Timewasted

I decided to give sauerkraut a try. After watching several different videos, I opted for a small batch method in a mason jar. I’m really just dipping my toes in the water with this, so who knows how it is going to turn out. The recipe was extremely simple. To make it, you need the following ingredients.

• White Cabbage
• Sea salt
• Caraway seeds

I shredded a single head of cabbage and mixed with a tablespoon of salt and handful of caraway seeds. Immediately the smell was amazing. The caraway seeds really lend a beautiful aroma to the mixture. I mixed it all by hand and squeezed the cabbage to try to bring the water out of the cabbage. I then covered the bowl with a towel and let it sit for an hour. Then I crushed the lettuce again and let it sit for 3 hours. I probably should have let it sit overnight, but at this stage I added the cabbage to a jar, covered it with a cabbage leaf, some water, and finally added pressure (with 2 shot glasses) to keep the cabbage below the water/brine level.

Hopefully in a few days I will start to see some fermentation working.

DeAnna and I are making some changes toward a more self-sustaining life. Part of doing that means growing more in the garden, preserving foods rather than buying store bought sauces and jams, and making our own beer and wine. Yesterday, I took the first steps toward becoming a home brewer, thanks to the help of a wonderful friend, Rich.

I met Rich at the Home brewing supply shop and he gave me a quick run down of what to do. On the wall was a list of what must be over 100 incredible beers for which the shop has recipes for clones. It was tough to decide, but upon noticing Anchor Steam on the list, I knew what I had to make for my first beer. I grabbed a fermenting bucket and a few other items and we were ready to get started. Rich got an Australian Shiraz kit to make some wine.

Next it was off to the store for some spring water and a 6-pack of beer to accompany us on our journey. As luck would have it, they had Anchor Steam! I couldn’t think of a better thing to drink while making an Anchor Steam clone, so with a few more purchases we hit the road and headed toward the house to get started.

After laying everything out, we got walked through the directions and boiled the grains and hops, added the malt, and finished with the flavor and aroma hops. Finally we gave the wort an ice bath to bring the temperature down to the point we could pitch the yeast.

During a break between babying the wort, Rich made the wine. I was amazed at how easy the wine was to get to the fermenting stage. He did mention that it gets a bit more complicated later, when you move to a secondary fermentation and finally bottle the wine.

Eventually we were done and moved the buckets to my basement. Since it is a bit cool outside and we don’t have heat in the basement, I added a small space heater to keep the buckets at 70% while fermentation gets kicking. As of this afternoon, both buckets were bubbling away, letting me know that the yeast was healthy and everything is going just as planned. Now comes the hard part, patience.

This is mostly just a reminder for myself. This morning I was checking to see if there was a simple way to validate URLs in Android and low and behold there is:

From: http://twigstechtips.blogspot.com/2011/10/android-validate-url-string.html


// Validate URL
if (!URLUtil.isValidUrl(url)) {
Toast.makeText(this, "Invalid URL specified", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
return;
}


Source: URLUtil.isValidUrl()

Spartan Fitness 10-29-2011 from Slasheur on Vimeo.

Programming Android contains an impressive coverage of what it takes to build an application for the Android platform. The book starts right where it should, with helping you set up Eclipse and the ADT plugins required for writing an Android app. Next, explanation is taken of some basics of Java. Certainly not enough to teach you Java, but rather a quick reminder of the things you are going to see while reading the examples in the book. The authors then show the reader the basic ingredients of an Android app (Views, the Manifest file, etc) and how all of the pieces relate to each other. Rather quickly, the reader is then launched into detailed explanations of not only the components and standard APIs used in Android, but also (and just as importantly) the best practices for which one should try to comply.

I was impressed by this book. Take a moment and look at the Table of Contents and you will see the exhaustive coverage of the book. I work on a large Android app during my day job and often try to read Android related books to make sure that I am doing things the best that I can. This book exposed several areas where I could improve my code. Best of all, while I may not currently use many of the features explained in the book, I now know where I can get the information when I take my app to the next level.

One thing not to miss is the introduction to Fragments. While certainly not exhaustive, it should give you a starting place for building apps that work with tablets and with phones.

My only complaint would likely be that the book doesn’t give many full examples of working code, beyond the initial setting up a project section. Because of the level of detail taken in each section, the authors do limit the code examples to explanation the topic of the chapter, rather than putting the code within a large context.

Programming HTML5 Applications, by Zachary Kessin; O’Reilly Media

Programming HTML5 Applications serves as an introduction to some of the technologies available for building the next generation of web applications. That being said, I don’t quite understand which audience for whom the author wrote this book. I felt more like I was attending a conference where the presenter was trying to get through as much material as possible, in as little time as possible. Reading the book feels like being exposed to a whirlwind of ideas and buzzwords.

While the title of the book is Programming HTML5 Applications, there is very little exposure to HTML5 in the text. This book is about Javascript. While no doubt Javascript has become the dominant programming language for the web, the title of the book doesn’t set you up for what you can expect to find inside.

Some sections go into very little detail about a subject, often just a couple of paragraphs, while others drone on for pages of an advanced topic that I really couldn’t understand without the greater context of the tools. As an example, closures are explained in 1 and ½ pages, while 4 pages are spent discussing the manifest file required for using a web page offline.

While it is obvious the author has experience with building web applications and has taken time to find the best tools available, don’t expect to learn the tools here. If you are looking for a quick list of things you should probably be studying up on, the book may serve as that list. If you are expecting to walk away knowing how to use any of the tools mentioned, forget it. My suggestion is to read the table of contents and then go find resources for learning the tools mentioned.

All of this being said, the copy I reviewed was an early access edition through O’Reilly’s Blogger Review Program. Since the book has not yet been reviewed and edited, I sincerely hope the time is taken to flush out the ideas presented and offer the reader a more valuable experience in exchange for their time.

For anyone who may actually be following a feed for my blog, I will soon be dropping the domain name breaking-catch22.com. That name was given to the site when I first launched the blog, and represented the goals of the site at that time. Things have certainly changed and I have achieved the goals I set out to accomplish. That domain name expires next month and I have elected not to renew. The blog will continue and will be moved to http://timewasted.net. See you there!

Here’s a great talk on Python’s Data Structures, by Alex Gaynor. Check out other great PyCon videos at PyCon TV.

A definite book to have in your Android arsenal.

If you are an Android developer, this is book you want on your shelf. Android Recipes gives you examples of working code to solve real world problems. Sure you can find the information on-line, but where else will you find all of this information in single, easy to use source, without spending hours digging through random web pages looking for a working example. While reading the book, I found myself frequently stopping to make notes or sending myself an email so I could try something new at work the next day. I can say that my understanding of what is possible has grown and my apps are better as a result.

Like many recipe books, the layout is a problem and solution format. The chapters are logically divided into things like system services, communications and networking, and working with libraries. Each chapter gives a multitude of problems which Android developers face daily. Then, and example is given of how to solve the problem. Best of all, the examples are thorough. Many books gloss over simple things like the layout of a screen. The authors have obviously taken the extra effort to provide a complete example of each solution.

So what can you expect to learn? This is a VERY short list of some of the problems which this book helps solve.

• UI challenges such as manually handling UI rotation and creating pop-up menu actions.
• Parsing XML and JSON.
• Receiving SMS messages and capturing notification events.
• Capturing and playing back audio and video.
• Using the scripting layer to run shell and python scripts.
• Persistent data and working with the SQLite database.
• Integrating 3rd party JARs into your project

If you are on the fence about this book, I encourage you to take the plunge and buy it. You will not be disappointed.

We finally made the 30 day challenge, just before my Birthday last Friday.  Of course, the last couple of days have been a little bad because of the birthday and the in-laws in town.  We should be getting back on the Paleo train here today!  Here was my post on robbwolf.com.

Last day of the 30 day challenge and no going back!

Today is the last day of the 30 day challenge. My wife and I both have been 100% paleo the entire time. My wife has celiacs as well as soy allergies and has had no food issues since starting the challenge. My reflux (and ongoing issue for the last 8 years) has completely disappeared.

There were a couple of weeks where I was lower energy, but by the last week or so I saw my energy levels return. I had a physical last week and my Dr was extremely happy with my weight and my clinical test results!

We both had to buy smaller pants! I’ve gone from 156 in size 34′s to 151 in size 32′s!

For those of you who are in the middle of the challenge and finding it difficult, stick with it. You will most certainly be glad you did.