Best App Way

Which do you prefer for testing an app before you buy: a free app with adds, an app with partial functionality or full functionality a trial period? Initially, I preferred free apps and I didn’t care whether there were adds, really. They were mildly annoying, but harmless- or so I thought.

As it turns out, those adds that support your free app use a lot of battery, especially if the app continues to run in the background, periodically pulling new adds onto your phone without your knowledge. In fact, this sometimes reduces your phones longevity by a few hours, which is a big deal if your phone barely makes it to the end of the day in the best of circumstances. My preference has shifted, evolved, and returned to the free apps with adds again.

I used to want to never pay for an app, so I preferred to partial functionality option, which usually worked fine, but I really like to get the whole program at once. I always ran out of trial period before I was ready to pay for the app, so I didn’t like that at all. My new philosophy is that I believe in supporting the developers of apps that I like. I want them to succeed and continue updating these apps and develop other apps that I might also like. I’m happy to pay for a good app that I regularly use and will migrate with me to new phones as the years go by. Despite that, it would still be worthwhile just for the increased battery life. So I download the free version first, and if that app works it’s way into my habits, I buy the no-adds version.

Image background courtesy of photos-public-domain.com. Foreground created in the GIMP by Jack Turner.

New Podcatcher

Last time I went to work, I left my mp3 player in my desk. It is too far to justify going back just to get my mp3 player when I have a new perfectly good smartphone that can download and play podcasts on its own. I finally had the impetus I needed to look into android podcatchers.

I settled on BeyondPod. It’s not free, but I just didn’t think I was going to end up being satisfied with any of the free options for the long haul and I didn’t want to shop any more. It impressed me in the trial period and I’m fully satisfied with its functionality. I do miss having a physical button for skipping to the next track, but that is the only downside to using my phone to listen to podcasts.

On the up side, there is a button for skipping 30-seconds and one for going back 5 seconds. When I skip to the next track, I have it set to delete the listened-to track automatically, so I never have to clean up after myself or get confused about which ones I’ve listened to already. The volume rocker does work even when the screen is off, so I don’t have to miss that feature of my old mp3 player.

Emergency Chocolate

1/4 cup chips (I prefer mixed butterscotch and dark chocolate chips)
1 Tablespoon smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup oatmeal (I prefer rolled oats)

Microwave chips and peanut butter on high for a minute. Mix.
Add oatmeal. Stir.

Enjoy. With milk.

Notes: Makes 1/2 cup- just the right size for a XS Round Bowl from Glad.This recipe actually makes just a little more than I want in one sitting, so I measure small. 2/5 of the calories come from the oatmeal, 2/5 from the chips, 1/5 from the peanut butter. The rolled oats take a bit of chewing, which allows you to savor the chocolate peanut butter that much longer and makes your brain think you’ve eaten a lot.

This isn’t something I would serve to someone, but when there’s no junk food in the house, it can be just what The Doctor ordered. Pictured is 1/2 a recipe.

Cuppa Cuppa Cuppa...& Veggie Salad

You can google cuppa cuppa cuppa cake to find out about it's genesis, but it sounded interesting enough to me to give it a go. Super simple. A cuppa flour plus a cuppa fruit cocktail with it's juice plus a cup of sugar; mix and bake. The blogger I got this idea from said it was awfully sweet so I used the whole can of fruit and went heavy on the flour and light on the sugar. I also used half flour and half oatmeal with making soda and baking powder because I didn't have self rising flour.
So it's not pure cuppa cake but it is super good. The upper crust tastes surprisingly like graham cracker. I had no ice cream to compliment it, but milk did a good job.
On a somewhat unrelated note, I also madea veggie salad. One bag of brussel sprouts, one bag of corn, and what was left of a bag of peas with garlic salt, mrs. dash, and a hint of salad dressing. Yum!

Carmela’s Laugh

Tamara and Carmela have so much fun. We love watching our baby grow.

Frosting the Yellow Cake Muffins

Today, Tamara made yellow cake muffins. We didn’t have any frosting around, so I made some. Below is the correct way of making frosting like mine. You can know that it’s the correct way because it’s the way that I did it. Quod erat demonstrandum.

First, you put the amount of butter equal to about how much frosting you want in a bowl. Use the butter that has been sitting on the counter for a few hours because that will be nice and soft. If the butter on the counter is all the butter you have in the house, then you might just use all of it. This is the limiting factor for how much frosting you can make. Use real butter, not unsalted or margarine- especially if that’s all you have.

If your wife got out vanilla for you to put in the frosting, you should put some in. Since vanilla, in my experience, sometimes overpowers things, you should probably pour it into a measuring spoon first so that you can pour some back in the bottle until you have the right amount. Dump it right on the butter.

Powdered sugar and cocoa powder can both be scooped in with a spoon. Keep adding more until it tastes right. If it becomes too thick or dry, you can put in a very tiny bit of milk. A little goes a long way, so be careful.

The best place to frost a muffin is in the middle. These muffins aren’t as sturdy as English muffins, so try not to destroy it with your table knife- either while cutting it open or while frosting it.

What the Devilled Eggs?

Making devilled eggs was much faster with leftover Easter eggs than it was starting with raw eggs. I made devilled eggs a couple weeks ago for a munch-n-mingle after church. I devilled a dozen eggs and only got to eat half of one. I’ve been wanting to make some more ever since.

I tried something new today. It didn’t turn out as well as the eggs I devilled for church, but it’s pretty good. The sliced olives looked like they were going to be fancy, but they were a bit of a disappointment. I was hoping to chop up some sun-dried tomatoes into my eggs, but I guess we’re out. It’s not something we use often enough to keep it stocked.

Tamara made egg salad last night. I hadn’t really realized how similar that was to devilled eggs: mostly just a little more chopping and a little less paprika.

Normally I dump the mixed yolks into a Ziploc freezer bag and squeeze the yolks back into the eggs like frosting, but today I used a cookie scoop. The frosting-like method works better (if you beat the yolks completely smooth and use a large nozze), but the cookie scoop was more convenient.I just had to pat the yolks down with the back of the scoop afterward to make them look halfway decent.

Homemade Pop Tart Adventure FTW!!

 

I was reading Lifehacker.com the other day and there was a post about how much better homemade pop tarts are than the store bought variety. Of course I wanted to make some right away but I don’t have time for that just any day during the semester. I’ve been intending to make them any day ever since. The article I read, which ultimately had come from the New York Times or something, had recommended making frangipane to fill the pop tarts. That sounded really good, but it turns out that I don’t just keep almond paste or any such thing around the house normally, so that wasn’t an option.

Fortunately, I remembered my love of dates. Grampa Slim had given me a nice big box of dates and I don’t use them nearly so often as I would like. I thought date pop tarts would be just the thing. I used 16 dates, no recipe, a cup of water and a cup of sugar with some heat and a bean mashing tool. The next thing I knew, I had a smooth, yet chunky date filling ready to go. I won’t tell you how good it was because I’m trying to be modest. (Maybe I’m failing to be modest, but just think how bad I could be without even trying!)

I made the pastry according to the recipe I found, mostly. I didn’t refrigerate the dough or take any suggested precautions to make sure it turned out well. I thought it turned out pretty well anyway. They don’t look professional by any means, but these were made for eating, not selling. I documented the process with my camera phone. I plan to put up the recipe on the recipe blog soon and insert the link here.

Update: Recipe posted.
Robertson Family Chefs
Turner Family Recipes 

A Sad Limerick

I love limericks because they are the most natural form of poetry to me. When I think of poetry, the cadence of a limerick is what comes to mind. I also like how limericks are almost always funny, even without any effort at humor. In fact, it’s hard to write a sad limerick. I feel like I succeeded in writing a sad limerick today, but if you still think it’s funny, then that just proves how wonderful limericks are. They can lighten up the heaviest subjects.

The smart kid in class hated school
and homework much more as a rule
but he wanted the money
to support his sweet honey
so he trudged on through years full of drool.

This is not strictly autobiographical and should not be taken as such.

Picture source: capl@washjeff.edu

Remembering Nashville

VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I was getting ready to load my podcasts onto an SD card and guess what I found. Long lost pictures of our Nashville trip.

Of course we ate at Jack’s. How could we not? They had flying pigs. It was pretty good barbeque. We also visited a few fun shops with all kinds of souvenir kitsch. I thought the street grates with treble clefs were a nice touch to the city. It’s also nice that they had trees growing out of them.

Cats Like General Conference Too

While folding laundry (one of Paprika’s favorite activities) I decided to watch General Conference. Paprika watched General Conference with me. She especially liked our prophet. Watching and listening to him just wasn’t enough for her. She had to reach out and touch him too. She stroked the screen a couple times, but it apparently didn’t add to the experience and she soon gave up.

We Really Got Hail

I was out driving around when the hail started Tuesday. It didn’t start with small bits or heavy rain; it went strait from light sprinkle to huge heavy hail that made me fear for my windows. I quickly felt like I was being pelted by a machine gun of hail. I pulled over next to a particularly tall bougainvillea bush that I thought might at least give my car some modicum of help. This was not effective.

Next, I decided I had to find some real cover. I soon found an empty carport where I was able to wait out the hail. Afterward I saw that some of the hail in the road were ping pong ball size. Now my car looks like a red golf ball.

Looking at Some Fruit in a Bowl

There is something very homey and comforting about fruit in a bowl. I feel almost like I’m creating a work of art every time I dump a bag of fruit into whatever bowl I use. I think this is because so many paintings are made of fruit on a table &c.

To be honest, the real reason I took this picture was because I have a new monopod. For many years I’ve wanted a good monopod and I finally found one that was tall enough and cheap enough that I felt like I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity. It’s even made by Vivitar.

Why would anyone want a monopod instead of a tripod, you ask? Hah! I know the answer to that. See, a tripod doesn’t usually fit in a backpack and is generally just awkward to carry around. It’s kind of a lot of commitment to even use. That’s why I normally only use a tripod around the house even though pictures out and about would benefit from a tripod. Enter: the monopod. It fits in my backpack. It could strap to my belt. It hides in the car easily. I can whip it out when I need it. Besides, there is only one leg to extend instead of three and it screws into the camera more easily.

If I had known how happy I would be with my monopod, I might have looked harder for one long ago.

Ideas for Sale: Free to a Good Home

Tamara and I went to the Home and Landscape Show for our date tonight. We were mostly there to see landscape ideas and dream, but there was one indoor idea that I really liked. One display had a tv surrounded by a picture frame. I thought that just made the tv so much less intrusive. We expect to see picture frames on the walls – even big ones. Tamara and I thought that when the tv were off, there could be a family portrait printed on canvas that could be pulled down from inside the top portion of the frame to cover up the tv screen in much the same way as the mini-blinds that are built right into some windows. Alternatively, the tv could just remain on and display family portraits when not in use; it would be a large digital picture frame.

I did a quick search for ‘television in a frame,’ and it turns out that someone else has already had this idea and made a company out of it. I bet I could make one myself a bit cheaper though.

Grampa’s Dog Damien

When Damien was a puppy, he learned the joys of sitting in someone’s lap. This is something he never grew out of, even as he grew larger than 100 lbs. Unfortunately for him, most people didn’t want him to sit on their lap. I was the only one small enough that he could knock me over and sit in my lap. See how happy he is?

I visited Grampa Slim this past weekend and he gave me this picture. We had a good time.

Rice, Rice, & Coconut Cream

Who ever knew that coconut milk separates into milk and cream just like cow’s milk does?

Today I made rice balls with General Tso beef inside them. The black rice speckled balls are no different from the white balls; they just have added black rice for fanciness. These turned out really well. All you do is make Onigiri like I’ve posted the recipe for before and form the ball in a mug so you can make a hole for the meat before putting in the last of the rice and closing up the ball. Then dump into your hand and shape it. It really is sticky when you’re done. It might be best to grill it afterward or just plan on eating it with utensils.

The black rice desert with coconut cream turned out ok, but I would do it more traditionally next time. I just used the first recipe I found and didn’t do enough research. It would have tasted better. I’ll post the recipe the way I would make it next time.

I ended up spending hours in the kitchen, but that’s because I wasn’t so organized and I was doing other things in the middle, like dishes. In the future, it won’t take me so long to make these things.

Rock Climbing with an Owl

Pictured on the right are my friends John and Jardan. John is clinging to the cliff for dear life while Jardan belays for him. I did the lead climbing, which means I got to go up the face of the mountain and attach the rope to eyelets every few feet until I got to the top and attached the rope there. I didn’t fall while I was lead climbing but I did fall on my second time going up. I try riskier holds when I’m only going to fall a few inches instead of falling a few feet past my last eyelet.

You might remember our friend the owl who used to visit sometimes when Tamara and I lived in an apartment a few miles south of this mountain. He was hanging out in the hollow of a rock watching us climb. I only had my phone and not my camera, so I didn’t get a very good picture of him. The guys said that he was peeking out of his hollow trying to figure out what I was doing when I went up the first time.

Below the ledge where we belay, there is a lot of gravel and loose rocks down the slope. I decided to go down there to pick up a water bottle we had dropped, but the closer I got the fa

rther it slid down the gravel. Soon I was riding a rock slide down the side of the mountain in pursuit of this bottle. I did grab the bottle and a couple of other pieces of trash besides, but by that point it was much easier to go down the mountain to the next trail than to fight a rock slide up to our trail. Resume the rock slide ride.

At one point I lost my balance. You know there might be something wrong with you if while losing your balance in a rock slide your first thought is, “Oh no! My trash…” I fell on my trash, but I wasn’t hurt. Neither was it, though it was soon to be thrown away. I slid to the trail after that without further incident.

View Full Album

These are my pictures of the owl. He’s near the upper-center of the picture, just to the right of where we were climbing.

Podcast Delight

   Me: podcast junkie. Well, that might be a little strong, but I really did develop a penchant for podcasts back when I had a physical job that only required two of my nine neurons to perform. The other seven rebelled at the thought of atrophy resultant from repetition of a two-hour track of canned music played night after night. Hence the cerebral seven proceeded to produce my proclivity for podcast listening. I have changed or reinstalled podcatchers quite several times and been thankful for a good .opml file to transfer my subscritions from one catcher to another, but some inferior podcatchers I’ve tried don’t accept .OPMLs. Hence I decided to make a list of my favorite podcasts.

  The list will be in order of alphabetization as determined by gPodder, my current and favorite podcatcher. Lots of people love iTunes. Tried it. Used it with an iPod Touch. Did not like. It wasn’t compatible with me. gPodder is super-great and includes mandatory features not found elsewhere, but I wish that it were developed more for the use of mid-level windows users like myself. It’s really a Linux program at heart. Still searching for a podcatcher to enamor and enchant my power-customizing, ease-of-use-loving heart, perhaps one that will synch my computer, mp3 player, and phone. Please?

Favorites:

The 90-Second Naturalist
A Way with Words*
The Absolute Peach
Dan Carlin’s hardcore history*
Future Tense
GeekSpeak*
Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing
New BYU Speeches
NPR: Science Friday
NPR: Sunday Puzzle
NPR: Your Health
Podictionary – for Word Lovers
Quirks & Quarks
Science Thursday
Search Engine from CBC Radio
Spark from CBC Radio*
This Week in Science*
Uncommon Knowledge
* means Top Five

I am also trying out:

Android Phone Fans
Buzz Out Loud
Common Sense with Dan Carlin
Cranky Geeks
Friday Night Comedy from BBC 4
Engadget
Linux Outlaws
Meet the GIMP
NPR: On Science
NPR: Technology
Shot of Jaq
This Week in Mormons

   Ok. This list really does show what a geek I am on the inside (in case there is anyone who didn’t already know.) I’m not embarrassed. If there is a really great podcast I’m missing out on, let me know.

Jack of All Inboxes

Benefits:

• Eliminate spam completely
• Partially typo-proof your email address
• Create yourself new email addresses on the fly – no messing with settings or accounts involved
• Experience increased email security – never share your sign in name
• Avoid annoying anonymous email services
• Use your favorite mail client like you’ve always done

I doubt I'm the first one to think of this, but I've never heard of someone doing it before.

I've always tried to be judicious about where I stick my email address, especially my primary email address, but somehow I still get spam and I don't know where it comes from. New idea: enter stage left. One inbox to rule them all! or more specifically, one inbox with unlimited email addresses.

Here's how it works.

When you buy a domain name from Google (or probably from anyone else for all I know) there is an option to direct any emails that are sent to the domain with a nonexistent recipient to a ‘catch all’ account, as I call it. For example, if someone meant to send me an email and they sent it to jck@mydomain.com instead of jack@mydomain.com then that email would be directed to the ‘catch all’ inbox instead of my own inbox and instead of being rejected as undeliverable. You can set your own inbox as the ‘catch all’ account, or you can have an account set up just for the purpose of catching these. We can use this to our advantage.

Say you want to sign up for service on the internet, but they require you to click a link in a confirmation email and you suspect that the site will then spam you and distribute your email address to other spam engines. Suppose this service is offered by www.shadysite.com. You can go ahead and sign up for this service with the email address of shadysite@mydomain.com and the email will come to your ‘catch all’ account. If shadysite.com does start spamming you- even if they try to hide it by sending you spam from all kinds of deceptive sender addresses- then you’ll know it’s from them (or their associates) because it’s being sent TO shadysite@mydomain.com. Then you can easily filter into oblivion any emails sent to that address. Although it is better to unsubscribe, this is a method that will work even on email without an unsubscribe link. I use this even for reputable looking sites because there will inevitably be a time when a site fails to be as reputable as they seem and they end up giving my email address to a spam engine.

If there are multiple people on your domain who want to use this method, that should be no problem. Suppose that Jane and Tarzan are married and have email addresses tarzan@example.com and jane@example.com. The administrator can set up a ‘catch all’ account with filters that forward all mail that comes with Tar.*@example.com to tarzan@example.com and all mail that comes in to grape.*@example.com can be forwarded to jane@example.com. You probably didn’t realize how much Jane loves grapes until now. Now Jane can sign up for an account at shadysite.com using the address grape.shadysite@example.com without fearing spam. Infinite obfuscation engenders ultimate security!

Speaking of COMSEC, Tarzan and Jane have a son, Jehoshaphat, who is a site security administrator and doesn’t have an @example.com account at all. His personal email address is something similar to 9as908eh34@S3kurm4il.com. He has emails forwarded to his preferred email service when they are addressed to fat.*@example.com. The email address he gives out to his friends is fat.KingOfTheWord@example.com. A few of them have tried all kinds of hacks to sign into example.com with all variations of the user name fat.KingOfTheWorld, without success.

Computer! Why hast thou thus dealt with me?

I feed thee thy favorite 60Hz 120V. I speak kindly to thee  and tap lovingly thy keys. Thy bloatware I do remove and I keep thee inoculated with thy favorite Avast! antivirus. Even do I go above and beyond the care that most owners give by eliminating thy unnecessary startup processes and services in msconfig. Thy files I do back up and even I reloaded thee with a fresh operating system install not two weeks past. Wherefore then didst thou withdraw into thyself and repudiate thy connection with the Internet?

AAAArghhhh! I was so frustrated that I wanted to talk like a pirate. Everything was proceeding beautifully after my fresh install of windows xp and I was pounding away at augmenting my webfu until for no apparent reason, my computer suddenly stopped seeing the wireless network at all and although it could see the Ethernet connection, it didn’t receive any bits at all from the Ethernet. The problem was clearly in my computer, not the network, because my phone could still see the wireless network and although I could get some internet connection via my tethered phone, it was only a partial connection. Some things worked; others didn’t.

I restored my computer to a previous point with system restore. I re-enabled all of the unnecessary processes and services in case I had inadvertently messed up something. I almost considered re-installing boatware.

Fail.  X-|

Finally, I called a hotel Wi-Fi help line and it was able to lead me to the arcane, counterintuitive solution (pictured at right.) I didn’t know that there was a button in the advanced tab of the wireless properties window that could turn off my wireless connection. I’ve never turned it off there, but somehow it did turn off. I don’t know why this also disabled my Ethernet, which is not wireless. I don’t know why turning the wireless back on from this window fixed all my problems (…well, the connection problems anyway.)

p.s. I did finally have a really good swim today. What a relief! Honestly.