Author: Eric

Eric is still willing to sacrifice ample dignity in exchange for the smallest bits of attention -- it's pathetic really. Super father though, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound...

Categories
Web

“tag assistant” net::ERR_BLOCKED_BY_CLIENT

Bet you’re wondering why you’re getting the net::ERR_BLOCKED_BY_CLIENT in your tag assistant. I got this error

An error occured while the tag was fired: net :: ERR_BLOCKED_BY_CLIENT

Boy oh boy was that frustrating;

error

Easy fix. I had AdBlocker running, and so that’s what Tag Manager was complaining about. I think conversion tracking places a single pixel gif on the landing page, and I think AdBlocker was, well, blocking that. So you get that “ERR_BLOCKED_BY_CLIENT” … the client is you (or your browser, specifically) and you told it to block things.

Once I disabled adblocker, the error went away. Here’s what it looked like once I disabled.

Screen Shot 2016-01-28 at 2.29.17 PM

This makes me wonder if Google Adwords is not counting conversions from people who have adblocker software running — but that’s a topic for another post.

Your ad blocker might look like this.

ghost

Categories
Uncategorized

Military Motivational Video

Here’s a video with military style motivational speaking covered by images of the American military training and fighting.

Categories
parenting

Irvington NY School District 2015 2017 Calendar

UPDATED for 2016/2017 SCHOOL YEAR! I made an .ics file of the Irvington NY School District 2015-2017 Calendar that you can import into your outlook or google calendar. Woot! Here it is embedded in this page — you can bookmark this page.

Irvington NY School District 2015 – 2017 Calendar

The PDF from the district is here:
Irvington NY School District 2016 2017 Calendar

Irvington NY School District 2015 2016 Calendar

Categories
Tips for Kids

Do You. Be You. Smart IS cool!

This video has a carpe diem message – seize the day. The message that most people are broken by the time they’re 25 has a bit of truth in it. But there is a cure — don’t believe the haters and critics. Believe in your dream. Believe in your heart. Seize the day.

The guy who’s speaking, Richard Williams, is an American rapper and activist. You might know him by his stage name Prince Ea. But he started a Make Smart Cool movement and his messages of inspiring youth goes well with this blog.

The moral of this story is: Do You. Be You. Step into your greatness. I believe in you too.

Categories
parenting Tips for Kids

Honesty – Be honest with yourself and others

Honest Abe knew that being honest gave him power and strength of character

Honest Abe knew that being honest gave him power and strength of character
Honest Abe knew that being honest gave him power and strength of character
Every act of honesty will give you strength. It takes discipline and character to be honest but the rewards are great.

Sometimes we see people get away with cheating, lying to their parents, or stealing. But these acts wear on a person’s soul and they are ultimately caught and exposed. Honesty is always the best thing to be.

Here are some words that are similar to honest: Upstanding, incorruptible, moral, principled, truth-loving, steadfast, true, real, right, good, straight-shooting, genuine. Who wouldn’t want to be like that? Although it’s not always easy, try to be honest every day.

Two tasks for you to practice being honest today:

* The next time a parent or teacher asks you what you’re doing, please tell the whole story and don’t leave out information that is meant to mislead or deceive.

* Do not exaggerate or embellish today.

Thanks.

Categories
parenting Tips for Kids

Attitude – Start Slow Finish Fast

When you’re playing a game, there are many things you can’t control. But you can always control your attitude. Apollos Hester has some advice about keeping a great winning attitude during a tough game.

“You can do anything you put your mind to. Never give up on your dreams. Keep smiling. If you fall down. Just get up. There will be people to help you get up. Your friends and family will help you.”

Remember to keep a great attitude today when things don’t go your way.

Categories
Tips for Kids

Do An Act of Kindness Today

Kindness is Contagious

Kindness is Contagious
Kindness is Contagious
Take time to say hi to the most lonely person you know. Write a thank-you note to someone who has helped you, like a friend or coach. Buy a snack in the lunch line and give it to somebody who looks like they could use it. Giving to others is really a gift to yourself. Nobody really knows why that’s true, but the irony is that helping others can make you feel wonderful.

Here are some simple things you can do today:

* Hold the door open for someone
* Give someone a compliment
* Call a family member you don’t see often
* Smile at someone

See if you can do all of these and more.

Categories
parenting Tips for Kids

Self-confidence – Change happens from within

Looking at the cat in the mirror

This week we will work on confidence. This is important because if you win this battle within yourself, you’ll be able to conquer in the world at large. Confidence does not come from your parents or your teachers or coach. Everything starts with you and what you do. So this is where we start.

Looking at the cat in the mirror
Looking at the cat in the mirror
What is insecurity?
I’m sure there are times when you’re worried about what your peers think. I know you sometimes feel inferior because it happens to all of us. And sometimes you act arrogant just to hide your lack of confidence. And when you get jealous, angry or insecure because somebody beats you at something, this also a sign self doubt. These are symptoms of insecurity.

What is confidence?
If you would stand up for yourself and resist the pressures that your friends put on you — that is self-confidence. When you’re not overly concerned about being popular at school, this is a sign of self-worth. When you see your life as a positive, fun and exciting experience — this helps you have courage and determination. Trust yourself and go for your goals. At the same time, be happy for the successes of others. These are signs of confidence.

Here are some things we will do this week:

* Be gentle with yourself
* do small acts of kindness
* Keep the promises you make with yourself
* Be honest
* Tap into your talents.

Be Gentle with Yourself Today
Today, lets just focus on being gentle with yourself. This means not expecting yourself to be perfect. There are things you learned early and things you still need to learn. When your peers seem better than you, that’s okay. Everyone learns things at their own pace. It means laughing at yourself when you make mistakes. It means forgiving yourself when you make a mistake. Just learn from the mistake and move on. So learn to love yourself today, try your hardest but forgive yourself for not being perfect all the time.

I’m starting with the man in the mirror
I’m asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself, and then make a change.
“MAN IN THE MIRROR” BY SIEDAH GARRETT AND GLEN BALLARD

Categories
arts Film

Movies To Watch Again

GummoThere is hope in most of these films. And hope is something that can be hard to find. So you can watch any of these films with me. I’d gladly watch them again (and again and again). Or you can watch them by yourself. Just don’t miss them, here’s why.

  1. Fame (1980) — Okay, I’ll admit it. Fame shaped my life…probably informed my love of ballet and ballerinas. But that’s not why you should watch it again. Wim Wenders said that every narrative feature film is also a sort of documentary film of it’s time. So behind the actors in Fame some great documentary scenes from Times Square in the late 70’s — a documentary not to miss.
  2. Cinema Paradiso — The themes of the thread that attaches us to the past, moving from home, moving on — mortality. The opening image says it all…the long long thread back to mom. This film gets me every time.
  3. Blow Up — how did Michelangelo Antonioni so perfectly capture ‘mod’ right in the middle of it happening in England? It’s beyond me. But more importantly, it’s the wandering absence of narrative — an image maker in search of something and finding death. The Felliniesque ending with the mimes — brilliant. Plus, Jane Burken appears nude at 18 years old — what more do you need?
  4. Raging Bull — Robert De Niro chomped down on this role like a pit bull. One of Martin Scorsese’s best films. Nothing against Robert Redford or Ordinary People but — boy — did the Academy get it wrong that year.
  5. Gattaca – The inner struggle for perfection. The triumph of will. The beautiful images. “I never saved anything for the way back”. This movie teaches you to reach beyond your grasp, to give it all, and to not leave an excuse for failing.
  6. Dead Man – The dichotomy of Native American culture with the zany view of the white wild west – machine – is so interesting and compelling. The great performance by Mr. Depp, the music of Niel Young and the Jim Jarmusch style blended perfectly.
  7. Sense and Sensibility – this is not just a ‘chick flick’ — not at all. It’s a very great movie — stunning Cinematography and art direction. Great costuming. Great writing, of course, by Jane Austin. This film takes you back to a gentile, yet still imperfect, time.
  8. La Strada – one of Fillini’s more ‘normal’ films, and for me, one of his best. Not only does Giulietta Masina vaguely remind me of my own mother, she is absolutely innocent in this film. This is a tragic film. “I don’t know for what this pebble is useful but it must be useful. For if its useless, everything is useless.” Ahhh, there is hope in this film too.
  9. Strictly Ballroom – I was a professional dancer when I saw this film and I thought it spoke to me directly. Almost everything in the film related to my current life. I caught every insight into the dance world — every pun, every sarcasm, every irony. I laughed so hard that when the film was over, people in the audience looked at me like I was an insane manic.
  10. Deconstructing Harry – I like plenty of Woody Allen’s Films — maybe all of them — but there are a few that really stand out. This one brilliantly shows how a writer’s real life merges with his fiction.
  11. Everyone Says I Love You – Drew Barrymore, Allen Alda, Goldie Hawn — all in a musical about mortality and love. Thank you Mr. Allen, for this one. You truly are one of the great ones. Other Woody Allen Movies certainly worth watching again and again — Bullets Over Broadway, Manhattan, Anne Hall, Broadway Danny Rose, Match Point, etc.Bicycle Theifs
  12. Gummo — The first time I saw this film, I hated it. I didn’t get it. I had to learn to love the brilliance of eating spaghetti in a bubble bath with a chocolate chaser. I had to get over my repulsion to appreciate the body slam of a folding chair. Such great performances from the slap fighters — scenes worth seeing again.
  13. Pickpocket – How do you film someones soul? Watch Pickpocket to see…I became interested in the film after hearing a radio program with writer Paul Schrader, who said that Pickpocket influenced him in writing Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. So I went to the Film Forum in New York City one raining October afternoon and became so involved in the pickpocket character that I totally forgot that I was in 2005 New York. The cinematographic grammar of Bresson is truly ahead of his time. He is able to place the viewer into the head of the pickpocket, strangely, by not showing the action you would expect a film maker to show. Schrader talked about Pickpocket as the first example he had seen of a film that is about the soul of the hero instead of about the actions.
  14. Ladri di biciclette — Maybe Schrader got it wrong and Pickpocket wasn’t the first film about a soul. The Bicycle Thief is about a soul and it’s from 1948. I didn’t want this list to get all “film schooly” but it’s hard to leave this one off my list. The story is so simple, so fundamental, so universal…I’d watch it any day…I’d stand in line.


Categories
Sales Technology Web Wordpress

Wufoo Form Referrer in WordPress Widgets

We were using a Wufoo form in a sidebar widget area on a WordPress theme to help with sales conversions. But then we wanted to know what page the user was looking at when they filled out the form. Below is all the information you’ll need to do just that.

The Wufoo blog has an informative overview of the general solution to tracking on wufoo. And Wufoo support team was very helpful by sharing this wufoo tracking tutorial with CSS. Those two links took me 90% there. Here are the extra details you’ll want to get it all to work in the WordPress widget area.

  1. Set things up as described in the links above.
  2. Install the PHP Text Widget plugin, which extends the text area widget to allow PHP within the text area (otherwise it won’t compile the code at runtime, and instead it would merely echo the PHP code within the widget). Please note, that once you install the plugin, there is nothing else to do — there is no settings page for the plugin or anything…the text area widget will now compile the php.
  3. You will want to add this code 'defaultValues':'fieldXXX=<?php the_permalink() ?/> ', to the wufoo form javascript code. This will autofill a field XXX with the URL that the user is viewing. Specifically, this code <?php the_permalink() ?/> will use PHP to return the current URL in wordpress.
  4. Finally, to find that field number XXX and replace it with the actual field number of your hidden refer field. To do this, in Wufoo admin tool, go the the form’s “code” area and click on the “API Information” button in the upper right corner. Than will show you the API ID of each field. Replace XXX in with your field’s number.

Now when somebody fills out your form, it should show the URL they were on when they filled out the form. Happy coding!