Colophon
The Colophon
According to Webster, a colophon is
an inscription placed at the end of a book or manuscript usually with facts relative to its production.
One can also use it as a fancy name for the “about” page of a blog, so this page is about things.
The Name
Pax Asiana is Latin. I took four years of Latin in middle school, and, even if I tried, I would never forget all of it. It means “the Asian peace,” but in historical context it’s an allusion to the term pax Romana, which is applied to the golden age of the Roman Empire. I chose the name, then, because I wanted the blog to have a connection to prosperity and unity of Asian people. (Yes, I am Asian.)
The History
My first blogging experience was with Xanga, in July 2003. Shortly after that, I created a b2evo blog on my own server sometime in September that year. In February of the next year, I created a free hosting account with 1and1, and created a fresh blog, using WordPress. A few months later, I really wanted to have a domain dedicated to my blog and blogging. So in May, I registered paxasiana.com and began using it.
A month before my 1and1 Professional Preview Package expires, on December 27, 2006, I moved my blog to bluehost under my brother Daniel’s account, and that is where this blog is right now.
The WordPress
Currently, I really enjoy using WordPress. Its developers strive to make it the easiest “personal semantic publishing platform” (blog software) to set up and use. I believe it is. I’d finally updated to WordPress 2.0.5 after using 1.5.x for the longest time. Now, I’m using 2.3.2. The plugins I’m using at the moment are AJAX Comments, Akismet, Follow URL, inlineRSS, Markdown, Referrer Bouncer, SRG Clean Archives, Wikipedia Link, WP-Cache, and X-Valid.
My category archives are currently a little messed up. I haven’t gotten around to fixing it yet, but hopefully I’ll be able to do so this 2008 summer.
The Layout
Versions 1 and 2: The old versions one and two layouts were mostly inspired by the two-column layouts used at Jeremy Hedley’s Antipixel and at lowoctane, which no longer exists. I chose the color orange as the theme and background, because I had always used blue as the theme in my layouts, so I wanted a fresh color that wasn’t being overused by the web (and by me). The version two banner is from a photo I took at the Incheon/Seoul International Airport in South Korea. I edited it so that the colors would more closely match the orange theme I had already.
The layout was originally made with tables and lots of images. When I created v2.0, I totally redid the layout using XHTML 1.0 Strict, using no tables, and instead, all layers with attributes as defined in the CSS stylesheet. It took a while to do it, but it was well worth my time.
Version 3: Then, finally, from March 10 to March 12 I completely redesigned and rewrote a new layout, choosing to make it completely XHTML 1.1 valid this time. I redid the banner using the same photo and almost completely changed the style of the blog while still retaining some similar elements. The design was not really modeled directly off any other blogs, but the font scheme for the standard paragraph text is exactly the same as the one at the Wordpress website. The greatest change in the feel was the move to a single-column layout, without any sidebars. All relevant sidebar information has been moved to separate pages accessible from the top navigation bar.
The Person
I’m Stephen, an undergraduate student at Rice University in Houston, Texas. I love music. I’ve explored a variety of genres, including trance and progressive, classical, video game and movie soundtrack music, Chinese pop, Japanese pop and rock, Korean hip-hop and Korean indie rock, and jazz. Once upon a time, I also liked hard rock, and although I enjoy listening a bit of it now for nostalgia’s sake, I generally avoid it these days.
I am, in fact, a pianist who took lessons from second to twelfth grade, but I regret not practicing as much as I should have. I am also a producer and have created some trance music which you can check out under my two most recent aliases, Stephenox and Extolia. I always love to hear feedback, although probably more so for my latest songs, since they are more representative of my current skill. I haven’t actually created a full song in a year or two, though, but I plan to finish more songs at some point. If you want to encourage me, feel free to, though!
I am a swimmer who swam best the 100 breastroke. I’m glad I got my best time in that my final swim meet during my senior year in high school. Unfortunately, I’m not in a swim team anymore, but I still swim regularly for fun and exercise.
I am a tech and Internet person if such a person exists. I began my first website on Geocities in third grade, and my second one soon afterwards on Angelfire. From fourth to sixth grade or so, I operated my Pokémon website, which I was thoroughly proud of. In any case, despite my being fairly comfortable with the web and such as well as my computers, I can’t claim complete knowledge about everything relevant. I enjoy a lot of those things, in any case.
Most importantly, I “believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty… one Lord, Jesus Christ… [who] by the power of the Holy Spirit was born of the Virgin Mary, and was made man… [and] in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of Life… [and] in one holy catholic and apostolic Church…” I am a Roman Catholic. I do a lot of things that are not inherently religious, but I hope, would like to, and try at least a little bit to make my life revolve around God and His Church, not simply what is temporal.
Finally, there’s a lot more you can read about me if you just read what I’ve written on my blog.
stephen@paxasiana.com may be an email you can use to contact me.
This is updated sporadically.
