Apple tablet: more than a tablet

No more than a week passes without seeing rumors of the coming Apple tablet device. Some say it is going to save the media from the doldrums they are in, some say Amazon Kindle and its competitors will all be doomed, realizing they were just frogs in slow-boiling water along the way. And yet some say it's yet another tablet device, nothing more.

I agree with this TechCrunch article.

Conventional wisdom suggests that Apple will not be able to succeed where so many others have failed. But Apple makes billions defying conventional wisdom.

 As for me, I vowed I will stick with Thinkpad through the rest of my life, until a couple of years ago. And here I am typing this entry on my new MacBook Pro. I love it as much as my first Thinkpad, 535. It's not that Thinkpad had lost its appeal (it did a bit, though) nor Windows OS is sucking everybody down. Apple makes awesome products, that's it.

So what will the new tablet be? My prediction is that Apple will come with a big trick or two, especially in the application area. It's not the CPU horsepower or battery time (which even the latest MacBook sucks). It's the usage.

iPod taught us that we can bring the entire jukebox on the road. iPhone finally showed what that PDA/Palm potential was about. The tablet might not be the "third revolution", but that's pointless - it's about making us realize a new way of re-framing our digital life. Even the supposedly failed Apple TV showed the glimpse of life without traditional TV (another TechCrunch article says it will do that, after all).

We are waiting for Apple to make the world "tablet" sexy for the first time in history, free from being associated with Charlton Heston. Apple's supposedly competitors are doing that too, I guess.

How to be a better blogger

Penelope Trunk, one of my favorite bloggers, held a webinar (web + seminar) on her 3rd startup, Brazen Careerist. becoming a better blogger. The following five points were the key messages, followed by her summary and my comments.


Have a topic.
Penelope: Topic is a contract between readers. Surprise them sometimes, but keep the promise as much as you can.

I reluctantly agree with Penelope. Although I like my aimless writing style, I am also learning that it does not bring me too far as a writer. I have two blogs: this, and a Typepad blog. This blog has a topic: technical communication. The other one doesn't. But it is the other blog I have more fun writing. It is a mashup of everything that stimulated my curiosity in my life. And yet the word "everything" suggests that I cannot describe what that blog is about. It is more of an excuse for not having a topic.
I don't think we should force ourselves to limit the blogging topic to one or two categories. Rather, we can re-read what we have written to find an underlying theme that constantly emerges, and make a topic out of it.


Write at the edge of the topic.
Penelope: Don't write the obvious (such as 5 ways to screw your design). Write something about the intersection between topics you are familiar with. Whatever is mainstream, it is already done.

Learn.
Penelope: No one likes know-at-all. Write what you have discovered. If you don't, it gets boring.

"Write what you know" used to be the mantra back in our school days and in our worklife. It does not work anymore, at least in blogging, because no one cares about what we already know (even us) - it's all there in Wikipedia. The act of writing is for the author, but the manuscript ultimately belongs to the readers. We cannot bore them.
The new mantra should be "Write what only you can." It is not about making things up: it is about pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone and write about something new as we explore a new territory, such as urban life + gardening. Or Geisha + Steampunk. I don't know.



Be interesting and short.
Penelope: Anything more than 600 words is over-indulgent.

I checked the word count; it has already surpassed 700. Over-indulgent. I dodge this accusation by pretending that the Q&A list tucked behind the main text body should be treated as a pseudo-separate entry. It's optional. How is that?

You have to care.
Penelope: About your topic/community. Write with the community in your mind. Remember, a blog is a conversation.

Am I caring? Am I engaged in a conversation? No. So far, my blog consists mainly of my monologue. If the subject is aptly defined, that works.


 -------------- The Q&A session --------------------

Q: What about Pioneer Woman? Boing Boing? They don't seem to have topic.
A: Pioneer Woman is HOUSEWIFE PORN. (Isn't that a topic?) Many topicless blog started at the early age of blogging. Nowadays you won't get traction being topicless.

Q: What if I cannot find a good topic?
A: Write what you are curious about. You will naturally hit a topic.

Q: Isn't topic limiting?
A: No. Look at how much stuff I, Boing Boing, TechCrunch can put in.

Q: What is the hook to keep people coming?
A: Be honest. Trust who you are (no matter how messy your life looks) and write about things that are bothering you.

Q: How can I avoid being boring?
A: Think of what you say at a cocktail party.

Q: How can you learn while showing yourself as know-it-all?
A: Nobody cares what you know.

Q: How should I promote my blog?
A: (Ryan Paugh) You really need to reach out to other people on the blog. Get involved in a community. We have seen great writers who did not reach out to many people thus did not gain many readers, but saw that situation change when they started being involved in Brazen Careerist.

Q: How do I know I am doing well?
A: Don't use the traffic as the sign. Good signs are: Do you keep going? Did you get a job?

Q: What if you hit a wall?
A: Write! Be an adult, get up every day, do it! Force yourself to sit down!

Q: What if I want to take back what I have written?
A: Why would you do so? Learn from your own stupidity!

Q: Can I write stream of conscience?
A: No, you need to edit heavily. I edit several times to make it a "good" stream of conscience.

Reflections on my growth as a blogger

It has been almost three months since I have started this Technical Communication blog. I have been wondering what exactly I am supposed to write here, thinking while writing all along. I would like to take a moment of reflection through having a small Q&A session with myself. To view the evolution of this blog from the visual design point of view, see this entry.

Each question starts with: "Does each of my blog entries..."

Has interesting title which attracts readers?

I don't think so. For most of the entries, titles are something that is slapped at the very beginning of the drafting process. And I admit it is the most inappropriate time to name an article - the first rule of blogging is to name the title at the end. The second rule of blogging is to name the title at the END.
I checked the title of this entry, "Reflections on my growth as a blogger" which was of course there from the beginning. Not particularly interesting, but should be fine for readers looking for a lifehack-type entries.

Follows standards of professional English?

Being a technical writer with four years of experience under my belt, I proudly answer: I have been doing what I could do ( = No. Obviously). The built-in spell checker in Blogger has been my single best ally (and archenemy) so far. I haven't paid enough attention to the rewriting/editing process, which is supposed to be the real writing stage following the brainstorming stage under the name of first drafting.

Addresses all the criteria of the given topic?

Again, no. I tend to focus on the subject which interests me most, not paying enough attention to the criteria outside that narrow scope. I have found that I can be focused when the topic is presented beforehand in small chunks (like in this entry). Probably from now on, I should list all the criteria beforehand and make them as a list or subheadings.

Incorporates hyperlinks to additional sources appropriately?

Finally a question that I can answer yes came in. I believe I have kept a reasonable record of incorporating hyperlinks for both related entries in this blog and web pages in general. I think I can site additional sources more often than I had done, not to make my entries more "authentic" (though I cannot deny it) but to force myself to learn more about the topic by looking for those information.

Uses images appropriately to illustrate and add visual design appeal?

The design appeal...I haven't paid much attention to this area. As previously mentioned, much of my design work consisted of selecting different template for the blog and embedding images and videos in the entries. Advanced visual editing such as adding visual elements and modifying CSS was nonexistent.
Does visual design matters for a blog which is supposed to be the outlet for my voice? Absolutely yes. A blog is the place to express my whole self, not just texts; ignoring visual aspects of it is like walking blindsighted.

Gives consideration to the (copy)rights attached to any images used?

For this blog, I have been careful not to violate any terms of usage for copyrighted images. I used my own images (photos and screen snapshots) whenever possible, and for copyrighted photos I always mentioned clearly where they were from. For my other (casual) blog, not so much...

Shows evidence of my application of information learned from my readings?

My answer to this question is similar to that for the "criteria" question above; yes, for subjects I was interested in. I am not sure if I should show my application of information which I did not digest enough. While organizing and writing entries this blog belongs to me; however, once an entry is published, it belongs to the readers. I think I can safely omit half-baked applications from the final draft.

Includes references (via quotes or hyperlinks) to additional information?

Yes, I have tried to include quotes whenever I found a good passage. Hyperlinks are better for leading the readers to explore other materials on his own, but if it is appropriate to stay him attached to this blog or to point out the most important part in the additional information, quotes have worked better. No I didn't use quotes to jack up the amount of texts. At least not all the time.

Includes original thought?

This is the area where I aspired to be good, if not great. I have always tried to find my own point of view for a given topic and express it clearly and succintly. But I must admit that probably the person who most benefited from this attitude is myself. By following the weak but almost tangible thread of thinking, I have understood far more about my thinking and interest than I had expected. Adding another layer of self-knowledge has an addictive effect.


Additional thoughts...

Writing is almost equal to (self) discovery and this blog has taught me more about that simple truth than my other blog, probably because I had to write longer and more in-depth articles. Pushing myself to think hard was painful at times, but the result was well worth it. A blog, especially a technical blog like this one, is always a part of the author's portfolio not because the blog teaches the readers about specific subjects but because the blog reveals who the author is.
One of my favorite bloggers, Penelope Trunk at Brazen Careerist says blogging is one of the most important tool one can master as a professional. I wholeheartedly agree.

Proposal for defero: consulting on new media

I have done a consulting project for a media company, defero (small d, yes). I will chronicle how the project started and proceeded in today's entry. Here is the outline.

1. Understanding what defero is about and its objectives
2. Defining the platform for delivering the project
3. Defining the suggestions
4. Building the platform
5. Filling the suggestions
6. Afterthought
   

Understanding what defero is about and its objectives

defero is a startup communications firm made up of individuals from "old media" (journalism, TV, publishing...) who are looking to use their skills in the 2.0 world to which they are digital immigrants. In fact, all they have at this moment is the company name. They do not have corporate identity, not even a website yet.

Defero needed a proposal for how they can launch their new company in mid-2010 and utilize a wide range of social media - from the obvious (a website) to wikis, podcasts, blogs - and perhaps even into less established platforms such as social networks.

What I needed to do was creating a convincing strategies for them to "win" the bloody 2.0 media wars by using the very same tools that drove their old industries to near-extinction.

Defining the platform for delivering the project

I was supposed to have a variety of choice for the method of delivery for the strategic planning, but in this case there was only one option in my head: to use a Web2.0 armored website. What is the point of encouraging people on the fence to jump on the new technology bandwagon without using the very "new technology" as the delivery medium?

In the old world (or old media for my client) the consultant and the client sat facing each other, being in the same environment but living in different worlds. We no longer live in that era. The consultant and the client sit side by side, using the same tools and watching over each others' shoulder.

Members of defero needed to learn the Web2.0 ropes from the scratch. Accessing the strategies in a modern website would be the beginning. Therefore, I decided to create a website (almost) dedicated to the defero project. My existing websites comprised of blogs and portfolios; not exactly suitable for convincing defero.

To create an effective website without wasting spending too much time in DreamWeaver, I picked up a free web-hosting framework, Google Sites. I had already created a website on that platform and it worked flawlessly (functionally, not necessary aesthetically). Its development process was also documented here.

Defining the suggestions

So, what would the suggestions be? Simply teach them the tricks of using Web2.0 tools (Twitter, Youtube, Facebook...) in exchange for a hefty (in my imaginations) consultation fee? After all, isn't that what everybody is doing these days? Teach the clients How, but never Why, because the consultants do not know any better.

That would have been acceptable, but never effective. I could do little more than making Wikipedia entries visually noisy. Something more than that, something that goes beyond Web 2.0 was necessary. This was also an issue that was bugging me whenever I thought about the whole Web 2.0 promise and its real effect on our economy and culture. Where should we go from there?

I remembered writing my opinions about the post-2.0 era and looked it up. A paragraph hooked my attention: I wrote this paragraph not only as my observation but also as a question to myself.

Free is the beginning and the end: What happened to the "how to make money" discussion? None of the social networks are charging money to users who only access to basic functionality. They charge money to users who want to do something extra; in other words, the "collect money from everybody (eventually)" mantra has been replaced by "collect money from heavy users (encourage everybody to become them, eventually)."

I decided to expand my suggestions for defero from the monetizing point. We all blindly accept that things will remain free for the foreseeable future. Is that so? We can do better than that (after all, we still need to pay for our living expenses). I myself particularly do not support paying scheme (my news subscription always occurs on Google News free of charge) but wanted to explore the possibilities.

Building the platform

Building the website nowadays starts from selecting online templates rather than holding a pencil and an open sketchpad. I know it is a cop-out, but for this project what mattered was effectiveness, not originality...

The Google Site had several business-like templates including the Professional Site Template which I eventually chose. It had a classic sidebar structure with various "widgets" for me to play with: testimonials, recent updates, calendar, search, RSS sindication, and download corner.

Visually, I stripped most of its color variations which was grabbing too much attention for my taste. I added my own banner and tweaked some of the fonts and page structure.

Then I modified the texts not directly related to the proposal for defero: company information, staff information, recent announcements, testimonials, an educational video, and calendar. The "entry" to the proposal was ready.

Filling the suggestions

Now, the meaty part. I have scribbled down my thoughts into a text file and organized them: soon it became apparent that I was delivering not only as a presentation but also a story that starts from the old media era, goes through the current situation and extends into the future. Forcing the defero members to read the entire story at once is going to be a tough ordeal, and also it was so Web 1.0. Separating the proposal into two parts was the logical conclusion: the summary and the details.

I usually outlines my thought in a presentation file. Since it looked also fine as a summary, I decided to refine it and embed it into the website as a starting point. The clients would first view the presentation file to grasp the higher level concept, and then can go down into more details described elsewhere in the web.

Fortunately, Google Site works quite well with embedded versions of Google Docs presentations, complete with playback controls (a trick I learned when building my previous website). The summary presentation, shown below, was embedded in the introduction page of the proposal.


I built the rest of the details into the subpages below the introduction. Using real-life examples and articles from the web, I focused on summarizing the concept for easy understanding rather than showcasing how to use the tools by themselves.

Afterthought

The process was hugely rewarding because I have found what I was really thinking regarding the Web 2.0 monetizing topic during the drafting stage. I hope my learning process would also be communicated to the clients. Below are other findings from this project:

• Shaping an existing template into my own taste was fun and I was quite satisfied with the result. A well-designed template works reasonably well even when it is being tweaked many times.
• Separating the proposal into two stages (summary presentation and detailed pages) also worked effectively, at least for me. For strategical theme, grasping higher concept at early stages is critical for reducing misunderstandings and I think I will be using this technique for similar projects from now.
• I could have stepped deeper into suggesting visual designs for defero. Designs are such a vital part of a company's identity, my proposal might have not been taken by them but it should have shown them one possibility of their future. Although getting into too much details has the risk of losing the overall perspective, having a concrete example might have worked well for further discussions and inspirations.
  

Project Collaboration: Using Google Wave

My Grad School classmate Lauren Rodan thought of collaboratively writing on Google Wave, and I jumped the wagon. The result is embedded at the bottom of this entry. Unfortunately you must have a Google Wave account to view it properly and there aren't too many people with a Wave account now, so please view the pasted transcript and imagine what it looks like.

When I started to use Google Wave (less than a week ago) I felt like I was using a glorified chat. But once we started the collaboration writing, it worked more like a face-to-face conversation than a cramped thread of aimless thoughts. What is shown below is an edited version so the real interaction went a bit more chaotically - the original colored thread looked like a piece of lego building rather than layered conversation we see here. But I believe we did generate a coherent piece of thought.

So, is Wave an effective tool for collaboration? Yes. And probably not only for collaboration. We could express ourselves freely without getting derailed from the topic. And the result I believe is greater than the sum of our individual thoughts. Both of us found interesting and refreshing perspectives in each other. Of course, proper initiative (Lauren) and mutual respect made the process successful but what made Wave special was that it stayed in the background all the time, never interrupting the writing process. Google Wave might be a revolutionary tool but no matter how big its potential is, it is still a tool that helps us do what we want. It was an extremely useful, transparent helping hand. I am glad Google and its engineers understand this point well (as opposed to... let's say MacroHard).

The transcript:

Conversation color-coded as follows:
Lauren
Isao
PROJECT COLLABORATION

• Collaboration was not "required" as part of the assignment - Did you collaborate with anyone else on the team? Whether you did or not, why?

I did not have the chance to collaborate with anyone else on the team. I made an attempt to do so by sharing a logo, but I did not receive any comments on it. I misunderstood Lauren's intention as a pure example, not an opportunity to collaborate. I got too used to think in "solo" mode (though the professor encourged collaboration all along) I think people may have been so far along with their projects at that point that my logo did not fit into their plans. I agree on this point, and I am also thinking - maybe a majority of us work in independent work style? At least I am. Personally, I am an independent worker. But part of the reason I appreciate the program I am in so much is that it takes me out of my comfort zone. I have had to collaborate with my classmates, people I've never met, online. It is a great challenge. I regret that this project did not lend itself to that kind of collaboration. Maybe collaboration is something that can become a course on its own. It is such a huge thing. Isao, I think it should be part of every course. I think the course was built so that students can choose either or not to collaborate. To facilitate collaboration more, I think the course can even force students to work together. Unless the students know each other from past semesters, getting to know each other itself usually take some time, and one semester only has 15 weeks - a "pushing" mechanism might work. I'm not sure I agree with you on the collaboration front. I don't think we have to know each other. The thing that gets us talking and working together is the fact that we are all studying the same topics, and we more or less all have similar (or related) interests. We do have similar interests - but the working or studying style might differ a lot. I see you are more comfortable taking initiative and collaborating and I am on the opposite side of the spectrum - self-starting and prefer to complete things on my own. I see what you mean. The funny thing is I am more like you in real life - independent and prefer to work on my own. Taking a course online makes me different for some reason. The course topic unites us students all, but collaboration is about our style (or even personalities) and an encouragement can work well, otherwise we tend to fall back on our favorite learning (or working) styles.The way I feel about collaboration in distance learning is this - if I didn't want to be involved in a learning environment (which I define as one of interaction with professors and students alike), I could have just bought a load of books and not taken any classes. I think collaboration is important in higher education. I learn a lot from my classmates. As Lauren pointed out, learning materials are everywhere. The key to attend a grad school is to be with people with similar goals and interact with them. Now, if this was a non-distance learning course, the fact that students sit together naturally creates friendship and collaboration. Distance learning can take extra measures to create that natural bonding which can be the essense of higher education.

• How was the collaboration initiated?

I think we've expressed that collaboration was initiated as a bunch of false starts. I recently saw people posting logos and other collaborative efforts in Moodle. At this point, I don't think I could take anyone else's work and combine it with my own unless I did a lot of work to make it fit. If there were collaborations, they certainly occurred indirectly - for example, reading other students' comments and building on top of them, or looking at their courseworks inspired me and forced me to think in different ways. You are right, Isao. I didn't think of that. There were posts in forums that people responded to that helped me gain direction. It does not sound as much, but it is indeed deeper than merely watching "examples" online to get inspirations - the fact that the other students were looking at the same topic as I did made it more real and substantial than merely scanning the web. I could gaze into an alternative universe and see many different possibilities. Unsynchronized brainstorming, that's how I describe them. Terrific description. I like that - unsynchronized brainstorming! Then what would you call our conversation here on Wave? Synchronized brainstorming? The Wave encourages adding comments - exactly what brainstorming is about. No judgement, only contribution.

• How did it affect your own project work?

My project probably could have been better with collaboration. I know my classmates are all very talented in different ways, and my project probably could have been better had we pooled our resources. I totally agree that the classmates are all talented in different ways. For me, this course had the highest level of professionals than any other projects I have done. I must say I was intimidated at first, which probably discouraged me a bit from speaking out on collaboration. I am wondering, if we were asked to create a single project together, what might have happened? I am not merely suggesting it could have been better - it might have gone the other way. The sum of individuals can be much bigger or much smaller than expected.For the final project of a class I took last semester, students formed two groups - one to develop the core values for a company, one to develop more of a sales and marketing focus. It was intense! We had to put all of our work onto a single wiki. It was hard organizing around everyone, but I think it came out pretty well in the end. Do you think similar projects can be done in this course topic (design)? I think we might need to add some twist to make it effective if we do so here - my company excels in industrial design but there is little collaboration. The boss decides almost everything, but the result is stunning, which made me think hard - I have always believed in the power of horizontal partnerships but there are some topics that do not suit them well. The most well-known example is Apple (Steve Jobs (not a fair example - he is brilliant!) decides everything). That's an interesting and unusual perspective. I think your boss is probably really talented and intelligent. That's probably why the dictatorship (yikes!) works. I agree with you about the power of horizontal partnerships. I mean, look at all of the open source platforms that have been gaining ground. One person does not do all the work for any of those. It is the work of many people, and many other people who correct and refine the work of their predecessors. It is true - I once heard the reason why Linux and other open-source platform worked well was because the original model was incomplete - people saw there were holes, and they volunteered to fill them in. Regarding my own course work, if I have joined a joint project, I could have volunteered for the role of "patcher" - to do what's left.For myself, I would have volunteered to do a lot of the design work. I am no expert, but I love following new trends and tutorials.

The embedded version:
(Sorry I couldn't make the Wave appear inside the entry; the embedded version appears outside the main blog entry area, at the bottom of the screen. For clear view, the copy&pasted version above should be better.)

Evolution of visual design: Helping others 'get' it

This blog started in September 2009 as a base station for my technical communication-oriented thoughts and experiments. I have made some changes in visual design - admittedly within the range of Google template. I would like to look back on its evolution and see how I can move on, considering the lessons learned.

Initial Design

Theme:

The skin, shown below, was taken almost directly from a Blogger template called Snapshot, created by Dave Shea. The overall tone of the skin looked futuristic (the top banner was filled with a pseudo-landscape of buildings) without being too intrusive (the main content area was almost blank). I wanted to have a serious tone but not too barren, so that template worked well. I also secretly hoped I had avoided the "Standard Blogger" look by picking minor theme.

Visual Design:

The bright green color at the top right provided a visual "hook". The horizontal lines between the title and content for each text block guided the eyes naturally to each visual element, separated them, and created consistency. One unexpected effect was the profile image in the About Me corner. The image was larger than I had expected, therefore could have worked as the visual hook instead of the green patch at the top.

Text:

I chose the two-column layout, main text on the left (so that readers first catch the main text, not the side bar). The text width was chosen to include 60-80 characters per line, the optimum horizontal length considering the eyeball movement. If I wrote this blog in Japanese, I would have chosen to place the sidebar to the left because in Japanese context the action starts from the right and then to the left. This difference in the direction of action (West: left to right, East: right to left to roughly summarize) is a topic that can be studied more deeply.

1st Revision

I decided to have an experiment: what if I do the opposite of what I had always preferred in terms of visual design and stick with it for a while? In the end I stuck with it for too long but I did reconfirm what I disliked about document/blog design.

Theme:

I chose the most commonly used Blogger template, the default design called Minima, created by Douglas Bowman. Although I liked its minimalistic approach with no background color and no "ornament", I always considered it too traditionally looking for my taste.

Visual Design:

No visual design at all - this is largely due to my laziness I must admit. If I wanted to go against my taste, I should have filled the background with colors and added extra symbols and icons all over the place, to make it visually crowded.

Text:

To go against my taste, I stretched the main column to screen width and tucked the original sidebar content to the bottom of the page. Therefore, unless the visitor has no intention other than reading the text content, he might have a hard time figuring out what to do. I also chose a serif font instead of sans serif. The horizontally stretched paragraph would be harder to read and more formal than the initial design.

Conclusion:

After a while, I still disliked the design and had a hard time reading the blog entries myself as well. The design did, however, made the blog look like a formal report. I never thought of making the blog look like a printed report but it worked nicely. Maybe in the future if I need to make a blog printer-friendly (without falling back on providing a PDF version), the one-column design might work fine.

Bonus: I changed the background color to see how hideous it might have looked.

2nd Revision

Taking lessons from the 1st revision, I decided to go back to the previous style - simple, two-column layout. Still I wanted to make an experiment: what if I stripped off all visual design? After all, wasn't simplistic design my preference? I still liked the barrenness in the 1st revision.

Theme:

I chose a theme called Tekka created by Evhead Glish, which offered the least amount of visual elements in all templates. I found it cold and hostile; here I realized I wanted more warmth in the overall tone.

Visual Design:

Almost nothing existed here, only the texts remained. Result: I still liked not having complex image or photo, but it was too stripped. No taste at all does not lead to better design. I clearly needed a visual variety. If that came from the content I would have stuck with this template; unfortunately the entries mainly consist of text paragraphs.

Text:

I changed the layout back to the original two-column structure to provide easy navigation and also to limit the width of the paragraphs in the main area. Going back to the original style worked.

 

3rd Revision (current)

After going to the extremes, I sorted out what worked and what did not, and picked up a template that works: Rounders by Douglas Bowman.

What works (vs. what does not work):

• Two-column layout (vs. single layout with sidebar items tucked to the bottom)
  
• No complicated images (vs. photos or images)
• Plain background colors (vs. colored background)
  
• Clear separation among each visual element (vs. unified content)
• Warm tone (vs. cold and formal tone)

Shown below is the result. Still not a satisfactory design, but at least it reflects my personal taste sufficiently.