tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24988940844913043942024-01-13T03:11:53.675-08:00Jaress LooJust saving stuff for me to use later...Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491271314005966546noreply@blogger.comBlogger60125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2498894084491304394.post-40936434941011055432014-04-10T22:22:00.001-07:002014-04-10T22:22:12.941-07:00Google Chrome "Continue Where I Left Off" Registry SettingIf you're using Google Chrome in a corporate environment and you open the "Settings" page, you might see some settings that are grayed out / disabled.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVcRhbWLycQTcKHGM8n4GzfUtmHlKVGXoi-6efSE6oJIRBNDNk7PlaVAMJ4iy6ONfTLFFP-r9U3X56zF6tockQj0hX1bxHUWIXpoBzHTAzJsATd4tQZ7p99ehPBlD4-O6ugTZ5snMtd6c/s1600/Capture.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVcRhbWLycQTcKHGM8n4GzfUtmHlKVGXoi-6efSE6oJIRBNDNk7PlaVAMJ4iy6ONfTLFFP-r9U3X56zF6tockQj0hX1bxHUWIXpoBzHTAzJsATd4tQZ7p99ehPBlD4-O6ugTZ5snMtd6c/s320/Capture.PNG" height="149" width="320" /></a></div>
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One of the settings that I heavily depend on is the "Continue where I left off" under the "On startup" section. Believe it or not, there is a work around to this in the corporate environment if you have access to your local system registry.<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Open the system registry (regedit)</li>
<li>Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome</li>
<li>Double click on the "RestoreOnStartup" entry and in the "Value data" textbox, enter "1" (without quotes).</li>
<li>OK</li>
</ol>
<div>
There is no need to restart your machine for these settings to take effect, but you will, however, need to close out Chrome. As well as closing out the application, make sure you don't have any additional Chrome processes running in the System Tray. If you do, right click on those and select "Exit."</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Once all Chrome processes have been exited, launch Chrome again and Viola! - you should see your tabs restored again!</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491271314005966546noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2498894084491304394.post-13665666838821946122014-04-10T22:14:00.001-07:002014-04-10T22:21:03.232-07:00Removing Logmein From a MacI had been trying to figure out a way to remove Logmein from my mac for a while. Everywhere that I read, it kept saying that all you had to do was go to the "Applications" folder, find the Logmein Uninstaller and run it - this didn't exist on my mac!<br />
<br />
I followed this link and it helped me get it done!<br />
<br />
<a href="http://crazyedy.com/tech/?p=158">http://crazyedy.com/tech/?p=158</a><br />
<br />
Basically...:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Use Finder > Go > Go To Folder and type in: /Library/Application Support/LogMeIn/</li>
<li>In that folder, there is a "uninstall.sh" file or something similar.</li>
<li>Open a Terminal window and type "sudo " (yes...with the space after it), then drag the uninstall.sh file into the Terminal window and hit <ENTER>.</li>
</ol>
<div>
This worked for me! thanks CrazyEdy.com!</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491271314005966546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2498894084491304394.post-8895185108745854892012-06-07T03:17:00.000-07:002013-08-16T00:19:38.787-07:00Microsoft Offers Azure Shared Websites for Free!Microsoft has just announced today that they have provided a free option to use Azure for your website needs. You still have to pay for the database (SQL Server), which is very cheap ($5 / month for one 100MB database), but you are at least able to get a free shared hosting plan on Azure.<br />
<br />
This is something that I've been wanting for a long time because I have been wanting to get into Azure development, but have not wanted to spend the money to do it. This is an easy and very cheap way to get started.<br />
<br />
Check the <a href="http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/?scenario=web" title="Windows Azure Website Hosting">Windows Azure</a> site for complete pricing information and check <a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2012/06/07/meet-the-new-windows-azure.aspx" title="Scott Guthrie's blog">Scott Guthrie's blog</a> for more complete information on all of the new features just announced today!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491271314005966546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2498894084491304394.post-13577853255080261902012-05-27T13:02:00.000-07:002013-08-16T14:20:17.732-07:00Windows Authentication vs. SQL Server AuthenticationI recently got into a discussion on LinkedIn when someone posted a question on a group page asking what the difference is between Windows Authentication and SQL Server Authentication. I thought I'd write up a more thorough blog post about it in order to give a complete explanation.<br />
<br />
When dealing with SQL Server, there are two different ways to connect to the database engine:<br />
<ol><br />
<li>Windows Authentication</li>
<br />
<li>SQL Server Authentication</li>
</ol>
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br /><br />
Windows Authentication is simple. It means that if you're in a corporate environment, once you have logged in to your machine and have authenticated yourself via Active Directory, you do not have to provide your credentials again to applications that support Windows Authentication. This is otherwise known as "Single Sign On." You can achieve this same "Single Sign On" functionality on your own machine by installing SQL Server Express. By default, the installation will add your windows username as an "SA" or System Administrator to your SQL Server instance (usually .\sqlexpress). Then, when you launch SQL Server Management Studio to connect to your local SQL Server instance, you will be prompted with a login box where you can select SQL Server Authentication or Windows Authentication. Selecting Windows Authentication will use your machine username and password that you used when you logged in to your machine. SQL Server Authentication will prompt you for a username and password that you will have to type in.<br />
<br />
So...when you configuring your application to connect to SQL Server, you'll need a connection string. You can find a valid connection string from <a href="http://www.connectionstrings.com/" target="_blank" title="www.connectionstrings.com">http://www.connectionstrings.com</a>. If you're using a connection string that contains a username and password, then you are using SQL Server Authentication to connect to the database. This username and password is the same username and password combination that you would use if you were connecting to your database engine from launching SQL Server Management Studio. If your connection string contains something like "Trusted_Connection = True" or "Integrated Security = SSPI" and does <strong>not</strong>Â contain a username and password, then you are using Windows Authentication to connect to the database. In fact, you cannot use a username and password <strong>and </strong>"Trusted_Connection = True" or "Integrated Security = SSPI" because you will get an error.<br />
<br />
Now, after you're connection string has been utilized, you should be able to run your SELECT statements on your database without issue. This is because you are already <strong>authenticated</strong>Â on the SQL Server Instance. Most of the time, however, especially if you're developing an internet application (as opposed to an intranet application), you will also want to provide <strong>authorization</strong>Â (as opposed to authentication) to your database. This means that the user has already been <strong>authenticated</strong> (done by SQL Server), but still has to be <strong>authorized</strong>Â (done by your application).<br />
<br />
In order to provide this authorization, most applications will present a login screen to the user in order to obtain something like a username and password. This username and password that the user types in will be sent to the database to be checked against a "Users" table (or whatever you have called it in your application) to see if any entries in there match. If it matches, then the application will tell the user that they are now authorized to use the application and it will take them to the screen that they typically see after logging in.<br />
<br />
Think of Facebook, for example. When you visit facebook.com, you are presented with a login screen in the top right corner where you are asked for your email address and password. At this point, the application has most likely already been authenticated on the database backend, but is asking for <em>your </em>credentials so that it can authorize who <em>you</em>Â are. Once you have typed in your username and password, it will query Facebook's "Users" table to see if it finds a match with the email and address provided. If there is a match, then it <strong>authorizes</strong>Â you to use the Facebook application and shows you your Newsfeed screen.<br />
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Hopefully this helps you understand the different between Windows Authentication and SQL Server Authentication. If you need help, post a comment!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491271314005966546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2498894084491304394.post-53114489065357257142012-05-04T04:54:00.000-07:002013-08-16T14:19:48.475-07:00Using JSONs Special Properties of $ref and $idI am using the JSON.NET JSON serializer for an application that I'm building and the serializer was outputting something like this as a JSON object:<br />
<pre>var myArray = [
{
"AvailableStates": [
{
"$id": "1",
"CityID": "CA",
"Name": "California"},
{
"$id": "2",
"CityID": "NV",
"Name": "Nevada"}
],
"DefaultState": {
"$ref": "1"
}}
];</pre>
<pre></pre>
<pre>
</pre>
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br /><br />
I had never seen this <code>$ref</code> and <code>$id</code> tags before, so I didn't know how to use them or what to make of it. It turns out that in order to condense the JSON object into a smaller object, it avoids rewriting an object twice if it doesn't have to. In order to accomplish this, the JSON.NET serializer will serialize these special JSON properties of <code>$id</code> and <code>$ref</code>. Every object being serialized will get an <code>$id</code>. If that same exact object is used again somewhere in the same JSON object, it will use a <code>$ref</code> property to tell you that the particular object you're looking at has already been serialized. It then gives you the <code>$id</code> to lookup as the value of the <code>$ref</code> property so that you know where to find the object being referred to.<br />
<br />
So, that was all fine and good. I understood what they were and it made complete sense, but I didn't see how to use these special properties. So, I started reading about it to see if I could find anything helpful, but no avail, I could not find anything. I finally came across a post on <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4992383/use-jquerys-find-on-json-object" target="_blank" title="StackOverflow">StackOverflow</a>Â showing how to search any object using javascript and have it return to you an array of objects that matched your search. See the function below:<br />
<pre>function getObjects(obj, key, val) {
var objects = [];
for (var i in obj) {
if (!obj.hasOwnProperty(i)) continue;
if (typeof obj[i] == 'object') {
objects = objects.concat(getObjects(obj[i], key, val));
} else if (i == key && obj[key] == val) {
objects.push(obj);
}
}
return objects;
}</pre>
<br />
So, I gave it a shot and it worked! Here's how to use the above function assuming a JSON array that looks like the one I have defined above in this post:<br />
<pre>var stateName = getObjects(myArray, '$id', myArray[0].DefaultState.$ref)[0].Name;</pre>
<br />
Hopefully that helps you if you're looking for something like this.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491271314005966546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2498894084491304394.post-44441493855234792462012-04-06T01:29:00.000-07:002013-08-16T00:00:29.057-07:00How Do I Know If I Belong In IT?I just read this article through a LinkedIn group that I'm a part of. It's a very good article and I think it really touches on some good points about IT and what being in IT means. <a title="You Might Not Belong in IT" href="http://brandonjcarroll.com/you-might-not-belong-in-it/trackback/" target="_blank">Check it out here</a>.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491271314005966546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2498894084491304394.post-23018184056846871672012-01-03T08:26:00.000-08:002013-08-16T00:00:29.050-07:002011Well, 2011 has proven to be a great year for us!<br/><br/>In 2011, Cyrus turned 4 and Knighty turned 2. Both boys are adorable as ever before and they're just loving life! They are playing with each other more and more every day and it's very cute, but with playing also comes fighting... :)<br/><br/>Chevron treated our family well in 2011 with my job being renamed to Team Lead and giving me supervisory responsibilities. I hired my first employee and brought on a few contractors this year, which was a neat experience for work.<br/><br/>Lauren and I sang in the BC Choir again this year, which brought back fond memories of our younger days in college where we met. We had a couple concerts that turned out excellent where Lauren had a few solos that sounded great! If you're interested in CD's, we can get them for you!<br/><br/>We also started our first Jazz A Capella ensemble called "Mondays at 8." Although we started the year with 5 people, we only finished with 4 as we lost one of our members to school. We've sung some great stuff over the course of the year and had a great time doing it.<br/><br/>As far as weight loss, Lauren and I were able to lose more weight this year! We didn't lose nearly as much as we lost last year, but more importantly, we were able to lower our body fat percentage by going to the gym regularly and making better and better decisions every day to eat healthier. We bought a juicer this year and attempted a 10 juice fast right before Thanksgiving. Needless to say, we didn't make it all the way through the 10 days, but we made it about 5 and rebooted our system in the process. We will continue to do 48 hour juice fasts periodically as 2012 progresses.<br/><br/>Cyrus joined Awana this year, which he is loving! He's learning a lot about God and his greatness!<br/><br/>We have started making more and more of our foods from scratch this year. I cannot remember the last time we bought eggnog, mayonnaise, buttermilk, or whipped cream. Mayonnaise is so easy to make and takes less than 10 minutes to do it! We're benefiting from the lack of preservatives that we are ingesting every day as we continue towards more of a whole-foods diet. Next on the list to make from scratch - butter.<br/><br/>At the beginning of 2011, Jaress was driving a leased 2010 Acura TL. In June, he purchased a 2011 Nissan Altima in order to get out of his lease. At the end of 2011, he was looking at purchasing a 2012 Nissan Frontier Pickup Truck, which he ended up purchasing on January 2nd 2012! More to come on why he purchased a truck in a later post.<br/><br/>Many people are asking us if we are thinking about having any more kids. The answer for now is "No."<br/><br/>Well, that pretty much sums up the year in a glance for the Loo family. Check back on this blog throughout to year to get up to date information on us!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491271314005966546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2498894084491304394.post-21323294075859169212011-11-06T08:46:00.000-08:002013-08-16T00:00:29.047-07:00iPhone Not Showing Up In iTunesIf you can't see your iPhone in iTunes after you plug it in via the USB cable, then you might have to fix the driver on your computer. For me, the situation was, it was acting as a "Portable Storage" device (in the Windows Device Manager) instead of a phone device. Because of this, iTunes was not showing it as a syncable phone.<br/><br/>Here's what I did to fix it. Hopefully it will work for you too.<br/><ol><br/> <li>Open the Computer Management panel</li><br/><ol><br/> <li>Click on the Windows Start Circle</li><br/> <li>Right click on "Computer"</li><br/> <li>Select "Manage" (It will probably have a little shield next to it on the left side)</li><br/></ol><br/> <li>Under "System Tools," click on "Device Manager"</li><br/> <li>In the new list that shows up on the right, select the little triangle to the left of "Portable Storage"</li><br/> <li>You should see your iPhone in there.</li><br/> <li>Right click on your iPhone and select "Update Driver Software..."</li><br/> <li>Select "Browse my computer for driver software"</li><br/> <li>It should now be asking you for the location of the driver. Type this (without quotes): "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Apple\Mobile Device Support\Drivers"</li><br/> <li>Select "Next" and accept all defaults if anything else comes up.</li><br/></ol><br/><div>That should fix it for you. Let me know if you have a problem.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491271314005966546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2498894084491304394.post-22499542133113090612011-08-21T09:06:00.000-07:002013-08-16T00:00:29.049-07:00Editing a Silverlight Template in Expression Blend 4So, I have been working on a particular website for a few years now - updating it here and there whenever the main owner wants it done. Recently, we migrated from a Silverlight 2 player to a Silverlight 4 player. Now, it had been a while since I updated the video player technology on their site, so I couldn't completely remember what I did to make everything possible. Also, since the last time I updated their player, I had purchased a new laptop for the purposes of development. On the new laptop, I had fresh copies of all of my development tools:<br/><ul><br/> <li>Visual Web Developer Express 2010</li><br/> <li>Microsoft SQL Server Express 2008</li><br/> <li>Notepad++</li><br/> <li>Expression Encoder 4 Express</li><br/></ul><br/><div>So, after a few months of using this configuration setup on my new laptop, the owner of the website asked me to update the player technology from Silverlight 2 to Silverlight 4. So, I thought for a second, then I remembered what I needed to do...</div><br/><div>So, I launched Microsoft Expression Encoder Express and dragged a video file on the surface. I chose a new template that I wanted from the templates panel on the right and encoded the video. After the video was done being encoded, a new browser window popped up and was showing me the new player that I just created. Everything looked good except for the logo that I had previously on the old version of the player on the bottom right hand side, was not there. This was obviously because I had not yet added the logo to the new player.</div><br/><div>So, I thought for a little while on how I managed to get the logo on the old player. It may have been simply because it had been a while since I had created a player that I couldn't remember how exactly everything was supposed to work in Encoder. Or...it may have been that I had purchased Encoder Pro and was using that instead of Encoder Express, which is what I previously was working on. No matter what the reason, all I could remember is that in order for me to get the logo on the player, I needed to somehow open up the player via Expression Blend.</div><br/><div>So, after turning to Google, I discovered that all I had to do was select the template in Expression Encoder and click the "gears" button on that panel, then select "Edit a copy in Expression Blend." So, I did that.</div><br/><div>On one tutorial that I read, it said that all you have to do is open the Silverlight media template in Expression Blend and then build the project, then add your "stuff" to it, then build again and return to Expression Encoder and it will have picked up your changes.</div><br/><div>The problem was that when I opened the copy of the template I wanted to edit in Expression Blend, I couldn't get it to build! It kept giving me errors about not being able to find al.exe or something like that. Well, I googled that too and it said that where you get this error message is when you're trying to compile a project using a different .NET framework version than you have installed on your machine. I couldn't understand. I had Visual Web Developer 2010 (.NET Framework 4) and Expression Studio Ultimate 4 (.NET Framework 4). So, at this point, I could not understand why it wasn't working.</div><br/><div>Here is the result:</div><br/><div>What I found is that you cannot simply download Expression Ultimate or any of the expression programs and expect to be able to build projects if you don't have the WINDOWS version of the Microsoft development program installed on the same machine. What does THAT mean?</div><br/><div>Recall the list of programs that I mentioned that I had installed since I was working on my new laptop:</div><br/><div><br/><ul><br/> <li>Visual Web Developer 2010 Express</li><br/> <li>Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express</li><br/> <li>Notepad++</li><br/> <li>Microsoft Expression Studio 4 (replaced Microsoft Expression Encoder 4 Express)</li><br/></ul><br/><div>The applications that I have installed on my machine do not include a "full install" of Visual Studio. Instead, the only visual studio program that I have installed is the Visual Web Developer app, which is only for development of web applications. In order for me to be able to compile the Silverlight template that I was trying to compile, I need to have AT LEAST Visual Basic Express installed on my machine. Without this, the full development tools are not installed and I am unable to compile windows based applications.</div><br/></div><br/><div>So, to make a long story short:</div><br/><div>If you're having trouble compiling a default edited Silverlight 4 media template in Expression Blend, check to make sure that you have Visual Basic Express or Visual C# Express installed on your machine. That should solve the issue.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491271314005966546noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2498894084491304394.post-91360927724648558552011-07-20T08:32:00.000-07:002013-08-16T00:00:29.086-07:00Gmail's New LookAs all of you should know, I'm an avid Google fan. I love just about everything that Google does and firmly believe that Google will rule the world someday, which is fine with me.<br/><br/>In any case, Google's email product, Gmail, has two new themes that are just great! I don't know if this theme will eventually be the new "face of gmail," but it sure is nice. Check out <a title="How to Enable Gmail's New Look" href="http://www.doztech.net/google/how-to-enable-gmails-new-look/" target="_blank">DozTech's post</a> on how to enable it!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491271314005966546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2498894084491304394.post-31337418284644033002011-06-04T06:40:00.000-07:002013-08-16T00:00:29.052-07:00Microsoft Money Sunset<h3>History</h3><br/>Since 2003, I had been using Microsoft Money for my personal financing needs. I used it from about 2003 - 20010 or so. I used it for the account balance tracking and the bill calendar, but didn't use any of the reporting capabilities or anything extra.<br/><h3>Pen and Paper<a href="http://www.jaressloo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/1147981_80602463.jpg"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-339" title="1147981_80602463" src="http://www.jaressloo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/1147981_80602463-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" /></a></h3><br/>In 2010, we decided to implement a true budget where we would start tracking our expenses in particular categories and making sure that we don't go over in any particular one. I used a pad of paper to track these expenses - subtracting money out manually into the categories that we had set up. We used this method for about five months until around June, taking them on business trips, short day trips, and even vacations. This started to become hectic and I found myself wishing that it were easier for us to transport our budgeting papers from one place to another.<br/><br/> <br/><br/> <br/><br/> <br/><br/> <br/><h3><a href="http://www.jaressloo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/GoogleDocs.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-338" title="GoogleDocs" src="http://www.jaressloo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/GoogleDocs-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" /></a>Enter: Google Docs</h3><br/>Me, being the techie that I am, decided that it would be so much better if we had an electronic copy of it that I could open it from anywhere on any computer. So, I converted our paper documents to Google Docs Spreadsheets. It was the same process, but now, I could "split" transactions so that when we went to Target, we could, in a neater fashion, have one transaction, but apply those expenditures to multiple budget categories. This was infinitely better than the pen and paper method simply for it being so mobile, but I was actually still updating Microsoft Money because, if you recall, I never used Money to track budgeting expenses - only for tracking account balances and my monthly bills. Because my Google Docs spreadsheet was only tracking budgeting expenses, I still needed to keep Microsoft Money around so that I could continue to track all of our account balances and our monthly bills. So, when I did the finances every month, I would have to first update MS Money, then update the budget. This process usually took a good two hours to make sure that everything was inputted properly. So, now, I was in search of finding something that that would tell me the balances in each account, give me the budgeting capabilities, but be accessible from anywhere I wanted.<br/><h3>Mint.com<a href="http://www.jaressloo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/zzmint.jpg"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-333" title="zzmint" src="http://www.jaressloo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/zzmint.jpg" alt="" width="286" height="142" /></a></h3><br/>This is where I discovered Mint.com. Mint was just the solution that I was looking for! It provided the budgeting and the account balance watching in one tool, and it was offered online! What's the best part about it, you ask? IT WAS FREE! So, needless to say, I started using Mint and was very excited about it. They even had an iPhone app, so it was VERY mobile! I started using Mint in about October of 2010 and it worked great, but one day, it <a title="Bank of America Credit Card and Mint Problems" href="http://www.jaressloo.com/2011/01/bank-of-america-credit-card-and-mint-problems/">stopped updating my Bank of America account</a>, which had my main accounts. So, now that I had moved everything over to Mint and it was not working, I realized that I needed to transfer out of it yet again because I could not depend on a service that was not dependable.<br/><br/>I started searching around to see if I could find another online service that could give me what I was looking for and be dependable. I found a few, but I decided that no website was probably going to be as dependable as a software program that I had installed on my computer. At this point, I was ready to move back to Microsoft Money as I knew that it had budgeting features that I had not used previously. So, when I went to look for MS Money, I learned that the product had been discontinued! What was I going to do now?? I decided to buy a copy off of eBay and it's a good thing that I did because I learned shortly after that that Microsoft was discontinuing the use of their online services as well. Now I didn't ever use the online services that Money provided as I liked to do everything myself. Using the online services did not catch things like a check that I had just written, etc. So, I bought Money from eBay, installed it, and activated it, and everything was great!<br/><h3><a href="http://www.microsoft.com/money/sunset.mspx"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-343" title="Microsoft Money Sunset Editions" src="http://www.jaressloo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/moneyplus.jpg" alt="Microsoft Money Sunset Editions" width="200" height="200" /></a>End Result</h3><br/>Everything was great until I decided to buy a new laptop. When I bought a new laptop and was doing some research on Money again, I realized that I could not install it on my new laptop because Microsoft had disabled their Activation service for it! After a little searching, I discovered that Microsoft had created a Sunset version of MS Money that I could use. It was the same version of the program that I was previously using. The only difference was that it did not have the online services built in, which as I said earlier, was fine for me. The other big difference was that it was free! I was incredibly excited at this point. I knew that I did not have support for MS Money on the new Sunset version, but it didn't matter as I had never had an issue with MS Money before anyway.<br/><br/>All of this to say - if you're looking for a solution that can meet your account balance tracking, bill tracking, and also some great budgeting features, check out the now FREE version of the recently discontinued <a title="MS Plus Money Deluxe" href="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=60302e1e-207e-4710-ac80-d19c22e47488" target="_blank">Microsoft Plus Money Deluxe</a> or <a title="MS Plus Money Home and Business" href="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=52d42d7f-e2e9-478b-a4da-4b24e5875fc1" target="_blank">Microsoft Plus Money Home and Business</a>. They don't have an iPhone application or anything to go with it, but it's an extremely powerful program that Microsoft has now made freely available.<br/><br/>More Information: <a title="MS Money Sunset Editions" href="http://www.microsoft.com/money/sunset.mspx" target="_blank">http://www.microsoft.com/money/sunset.mspx</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491271314005966546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2498894084491304394.post-69626607107487230032011-03-12T12:55:00.000-08:002013-08-16T00:00:29.076-07:00Bakersfield's Newest A Capella Jazz Group: Mondays at EightWe know that these songs are not perfect, but we're really excited about the work that we've accomplished, especially for only having rehearsed on about 10 occasions. Our first gig is April 1st for a local fundraiser and after that, we'll be ready for more gigs! So, if you know of anyone who is in need of musical entertainment, please let me know!<br/><br/>Here's some of the songs that we rehearsed today. Like I said, we know that these aren't perfect, but they are live recordings, without any punch-ins, taken on my iPhone and we recorded everything in about an hour and a half. Enjoy!<br/><ul><br/> <li>[wpaudio url="http://www.jaressloo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Modinha.mp3" dl="0" text="Modinha"]</li><br/> <li>[wpaudio url="http://www.jaressloo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Im-With-You.mp3" dl="0" text="I'm With You"]</li><br/> <li>[wpaudio url="http://www.jaressloo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/If-It-Could-Be.mp3" dl="0" text="If It Could Be"]</li><br/> <li>[wpaudio url="http://www.jaressloo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/I-Hear-Music.mp3" dl="0" text="I Hear Music"]</li><br/> <li>[wpaudio url="http://www.jaressloo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/God-Only-Knows.mp3" dl="0" text="God Only Knows"]</li><br/> <li>[wpaudio url="http://www.jaressloo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Ill-Be-Seeing-You.mp3" dl="0" text="I'll Be Seeing You"]</li><br/></ul>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491271314005966546noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2498894084491304394.post-65860618383700929002011-03-08T02:25:00.000-08:002013-08-16T00:00:29.073-07:00The Heart of WorshipI posted these videos on Youtube a long time ago and recently, I've had a lot of people asking me to send them the chords for this song. So, I thought, instead of me sending out emails to everyone, people can just come to this page and download it for free! If you have questions or comments about this, please feel free to comment using the form below! You can download the chart at the bottom of this post too.<br/><br/>Here is the instructional version of it:<br/><br/>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an2hyKJqs4E<br/><br/> <br/><br/>Here's the version with my wife, Lauren singing it with me:<br/><br/>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UziMpTSpUck<br/><br/> <br/><br/>Download Link: [download id="2"]Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491271314005966546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2498894084491304394.post-1720353330074066972011-01-31T07:49:00.000-08:002013-08-16T00:00:29.040-07:00Bank of America Credit Card and Mint ProblemsThere is an issue that some people are having with the Bank of America Credit Cards not updating in Mint. All the other accounts with Bank of America tend to be fine. It's only the Credit Card account that is broken.<br/><br/>http://satisfaction.mint.com/mint/topics/bank_of_america_credit_card_not_updating-fgcvc<br/><br/>I just read a couple other posts similar to this one and after a trying out a few things, my account is finally fixed.<br/><br/>It's still a problem with Mint's systems though...<br/><br/>Here are the steps to follow in THIS ORDER:<br/><br/>Note: This tutorial will require that you delete your BofA account and add it back. Once your original BofA account is deleted, you will not be able to restore any transactions from it and your new account will only have about 2 months of history in it.<br/><ol><br/> <li>Export all your Bank of America transactions from Mint. (Go to any BofA transaction register. Scroll to the bottom and click on "Export all xxx transactions." It will give it to you in a comma delimited text file which you can use Excel to open up.</li><br/> <li>AFTER you have exported all your transactions, open up the CSV (Comma Separated Values) file that it gave you and make sure that all you BofA accounts are in there. There is a column called "Account." Just make sure that you see "Checking," "Savings," or whatever you called your BofA accounts.<br/><br/>The reason you must backup your transactions first is because you are going to need to recategorize all your transactions once you are done following this tutorial.</li><br/> <li>After you have verified that all your accounts are in the CSV file, then you can delete your BofA account from mint. REMEMBER! Once you delete your account, you CANNOT restore it! It's gone forever! And that includes all of your historical transactions. So, only do this as a last resort or if you don't mind losing all your data minus the last 2 months of transactions!</li><br/> <li>After your BofA account is deleted, then add your BofA account back. Make sure you click on the account type of "Bank of America" and not "Bank of America (All except WA & ID)" as I've found the first one to be better.</li><br/> <li>Once your account is added back, you'll have the last two months of transactions back in your account transaction history and your BofA Credit Card should be up to date! Now, all you have to do is look at your CSV file and compare it to the transactions in your new account register and start recategorizing!</li><br/></ol><br/>Hopefully this will help you.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491271314005966546noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2498894084491304394.post-36794114928780325642011-01-20T02:19:00.000-08:002013-08-16T00:00:29.054-07:00Disneyland 2010[stream provider=video base=x:/www.jaressloo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/ flv=00032.360p.flv hd=00032.720p.flv mp4=00032.iPhone.mp4 embed=true share=true width=590 height=310 dock=true controlbar=over bandwidth=high autostart=false /]<br/><br/>[stream provider=video base=x:/www.jaressloo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/ flv=00033.360p.flv hd=00033.720p.flv mp4=00033.iPhone.mp4 embed=true share=true width=590 height=310 dock=true controlbar=over bandwidth=high autostart=false /]Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491271314005966546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2498894084491304394.post-10550756147663633952011-01-19T04:12:00.000-08:002013-08-16T00:00:29.035-07:00Cyrus and Knight Opening Some Hawaii Presents[stream provider=video base=x:/www.jaressloo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/ flv=00044.360p.flv hd=00044.720p.flv mp4=00044.iPhone.mp4 embed=true share=true width=590 height=310 dock=true controlbar=over bandwidth=high title=Christmas 2010: Cyrus and Knight Opening Gifts From Hawaii autostart=false /]<br/><br/><strong><span style="color: #ff0000;"> </span></strong><br/><br/>This is a video of Cyrus and Knight opening presents from their Aunty Cat, Uncle Jeff, and cousin Alana.<br/><br/>They really enjoyed it! Thank you!<br/><br/>Also, Aunty Cat - we put the "smell good" package thing in the vacuum and it's AMAZING! THANK YOU!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491271314005966546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2498894084491304394.post-42356321025557097152011-01-12T17:23:00.000-08:002013-08-16T00:00:29.055-07:00Amortization ScheduleI am always interested in how to pay off loans faster.<br/><br/>"How would it affect my loan if I make an extra payment?"<br/><br/>This question is answered down to the approximate penny with this amortization schedule calculator. All you have to do is download the spreadsheet (there are no macros) and enter in the initial loan amount, interest rate, loan term (in years), and first payment date and you will be presented with a schedule that separates exactly how much money you'll be expecting to spend on interest vs. principle from the loan origination date through the last payment of the loan.<br/><br/>If you have questions on how to use this spreadsheet, please post a question and I'll work on getting it answered as soon as possible!<br/><br/>Note: This spreadsheet is protected so that you only edit the cells that are meant to be edited. If you are an advanced finance person and would like to edit this spreadsheet's formulas, the password is given on the spreadsheet itself.<br/><br/><strong>Download </strong>[download id="1"]Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491271314005966546noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2498894084491304394.post-27265523411794755182011-01-05T10:36:00.000-08:002013-08-16T00:00:29.051-07:002010From what I've heard from a lot of people and from what I've seen from friends and family, 2010 was not the best year for most. For those of you who had a bad or not so awesome year in 2010, I hope it's better in 2011!<br/><br/>As for us...<br/><br/>We had a pretty good year I think! As far as finances go - here's what we accomplished:<br/><ol><br/> <li>Paid off all Lauren's student loans</li><br/> <li>Paid off Lauren's Chevy</li><br/> <li>Paid off my Hyundai</li><br/> <li>Paid off our TV</li><br/> <li>Paid off all hospital bills from Knight being born</li><br/> <li>Paid off other medical bills for Knight's birth</li><br/> <li>Paid off our whole-house water treatment system</li><br/> <li>Got a raise at work</li><br/> <li>Purchased a new Hyundai Tucson for Lauren</li><br/> <li>Purchased a new Acura TL for me</li><br/></ol><br/>For faith and religion:<br/><br/>I believe we both came closer to God this year. It has been challenging at times, but I think we have both (Lauren and I) grown closer with God and strive to make that even closer for this year.<br/><br/>For health:<br/><ol><br/> <li>I lost 30 lbs</li><br/> <li>Lauren lost 20 lbs</li><br/></ol><br/>We both are more active now and have more energy and overall feel better about ourselves. It has been a long learning process, but we both now have a much greater appreciation and awareness of health, nutrition, and fitness.<br/><br/>Cyrus and Knight:<br/><ol><br/> <li>Cyrus has learned his letters this year. He can read them and is now working on writing them.</li><br/> <li>Knight is constantly growing and learning more every day as well.</li><br/></ol><br/>Miscellaneous:<br/><ol><br/> <li>I started a few more websites this year.</li><br/> <li>Learned a lot about different website development technologies and had a lot of fun doing it.</li><br/> <li>Lauren started a cooking website where we can store all of our recipes online.</li><br/> <li>We made a decision to get rid of the office in our house and convert it into a playroom. We now have A LOT more room in our living room.</li><br/> <li>We got a dog....</li><br/></ol><br/>Welp, that's about all I can think of right now. Thanks to everyone who has made my life more enjoyable and worthwhile this year. I'm looking forward to another great year!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491271314005966546noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2498894084491304394.post-47452324956239230502010-12-11T09:50:00.000-08:002013-08-16T00:00:29.060-07:00Should I Use a Website Template if I'm a beginner?Simply put: No!<br/><br/>When I'm teaching people how to create their own websites, I only let them use notepad or some other text editor.<br/><br/>When I first started out, I used notepad. No color coding, no intellisense. Nothing like that. It's because of this experience that I'm able to create good looking websites now or at least edit the templates that I use.<br/><br/>The more you get into website creation, the more you realize that there are two different paths: design vs. development. I think that 90% of the people online today are more interested in the design concepts rather than development.<br/><br/>Note: I wouldn't call knowing HTML or CSS, "coding." It's not coding, it's simply understanding markup language. "Coding" or "programming" is something entirely different!<br/><br/>I have been into website creation for about 7 years. Like I said, when I first started out, I did everything by hand. I think this is a great way to learn.<br/><br/>Fast forward to today: Now, I pretty much only use web templates. Templates are a great thing if you know how to use and edit them. The more time you've been in this business, the more you realize that it's VERY difficult to design a website that is standards compliant (W3C) AND cross browser compatible. If you have created a snazzy design using Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and notepad and are just about done, but have only ever looked at your site in Firefox....BOY! Are you in for a rude awakening the moment you open up that same site in Chrome, IE, or Safari!<br/><br/>Once you are knowledgeable in website design, then you should be able to take any template and massage it to look exactly the way that you want it to look. But, unless you're doing website design as a full time job, this can take years to be at this level and just like anything else, it's crucial to take the baby steps to learn the basics first.<br/><br/>Using templates (as you get more advanced) allows you save HOURS of time on getting the design just right in all browsers and I don't just use any templates that I want either. I go to a select few places to get templates and they MUST be a DIV based design, XHTML and CSS compliant, AND cross browser compatible. For those requirements, you'll probably ending up paying a little money or a subscription to get access to quality designs. There are a few good free premium designs out there, but they're few and far between.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491271314005966546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2498894084491304394.post-949797525467512712010-11-16T01:15:00.000-08:002013-08-16T00:00:29.087-07:0020 Ways to Stick to Your Workout RoutineThis is a link to the Men's Health website, but it can be applied to women too.<br/><br/>Check it out. It's a good thing.<br/><br/><a href="http://www.menshealth.com/mhlists/workout_motivation_strategies/">http://www.menshealth.com/mhlists/workout_motivation_strategies/</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491271314005966546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2498894084491304394.post-19536786128460282452010-11-04T13:43:00.000-07:002013-08-16T00:00:29.044-07:00Healthier Brownies (Black Bean)Lauren and I tried a recipe for healthier brownies, thanks to <a title="Dan Ardis" href="http://www.fitnesstrainingorangecounty.com/" target="_blank">Dan Ardis</a>!<br/><br/>So, here's what it is:<br/><br/>You take your favorite box recipe of brownies and pour the mix into a bowl. Now, open a standard can (15 - 16oz) of black beans and puree them in a blender until smooth.<br/><br/>Add the bean mix to the brownie mix and bake in the oven as described on the box.<br/><br/>THAT'S IT!!<br/><br/>This little snack is much healthier than a regular brownie with much less fat, high fiber, fewer carbs, less cholesterol, and a good deal less calories!<br/><br/>Now...you might be wondering how to calculate the calories with this. Here's how: First, you need to look at the nutrition facts for the unprepared brownie mix. Some brownie mixes will have this information, some will not. So, if you can, try to get the brownie mix that has this info. Most unprepared brownie mixes will be anywhere between 100 and 130 calories PER BROWNIE.<br/><br/>Since the above number is the per brownie number, you now need to multiply it by the number of servings are in the box (usually somewhere between 16 - 20). For example, if the unprepared brownie mix is 100 calories per brownie and the brownie box is 20 servings, then your calculation would look like this: 100 x 20 = <strong>2,000 calories</strong> for the entire mix of brownies.<br/><br/>Once you have that number, take a look at your black beans can and see how many calories is in a serving. Usually around 110 or so. Again, look to see how many servings are in the can (usually 3.5). Now, multiply the number of calories per serving by the number of servings in the can: 110 * 3.5 = <strong>385 calories</strong> in the entire can.<br/><br/>Add the two total calorie counts together: 2,000 + 385 = <strong>2,385 calories</strong> for the entire batch of brownies! Now...that sounds like a lot, but again, this number is for the entire batch. So now, all you have to do is divide this number by the number of pieces you want to cut it into. If you use the directions on the brownie mix box, then you will cut it into 20 pieces (because that's the number of servings per box mix). So, now, if you divide 2,385 by 20 = <strong>119.25 calories </strong>per brownie! That's significantly less than the 170 calories per brownie for the one that we made!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491271314005966546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2498894084491304394.post-12483514098882053702010-10-19T09:54:00.000-07:002013-08-16T00:00:29.036-07:00Why It's Important to Lift Weights While Trying to Lose WeightI was reading a post that I wrote earlier about <a class="wp-oembed" title="getting into the mindset of weight loss" href="http://www.jaressloo.com/2010/09/weight-loss-getting-into-the-mindset.html" target="_blank">getting into the mindset of weight loss</a> and I realized that I told you if you wanted to lose weight that it is important not only to focus on cardio, but also on lifting weights.<br/><br/>I never explained why...so, here it goes:<br/><br/>As you gain weight, your skin stretches and depending on how long you've retained the extra weight, your skin slowly starts to become used to the stretched out state and that state becomes the "new normal." Think of a rubber band and how if you were to hold it in a stretched state for only a minute, it would just go back to the way it used to be before you stretched it. BUT if you were to hold it stretched out for a few days, then it might retract SOME, but not all the way back down to the way it used to be.<br/><br/>Your skin behaves the same way. If the skin is stretched for a short period of time and is then released, then it's no harm done...BUT, if you hold extra weight for a long time, then when you start losing that weight, the skin is not able to retract all the way back down and pull itself tight over your abs, legs, butt, etc.<br/><br/>So, you're probably wondering what this "skin" conversation has to do with lifting weights and weight loss. Well...if you're only doing cardio, then sure, you'll lose the weight, but the problem is that, as I stated before, depending on how long its been that your skin has been stretched over the fat, your skin will not want to retract all the way back down. So, once you've achieved your goal weight, you'll have extra skin. You'll be at the weight that you wanted to be, but you still won't have the body that you wanted to have.<br/><br/>Weight lifting helps to solve this issue.<br/><br/>If you're lifting weights and doing cardio exercises, then not only are you burning lots of calories while doing your cardio, but you're also building up the muscle as you're losing the fat.<br/><br/><strong>NOTE: By lifting weights, you are NOT turning your fat into muscle. Fat does not ever turn into muscle and muscle does not ever turn into fat. They are two distinct different chemical and material compounds.</strong><br/><br/>After that above statement, let me say it again in a different way: By lifting weights, you are building up your muscle while your cardio workouts are helping you to lose the fat. So, what you're doing is replacing the space where you had fat - now, with muscle. This is good because your muscle will take up some of the space where you had fat, so that when you start losing your fat, you won't necessarily have the extra skin that I talked about before.<br/><br/>Something else that muscle helps you to do is speed up your metabolism. So, as you are losing fat and gaining muscle, your metabolism is also speeding up so that your body will naturally burn more calories every day - enhancing your weight loss even more.<br/><br/>Hope this helps!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491271314005966546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2498894084491304394.post-75808824487854118392010-09-15T17:59:00.000-07:002013-08-16T00:00:29.079-07:00Weight Loss: Getting Into the MindsetSo, I've been unhappy with my weight for a few years now. I've been doing nothing but complaining about it, but not really changing anything. Or...I would change one thing for a week or two - not see any results from it - and then revert back to what I was doing before: complaining.<br/><br/>In the beginning of the year, my wife and I made a New Year's Resolution to actually lose some weight and do it seriously, not just say it.<br/><br/>I will say that as of that day in January, I felt that things were going to be different that year for us and that we would actually do it, but at the same time, I was not yet convinced that that's what I really wanted to do. Realizing that it was going to be a hard road, I wasn't convinced that I wanted to take the plunge and actually make changes. I wanted to lose the weight, but with little work involved.<br/><br/><strong>1) The first thing that we decided to do was cut certain foods from our diet. </strong><br/><br/>At the time, my wife was still breast feeding and had a few more months of it before she was going to be able to get on a real diet. I, on the other hand, was perfectly capable of making any changes I wanted to. So, the first change that we made was something simple and easy: <strong>we cut down our simple sugars</strong>. This doesn't mean we cut out sweets entirely or anything like that. The changes that we made were even more simple.<br/><ol><br/> <li>We stopped eating white rice and switched to brown</li><br/> <li>We stopped eating white bread and switched to 100% whole wheat</li><br/> <li>We stopped eating potatoes and switched to sweet potatoes</li><br/> <li>We cut back on desserts</li><br/></ol><br/>That was it! That was the first change that we both made to our diet that was safe for her to do while she was breastfeeding, yet wasn't too difficult for us.<br/><br/>For me, I did the first phase of the South Beach Diet. For those of you who don't know very much about the South Beach Diet, it comes in phases. The first phase is two weeks long and you cut out ALL carbohydrates entirely. No rice, no bread, no potatoes, no fruits, no sugar, no sweets, etc. It's pretty much purely a vegetable and meat diet for the first two weeks. I'm not gonna lie to you - these two weeks are difficult! BUT!! It's definitely worth it.<br/><br/>So, I went on this diet for the first two weeks. My wife wasn't able to yet, so she kept eating carbs, but definitely made an effort to cut down on them. During this time, I dropped about 8 pounds. This is what got me my kick start on weight loss. I realized that it can be done and it wasn't as difficult as I thought. I mean, don't get me wrong...losing those 8 pounds was hard on me mentally because I was so used to eating rice and bread with everything. So, having to cut it out cold turkey was definitely difficult. In order to make it through these rough two weeks, I just kept the goal in mind: lose up to 10 pounds in your first two weeks.<br/><br/>I knew a guy who was currently doing this diet at the same time as me and the last time he did it, it worked for him like a charm, so I thought, "Well...if it worked for him, then it should work for me too. So...I'll do it!"<br/><br/>The second phase in the South Beach Diet is slowly adding GOOD carbs back into your diet. Things like wheat bread, brown rice, sweet potatoes, fruits, etc. You're not supposed to go all out and eat like a mangy dog on these carbs, rather, introduce them back into your diet s l o w l y. Maybe adding one meal with a carb per day for the first two days, then adding two meals for the next three days, etc.<br/><br/>At this point, surprisingly, I just decided to sort of give up and go back to eating carbs, but NOT the simple kind of carbs. I decided to make a complete switch to whole grain carbs and sweet potatoes, but I would just start eating carbs the way I would normally eat carbs and not introduce it slowly like the diet said to do. I know this seems counterproductive, and honestly, it might have been. Maybe if I had stuck with the South Beach Diet for the time that you were supposed to stick with it, I probably could've lost more weight. But as I said before, it was incredibly difficult to give up carbs or only have one meal per day that had carbs.<br/><br/>Anyway, this went on for a few months. I was able to keep the weight off for the most part. Obviously, you're going to fluctuate from day-to-day, but it wasn't too bad. The thing that really set me back was my dad coming in town. Up until this year, my dad only came in town maybe once a year and we only visited him once a year in Hawaii. In 2010, however, there was a change with his work schedule, location, and the economy that allowed him to work on the mainland about once a month or so. Every time my dad came into town, we would all eat more than normal, more often than normal, and I would do less exercise than normal. At one time, we came back from Hawaii in April and I had gained all my weight back from the South Beach Diet and THEN some. I was upset about this.<br/><br/>-----------------<br/>It's during these times that you realize that being upset and failing is actually what causes you to be even more motivated the next time. Keep in mind that this journey is a process. It's not easy, but it's very natural to try and fail, then try harder and fail again. <strong>But keep in mind that as you try and try harder, the amount you fail is either less, or less often - until you've finally reached a point where you are fed up with it and your drive for success is stronger than your will allows for failure.</strong><br/>-----------------<br/><br/>When I came back from Hawaii in April, I was upset that I had gained all of the weight back. I thought I was fed up with it, but I wasn't...If you had asked me at that point in time, I would've told you that I was tired of being chubby and I wanted to be thin and fit again. What does that sound like though? That's right...complaining. Four months after we had made our New Year's Resolution, I was still complaining. Even after I had moderate success with the South Beach Diet.<br/><br/>Well, nevertheless, when I got back to California from our Hawaii vacation, I started going back to the gym. I had only canceled my gym membership less than a year before, so I was frustrated that I now wanted it back, but knew I probably wasn't going to be able to get the same rate.<br/><br/>In any case, I decided to use my work gym because it was in the building I worked in, so it was convenient, fast, and cheap. I started going to the gym and saw a few pounds of weight loss, but then I plateaued. I wasn't sure what to do because I had already made the simple sugar change - I hadn't been eating refined grains for a few months now, lost a few pounds, and then plateaued...<br/><br/>"Are you serious?" I asked myself... "Why am I plateauing after only a few pounds?"<br/><br/>-----------------<br/>Keep in mind that if you're going to the gym and lifting weights and you're not seeing any results on the scale or even worse, if the scale goes the other way, this is not necessarily a bad thing. <a href="http://health.msn.com/fitness/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100212101">Here's why</a>. It is possible to build muscle while also losing fat. Although the myth about muscle weighing less than fat is not true, it IS true that muscle takes up less mass and space than fat. So, if you're lifting weights, doing cardio, and eating healthily, and you're still not losing weight - this could just mean that you're losing fat and replacing it with muscle at the same rate. This means that you could be maintaining your weight while losing fat and building muscle and because muscle takes up less space than fat, you could start losing inches off your waist, arms, legs, etc.<br/><br/>With all that said, if you're goal is to lose weight, then focus on the cardio training. If you're goal is to build muscle, then lift! However...if your goal is to lose weight, you also need to make sure that you're lifting as well. I'll explain why later.<br/>-----------------<br/><br/>After asking the gym manager a few questions about the best exercises to do for weight loss, she encouraged me to find out what my Resting Metabolic Rate (RBR) is. This is one of the keys to why some people have it easy to lose weight and why others have it incredibly difficult. Obviously, I'm not a scientist, but with a few minutes of talking with her and another 10 minutes of research online, I found some very important pieces of information.<br/><br/>-----------------<br/>Your body burns calories throughout the day whether you're doing anything or not. Obviously, if you're up and walking around, you're going to be burning more calories than if you just laid in bed all day (which is exactly what you're RBR is). If you were to lay in bed all day, what is the rate at which your body would burn calories? This is your RBR (it makes sense if you think about it). It is important that you know this number because this is the number that you should not go below when it comes to eating the correct amount of calories. Your RBR is the minimum number of calories that your body needs just to function and do the basic internal activities. It's ok to go below this calorie count for a few days, but you should not make a habit out of it as it is dangerous for your body. After all, what good is losing fat if your body has now turned against itself and starts breaking down the muscles for energy consumption because you are not eating enough food?<br/><br/><a href="http://www.shapeup.org/interactive/rmr1.php">Find your RBR</a>.<br/>-----------------<br/><br/>The main point in my conversation with the gym manager was just that weight loss is a very simple formula. Weight loss is a "Calories In / Calories Out" type of transaction. What she meant was, if you want to lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you eat every day. This may sound difficult, but keep in mind that you have your RBR to fall back on! Here's what I mean: If you look online with the link above and find out that your RBR is 1700 calories / day, then you understand that your body will burn 1700 calories per day if you were to just lay in bed. Now, since nobody simply lays in bed every day (except for extreme conditions), you already know that simply by being awake, you will be burning that many calories. So, let's say you eat 2300 calories one day. Now, subtract your 1700 from 2300 because of your RBR and you will find that you are left with a net calorie count of 600. This means that you need to find a way to burn off those 600 calories that you ate because your body already burnt off the other 1700! WOW! Not so hard, huh?<br/><br/>Now...just think about what you can do if you decide to cut your calories and eat ONLY your RBR amount on a daily basis...what you would be doing is burning more calories than you're eating every day simply by being awake! That's awesome. To make things even more crazy, what would happen if you decided to go to the gym every day and do a mere 30 minutes of cardio or a 30 minute walk around your block? You guessed it! You'd have negative calories for the day! This is ok because you are still eating the amount of calories your body needs in order to be able to operate. Everything more that you burn is targeting those fat cells!<br/><br/>So, you're probably saying to yourself, "Yes, this all sounds good, but how do I get MOTIVATED to lose the weight?"<br/><br/>Honestly, start going to places or hanging out with people who are more fit than you. Think about it: if you are a musician would you rather play with people who are much worse than you, or people who are better? If your goal is to be a better musician, your answer is that you would rather play with people who are better than you because it gives you the drive and the opportunity to learn. In the same way, if you are a sports player, are you wanting to play with people who are worse than you or better? Again, if your goal is to be a better player, then you will naturally want to play with people who are better than you so that you can learn to be better. It's the same thing with getting in shape.<br/><br/>At the end of July, my wife and I took a vacation for a week in San Diego. We visited the beach, went to the pool, and hung out in the gaslamp district. It's depressing, but all of those places are where you find people who are more fit than you. All it took was a week there for me to really get fed up with my body the way that it was. I wanted to make a change.<br/><br/>So, after a few years of trying different diets, attempting to go to the gym, trying to eat healthy, etc., I only now was very serious about getting into shape and not only was I concerned about getting into shape, but I actually wanted to make a lifestyle change so that not only was I fit again, but healthy at the same time.<br/><br/>Shortly thereafter, I started to have these epiphanies about weight loss. My wife and I started to take Hydroxycut and saw some weight loss, but I was concerned from day one that we were going to gain it all back as soon as we came off of it. So...we stopped. Then I realized a few things...<br/><br/>1) The only person who can get me to lose weight is me.<br/><br/>I know that sounds cliche and simple, but it's true. Think about it. It doesn't matter if you hire a personal trainer, if you don't have the drive to work out on your own, you won't lose weight. So, it needs to come back to me if I want to the lose weight.<br/><br/>2) If I don't lose this weight now, it's only going to be that much harder later the longer I wait.<br/><br/>I saw the people walking around on the beach with their shirts off or in their bikinis and I realized that I am young NOW. If I EVER want a body like that, I needed to have it NOW because I'm only going to have this body for maybe another 15 - 20 years, before age really starts to show all over. I realized that if I wanted to have a good body, this is the time to have it. Not 15 years later.<br/><br/>3) I have been wanting to lose weight since 60 pounds ago.<br/><br/>I started looking through older pictures of myself and as I was looking through them, I was remembering that "when I took this picture, I thought I was fat." And that was 60 pounds ago! Now...I'm 60 pounds heavier than this picture and here I am saying the same things. I should've just lost the weight back then. At least then, I would've only had to lose 15 pounds rather 75!<br/><br/>All of these thoughts started streaming through my mind and I realized that now is the time. I was truly fed up with the way my body was. I didn't want it to be that way anymore and I had already let it go on for FAR too long. This was the time. There's no more "Let's start on Monday." That mindset was gone and it's "Let's start right NOW!"<br/><br/>As of now, I have lost around 18 pounds and am feeling great about myself. My jeans that used to be so tight, I couldn't wear them, are now too loose! My shirts are getting baggier and my belt is on the smallest hole. I realize that it was a struggle to arrive at this mindset, but I'm glad that I did because now, I feel like I have gone through a life changing process about my weight and it has even moved into just plain care for my body. We only have one body. We only have one shot. Take care of it. If you don't like it, change it. You're the only one who can!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491271314005966546noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2498894084491304394.post-54956226318531440872010-07-16T16:51:00.000-07:002013-08-16T00:00:29.068-07:00Gmail Announces Rich Text Signatures!Ever since Gmail started, they have not had rich text signatures. I have been requesting it for years as well as many others and finally, on this past Thursday, they released it!<br/><br/>YES!<br/><br/>So, now, you can have rich text signatures in Gmail just like all of the other free mail providers!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491271314005966546noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2498894084491304394.post-73178223358893241432010-06-28T16:49:00.000-07:002013-08-16T00:00:29.078-07:00Free Dating SitesMarcus Frind is the guy who developed PlentyOfFish.com. He started the site not to turn it into a cash cow, but just to learn about how to develop a website using ASP.NET. PlentyOfFish.com was the first dating website that was free. He then learned about advertisements and now (about 7 years later), he makes over $800,000 / month off of his site.<br/><br/>This may seem easy, but a dating site is fairly complex to build. I don't know if you have any programming experience or not, but if you don't, this kind of site will be (and I hate to be a downer) pretty impossible. Sure, there are CMS engines out there (like hipsy mentioned) to help you build a dating site for free, but the problem with these is that anyone can just download and use it. This is a problem not with the way that it looks (because also like hipsy mentioned, you can theme it), but because of the way it WORKS.<br/><br/>You have to keep in mind that dating websites are not blogs. They are completely interactive web sites that people spend hours, days, months, and years doing CUSTOM programming, development, and architectural design. This involves not only developing the front end design (what a user of your website would see), but also the back end database work as well. So, if you're not already familiar with ASP.NET, PHP, Perl, or Ruby on Rails, etc. and can couple it with SQL Server Express, MySQL, or DBase, etc., then you've got a LONG road ahead of you unless you have the capital to pay someone to build it for you.<br/><br/>When I say "a dating website is not a blog," here's what I mean:<br/><br/>With a blog, it's very simple. You are the only person who writes on it. You are the only person who has an account. You are the only person who manages it. You are the only person who has a profile. etc.<br/><br/>With a dating (social networking site), all of a sudden, there are potentially thousands of people who will not be READING your site, but POSTING their OWN information on YOUR site. This means, you need to handle user accounts, you need to allow them to update their profiles, you need to build a way that they can search for other people, you will need to allow them to upload pictures. etc. All of that stuff is just the beginning of the site! All of that will probably come standard with any dating CMS. The REAL hard part is building the custom functionality with your site.<br/><br/>Hipsy says, "providing a significant advantage for using your site versus plentyoffish." Think about this: If you can use a CMS to have a free dating site. Couldn't someone else have the same CMS? This would mean that you would have two domain names with EXACTLY the same functionality, and EXACTLY the same logic for finding matches. So...what's different between your site and the other person who had the same idea as you? The answer: NOTHING!<br/><br/>I'm not trying to be a downer, I would just hate to see anyone pour out a ton of hours of work into building what they thought would be their own free dating site and then it just turns out to be a dud.<br/><br/>When it comes to building social networking sites, you REALLY have to either BE a programmer, or have money that you can PAY a programmer to develop something CUSTOM for you. If not, then your dating site will be just like everyone else's.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16491271314005966546noreply@blogger.com0