So far, I like the design features. Unless I decide to host this l blog on my own domain, Blogger is where I'm likely to be for awhile.
Sent from my BlackBerry
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Moved to Blogger
Wordpress.com is very limiting on the amount of designs they have and the lack of customization so I decided to try Blogger.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Basic Vegetable Soup
Vegetable soup is a mainstay of my diet. Various combinations of vegetables, grains and spices make it versatile and a way to promote a healthy diet that doesn't get old. The versatility, also allows for a well balanced diet, providing essential nutrients our bodies require.
1/2 cup of a whole grain
Vegetables
1 small can of tomato sauce
Spices to taste
Bring water to a boil
Cook the grain and denser vegetables for 15 minutes
Add tomatoes, sauce, canned vegetables, and spices
Cook for 5 minutes.
Grain - brown rice or bulgar wheat. I like the extra fiber that grain provides.
Vegetables - this is where you can and should mix it up. Choose what's fresh or just what your in the mood for. Try new items and combinations.
Spices - again, this is where you can experiment. I have found it's best to have as few as possible and in small amounts.
The key is to not overcook! Rice should not be mushy. Vegetables should still have a slight crunch.
I like this one because it's quick and easy and well, I love the taste. Only takes 20 minutes to cook.
1/2 cup organic brown rice
2 small potatoes chopped
1 cup sliced carrots'
1 cup chopped cabbage
1 can of pinto beans
1 small can of tomato sauce
1 small can of diced or 2 chopped fresh roma tomatoes
Sea salt, cayenne pepper and ginger to taste (around 1/4 teaspoon each. I measure by sight)
Boil rice, potatoes and carrots for 15 minutes.
Add cabbage, tomatoes, pinto beans, tomato sauce and spices
Continue to simmer for 5 minutes.
Basic Soup Recipe
1/2 cup of a whole grain
Vegetables
1 small can of tomato sauce
Spices to taste
Bring water to a boil
Cook the grain and denser vegetables for 15 minutes
Add tomatoes, sauce, canned vegetables, and spices
Cook for 5 minutes.
Grain - brown rice or bulgar wheat. I like the extra fiber that grain provides.
Vegetables - this is where you can and should mix it up. Choose what's fresh or just what your in the mood for. Try new items and combinations.
Spices - again, this is where you can experiment. I have found it's best to have as few as possible and in small amounts.
The key is to not overcook! Rice should not be mushy. Vegetables should still have a slight crunch.
My Favorite Soup
I like this one because it's quick and easy and well, I love the taste. Only takes 20 minutes to cook.
1/2 cup organic brown rice
2 small potatoes chopped
1 cup sliced carrots'
1 cup chopped cabbage
1 can of pinto beans
1 small can of tomato sauce
1 small can of diced or 2 chopped fresh roma tomatoes
Sea salt, cayenne pepper and ginger to taste (around 1/4 teaspoon each. I measure by sight)
Boil rice, potatoes and carrots for 15 minutes.
Add cabbage, tomatoes, pinto beans, tomato sauce and spices
Continue to simmer for 5 minutes.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Backup Twitter Account and Tweets
I have found two tools to backup Twitter information.
With Tweetake, you enter your Twitter username and password on the web site, choose what you want backup up and click the "Get 'em" button.
Tweetake site
TwitterBackup is java based tool you download and run. Requires java to be installed on your computer (most people will have this).
Enter username, password and filename and hit the Enter key.
TwitterBackup site
Found these tools and screenshots from this blog.
Tweetake
With Tweetake, you enter your Twitter username and password on the web site, choose what you want backup up and click the "Get 'em" button.
Tweetake site
TwitterBackup
TwitterBackup is java based tool you download and run. Requires java to be installed on your computer (most people will have this).
Enter username, password and filename and hit the Enter key.
TwitterBackup site
Found these tools and screenshots from this blog.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Black Friday and Cyber Monday Shopping
The black friday/cyber monday shopping went very well this year. Staples had an HP laptop for $299. 3GB of RAM and Windows 7. Also picked up a Motorola bluetooth headset for $10 after rebate.
I was on the Staples site at 5am to get the laptop. Their servers were overloaded with the traffic so I kept getting errors on each page. It took about 15 minutes to put the item in my cart and get checked out. I was very relieved that the site issues didn't cause me to miss the great deals. I was concerned with the laptop so I ordered it by itself. Then went back to order the headset. Since I would have to pay shipping for it, had it shipped to the local store.
The rest of the weekend was uneventful for sales. On Monday night Tiger Direct had a Seagate 1.5TB hard drive for $99. There was free shipping on orders over $100 so I added a Motorola Bluetooth Car Kit for $29.99. A family member will be able to use that when driving.
Still have one Toshiba netbook to get. Hopefully it will go on sale soon.
I was on the Staples site at 5am to get the laptop. Their servers were overloaded with the traffic so I kept getting errors on each page. It took about 15 minutes to put the item in my cart and get checked out. I was very relieved that the site issues didn't cause me to miss the great deals. I was concerned with the laptop so I ordered it by itself. Then went back to order the headset. Since I would have to pay shipping for it, had it shipped to the local store.
The rest of the weekend was uneventful for sales. On Monday night Tiger Direct had a Seagate 1.5TB hard drive for $99. There was free shipping on orders over $100 so I added a Motorola Bluetooth Car Kit for $29.99. A family member will be able to use that when driving.
Still have one Toshiba netbook to get. Hopefully it will go on sale soon.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Linux, Windows, Mac
There has been an operating system battle going on for around two decades. There have been many shifts and changes in the battle that no one foresaw and each has adapted to for better or worse.
I've used all three and like all three. I'm not one of those fanatics who thinks you have to use the operating system I like and I don't object to companies competing and making money. In fact, that is what has spurred innovation. Linux has been innovating precisely because of capitalism and market forces. No matter what Richard Stallman had hoped.
Mac has always had a small following. I remember the version 8 and 9 days. Not much there but also technology hadn't developed enough to have much to compete against. With version 10 being based on Unix, Apple hoped to win over BSD and Linux developers to helped them fight the "evil empire". I don't think Steve Jobs realized that the open source advocates saw him in the same way as they do Bill Gates. But Jobs could buy people with jobs (pun intended).
OS X is a great system. Of course there are two major issues. The first is price. Why buy a Mac even though Unix is more stable when the cost is so high. Most people will never see a reason and there is no reason they should. Second is software. Why buy a Mac and run Windows software on it anyway? How many advocates use Microsoft Word on their Mac?
We all know what Windows is and have varying opinions of it's versions. ME still makes me shudder. I didn't like any of the products between 3.1 and XP. There have been multitudes rail on Vista but I love it.
Windows 7 is a major milestone and I think will spur Windows continues dominance of the desktop.
I have used Linux since 1999 when I installed Red Hat 5. At home, I used Linux exclusively for four years until I was assigned a Windows XP laptop in 2006 to work from home. I love Linux. However, as technology has become more and more sophisticated, Linux can't prosper as a volunteer operating system. Indeed it hasn't. The Linux creator and copyright holder, Linux Torvalds, went to work for several corporations that have paid him to run the development of Linux. Red Hat Software, by far the most used Linux distribution, incorporated and pays developers.
My point is many Linux enthusiasts thought they could continue developing the OS without corporate support. Small companies can use Linux quite well for jobs such as web hosting. But for larger projects, this argument turned out wrong and not just because of the need for money.
Software has become complicated. Different applications have to work together with the operating system and hardware for optimal performance. This is why the corporation Red Hat is leading in the Linux arena on the server level. They work closely with hardware and software vendors such as HP and Oracle. Programming has been added to better utilize hardware and application resources. This wouldn't have been accomplished if it wasn't for Red Hat. Companies like to work with other companies. They need deals and assurances. Red Hat made deals and gave assurances to the point where Red Hat and Linux are synonymous in the business world. And Red Hat Linux is dominate in the server world.
I remember a decade ago when all the talk was "when" Linux was going to win the desktop war. Linux IS a great desktop operating system but Linux lost in the desktop arena. The interest by hardware and software vendors just wasn't there. On the desktop front, there were too many hardware vendors with too many specs. It takes programmers to make hardware work with an operating system. Companies were paying for Windows to work. Why pay additional personnel to duplicate the job for Linux? Couple that with the fact that some vendors had a reason to keep their code proprietary.
There is still hope for Linux but that hope will come from a totally unexpected source and an area that is not the desktop. It actually started with Apple and there development of the product that is keeping the company afloat - the iPhone.
Linux has been used as a phone OS for a long time. But phone manufacturers have been innovating and have developed what are referred to as smart phones - basically miniature computers used for talk, text, email, web browsing, listen to music, watch videos, etc. Apple, Microsoft and Linux are used extensively in this arena. This was in my opinion unexpected not long ago. Devices such as the iPod and iTouch dominated Apple's lineup and Microsoft countered with the Zune. Both are outdated today since what they do is only a small subset of what smart phones do.
Like the desktop arena, Apple limits itself to a product which it manufactures both the hardware and software. Both Windows Mobile and Linux run on multiple devices but Windows has been slow to be upgraded. The current version is 6.5 and version 7 is not expected out until sometime next year.
Linux has had two benefactors in the phone market: Palm and Google. Palm's WebOS is based on Linux and the Palm Pre phone has many innovative features including multitasking.
Google jumped into the arena with the Linux based Android OS. Version two has just come out. Manufacturers have picked it up and ran with it. As far as the sheer number of phones, Android will certainly dominate. Apple and Windows continue to compete. I look forward to see the new innovations because innovation is good for us all.
I've used all three and like all three. I'm not one of those fanatics who thinks you have to use the operating system I like and I don't object to companies competing and making money. In fact, that is what has spurred innovation. Linux has been innovating precisely because of capitalism and market forces. No matter what Richard Stallman had hoped.
Mac
Mac has always had a small following. I remember the version 8 and 9 days. Not much there but also technology hadn't developed enough to have much to compete against. With version 10 being based on Unix, Apple hoped to win over BSD and Linux developers to helped them fight the "evil empire". I don't think Steve Jobs realized that the open source advocates saw him in the same way as they do Bill Gates. But Jobs could buy people with jobs (pun intended).
OS X is a great system. Of course there are two major issues. The first is price. Why buy a Mac even though Unix is more stable when the cost is so high. Most people will never see a reason and there is no reason they should. Second is software. Why buy a Mac and run Windows software on it anyway? How many advocates use Microsoft Word on their Mac?
Windows
We all know what Windows is and have varying opinions of it's versions. ME still makes me shudder. I didn't like any of the products between 3.1 and XP. There have been multitudes rail on Vista but I love it.
Windows 7 is a major milestone and I think will spur Windows continues dominance of the desktop.
Linux
I have used Linux since 1999 when I installed Red Hat 5. At home, I used Linux exclusively for four years until I was assigned a Windows XP laptop in 2006 to work from home. I love Linux. However, as technology has become more and more sophisticated, Linux can't prosper as a volunteer operating system. Indeed it hasn't. The Linux creator and copyright holder, Linux Torvalds, went to work for several corporations that have paid him to run the development of Linux. Red Hat Software, by far the most used Linux distribution, incorporated and pays developers.
My point is many Linux enthusiasts thought they could continue developing the OS without corporate support. Small companies can use Linux quite well for jobs such as web hosting. But for larger projects, this argument turned out wrong and not just because of the need for money.
Software has become complicated. Different applications have to work together with the operating system and hardware for optimal performance. This is why the corporation Red Hat is leading in the Linux arena on the server level. They work closely with hardware and software vendors such as HP and Oracle. Programming has been added to better utilize hardware and application resources. This wouldn't have been accomplished if it wasn't for Red Hat. Companies like to work with other companies. They need deals and assurances. Red Hat made deals and gave assurances to the point where Red Hat and Linux are synonymous in the business world. And Red Hat Linux is dominate in the server world.
I remember a decade ago when all the talk was "when" Linux was going to win the desktop war. Linux IS a great desktop operating system but Linux lost in the desktop arena. The interest by hardware and software vendors just wasn't there. On the desktop front, there were too many hardware vendors with too many specs. It takes programmers to make hardware work with an operating system. Companies were paying for Windows to work. Why pay additional personnel to duplicate the job for Linux? Couple that with the fact that some vendors had a reason to keep their code proprietary.
There is still hope for Linux but that hope will come from a totally unexpected source and an area that is not the desktop. It actually started with Apple and there development of the product that is keeping the company afloat - the iPhone.
Linux has been used as a phone OS for a long time. But phone manufacturers have been innovating and have developed what are referred to as smart phones - basically miniature computers used for talk, text, email, web browsing, listen to music, watch videos, etc. Apple, Microsoft and Linux are used extensively in this arena. This was in my opinion unexpected not long ago. Devices such as the iPod and iTouch dominated Apple's lineup and Microsoft countered with the Zune. Both are outdated today since what they do is only a small subset of what smart phones do.
Like the desktop arena, Apple limits itself to a product which it manufactures both the hardware and software. Both Windows Mobile and Linux run on multiple devices but Windows has been slow to be upgraded. The current version is 6.5 and version 7 is not expected out until sometime next year.
Linux has had two benefactors in the phone market: Palm and Google. Palm's WebOS is based on Linux and the Palm Pre phone has many innovative features including multitasking.
Google jumped into the arena with the Linux based Android OS. Version two has just come out. Manufacturers have picked it up and ran with it. As far as the sheer number of phones, Android will certainly dominate. Apple and Windows continue to compete. I look forward to see the new innovations because innovation is good for us all.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Buying Electronics
Everyone buys electronics. Most of us are not sure what is the difference between brands or models. The options vary, sometime widely. Here are some general tips that will help.
The first step I take is to look at the manufacturers web site and view the specifications.
Next, I look at online reviews - as many as I can. Reviews by professionals, geeks and average consumers.
For specific types of mobile phones:
For other electronics visit deparment or appliance store web site. Many have customer reviews.
The online review sites above have videos covering all aspects of an item. For instance, for cell phones, you can find overviews listing all the specifications and features, walk-throughs demonstrating their use, and comparions with competing devices.
YouTube - another site to search where average people share their reviews and experiences.
After you've read several online reviews and watched the videos, it's time to take an in-person hands on look at the item.
Let's use as an example televisions. You go up and down the isle and see which has a clearer picture, more vivid colors, etc. Many make their choice on what they see. But, there is something you need to remember, what you see at first site may or may not be accurate. Of course what your seeing is accurate, but that is only for how the devices are adjusted. Who adjusts them? Someone who works at the store, other customers, or maybe no one has.
The problem is, if you adjust different brands, another one may look better overall.So, go through each model and ajust them!
Do thourough research before making any decision. Don't feel pressured. If unsure, wait. Give yourself more time to get it right.
Read Online Reviews
The first step I take is to look at the manufacturers web site and view the specifications.
Next, I look at online reviews - as many as I can. Reviews by professionals, geeks and average consumers.
For specific types of mobile phones:
For other electronics visit deparment or appliance store web site. Many have customer reviews.
Watch Videos
The online review sites above have videos covering all aspects of an item. For instance, for cell phones, you can find overviews listing all the specifications and features, walk-throughs demonstrating their use, and comparions with competing devices.
YouTube - another site to search where average people share their reviews and experiences.
Compare in the Store
After you've read several online reviews and watched the videos, it's time to take an in-person hands on look at the item.
Let's use as an example televisions. You go up and down the isle and see which has a clearer picture, more vivid colors, etc. Many make their choice on what they see. But, there is something you need to remember, what you see at first site may or may not be accurate. Of course what your seeing is accurate, but that is only for how the devices are adjusted. Who adjusts them? Someone who works at the store, other customers, or maybe no one has.
The problem is, if you adjust different brands, another one may look better overall.So, go through each model and ajust them!
Do thourough research before making any decision. Don't feel pressured. If unsure, wait. Give yourself more time to get it right.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
First thoughts on Wordpress
I have been using Wordpress for about a week now and am impressed. I like the themes and customization. Anyone who is a novice can easily set up a blog in a very short amount of time. Experienced web programmers will enjoy the ability to edit the entire look and feel.
I have programmed in HTML and CSS for many years and dabbled in PHP. Soon after installation I wanted to update the header and sidebar code. Wordpress lists each file for editing from within the application. All I had to do was add/update the code I wanted and click update.
Content sections for the sidebar and footer can be changed through a drag and drop interface using widgets.
I still have a lot to explore in the Wordpress interface but I already have what I need for now.
I have programmed in HTML and CSS for many years and dabbled in PHP. Soon after installation I wanted to update the header and sidebar code. Wordpress lists each file for editing from within the application. All I had to do was add/update the code I wanted and click update.
Content sections for the sidebar and footer can be changed through a drag and drop interface using widgets.
I still have a lot to explore in the Wordpress interface but I already have what I need for now.
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