General

Because I had so much trouble finding this information. If you’ve already got telnet set up, and your config includes a line like username admin password 123487123458134789561278561927845 level 15 encrypted Then you’re already very close. Only two steps remain between you and SSH console access. crypto key generate dsa (or rsa) ip ssh server That’s it! Don’t bother with the instructions that you might find in the user guide for “configuring an initial SSH console password” that have you mess with aaa authentication default line and the like. They’re red herrings. ...

Because otherwise I’ll forget and have to search through forum posts to find it again: Let’s say you have a tar archive, foo.tar.gz . Let’s also say that this archive contains an upgraded version of a popular blogging software suite. The contents of the archive look like this: foo/index.php foo/image.jpg foo/css/web.css foo/css/print.css Let’s also suppose, shall we, that you’ve got the previous version of foo already installed in another location, like /var/www/foo.example.com/ , and you want to extract the contents of the archive (here’s the important part) into that directory, without having to move the directory contents or rename any directories, or whatnot. Here’s how: ...

Since Apple didn’t update the product line at their event this afternoon, I figure I’ll post my wishlist of things that I want to see in the new model. Since anyone with that kind of clout reads this page. A Camera. Stills is fine, video would be an added bonus. The camera on my BlackBerry sucks big-time, and I’d like to take cute pictures of Nora without having to carry a 3rd piece of electronics around with me. Full Bluetooth support. I want to be able to sync with my MacBook over Bluetooth, I want to be able to use the Bluetooth speakers in my office (or Bluetooth headphones, if I ever buy any). I want full file-transfer abilities, too; not just the crappy “you can sync your calendar and contacts” that it has now. A good speaker (yes, I know that the 2nd-generation iPod Touch has a speaker; I don’t have one of those) with an independent software volume control for each of sound effects and music I think that if Apple added all three of those features, I might downgrade my BlackBerry to “stick that makes phone calls”, and do all of the “funnest” stuff on the iPod. Or if Apple gives up on the AT&T exclusivity for the iPhone, and lets T-Mobile sell them in the US, I’ll just trade both out for an iPhone 3GS. But since I don’t see that happening any time soon, I’ll just have to continue hoping for upgrades instead…. ...

Nora was born at 2:31 this afternoon, weighing in at 7 pounds, 11 oz, and 19.5 inches long. She’s swaddled and sleeping right now (and boy am I envious). Heather is pretty exhausted; I think once she gets out of the shower, she’s going to try to get some sleep (before she has to wake up for a feeding). I’m running on new-father adrenaline and the fact that I finally ate something bigger than a breakfast taco for the first time in about 24 hours, but I suspect that in the very near future I’m going to crash and sleep for about a month. ...

OK, this is going to start out being technical (actually, the entire thing will be technical). So you might want to skip this unless you’re a hardcode geek. Now that the warning’s been issued: I finally decided to take another swing at OpenID. Specifially, the Wordpress OpenID plugin. It just wouldn’t work on this site (Dreamhost doesn’t have the GMP library installed, and the fallback method failed to work). This didn’t bother me in the past, but it finally got to the point (again) that it bothered me that it didn’t work. I think the last straw was when I tried to sign into filttr.com. So Google to the rescue! ...

I got a whopping 24 hits on part 1 of this series, which was still about 5x as many hits as any other post I’ve made, so here’s the next part. I decided to start doing one item at a time, because I lack the attention span (on the weekend, at least) to write about 10 different tools. So for the next few posts, I’ll be talking about things that are required for most projects, but don’t count as “basic equipment”. Basically, these will be things that you’ll need to get for each project which will be specific to what you’re making, as opposed to “pantry items” like shears and a tape measure. This post focuses on the pattern itself.

Ketchup. This morning, I made homemade ketchup for the second time ever. And it turned out pretty good. The bottles (pictured to the right) are cooling on the counter right now. Once they’re done (I just heard one of them pop), they should be shelf stable, if left unopened, for at least 6 months, probably longer. This originally came about because I wanted to give my dad something unusual and hand-made for Christmas last year. He ended up getting a bottle caddy with two bottles of homemade ketchup, a bottle of homemade mustard, and a bottle of unique steak sauce that I doubt tasted any good, but sounded like fun at the time. I had lots left over (like, one of the 12-oz bottles you see in the picture, plus an entire one-quart Stor-N-Pour®, plus a bit more. I just opened the last bottle about a week ago. I really like it; it’s got an interesting twang to it, making it taste more like a steak sauce than ketchup (yes, I know ketchup can be used as steak sauce). Probably because I ran out of red wine vinegar the first time, and had to substitute some cheap balsamic vinegar instead. But it still turned out excellent (and I do prefer it over any other processed ketchup that I’ve ever eaten). This time, I was at Central Market over the weekend, and saw that they had yellow tomatoes on sale for $1.99 a pound. So I decided I’d try to make yellow ketchup. And it turned out OK. It’s not actually yellow, more of a dull brown color, but it’s still pretty darn tasty. I may end up having some tonight with dinner (burgers and fries, I believe). If you read my previous post, you know that I decided to try making this batch according to the recipe presented by Jamie Oliver, rather than using the printed recipe from Food Network. Here’s my observations on the difference: I liked not having to find, buy, and chop fennel bulb. It probably made for less to strain out at the end as well. I also liked the shorter cooking time: when I cooked the last batch, I think I was in the kitchen for about 6 or 8 hours, waiting for things to reduce. This time, I started cooking at about 10:00 (after I bought and cleaned some bottles), and capped the last bottle just before 1:00. And that included a “Heather, can you stir this for me every 10 minutes or so, while I run to Chipotle for lunch?” I think that if I’d taken the tomatoes that I simply chopped, and instead made Passata out of it, I might not have had quite as long to wait for the sauce to thicken. But then I would’ve spent a couple of hours making passata, so I’ll call that one a draw. If I’d substituted white or yellow onions for the red onions in the recipe, I might’ve gotten a brighter color that was closer to yellow than brown. And if I could find a way to use a different vinegar without substantially modifying the flavor of the finished sauce, that might also add to the color. All in all, I think it turned out just fine, and now I’ve got some ketchup to keep and eat, some to give to Dad for Father’s Day next month, and some to inflict upon give to my friends. The full recipe, for those interested, is below the fold.

I just watched the “pickles and preserves” episode of Jamie at Home again, because I’m planning something special for my friends and family, and it struck me as odd that the recipe cooked on the show has virtually no resemblance to the recipe that I printed off of the Food Network website – the American broadcaster for the series – a few months ago (on my birthday, it seems. Didn’t realize that). ...

I started out this afternoon thinking “I’ve got extra POINTS(tm) to blow, I should to go to Central Market and have a pizza for lunch”. But then I realized that it was noon-thirty on a rainy Saturday, and that everyone and their dog would probably be there. So I watched some old episodes of Jamie at Home (I love his cooking style, even though I’ll never have the appreciation for bitter greens or chiles that he seems to have), to wait out either the weather or my estimate of how many people would be there. I must’ve been inspired while I was watching the cooking shows, or maybe I came to my senses and decided I didn’t need to eat all that fat and cheese. Whatever the cause, the result was the tasty recipe that’s below the fold. I was reminded, as I ate it, of a tortilla sandwich that I got as a lunchtime snack in a bar in Madrid, when I was on a tour of Southern Spain after high school. That sandwich was on a crusty baguette, and this one is on sourdough toast, but I think I properly captured the essence of the sandwich. And it was much tastier than the pizza would have been. Home cooking triumphs again!

Sometimes, it seems like my normally quiet nature works against me. I have a blog (you’re reading it right now), but it seems like 95% of the posts in the last few years are the reposts from delicious.com (née del.icio.us). The long format just isn’t something at which I’m very good. Twitter seems to be a little better for me, but I fear that were I to abandon the blog altogether, I’d eventually have something to say that wouldn’t fit into the 140 characters that you get from Twitter (for example, this post, which is up to 555 characters already). But in the same vein, I also worry that the blog has become a wasteland, a remnant of better days when I had more to say (or at least, was able to write more about what I wanted to say). Plus there’s the whole “what happens to your data if the cloud blows away” aspect; what if twitter were to go under? All the posts that I make, even considering the signal:noise ratio, vanish into the aether. The digital world is even more transient than the physical, I understand that, but at least while I control my own sites, I can be reasonably certain that what I’ve written won’t vanish without warning. ...