- Not everyone is comfortable with change and it is usually the hardest for people who least understand it. #
- Insurance companies are nervous. I have had two calls already today (vs. 0 in the last year) to see if I am interested in their $$$ policies #
- Who doesn't love a good game of skee-ball now and then? #
- Want the best tip for CSS dev/debugging? Throw a background on the class/id in question. Seeing it that way will save hours/days. #
- My 3 year old got his mad Mario 3 skills from me
# - I just bought a card catalog! #
Archive for March, 2010
All posts written in March, 2010.
Mar
28
2010
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-28
Mar
26
2010
Jappler Recommends: Trim the Fat With Facebook Status Updates
I cannot tell you how bothered I am when my “news feed” is littered with all sorts of updates about zoo this, farmville that. I like to keep up to date on family friends but I really do not care about the games they are playing which I am not participating in. Fortunately – Facebook allows you to “hide” statuses from applications.
If you want to hide these as well (or anyone in your newsfeed which you might not really care about) – simply hover over the status update and a “hide” link will appear. You can either block that application or the person.
This made my day!
Mar
25
2010
Make Opportunities
Several years ago, the company I worked for had a secretary full of life lessons which she would tell me about each morning. Out of everything she ever told me – one thing really stuck. She told me “Jen – don’t wait for opportunities, make them”. There are not too many days that go by that I do not think about that.
So many people wait around for “that phone call, that new job, that right guy/girl, etc” (you fill in the blank) and those people will often live most of their life with regrets and/or with dead end jobs. It is easier to stay stuck in a rut than to actually make a change and if that is how you live your life – that is fine, but I wanted more.
With the economy the way it is, I have seen a lot of people get laid off or feel like they have to stay in their mind numbing job because it is “too risky” to move into a new job. At some point in your life you either have to “shut up or do something” and for your benefit – I hope you do something. The best thing I have done in my life was to stop waiting around for things to happen to me and to go out on my own and start something that was mine and I enjoyed. While it was risky – I got to a point where it felt more risky not to do anything. I finally took the secretary’s words into consideration and have not regretted it whatsoever.
I do not mean to preach, but I do ask you to take chance and to think about what you want – not in a month from now, but in 5 years from now. Can your current situation provide that? If not, what can you do to make a difference? Whatever you do, take a chance and make that opportunity instead of waiting for it!
Mar
23
2010
Health Care Reform
I was up late Sunday night watching the news coverage on this and I was happy I could witness this historical moment in our country’s history. Everyone has their own opinion on the bill that was passed and here is mine. I do not expect all to agree, but here is my take.
As a small business owner I am delighted to hear that this is available. Trying to find affordable and quality health care for my business has been a nightmare – now there will be an option for people who would have been turned away due to pre-existing conditions or any other reason. I have personally experienced the difficulty of getting insurance as well as have several other friends who wanted to start their own business but could not because they could not qualify for insurance because of knee surgeries, etc. Now – they can no longer sit in a dead end job “just for the insurance”.
While I do not think this law makes us a socialist nation or that the government is going to take over everything, reform and regulations must be put in place. It is time the doctors treat you and not the insurance companies.
Further more, over the last few months as more and more of my hard core Republican friends who have been laid off are getting near to the end of their Cobra coverage are starting to freak out because they cannot get health insurance. At this extremely stressful point in their lives – they finally realized an option (private insurance companies of course) would literally be life saving. Funny how things work…
Honestly – I think this is a lot less invasive and a lot more beneficial than most people understand it to be. I have my family members and friends who still think Obama and the left wing are going to take their guns from them and I am saddened by the fact they live with such unrealistic fear. The same goes for health care. It is well known that the Republican party is much better at communicating with the public (even if it takes scare tactics) than the Democrats, and I believe this is the real issue here. The Democrats are so surprised how far the Republicans go to sway their contingency that they fail to communicate at all with further polarizes us.
I am an independent and see value in both parties’ views on particular issues, but I am happy to see this get signed into law and hopefully this will help a number of people – especially now when so many people are out of work and have no health insurance.
Mar
21
2010
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-21
- @topspinmedia looks great! in reply to topspinmedia #
- It's time for corned beef sandwiches. Happy St. Patrick's Day! #
- The person who wants things the quickest 100% of the time pays the latest. Nice #
Powered by Twitter Tools
Mar
14
2010
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-14
- Here's to spring! It is supposed to be 50 today and I look forward to opening a few windows! #
- Just got my first response back to a support/bug report I sent on August 8, 2008. At this point, I am impressed they responded! #
- Note to self: take glasses to eye doctor appointment so I can actually see the doctor after my contacts are out. #
- Finally – some sun here in Chicago. Hello! #
- Business 101 at JZ U – Learning Timezones. It blows my mind every time when people do not know their timezone differences (EST, MST, PST) #
- Nice – GL is on Hulu: http://www.hulu.com/guiding-light Yeah! #
- @KYellowFarm my grandmother listened to on the radio, my mother watched it, and I watched it every day since 4th gradeish! in reply to KYellowFarm #
- iPad: ordered. #
- @htoddcarter because I love cool Apple toys. in reply to htoddcarter #
Powered by Twitter Tools
Mar
05
2010
Quick iCal Tip: Set Your Default Calendar
I have been going crazy trying to figure out why all my incoming meeting.ics files were going to my QuickBooks calendar (I have several calendars) and not another one. There had to be a setting somewhere, right? I could not find it, but I did discover how to inadvertently set it: drag the calendar you want to use as the default to the top (same goes with Mail.app with setting the default account).
Mar
04
2010
Jappler Recommends: Best Tools of the Trade
In the last year or so I have really found a great set of tools that I use for almost any/all projects if needed. If you are considering building a web site or a web application – consider taking a look at the following (and consider using this as your “WWJU (what would Jen use) list:
- CMS: WordPress
- Javascript Library: jQuery
- Slideshow: jQuery Cycle
- Accordion: jQuery Accordion
- Open Source Flash Player: Flow Player
- JS UI Tools: jQuery Tools (overlays, tooltips, etc)
- JS QA Tool: JS Lint (find/correct those errors!)
- Web Site Best Practices: Yahoo! Recommendations
- Minify Tool: minify (minify your JS/CSS)
- Basic Tutorials: W3 Schools (JS/XHTML/PHP, etc)
- Hosting: Liquid Web
- Offsite Backups: Jungle Disk
If you ever need any recommendations – please ask. 
Mar
01
2010
When is Vacation?
I have been going non-stop now since the summer and dream of some time away from it all so I can either finish something fun or just relax yet every week day, weekend, and non-sleeping hour seems to be jammed packed with something.
I absolutely love owning my own business but sometimes it makes things like taking time off or getting away a bit more complicated. Let me re-phrase that…getting completely away.
Any business owners out there that have a secret they want to share so I can better enjoy my time?
I am happy to be busy but it seems lately – clients are contacting me via phone, email, even Facebook (had to adjust my privacy settings) at all times and are non-stop.
Serenity now!
