Tools

First, I used the Kana-a-Day Practice Pad and a series of flash cards with the stroke on the front and how to pronounce the character on the back (I couldn’t find a link to the specific ones I used). I checked out some websites too, but ultimately those were the two tools that I stuck with for the last 30 days.

Starting Out and How I did it in 30 Days

I remember the first Hiragana character I did in the practice pad, あ. I practiced that first one about seventy times. At first, it felt so awkward and difficult to write, but I did it. And at the end of the day, it felt very satisfying to have just learned one character since I had always been very intimidated about learning kana (and kanji), it always looked so hard to learn to me. But hey, I just learned one! That was a good feeling. I only did one character the first day and it felt great! The next day I did two characters. Then the following day, I also did two characters. After that I realized if I kept at this pace, learning one or two a day, it would take me half a year just to learn all of them! So, I started doing five per day to learn the initial 46 characters, then I would do six, nine, ten or twelve per day for the modified/combined characters depending upon how much time I had and how ambitious I was feeling. It took me 16 days to learn all 104 Hiragana, then I basically repeated the same thing for the Katakana, learning five per day for initial 46 characters, then doing a half a dozen or more after that. Once I got momentum going those first several days, it made it easier to stick with it. I think taking it slow those first couple of days helped me build confidence too.

Repetition, Forgetting and Remembering

When I was learning the kana, I would practice them in the Kana-a-Day pad. But then throughout the day I would write the characters I learned in multiple places: I would write them on the white board in my office, I would write them on the marker board on the refrigerator, I would use a dry erase marker to write them on the mirror in the bathroom and I would practice them on sticky notes. Throughout the day, I would forget the characters I had learned, but forgetting them and then remembering them again, seemed to make me remember them better. I would use the flash cards at random times throughout the day too. I think spreading out the learning worked better for me vs. trying to do them all at once and cramming them in my brain. I would spend several minutes in the morning learning a new batch of characters and then throughout the day it would only take a minute or two to practice/review them all. I would always try to review the ones I already learned and the ones I just learned too. And then if I forgot one, I would just look how to do it and then that would make it easier to remember for the next time. So, I think the first key that worked for me was forgetting them and then remembering them throughout the day. And learning/practicing them in multiple sessions throughout the day vs. just doing one session.

Mnemonic Devices

The other method I used was trying to find mnemonic devices for the characters. I found it easy for some of the characters, but for others it didn’t really work. Like an obvious one is the Katakana character for shi: シ, so I think, she’s smiling (or smirking). Or for the Hiragana characters, ku: く, I remember “less than” which helps me remember the next character, ke: け, which I think of writing “lt” (for less than). Anyway, this helped me learn some of them, but for others I just had to learn them without a mnemonic device.

Summary

I know these tools and techniques won’t work for everyone, as everyone learns differently. But hopefully there’s something in here of value to someone out there. In summary I just took it slow for this first few days which built up my confidence. Writing the kana in different environments seemed to help. Practicing and reviewing them at random intervals throughout the day seemed to help too. And creating mnemonic devises and stories for each character made it funner and easier to remember.

$ gem install rails --no-rdoc --no-ri

But there’s another way to prevent documentation from being installed. Create a .gemrc file in your home directory with the following:

gem: --no-ri --no-rdoc

Now you don’t have to worry about supplying the command line options, this will give you no documentation by default.

First I wrapped the handles with some old telephone cord to give them more girth.

On the bottom handle, I used some smaller cord for finger grips. I also secured the cords with duct tape.

Finally, I dipped the handles in Plasti Dip to give them a nice rubbery grip. Notice how the bottom handle has a slight curve to it.

My grass shears still look old and worn, but they work solidly and the handles are very plush and comfortable. In hindsight, I probably wouldn’t have wrapped the handles with duct tape as this made them somewhat lumpy after I plasti-dipped them. Also, I probably would have picked the red Plasti Dip, the black one is a bit dull to me.

First, add the Window Buttons to each taskbar, right-click on your panel:

Panel –> Add New Items –> Window Buttons

After this, right-click on each Window Buttons item in the taskbar (panel) and click Properties. You’ll find the option in there:

Un-check the option: Show windows from all monitors

(Another useful property to be aware of is Sorting order: None, allow drag-and-drop. This will let you drag your windows around in the taskbar around, but then you lose the default sorting, too bad you can’t have the best of both worlds.)

Took me a while to figure this one out, hopefully it will save someone some time or save me some time if I have to do it again.

Example:

messages.delete('twitter') unless user.twitter_username

Using the translation, this Ruby code would read as: delete twitter messages except if the user has a twitter username.

Using and reading unless in Ruby was like Greek to me when I first saw it, but now that my brain automatically makes the association/translation for me, using it has become second nature.

Hopefully this technique will help someone else struggling to use unless in Ruby.

If you’re using Windows XP, delete the associated files from:

C:\Documents and Settings\~username\Application Data\Adobe\Fireworks CS5\ ..
Commands\Workspace Layouts\

If you’re using Windows 7, the files can be found at:

C:\Users\~username\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Fireworks CS5\Commands\ ..
Workspace Layouts\

If you’re using a Mac the associated files are located at:

~username/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Fireworks CS5/Commands/ ..
Workspace Layouts/

• Right click on one of your existing taskbars and select New Panel.
• Right click on the new panel (taskbar) that got created and select Properties.
• Un-check Expand (keep the Panel Properties open).
• Drag the new panel to your secondary monitor.
• In the Panel Properties window, change the Orientation to Bottom (or whatever you want).
• Re-check Expand.
• Then click Close to exit.

This will get you a secondary taskbar. Now you can customize it. One thing I like to do is add a window list to the secondary taskbar so you can see which applications are open on each monitor.

• Right click on the new taskbar and select Add to Panel…
• Select and Add Window List.

That should be it, just keep customizing your new taskbar until you’re happy.

Here’s how to map a directory so you can access it via Apache without it being in the webroot.

Add this to your httpd.conf file:

<IfModule alias_module>
  Alias /myphpsite/ "D:/websites/myphpsite/"

  <Directory "D:/websites/myphpsite/">
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes ExecCGI
    AllowOverride all
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
  </Directory>
</IfModule>

Just update “myphpsite” with your own alias and update “D:/websites/myphpsite/” with the drive/directory of the actual site. I tested this using Apache2.2.

First, I downloaded the latest SQlite3 DLL. (I grabbed the DLL of the SQLite library without the TCL bindings.)

Then, I exracted the .dll and .def files to my C:\ruby\bin directory and that fixed my issue. (You’ll might have to restart your console session.)

These steps will also fix this error message:
“The procedure entry point sqlite3_column_database_name could not be located in the dynamic link library sqlite3.dll.”

Hope this helps someone else running into the same issue.

def self.up
  if RAILS_ENV == 'development'
    # set all of your test data for development...
  end
end