Let’s take a brief look at the power of water.

Countertops: Imagine a kitchen counter covered in goo and many hard stuck on  pieces from dinners gone past.  Take a wash cloth soaked with warm water and lightly go over the entire countertop, leaving small puddles in the problem areas.  Walk away for 5-10 minutes.  This will allow time for the dehydrated food particles to rehydrate.  Once in a hydrated state, they come off the counter much more readily.

When you come back, wipe off any loose particles and repeat until the counter is clean.  This will give you time to do other things you love instead of spending your time scrubbing.

It is a good idea to have a final wipe down using a prepared cleaner containing bleach.  While the goo might be gone, you don’t want any lingering bacteria hanging around.  Additionally, you will not want to walk away from your cleaning too long or the water will evaporate, the food particles will dehydrate and you will be back to square one.

Salt Shakers

Removing product labels stuck to glass: How many times have your purchased a product that has a nasty label stuck across it?  The label might not cause the object to be nonfunctional, but who really wants salt & pepper shakers with a craptastic label and scan code staring at them during meals.

Glass is something that can withstand some amount of heat and water, making label removing fairly simple.  You may also find this technique suitable for some plastics and other items.  Using common sense will keep you from destroying whatever you are trying to remove the label from.

To determine the best way to remove labels from glass, I conducted an experiment. To conduct this experiment at home, you’ll need 4 exact objects with product label stickers on them, 4 containers of water: 1 hot, 1 hot with soap, 1 cold and 1 cold with soap.  Place one object in each water container and start a timer. Check in on your experiment frequently to get the most accurate results.

Hot Water & Soap Wins!

To be honest, the cold water time is not completely accurate.  After 2 hours and 15 minutes, the label was still firmly stuck on.  @base10 and I met @KE4ZNR for dinner at Boylan Bridge BrewPub and I checked the results when we got back.  Despite my impatience, it is clear the combination of water and soap was the fastest technique by a landslide.  The heat loosens the glue and the detergent assists in breaking down the compounds used in the glue, taking away its sticking ability.  If you decide to conduct this experiment for yourself, notice how the labels that came into contact with detergent are no longer sticky versus the ones that sat only in water still have tack. The great thing about removing labels in this fashion is, no matter what method you choose, you don’t have to come back in 5 minutes.  The glass will still be sitting in the water, unharmed 24 plus hours later.

100% Geek

Several months back we updated our t-shirts to state the obvious about our customers.  Our  newer than new logo (vs. the older than old one) now comes with a short, but sweet trademark, proclaiming one of your many fine attributes, “100% geek”.

Thank you for being the true geeks that you are!

We occasionally drive up to Pennsylvania to visit Robin’s family. As it happens, our schedule usually puts us near DC and Baltimore at times that seem too close to rush hour to really want to chance driving I-95 straight through to Philadelphia. We’ve also noticed that I-95 from Fredericksburg to Alexandria is frustratingly stop-and-go. So, on our last few trips, we’ve made ample use of the iPhone’s internal GPS and the Maps application. While we don’t have experience using an Android-based phone or a Blackberry, Google offers much of the same functionality via the browser.

The iPhone’s also been a big help for other travel in New York, Northern California and just our general day trips around central North Carolina.

In that vein, here’s what we’ve found helpful when traveling:

• Seeing where backups are and re-routing around them (see the image to the right for why this is a good idea).
• Maps has added labels to buildings. There are also icons for restaurants, gas stations and such.
• Just being able to use the phone to search for what’s near-by is incredibly helpful. We found a Safeway-hosted Starbucks on an unfamiliar Delaware highway that way.
• The iPhone maps application and Google Maps both provide info on public transit in many cites. In New York, we could get directions that mixed the subway and walking and included departure times.
• Use Google street view to scope a couple streets over for food ideas.

There are also situations we’d like more assistance with:

• If traffic is “backed up,” it’d be helpful to know if it’s affect all lanes.
• Knowing where tolls are, what the toll is, and the status of E-ZPass lanes.
• If construction has moved a bus stop. Admittedly, this isn’t easy, but, over Labor Day weekend, we were a little frustrated trying to find the right stop for a bus that completely bypassed the street we were on in Lower Manhattan.

There’s also a caveat; Map locations and pinpoints are approximations. There are a number of restaurants and stores that aren’t accurately mapped, beyond being on the same block as where the map shows them.

Sure, adventuring in the unknown and finding your own way is a lot of fun, we’ve found solving small needs infinitely less frustrating when we can see we’re only a two block walk, or half-mile driving detour away from what we need. That keeps us happy travelers, eager to see what’s around the next bend with our own eyes.

Towel dry before opening the shower curtain.
One of the dreadful parts of winter is stepping out of the warm shower and feeling the cooler air. While the coolness created by evaporation might be a nice effect during the warmer months, some find it less than pleasant in the winter. By keeping your towel within easy reach, you can dry off first in the warm environment created behind the shower curtain. Sure, evaporation is still occurring, but in a slightly more toasty environment.

I personally enjoyed my grandfather’s solution to this problem. He installed several heat lamps in the ceiling of his bathroom. No matter what the season, you were head to toe warm in that bathroom!

Wear mittens instead of gloves.
Let’s talk surface area. With gloves, each and every finger has its own barrier to the environment. That means the cold can creep in from all directions around each finger. When wearing mittens, not only is there less surface area in contact with the cold, your fingers can snuggle and keep each other warm.

Don’t drink alcohol.
While alcohol feels warm going down, it actually causes your body temperature to drop. The University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics has a nice article on “Effects of Alcohol in the Cold“.

Wear a hat … and a scarf too for that matter.
While losing most of your body heat through your head appears to be a myth, wearing a hat on your head will still keep you warmer than if you didn’t. Any exposed area of your body can experience heat loss. Typically, in colder weather, people bundle up with a nice thick coat, boots and gloves. This creates a barrier between the body and the elements, reducing the amount of heat loss. If you leave your head and face uncovered, these areas will be the primary sources of heat loss on your body, simply because there is no barrier to prevent it. There is a simple fix. Put a hat on your head and pull that scarf up over your face a bit. You’ll find yourself considerably warmer.

For more information on the physics of heat loss:

• How Warm is an Igloo (.pdf) is an interesting paper on how heat from a human body effects the temperature and flow within an Igloo.
• Heat Loss From the Nude Body and Peripheral Blood Flow at Temperatures of 22 degrees C to 35 degrees C (.pdf)
• The Physical Laws of Heat Loss From the Human Body (.pdf)

As Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne would say, “Oh the weather outside is frightful, But the fire is so delightful, And since we’ve no place to go, Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!”

Green Days' Website

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) regulates health information and ensures your private health information does not end up in the hands of people you don’t wish to have it.

As a web developer, you need to be aware of the line between allowing patients to share information by way of support groups or testimonial and having private information displaying on the Internet.   Let’s use a fictitious Greener Day Vasectomy Clinic as an example.  After having a procedure performed, doctors at Greener Day ask their patients to check-in on a yearly basis to ensure there have been no slip-ups with the procedure.  At the bottom of the form, patients are given the option to share their message with other patients.  This is a great opportunity for patients to give each other support like, “You go tiger!”, but it also opens them to a disaster waiting to happen with private information only meant for the doctor, “I slept with 14 women in the past year and not one got pregnant! t14@happygolfer.com”, to end up in the public domain.

Dangerous territory

Tips for playing it safe:

1) Do not include items for testimonials or sharing type information on any page where a patient will be submitting information to the doctor.  These pages need to be secure and transmitted to the doctor in an encrypted manner. Either separate the pages or if patients select “yes”, meaning they wish to share information, take them to a second page, restating the information shared on that page will be public. This will prevent information a patient never wanted to share from becoming public due to hurrying through a form or forgetting to click “No”.

2) If clients are sharing testimonials, do not display their e-mail address or other contact information in the page.  While they may have agreed to say good things about your company, they probably did not agree to have their e-mail out there for every spam bot in the universe to pick up.

3) When collecting patient information, do not automatically generate a “hidden” web page for each submission.  There might not be any direct links off the website going to it, but search engines and any cracker trying to dig around the site can still find the information.

4) Avoid short cuts if they threaten privacy.  Having everything in one form might be convenient for the web developer, but if it opens any chance for private information to accidentally become public, scratch it and rethink it.

5) Do not rely on robots.txt to keep information private.

6) If you really want something to be kept private, do not store the information on any computer that is connected to the Internet.

Twitter Accounts

Darth Vader

• @darthvader – this guy is at the top of my list for a reason. The rest are in no particular order.
• @darthvaderbr – Brazilian Darth Vader
• @The_Darth_Vader
• @realdarthvader
• @AniSkywalker_

Robots and Wookies

• @r2d2 – Beep. Beep.
• @c3po
• @chewbacca – No posts since 2007.

Jedi Masters

• @Yodasnews – News for fans and collectors.
• @yoda -  I don’t recall yoda being crude, but there you have it.
• @AllSeeingYoda
• @ObiWanKenobi

Luke Skywalker

• @lukeskywalker
• @luke_skywalker
• @Luke__Skywalker – yes, that is an double underscore

Princess Leia

• @CarrieFFisher – Claims to be a verified account, but I think twitter might want to re-verify this one.
• @princessleia
• @princess_leia – Note: This person actually hates Star Wars.  I twittered her to ask for the story behind her choosing an account name from something she despised,”Didn’t know what other name to use so just chose it because my son is Star Wars mad, but I personally can’t stand it.”  It’s rather sweet that Mom would do that to be “cool” like that.
• @plastic_leia
• @leiaorganasolo

Han Solo

• @hans_solo
• @han_solo_
• @PlasticSolo – Be prepared for A LOT OF YELLING

Miscellaneous

• @Allana_Solo
• @discogryphon
• @Quigon_Jinn
• @theMaraJade

Website Links

For those traumatized by what you have seen, here are a number of very cool and sometimes time consuming Star Wars links.

• Sound design of Star Wars – Plenty of audio files to listen to.
• starwars.com – Lots of Star Wars games, a blog and other fun stuff.
• Lego Star Wars – For those that wish to create and build their own Star Wars adventure.
• Fun Hasbro Starwar toys.
• The Star Wars Wookieepedia.
• Lucas Arts is coming out with a new video game The Force Unleashed.
• Star Wars in Concert – WARNING: Autoplays sound. Unfortunately, they don’t appear to be playing in the United States.
• Star Wars Uncut – or rather, cut into 15 second segments. Grab a segment, recreate it and when all the parts are in, they will stitch together the new version of the movie.
• Star War Helmets – lots of cool photos, sadly, they don’t sell any though.
• The Official Dave Prowse – For Vader fans,
• Star Wars FAQ
• Star War Costumes – whether you’re dressing your kid up for Halloween or looking for a little Star Wars fun of your own.

I must also say, what an excellent job Randy Newman did in writing “It’s a Jungle Out There”.  You can watch the YouTube version of “It’s a Jungle Out There”, but I like the thought of buying my own copy to keep in the car, at work and at home for those trying moments of the day.  The song is serious, but the melody behind it is upbeat and reminds you not to take life THAT seriously.

In memory of “Monk”, Crazy Like That will be giving away a free OCD Awareness sticker to anyone e-mailing geek@crazylikethat.com with their mailing address by Friday, December 11th.  (No worries, we won’t send anything to your e-mail address, unless you specifically ask to be added to our e-newsletter list.)

A huge thank you to everyone who put together the show.

You can find the last few episodes of “Monk” on Hulu.com.

Feel free to comment and express your love for the show, but please don’t post any last episode spoilers.  I haven’t watched the last episode yet.  I figure I will stash it in my entertainment center and watch it the day before I die.

• The last day for Christmas orders for pre-order shirts: Thurs, Dec. 3.
• The last day for Christmas orders for in-stock shirts: Friday, Dec 18.

Also, we won’t be shipping from December 20 through January 1. If you’re looking to give the perfect geek gift or if you’re dying for something geeky to wear for New Year’s, get that order in by the dates above.

Discount code “holiday” saves 10% until January 5th.

Never clean your refrigerator again!

A recent tweet sent me off into dreamland.

@eqhmcow: “Remain calm. I’m coming to your house to parse XML with regex. http://bit.ly/3×9sQX (via @marcusramberg)”

Being a bit dyslexic I swapped a few of those words around in my initial translation and began to imagine – what if you could organize your entire house with XML and have several cron jobs parse it on a weekly, daily, hourly basis to maintain organization and get rid of dirt and clutter!

It would look something like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding='UTF-8'?>
   <house>
      <kitchen>
         <cabinets>
            <left-top-cabinet>
               <drinkware>
                  <glass-clean>Blue Goblet Tall</glass-clean>
                  <glass-clean>Blue Goblet Short</glass-clean>
                  <glass-clean>Wine Glass</glass-clean>
                  <mug-clean>Coffee Mug</mug-clean>
                  <mug-clean>Beer Mug</mug-clean>
               </drinkware>
            </left-top-cabinet>
            <right-top-cabinet>
               <dishware>
                  <plate-clean>Dinner Plate</plate-clean>
                  <plate-clean>Salad Plate</plate-clean>
               </dishware>
               <bakeware>
                  <pyrex-clean>Two Quart Casserole</pyrex-clean>
                  <pyrex-clean>Four Quart Casserole</pyrex-clean>
                  <pan-clean>Cookie Sheet</pan-clean>
               </bakeware>
            </right-top-cabinet>
            <left-bottom-cabinet>>
               <cat-area>
                  <cat-groomed>Amanda Sue</cat-groomed>
                  <cat-blanket-clean>Pink Cat Blanket</cat-blanket-clean>
               </cat-area>
            </left-bottom-cabinet>
         </cabinets>
         <refrigerator>
            <top-shelf>
               <bread>Sandwich Bread</bread>
               <bread>Pita</bread>
               <bread>Potato Hot Dog Rolls</bread>
            </top-shelf>
            <middle-shelf>
               <beverage-chilled>Milk</beverage-chilled>
               <beverage-chilled>Orange Juice</beverage-chilled>
            </middle-shelf>
            <crisper-drawer-right>
               <fruit>Apple</fruit>
               <fruit>Oranges</fruit>
               <fruit>Pears</fruit>
            </crisper-drawer-right>
            <crisper-drawer-left>
               <vegetable>Lettuce</vegetable>
               <vegetable>Eggplant</vegetable>
            </crisper-drawer-left>
            <door-shelf>
               <condiment>Mustard</condiment>
               <condiment>Ketchup</condiment>
               <condiment>Horshradish</condiment>
               <wine-chilled>Chaddsford Riesling 2005</wine-chilled>
               <beer-chilled>Duck Rabbit Amber Ale</beer-chilled>
               <beer-chilled>Lindemans Lambic Framboise Belgium</beer-chilled>
               <beer-chilled>Guinness</beer-chilled>
               <beer-chilled>Shiner Bock</beer-chilled>
            </door-shelf>
         </refrigerator>
         <dishwasher>
            <glass-dirty>Blue-Goblet-Tall</glass-dirty>
            <glass-dirty>Blue-Goblet-Short</glass-dirty>
            <glass-dirty>Wine-Glass</glass-dirty>
            <mug-dirty>Coffee-Mug</mug-dirty>
            <mug-dirty>Beer-Mug</mug-dirty>
            <plate-dirty>Dinner-Plate-Clean</plate-dirty>
            <plate-dirty>Salad-Plate-Clean</plate-dirty>
         </dishwasher>
         <pantry>
            <baking-supplies>Flour</baking-supplies>
            <baking-supplies>Sugar</baking-supplies>
            <canned-goods>Peas</canned-goods>
         </pantry>
      </kitchen>
      <kids-bedroom>
         <bed>
            <sheets-clean>Blue Cotton</sheets-clean>
            <comforter>Pac Man Comforter</comforter>
         </bed>
         <closet>
            <kid-pants-clean>Blue Jeans</kid-pants-clean>
            <kid-shirts-clean>Transformer Shirt</kid-shirts-clean>
         </closet>
         <toy-chest>
            <toy>GI Joe</toy>
            <toy>Legos</toy>
            <toy>Lincoln Logs</toy>
         </toy-chest>
      </kids-bedroom>
      <office>
         <desk>
            <computer>Macbook Pro</computer>
            <printer>
               <paper>Plain White Paper</paper>
               <ink>Canon Black</ink>
            </printer>
         </desk>
         <bookshelf-one>
            <book>Agile Web Development with Rails</book>
            <book>Hanbook of Usability Testing</book>
            <book>JavaScript Bible</book>
            <book>Don't Make Me Think</book>
            <book>Linux + Fundamentals and Certification</book>
         </bookshelf-one>
         <bookshelf-two>
            <book>Principles of Biochemistry</book>
            <book>Molecular Biology</book>
            <book>Predictably Irrational</book>
            <book>Beautiful Joe</book>
            <book>Still Life With Woodpecker</book>
         </bookshelf-two>
      </office>
      <living-room>
         <sofa>
            <cat>Jasper</cat>
            <cat>Wallace</cat>
         </sofa>
         <end-table-left>
            <lamp>Lamp With Black Shade</lamp>
         </end-table-left>
         <end-table-right>
            <lamp>Lamp With Black Shade</lamp>
         </end-table-right>
         <dog-bed>Chas</dog-bed>
      </living-room>
      <full-bath>
         <sink>
            <sink-top>
               <toothbrush>Blue Toothbrush</toothbrush>
               <toothbrush>Green Toothbrush</toothbrush>
               <toothbrush>Electric Toothbrush</toothbrush>
               <tissues>Puffs</tissues>
               <soap>Liquid Handsoap</soap>
            </sink-top>
         </sink>
            <toilet-paper-holder>
               <toilet-paper>Scotts Extra Soft Toilet Paper</toilet-paper>
            </toilet-paper-holder>
            <tub>
               <soap>Leaver 2000</soap>
               <shampoo>Redken Fresh Curl</shampoo>
               <conditioner>Mark Anthony Curl</conditioner>
             </tub>
      </full-bath>
   </house>

Next, you’ll need a simple process to automatically put everything in the proper place. e.g the dirty dishes where they need to be, the clean dishes where they need to be. You’ll want positive and negative controls on various items.  For example, you’ll want a process to monitor the refrigerator door-shelf in case it runs out of beer.  When the process sees you are not maintining the minimum number of 3 <beer-chilled>, it will restock <refrigerator><door-self> with <beer-chilled> for you.

<refrigerator>
   <door-shelf>
      <condiment>Mustard</condiment>
      <wine-chilled>Chaddsford Riesling 2005</wine-chilled>
      <beer-chilled>Duck Rabbit Amber Ale</beer-chilled>
   </door-shelf>
</refrigerator>

You might even wish to define some of the tags within your process to say, keep your <beer-chilled> at 40 degrees ferinheight. Perhaps the process could even compile a list of everything you need and do your grocery shopping for you.

You’ll also want a process that monitors for undefined DTD items like dust and dirt, so they can be eliminated from the house.  You’ll probably want to have a saftey on this device in case your new

<office>
   <desk>
      <laptop>MacBook Pro</laptop>
   </desk>
</office>

did not get entered into the DTD before the process ran, because you were too excited to use the new computer when you got home and forgot to add it to the list.

If you’ve gotten this far in the post, I believe you have enough good whits about you to have the general idea of how this would work.  How would you make this XML organized house more efficient? What type of processes would you write? Can someone please make this physically possible!?

Our summer Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) subscription was with Beausol Gardens out of Pittsboro, NC.  Harry and his wife Deb always sent a weekly newsletter where they eloquently described the wildlife interactions and plants on the farm.  We asked Harry a few questions, so you can see some of the geekery and hard work that goes into organic farming.

1. What are some of the things you need to think about when planning for a season and deciding which vegetables to plant?

Harry: A lot goes into planning a season:  we consider how many CSA shares we intend to offer, which crops – taking customer suggestions into some consideration, what varieties do well here or might be interesting to try and how much of each crop. Then, based on projected yields, we order the proper amount of seed.  We track where crops have grown in seasons past so that we can “rotate” a crop to a different location each year.  We  calculate backwards from when transplants go into the field to determine the proper time to start seeds.

2. Is it true, some plants grow better with others and some dislike each other? (If true, do you have examples?)

Harry: Companion planting is a new method we are trying.  Carrots and lettuce are supposed to both benefit by growing together.  The problem we discovered this year is they can’t be planted TOO closely since the lettuce grows about 100 times faster and shades out the carrots.  Beets and Brassica family members are supposed to be good companions also.  This was a little more successful this year, but again the broccoli shaded the beets a bit too much, we feel.  So adjacent beds, rather than shared beds may be the solution.

3. What methods do organic farmers like yourself use to keep the soil healthy year after year?

Harry: We feed the soil.  We don’t really feed the crops, the soil and soil dwellers do that, except when we foliar feed with compost tea or fish hydrosylate.  We nurture a healthy soil by adding compost (which is made from manures, leaves, straw, old mulch and crop residues), mined minerals, worm castings, biodynamic “preps,” and by growing cover crops that when tilled under add organic matter and nutrients back into the soil.  The cover crops, in addition to reducing erosion, suppressing weeds, protecting the soil from compaction by rain and providing an environment for beneficial soil biota, take up and store mineral nutrients like calcium, potassium and phosphorus from the soil and also fix and accumulate atmospheric components like carbon and nitrogen, all of which are added back to the soil when the cover crop is tilled under.

4. How many hours would you say you put into the farm each day?

Harry: My “work week” varies.  I usually spend from 8 to 14 hours a day – often 7 days a week working in the field, making deliveries, starting seeds, running errands, etc. Even winter is not hibernating down-time since there are improvements to make, repairs to be done – and now that we are offing a winter CSA there is field work (planting, weeding, harvesting, scouting for pests and disease, etc.) almost every month. Rainy days and evenings are often spent running errands, doing administrative tasks or reading about new techniques, tools and crops and preparing for the next set of tasks.

5. Would you say organic/ sustainable farming is more of an art or a science?

Harry: Organic/sustainable agriculture is probably both art and science.  Much of what we do is adapted from other farmers’ efforts and university or extension service research.  Many of these other techniques are not directly applicable for any number of reasons.

6. I heard Harry use to be a chemist.  What made you switch to organic farming? What drew Deb to organic farming?

My formal education was focused on chemistry and botany.  After about ten years of synthetic organic chemistry, my “second incarnation” was as a computer programmer and support specialist.  After we moved to the farm and started growing food for our family and quickly surpassed our personal demand, we started “market gardening” part time.  When my first wife died in 2003, I quit the corporate world and decided to try to support my daughter by farming full time, my third incarnation.

7. Is there anything else either of you would like to share about organic farming or sustainable agriculture?

Harry: Organic/sustainable agriculture is about working WITH nature as much as possible. You can read more about our philosophy by going to our web site http://beausol.com.

8. Are there still available shares for your upcoming Winter CSA? (If so, cost and contact info you’d like posted)

Harry: We no longer have shares available for the 2009/10 winter CSA season.

Additional information you might find of interest:

How does a CSA work?  Harry describes it best in one of his weekly newsletters,  “In addition to building a community of mutual benefit, producing safer and healthier food and fresher flowers, supporting farmers, and improving our environment, farmers and members share the risk inherent in agriculture.”   What is this risk he speaks of? Buying a share in a CSA is like buying shares on the stock market.  When the farm does well, shares pay out more veggies.  When the weather is harsh or if the plants do not fair well for other reasons, you can expect shares to contain less.

You can find a CSA subscription near you on LocalHarvest.org. If you live in the RTP area of NC, you might wish to try Beausol Gardens’s tasty produce for yourself!

For more information on organic farming, stop by a farmers market near you and talk to one of the farmers yourself.  Many of them will be more than happy to talk to you about their farm and farming methods.

Be healthy and maintain your planet.