Today, I’m going to start a new topic. This topic is called “Being a Dad“, I’ve been a dad for 18 months now, and I’ve learned quite a lot, and I still have a great deal to learn as we go.

A few things I’ve learned:

1. Ask, Say, Do – a cool little technique for teaching a child to do something. Instead of taking complete control of a situation and doing everything for the child you start by asking them what they think they need to do first (giving them an opportunity to say what the first step is). If they ’say’ it correctly you move on to ‘Doing’ but if they don’t you then ’say’ what they need to do first. ‘Do’ is all about the child doing with you assisting – rather than the other way around. Then when the first step is complete you go through the cycle again (ask, say, do).
2. Telling not Asking – instead of saying ‘do you think it’s time for a bath now?’ saying ‘it’s time for a bath now’ – the first option gives the child the option to say no and then leaves you needing to convince or negotiate. The second option might also get a ‘no’ but is less likely to get that result. I guess it’s about assertive instructions rather than open ended ones.
3. Quality Time – I’ve always tried to set aside time for one on one time with my daughter. I spend as much time after work with her as I can. Some days, we do a field trip to the park or even to the mall, and some days we just stay home and color or read or watch a movie. Weekends, we usually start off with a big breakfast together, then we continue that with some coloring and books and toys. Some days in the summer, I take her out to the local farmer’s market to pick up some local fresh produce. Quality time throughout the day is important to your child.
4. Escalation Trap – most parents have experienced it. It’s a pattern whereby you as a parent only seem to get your child to do anything by escalating your efforts to get their attention – ie shouting, screaming, threats and craziness. The child also uses the same technique to get what they want – (tantrums). When this pattern takes over a family things can get pretty crazy as everyone’s pattern of behavior is to only respond to escalated behavior and to get their way by escalating.
5. Accidental Rewards – where you reward bad behavior – sometimes just to make a child stop behaving badly (buying the toy they want when they’re throwing a tantrum in the supermarket) or sometimes inadvertently by giving the child attention when they’re doing something antisocial (laughing when the child throws blueberries at their grandmother). The problem with these accidental rewards is that the child learns that the behavior can get them something and they’re sure to repeat it.

Those are the most important rules I’ve learned so far, but I’ll have more tips for you about my experience being a dad as this goes.

Talk like a pirate Day will be here on September 19th, and in honor of it, the folks at the Yahoo! Developer Network have made a handy little
javascript file that you can insert into your website to convert the text of the site to pirate talk.

Just insert this javascript link into the bottom of your pages to automatically change them to pirate speak after the page has loaded.

<script src="http://l.yimg.com/d/lib/ydn/js/pirate1252961643.js"></script>

Over the weekend, I decided to consolidate my sites.

I had been using mediatemple’s grid server since April but it was just having too many latency issues that made for a less enjoable experience.

I decided to move to a VPS on slicehost where I have had an account for a while.

The move was fairly smooth, but server migrations are something I’ve been doing for 10 years so they generally are.

Overall, I’m preferring slicehost over mediatemple and can see staying there for a while to come.

Last night, I rolled out the new design for this blog, as well, last week, I relaunched quickpipe.com with a new design.

On top of that, last week also saw the silent launch of wphive.com, which is a wordpress site that allows for thumbs up, thumbs down of articles.

One of the interesting things about working on wphive, was that I decided to use absolutely no plugins for the submissions and voting areas, all of it was custom coded to be handled inside the theme itself, and was fun to write.

1. Wireframe Magnets (DIY Kit) | Konigi
2. Starting a start-up, all the good stuff
3. Apple to App Developer: Remove the Most Useful Function, Please
4. Web Design Mistakes and How to Avoid Them « Bit Rebels
5. WinToFlash: Make a Windows USB Install Stick
6. Design an impressive web hosting layout
7. 10 WordPress ‘HOW-TO’ to Give Your Blog the Quality it Deserves
8. Extreme Makeover: Craigslist Edition
9. Some tips from Matt Cutts about using Wordpress and ranking higher in Google
10. All Feedback is Welcome
11. Really Useful Tools For PHP Developers
12. Tutorial: Turning a web site into a widget with YQL
13. Converting a Site From Classic ASP to PHP: Some Things to Consider
14. Project Management for SEO
15. WordPress Plugin: Gravity Forms Released
16. Definitive Guide to WordPress Page Navigation
17. 20 Most Commonly Used Plugins on Wordpress Blogs
18. 20 Essential Wordpress Caching And Performance Plugins
19. How To Resize An Image In Photoshop And Keep It Sharp
20. Protect Your Site Reputation: Avoid these Unethical SEO Tactics
21. The Anatomy of an iPhone Site
22. The Anatomy of an Online Store
23. Change WordPress Mail Sender
24. 5 Ways to Make Ajax Calls with jQuery
25. 10+ Mod_Rewrite Rules You Should Know
26. Creating a Relative Time Function

Since I was doing so much playing around with Amazon’s Product Advertising API to make changes for my proASM and my ASM2 script that I started making some new Amazon powered sites for the heck of it.

Deciding to do it differently, I took the SOAP route rather than the usual REST route a whole new Amazon script from scratch.

The two I’ve made so far are: http://www.netbookcentral.info and mobile-phone-cases.info.

Also differently, was how I decided to change the URL structure as well as having some meta tags dynamically generated by the product display.

How these will do I’ll wait and see.

I know that the blog updates have been a little slack this month, I was on vacation with my wife and daughter and then had to play catch up once I got back.

So far, August has been a busy month. Got some new updates for DBStract currently with some beta testers, and will be rolling them out shortly, as well, surveyti.me and foodizu will both see some new features coming shortly.

Otherwise, there hasn’t been a lot else to report, just been working a lot.

Ok at long last, here is another list post before I leave for a week’s holidays.

1. Get the Intro: PHP Paragraph Regular Expression
2. Using htaccess Files for Pretty URLS
3. GetSimple – The simple Content Management System Ever
4. Creating Thumbnails Using the CSS Clip Property
5. iPhone Programming Tutorial – Creating a ToDo List Using SQLite Part 1
6. iPhone Programming Tutorial – Creating a ToDo List Using SQLite Part 2
7. iPhone Programming Tutorial – Creating a ToDo List Using SQLite Part 3
8. iPhone Programming Tutorial – Creating a ToDo List Using SQLite Part 4
9. Aggressive Link Building with WordPress plugins
10. 40 Hours Of Illustrator, Time-Lapsed – Gadgets – Gizmodo
11. Puffing Smoke Effect in jQuery – Gaya Design
12. The Loop « WordPress Codex
13. Blogger hack: add delicious button with counter in your blogger posts
14. 27 Firefox Addons For Power Blogging
15. 24 useful free vectors | Designer Daily
16. In the Woods – 10 Typography Tips to Bring your Skills to the Next Level
17. How to Create an Icon – Video Tutorial « Bit Rebels
18. How To Use #MrTweet Instead of #FollowFriday + My Weekly Recommendations | bkmacdaddy designs
19. CSS Refresh – The Coder Zone
20. A New Warehouse for Graphic Designers – Go for it!! | Graphic Design Blog – An Ultimate Resource for Graphic Designers
21. Google Calendar Invoice Creator: A Simple Invoicing App
22. The Webs Best Designers And Their Favourite Fonts | Web Design Blog by Union Room Web Design
23. Latest Intesting jQuery Plugins And Snippets | Design-Notes
24. 21 Amazing CSS Techniques You Should Know
25. BBC NEWS | Technology | Firefox passes billion milestone
26. Online Scheduling and Appointment Software – BookFresh
27. 4 Steps to Creating a Freelance Schedule – FreelanceSwitch
28. From CodeIgniter to Ruby on Rails: A Conversion – Nettuts+
29. Free Portfolio WordPress Theme: Creative by Nature | Freebies | Smashing Magazine
30. Desktop Wallpaper Calendar: August 2009 | Graphics | Smashing Magazine
31. 15 Essential Wordpress Plugins for Aspiring Designers
32. 5 Interesting Ways to Calculating a Blog Value | Blogging Tips by TeraTips.com