hi, i'm jenn

I really enjoyed this article from the Boston globe. It addresses an issue that is very personal to me which I’ve been giving lots of thought to lately in particular. In some ways, it’s a high level overview of the book Unlocking the Clubhouse. The article is definitely worth a read.

I’m especially impressed that NSF is not only recognizing the problem, but creating grants to help solve it – I can’t wait to see what kinds of creative solutions people come up with. Organizations like NCWIT and CWIT make me really excited about the future. I think the idea of linking up with Girl Scouts/Guides could be really effective. The earlier the better I say!

I do have one qualm with the article. I really don’t agree with is the sub-title:

Women shunning a field once seen as welcoming

I have never met a woman in CS (young or not so young) who has used the term “welcoming” to describe this field. Nor do I think that’s the case the author was trying to make.
So my theory: the Boston globe has a random headline generator.

The new Samsung E530 pink mobile phone is a girl’s best friend, equipped with calorie counter, megapixel camera, shopping list…oh and it even tells the ladies when they’re ovulating! (via Ana)

I can’t stop laughing. I understand that they’re not marketing this device to women like myself, but who would stereotype women this way? This product must have been designed by men. I’d guess Homer Simpson and Stan Smith (the American Dad).

Elfred agrees with this hypothesis, noting two interesting insights into what was likely the thought process behind several key features:

• “Oh, my girlfriend always thinks she’s fat, let’s put the height/weight ratio in”
• “I’d occasionally like to do it without a condom, let’s add cycle tracking”

Oh, if Andrew designed it he would have included a flip up mirror on the back of it. Are you listening Samsung? You might want to look out for this guy.

Last night I went to an engagement dinner for my friends Steve and Giselle. For dessert, Giselle’s sister had made cupcakes. They were in all different flavours: Vanilla Cake with Vanilla Frosting, Chocolate Cake with Buttercream Icing, Chocolate Cake with Mint Icing…
And they were beautiful.
I looked at her sister and said “It’s like you work at the Cupcake Shoppe!”
Turns out she does!

Getting this site to this point hasn’t been that difficult given the vast amount of resources there are online, and the awesome people I have to ask my questions to. There have been three things that I’ve had trouble with that were really simple to solve, but hard (and time consuming) to diagnose. I’m documenting them all here so that hopefully the next person to stumble upon them will also happen to stumble upon this blog when googling for the solution.

1. Importing posts from Blogger: On the WordPress Wiki the instructions say to modify the Archive Template (Template –> Edit Archive). That’s wrong – you need to modify the normal template (Template –> Edit Current). There’s a great visual tutorial that has the correct steps using a modified import tool.
2. Setting up pretty permalinks in WordPress: I had my .htaccess file with the RewriteRules and all, but for some reason, as soon as I turned on pretty perma-links (via Options–>Permalinks) I would get 404 errors for every perma-link and category page. After some playing and searching this thread tipped me off to the problem: In general options the WordPress URI and Blog URI need to match.
3. Setting up pretty URLs for FAlbum: Had a similar problem with setting up Pretty URLs for the FAlbum plugin. When I set “Use Friendly URLs” to true, and tried to hit http://jennschac.com/photos/ I got errors. Here’s what was wrong: when you turn on the “Use Friendly URLS”(Options–>FAlbum) make sure to change the URL root field directly below to “/photos” (or whatever you want to use instead). Yes, I know it says it right there. I was *tired* okay?!

Wow. I just made a nerdy post.

Some soup up their cars. I soup up my blog.

New features include:

• Flickr plugin so you can view my sets as albums right here (fingers crossed I get a pro account for Channukah — mom click here)
• Spell check plugin so that my typos don’t get the best of me

More soon…

if you’ve ever dined with me, you’ve probably noticed that i love menus. whether i’ve been to the place 1000 times before, i know what i’m going to order or even if we’ve been sitting there for 35 minutes, i find it excruciatingly difficult to close the menu and put it down. the level of difficulty seems to vary in proportion to my hunger.

i’m sitting at home waiting for dinner time, and i’m hungry. it just dawned on me – i can read menus online! to all sorts of restaurants! yum. i wonder why it’s taken me this long to come up with this…

look what i made! i must admit i feel somewhat guilty about leaving blogger after 4+ years (notice the category for all imported posts) but I think I’ve grown out of it.

muchos gracias to elfred for his help and putting up with my annoying questions, and to leo for the fun pics. it’s all “LOOK AT ME”. i feel like such a narcissist.

the rest of the site is coming… most of the content should be up by thursday, so stay tuned.

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

tonight i’m going to a potluck Shabbat dinner.
i offered to bring dessert.
i was told to bring a side dish. a vegetable.
now, i’m not domesticated. far from it. buttt i make a mean cheesecake. unfortunately a cheesecake isn’t a vegetable. *sigh*
so i made broccoli using this 10 minute recipe that people seem to like.
it took an hour.
hrmph.
well, hopefully they were also off with the “serve immediately” cause it’s still 2 hours til dinner.

edit: the broccoli was a hit. there was none left! hurray!

last night was our final hockey lesson. we invited some people to come and watch, since i think most of them had decided we were probably using the “Hockey Lessons” as a cover up for some sort of covert activity.*

anyway, we definitely impressed them. someone pointed out that whenever i get the puck i have a tendency to stop skating, and start cheering for myself. that normally leads to someone from the other team stealing the puck, and me yelling about how mean they are. hopefully that will change once the novelty wears off. i suppose it will once i am catching the puck regularly. which might actually happen with a little more practice…

unfortunately that won’t be any time soon – i haven’t been able to find any lessons in Japan, and by the time i get back hockey will be done for the winter.

there’s always next year!

*do you really think i’d schedule said activity during the oc?!