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Weekly Review 1 – just getting started

Writing this on a bus coming back from the Mariners game. It was a gorgeous day in Seattle, and the Mariners won. Broke a 7 game losing streak. I just started this week so there is not much to review. I committed to posting every day for a year. Haven’t missed a day yet. Decided I wanted to hand code my own personal website. Gave myself 2 weeks to do it. Looked into jQuery and found that while not magical it does help simplify making nice web pages. And there you have it. Thanks for following along. I’ve already had people give me hints and advice and encouragement. Thank you and here’s to a great next week.

(Go Seattle)

#LetsDoThis

Posted on May 6, 2012 by admin

jQuery what art thou?

When you look at just about any web page these days, you see lots of $ symbols. This means the web page is using jQuery. What is jQuery?

Basically jQuery takes a lot of tasks that are hard to do with javascript and html, and makes them easier. For example dealing with files and xml documents is really hard normally. jQuery reduces the hardness to a few commands. You still have to know what you are doing, but the process and the time it takes to make it happen is reduced.

I was hoping that jQuery would be some sort of Candy Mountain where I could type "make awesome webpage" and a beautiful page would appear. Sadly it is not. But jQuery is pretty cool.

This post from StackOverflow has some suggestions about how to learn jQuery. I will be using them in the coming weeks.

Conclusion: jQuery is not Candy Mountain, but it is a nice off-road vehicle that can get you there faster.

#LetsDoThis

Posted on May 5, 2012 by admin

Mission #1 – Make a Personal Website

Everyone needs a sweet personal website. I have a blog right now, but I just use Posterous. I want to hand craft my own html and javascript to make it my own creation. Why? Because I need to know how to do it. I need to know how it works. I am sick of templates and "this is great but…" and not being able to fix it.

I was scanning the interwebz for inspiration and I found it. Mick Hagen. I am going to copy http://mickhagen.com/ Mick is a great entrepreneur who founded Zinch. His site is simple, and classy.

So how do I do it? I spend a few minutes poking around Mick's site with the Dev tools on Safari. What I found was good and bad.

Good – simple site, not too much going on.

Bad – lots of jQuery.

How much do I know about jQuery? Well… I know it is a great web technology and I know the framework uses lots of $ symbols. Can you guess what my post tomorrow will be about?

So my goal is to have a simple (simple people) personal website up and live on the internet, in 2 weeks.

#LetsDoThis Day 2

(I think Captain America would have his own website. And we all know how it would be. Awesome.)

Posted on May 4, 2012 by admin

365

Post #1

Right here, right now, I am publicly committing to writing a blog post about something I learned everyday. For a year. Why? I am sick and tired of having ideas and not being able to make them become real. I will learn something new everyday. Let me know of your following along or you learned something as well. Posts will mostly be about technology and behavior. Sunday’s will be something inspirational or spiritual. If you don’t believe in a higher power, feel free to skip Sundays. I will post some goals that I want to accomplish over the course of this year tomorrow. Let’s do this.

Posted on May 3, 2012 by admin

How to Double your Macbook Memory for $45 in 10 minutes

I just bought 8 gb of Macbook memory from Amazon. Cost is $45. Is it worth it?

I use my computer for literally hours each day. Paying 45 dollars to increase the speed? Priceless. Also Apple made the process super easy. I love Apple, and the way that they think through the problems a user might face.

Clicked on About This Mac. Got a nice little overview. Notice it even tells me what type of memory to buy. Apple thought about it and placed that information front and center. Nothing is worse than buying the wrong type of memory. Nothing.

But I wanted to be sure, so I clicked on more info.

This great screen came up. I clicked on the Memory tab, and saw this awesome screen. I was really surprised. I had never seen this screen before and it is so well done.

If you have ever replaced memory before, you know how awesome this screen is. AWESOME. It tells you the type again, it tells you how many slots you have, and how much RAM you have in them. Many a man has cried in the night when he purchased new RAM only to find that he didn't have the slots, or it was the wrong type.

But it gets better. I clicked on the Upgrade Instructions.

Love how they put the link that says "Look, we know you don't know which model you have, so let's make this easy." It takes you to this nice page.

How simple is that? Get your serial number, (Apple tells you where), type it the search box. Boom. The only thing easier would be for Apple to put a hotlink on the serial number that would take you straight to the ID page. You hearing this Apple?

Then these wonderful instructions pop up, so when my RAM arrives in 2 days, with free shipping, due to my Amazon Prime membership, I can pop it right in. Now I just need to find someone who has a really, really, tiny screwdriver. I didn't even know they made a #00 size!

How much RAM do you have in your computer?

PS – some links are affiliate.

Posted on March 17, 2012 by admin

How to Double your Macbook Memory for $45 in 10 minutes

I just bought 8 gb of Macbook memory from Amazon. Cost is $45. Is it worth it?

But I wanted to be sure, so I clicked on more info.

This great screen came up. I clicked on the Memory tab, and saw this awesome screen. I was really surprised. I had never seen this screen before and it is so well done.

But it gets better. I clicked on the Upgrade Instructions.

Love how they put the link that says "Look, we know you don't know which model you have, so let's make this easy." It takes you to this nice page.

How much RAM do you have in your computer?

PS – some links are affiliate.

Posted on March 17, 2012 by admin

Draw Something – Marmalade Error

If you have too many facebook friends Draw Something breaks. But why?

I noticed this error when I tried to connect to some friends via fb. The app threw up two really weird errors and crashed.

It appears Draw Something knows about the error. But I wanted to know why. I posted about the error and a few of my friends responded they had the same problem. I looked at the amount of friends they had and it is over a thousand in each case. Can Draw Something just not handle a long list of fb friends?

Error (Marmalade v5.2.1)

Heap 0 out of memory. Allocating 768 but only 224 available (204 LFB). Increasing ice setting [s3e] MemSize (current value is 12000000).

An interesting side note is this error exposed the framework that Draw Something is using.

Posted on March 15, 2012 by admin

Draw Something – Marmalade Error

If you have too many facebook friends Draw Something breaks. But why?

I noticed this error when I tried to connect to some friends via fb. The app threw up two really weird errors and crashed.

Error (Marmalade v5.2.1)

Heap 0 out of memory. Allocating 768 but only 224 available (204 LFB). Increasing ice setting [s3e] MemSize (current value is 12000000).

An interesting side note is this error exposed the framework that Draw Something is using.

Posted on March 15, 2012 by admin

Conflict and How to Manage It.

For the TD:LR crowd – how do you know you are in conflict, and think about what you really want and what they really want.

In my leadership class we learned about conflict this week. And I learned an interesting question.

What are your physiological responses you have in conflict?

If you don't know your in conflict, you can't manage it. Do your palms get sweaty, or does your heart race? Does your face turn purple and you start yelling?

Analyzing my conflict management skills, I found that I get tense and excited when I am in conflict. I usually avoid conflict, but when I really am invested in the outcome, or it is important to me I dive in. I get tense and excited because I know that this is a tipping point. The outcome of this decision can influence the future in various degrees.

So now that you know your responses, you can recognize when you are feeling conflict and you can manage it. Here are some steps to go through to proactively manage your thoughts and emotions in a productive way to manage and solve your conflict.

1. Think about the outcome you want, and what the opposite party wants.

What do you want/think should happen. What does the other person want and think should happen. Don't look at just the surface level. If you can't agree on what movie to watch don't stop at "They want Bambi and I want Inception." Look deeper. Maybe they don't really want Bambi, they want a calming movie. You want a thinking movie. Which moves us to the second point.

2. Think about compromising.

Do you NEED to have your outcome? Think about the best case and worst case scenario. Then think about…

3. Collaborate

Maybe you can work together and get to a better outcome than either of you had planned. You want a thinking movie. She wants a happy movie. What about both? A quick Google search could indicate you should watch Hugo!

4. Determine if you are conflicting or competing.

Sometimes you need to take a step back and think about what is actually happening. Are you in conflict because you can't agree, or are you competing because you don't want to agree? Sometimes conflict can be exciting and we get caught in the trap of prolonging conflict because we find it interesting and or exciting. In life, sometime we have to compete against other players, in business and sports for example, but these competitions don't have to turn into conflict. Be careful that you know what you are doing, and why you are doing it.

ps – Movie links are affiliate.

Posted on March 14, 2012 by admin

Skiing for the first time this year – AND Snow website Idea

Group of friends and I are going night boarding at Brighton for the first ski of the season for me. First time skiing you ask? Why, it is Feburary?! Yes, I say, yes it is. But the snow has not been kind to us. Brighton is sitting at 70 inch mountain average. In Feburary.

(But why is the snow gone? – said in Jack Sparrows voice)

I know that weather cycles are cyclical. And Utah had one of the best snow seasons ever last year. I looked up the averages for Brighton. 500+ or 410+ depending on who you ask. 70/410 = 17%. Pathetic.

However it will be fun. I just wonder is there a site where you can see the historic average for each year? If such a site existed it could warn you whether or not to buy a ski pass this year. Imagine getting this email,

"Warning, low snow year predicted. The scientists at SnowYear.com (haven't checked, probably taken) have been pouring over the data and we have bad news. It looks like a 60% chance this year will be a bad snow year. So think twice before buying a pass. If you don't get a pass, here are a few great offers on lift tickets (list of affiliate ads and offers for lift tickets)"

What do you think, would you sign up? It would be free, ad supported.

Posted on February 17, 2012 by admin