I Need Alarm Feature to Temporarily Disable the Next Occurrence Only

Why has no one developed an alarm that allows exceptions to a recurring alarm? For example, I have an alarm for work every morning but I have to turn this off for Thanksgiving. I am ok with turning off the alarm, but I would really like the ability to turn it off only for a single day and not disable the entire recurring alarm... for example today, Thanksgiving.

Not only would it be nice to disable for Holidays, sometimes I just wake up naturally before the alarm. The process to disable the alarm so that I am not interrupted by the alarm (usually when I am already driving to work) is too tedious or sometimes just forgotten. Well, the app cannot help if I forget but most of the time I wish I could just disable the next alarm. I do not wan to disable the entire alarm schedule because I will likely forget to enable it for the next day (or rather the risk of being late to work is worse than the risk that I disable the alarm).

Bored: Jump roping or jumping rope?

I did a general search and it seems that both use means the same thing. I originally used jump roping because the activity is jump rope even if it may not be grammatically correct. My usage is like doughnutting or dialoguing (reference). Then some part of my brain kicked in and tried to push for jumping rope which I suppose could also work since the activity is jumping a rope. After some more thought, I prefer jump roping because it sounds less ambiguous. "Jumping rope" could simply mean that I was jumping any rope like a rope to keep people out or rope to mark a certain area (like jumping fence). But then I suppose it could be jumping the rope or jumping a rope. Anyways, not an entirely important topic but perhaps something to get the hamster going.

This video inspires me to continue jump roping which was the original intent of this post but this was more interesting.

30000+ All Time History Visitors

Thank you visitors, readers, web surfers, fact questioners, and everyone else that has contributed to my blog. My last milestone of 20,000 visitors was only a few months ago in May/June of this year, 2014. I started around 12,000 at the start of the year (when I essentially started tracking my blog metrics).

YTD, I have almost 7000 sessions from Google Analytics with 13000 pageviews. I did have some analytics issues when I tried to enable the demographics. I am not sure that would be a 5000 page view difference though.

Google AdSense shows that I have about 8500 page views. This is several thousands short from both analytics and blogspot. I wonder if this may possibly be due to ad blockers.

Buggish: Google Docs Spell Check Issue with word 'sclerae' In Bulleted List

I found this very odd spell check bug where the world "sclerae" (a medical term) is marked as a spelling error only when it is the second item in a pair of a bulleted item with the word "conjunctivae". It is not marked as an error when it is in a list item by itself [Item 3], nor when it is the first item in the pair [Item 10], nor when you add "are [some object]" [Item 13].

The last test is kind of weird because it will still be recognized as an error even if I use a different verb (ie action verb like "diagnosed by person") [Item 13].

At first, I thought that this may possibly impact other nouns that do not end with 's' when in plural form. But as seen with many other combinations, these do not trigger the spelling error flag. Also seen in the latter part of the list, the spelling error flag is also not triggered if used with other plural nouns.

Obviously, this is going to be a super minor bug bordering "who really cares" bug. I just thought it was rather interesting bug. I am sure the bug is not those specific words, but I was unable to figure what the boundary cases that was used for this bug.

Review: Snooze (Boulder, CO)

Boulder is such a nice place. Clean air, lots of climbing, skiing, biking, etc. I am a fan of breakfast places, so Snooze was recommended. I also really like chicken pot pie, so it was no surprise that I was immediately sold that this place had a breakfast pot pie.

Even though I was hyped about the dish, it did not disappoint although a little more expensive that I would like to pay for it if I were to eat it everyday. The pancakes were also pretty good. I think my favorite is the pineapple upside down cake. It was a little too sweet after a few bites, but fortunately we were sharing the dishes.

Scammish: Alternate Utility Companies Providing Discounts 8626211032 PWR

I received a call from what sounded like my electricity provider stating that there was an error to my billing that I should be getting a 10 cent discount. They then asked to confirm if I was a customer. When I confirmed they then requested for my account number. I didn't have that information handy so I asked a few questions. The caller tried to get the account number again, eventually she just hung up.

I called my provider to ask what that call was about. My provider said that there are companies that provide discounted energy. They need the account number to transfer to the third party. She added that it could be legit and one of the questions you should ask is how long that discount is for as they are likely to change after a future date.

First, electricity is only more than 10 cents during the day. Second, they asked for my account number first. Third, they hung up on me after some questions. Fourth, they did not identify themselves and hiding behind your provider's name. This may not be technically a scam, but this surely is a very fishy scheme in the most optimistic light. Because of the order of information, I think this is likely a scam to switch you even without your consent. I'd stay away from this either way.

Reference

(862) 621-1032
caller id - PWR

Buggish: Disappearing Scroll Bar on MSN site on IE11

While testing Hebrew on different browsers, I clicked on an interesting news article on Internet Explorer which defaulted to MSN. While reading the article, I kept failing to scroll down the page. This is when I realized that as I read the article, the vertical scroll bar disappears (reappearing after moving the mouse around).

I assume this is by design because other pages on IE does not have this problem. Nor is MSN a problem on Chrome or FF. Sure I could use the scroll wheel on a mouse or the arrows on the keyboard, but unfortunately I happen to want to use the touchpad tap because double finger slide is not very fluid on this laptop nor the tiny up/down cursor buttons. I guess this is kind of a rant on my laptops keyboard and touchpad designs too. At least keep the arrows there... or even better let the functions exist even if the scroll bar is not visible.

Buggish: Firefox (PC) using Hebrew in Textboxes - Shift Arrows different as Non-shift arrows

When using Hebrew in the textboxes in the search and address textbox, the cursors do not moving in the correct direction when holding down the shift key. Because Hebrew is right to left, this is probably what is causing the odd behavior.

Steps:
1. Copy עברית to the address box or search box
2. Use arrows to navigate (should be similar behavior as English words)
3. Hold down shift, then use arrows (cursor moves in opposite direction as #2)

I use opposite direction to #2 only because I only care that #2 and #3 move in the same direction. Because I want to copy certain words, it is very odd to have to change direction after pressing shift
(to highlight letters/words).

On Google Chrome, the cursor moves in the direction as the arrows with or without Shift pressed.

On Internet Explorer, the cursor moves in the opposite direction as the arrows with or without Shift pressed.

Reference

Firefox 32.0.3

Coding: SqlCommand Add vs AddWithValue

I ran into the issue but had simply converted it to a string value which worked for me. Later I was cleaning up my code and realized that Add was deprecated then out of curiosity looked up the difference. I thought this was interesting because on how 0 and 1 were implicitly converted differently.


vcsjones (@stackoverflow):

The reason they deprecated the old one in favor of AddWithValue is to add additional clarity, as well as because the second parameter is object, which makes it not immediately obvious to some people which overload of Add was being called, and they resulted in wildly different behavior.

Take a look at this example:

 SqlCommand command = new SqlCommand();
 command.Parameters.Add("@name", 0);

At first glance, it looks like it is calling the Add(string name, object value) overload, but it isn't. It's calling the Add(string name, SqlDbType type) overload! This is because 0 is implicitly convertible to enum types. So these two lines:

 command.Parameters.Add("@name", 0);

and

 command.Parameters.Add("@name", 1);

Actually result in two different methods being called. 1 is not convertible to an enum implicitly, so it chooses the object overload. With 0, it chooses the enum overload.

Reference

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9999751/difference-between-parameters-add-and-parameters-addwithvalue

Bored: Combination Lock Puzzle

I was just surfing random sites and stumbled across this site when I visited randomnumbergenerator.com. This was pretty fun and felt like a good brain exercise as I tried to do this all in my head. I ended up having to take some notes for 6 reels on crazy level.

Here are my "best" times (I only played each one once except for 2 reels standard which I played 3 times):

Reference

http://www.combinationlock.com/play.asp?r=6&d=2

Life: Exercising, Right Leg Hurt/Sore After Few Minutes of Jogging

After jogging for a few minutes, my right calf feels very sore (almost to the point of pain but not exactly). I am not exactly sure why this is the case. It sounds normal according to one post which seems to be consistent that I have only recently returned to running.

Odd thing is that I am right-sided (ie right handed and footed) so I always thought that my right leg would last longer than my left leg. Another odd thing is that I do not have this problem when running on a treadmill. I thought perhaps it has to do with the extra stability when running outdoors but then I just ran into the same problem when just running in place.

I started running in place while watching tv because I have been trying to get more steps onto my Wii Fit Meter. By running, I really mean walking and jogging. I have noticed that I do run a bit farther/longer before reaching the soreness every couple weeks. I typically alternate between jogging and walking until the soreness goes away. I only did this a 2-3 times before just walking out the rest of the trail because I was afraid that I may be making it worse by not letting it rest enough.

Reference

http://training.fitness.com/injury-prevention-recovery/pain-left-leg-when-running-53170.html