Author: Topslakr

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It’s Time to Make a Resolution!

As my more loyal readers will remember, I don’t believe is waiting for January 1st to make a ‘resolution’. I think that whenever you come to a decision you should do what you can to fix it right now. I am making a decision right here, right now (September 24, 2007) to do what I can produce my own food. I’m not saying that I am going to start a farm and produce all of my own food but by the year 2010 I want to be producing a substantial portion of my food.

The fact of the matter is, I’m not comfortable with the way food is produced these days.… Click here to read more!

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Apple’s Support is Still Top Notch

This morning, while eating a spot of breakfast, I noticed a crack in my Macbook. I was not completely surprised by this. I had noticed some weakness a few weeks ago during one of my laptop cleanings and I recall some mention of this issue on the Apple support forum shortly after the Macbook’s release.

(As an aside, I do not recommend you browse those forums for any reason. They are filled with 90% Whiners and haters. Nothing good will come of it. It’s like looking for political information on a conspiracy theory site, everyone is skewing something to further their motives.)… Click here to read more!

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Review: iPod touch

Well, I bought one. I heard rumor Thursday night that there were showing up in some stores so come Friday morning like a little apple lemming I dashed down to the local and grabbed what they had. In a stroke of Apple genius, the stores were only stocked with the 16GB model at $399. Ouch!

On the eve of the device release people were confident that hacking the touch would be simple. It’s basically they same as the iPhone so it was hoped that the current iPhone hacks would need a little tweaking but everything would be all set by the end of the weekend.… Click here to read more!

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Cooking: No Knead Bread

I’m a bit of a bread guy. I enjoy a nice hearty loaf of crusty bread and I enjoy baking bread when I have the time. There is nothing like quality bread fresh from the oven. The weather up here in the northeast is starting to cool down and I’ve been able to fire up the oven without fear of spontaneously combusting so I’ve been on a bit of a baking frenzy as of late. While I was surfing the web yesterday I came across a blog post for No Knead Bread and I was intrigued. Tasty bread… little effort? Sounded like just the thing for me this weekend so I’ve decided to give it a whirl.… Click here to read more!

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Cooking: Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Over the past few years I have been working on creating the ultimate chocolate chip cookies. I’ve tried a lot of recipes and have finally decided on a modified version of a version based on the original Toll House Recipe. I’m a big fan of Alton Brown and one of his shows, Good Eats. In an episode called Thee Chips for Sister Martha he covered three cookie recipes the one I liked the best was The Chewy. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t what I was looking for. I did a bit of research into good cookies (Read: I ate a lot of cookies and talked to people who made them) and learned a number of things.… Click here to read more!

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iPod touch, why hath thou decived me!

Apple, as it turns out, has changed its tune with the iPodtouch (Like the Pun?). This story was covered all over the web (TUAW, Engadget, Gizmodo) But, in case you missed it, they have changed their position on data input for the device. At first the apple website clearly said you could create new calendar items right on the device. Now, apple has removed that phrase from the web page. Apple support confirms that the iPod Touch will be a read only device like all current iPods and will not all you to add new calendar items.

Game over man!… Click here to read more!

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iPod Touch, I yearn for you!

Ok, in case you live under a rock take a look at the new stuff out friends at Apple have released. Apple has released a device that I have hoped for since they announced the iPhone itself back in January. They are calling it the iPod Touch, picture and iPhone sans the phone. It’s all the goodness without any of the superfluous AT&T crap. This I will own, for two reasons.

Reason one: It’s awesome looking and I have to have it. Like a raccoon I am drawn to the shiny device and must have it in my grubby hands.… Click here to read more!

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Review: 5th Generation iMac 20″

Yeah, I bought one. No story for why, no long explanation about it. I bought it because I needed a new desktop and I don’t regret it. With the addition of this iMac I am 100% Mac now, my Macbook for portability, the Mac Pro for the recording studio and now the iMac for my general desktop use.

I will admit that adapting to using a Mac desktop has been somewhat rough. I learned to use the Macbook with no trouble at all. Using the laptop with the massive touch pad and it’s attached 13.3″ screen fit me like a glove.… Click here to read more!

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Review: 50mm f/1.8D AF Nikkor

Unfortunately, one of the few camera and photography shops near me is closing. On the bright side though they are selling off everything in the store, from neon lights and shelves to lenses and camera bodies. I happened to have been in the area on Saturday so I stopped in to see what they had. I found a couple of items at decent prices. One of those items was the 50mm f/1.8D AF Nikkor.

This is a pretty basic prime lens, that is to say it does not zoom at all. It’s a very small, light weight lens and quite fast as lenses go.… Click here to read more!

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New Cameras and Lenses From Nikon

On August 23rd, Nikon released a number of new products. They added/replaced a number of thier professional lenses and released two new camera bodies. They replaced their current flagship cameras, the D2Xs and the D2Hs with the D3. The specs look great on paper and I can’t wait to see some reviews when they come out in November. In the mean time all of my drooling has been directed to Ken Rockwell’s preliminay look at the device. He seems pretty excited about it. For me, it’s falls in the ‘too expensive’ category. If you are a professional though this camera looks like it’s going to be a no brainer.… Click here to read more!