Mom's Mustard Sauce

My mother used to make this delicious sweet/spicy mustard sauce when she cooked a ham, typically around Easter.  The sugar makes it sweet so it's somewhat like a honey mustard sauce.

I've forgotten this recipe a handful of times, but my brother always has it to refresh my memory.

Mom's Mustard Sauce Recipe

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup white vinegar
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1.5 tbsp ground mustard
• 1 tbsp melted butter
• 1 egg
• dash of salt

Work

• Whisk to combine all ingredients
• Transfer to sauce pan
• Cook on medium heat, whisking constantly
• Transfer to serving bowl when mixture boils and thickens
• Serve warm

Grilled deep dish pepperoni pizza recipe

I've been making a deep dish pepperoni pizza on the grill recently and I think I've perfected my recipe.  You should give it a try!

Ingredients

Mozzarella Cheese (2 cups)
Pizza Sauce (4-6oz)
Price-Rite Papa Sal's White Pizza Dough
Pepperoni (20-40 slices)
Olive oil (1 teaspoon)
Corn meal (2 tablespoons)
Flour as needed (approximately 1/2 cup)

12" cast-iron skillet

Instructions

Bring the dough to room temperature and remove from bag.

Preheat grill to 400-450 degrees

Coat both sides with flour, then spread out evenly to about 12-14" circle.

Prep the cast-iron skillet by coating inside sides with olive oil (use a paper towel), then sprinkle corn meal on the inside bottom.  Place skillet over medium heat on stove to pre-heat while following the remaining steps.

Place the dough circle inside the 12" skillet with extra rising up the sides.

Add pizza sauce and spread evenly.

Add cheese and spread evenly.

Place pepperoni over cheese to cover top.

Place prepared pizza in pre-heated grill on the grates and cook until the side-crust is browned, checking every 5 minutes.  It should take 10-15 minutes.

Remove from grill and cast-iron pan and let cool on a cooling rack for 5 minutes

Slice into 6 pieces and serve.

VIM folding when viewing large JSON files

I'm been lamenting the lack of a shell-based editor that has folding (aka collapsing) built in.  On a whem, I Googled if Vim could do it and behold, it can, it's native and it's straightforward!

When opening a file, give Vim some hints (might not be necessary)

:set filetype=json
:syntax on

And tell Vim to turn on folding

:set fdm=syntax

At this point, everything will be folded/collapsed.  To unfold, the current marker, use zo.  To fold the current line, is zc.  To unfold all, zO to fold all, zC

Nice elegant solution

Further documentation I'm looking at to understand other features.

:help fold-commands
:help fdm

Eclipse Dynamic Web Project complains about wrong Java version

I was having lots of Maven + Eclipse problems.

First, I was getting errors saying "java.lang.Object" was not found.  I examined by project build path and noticed that there was nothing. I added a Library, made it a Java JRE System Library and saw those errors be replaced by hundreds of other errors about missing objects.

Came to realize that I was missing my Maven dependencies in my build page.  A simple Maven->Update Project correct these missing dependencies.  Right click the project, then select Maven->Update Project.

Expecting all my problems to be resolved, I was greeted by more obscure errors:

Eclipse dynamic web module 3.0 requires java 1.6 or newer

After much trial and error I found the solution.  I updated my POM file to have the following content:

onematch

   

       

       org.apache.maven.plugins

       maven-compiler-plugin

       3.1

       

           1.7

           1.7

       

   

   

This apparently reminds Eclipse that, yes I really am using Java 1.7, and allows the DWP to be configured without error.  Yay.

HBO Intermission music and video in the early days of HBO

I distinctly remember watching intermission programming on HBO between regular programming when I was a kid.  We didn't subscribe to HBO, but during their free-trial weekends, I would watch as much as I could.
I recall turning on the TV and either seeing a movie or hearing this "weird" music.  I vaguely remember them also showing calming color patterns along with the text showing upcoming programming.

It always wondered what the music was, and I've finally figured it out after many Google searches.

The music is Brian Eno's - Music For Airports.  Specifically track 1/2.

I'd call it haunting and memorable.  Exactly how I remember it.

Progress report (old post, out of date order)

All of the carpeting is out and all of the walls are down, the last one was next to the furnace and water heater and came down on Saturday night. The partiers on the street looked perplexed to see me carrying out rolls of old carpet and old 2x4s at midnight.

We're trying to get an estimate on cleaning up some plumbing that is running in front of a basement window.

Comfort Windows and Doors is coming on Wednesday to insulate the band joist and sill plate area. This should prevent a lot of air infiltration and make the basement less drafty and lower our heating needs.

New water heater is installed and pumping out the nice warm showers.

Reconstruction is expected to commence next weekend, starting with insulating the above-ground portion of exterior walls and, then framing the walls.

Pictures coming soon!

Right Coupon is the Wrong Malware unless you get the the right cleaner.

I noticed one day a LOT of ads were appearing in my Google search results page, along with the fine-print "Ads not provided by this site".  Wondering who was supplying them, I started doing some research which yielded even more ads including coupon slide-out widgets.  Oh crap, I have some adware/malware...

Being a fan of Nick Francesco's computer show, I immediately went to Security Tango at http://securitytango.com/ as I've heard that it is the definitive solution to removing viruses, malware and adware.  The steps boil down to rebooting in safe mode and running a bunch of programs.  Then rebooting and doing it one more time to be certain.

I diligently when through the first time, performing each step as instructed.  When the programs found some infections and cleaned them, I was relieved.  I decided I didn't need to run through a second time.  I rebooted back to normal mode and ran my tests.  Bad news, RightCoupon was still presenting ads on my pages.

So, I guess I do have to do the second pass.  I reboot to safe mode, perform all the steps in the first pass, reboot to safe mode, perform all the steps again.  Whew.  Finally done (6 hours later)

I reboot to normal mode and ran tests again.  Bad news, RightCoupon was STILL adding ads to me pages!

I did some painful googling (try to find the results when you're getting served dozens of third party ads), and found a page suggesting using the free AdwCleaner to remove RightCoupon.

I installed and ran it, and it like, the Security Tango found a list of infections and cleaned them up.  No safe mode, no 5 step program, no two passes to be sure.  Just run it, then reboot.

I ran my tests again, and Ahhhhhhh.  They're all gone now.   Thumbs up to AdwCleaner.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/

Classic bread recipe

1 cup water 120 degrees

1 cup buttermilk - room temperature (substitute 1 tbsp lemon juice and milk to make 1 cup)

.25 cup olive oil

1.5 cup wheat flour

4 cup bread flour

.5 cup sugar

2 large eggs beaten

1 tbsp salt

4 tsp yeast (room temperature)

Mix liquids.  Add wheat flour and mix with wooden spoon until smooth.  Add sugar, mix.  Add eggs, stir until smooth.  Add salt, mix.  Add yeast, mix.

Add .5 cup flour at a time, mixing until absorbed until it becomes too hard to stir.

Pour flour on counter and continue to add more flour, kneading dough for 8 to 10 minutes.  Dough ball should be elastic and slightly sticky.

Place dough into lightly oiled bowl and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour.

Pour onto floured surface and degas.  Cut dough in half and form into two rectangles.  Place rectangles into greased 5x9 inch loaf pan.  Cover and let rise until dough crests pan.  45-60 min.

Bake at 375 degrees for 30-35 min.  Remove to wire rack immediately.  Internal temperature should read 180 degrees.

My Iced Tea recipe

So you like my home made iced tea, huh? Well, here's the recipe.

1 gallon water
4 black tea bags
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup lemon juice concentrate (like "Realemon") or juice from one lemon.

 Boil water.
Add tea bags.
Let steep 6-12 hours
Remove tea bags
Add sugar and lemon juice
Stir.
Serve over ice and enjoy!

Acrobat Distiller/Normalizer joboptions AutoRotatePages settings and behavior

In the Adobe Distiller or Normalizer products, there is a joboptions file that controls presentation and conversion to PDF behavior.

I've been doing some research around the settings for the AutoRotatePages entry in this file. When editing the joboptions file with a text editor, the valid values are "None", "All" and "PageByPage". These correspond to the GUI editor settings "Off", "Collectively By File" and "Individually". 
In theory, the settings mean:

•  None/Off: Do not perform any automatic page rotation. 
• All/Collectively By File: Rotate the minority number of pages such that all pages are presented in the orientation of the majority of pages. 
• PageByPage/Individually: Present each page such that its native orientation is demonstrated 

In practice, it's a little more complex.

A PDF document has a default orientation that applies to every page. That orientation is either portrait or landscape.

One can give the impression of a differing orentation for a subset of the pages by using page rotation. For example, a Portrait PDF file may have pages that appear in landscape orientation by rotating it 90 degress clockwise or counter clockwise.

Additionally, using the Document->Insert pages menu item in Acrobat Pro, one can insert pages that are in a different orientation than the rest of the PDF. This is not accomplished using page rotation, but by defining the page dimensions (in points) for a page. It is not possible to change an existing page's dimensions, nor is it possible to add a new page with different page dimensions.

Consider this PDF (Portrait with inserted landscape pages)
After distilling/normalizing, the resulting PDF page orientation with various settings of AutoRotatePages is:
None: All pages are displayed portrait, but page 2 and 3 are rotated 90 degrees counter clockwise
All: Same
PageByPage: Same

Consider this PDF (Landscape with inserted portrait pages) After distilling/normalizing, the resulting PDF page orientation with various settings of AutoRotatePages is:
None: All pages are displayed portrait, with landscape pages rotates 90 degress counter clockwise
All: All pages are displayed landscape, with portrait pages rotated 90 degrees clockwise
PageByPage: All pages displayed landscape, with portrait pages rotated 90 degrees clockwise.
Analysis:
Page By Page setting does not work. It should show each page in its native orientation but it always behaves the same as "All".
All setting makes all the pages render in the same orientation, based on a majority of page orientation. This setting should be used in most cases.

End of May Basement update

The basement project is coming along nicely. Next I'll be working on the floor, including leveling some areas where there will be vinyl flooring and selecting the carpet and floor that we'll be using. In the last few days, we've sprung another leak near the furnace - I hope it's just the drainage water pump, but I may have to call my furnace guy over. On top of that, we have a tree coming down in the yard, some aluminum fascia work to be fixed, we have electrical work to be performed on the first, second and third floors, and we have to have insulation wrapped up. Oh, and I start teaching a new class format next week and I have a 100 mile bike ride for Tour De Cure on 6/10. Yikes.

Basement update for May 2012

Some tasty brownies

Mary Grace loves these, William doesn't. But I keep losing the recipe, so I'm placing it here. 1/2 cup melted butter 1 cup white sugar 1/2 cup flour 2 eggs 1 tsp vanilla 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (a little less FTW) 1/4 tsp salt 1/4 tsp baking powder Add eggs, sugar and vanilla to butter, mix. Beat in flour, salt and baking powder. Pour batter into greased 8" square pan and bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes. Cool for 15 minutes at room temperature and serve (preferably with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top!)

Cabinets installed!

Cabinets are in!

The kitchen.

The desk.

Painting has commenced!

The ceiling is installed (except for the panels I'll drop in myself once the lights are wired up) and we're starting with the painting.

If anyone is looking for a suspended ceiling or a swimming pool contractor, I highly recommend Ken Ferguson. Contact me for his contact information.

Another basement update

Sorry for the poor quality - This one was recorded from my phone for simplicity in uploading.



Ceiling contractors should be coming on Wednesday!

Kubuntu 11.10 KMail, Personal Information Manager issues

After *finally* upgrading to Kubuntu 11.10 recently, I had problems with the mail application "Personal Information Manager" aka, KMail startup.

I tracked down my problems to a failed migration, but there was no detailed log information available. I tried several times to cleanup the failed migration then migrate again with no luck.

Finally, I decided to skip the migration and the app would appear to startup then crash.

I figured this had something to do with the Akonadi changes that were the big feature of this release, so I played around with akonadiconsole and akonadictl. The console app tells what data sinks are present and I had many duplicates there that I cleaned up. I used akonadictl to control the tool with the stop and start parameters.

After restarting it, I observed some mysql errors during table creation. Thankfully, those message were very verbose and I was able to track the problem down to the fact that my MySQL installation has a password for the 'root' user.

I removed that password and restarted Akonadi again and things were looking up. After a bunch of configuration, things are getting back to normal with my kmail.

Next step - Importing my old mail files.

Basement update

OK, here's the latest update. Points to note:

Drywall all up except one sheet near the circuit breakerbox
Drwall mudding and sanding in progress
Windows are partially framed
Small fridge has been sold, chest freezer out of the way
Doors installed
Kitchen area ceiling removed

Meatball recipe

1 lb ground beef, organic of course.
2 eggs
3/4 cup breadcrumbs
1/3 cup Parmesan cheese
1 tbsp basil
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
salt + pepper

2 tbsp olive oil

Mix it all up, form into balls.
Heat olive oil on medium or medium-high

Add meatballs to pan to sear, turning constantly to sear all sides, but not crisp any side (3-4 minutes).

Remove to paper towels when all sides are seared.

After excess oil has been absorbed by paper towel, add to sauce and cook for a long time.

Basement video tour, progress update

Here's a video of the basement in it's current state.