Dayna.me » Site Glamour Contest

Winners of the Site Glamour Contest

Dayna — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 06:43:57 +0000

I am pleased to announce the winners of the Site Glamour Contest held over the past few months and the most glamorous site from the list of contestants goes to Lisa of Auberginer. The first runner up goes to Charmaine of Oh-Doll.Net and the second runner up goes to Sy Yuan of Sylistic.Com. Congratulations to the winners! I have contacted you via emails with regards to your prizes.

Winners of the Site Glamour Contest

Auberginer

If you haven’t check out Lisa’s website, Auberginer.Org, you really should. She has some really gorgeous artworks which includes her drawings and pixels.

I really like her latest layout as well. The image links on her layout like the small buttons at the side and the home icon adds a special touch. I especially like the way her website’s name is designed. The entire layout is bright and cheery and of course creative in my opinion.

Once again, I would like to congratulate Lisa for being the winner of the Site Glamour Contest.

Here’s a sneak peek of the illustration for Lisa.

I would also like to express my thanks to all the contestants and sponsors of this contest: City in Surrender, Auberginer, Impatient Mind, TheOutlandish, Jefflion, Miruku no Uta, Kihugs, Rockwitch.net, Culture of Men, Sylistic.com, Oh-Doll.Net, Xivy.Org, Kandiberst.com, Thismemory.Net, Skipaheartbeat.Com, Bouncy-Bubbles.Net, Onemoreline.Net, Mystical Crush and Love Dares.

The contest would not be possible without your participation. Thank you!

I’m still alive

Dayna — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:45:23 +0000

I’m still alive and kicking in case anyone though I’ve gone missing. I’m extremely slow in replying to emails these days because I’m busy catching up with my “offline” life. I faced my computer nearly 24 hours a day except when I’m in school. My dad even told me I could just get married to the computer. Of course I’m not going to do that. Chewy wouldn’t like that. :P Chewy came over for dinner and he waited 3 hours while I messed around with the new navigation today (yes, there’s a new design, did you not noticed it?). Hence, I promise I will spend my entire Wednesday with him!

Mini layout redesign

Speaking of the redesign, I redid both the main and footer navigation and added new panda prints to the footer. I noticed I’ve been using rounded corners for my layouts since last December and thus I removed all the round corners as well. Check out the new post meta at the end of every post if you have not. I’ve also switched to a new plugin for sharing posts and redesign (again!) the list of tags, related and popular posts. In addition, I make a small change to the background of the header, no more fluffy white clouds now and it’s a lot less cluttered. Phew! Yes, that’s all the updates I’ve in regards to the layout.

Voting for the Site Glamour Contest has closed and all the articles written by the wonderful participants have been published here. Please feel free to leave any comments or join in the discussion.

Twitpic of my busy week

Dayna — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 03:50:59 +0000

I have almost forgotten to post my twitpic photos from last week. I had an extremely busy week and wasn’t online most of the time. Anyway, here’s a short recount of what happened last week. I received lots of goodies in the mail and am absolutely in love with my new cosmetics products from koreabb.com.sg. I found a new online shop, Beauty Carousel in Singapore selling lots of Japanese cosmetics. It’s so tempted to try some of the highlighting and oil control powder but I’m trying to put myself on a shopping ban to save up for Christmas.

Twitpic of the week

I also went Haw Par Villa & Vivo City with mum. We went on board the MV Doulos. I found a Chinese craft book with lots of pandas artwork at PageOne and I took a few photos of them. I was so afraid the loud shutter sound of my mobile will alert the staff on duty. Anyway, the pandas were so adorable!

Some day later, Chewy and I went shopping at Orchard. I brought my panda and pooh bears to guard the car again. anda: Notice the claypot rice with abalone? We had dinner at Ah Yat Tian Xia Restaurant at Orchard Central. The abalone cost an additional SGD 7 and taste okay, for the price I can’t complain of course. Chewy had pork chop rice and he finds it delicious. I tried it and it’s also so-so in my opinion.

The rest of the week was spend on spring cleaning my room, playing bridge at home and having dim sum at Ah Yat Seafood Restaurant. I still think the dim sum from Imperial is better. So, that’s how I spend my entire week. How about yours?

Ultimate Blog Awards

By the way, Tiff’s holding her first contest, Ultimate Blog Awards at JynxedPanda. There are lots of attractive prizes, such as WordPress themes, illustrations, t-shirts and even cash to be won. There are also many mini contests for all her readers. She is also trying to raise donations for the victims of Typhoon Ondoy amd Pepeng via the contest. It’s an all rounded contest for everyone so please join in the fun and head over to her website for more details.

The voting for the Site Glamour Contest will close on 30 October instead of November because I hope the contest will be focused on the discussion of the articles instead of the voting next month. Please vote for the website which you think deserves the award and don’t forget to participate in the contest article discussion next month.

Little things like these make me smile

Dayna — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 04:24:09 +0000

Our dearest Benjamin was extremely nice to offer to tutor me when he heard that I couldn’t catch up in my MM class. Let me start with the history of Benjamin. He’s labelled as a Maths professional by many of us. He was the sole reason how I managed to pass my Additional Maths during my GCE Ordinary Level examinations. We were constantly on the phone discussing how to solve equations back then.

5 years down the road, history is still repeating itself. I still need him to teach me things like Integration and Differential Equations. Anyway, Ben’s very patient with me since I’ve nearly zero knowledge in those topics now. I can’t remember when is the last time I did such complicated Maths questions. He didn’t ask for anything in return although my mum did stuffed him with lots of mooncake. =D What are best friends for?

At the end of our little tuition session, this was what he gave me.

Panda Drawings by Xue Qi

It was drawn by Xue Qi whose actually Ben’s little sister. I hope I didn’t remember her name wrongly. She has got a nice name so I tend to remember it better. =p Some of my readers may find the above drawings familiar. It was actually from a rough sketch of the panda layout I planned to have (which evolved to Bim Bim) back in January this year. Isn’t her drawing fantastic? I think that it looks much better than the one I doodled. Maybe there will be a new artist in this world.

The rest of this post is nothing much but just showing a package I received recently. I love receiving mails as long as they aren’t outstanding bills!

I was so excited that I torn a hole in the package before taking a photo

My loots from Ling of koreabb.com.sg

Skin79 Diamond Sun Powder and Innisfree Mineral BB cream

Oh and have you check out the revamped footer? I’ll love to hear what you think.

Voting for the Site Glamour Contest is opened so feel free to head over to the voting page and cast your votes.

Join the Site Glamour Contest?

Dayna — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:18:53 +0000

This contest is actually rather similar to the usual Site of the Month contest. However, I didn’t like how the usual Site of the Month Contest is focus solely on the design and popularity of the website. Hence, in this contest, there are some slight variation. It also focuses on the writing aspects. Participants will be writing a short article of a certain topic and then a series of discussion will take place. Although the name of this contest may implies that it’s all about the design but let me assure you that it’s not. I may need to change the contest name in the future.

I hope to get to know more web designers and discover new websites this way as well as providing the perfect opportunity for other web owners to make new friends online. Since this contest is not based solely on your design capability but also on other aspects such as writings, all websites are welcome to enter it and I highly encourage you to participate in the fun as public voting is available as well. Feel free to drop your suggestions about the topics you wish to be included in the contest discussion here.

Do not hesitate to join and if you know a web designer with a website worth mentioning, do spread the word around! There are also attractive prizes to be won. Registration for this contest closes on 30th September 2009. These are tentative dates and may be extended depending on feedback from all of you. Registration is a simple process, just fill up this form on the contest page. I hope to receive your submissions soon.

Hitting the books again

Dayna — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 03:46:52 +0000

Lunch

One thing I miss about school is having lunch. I hate to admit it but during my holidays, I tend to wake up in the afternoon so I usually skipped my lunch. After school started, I wake up at about 10am when I have afternoon classes. I have my lunch at home before going to school. Mum cooked fish fillet, harshbrown and eggs for lunch. It’s been a really long time since I last ate such a fabulous meal.

Talking about school, my first Audit class went great. The lecturer is very interesting and told us quite a bit of interesting things. One thing which I find ironic is that most of us (the Accountancy students) do not know why Debit is DR (with the R) and credit is CR. Where did the R from DR came from? =p I’m so glad to say that there are finally things I know which Chewy doesn’t. Chewy is a much better and intelligent student as compared to me. I’m rather inspired by something the lecturer told us during the class.

Life is short. Enjoy it. Everyday is an interesting day.

He told us to enjoy going for classes. Thinking about it, I can’t remember when is the last time I enjoyed and looked forward to attending classes. I think it was 2 years back while I was still in Ngee Ann Polytechnic. That was the time when I truly felt school was enjoyable. I’m happy waking up early for school, meeting my friends in the morning, having lunches together and working on projects. I missed those times. Anyway, the way that particular lecturer conducts his classes makes me remember the stuff he had said.

I am taking Financial Reporting, Information Systems & Organisation and Management Science Methods as well. ISO was boring. The problem is not with the lecturer. He’s nice, friendly and easy going. But the facts is just dry and dull. I can’t remember how many times I doze off during the first lesson. This is bad. I should sit next to the windows in the future. This will reduce the probability of falling asleep in class.

Enough about the classes, I’m extremely happy to say that I have completed my first official client’s project. The illustration of the man is based on the actual photo of the site owner. He’s a good friend of Bee Keng. I have enjoyed myself tremendously working on this project. This is my first time drawing an illustration based on a real life photograph. anda:

Junyuanlim.Com" > Junyuanlim.Com" >

Site Glamour Mascot

I mentioned about holding a Site Glamour Contest a few weeks back. I’ve set up the contest page. I took a few suggestions and made some changes to the contest. By the way, registration opens on 31st August! I need to do a bit of advertising for it. =D The blue bubbles “thing” you see on the left is the mascot of the contest. It is a robot not a dog. Chewy insisted it looks like a dog. Anyway, I think it’s so adorable that I use Miss Bubbles for my new twitter background as well. LOL! This is called “killing 2 birds with 1 stone”?

Sponsorship for the prizes of the contest is open. Thus, if anyone would like to sponsor this contest with prizes (advertising etc.), feel free to contact me about it. There are 4 sponsors currently. Thanks Ivy, Jenny, Dayze and Lissie for offering to sponsor and promote this contest.

One of the rounds of the contest is a discussion of the contestants about a certain topic and then the public will response and discuss. I need your suggestions about topics for that round. So if you have any ideas for questions or topics to discuss, please post it on the topic discussion page. I’ll be waiting to hear from you!

We need something interesting once in a while…

Dayna — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 08:43:42 +0000

I was thinking of this contest I tweeted and discussed with Rilla about 4 months back in April.

I’m planning a “Site Glamour” contest. It’s slightly different from the usual Site of the Month, prizes and winning criteria are different.

Every site need something interesting once in a while and seriously, I won’t consider Amour Chaleur as an interactive site at all. The usual SOTM isn’t really that interactive so I thought of something which engages the participants in discussions and other activities. A few things to note is that I’m not fond of pure voting decisions but completely removing the voting part would take away all the “fun” right?

This is what I have plan to decide the winner:

20% based on my personal opinions regarding the website (layout, content, coding etc.)
20% based on personal opinions of 2 random real life friends of mine with no designing experience. I thought it’ll be good to let someone who doesn’t do web designing to look at a website and determine whether they like it or not. In addition, they are independent 3rd parties so their opinions will most probably be fair.
30% based on voting
30% based on their answer/discussion to a web/graphic/life related question.

I actually wanted to add more activities but I couldn’t thought of any. Any suggestions to make it more interesting and motivate others to join?

Regarding the prize, I was thinking there could be a special illustration for the winner on top of the usual graphic award and link advertisements. Winners will be permanently listed on the winners page. =D I ~~may do~~ did a special icon next to the RSS link for the winner and contest page so that their link is on every page of the site.

Ivy’s suggestion gave me another idea. You know I was thinking whether to make this a bigger scale annual/semi annual “event” instead of a quarterly one. For example, there’s a few stages (with different discussions) or maybe different stages have different activities. Maybe stage 1 we have a discussion. Stage 2 could be comic/cartoon drawing (for eg.) or something else. That would something be like a talent contest except that it’s online. Of course, if it was an annual/semi annual event I think the prize would have to be more than just an illustration. Maybe a coded layout/WordPress theme?

What do you think? Tell me what would encourage you to join? I’ve love to hear your opinions and suggestions. :spin:

On a side note, I may be moving host soon due to some issues with the current host. I’ll update again about this next week.