Clean that nasty machine!

There’s nothing worse than a funky coffee maker.

Coffee is filled with essential oils. While these are superb in the cup, when they’re left to dry on equipment, they turn into nasty, rancid, bitter oils that can render even the most finely ground, sublime bean into a hidious tasting cup of hot nastiness.

Sure, you wash out your carafe, and all of the other removable pieces, but there are still places lurking in your coffee maker where the crud builds up, and awaits its opportunity to spoil your morning cuppa.

What to do? Clean that nasty machine!
Read more

How-To run VoIP over existing phone wiring

I’ve been a Vonage customer for going on two years now, and I have to say that Voice Over IP (VOIP) is an exceedingly cool and (for the most part) simple-to-use technology.

You get a box from the VOIP provider, plug it into your broadband router, and plug your phone into the box. Instant dialtone — what could be easier?

But what if you don’t want your phone right next to the router?
Read more

Gaggia Synchrony Compact – Cleaning the Grinder

One of the realities of most “super automatic” espresso machines like the Gaggia Synchrony Compact (and many standalone grinders, for that matter) is that dark roasted, oily beans don’t seem to feed well — they tend to clump together somewhat, and often have to be “encouraged” to go down the chute and into the grinder.

I’d been sampling some of Intelligentsia’s “Black Cat” espresso blend, as a baseline to compare my own roasts to. I tend to like a bit lighter roast, so Black Cat, despite being a very tasty blend, was quite a bit oilier than my usual beans. Things were going along fine, with me “encouraging” the beans, when suddenly no amount of coaxing would get more coffee ground.

I’d been here once before with the Gaggia Compact, right after it arrived; a little bit of water had dribbled into the bean hopper (since it sits right next to the reservoir, you’ve got to be careful), and the grinder had clogged. That day, I left it alone to get well dried out, and with a bit of up and down adjustment of the grind size, everything went back to normal.

Not so lucky, this time. We’re going to have to go in…
Read more

Dialing in your grind

Once you’ve got a grinder that produces a consistent grind and allows you to control the size of the grind, you’ll need to “dial it in” for your coffee brewer.

Most consumer oriented grinders will give you an approximate setting for different types of brew — either a notation on the grinder adjustment itself, or instructions in the manual on which setting to use for which type of brewing.

This is your starting point.
Read more

It’s all in the grind

If you undertake to learn a bit about coffee, you’ll soon find that most serious coffee aficionados will tell you that the single most critical piece of equipment you own is a grinder.

A grinder is often a person’s first “step up” into the world of better coffee — once you grind coffee, the flavor begins to dissipate within seconds, so buying whole bean coffee and grinding it yourself just before you brew gives you much better flavor.

Unfortunately, many people stop there, and never realize that the type of grinder, and how it works, makes a vast amount of difference to the final result in the cup. This is true regardless of the type of coffee you are drinking — espresso, drip brewed coffee, or press pot coffee.
Read more

Media Center Show: DIY MCE

Ian Dixon talks about building your own Windows MCE 2005 system with Richard Schwab of MediaMadeEasy in this week’s Media Center Show podcast.

Richard’s site looks like it might be interesting, but since it basically doesn’t work in either Firefox or Safari, I guess I won’t be finding out for sure.

(Just a minor aside — even if you’ve got a Windows-centric product, having a site only works on IE isn’t doing yourself a lot of favors these days — for example, I use Windows to watch TV, and a Powerbook for most everything else. Even on Windows, I don’t voluntarily use IE for anything other than Windows Update — life’s just too short to spend it cleaning up spyware.)

How to buy good coffee

So you’re tired of drinking the Folgers, but you’ve found out that buying “exotic” coffees is something of a crap-shoot? Or perhaps you’ve learned the hard way that “expensive” doesn’t always mean good…

What you may need is INeedCoffee’s new General Guide to Buying Coffee.

It’s not comprehensive or in depth by any means, but it will give you a general idea of the kind of taste you should expect from various regional varieties of coffee.

There are also some good head’s up tips for “gotchas” -

So last time I went down to the store and bought some nice fancy Kona coffee, however it tasted no better than the regular coffee I have been buying over the years.

Coffee regulations in the United States only require manufacturers to specify that they are selling 100% coffee. This allows coffee manufacturers to blend 10% of an expensive type of Kona coffee with a much cheaper grade and advertise is it as Kona Coffee. This not only soils the reputation of Kona coffee, but it is a very dishonest trick. Therefore when you buy international coffee, make sure they specify that it is 100% from the country and crop advertised.

Free Mp3s from Google

So how’s your google-foo? This guide is a relatively comprehensive list of how to use some of Google’s more esoteric search operators to sniff out MP3s that people may have put (or left) online for one reason or another.

“This How-To will teach you how to use google to find mp3s. This How-To will be highly pragmatic and will focus on the hows and not the wherefores of the various search strings.”

How To Find MP3’s With Google

So how’s your google-foo?  This guide is a relatively comprehensive list of how to use some of Google’s more esoteric search operators to sniff out MP3s that people may have put (or left) online for one reason or another. 

“This How-To will teach you how to use google to find mp3s. This How-To will be highly pragmatic and will focus on the hows and not the wherefores of the various search strings.”

Them good ol’ days

Eris Designs has a real cute four-part series up on How to care for your web designer.  I enjoyed reading it, but it sure makes me nostalgic for them good ol’ days of 1997 – 1999…

I got a particular kick out of the “phrases that must be avoided at all costs”…

“Make my site look like this other site”

Of course I can.  I’ll even tell you why you don’t want that, but only the once—you’ll probably be back to hear it again later, when I’ll gently remind you that I warned you it’d cost more to do it wrong and fix it than to do it right in the first place.

“Can you get it done in a few days?”

Probably, the operating question being “which few days?” How do you feel about “rush fees?”

“I don’t have any content, I’ll just fill all that in later.”

Not a problem.  When you get tired of looking at Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, etc., we’ll get your real content patched in. 

Maybe I should write up a series on “The new ‘net—how to keep eating through flexibility…” At some point, even the prima donnas start to develop that lean and hungry look

Read more

« Previous Page