Geek and a Half

September 10th, 2007 by Jake

So normally I don’t do this sort of thing (recipes), but this is absolutely delicious geek food, so I wanted to share the recipe with you. It’s pretty simple, you have to really suck at cooking to screw this up. ;)

What you’ll need:

• 2-4 cups powdered sugar
• 2/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 stick unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1 box Rice/Corn Chex Cereal

And here’s how you do it:

• Get a small pot, put it on the stove. Turn the heat on to the lowest setting.
• Pour into said pot the following: butter, peanut butter, chocolate chips.
• Cook on LOW HEAT until fully melted. This is important, if you cook it too fast you’ll burn the chocolate and it’ll smell/taste like crap.
• After it’s all melted, get your cereal and pour the whole box out into a big bowl. Get the chocolate mixture and pour it over the cereal as you mix it. Try not to crush the cereal ;)
• After all the cereal’s coated with the chocolate mix, pour it into a bag of some sort. I use a clean garbage bag, but a paper bag works, too.
• Pour some of the powdered sugar in, close the bag and shake. Repeat this step until all of it is coated with powdered sugar.
• Pour into serving bowl(s) and enjoy.

If done right, this is a really delicious geek treat. Enjoy. :)

September 4th, 2007 by Jake

I was recently invited to join the Trillian Astra Alpha Preview, and I must say I’m impressed. While it’s still an alpha release, and there are bugs, there are also MAJOR improvements over Trilian 3.x.

Their central theme is “one contact for all contacts”, if that makse sense. So, you have one contact which in turn holds all your other contacts. My “AstraContact” is SpikeX, and it holds all my IM account information, for AIM, MSN, Google Talk, etc. They have strict privacy controls, as well, allowing you to restrict who can view what.

They’re also going mobile (in two ways). They have a very nice flash-based website that will act as a Meebo-like clone, and then they have this “TrillianMini” thing, it’s pretty much a forum signature banner that shows off your contacts. Oh, and they have an iPhone site set up, too. Whoop-de-frickin-do.

Here’s my Trillian Mini:

(Requires Flash)

Not much, I know, but I’m sure it will be perfected im time for the final release.

There are quite a few bugs I can point out still, but overall it’s coming along very well. If Google Talk doesn’t get its act together and release some updates, I might just switch to Trillian.

August 30th, 2007 by Jake

I’m sorry to report this, but I’ve broken down and gotten ads for the blog. I know, I know… I hate them as much as you do. But a college studen’t got to live, too, you know. :P

Within the next few days, you’ll see an AdSense box appear in the right navigation. If you have a web content filter, don’t sweat it: it’ll get filtered out.

On another, semi-related note: I’m thinking about re-skinning the blog to give it a bit more modern-esque format. Stay tuened over the coming week(s).

August 24th, 2007 by Jake

A little contradictory considering my last entry, I know. But I just recently found out that Comcast, using a special network application, is blocking BitTorrent seeding. Using specific software known as Sandvine, it allows Comcast to allow upload traffic, but only when a download is in progress. As soon as you start seeding, this application tags all BitTorrent traffic with the “RST” flag (read more about the RST flag at Wikipedia).

I’ve recieved mixed reports about this. Some of my fellow Comcast subscribers say they have been affected by this new software, others closer in proximity to my location have reported that this is not the case (yet).

Either way, this is the beginning of the end for the internet, as far as I can tell. First one protocol, then another, then it’s $5/mo extra to access YouTube, then it’s $1/mo/service you want to use on their lines (HTTP, FTP, SSH, etc). Okay, maybe it won’t be that bad, at least not for awhile. But it could be the future of the internet for your kids… and guess who’s gonna pay that bill? :)

August 7th, 2007 by Jake

Comcast, my ISP, is great. They sign you up for (in my case) an 8MB/1MB connection, but after the first few months of service, I noticed my bandwith increasing. I did a speed test, and the download was for the most part unmetered. The upload had a small increase. I don’t know why Comcast does what they do, but my internet is about 3x faster than it was (I get burst speeds of up to 2.5MB/sec, and solid downloads at about 1.2MB/sec). Here’s a speed test I ran just a few mintues ago:

For the most part, I can tell what kind of internet or bandwith limits a server has when I’m downloading from it (i.e. one site may cap its downloads at 200k/s whereas another may give me as much as 800k/s, others are as fast as my cable line). I really like their policy on home networks, too, they guarantee an internet connection to your house, but after that it’s up to you to configure your home network the way you want it to run (no router support unlike AT&T DSL, for example).