Gwen's Sententia

: Name: Gwen Nicodemus; Location: Broomfield, Colorado, United States

I'm a stay-at-home, homeschooling ex-engineer mother with a bunch of ferrets. My kids and I raise Guide Dog Puppies.

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Basic website formats

Almost all websites follow one of a few basic, simple designs and a few basic, simple rules.

Logos and Company Name

Almost always, the company’s logo is located on the top left section of the web page and the company’s name is located on the top right. We are used to looking at the top of a page first, and we read left to right, at least in the United States. Since most companies want to “brand” themselves to their logo and company name, it makes sense to put the logo and company name at the top of the page.

Amount of Content on a Page

The standard these days is for a web page to fit on a screen. Rarely do you see web sites these days where you must scroll down a lot to read the web page. This makes sense. Why? We live in a day and age of sound bytes. People like data that’s short, sweet, and to the point.

Templates

Many websites today are set up with templates. That is, there is a template page. Each and every page in the website is then based off of the template. There are several advantages to using templates. Firstly, if you make a change to the template, it automatically makes the change to every page in the website. Secondly, it helps maintain consistency in the website. Lastly, it reinforces logo and name branding.

Navigation Links

Most websites today have a bar of navigation links. The navigation bar might be at the top of the page, at the bottom, on the left, on the right, or a mixture of all of the above. Each navigation link leads to a different page in the website.

Formats

You might look at 100 different web pages and see 100 different designs, but there are really only a few different designs for web pages. The differences that you see are usually just in colors and graphics. There is only so much you can do in HTML, after all. The basic formats are shown (left).

Labels: basic formats, design, virtual assistant, web

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Loads of fun for $7.60

When I was just a wee little lass, full of health and joy, I liked to pretend I was an adult, and copied my elders just about any way I could.

When I was a toddler, I talked on my bright colored toy phones. I typed on my dad’s whirring Selectric. I pretended to read books like my dad, and I sure hope I did not pretend to smoke like my mother. I have a vivid memory of “driving” a grocery cart to the store with my children (baby kittens) in the “car.”

When I was a tween, I had a bikini swimsuit. I occasionally wore the swimsuit top under my clothes pretending it was a bra. Imitation is a form of learning, and I liked to learn.

One thing all adults seemed to have that I didn’t have as a child was a wallet with a lot of cards and papers in it. I saved my allowance a few times and bought a wallet. I loved filling out the blank identification cards and fake credit cards in the new wallets. It was great.

Well, the years moved by quickly it seems, and I have my own little girl and boy. My children are just like I was and all children are. They like to pretend. They like to pretend to be animals. My daughter’s fond of making her baby brother play “doggie” and she plays “human” and they play fetch together.

Watching my kids pretend play, I never forgot how much I enjoyed the wallet toy. When my kids were really little, I gave them old wallets of mine. I laminated wallet size pictures of friends, family, pictures of food, and articles of clothing. I gave them those “cards” and the wallets, and they seemed to enjoy the wallet toy. And, I got to use my laminator to boot!

When my daughter turned 5, she started carrying her purse around everywhere. I decided to do what I could to get her real cards. What could it hurt?

At the age of 5, the Broomfield Library allows kids to have their own library cards. (I do have it set up in my computer so I can check to see when her books are due. She is only five.)

The next card she acquired was her “driver’s license.” I asked her to put on her prettiest clothes and she picked out a nice dress. I combed her hair and put two pigtails in and made sure her face was clean. I dug up her Social Security card and her birth certificate and we went to the driver’s license bureau. She felt like a big girl as she signed her name, had her index finger print taken, and her picture taken. They had to get a stool out for her to stand upon since the camera wouldn’t adjust that low. Her “license” came in the mail about ten days later and she loved it. She put it in her wallet. She’s had it for six months and she hasn’t lost it yet.

My 3-year-old son is getting bigger and he wanted a driver’s license. So, I found a non-stained shirt for him to wear. (That was a big challenge since he’s all boy and I’m not so good with laundry.) I actually styled his hair and put product in it and some blue spike gel, so he had blue spiky hair and looked really cute. My son was not as well behaved waiting for his turn at the driver’s license bureau as his sister, but we made it through. He also enjoyed signing his name, having his finger photographed, and having me hold him up high for his photograph. He had a big grin on his face.

State IDs in Colorado are currently running $7.60, and the moment he lays eyes on it, it’ll be his heart’s delight.

Labels: education, educational, fun things to do with kids, parenting, Tammy Vass

Foaming soap

Foaming soap is all the rage these days. It’s kind of cool to pump fluffy bubbles onto your hands to wash them, and since most of us equate clean with bubbles, it certainly seems like you’re getting cleaner. As an added benefit, you can refill your foaming soap containers with a mixture of soap and water and save money on soap. Less soap is released into the water system. It’s all good.

But is foaming soap any better than normal soap?

I tend to think foaming soap is better. Afterall, all those bubbles have surfaces and the increased surface area of the cleaning reagent seems to me that it’s greatly increased. I have a friend who swears by foaming soap and regularly brings me new kinds to try.

Again, is foaming soap any better than normal soap?

I read Science News frequently. In fact, it’s probably my favorite magazine. The magazine recently featured a little article on hand washing. I don’t remember the actual numbers, but it was something like washing your hands with waterless cleaners remove 50% of the germs on your hands while washing with straight water removes 95% of the germs. Washing with soap and water removes 99% of the germs.

If foaming soap removes another 0.5% (WAG) of germs than normal soap, the incremental advantage doesn’t seem that great.

I am going to stick with foaming soap. The refill cost and the idea that less soap is going into the water system makes it worthwhile to me.

Labels: foam, soap, tensegrity

Relaxed Parenting

My kids are relatively self-entertaining. Some of the women in my MOMS Club® talk about how they have to sit down and play with their kids constantly, and their kids cannot seem to entertain themselves. My kids are not like this. These same mothers also have their kids in swim school, preschool, gymnastic school, and many other "schools." My kids are only in one structured class a week. The great difference in my laid back child raising philosophy and these other mothers' philosophies has occasionally caused me to think, "Am I a bad mother? Should I be teaching my kids how to read at the age of 3? Should I have them in more classes?" After a little worry, I'd stick with my original laid back attitude.

Einstein Never Used Flash Cards eradicated those small spells of guilt and worry. After reading this book I am confident in my mothering skills, and I actually think it is good for the kids that I don't entertain them. Now, don't get me wrong, I do play with my kids here and there; however, I don't play with them constantly. I think it's good that I don't have every hour of the day mapped out for my kids. The book reconfirmed this idea for me and backed it with research.

One section of the book brought an image into my head of my great grandmother, who lived on a farm, working in the kitchen while my grandpa sat on the floor. Great grandma Goldie didn't have a washing machine, so she had to put forth effort and sweat on a washboard. My mental image didn't have Goldie teaching baby Rex his ABCs whilst she worked. I doubt Goldie had the time to do that with my grandfather or his three brothers on the farm. And you know what? My grandfather is one sharp dude.

The best thing about this book is that it reaffirmed my parenting style and helped me feel confident with it. Also, when a "hyper-parent" gives me a dirty look, I can just tell them about Einstein Never Used Flash Cards.

Labels: parenting, philosophy

Friday, November 10, 2006

How to create a strong password

Strong passwords have a combination of lower and upper case letters, numbers or other symbols, and most importantly, they don’t make sense to anyone but the creator. The trick is to create strong passwords that can actually be remembered. I recommend a strategy rather than a password program.

Do not pick a word. Come up with a scheme that generates seemingly random letters. One favorite technique is to think of a song that you like. Recite the lyrics to the song. Lately, I have had Peter, Paul, and Mary’s The Marvelous Toy stuck in my head. The lyrics start like this: “When I Was Just A Wee Little Lad" (Poems, books, and quotes could also be used this way.)

Then choose the first, last, or every nth letter of each word. I tend to choose the first letter. Write those letters out: WIwjawll -That’s a good start of a password. There’s a couple of uppercase letters, a couple of lower case letters, and it doesn’t make any sense. It looks random.

Next, add some numbers or symbols to your password. One simple way to do this is to replace small l’s with number 1’s and e’s with 3’s, etcetera.

Another way to add numbers to your password is to come up with some numbers that mean something to you, but are not:

Your birthday
Your spouse’s birthday
Your children’s birthday
Your phone number
Your social security

What’s left after that? Well, there’s several numbers left over:

The address of the house you grew up in
Your dog’s birthday
Your great grandma’s age at death
The year your grandmother, mother, father, or grandfather were born
Your parent’s anniversary

Or, you could pick a short word and pick the numbers off a telephone. For example, dog is 364.

After you’ve picked your “random” letters and your “random” numbers, put them together.

So, I might have a password of WIwjawll364 or 364WIwjaw.

What makes these passwords strong?

They are not in a dictionary.
The words are not on the About section of your web page.
The words are not in any public records about you.
The possible combinations have gone up tremendously. Instead of your birthday (1 possible day), if you use a great grandparent’s birthday you have 8 possible combinations. If you use your anniversary, you have one number. If you use your grandparent’s anniversary, you have 2 possible numbers.

Strong passwords require CPU time to crack. Most hackers prefer easy-to-access accounts rather than having their computer chug away at it for hours.

Labels: how to, password, strong, virtual assistant

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