The mother of invention

Ada Lovelace Day, bringing women in technology to the fore, was the the 24th of March. It was promoted & discussed amongst a number of technical types on the web at the time. Last weekend (April 18th) I came across the clipping below taken from a local newspaper in 2004. It gives a synopsis of a book published at the time.

Author: Jaffe, Deborah

Ingenious women : from tincture of saffron to flying machines / foreword by Sandi Toksvig, 2004.

The first woman to receive a patent was in 1637 in England between that and 1914 the were 500 patents granted to women. In the article the author of the article mentions a few women that Deborah Jaffe describes in her book. For more details click on the name.

Josephine Cochran - dish washer

Marion Donavan- disposable nappy

Ada Lovelace- first computer programme

Gusta Aarons Bohannan- chain link fire escape

Mary Anderson - windscreen wiper

Stephanie Kwolek – Kevlar

You will find some more inventions here, illustrations included when you click on the patent number.

WOMEN INVENTORS INDEX - 1790-1895

the illustrations are well worth looking at.

Blogs trying to run before I could walk

The post below was written a few weeks ago. Around that time I discovered a few problems. Cringe worthy indeed, 365 were installing their new Cluster server (the first in Ireland, we'll some technical friends, found that an exciting development). It caused an issue with the database settings, as new installations will, teething troubles. It rather stopped me in my tracks.

This time I've taken a simpler approach. Set up a blog with blogger.com. This gives me the opportunity to investigate a few things and check out in more detail how others have approached the problems. I've been advised to have a few blogs written in advance of publication and publish frequently at least once a week.

I like this C M S (content management system) it's much easier to use than others I'm acquainted with. The spell check works well too.

Testing testing 123 well here is the new blog

The before scene so to speak.

The three minute set up of Word press referred to in some promotions is not quite accurate. First we need to read the manual http://codex.wordpress.org/New_To_WordPress_-_Where_to_Start. Then take the time to set the server space to work with a database, I had a few hiccups at this stage it blocked my momentum somewhat. Some where in the midst of the reading and waiting for my server problems to be rectified I downloaded wordpress. I refilled in the wp-config-sample.php changing the DB_NAME, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD, DB_HOST, with the relevant settings provided by my hosting provider and re-saved it as wp-config.php During this process I found Gav Reillys article http://www.everydayiselectionday.com/2008/07/22/a-beginners-guide-to-installing-wordpress/ to be a great help. I'm a visual person I need pictures.

Using Transmit I FTPed the Wordpress folder up to my hosting service that took about eight minutes. Logged out and via the Firefox browser went to http://www.2dgraphicd.net/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php to a short wordpress form this took seconds to fill in, completing it gave me a username and password and a link to follow to my Wordpress installation. This time to a login form I input my username and password and I'm into my wordpress account. I changed a few settings looked around a bit. Attempting to see my blog I put www.2dgraphicd.net into the address bar opps! "'Directory Listing Denied'
'This Virtual Directory does not allow contents to be listed.'" I added /wordpress to the address Ok! there it is!
Visually not the most exciting, but inspiring, it's got potential.

So what next now I work on personalising my blog space, visually by adding an entry page, using or creating a theme (http://themes.wordpress.net/) maybe add a few plug ins. Try a few things, experiment. I have been advised that writing 4 to 6 blogs in advance covers all eventualities. Then I'll promote my blog. In the mean time I'll pop this up and see how this looks.