Flotsam & Jetsam

Who’d like to do a Chocolate Chip Cookie tour when I get back? This list and description made my mouth water from 6000 miles away.
http://newyork.seriouseats.com/2009/12/the-ultimate-chocolate-chip-cookie-tour-best-new-york-nyc-manhattan-brooklyn-bakery-picture-slideshow.html#show-65023

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Ruby and Ruby on Rails is all the rage these days. As a dev environment, it’s one of the most simple I’ve ever worked with.

Ruby –
Install latest Ruby one-click installer for Windows from http://rubyforge.org/projects/rubyinstaller/
Include Ruby Gems.
Up to you on installing the editor.
Once you’ve installed Ruby, type this at the command line
ruby -vyou should see [...]

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The NY Times has done a piece on why the US cellphone market is the way it is. Not too surprising actually, but interesting read on the details.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/business/15price.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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I don’t know about you, but I still have my old Palm 650. It’s a little big, and doesn’t have a wireless account anymore, but it’s great alarm clock and an easy way to take notes, so I keep it around. And, if I ever need a GSM phone, I just need to [...]

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Heard about Bittorrent, but don’t know how to use it? Know what it is, but not a master? Read this guide. It’s very informative.
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/20_essential_tricks_and_skills_every_bittorrent_user_should_know?page=0%2C0
Check out their Firefox tweaks and tips article too:
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/20_essential_tweaks_every_firefox_user_should_know

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Back in the day, everyone had access to a UNIX shell account at their internet service provider. With it, you could run batch files, scripts and access services that were only available from the command line. Unfortunately, shell access also allowed (some) people to hack and cause issues. Now-a-days with tons of [...]

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Cool little service. Allows you to post a private, secure web page that has a question / answer challenge.
https://norbt.com/

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The Urbanspoon restaurant picker requires the Adobe Flash Player.New York restaurants on Urbanspoon.
New York restaurants on Urbanspoon

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We’ve been using an MVIX box for the past couple of years to watch downloaded movies and TV shows.  The biggest problem with it is how stuff gets transfered to the box.  It has a wireless connection, but it’s slow and requires a proprietary app to xfer software to it via wireless.  Instead, we connected [...]

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Searching about for tips on how to take better photos, I came across Moose Peterson’s site and was blown away by his pictures.  If I ever have the time and money, I’d love to attend one of his seminars.
http://moosepeterson.com/blog/

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I’ve been looking for a good, online to do list for ages. Tried writing one a while back, but got side-tracked and never got back to it. This list has a couple good ones that I’m going to check out.
http://designm.ag/resources/online-to-do-lists/

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Ever wonder what technology a particular site uses? Go here, type in the URL and the site will give you a good breakdown of all technologies utilized that it can mine.
http://builtwith.com/

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Are you a twitter fanatic? Looking for that perfect tool to increase your twittering addiction?
Here ya go – the ultimate list of Twitter Tools
http://www.brandsamongmany.com/2009/03/09/the-ultimate-list-of-twitter-tools/

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Surprise, you can actually apply metrics to our healthcare system and see whether it’s effective or not. This blog entry at Harvard attempts to break out the numbers and explain why our system could use some work.
http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/haque/2009/08/how_effective_is_american_heal.html?cm_mmc=npv-_-DAILY_ALERT-_-AWEBER-_-DATE

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Another attempt to catalog and put online good lectures from top Universities. Some of these aren’t too bad. Hopefully they’ll succeed where others failed.
http://www.academicearth.org/

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Ran across this site a couple days ago and have been very impressed with the resources and data he supplies. If you’re ever going to design a site that people are expected to sign up and use, I highly recommend reading through his stuff.
http://bokardo.com/
This deck in particular was VERY good:
http://bokardo.com/archives/designing-for-social-traction-slide-deck/

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101 tips from small business bloggers:
http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/money/article/101-tips-from-50-small-business-bloggers-gregory-go

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Top 15 Social Media resources for food and foodies alike.
http://mashable.com/2009/07/30/social-media-foodies/

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Niki and I went to a couple of their dinners a couple years back when they were touring the country throwing parties.  Food, ambiance, people and experience were great.  I’m glad to see they’ve expanded the program.  Check it out:
http://www.theghet.com/

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You have a smoker and you have a grill. What you need now is a wood fired pizza oven.    This site: http://www.fornobravo.com/ has free plans for building your very own pizza oven!!
If I had room in the backyard, I’d be all over this.  Alas, our small Queens yard is currently full with the above smoker [...]

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Found this while looking for Empanada recipes.

Spam Empanadas
1 pound Spam, with yucky gelatin layer removed and then ground or finely chopped
1/4 cup chopped onion
4 tablespoons Bisquick
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cloves minced garlic
1 cup ketchup
4 tablespoons sour cream
1 1/2 cups Bisquick
1/3 cup water
1/2 cup grated cheese
Cook the Spam and the onions until the onions are soft and [...]

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Ever wondered what your dog or cats day looks like?  Well, now you can.
Pets eye view is a little thing you put on their collar that takes pics at set intervals until the drive is full.
http://www.highlights.com/jump.jsp?itemID=3569&itemType=PRODUCT&ccid=KNC-1000-1000928&sccat=E0912&source=google_priority
If you want to build your own, with a bunch more flexibility:
http://www.mr-lee-catcam.de/cc_index_en.htm
When I get some free time I’d like to [...]

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A couple weeks ago I went to a talk by David Rose of Rose VC.  After the talk a group of people stayed behind to hear him talk and ask questions.  One of the questions asked what David looks for when he invests in a company and what attracts him.  Here is David’s list of [...]

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A. A lot of stuff happened to bring the interest rate to record low’s starting in the 1970’s (or earlier if you want to go back that far).  A partial attempt to try and explain what has happened over the past year.

You want a loan, but you’re risky.  You go to a mortgage broker who [...]

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Cleaning up I found a recipe for fondue that I’ve used a bunch of times with great success.

Cheese: Gruyere, Emmental, Buford or Comte.  Pick at least 2.
a couple sprigs of Rosemary, finely chopped
some Thyme, finely chopped
Cup of dry white wine (swiss wine if you can get it)
shot of Kirsch
clove of garlic

Shred  the cheese using a grater
Rub [...]

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We all have ‘em – times during the day when want something to do, but either don’t have anything productive lined up, or just want to wile away the time and do something brain dead for a bit.  My usual fallback (usually when I’m on the phone) is Freecell (73% win rate).  It’s small, fun, [...]

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From the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/09/internationalcrime.italy)
Bernardo Provenzano’s rules for running a successful organization.  If he ever gets out of Jail, he could make a nice tidy profit on the speaking circuit.
Rule 1: Submersion
When a company is failing, the first step is to take it below the radar. You want to lose that cursed epithet “troubled” as quickly [...]

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A social networking like site that I can actually get behind.  A place to list books you’ve read, find out what books your friends are reading, and talk about ‘em.   *sigh*  my bookshelves are already packed to the brim.  If I get anymore I’m going to have to start making piles on the floor again.
http://www.goodreads.com/

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I think this is the week of lists.  They’ve been appearing all over the place:
IFC’s 50 Greatest Comedy Sketches of All Time.  CLASSIC’s
http://www.nerve.com/dispatches/nerveeditors/50GreatestComedySketches/01/
 Then of course, there’s the List of Bests.  There are some good ones here.
http://www.listsofbests.com/

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Niki found these guys doing some research into rescue groups in the NYC area.   I don’t generally like rescue groups – most of them can’t seem to see the forest through the trees and alienate those that want to help the most, but these guys seem like they might get it (and they have a slick [...]

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After 10 years, it’s finally time to have my Rolex serviced (well, that and it stopped working).  After a bit of digging, I learned that there are no authorized Rolex service centers in the US, except for the 3 run by Rolex.  Seems that Rolex no longer sells parts to anyone, so any other facility (besides [...]

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I’m a glutton for good, fresh, interesting foods.  Thus, the growing movement to make small batch everything has definately sparked my fancy.  As I find ‘em, I’ll post ‘em.  The latest find is small batch ice cream from Jenis Ice Cream: http://www.jenisicecreams.com/index.html
When I manage to finish the 10 pints of ice cream left-over from our ice [...]

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This video is hilarious.  I highly recommend it.   That’s all I’ll say.
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/28/history-of-war-throu.html

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You’ll be sorely missed.
Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge.
When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here,
that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge.
There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together.
There is plenty of food, water and sunshine,
and our [...]

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Ahh, geeks.  They’ll always amaze you.
A couple friends of mine have created the latest craze in workouts – the Jedi Workout.  That’s right, swing a lightsaber and melt those pounds away.  Sure beats sweatin’ to the oldies.  Just makes you wonder – what’s next?   www.nyjedi.com

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I love bacon.  Who doesn’t?  Recently I’ve been playing around with making candy when, of course, the idea of bacon candy came up.  After a little searching, I came across a couple of interesting sounding recipes.  When I have some extra time I’m gonna try and make some of these:
Bacon Brittle #1
MAKES ABOUT 1 POUND
1 [...]

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This app has come in so handy it’s not funny.  I love taking photographs when I travel, but hate waiting around forever until the gaggle of tourists hanging out in front of my shot leave.  No more. 
http://www.snapmania.com/info/en/trm/
Tourist Remover helps eliminate people, cars and misc moving objects from your photo.  Using 3 to 10 photos of [...]

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