Stacy Duval

Website Design and Digital Marketing

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Unlocking a locked Gravity Form

I recently had a problem where two Gravity Forms were locked on one of my client’s sites. When I would try to edit the form, a popup would come up saying another user was using the form. I logged that user out and that did not solve the problem. I went online to Google and several people had posted about this error and said it was fixed with the current version of Gravity Forms. Well my version of Gravity Forms was up to date. But I noticed in the comments of one of the posts that someone had used a Transients plugin to fix the problem.

According to Pippa Williamson of Pippin’s Plugins:

The Transients API in WordPress is a simple method for storing cached data in the database. It allows us to take resource-intensive queries and store them in temporary caches to improve performance. Transients are temporary, meaning that after a specified amount of time, the cached data will be deleted and re-cached, or updated.

transient manager screenSee Pippin’s tutorial about using the WordPress transient API to speed up database queries. I used Pippin’s plugin called Transients Manager to fix the problem. After you have downloaded and activated the plugin, look for the Transients tab under Tools in your Dashboard. Once you have the list of transients loaded on your screen, scroll and look for GF Cache. Delete all the transients with the words GF Cache in them. And your problem is gone!

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Expanding Your Horizons Conference

The Sonoma County Expanding Your Horizons Conference is coming up in one month on April 13, 2012. I attended this conference in 2009 and wrote this blog post about it. It is a marvelous event for your junior high student to attend. The student chooses from a selection of hands-on activities involving math and science. This is a very encouraging event for young girls in these two subjects where they do not get any encouragement.

Click here for the Sonoma County EYH website. You can find the schedule and directions.

Click here for the Registration Page. Registration ends April 5, 2013

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Spring Science and Math Break

Spring is in the air, the flowers are blooming and the children are out of school. This is a great opportunity to take an educational day trip. Living near San Francisco provides many opportunities to focus on museums with a math and science theme.

One of the most popular destinations this spring is the newly renovated and reopened California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. There is an aquarium, a planetarium and a four story tropical rainforest just to name a few of the attractions. To view the living roof of the new museum go up to the tower in the adjacent DeYoung Museum (the floor the gift shop is on).

A time honored tradition is a trip to the Exploratorium. They have over forty hands-on science exhibits to increase your wonder of the world. Their website is also a treasure trove of information about science on the web.

For children between the ages of four and ten, the Children’s Discovery Museum in San Jose is a good destination. The museum offers an interactive experience with many different branches of science that will be fun for the whole family.

A great place to visit with the older children is the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. They have a visitor center open from Tuesday through Friday in the afternoons from 1 to 4. This is a great place to start a conversation with your child about careers in science. Call ahead you need to make an appointment.

Another super choice for the older teens is the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. They are open Wednesday through Sunday from 10am to 5pm.

I went to the Intel Museum in Santa Clara when I was in college. It has been open for 40 years and has over 30 exhibits. It is open Monday through Saturday, all day. For groups of 8 and larger they have tours through the museum if you call ahead. Otherwise, the self guided tour is fantastic. They also have some exhibits on their website to compliment your visit.

The Bodega Marine Lab offers guided docent tours. You must call ahead to schedule. They have one day (Friday) where they are open for drop-in tours. Check the website for more information.

The Marine Mammal Center is where the volunteers after the Cusco Busan oil spill went to be trained. Visiting hours are 10am – 5pm everyday of the year except Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Years Day. The Marine Mammal Center is located in the beautiful Marin Headlands so you can plan a day of adventures.

Don’t forget to talk to your child about how fun math and science can be and wouldn’t it be wonderful if they ended up with a career in math or science!!!

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Motivating Young Women in Science + Mathematics

This weekend I attended the Expanding Your Horizons Conference. Expanding Your Horizons is a non-profit network that strives to nutures young women in the fields of math and science. Conferences are held all over the United States for seventh and eighth grade girls. At these conferences the girls have fun with difference math and science projects presented in hands-on workshops by women working in the fields of math and science. The conference I went to this weekend was the the 17th one held here in Sonoma County at Santa Rosa Junior College.

Expanding Your Horizons (EYH) began back in 1974 (when I was in high school) to increase the number of qualified women in math, science, technology and engineering careers. I was at Mills College when the first EYH conference was held so I have been following it since. Back when I was in high school, the boys were better at math and science. This is not the case today. Go to any high school and the AP math and science classes are predominantly girls. Even though the educational choices for women have increased, they are not choosing to go into the science, engineering, technology and business careers in the same numbers as men. As a result, engineering schools across the country are scrambling to find qualified candidates for their programs.

As an adult, I could not attend the workshops set up for the students. I attended a great workshop to help parents foster their students. We talked about many subjects including what to do when the homework is too hard and girl bullying in cyberspace. The students workshops ranged from a chemistry project where the girls made bath bombs to a electronic project where the girls made a simple circuit board.

Many people feel we need to start helping our boys get back on track with their math and science skills. While this is true the solution for boys and girls obviously needs to be different. This is why the EYH organizers allow boys to attend their conferences but have separate workshops for the boys.

If you would like more information about EYH:

A great article about encouraging your girl in math and science:

Contact Stacy

707-849-2702

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