Alton Brown’s Diet… er… Way of Life
In his latest episode, Live and Let Diet, Alton Brown discusses his method for adjusting his food intake to loose weight. He called this his "Plan of Four Lists."
List 1: Daily - Things he needed to eat daily.
- Fruits
- Whole Grains
- Leafy Greens
- Nuts
- Carrots
- Green Tea
3x Weekly - Foods that he needs to eat AT LEAST 3 times a week.
- Oily Fish
- Yogurt
- Broccoli
- Sweet Potato
- Avocado
1x Weekly - Foods that he can eat once a week.
- Red Meat
- Pasta
- Dessert
- Alcohal
Do Not Eat List
- Fast Food
- Soda
- Processed Meals
- Canned Soup
- "Diet" Anything
I really like this plan. It makes it simple, but I don't know if I could follow it exactly. Of course, I'm not trying to loose weight, but I want to eat healthier. I eat way too much fried food and not enough fruits and vegetables. I eat out of convenience.
Now, to convince myself to buy a $500 blender to make smoothies.
Another Reason to Avoid Adobe Flash
The Apple iPad was announced this week and the biggest news from the device is that it will use the iPhone OS, which means Safari won't have Adobe Flash. While Flash has it's place, it shouldn't be the main navigation, or even worse, your entire web site.
Customer Service = Care
Each year I'm asked what kind of cake I want for my birthday. Each year I pick the same thing: vanilla cake, strawberry filling and whipped topping from a small bakery in town.
This bakery has been losing business for years. You could blame it on the economy or the fact that other places have popped up selling bagels AND breakfast sandwiches. But I think it's something else. I think Gary Vaynerchuk says it best about customer service. Care.
When you take an order for vanilla, write down vanilla and hand someone this, maybe you just don't care anymore.
I'm not that picky when it comes to cake, but next year, I'll ask for a cake from somewhere else.
Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion
Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion is Gary Vaynerchuk's latest book. If you hate your job, you need to read this book.
Windows 7: The Windows 98 of Vista
Windows 95 was an exciting time for computers. We finally got rid of the Windows 3.1 method of running a clunky visiual interface on top of DOS and things were good. The problem was compatibility. There were issues with legacy software and device drivers. The difference was Windows 95 was SO much better than 3.1 people delt with it. When Windows 98 came out all of the bugs were worked out already, so if it worked in 95, it worked in 98. Software and devices were now compatible.
Fast forward 10 years and Windows Vista is released and the press destroyed it. Everyones printers broke, software didn't work, User Account Control (UAC) would always popup and harass you that your programs aren't trustworthy. Years after it's release people were still afraid to upgrade to it even if they haven't tried it. A year after it's release most of the issues had been worked out as long as you upgraded all of your software.
On October 22nd, Windows 7 will be released officially. What's the difference between Vista and 7? Polish. Windows 7 has no dramatic new features compared to Vista but it's polished. It's faster, thinner and most importantly in the last 3 years all of the software and devices have been designed with Vista in mind.
Should I upgrade?
The upgrade price for a home user is $119. If you are running Vista you most likely won't notice any big changes worth the price investment. If you are running XP, than it may be worth it for a fresh install or you may be in the market for a new computer.
If you are a buying a new computer, get Windows 7. There is no need to fear it and when I sit an XP computer it feels broken, old and slow.
Microsoft Security Essentials
It was only a matter of time before Microsoft would make it's own security product to fight against the Apple marketing ploy that PC's have too many viruses. While there are plenty of solutions out there, they all stink.
Microsoft Security Essentials is now available for free. It's Windows Defender just as a virus scanner. I've jumped on the no need for anti-virus solution since reading Jeff Atwood's article about the performance hit of using anti-virus software. Yes, there is a noticeable difference in performance if you uninstall your antivirus software. This may be an option for tech people that can avoid most viruses, but I still needed something to recommend to family and friends.
There were 2 solutions before this:
- Paid Software - Regular users tend not to renew this and become annoyed with the software so they just click to get rid of every message that pops up. They also try to upsell you to their premium security solutions. Symantec/Norton and McAffee fall into this category.
- Free Software - These will nag you to upgrade you to the paid solution, show you ad's for other products or just feel clunky to use. AVG and Avast are the best options if you went this direction.
Microsoft Security Essentials
I installed Microsoft Security Essentials and it was relatively painless. The interface is simple and just takes care of the basics, which is all most people want. I will recommend this to anyone going forward since it's free and while it hasn't proven itself at detecting viruses, it's probably just as good as the other options.
What's great for me is I no longer will get that call complaining about computer problems and see someone stopped paying for their virus protection months ago. Also, if you are tech savvy, you can turn off the real-time scanner to get back performance, while still letting it do weekly scan just in case.
Google confirms that they don’t use Keyword Meta Tag
Google confirms that they don't use the keyword meta tag for ranking web search results. Small businesses constantly ask me about this and I've been relaying this message for years. There is no shortcut to working hard on good content and networking.
Make News Feed on Facebook the Default View
Web apps are getting more sophisticated user interfaces, which means sometimes there are hidden gems beyond just clicking on links or filling out text boxes.
I was trying to figure out how to change my default front page on Facebook to show status updates from both my friends and the things I'm a fan of. I figured this would be in Settings some where, but it turns out it's in a much more subtle location. On the left of Facebook there is a sidebar that looks the image to the right.
I finally figured out that you can click More on the bottom and not only do you get more features, but you can re-order this list. What's more important is whatever item you put on the top, will become your default view when you log into Facebook.
So, to solve my problem, I slide the News Feed to the top and now I get all the updates from my friends and pages when I hit the Facebook logo to come home. Neat!
Why Beginners Shouldn’t Shoot in RAW
If you are getting into digital photography and have purchased a DSLR you may wondering what this RAW file format is all about. Most things you read online will say you should always shoot in RAW since it provides more options. Why is does provide more flexibility, there are some draw backs of using it.
RAW is a format that preserves the raw data off your digital camera's sensor that captures the image like a piece of film. If you shoot JPEG, the camera will take the RAW photo, apply white balance, do some post processing (sharpening/contrast/saturation/color tone) and then encode it down to a JPEG.
The argument is if you get the white balance wrong or the camera doesn't do post processing to your satisfaction, you can fix it back at your computer since the original data is preserved. This is great for professionals that may only get one shot at a wedding or sports event.
Here is why I think you should not use RAW if you are just getting into photography:
- RAW files are MUCH larger than JPEG's. With memory cards and hard drives getting bigger, you won't have to worry about this until you start collecting many photos and need to back them up. As an example 100 JPEG photos from my Canon Rebel T1i will be about ~700 megabytes. The same photos in raw would be ~2000 megabytes.
- Seemless support for RAW is still not there, especially if you buy a camera that was released in the last year. This means you may need to use your camera manufacturers RAW utility on your photos before you can use them in your favorite photo editor or put them online.
- Most people will start off using Auto White Balance and won't notice if the white balance is off. Also every photo editor has a Warming/Cooling filter that can fix this even if it's a JPEG.
- The extra data RAW provides won't make a noticeable difference in quality if you post your pictures online or are making small prints such as 4x6 or 8x10.
In the end, the choice is yous. Most photo editing software can fix the issues that may be inherited by using JPEG over RAW. Consider using JPEG for it's convenience and you won't be giving up the option of making a large print when you take a photo you truly love.
Making Your Passwords More Secure
If you are like me, you are constantly creating new accounts online. You've probably done one of the following to try to remember your passwords:
- Use the same password everywhere.
- Have a handful of passwords that you use based on how much you trust your site. Ex: One for your bank accounts, one for your ecommerce account and one throw away for random accounts.
- You have a method to create semi-unique passwords based off each site.
With these methods, you run into several issues. What happens when you need to update a password? What if one is compromised? I was frustrated with these systems and started searching for a better solution.
I stumbled upon Joel's Password Management Scheme and decided to implement it. I did switch the application to one that works better for multiple computers. Here's how it works:
- Download and Install KeePass Password Safe
- Create a database, set a master password and start creating keys with unique passwords for each web site you use.
- If you use multiple computers, use Dropbox and save your password database file in your Dropbox. This means each time you save your database it will be synced to your Dropbox and all your computers. When you save, you can merge the changes as well so you don't have to worry about overwriting your changes.
- If you aren't using multiple computers and don't want to use Dropbox, make sure you backup your database. See my article on online backup solutions.
This may seem like a lot of work, but once you get use to it's not much harder to use and it is more secure. You also don't need to use the password reminder tool on the sites you visit occasionally.