An Event Apart conference on September 17th. Unfortunately, the conference has been sold out for months. However, there are some tickets still available for the one day workshop on Saturday, September 19th for HTML5/CSS3 with Ethan Marcotte.

Tagged as html, html5, javascript, web development.

Call Me Regent (or What’s In A Name?)

Next week, I am going to move this site to Linux server.

Not a hard process – its just a little more complex in my case since it will involve domain(s) names, file transfers, and dealing with Linux/Window server (well if you dealt with both you know what I mean). But since I am here and I made an important decisions two weeks ago, I might as well talk about it.

The “it” being…what’s up with the name “Charles”?

Click here – Table/Site Versions

The name Charles refers to Charles Darwin, whose bicentennial was in 2009, the same year the project started in March. It also added some inspiration because of the introduction of new ideas and concepts that slowly gestated and altered during the course of the project.

But the best thing about working on these projects is that it is sort of like my own research lab. It is where I get to try out new ideas before doing in the real world.

One part research scientist, one part Olympic athlete.

As for this version, I decided two weeks ago to name this version “Regent” because of its transitory nature. Unlike “H3”, it was never meant to be a final version and was always going to be more of a functional placeholder for the upcoming Charles.

And there it is.

Tagged as Charles Darwin, Charles/TWP, CSS, CSS3, html, html5, TWP, ui, web development, WordPress, xhtml.

On The Road Again…

In the fall, I will be attending two conferences within a span of a month.

First, on September 16-18, attending the DC edition of An Event Apart conference, led by Jeffery Zeldman and et. al.

Then two weeks later, on October 4-6, attending the Future of Web Apps conference in London, UK.

Lots to see and learn.

Tagged as conference, CSS, front-end, html, javascript, usability, user interface, web development, xhtml.