Something has happened to me, and more on that later, but that is not the reason for my blog absence. I’ve simply been inundated with new projects. That coupled with a quick trip up to Dalian last week that left me without Internet for a few days, has kept me focused on other things.

Busyness has been a theme of late, a fact that has been reflected in my decision to step down as CNET Asia’s China blogger. It was a great gig, but when forced to choose between spending more time developing my own projects, or writing for someone else’s blog (even if that someone else is CNET), the choice wasn’t really a choice at all.

And while the Tech Dynasty may be finished, it has been replaced by the already excellent Sinobytes — written by my good friend Steven. You can still find all of my Tech Dynasty posts here on The Humanaught.

So what the hell have I been up to?

Looking at the last time I updated the portfolio page on Dao By Design, one would think things around DBD had stopped completely around a year ago. Very much the opposite is true. I’ve simply been too tied up with stuff to pay the site much attention. Cobbler’s children and all that.

And while a DBD site and portfolio update are well past due and soon on the way, I would like to take a minute to draw attention to some of the awesome projects I’ve had the good fortune to work on lately. There are a number more in various stages of development, and I would love to share them — but they’re just not there yet. Expect more frequent updates on projects I’m working on though. Until then, please check these out:

NeochaEDGE: NeochaEDGE is a daily-curated, bilingual website and discovery engine dedicated to showcasing leading-edge creative content and emerging youth culture in China.

I enjoy most projects I work on, but it’s always great to get involved with a truly rad group of people. The Neocha guys are just that. Neocha, for those that don’t know, is a large Chinese-language social network focused on creatives in China. NeochaEDGE was launched as a platform for the site to highlight some of that talent to a wider English-speaking audience.

It’s not every day I get to design the blog of someone as high-profile as Alan VanderMolen. It was good fun though, and helped along by the clear baseball theme I was able to work with. Alan’s blog is a must-read for anyone involved in the PR and new media scene in Asia.

Continuing with the sport-themed sites, Trojans 1972 – An Immortal Team of Mortal Men is a new novel by Bill Block, and while I don’t know the first thing about football (us Canucks play football with skates, sticks and pucks), putting together the site was a great excuse for me to re-watch Any Given Sunday for a bit of inspiration — I think I’ve also finally figured out what a “first down” is.

Few Web sites were harder to design than this one, not because of technical difficulties or the requirements of Lune Tours founder Jeff Levinson — a great guy — but because it’s impossible to read about all these great trips in China and not want to shut down the computer, pack up a pack and hit the road.

When approached to build the blog of network marketing guru Aaron Chen, I must admit, I was a bit apprehensive. You can’t work online for much time without bumping into (and, in turn, considering) the all-promising world of multi-level marketing. And while I have mixed feelings about, and a mixed history with, the industry; Aaron’s gone a long way to showing me it can be done with integrity, knowledge and enthusiasm. Even outside of financial independence seekers, his posts and videos are informative and interesting.

From the jet-set lifestyle of Aaron Chen, to the quiet and tranquil Daoist retreats of Daowest — the DBD portfolio is nothing if not diverse. Much like Lune Tours mentioned above, it was tough to sit still long enough to get this site done, and not run off to Sichuan and climb a holy mountain.

Hands On China and Volunthai: It has always been my mandate to volunteer a certain portion of my time and abilities to non-profit organizations that are doing work I support. Such is the case with both Hands On China, a network of groups organizing volunteer activities in China; and Volunthai, an organization that puts adventuresome Westerners in Thai homestays were they volunteer English teaching to rural Thai schools that couldn’t otherwise afford them.

With both projects I didn’t have much to do with the original design of the site, but more was brought on to facilitate some freshening up of both design, structure and code. For Hands On China this, among other things, involved creating a template they could use when expanding to other cities; and for Volunthai this meant taking an older static site and bringing it into a modern CMS-based system.

I’d love if you’d give both of these sites a look — not to enjoy my handiwork (which is mostly behind the scenes anyway), but because they are great organizations and always in need of volunteers.

I had nothing against the last design (despite it borrowing 5 bucks and not paying it back), but after having it for nearly two years I was starting to itch for something new. So, I sat down Sunday morning and killed the ass-end of my weekend whipping up what you see before you. There are still a bunch of kinks I need to work out, and a few features I want to add, but she’s mostly there.

A few months back I started including here on TheHumanaught.com links to articles I’ve written on other blogs I blog at. I did this because I noticed I hadn’t been updating here as much as I did at one point, but was blogging more than ever. I was trying to find a way to make this site give a clearer picture of what’s going on with me — being that it’s my blog and all.

You’ll notice that I’ve continued with this idea, but have shrunk the off-site posts to a simple headline. I didn’t like under the old design how my Humanaught posts were largely drowned out by the off-site posts. I wanted people to know about them, but not at the cost of losing this site’s content. So, now you’ll always see the most recent TheHumanaught.com post right up at the top of the main page, followed by the 20 most recent posts I’ve written (anywhere) – summary versions for on-site and headlines for off-site. Hopefully this organizes the content and makes it all simple to navigate/skim.

Also inline with trying to make this site as clear a picture of my digital life as possible, I’ve increased the visibility of my Twitter updates — taking it from an obscure box in the footer to the top-spot in my sidebar. This better represents the importance Twitter has become in my online experience.

Additionally, there have been some damn fine improvements to WordPress since my last site redesign, and I’m working at incorporating them into this theme (most obvious to visitors will be the threaded comments).

Should you get lonely for the old layout, fear not – it’s on the Way Back Machine. I look forward to your thoughts on the new design.

The site is called Twitfessions, and essentially it tracks and displays any Twitter tweets that are tagged with #confession. Basically it’s a fun way to relieve yourself of that little secret or unspoken sin you committed – in a very Web 2.0 way.

Twitter, for those that don’t know, is a micro-blogging service – so, instead of bashing out a blog post of a few hundred words (or more), micro-blogging just captures your immediate thoughts, actions, etc.

I was a late adopter of Twitter, but have been addicted to it for a few months now. Incorporating Twitter with a Twitter client (a desktop program that posts your tweets) like Twhirl, and you have blogging meets instant messaging.

It’s a great way to keep up with what your friends are doing, but more so, it’s a fantastic way to keep posted on what’s happening in the world. These Olympics have been a great example of that – someone that I’m following on Twitter – many of whom are at the Games – will usually post about the latest medal standings, who won what, if there was a protest or controversy… using Twitter I’m always at the front-line of what was going on.

When the #080808 tag started on Twitter a couple weeks back it got me thinking about the different ways Twitter can be used.

I guess it was out of that thought that Twitfessions.com was born.

The project gave me an excuse to spend some more quality time with Drupal – a CMS that I’ve only recently really started playing with (having converted the Hao Hao Report to Drupal not long ago).

Anyway, if you get a chance, check it out and let me know what you think. I should mention that much of the site’s design/layout is the A3 Atlantis theme by John at Blamcast. I’ve customized a few bits to better suit my needs, but the heavy lifting was all done by him (beautiful theme John).

Oh, and if you’re a Twitter user – you can follow Twitfessions at the official Twitfessions Twitter page. And don’t forget to share your confessions by tagging your tweets with #confession.

There were three blogs that immediately became my favourites, and have largely remained so in the nearly four years since.

• Mask of China
• Sinosplice
• The Peking Duck

That I’ve now had the privilege of (re)designing two of these sites is something, I don’t mind admitting, I’m a bit proud of.

Derrick’s site, Mask of China, which has gone from a blog to an online showcase of his amazing photography, was the first site my biz, Dao By Design, ever did. He was the one that took a chance on me and kicked off my transition from ESL teacher to full-time Web designer/developer.

And as of sometime late last night, The Peking Duck joins Derrick’s site in my now year-old portfolio.

In the time between the two, I’ve designed, migrated, implemented, or otherwise fiddled with nearly two dozen other sites (including my own little pieces of the Web: The Humanaught, Lost Laowai, Hao Hao Report, Dao By Design, Tip. Trick. Mod. and Your China Pal) – however, I can’t think of a project that had me as nervous as redesigning The Duck.

Richard, TPD’s creator and primary author, is a legend in the China blogsphere. With six years and 4,500+ posts in his archives, he routinely gets more than 100 comments per post – even on posts that barely reach a paragraph in length! Needless to say, a lot of folks were going to be looking at this design – folks that liked to speak their mind.

Add to it that his commenters tend to be some of the most opinionated and critical (alright, occasionally in a discerning way) folks cruising the China blogsphere (hell, I’m one of them), and well… you can likely see why I was a bit more apprehensive of the wave of feedback to come than say the comparatively anonymous consultant firm’s site I designed not long ago.

That said, Richard couldn’t have been a better person to work for. With the exception of just a few guiding principles, he virtually gave me full creative license.

My focus with the redesign was to freshen the overall look, bring it up to date, incorporate some of the things that have become standard blogware (social bookmarking links, gravatars, obvious rss links, etc.) in the years since the original design, and – perhaps most importantly – update the damn map.

Anyone that’s read The Duck knows that Richard has made several moves across Asia in the course of the blog’s life. However, the site’s map – which detailed Richard’s travels between Hong Kong, Beijing and Singapore – hadn’t been updated to reflect his additional move to Taiwan and somewhat recent return to Beijing. As a reader, it had always bugged me, so was nice to be the one to finally draw in the lines.

On the technical side of things, the project also called for a migration from Movable Type to WordPress, a switch in the right direction in my books. Though MT once ruled the self-hosted blog world, there’s little argument that WordPress has (some time ago) usurped the seminary blog platform as the new king. When it comes to support, features, and scalability (through plugins, widgets, etc.), WP wins hands down.

Anyway, go take a look, and let me know what you think. If you notice any problems, please do let me know – before the piranhas in the duck pond get me.

For anyone not reading this in their RSS feed reader or on a splog, the changes should be pretty apparent. But I’m going to run through some of them anyway

First, I should mention, I’m not a big fan of switching themes. I think a blog develops some of its character from the look of it, and if it’s changing all the time, I feel it takes something away from it all.

That said, I really wanted to have a design that was all mine. Design, coded and styled from the ground up by me. It’s actually a little pecular that this site, my first, was the last one to get its own custom design.

Well, I should give some credit to Chris Murphy at Far From Fearless for giving me some healthy inspiration. His excellent design played a heavy influence in how I wanted my new look to look.

So, what’s new?

The blogroll has been shortened. Instead of listing one massively long list of links, I’ve limited it to a short random selection that changes every time the page loads. You can see all the links on the Links page.

The comments are now equipped with Gravatars. If you don’t know what Gravatars are, here’s the definition from the site:

A gravatar, or globally recognized avatar, is quite simply an 80×80 pixel avatar image that follows you from weblog to weblog appearing beside your name when you comment on gravatar enabled sites. Avatars help identify your posts on web forums, so why not on weblogs?

It’s a cool way for you to personalize your comments on this blog, or any blog that supports gravatars. You just sign up for a free Gravatar account, upload your photo, and it does the rest. It works off of the e-mail you use when you comment. So if you sign up now all the posts you’ve commented on here will magically show your pretty picture.

Another change I tried to keep focused on with the redesign was attempting to clean up my sidebar. It’s not perfect, but it’s a bit more thought out than the previous one.

I’ve done my best to make everything as cross-browser compatible as possible, but I’ve very likely missed a few things here or there. Please let me know if anything is acting stupid.

Well, it’s 2 a.m., and I have to host a “Last Day Of English Summer Camp” party tomorrow morning… this boy needs sleep.

And for anyone that’s curious:
Version One of this blog was the initial blog I started upon moving to China back in January 2005.
Version Two was when I first moved to WordPress.

Meh.

I had a friend ask if I was freaking out about it at all, and really, I’m not even a little. You hear about it, they make Hallmark cards for it, people generally fuss over it. But what I think it has most to do with is contentedness, or a lack thereof.

I tend to look at life like a long string of dots. Each dot is a memory or event that has happened to me. Some dots are bigger and more noticeable, and some are tough to see at all. Regardless of their size, there are a lot of dots between now and when I popped into this world – so, why freak out?

Everything that’s happened in my life has brought me to the point where I am now, and I like where I am.

• I’ve accomplished enough to be happy, but not enough to be lazy.
• I’ve seen enough to be knowledgeable, but not enough to be wise.
• I’ve loved enough to know that it hurts, but not enough to want to stop.
• I’ve grown enough to walk in my father’s shoes, but not enough to fill them.
• I’ve said enough to fill novels, but not enough to stop talking.

My 20s were a helluva ride, and I’m looking forward with much anticipation at what my 30s will teach me.

As I announced previously, I’ve started on a new path with things. I’ll be studying Chinese five days a week come September, and I’ve quit teaching ESL as my primary source of income. Instead of ESL, I’ll be furthering my journey into weird and crazy world of Web development.

Currently I have designed and maintain four reasonably successful Web sites (www.thehumanaught.com, www.lostlaowai.com, www.haohaoreport.com, www.yourchinapal.com). In tandem with expanding these four, I’ll also be developing new projects and freelancing myself out as a Web developer and designer.

I’ll be doing this all under the banner of my new business, Dao By Design. I chose the name to reflect some of my personal views and values, and to act as a reminder of those things. The site is not 100% finished, but I would love any feedback you have.

And certainly, if you or anyone you know is looking for a Web designer, please keep me in mind. Incidentally, if you are looking for some tips about design, blogging, tech stuff or making money online, you might be interested in the new blog I’ve started: The Dao By Design Blog.

It was with moist eyes that I heard Derrick (Dezza) was hanging up his blogging cap, despite having seen it coming for a long time, as he constantly told me he was losing interest in writing, and shifting his energies to other creative endeavors – namely, his amazing flare for photography.

However, it was still tough to hear, as his blog was really the first China blog I ever read – and had a lot to do with easing my tensions about moving to China (those that know Derrick, know how great he is about sharing advice).

Well, it is with a bit of pride that I announce that www.MaskofChina.com will not be fading gently into the abyss, but has rather (like its owner) just shifted focus. Instead of maintaining the blogs, Derrick has instead converted the site into a showcase of his beautiful photography.

This announcement also works in tandem with me announcing my official transition from ESL teacher to Web designer, as I performed the Mask of China redesign. Though I’d done quite a lot of design work previous to coming to China, it’s really been in setting up my own sites that I’ve really cut my teeth with all that it takes to be a competent Web designer/developer.

Though my own business identity site isn’t up yet, expect an announcement about it in the coming weeks. And if you, or anyone you know, needs Web design, graphic design, content creation, or editing services, please don’t be shy and throw some love this way.

Oh, and be sure to go on over to Mask of China and tell Derrick how great his photos look (and let him know you like the design as well ). If you should require the services of a professional photographer or would like to purchase prints of any of Derrick’s photos, please feel free to contact him.

If you’d like to beautify your computer with some of Derrick’s photos, they have recently been featured in a screensaver, People of the Middle Kingdom, helping publicize the excellent Library Project.

[Download the screensaver - Mac and PC versions available]