Killer New Cooking Tools

Well, really, I hope they aren't actually "killer", but I am talking about knives, and spinning blades...

I recently attended a knife skills class, and during the class got to try a slew of different types and brands of knives. I came away very impressed with Shun knives. Great feel, cut briliantly, and the food just falls off - no need for the hokey hollow ground divots, etc. Also, I was able to try the "Ken Onion" Shun knife in particular. This knife has a specially designed bolster/handle area, where your fingers can sit in the proper style. It also rocks really well while cutting. And technically, there is a whole range of Ken Onion knives know, it just seems that this one was the first and thus is what folks refer to as the Ken Onion.

A few weeks later I picked up a Ken Onion, a paring knife, and their cool new serrated "Ultimate utility knife" (I couldn't find this on Shun's site, so the link is to the online store of the place I bought it from). I also took in my Wusthof Grand Prix knifes to be sharpened. These have been great knives, but I actually think I will sell the two cook's knives and paring knife now that I have the Shuns. Eventually I will replace the others as well.

I returned a bit later to pick up my Wusthof's, and low and behold, the Shun rep was there for the day. I talked to him for maybe 10 minutes (I was actually in a hurry at the time). Luckily he clued me in that "diamond fingers" sharpeners, which work rally well on German/stainless steel, shouldn't be used on VG10 steel of Shun knives. I thus got Shun's sharpening steel, which handily has a properly angled bolster on it to help you be certain you are maintaining the proper angle on your edge.

Finally, somewhere in all this, I also picked up a Viking immersion/hand blender. I got a chance to use it for the first time tonight, and WOW, that thing rocks! Made itself worth it in one use. I was making potato leek soup, which needs to get pureed, and previously I had to do this by taking stuff out in batches and putting it in a food processor/blender - a total pain. With the immersion blender, obviously, you just pop the thing in the soup pot, and blend for seconds (it probably took me 20 seconds). This is going to be one nice addition to the kitchen tool chest.

Oh, one note on the Viking vs. others. The Viking is extra powerful and has two speed settings. The first speed setting is what most immersion blenders can dole out, the second is turbo. Also, it's blade guard/bottom area is a nice design that lets the food flow out much better than many of the others that have holes, but where those holes aren't open to the bottom. It also comes with a whisking attachment, and others are available (I got a mini-chopper one with mine due to a current promotion).

Open Source, Linux-based, New Wireless Protocol Bike Computer

This is really amazing - an open source, Linux based, bike computer/cyclometer, that does GPS, heart rate, power metering, and all the usual other cyclometer stuff (speed, distance, etc.). The system is fully hackable, an intended to be hacked. They are also using Ant +Four, which is like Bluetooth for bikes. I blogged about this more, including the link to the video showing it, the company, etc, etc., on my Mountain Monkeys blog. Check it out, quite cool.

What Leopard Changed for Me

I've been running Leopard for about two weeks or so now. It has not been the usual OS update where it has some nice eye candy improvements and some underpinning changes, but doesn't essentially affect the apps I run. Leopard has directly impacted the apps I run. There are also some that I've chosen not to switch to.

Documentation?!

But first, wow, the little printed booklet that comes with Leopard... wow, a) I actually read it, and b) the info in it was actually useful! Hath hell froze over?! Printed documentation of value?! Woah nelly! Even better, it was short, easy to read, and to the point, with almost zero fluff. Way to go Apple.

The app changes...

Not a lot, but a couple key ones. As I mentioned in a previous post, I am no longer using Path Finder, because regular Finder has some great improvements, picks up some of the key features I used Path Finder for, and it eliminates needing an additional app, that didn't integrate as seamlessly as you'd hope.

Update (12 Nov 2007): A new version of Path Finder has been released that integrates MUCH better with Leopard, including supporting Quick View, and having an "Open in Finder" replacement that works completely. I'll have to see if I go back again to using Path Finder...

Second is iChat. The jury is still out on this one to be honest, but the fact that you can now login to multiple accounts on a single network (Jabber for me), all the video and screen sharing enhancements, and again, one less app to install and keep up to date, has led me to stop using Adium for now. We'll see. I've tried before, and iChat was not up to par, but this time it's looking like a replacement.

Other bits... Stacks are pretty cool, especially when you add overlays to keep them straight. Quick View rocks. Safari is definitely better, and thankfully the one feature Safari cannot seem to implement, for who knows what reason, is still solved by Saft. This is the feature of it remembering all the tabs you had open when you close the browser, and re-opening it with that. Saft also adds a great feature, which is to allow you to edit Text Area's with your favorite editor. This is key for me (I use(d) a similar plugin with Firefox).

What hasn't changed...

Time Machine. Yep, I am not a convert. Admittedly I haven't looked at every option, etc., but I'm a Super Duper! fan. Why? First I don't really need multiple revisions of files - any files I do need that for are already in a version control system. Second, one of the key features of Super Duper (or similar) backups, is that I have a complete clone of my drive, that I can boot off of. This has saved me a few times. What happens if your hard drive goes bad or something happens to your system. Fine, you restore from backup. But, what if you are in a time bind and you really need access to your files? Well, you can just boot off your backup, work there for a short bit, and then perform your restore/redo when time permits. No biggy. Yes, you lose whatever was changed between the time you did you clone backup and the current time, but for me that is often very little (due to what really matters being in version control, or being backed up by Jungle Disk every 15 minutes).

I still don't use Apple Mail. In fact, these days I don't use a desktop mail program, or rather, one that I POP or IMAP mail with. I use Mailplane, and all my email accounts are Gmail accounts (I have a half dozen or more at this point). Works extremely well for me.

XD

The blog post, Dock Stack Overlays on the XD blog is really cool. It shows you how to put an overlay icon on your dock stacks, so that you always know which stack is which. This is incredibly useful if you use stacks (or more than one stack anyway). Great stuff.

New Tools

I've been using a few new tools lately, and also got rid of one I've used a long time. First up, now that I'm running Leopard on my Macs, I've found I just don't need or want Path Finder. Path Finder has been great, I've used it for a few years now. But, with the new features in Finder, and the niggling issues I've had with Path Finder, it was finally time to end my use. The Finder's new sidebar, stacks, quick look, and the fact that you can show the directory path at the bottom of Finder windows (this was a big-little feature in Path Finder for me), brought me back to using it.

Update (12 Nov 2007): A new version of Path Finder has been released that integrates MUCH better with Leopard, including supporting Quick View, and having an "Open in Finder" replacement that works completely. I'll have to see if I go back again to using Path Finder...

Some new tools, both web and Mac that I've been using a fair bit lately include:

Mind Meister

I haven't used mind mapping tools much in the past. I've tried various ones several times, but they either were too cumbersome, too slow, or just didn't seem useful. I found out about MindMeister from someone on Twitter, and have a couple mind maps running on it now. I'm also collaborating on one of them with others. MM is fairly preferment, quite easy to use, nice to look at, and the collaboration bit is super nice. I'd like to see them add a way to insert a URL/link, where that link could be clicked on, but that's about the only issue I have so far. Interesting to note, if you get the Premium account (a measly $4/month!), they have offline editing. They are using Google Gears for this. Another intriguing bit is that they have an API. I haven't looked into this yet, or haven't thought about how I'd use it, but I always like to see services that have this as an option.

Mars Edit 2

The 2.0 version, now produced by Red Sweater Software is quite nice. In days of old, I'd preferred ecto, but this new version is simple, effective, fast, and quite nicely, has great Flickr integration. I've been using Flickr quite a bit, especially with my other blog, and often put multiple photos in a post. Mars Edit makes this trivial.

Navicat

Navicat is a GUI database tool. I used to use CocoaMySQL, and YourSQL and such on Mac, but YourSQL doesn't seem to work these days, and CocoaMySQL seems out of date, and I think wasn't under development anymore(?). Navicat, while a commercial product, has been rock solid, and I've found to be quite useful. Admittedly, I use it a lot of simple browsing, simple queries and value changes, etc., but the dependability and quality of it have kept it in my tool chest (and got me to buy it). One other nice thing here is that while it has a real Mac UI, it is a tool also available on Linux and Windows.

Acorn

Acorn is a slick, simple new image editor by Gus Mueller of Flying Meat Software (likely better known for VoodooPad). It's extremely fast to load up, and I'm finding it's my top pick to do things like saving images in another format (if they aren't in my Lightroom library - otherwise I use Lightroom), make minor tweaks, crops, etc. The speed is one of the best things - it launches super fast, and is very fast to use, so it's an excellent tool for quick work. Interesting note: you can write plugins in Python or Objective-C.

Pack Rat

I use 37 Signals Backpack extensively. It's my GTD system, and I keep tons of notes and information I need in it. Backpack's web interface is somewhat slow, especially if you switch between various pages a lot (and don't want to keep said pages in lots of browser tabs). I have a half completed AIR app to be my Backpack client, but Pack Rat seems to be the ticket now. It has synchronization, offline editing, and so on. I am sold, and have essentially not used my browser for Backpack since.

Panic Sans font

Last, but certainly not least, is the Panic Sans font. This is a fixed width font, great for coding. I've been using the Bitstream Vera Sans Mono font for quite some time, but Duncan's recent post about this discovered a few new ones. Panic Sans is actually a font found inside the Coda app's package. It's very similar to Bitstream Vera Sans Mono, but slightly nicer. Duncan's post has good info in that particular post, but also see some of his followup posts on the subject.

What's new in your tool chest?

lselect: great Finder toolbar addition

lselect is a really handy Finder toolbar addition. It lets you select files, in Finder, using globs, just as you would on the command line. On the lselect page, if you download the "lselect-toolbar-app.zip", expand that somewhere (e.g. where they suggest on the web page), then drag it up to your Finder's toolbar to add it. Now, wherever you are in Finder, if you click this new toolbar button, it'll show you a dialog that lets you type in a glob pattern, and will then select all the files in your current location based on that glob. Pretty slick.

WBC Champ Makes More Coffee Than Espresso - What's Happening?!

In Jimseven's (aka James Hoffman) latest blog entry, he says that he makes very little espresso these days in comparison to how much Chemex or press coffee he makes. This caught my attention as he's mentioned the Chemex a lot. I of course take note, given that this guy (jimseven is James Hoffman) is the 2007 World Barista Champion. Not that baristas don't make "regular coffee", but the WBC is all about espresso, and so on.

I like experimenting, and am tempted to get a Chemex just to see, but it seems almost every time I drink "coffee", it is rarely enjoyable (of course most espresso from cafes here in the US at least sucks as well). The other thing that is a big discussion in the coffee world these days is the Clover machine, which is basically sort of like an espresso machine, but for coffee, in that it makes one cup of coffee at a time, with grounds made separately, measured precisely, and so on. Some of the higher end coffee houses are getting them (Ritual in SF had one when I was there a few weeks ago, so I got to see it in person ;-) They are also a machine you can put on the net, and you can have it track all the coffees you make, as well as program it with various settings so you can just say, make a #3, which you know is all the settings you use with a particular coffee, etc. I think the machines cost several thousand bucks, so they aren't likely a home machine (and they may require a water connection). Of course Mark Prince of CoffeeGeek doesn't really like Clover coffee, for many of the same reasons I tend to not like coffee in general, which is that he claims it has almost no "body".

That's like coffee in general for me, in that espresso is this complete mouth experience, in that it has real density to it, and does all sorts of things to your tongue, much in the same way wines do, etc. Maybe I've just had too few good cups of "coffee", but coffee usually just winds up tasting like flavored brown water to me, as opposed to a liquid in its own category.

Note, I mean no offense at any of this, as one thing I love about the coffee world is the range of different preparations and opinions on what is great, etc. So, any of you espresso lovers out there, should I bother trying a Chemex?

First CSA a Hit So Far

I only learned about CSA's (Community Supported Agriculture) this year. They are beyond plentiful in Eugene, with I think something like 40-60 providers. We signed up for a fall CSA with Groundwork Organics. What this is, is a weekly delivery of locally, and with our choice, organically grown produce. In the spring we will likely sign up for multiple of them, with potentially one doing dairy and/or meat as well. Anyway, it's been really great so far. They provide a bunch of things that we wouldn't usually buy, or in some cases, have never even heard of!

We've had I think 3 deliveries now. Each week we've gotten 1-2 pounds of lettuce/greens (lots of spinach, field greens), a bunch or three of carrots, and then things like parsnips, beets, dill, Italian parsley, watercress, squash, potatos, onions, arugala, garlic, leeks, and more. The apples we got last week are the most flavorful apples I've had in a long time (they were "Liberty" apples I believe).

The delivery we got today included leeks, red potatos, and dill, with a recipe to go along with it (they always include recipes). It also included "Delicata squash" (roughly 8-10" long, white with green veins, and tubular, maybe 4" in diameter), with a recipe, and we'll try that out. I don't think we've bought salad greens at the market for a month due to this, which is great.

We've tried several things we have either never had, or needed to go find recipes to figure out what to do with it, etc. (the roasted parsnips were yummy). We used a bunch of the salad greens, carrots, etc. tonight, and I roasted up 4 heads of garlic as well.

I can't wait to see what the next one brings us, as well as what we sign up for in the spring (when the real CSA season occurs).

New Espresso Machine Update

VivaceFirstPours-3
Originally uploaded by Christopher Bailey

So things have been continuing to improve in terms of my shots out of the new espresso machine. I've been getting more consistent and higher overall level of shots these days. A few things I'm finding important (some of this is obvious, well documented, etc., some slightly different, etc.)...

• The grind is super important. I haven't been making hardcore truly micro adjustments yet (I haven't sat down and pulled zillions of shots in a row to experiment at that level yet), but I am making smaller adjustments and dialing things each day, etc.


• The freshness of the beans makes a huge difference! This may seem obvious, but I'm finding that I now won't even bother with anything that isn't dated, and current


• The roast of the beans is critical as well. Anything "over roasted" (extra dark and oily), is just pointless for me. I've yet to pull a good cup with one of those, and I have no interest in them it seems, since they seem to lose the caramel and subtle flavors, and enhance the roast/smoky flavor. As I've known, but now proved further, I too am in the "Northern Italian" camp for bean choice.


• I've had great success using a grounds distribution technique I saw at Wandering Goat: I use the side of the palm of my hand to distribute the grounds, and mostly just back and forth, but ensuring that I get a really even distribution, and proper amount of grinds.


• Better on my tamp pressure, and more consistent. Don't tamp the crap out of it, do indeed stick to the ~30lbs force, which is not as much as it seems.

Right now I'm awaiting arrival of my bottomless/crotchless portafilter, as well as a custom handmade tamper from Thor Tampers.

The best shot I've made to date is from Zoka Paladino beans, later in their life (probably about 10 days I think). Great taste, and then brilliant aftertaste, with the effect on your tongue the same as a wine with heavy tannins (sort of drys it out), and superb chocolate flavors coming out. This is pretty cool because usually Zoka is more on the smoky side for me, so this was a real transition. The shot in this picture used Vivace Dolce.

Installing Ruby MySQL Gem with MacPorts MySQL

Blogging this more for my own record, but maybe others will find it useful... Tonight I was having a hard time getting the MySQL Ruby Gem installed on a new MacBook Pro. I have installed Ruby, Rails, RubyGems, MySQL, etc. via MacPorts (or via the Ruby that was installed via MacPorts). Anyway, this is the command that finally got it to work:

sudo gem install mysql -- --with-mysql-include=/opt/local/include/mysql5 --with-mysql-lib=/opt/local/lib/mysql5 --with-mysql-config=/opt/local/lib/mysql5/bin/mysql_config


Update: as I mention in my comment below (updating here in case folks don't read the comments), when doing this on Leopard/MacOS X 10.5, I needed to change it to:

sudo env ARCHFLAGS="-arch i386" gem install mysql -- --with-mysql-include=/opt/local/include/mysql5 --with-mysql-lib=/opt/local/lib/mysql5 --with-mysql-config=/opt/local/lib/mysql5/bin/mysql_config


My New Espresso Setup

My new espresso setup
Originally uploaded by Christopher Bailey

Today I finally got to getting the new espresso machine all setup, in its final (for now?) resting place, and started to pull some shots. So far, average, but I'm just starting to learn to dial in the grinder, tamping, shot duration; and I'm not using a coffee I've liked that much (but it was free with the purchase, and I figured I might as well start out with something I didn't mind wasting a lot of shots of :) Anyway, all the pictures are here:

http://flickr.com/photos/chrisrbailey/sets/72157601979329896/

Initial impressions... First, I was pissed for a short while, because the machine didn't work out of the box! It didn't heat up properly. I called tech support, and they pointed me to instructions on how to reset the Hi Limit on the temperature. Did that to no avail. Then, as I simply looked around the insides of the machine, I saw a friggin wire was not connected! It was just off the terminal (used those nice plastic enclosed flat connectors), so it was real obvious where it went. Plugged that in, and voila, everything good now. Phew. Bad start though.

Getting past that, holy shite... The first thing you notice is the weight! Super heavy: 61 pounds! The other thing that simply rocks is the sheer amount of metal, the entire thing is stainless steel, or brushed steel (the internals of the drip tray are brushed metal, seems like everything else is stainless). It is incredibly beautiful at the same time as being totally kick ass industrial.

Next, nice big steam wand, dedicated hot water wand (very convenient for warming cups), burly lever action, heavy portafilter with E61 grouphead, and simple to use (mechanically - putting aside the art and science of pulling a perfect shot). On to the actual espresso...

So, first I ran a bunch of pre-ground Illy through that I had from buying the an Illy cup collection (No Water, No Coffee). That simply gave me a feel for pulling a shot, but the results sucked (minimal, crappy crema). After a half dozen of those, I fired up the new Macap MC4 doserless grinder. I filled it up with Malabar Gold, as that came for free with the machine, and while this may seem odd to some, it was a roast I hadn't liked much in the past. I figured I might as well waste a bunch of something I didn't care much for, while I started tuning the grinder, etc. Instantly I was at least getting crema, and better shot times (I was pulling doubles for all these, so approx 25 seconds).

After a couple, I started futzing with the grind setting, dialing it finer, to slow the shots down a bit, and thicken things up. I'm still playing, but I can at least pull something I find reasonable to drink. I will by no means claim to be pulling stellar shots at this point. It's at least thicker flavor and such than my super-auto, but it's definitely not honey yet.

I haven't even touched steaming yet, and probably won't for some time

Finally, I'm reading David Schomer's book (from what I understand, THE reference). I'm not too far in yet, but so far it's an easy, and seemingly good read, and I assume I'll learn a ton.

All in all, the journey has started. Interestingly, I recently found out that the "Best Coffee School" is right here in Eugene. That's the actual name of the place, and apparently people from all over the world come to get schooled here. They offer courses that range from basics, up to the longest course which trains you to run your own cafe and on the last/graduation day, the class runs their cafe.

First Day of Being an Indi

Yesterday was my first day of being an "Indi", as in an independent contractor/web worker/having my own company, etc.  I'm working on some contracts, started the process on forming an LLC, etc.  I decided to use MyCorporation.com for the LLC formation, to lessen the amount I need to do.  They called me this morning to say everything was in order, and they're submitting my forms, etc.  I also bought the .com and .net domain names for the new company (name forthcoming, once I ensure the LLC goes through).  

I now need to get the logo worked on, bank account, and AMEX card, finish evaluating hosting providers and so on.  I plan to be building a few web apps of my own, with hopes that I can grow that into what makes my living, but will also be working part time for a company to start off (and have a guaranteed source of income).  I'm loving this already...

Early September Sunsets

EarlySeptSunsets-13
Originally uploaded by Christopher Bailey

We very frequently get amazing sunsets here at our house in Eugene. Tonight's was another great one, and while I decided late to get my camera out, still got a few decent images.

Here's the collection of five that I got tonight.

New Espresso Machine and Grinder

I'm finally stepping up to very serious espresso machine (and likely selling my super-auto).  I just purchased an Expobar Brewtus II machine.  My understanding is that this is the creme de la creme of machines, unless you can shell out over $4000 for a La Marzocco GS/3, which is the ultimate home machine (and would actually kick the ass of many of the machines used in cafes and so on).  

For a grinder, I finally decided on a Macap MC4C83R Doserless.  The big learning point was about going doserless, which is the way to go for a home machine, because you don't pull shots constantly, and thus extra grounds would get left in a doser, going stale quickly.  I looked at various grinders and discussed a lot with cafe folks I trusted, friends who'd researched it, a few key blogs, CoffeeGeek, Chris Coffee (or specifically Chris, from Chris Coffee), etc.  The doserless Rocky is the usual starting point, but various reasons led me away.  First, the finish/appearance.  Sure, that's not the most important point, but when you have a beautiful chrome machine, you don't want a black, plastic grinder sitting next to it.  Second, it's burrs won't last as long, and aren't as good as those of a Macap or Mazzer.  How about a Mazzer Mini?  Well, they have a doser, and the doserless one, the Mini E, or Mini Electric costs $700 - so you are basically paying more than $200 MORE to go doserless (when in fact, you'd think you'd go less for not having a doser (although it does have extra electronics I guess).  The Macaps rival the Mazzers in grind quality, so no hesitation there.

I also picked up a Bumper tamper, knock box, and tamper stand, and some cleaning supplies, etc.  All this stuff should arrive this week, so I'm pretty excited.  

Eugene Restaurant Review: Marché

I had been told that Eugene had a lot of great restaurants. We've been here for a few months now, and I hadn't really felt that Eugene had lived up to that, in fact, I'd been fairly disappointed so far. Tonight changed that in a big way. My wife, parents, and I had dinner at Marché.  

Dinner was superb!  All of us thoroughly enjoyed it.  The atmosphere was great - clean, crisp, yet warm, and relatively casual.  We had reservations and were seated promptly at a nice corner table.  Our waitress was great, and was helpful with the wine choices.  She knew the wines on their list quite well, as well as knew California vs. Oregon characteristic differences and other points that helped.  

We started off with some great cocktails, and placed our order:

• My mom: Heirloom tomato and goat cheese salad, side of chard to split with my dad, and the fresh, Chinook salmon.
• My dad: Heirloom tomato and goat cheese salad, and the pork chops.
• My wife: Trio of bruschetta for appetizer, and then she went for the heirloom tomato salad, side of onion rings, and side of beans with bleu cheese, for her entrée.
• Myself: Breaded/fried oysters, and the duck.

First off, the heirloom tomato salad was absolutely outstanding, all of us couldn't stop raving.  The tomatoes were perfect, the goat cheese was outstanding, and at the proper temperature, and the light dressing was killer (so good we asked how they made it, and plan to try to reproduce it at home :)  I ate a chunk of my wife's salad, and again, just stellar.

The fried oysters were ok, and are something sort of unusual for me anyway.  I think slightly lacking in flavor, but honestly, with all the other awesome food we had, it was fine, and we ate them all.

As for the entree's, all of them were excellent.  My mom loved her salmon, and I tried the pork which was very good - very juicy and tender, so often restaurants dry out pork, but not at all in this case.  Also, the grilled peaches that went with it were a really great match, and a nice change from the the more typical apples.  

The duck I had was hands down the best duck I've had in as long as I can recall.  I don't order duck all that often, but had it recently in the Bay area, and it was pretty average on that occasion.  The duck came sliced, rare, with a extremely tasty crust around the edges, and in the most wonderful sauce!  Everyone was going nuts for the sauce, and in fact, we had them bring a little extra bowl for dipping the onion rings, as we found that a great combo :)  The sauce was the perfect amount too - by no means swimming in it, but also, enough to coat some of the potatoes and chard.

Speaking of chard, yes, we had a lot, given two of our entrees came with it, and we had two sides.  It was so darn good though that we ate nearly all of it, and took the remainder home.  Perfectly cooked, great seasoning, oh, just so good.  I wish I had more room, as I'd have finished it off.

Finally, we managed to save enough room to have some dessert.  My dad and I split the cheese plate, and my wife had the creme brulee.  First, thank you Marché for not putting berries in the creme brulee!  Very good.  The cheese plate had a small serving of the same goat cheese used on the heirloom tomato salad, and a Camembert I particularly liked.  Given the intent for this to be a dessert for one person, it was a good portion, but since we split it, I'd probably have liked to have one more cheese (not that our stomachs needed it!).  We also had some espresso.

The food was so good, I almost forgot we had wine.  Aside from a glass of malbec we sent back (and indeed, the waitress had told us it wasn't the best), the cab was good.  We had wound up going with just wine by the glass, as honestly, their wine prices are quite high - even by California standards.  They had a fair number of good wines, but with cocktails, and the prices of the wine, we just decided to skip it.  I guess that would be about my only knock.  Aside from that, outstanding.  Definitely the best meal I've had in Eugene, and Marché gets my vote as the best restaurant in town (that I've been to so far anyway). I would highly recommend it.

Update: I also posted this review here on Yelp. I'm finding Yelp more useful for restaurant reviews than say Eugene Weekly's food thing.

I am 73% Optimus Prime

I AM
73%
OPTIMUS PRIMETake the Transformers Quiz

Green Buildings Story: My Adobe Building Photo Used

I was happy to receive email from Grist, which just did an article on 15 Green Buildings.  They used one of my photos of the Adobe Systems buildings in San Jose (see building #8 in the article).  Here's the full photo on Flickr.  I myself have become very interested in being "green" and have been increasing my own efforts.  Good job to Grist for observing the Creative Commons license, and glad I could help with such an article.

New Visionary Saver screensaver on the horizon

I've put a bit more work into the Visionary Saver screensaver, and should have a new version out soon. I'm likely going to have delay on the multi-monitor stuff. Getting all the preferences right for that is somewhat of a UI mess (especially for those of us who deal with multiple multi-monitor setups for a single computer).

On another note, I've added the "ThisWorld" visualization. Gary's FlickrTicker will be fully supported as well.

Depending on what work I get done on it this weekend, or in the next evening or two, I plan to have a new version out early next week, or this weekend.

New MacBook Pro Recommendations?

I'm planning to replace my dual G5 tower (personal machine) with a new MacBook Pro, 17". I need to get down to a store and see if I can look at this in person, but doing so in Eugene, may be hard. So, I'm soliciting advice on two issues:

1. Should I get matte or glossy display? The glossy sure looks cool, but how susceptible is it to glare? I don't have a lot of glare in my work environment, so maybe that's moot and the glossy is better? What do folks think? Does it make a difference in color correction? I've found that Galbraith and such have tested with the matte displays, and that I really like having my monitors color corrected.
2. Since I'm going with the 17", I'm debating whether to go with the higher resolution version. My primary work mode will be with a 24" (or larger) monitor hooked up, so I use the laptop screen either if I'm on the road, not at my regular desk, and as a secondary monitor at my desk (typically for IM windows and similar). Is the higher res a lot harder to read, or? What are the pros and cons?

In general, this will be my do-everything machine. Personal stuff, as well as development projects of my own, etc. Thus, everything from email and Quicken to heavy coding, Lightroom/photo work, etc.

You don't always get what you pay for (IBM: $30m, 2 years; us: $3m, 1yr)

I just found out today, from the gentleman I did a consulting gig with a few years ago, that the company we did the architecture for (but who declined having us do the project), had IBM do it instead. That's not the interesting part (especially since during this time the company hired an ex-IBMer). The interesting part, as I was informed, is that IBM used our architecture (admittedly that's how it was explained, and we didn't get into details, but still), but took two years to do the project, and charged $30m!!! As I recall, we'd bid it at around a year, and I think around $2-3m! Either the project changed a lot, or that is just gross. I suspect IBM went in and did some massively overdone EJB implementation (this was a Java project, and I'd done a very basic prototype using Spring, Hibernate, and Velocity or JSP).