Inspired by Space, Robot and Apple, welcome to the brand new design for DreamPlus Studio. Space represent infinity, borderless and unimaginable. Robot represent high-tech and intelligent. Apple represent simplicity and innovation. All these elements shall continue to represent my objectives and visions for the future. The whole re-design process is meant to inspire myself again, and also to inspire the rest (hopefully). I will be posting the design considerations and technical aspect of the site in the near future soon. Meanwhile, if you discover any bugs or have any suggestions, just keep it coming. Hope you like this new design, as much as I do.

It’s unbelievable, we are moving at a very fast pace, there is really no time for you to waste. I can still remember 10 years back, near the end of 1999 when people around the globe is excited about the millennium, everywhere we go its about the year 2000 craze. And now, just a few more weeks, we will be welcoming 2010. So what have you achieve for the past 10 years? And what will you be expecting in 2010 and beyond? I’m sure lots of people will be saying no big deal, its the same everyday. Indeed its very true, but sometimes, we just have to encourage or motivate ourselves, in order to keep our spirit high, so that we can continue to stay happy everyday. Life’s short, we just have to treasure the people around us or things we do everyday. At the end of day, we can then live up to ourselves.

OK enough of my personal vision, a little update on what I have been doing recently, and my upcoming plan for next year. Other than researching intensively and working on my school final year project, Google Wave, HTML 5 Canvas and etc., I’m currently working on 2 major projects, that is to revamp the current DreamPlus Studio design (It has been 3 years+, time to rejuvenate new life to it), as well as AXGN (I haved joined AXGN, and be their long term partner and webmaster, so do look out for the new change at: axgn.com.sg). And of course, if time ever allows, I do hope to contribute more articles to the blog. That’s basically what I’ll be focusing alot next year. Too little? Oh, well I guess it will be enough to keep me busy… Ok. less words more work. See you guys in 2010!

Yes, DreamPlus Studio site’s width has been extended 80 pixels more to 980px, to allow more space for the content, as well as to contain the larger font size, for easier reading. This is particularly essential, as nowadays most users are using widescreen monitor, therefore it will be beneficial for them if the extra space is utilize properly. There is also a bigger ad board in the header, with jQuery implemented (only in Homepage) to rotate the banners. Hopefully, you will find this extended version easier for reading.

It’s getting a little busy now for the site, in terms of the back-end coding. Almost everything right from the thumbnail boxes with slide-up texts, tabbed pages with sliding transition, to the Contact page with errors validation, its all integrated with jQuery, CSS and HTML. However, its certainly going to be more interactive, consistent and sleeker than before.

Two greatest challenges I have faced this time round, is firstly trying to get the site to look consistent across all major browsers, such as IE7-8, Firefox, Safari and Opera. The main issue actually lies with the tabbed pages, z-index property has to be added to the CSS tabs, in order for the tabs to look exactly what I want under IE7.

Another problem I have faced, is when integrating reCaptcha with jQuery. Although, I have done it with PHP before, but its a little more complicated when working with Javascript. I will be posting a separate tutorial soon, stating the exact problem and solution.

After working with jQuery for the past 2 days, I realised that its not too difficult to implement, as long as the online tutorials are available. However in terms of browsers compatibility, more time is required to test out the site. And for any future modification required for the site, its definitely going to take more time to adapt. Nevertheless, its still fun trying out new things, you should try it out too!

What is jQuery?
jQuery is a fast and concise JavaScript Library that simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions for rapid web development. jQuery is designed to change the way that you write JavaScript. – abstracted from jQuery.com

What is reCaptcha?
reCAPTCHA is a free CAPTCHA service that helps to digitize books, newspapers and old time radio shows. A CAPTCHA is a program that can tell whether its user is a human or a computer. You’ve probably seen them — colorful images with distorted text at the bottom of Web registration forms. CAPTCHAs are used by many websites to prevent abuse from “bots,” or automated programs usually written to generate spam. No computer program can read distorted text as well as humans can, so bots cannot navigate sites protected by CAPTCHAs. – abstracted from reCaptcha.net

Updated on 5th of Dec 2009:
Now even the portion for displaying the RSS feed is based on Ajax. To learn how is that possible, just read here.

It has been around half a year since my last published work in DreamPlus Studio, this is due to my academic load in school, its getting busier each semester and I have no choice, but to concentrate more on my studies. However, in this semester, I have managed to choose a subject I really enjoyed, its called ‘Computer Graphics and Applications’. As for the lab assignment part, we are required to design our own 3D house by using VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling language), and I have came out with this ‘Eco-Friendly’ house concept. Simple and Green, that’s basically the idea behind. In order to polish the house a bit more, I will only unveil the house design this coming December, whereby all the exams are over by then…

Yes, its back in PDF format! Hopefully, this will provide an even easier way for the users to browse through all the works presented in images (requires Adobe Reader 9 and above). Instead of clicking through the browser back and forth, the users can just download the PDF file, and choose to view it later. For any future new projects, that I would like to showcase, they will be filed under this PDF document, in a way it helps me to save alot of time too.