MARCH 2014
Sunday 2014.3.30
Is an Era Ending?
As I mentioned in Wednesday's blog, Microsoft will be ending support for Windows XP in slightly more than a week. I do have Windows 7 for this computer, but there was a problem. The C: drive hard disk drive died.
It was a Seagate. I hate Seagate, but I used it because it was on the shelf and I was only planning (at the time) to experiment with Win7. That was several years ago. Meanwhile, I had learned to like Win7. I don't love it like I did XP, but it is usable and there some features, like the speed of the latest version of Internet Explorer, that I like.
I replaced the dead hard disk with a new one, a Western Digital Caviar Black. I like those. The quality is good. It has a five-year guarantee and when one did die during the guarantee, I mailed it to Western Digital and they sent me another one—no questions asked. I'm a loyal fan.
Then I tried to load the Windows 7 operation system onto the computer. All went well, until it came time to activate and validate it. "You cannot use Windows 7 on this computer." I know the issue. You can load an operating system onto only one computer. When you validate it, Microsoft stores the installation code along with your computer's identification and that becomes like a unique fingerprint for that computer. So why wouldn't it let me use the OS? It's the same computer!
I had to call customer service and I was surprised how quickly I got through to a representative. First I had to speak with someone with an Indian accent, a little difficult to understand, but then I was put through to someone named Damian. He gathered the little bit of information he needed. I am using an OEM version of Win7, which is for builders/installers. I build my own computers. He checked the installation code. It is valid. I gave him access to my computer over the Internet and he ran a little process that checked the internal integrity of my computer. All is well. Then he explained that the problem was the new hard disk. Win7 saw that the disk was different from the earlier one that died and mistook this as a different computer. Easily fixed. He reset my installation code and activated my computer for me. All is well. Happy, happy.
Meanwhile, there is that other computer on the other desk here in my home office. That one is now also a dual boot system. Using a bay in the front of the computer, I can insert either an XP hard disk or a Windows 7 hard disk. I know I cannot load Windows 7 on that computer as well, but I did. It gave me 3 days before it needed to be validated. Three days was enough.
That computer is very different from this one. This computer is my production rig. I only use it for editing videos, writing recipes, post-processing photographs, and for updating my web site. No games. No Internet (the connection is kept disabled). It doesn't even have virus protection software because there is no way to get a virus if I never connect to the Internet. I don't even get my security updates. It is just a work computer.
On the other computer, which I use for a lot of things (watching movies, playing games, email, etc.) I experimented with software and hardware while testing Win7. My printer works fine. My movie viewing software works even better. I was able to find some newer versions of some utilities that work better in Win7. Email was quick and easy. Convinced, I logged onto Amazon and purchased another OEM version (the regular version is no longer sold by Microsoft) of Windows 7.
OEM versions have one drawback. You can only ever install them on one computer. Period. Full stop. End of story. If you replace the computer with a new one (which, like me, you build yourself and therefore need an operation system), you're out of luck. You can't use the OEM version on the new computer. You need to buy the operating system again. That's okay. I can live with that. I'm only trying to use these computers a little longer until Microsoft delivers another good OS, like XP or Win7, that everyone likes and is easy to use. Vista and Windows 8 were marketing disasters for Microsoft.
Meanwhile, Microsoft will be supporting Windows 7 for quite a while longer. That will keep me going. And as I mentioned in Wednesday's blog, I'll still be using XP as well. It's not a perfect world, but I like it and I enjoy living in it. I don't need perfection. I'm okay with good enough.
Wednesday 2014.3.26
OS (Operating System) Dilemma
In slightly less than two weeks Microsoft will officially stop supporting the Windows XP operating system. What does that mean?
If you believe all the dire warnings from MS and some others, virus writers and hackers will now enjoy unfettered access to our hard drives, memory, and maybe even peripherals. Catastrophic identity theft and data loss will encircle the globe in the first 24 hours. Is the apocalypse looming? Should I hide under the bed? Or are all these warnings simply smoke (and, of course, where there's smoke, there's fire).
If it weren't for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Wolf Blitzer would be covering the ominous warnings in the Situation Room on CNN. "Startling new revelations released by Microsoft today could predict the end of the computing world as we know it…" Wolf makes me laugh.
I read that Norton will continue to write virus protections for XP for at least another year. According to that report, at least 30% of all computer users are still running XP. True, there are new computers available for as little as $400, but what kind of made-in-China POS computer will $400 buy me? I build my own computers. I know what's inside the case, and I try to buy the best components. Besides Norton Antivirus, I have a second software firewall and a hardware firewall router. Maybe I'm safe.
I have both XP and Windows 7 on this computer. I designed my own dual boot system, of which I won't bore you with details. I like Win7, but it isn't sold by Microsoft anymore. I could purchase Win8 or 8.1, but we've all heard the complaints. Win8 is almost as unpopular as Vista was a few years ago. Supposedly there is a Win8.5 in testing, but will it be any good?
I keep this computer off line. Hackers couldn't get into it even if they tried. It's not connected to the Internet, except for the few minutes each week when I upload all the latest updates to my web site. And now that future security updates to XP will no longer be available after April 8th, there will be no reason to ever connect this computer to the Internet. I can transfer my files to the other computer and upload from there.
My problem is simple. I run a lot of legacy software and hardware. Until I decide on an OS, I won't know which legacy things will work and which will not. I've considered building new computers, but without a good OS, what would be the point? This also eliminates an OEM version of Win7, which is still available, because it can only be installed on one computer, ever. If I build new computers, I cannot transfer Win7 from an old computer to the new one. And I will definitely need to build new computers, eventually, because my current ones, which are now more than five years old, are too slow to run the latest operating systems.
My solution is even more simple (but tedious). I've had two brand new hard disks sitting in boxes on a shelf here in my office. I rebuilt the other computer to have a dual boot system like this one. Last week I started loading a fresh copy of Windows XP on one of those hard disks. Each disk is 2TB; so I expected formatting to take an eon or longer. It took an eon and a half. After getting all the available updates, I put the disk back in its box. The following day I loaded the other one.
That puts two fresh copies of XP, fully updated, on new system hard disks for future use, which should buy me at least two more years of XP usage while I wait to see what the next OS will look like. Meanwhile, I try to keep the other computer disconnected from the Internet as much as possible.
How much longer can I continue to use these old computers? They work well. I really like them. What if I need to replace a lot of expensive software and hardware in order to continue maintaining this web site? It's a simple matter of economics. I don't earn any money from this site. If it is going to cost a small fortune to update my hardware and software to keep my site updated, I would choose to let it go.
I can't predict what the future will bring, of course. The next operating system from Microsoft might be another charmer like XP or Win7. I'll simply need to wait to see. Meanwhile, I'm setting myself up for at least two years of clean use of Windows XP without, I hope, any problems.
Sunday 2014.3.23
Yesterday Was Not a Pleasant Day
We all have a bad day once in a while. Mine was yesterday and it was a doozie.
Saturday is my day to make changes to my web site—the changes get uploaded on Sunday morning. I also proof the recipe file and the video. I tried to watch the video and my movie software said the file was corrupt. Uh oh.
I tried to encode it again, but the results were the same. So I tried to open the original video in my editing software. Maybe I could rebuild it…
This computer, as I have explained in the past, is a dual boot system. It's a simple setup. I installed a hard disk drive (HDD) bay in the front of my computer. I can slip in my XP HDD and run my computer using the Windows XP operation system (more on that in a future blog). I can switch to my Win7 HDD and run Windows 7. It's simple, even elegant.
My Win7 HDD wouldn't boot. It made a faint beeping noise, and that was all. A dead disk. Thankfully I still have the Windows 7 installation disk and during the day I was able, finally, to install a new version of the operation system on another hard disk drive.
I should mention that my XP HDD was not involved. In fact, I am writing this blog entry using web site software running on XP.
However, when I tried to open my video editing software in XP, the presets for my video camera, which had been there for more than three years, were gone. Poof. Disappeared. I have no explanation for why. Without those presets, the software cannot read the raw video files off-loaded from my camera.
That left me only one choice—I needed to reload a new system drive with a fresh version of Windows 7.
I started my updates around 8:00 in the morning yesterday. When I discovered the crashed hard disk drive, I started fixing that. Between loading the operating system on a different HDD, getting my updates, loading the software, and getting the software updates, the project took most of the day. By evening I was ready to start rebuilding the original video again, using the software in Windows 7. I was finally finished by 9:00 in the evening. The file checks out okay. I'm ready to do my uploads.
Then I started working on the problem with my XP version of the video editing software. I don't use it as much as I used to, but it's a useful backup, should the other version fail (like it did when the other hard disk drive crashed). I had to fix that one problem before going to bed because I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep until it was resolved. So by 9:45 yesterday evening the last of the problems, I hope, were fixed.
I like computers. I build my own, which helps me solve problems. I know where to look when something appears to go wrong. But when something actually does go wrong, the fix can be an arduous and tedious task that can take hours, if not all day. At some point I suppose I'll finally give up. That will mean an end to updates to this web site. I might keep it on line; or I might delete it. Until then, I'll do the best I can to keep things working.
Wednesday 2014.3.19
Lamb and Pistachios
Whenever I see a recipe that uses lamb as an ingredient, I take notice. This week I found a recipe for Lamb Bolognese Sauce in a restaurant trade journal. I've explained those journals before. However, for the uninitiated: Trade journals are magazines that go to businesses and industries. You don't find them on the magazine rack at the grocery store. There might be advertisements for commercial steam tables, refrigeration equipment, or five-gallon drums of ketchup—not the typical purchases for the average home kitchen.
I like restaurant trade journals because the recipes are created by chefs for their restaurant. The food is almost always delicious and the recipes almost always work perfectly. The same cannot be said for some cookbook recipes. Many are never tested. I have one cookbook, Southern Italian Cooking by Jo Bettoja, that I consider a puzzle book. The puzzle is trying to figure out how to make the recipes work. When sorted out, the food is quite good.
But, back to the lamb. I made the Lamb Bolognese Sauce yesterday. I varied the recipe a little, as I typically do, because it required three pounds of ground meat but only 14 ounces of canned tomatoes. That doesn't seem right. So I doubled the tomatoes. The result was delicious. Before going to bed I made up some pasta dough that I will probably cut into tagliatelle, as that is the traditional pasta to eat with a Bolognese ragù. Tagliatelle is very similar to fettuccine in size and shape. Tomorrow I'll also shoot the final photographs of the food arranged on a plate—the photographs that I call "royals."
The flavor, I must say, is unique. I know what Beef Bolognese tastes like. My Baked Bisceglie Pasta recipe uses a similar sauce, but with less meat. The Lamb Bolognese looks very much like Beef Bolognese, but the flavor is different. It's odd because my taste buds know what to expect, then they are surprised by something unexpected. I really like this sauce. The recipe and video will be published here and on YouTube in coming weeks.
And then there was a recipe that uses pistachios—Pistachio and Sausage Pizza. The magazine did a feature on gourmet pizzas from restaurants around the USA. This pizza comes from New York City. I haven't tried it yet, but I did buy the pistachios and some Italian sausages at the local warehouse store. Maybe later this week.
I'm a big fan of pizza and I think I make a pretty good pizza. My Pizza recipe shows a picture of my pizza baking in the oven. It also shows the huge volume of toppings I like to pile onto the crust. Pistachio and sausage? I've heard of some strange pizzas. The food channel did a TV show about pizzas in all their variations here in the USA. The macaroni and cheese pizza was the one I remember most. I'm not planning to try that one anytime soon, but there were plenty of diners who said it was among their favorites.
You might have noticed an interest in cooking again. I think it is because I am no longer feeling overwhelmed by the former clutter in my home while I was waiting for the shed to be completed. Nearly everything I wanted to store is now out in the shed. There are still a few boxes to sort through and a few empty ones to break down and put in the recycling bin. Other than those few straggling projects, I'm feeling like I achieved my goal and I can therefore return to my former routine. I even got my laundry all caught up.
And so I am feeling calm and organized again. I even like my home better because I no longer need to dig through stacked things to get to something I want. I'm also feeling a little proud because I have the best looking, and certainly the most functional, storage shed in this trailer park. Maybe I'll celebrate with a pistachio and sausage pizza.
Sunday 2014.3.16
No News is Good News
A thought occurred to me recently. Several months ago I altered this web site significantly. Every recipe, rather than having only a PDF document, now has two HTML pages with a photograph of the dish and links to the PDF, YouTube video, and a print-friendly version of the recipe. No one reported any errors—broken links or misdirected links—during all the months since the change. Only two assumptions come to mind: No one objects to the new design, and all my testing prior to publishing eliminated all problems (and there were many).
Cooking
Now that the shed is complete and I've been moving boxes and bins out of my living room (I even had a weed whacker and lawn sprinkler in my living room), I feel good about cooking again. There are still some items to move into the shed—half full cans of paint, roof sealer, etc. I'm doing a little each day, organizing as I go along. Looking at the insides of my shed, all the storage space I now have, makes me smile. My old shed was almost useless. It wasn't weather proof. There were animals inside at night, either racoons or opossums.
Some new cooking projects on which I'm currently working are some quick and easy recipes for meals you can get onto the table in minutes without resorting to a jar or frozen dinners. Pre-cooked heat-and-serve meals are convenient, but they are expensive. They might include preservatives you might not want in your body. They could be high in sodium or sugar. The nutritional value could be low. Homemade is almost always less expensive and more nutritious. You can control the contents. But do you want to work all day in a hot kitchen? Probably not.
When I was a child my mom made her own spaghetti sauce, almost from scratch. She bought canned Italian tomatoes, not fresh. We didn't have a garden. On Fridays (we were Roman Catholic) we often had spaghetti without meatballs or fish. Fridays were supposed to be meatless back then. I still like spaghetti; so I've been working on a couple of recipes: Spaghetti with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Spaghetti with Shrimp and Artichoke Pesto. The "sauce" takes less time to prepare than cooking the spaghetti—perfect for those who want to get a meal onto the table when they get home from work without resorting to Hamburger Helper or Stouffers (neither of which I ever purchased).
Another recent development at the warehouse store has surfaced: They have good racks of lamb again. For several months the racks were small, maybe one good bite of meat per chop and the rest was fat. There was a time when the store sold good meaty racks. They are selling them again. So out comes a recipe I've been holding—another restaurant recipe—for rack of lamb. I have one friend who loves eating lamb as much as I do. However, I want to video and photograph the recipe. There is one downside to that. It takes time and sometimes the food is nearly cold by the time I'm done with the photography. He might not like that. Of course, if I'm paying for the lamb racks, he might not have much choice.
And the subject of photography brings up a "Duh!" moment. I video the entire recipe. My video editing software has a frame capture button. Do I really need to stop at every step to take still photographs? No. For my last few recipe PDFs I've been using the frame capture feature to get the photographs I need. It works even better because I don't need to take my hands off the food to hold a camera. For example, it isn't possible to photograph the process of chopping parsley if I have to put the knife down to hold the camera. The "Duh!" moment is that I wonder why I hadn't figured this out three years ago. Duh!
Wednesday 2014.3.12
The Last of the Shed News
Yesterday morning the carpenter finished up a few final details to complete the job. Meanwhile, I installed the locking doorknob and strike plate on the door and door frame respectively. Yet to be done is the walkway leading to the door. I'll start on that next week.
During the afternoon I assembled a couple chromed wire commercial shelving units, each with five shelves, and began moving bins from my home into the shed. I also put my lawn mower away, folding ladder, and a few other common garden shed items.
I probably won't have everything moved in and organized until the weekend. The bulk of the boxes are in there, and I used only about 2/3 of my shelf space. There is still room for two more shelving units, if I need them.
It feels good to see the project finally complete and ready to put to use. I started planning this back in the beginning of December. It took nearly 3½ months, start to finish. Now I can enjoy the feeling of stress melting away.
And when I get my home cleaned up and organized again, I'll start working on cooking projects. This might be a good point at which to mention the value of having projects in the vault. During these past few months I did very little cooking for my web site, but I had enough projects tucked away to keep up with my weekly updates. I was down to only one recipe, enough for Sunday's update. I'm starting to add projects again.
Sunday 2014.3.9
Happy Daylight Saving Day
If you live in one of the many areas of the USA that changes the clocks for Daylight Saving, you will have sprung forward an hour last night. As for me, I'm feeling pretty proud of myself, but not because I sprang forward.
In Wednesday's blog I reported the failure of the electrical outlet on the outside of my home. I spoke with one electrician. He couldn't come to my home to fix the problem and he recommended some other electricians. I thought, "How difficult can it be to do myself?" It turned out to be not difficult at all.
I traced the problem backward to the outlet under my desk. If you're familiar with electrical receptacles, you know that typically each solid copper wire pushes through a hole in the back of the outlet and a brass spring clamp thingy holds it in place. One clamp thingy wasn't holding. The white wire wouldn't stay in the hole. It had come loose, breaking the circuit.
I drove to Home Depot and bought some new receptacles—the best ones they have. Rather than spring clamps gripping the wires, these have screw clamps that firmly hold the wires. I bought three of them and replaced the outlet under the desk, the one further down the line, and the outside receptacle. I also bought some 12-gauge 30-amp solid copper wires—white, black, and green (for ground)—about two feet of each.
With proper wire and proper outlets, I did the entire job myself. It took a while because I'm not a professional. I had to read the directions. Black wire to the brass side, white wire to the silver side, ground wire to the green screw. When everything was put back together again, I flipped the circuit breaker back on. It stayed on—the first sign of an electrical wiring job done right. Then I went around to each of the outlets and tested them. They all worked.
I felt proud because I didn't need to rely upon an electrician. It was too simple a job. Although with his expertise an electrician might have done it more quickly, I was pleased to have done it myself and I was happy with my choice of hardware. The electrician probably wouldn't have used the "professional grade" outlets because they're more work to install. I wouldn't have even known about those receptacles if I hadn't gone to the store and compared options. I did it all myself, I did a better job, and I saved a lot of money. Total cost was about $20. The final installation was better, and safer, than the awful job some imbecile did more than 20 years ago. The carpenter building the shed was impressed.
And speaking of the shed, on Wednesday all the plywood was nailed into place for the roof. On Thursday the exterior siding was started. Friday the roofers arrived to shingle the roof and install the skylight. The project is nearing completion. On Monday all the trim will be added and the eaves enclosed. Then cleanup. I'll have to do a little painting and install the locking doorknob. Then move stuff in. I expect to start moving shelves and boxes in by Wednesday.
Meanwhile, I was putting my office back together again after removing some furniture and one computer so that I could get to the outlet under the desk. One advantage to doing a good electrical installation was that it worked off some of the frustration I was feeling about my home being a disorganized mess. I'm feeling better.
Wednesday 2014.3.5
I say poh•TAY•toh; you say poh•TAH•toh
I try to be accurate with pronunciations. I think it comes from growing up with the last name Viau. Unless you're French, or Canadian French, you probably won't pronounce it correctly. All through school, every teacher struggled with it when they first saw it. There was only one exception—the teacher in my college French courses. It's vee•OH.
I worked in a job that encountered many international persons. I asked them how they pronounced their own name, and then I tried to learn it. I didn't always succeed. In some languages there are sounds that do not exist in English. The same is true for people in other countries. Listen to a news program from Japan, spoken in English. It is almost comical the way they try to pronounce words with the letter L in them. They keep their tongue in the bottom of their mouth. It is impossible to pronounce an L unless you raise the tip of the tongue to the gap between your upper and lower front teeth. Try to pronounce "pillow" with your tongue locked down behind your lower teeth. I make myself giggle trying.
Food pronunciation is a lot more difficult. Everyone knows how their own name is pronounced. A food ingredient, however, can not only be pronounced in different ways throughout the world, the pronunciation can change between different regional dialects of the same language in the same country.
My favorite example is pasta fagioli. Fagioli is fah•ZHOH•lee. The ZH sound can be heard in words like pleasure, vision, and beige. However, my grandparents pronounced the soup as pasta fazool, and they were born and raised in Italy. In Dean Martin's song, That's Amore, he says fazool.
I have one food encyclopedia that gives the pronunciation of many foods. Prosciutto, according to my encyclopedia, is pronounced pro•SHOO•toh. The capital letters indicate which syllable gets the stress. But there is something even better—Google or Bing.
Search for "pronunciation Italian." Besides the commercial web sites that will try to sell you language learning programs on CD, there are web sites that have catalogued many audio clips of words being pronounced in Italian. You can listen to someone speak the word. Such web sites exist for many languages. When I encounter a food name or ingredient that I cannot pronounce, I usually open my encyclopedia and/or research the Internet.
Even with those resources, some sounds are too difficult. In my Lamb Briouats video I mispronounce the word briouat. There is a web site that lists the word as Moroccan and it provides an audio clip of the pronunciation. Even with headphones on and listening to the sounds carefully, I can't master the pronunciation. Sometimes we just have to make do with a best guess.
As for the shed, the roof eaves were framed on Monday. Yesterday lots of little blocks were nailed into place to strengthen the structure. However, the siding arrived and five of the sheets had broken corners. They went back. Amusingly, the contractor ordered ¾-inch plywood for the roof. The carpenter was shaking his head. ½-inch would have worked well. I'll have a strong roof.
Meanwhile, the shelving that was supposed to arrive on Friday was delivered yesterday. Oh dear. Something else to maneuver around in my home.
And then the wiring in the outdoor outlet where the carpenter plugs in his tools went dead. The circuit breaker is okay because there is power along most of the circuit. It's just along one wall. I called someone I know who is a licensed electrician. More expense. The carpenter is using the other outdoor electrical outlet. And I opened the outlet that went dead and found wires wrapped around wires and then wrapped with electrical tape. That outdoor electrical outlet was as afterthought and some idiot didn't do the installation properly. I consider myself lucky. I've lived here 20 years without that wall catching fire. The electrician will bring it up to code.
Needless to say, the frustration keeps building. I need to go see a war movie. Lots of things blowing up.
Sunday 2014.3.2
The Rain
The two storms that blew through here during the second half of last week brought some much-needed rain to the region. As expected, the first storm brought light rain, enough to water lawns and wash away some of the dust and debris that collects during dry periods. The second storm dropped the most rain, really dousing the area. It certainly didn't fill any reservoirs, but the rainfall reports showed some impressive amounts in some areas.
As the Weather Channel reported, we'd need 20 of these storms to recover completely from our drought. However, as I said in Wednesday's blog, there is always the hope that this marks a change in the pattern and maybe next winter will see more rainfall—a lot more—and begin to catch up. Early last week we were at 15% of our normal rainfall for the season. We're at 46% now, but the reservoir is still below 40% capacity.
My favorite pastime during rain storms is to stay indoors where it is warm and dry. I open all the curtains and watch the rain pour down outdoors. I think this comes from my youthful years in New England. It rains there periodically throughout the warmer months and snows in winter. There is no dry season like here in Southern California. I didn't like going out in the rain. I still don't.
I finished my three-day project of making chicken stock, putting 65 cups of stock in the freezer, all portioned into one-cup amounts. This will take care of my soup needs for a while, along with quite a few other recipes that call for stock.
And yesterday I baked bread, an enjoyable way to warm up the home during cold rainy weather. (And I received an email from someone living in the Canadian Prairies who was doing the same thing yesterday.)
The Shed
There was one day of sunshine between the two storms—Thursday. The carpenter used it to frame the four walls. By the end of the day there was the skeleton of a space to walk into and get an idea of storage size. I am pleased. This also puts the project one day ahead of schedule, as there was supposed to be rain on Thursday. The work will proceed again tomorrow with the framing of the roof. Meanwhile, I purchased the entry door knob and had it keyed the same as my home's front door. One less key to look for.
Yesterday I ordered the chrome steel wire shelving I want. Some people suggested building wooden shelves into the structure, but I don't like the lack of flexibility. I also don't like the weight on the walls. By using clean shelving units on casters, I can move them where I want and position the shelves according to my needs. And the concrete slab bears all the load.
I can hardly wait to start moving my stuff into the shed. This project has been in process since early December. My lawn mower has been under plastic sheeting, along with other items from the old shed, alongside my home. My string trimmer and weed sprayer are in my living room. It will feel good to see everything put away and organized again.