Lesson 1

A really good way to discover how the nights might feel…

1. Get home from work and immediately begin walking around the living
room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12
pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound)
playing loudly. (Eat cold food with one hand for dinner).
2. At 10PM, put the bag gently down, set the alarm for midnight, and
go to sleep.
3. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag,
until 1AM.
4. Set the alarm for 3AM.
5. As you can’t get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink and
watch an infomercial.
6. Go to bed at 2:45AM.
7. Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs quietly in the dark until 4AM.
9. Get up. Make breakfast. Get ready for work and go to work (work
hard and be productive)

Repeat steps 1-9 each night. Keep this up for 3-5 years.

Look cheerful and together.

Lesson 2

Feeding a baby…

1. Hollow out a melon.
2. Make a small hole in the side.
3. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.
4. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into
the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.
5. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.
6. Tip half into your lap. The other half, just throw up in the air.

You are now ready to feed a nine month-old baby.

Lesson 3

Ah, patience is a virtue…

Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying ‘mommy’ repeatedly.
(Important: no more than a four second delay between each ‘mommy’;
occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required).
Play this tape in your car everywhere you go for the next four years.
You are now ready to have a toddler.

Lesson 4

Start talking to an adult of your choice. Have someone else
continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt- sleeve, or elbow while
playing the ‘mommy’ tape made from Lesson 3 above. You are now ready
to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the
room.

Lesson 5

Shopping with kids…

1. Go to the local grocery store.
2. Take with you the closest thing you can find to a pre-school
child. (A full-grown goat is an excellent choice). If you intend to
have more than one child, then definitely take more than one goat.
3. Buy your week’s groceries without letting the goats out of your
sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys.

Lesson 6

Can you stand the mess children make? To find out…

1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains.
2. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there
all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed.
4. Then rub them on the clean walls.
5. Take your favorite book, photo album, etc. Wreck it.
6. Spill milk on your new pillows. Cover the stains with crayons.

How does that look?

Lesson 7

Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don’t think that you can leave
it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don’t look
like that.

1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove
compartment. Leave it there.
2. Get a dime. Stick it in the CD player.
3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into
the back seat. Sprinkle cheerios all over the floor, then mash them
with your foot.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Lesson 8

Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.

1. Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms
hang out.
Time allowed for this – all morning.

Lesson 9

Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street, Barney,
Disney, the Teletubbies, and Pokemon. Watch nothing else on TV but
PBS, the Disney channel or Noggin for at least five years. (I know,
you’re thinking, what’s ‘Noggin’?) Exactly the point.

Lesson 10

Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who
already are parents and berate them about their…

1. Methods of discipline.
2. Lack of patience.
3. Appallingly low tolerance levels.
4. Allowing their children to run wild.
5. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child’s
breastfeeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and
overall behavior.

Enjoy it, because it will be the last time in your life you will have
all the answers.

Post from: Indigio Blog - Colorado's premier Interactive Agency blog - specializing in SEO, Creative Design, Development and Analytics

for(; rSet.next(); cityList.add(rSet.getString(1)))
      log.debug(”<OracleCountryDAO><getCities> entering the rSet while loop”);

Post from: Indigio Blog - Colorado's premier Interactive Agency blog - specializing in SEO, Creative Design, Development and Analytics

Internet Browsing:

• Alt + d (or) F6 = Place your cursor in the address bar of the browser.
• Alt + <- (left arrow) = Go back one page.
• Alt + -> (right arrow) = Go forward one page.
• Ctrl + w = Close the current tab, or if no tabs are open, close the browser.
• Ctrl + t = Open a new tab.

General Use:

• Ctrl + z = Undo the last action. (I use this constantly)
• Ctrl + y = Redo the action that you undid.
• Ctrl + Shift + Esc = Open the Windows Task Manager directly, bypassing the annoyance of having to Ctrl + Alt + Delete first.
• Alt + F4 = Close the current window/program.
  
• Ctrl + c = Copy the selected item.
• Ctrl + x = Cut the selected text.
• Ctrl + v = Paste the copied item.

Most of the listed commands are universal (in that they work for Windows, Linux, and Mac) but some are OS specific.

Post from: Indigio Blog - Colorado's premier Interactive Agency blog - specializing in SEO, Creative Design, Development and Analytics

<aspStick out tonguelaceHolder runat=”server” ID=”m_errorPlaceHolder”>

<SharePointBig SmileelegateControl

Post from: Indigio Blog - Colorado's premier Interactive Agency blog - specializing in SEO, Creative Design, Development and Analytics

Are you an impulse buyer?

Do you over-spend?

Or do you just plain waste money on the stuff you don’t need?

Spendster.org began as the brainchild of the National Endowment for Financial Education® (NEFE®) CEO, Ted Beck. On a trip to Los Angeles, Ted said, “Listen, everyone has a drawer at home full with junk. I doubt anyone has really sat down to think about how much money they’ve spent on it all.”

Do you have a story to share? Or if you’re too embarrassed to tell the world what you spend your money on, you can always use the Spendster Calucator to figure out what your money would have been worth if you had bought Google stock back in 2004 or put the money in a high interest banking account for 40 years.

Check out the site at Spendster.org and if you see someone on there talking about their designer purse obsession…don’t tell my husband it’s me!

Post from: Indigio Blog - Colorado's premier Interactive Agency blog - specializing in SEO, Creative Design, Development and Analytics

When you enable Mail Goggles, it will check that you’re really sure you want to send that late night Friday email. And what better way to check than by making you solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you’re in the right state of mind?

Read the details on the Official Google Blog.

Post from: Indigio Blog - Colorado's premier Interactive Agency blog - specializing in SEO, Creative Design, Development and Analytics

Dear Amazon Web Services Developer,

We are excited to let you know that Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) will offer you the ability to run Microsoft Windows Server or Microsoft SQL Server starting later this Fall. Today, you can choose from a variety of Unix-based operating systems, and soon you will be able to configure your instances to run the Windows Server operating system. In addition, you will be able to use SQL Server as another option within Amazon EC2 for running relational databases.

Amazon EC2 running Windows Server or SQL Server provides an ideal environment for deploying ASP.NET web sites, high performance computing clusters, media transcoding solutions, and many other Windows-based applications. By choosing Amazon EC2 as the deployment environment for your Windows-based applications, you will be able to take advantage of Amazons proven scalability and reliability, as well as the cost-effective, pay-as-you-go pricing model offered by Amazon Web Services.

Our goal is to support any and all of the programming models, operating systems and database servers that you need for building applications on our cloud computing platform. The ability to run a Windows environment within Amazon EC2 has been one of our most requested features, and we are excited to be able to provide this capability. We are currently operating a private beta of Amazon EC2 running Windows Server and SQL Server. Please go to aws.amazon.com/windows if you are interested in being notified later this Fall when the offering is released broadly.

Sincerely,

The Amazon Web Services Team

It will be interesting to see what the pricing model looks like.

Post from: Indigio Blog - Colorado's premier Interactive Agency blog - specializing in SEO, Creative Design, Development and Analytics

Post from: Indigio Blog - Colorado's premier Interactive Agency blog - specializing in SEO, Creative Design, Development and Analytics

Here is an example of it’s coolness:

echo date(”m/d/Y h:i:s”, strtotime(’last week’)) . “\n”;

08/22/2008 09:12:18

Or how about:

echo date(”m/d/Y h:i:s”, strtotime(’next tuesday’)) . “\n”;

09/02/2008 12:00:00

It follows the Gnu Date Input Formats as seen here.  As you can see, it recognizes many formats of time, and fuzzy time values like “next”, “this”, “last”, “tomorrow”, “yesterday”.  Extremely handy.

But… It can’t parse srings like “first day of last month”.  This is not hard to accomplish though, with another great function, mktime.

echo date(”m/d/Y h:i:s”, mktime(0, 0, 0, date(’m') – 1, 1)) . “\n”;

07/01/2008 12:00:00

And, the last day of next month is just as easy:

echo date(”m/d/Y h:i:s”, mktime(0, 0, 0, date(’m') + 1, date(’t', strtotime(’next month’)))) . “\n”;

09/30/2008 12:00:00

Also, with using mktime with + and -, you don’t even have to worry about things like rolling back from 1/1/2008 to 12/31/2007.  It’ll handle that for you.  It knows that January minus 1 is December of last year.

Post from: Indigio Blog - Colorado's premier Interactive Agency blog - specializing in SEO, Creative Design, Development and Analytics

1. Do not load unnecessary add-ins in the Add-in Manager when QuickTest starts.
2. Run your tests in “Fast” mode. From the Run tab in the Options dialog box, select the “Fast” option.
3. If you are not using the Active Screen while editing your test, hide the Active Screen. Choose View > Active Screen, or toggle the Active Screen toolbar button to hide the Active Screen.
4. Decide if and how much information you want to capture and save in the Active Screen. The more information you capture, the slower recording and editing times. You can choose from the following Active Screen options to improve performance:
4.1 If you are testing Windows applications, you can choose to save all Active Screen information in every step, save information only in certain steps, or to disable Active Screen captures entirely. You set this preference in the Active Screen tab of the Options dialog box.
4.2 If you are testing Web applications, you can disable screen capture of all steps in the Active Screen. From the Active Screen tab of the Options dialog box, click Custom Level to open the Custom Active Screen Capture Settings dialog box. Select the Disable Active Screen Capture option. This will improve recording time.
4.3 When you save a new test, or when you save a test with a new name using Save As, you can choose not to save the captured Active Screen files with the test by clearing the Save Active Screen files option in the Save or Save As dialog box. This is especially useful when you have finished designing your test and you plan to use your test only for test runs. Tests without Active Screen files open more quickly and use significantly less disk space.
5. Decide when you want to capture and save images of the application for the test results. Unless absolutely required, uncheck the options “Save still image capture to results” and “Save movie to results” present under Tools > Options > Run tab. 
6. Define variables and function in an external .vbs files and not inside an action. Then associate these files with your test script. If you define a variable or a function in an action, during each iteration of a test run, memory will be allocated to those variables/functions and would not be released.
7. Have more RAM than what is recommended by HP and good processor speed (System Requirements for QTP 9.2 are “Minimum of 512 MB of RAM” and “Pentinum IV”).
8. When you have tests (QTP) running for a long period if time, there are chances of memory leaks. To avoid memory leakage, always restart QTP from time to time.
9. Avoid using hard coded wait(x) statement. Wait statement waits for full x seconds, even if the event has already occurred. Instead use .sync or .exist. When using .exist property, always set TimeOut value.
10. Use Descriptive Programming instead of Object Repository. The lesser the function calls the Object Repository, the faster the script runs.
11. If using Object Repository, use “With” statement which can be set in Tools > Options > General Tab > “Automatically Generate “With” statements after recording”. When using “With” statement, the reference to the object is getting stored in the memory and gets referenced without calling the Object Repository.
12. If using Object Repository, disable Smart Identification in File -> Settings -> Run Tab. Instead, add additional properties to an object, so QTP can identify it without using Smart Identification.
13. Make sure that Object Synchronization Timeout in File->Settings->Run is set to 1 second.
14. When using objects like DB connections or MS Office COM, make sure you don’t create and initialize these objects multiple times (e.g. re-opening an excel file whenever you write to it).
15. Make sure that code doesn’t wait for an event that has already occurred. For example, if you are using wait loop for an object to appear, do not simply wait for 20 seconds. Instead, wait until wait time has passed OR until the object appears.  This way, if the object appears after 10 seconds, you do not waste 10 seconds.

Mike Girenko

Post from: Indigio Blog - Colorado's premier Interactive Agency blog - specializing in SEO, Creative Design, Development and Analytics

 

I bet you are thinking this is just another message about the DNC and Safety…

The new Indigio/Bridgeline stair challenge will be starting soon- please let me know if you are interested.

I found this on our new Cigna site for Health-

There are many other ways to fit activity into your day. Try some of the following – if you have a family, numbers 9-13 may be more applicable.

1.      Instead of taking the elevator or standing on escalators, walk up and down the stairs.

2.      Take a break and walk around the office every hour. This will also help improve stress levels and concentration.

3.      Go for a 10-20 minute brisk walk at lunchtime.

4.      Try a different restaurant at lunch that is further away or take a route that you know.

5.      On the way to and from work, try to get off the train or bus a stop before your normal one so you have to walk further. Or walk to and from the station and home instead of driving or getting a ride.

6.      Cycle to work. Make sure you have a road-worthy bike, a helmet, reflective and bright clothing, and know the way!

7.      Maximize your free time at the weekends taking long brisk walks, cycling, jogging, or going swimming. The greater the pace, the greater the number of points!

8.      Consider getting up half an hour earlier and exercising before work.

9.      Exercise at lunchtime.

10.  If you have small children and like to run, buy a baby jogger.

11.  Turn off the TV and play with the kids.

12.  Go swimming with your children, making sure you swim some lengths.

13.  Plan family outings such as walking in a park, or skating at an ice rink.

14.  If you take your kids to play football or cub scouts or brownies, go for a jog/walk while you wait for them.

Post from: Indigio Blog - Colorado's premier Interactive Agency blog - specializing in SEO, Creative Design, Development and Analytics

This works fine on non-secure pages but, once its https, you will get security popups. Of course the reason I was even using an iframe was to get around the bug in IE 6 where dropdown/selects bleed through any content floating above it (a.k.a. div over shim hack). So my fix for IE 6 caused even more IE 6 issues….. Good grief!

Post from: Indigio Blog - Colorado's premier Interactive Agency blog - specializing in SEO, Creative Design, Development and Analytics

Post from: Indigio Blog - Colorado's premier Interactive Agency blog - specializing in SEO, Creative Design, Development and Analytics

This link will take you straight to the portfolio page:

www.jennifermaestre.com/portfolio.php

Post from: Indigio Blog - Colorado's premier Interactive Agency blog - specializing in SEO, Creative Design, Development and Analytics

Post from: Indigio Blog - Colorado's premier Interactive Agency blog - specializing in SEO, Creative Design, Development and Analytics