Life. Pain. Joy.

My dad, Julio Bernardino da Silva, was in a business trip to Africa while my mom, Yolanda Moreira Teixeira Da Silva, pregnant of nearly 9 months, stayed home anxious to deliver her first baby. She gave birth to me on March, 25th, 1981, followed by a series of post-birth issues due to medical incompetence.  In a lot of pain, she had to be rushed back to the ICU two days after being released by the hospital, with severe pain in her abdomen. Her life was threatened upon delivering; doctors had to notify my family the seriousness of the situation. She was fighting for her life.

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Upgrading to Expression Engine 2

Contrary to many people who stand in line for hours in order to put their hands on new a gadget, I’m usually not very keen in purchasing a new product right at its inception. Bespeaking a product, be it hardware or software, is not a practice I take advantage of at all, at least not in my adulthood. I didn’t buy an iPhone until 3GS; I didn’t get an iPad until iPad 2. My reluctance to bespeak products is due to a mixed feeling of not having the best fully-tested version of the product. In my opinion, when a new product is introduced to the market (even Apple products for those of you who think I’m an apple fan-boy which I’m not), it takes a few months for manufactures to work out bugs and refine it into a final-sturdy product.

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Do it Now. Review it Often.

It’s been reported that resolutions are doomed to fail by Valentines Day. Speaking for myself, I’ve been there, done that. I’ve tried resolutions into the New Year with promises like, I WILL CHANGE THIS or THAT. I can’t recall a single resolution that was long-lasting and changed my life. I felt the need to try something different, a system that I could keep track of and see my progress, see my weaknesses, work on them and improve them. I wanted change. I wanted a system that could be successful for me, a system that was flexible and humanly forgiving.

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Strategizing on your mobile experience

Many of us had no idea the mobile industry would completely change the landscape of e-commerce, or at least, not to the extreme of how it’s changing. ComScore released critically important data points last week focused on mobile strategy for different devices — Building More Informed Mobile Strategies for Today’s Multi-Device World — and I paid careful attention to a few interesting suggestions and details presented by Hans Fredericks, VP Mobile comScore, Inc and Craig Besnoy, Managing Director and President of Netbiscuits. (source)

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Redesigning, once again.

The core principle of design is to create, produce, develop products — software, website, hardware, etc — for humans to use. In web design, it’s no different. We, web designers, are constantly challenged with different viewports made by different set of technologies growing rapidly with no sign of stoppage, of which we need to design for. Design (for the web), in my opinion, is not a static career or field; it’s a dynamically exciting career in which we live by constant discovery. Nevertheless, designers have a relentless mission: create delightful experiences.

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