qr code mail

I'm trying to find a good home for Dixie my dog. So the idea I had is to create a poster with her picture, and a QR barcode with quick response email that can be scanned and quickly sent to me by any prospective takers.

There are two ways of generating a QR code that contains a mail message:

1) using mailto format
here you simply write the all your fields in one line like this:

mailto:obama@whitehouse.gov?subject=Congrats%20Obama&body=Enjoy%20your%20stay%0ARegards%0A[Name]

you can use any of these fields:
cc
bcc
subject

The first separator has to be a ? and any subsequent ones have to be a &. Multiple email addresses can be separated by ,. Space have to be encoded as %20 and new lines as %0A.


2) using MATMSG format
here you write out you message in ; separated fields, starting with MATMSG:

MATMSG:
TO:obama@whitehouse.gov;
SUB:Congrats Obama;
BODY: Enjoy your stay
Regards
[Name];;


I have not seen CC and BCC fields but I guess you could just try to add them. Remember to close each line with a ; and end with ;;

Then once you have constructed you message you can use any QR code generator on the web to generate you a barcode. Here is a basic one: http://ctrlq.org/qrcode/

Sources:
http://www.labnol.org/internet/email/learn-mailto-syntax/6748/
http://www.techtipsgeek.com/use-qr-codes-write-email-messages-save-secret-text-data/14258/
http://www.itechmindz.com/2011/how-to-use-qr-codes-to-compose-an-e-mail-message-2/

i am starstuff

I saw this cool picture on FB which shows amino acid letters and spells I AM STARSTUFF. One of the comments pointed to http://store.madewithmolecules.com/

On searching for 'i am starstuff' I found this etsy store http://www.etsy.com/listing/42964890/mad-scientist-challenge-i-am-starstuff

brass monkey snopes

This morning I received a mail with the old story that "to freeze the balls of a brass monkey" means that the canon balls kept on ships got so cold that they fell off the brass monkey I.e.the metal plate that held the balls.

Here is the text in full:
DID YOU KNOW THIS?

It was necessary to keep a good supply of cannon balls near the cannon on old war ships. But how to prevent them from rolling about the deck was the problem. The storage method devised was to stack them as a square based pyramid, with one ball on top, resting on four, resting on nine, which rested on sixteen.

Thus, a supply of 30 cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right next to the cannon. There was only one problem -- how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding/rolling from under the others.

The solution was a metal plate with 16 round indentations, called, for reasons unknown, a Monkey. But if this plate were made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust to it.. The solution to the rusting problem was to make them of brass - hence, Brass Monkeys.

Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much faster than iron when chilled.

Consequently, when the temperature dropped too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannon balls would come right off the monkey.

Thus, it was quite literally, cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. And all this time, folks thought that was just a vulgar expression?
You must send this fabulous bit of historical knowledge to at least a few intellectual friends. 

However a quick check on snopes reveals that this was not the case. More likely is the story that Wikipedia gives and that is the three Chinese monkeys sitting in a row and sometimes with a fourth holding it's genitals.

made with molecules

such a cute and geeky idea

http://store.madewithmolecules.com/

19d2:fff1 ubuntu

A n00bs progress in setting up a Neotel branded ZTE WCDMA device on Ubuntu 12.4 LTE. Hint: It's is not as easy as it sounds or should be.

From the discussions (for Ubuntu 9 and 10) it seems there are two problems:
Problem 1) the device is a modem and a memory stick/flash drive so that the windows drivers can be automatically installed when the device is plugged into a windows machine.
Problem 2) Even though Ubuntu detects the device as a modem when it tries to connect if fails due to some misconfiguration.

Problem 1 is not a problem in Ubuntu 12.4 since it detects the device correctly and installs it as a modem and not a memory/drive device.

Problem 2 is a bit more tricky.
There are several ways of getting a network/modem running under Linux (as one would expect). These 3 I tried and had varying degrees of success:

1. using the Network Manager
2. using pppconfig and pon
3. using wcdialconfig and wvdial

1) It seemed to me that the easiest way would be the NM. I set up a new mobile broadband connection using the wizard, but that did not work. For some reason when looking at syslog I can see that it uses the ttyUSB1 connector of the modem.
However, using dmesg in a terminal window:
dmesg | grep -e modem -e tty
we can see that the device exposes 5 ttyUSB ports:
[ 9215.940690] option 5-1:1.0: GSM modem (1-port) converter detected
[ 9215.940803] usb 5-1: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[ 9215.942720] option 5-1:1.1: GSM modem (1-port) converter detected
[ 9215.942819] usb 5-1: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB1
[ 9215.944688] option 5-1:1.2: GSM modem (1-port) converter detected
[ 9215.944790] usb 5-1: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB2
[ 9215.946688] option 5-1:1.3: GSM modem (1-port) converter detected
[ 9215.946789] usb 5-1: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB3
[ 9215.948657] option 5-1:1.4: GSM modem (1-port) converter detected
[ 9215.948755] usb 5-1: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB4I will have to get back to this later and figure out how to the NM to use USB0 instead of USB1.

2) pppconfig and pon works. with a bit of knowledge gleaned from above.
In a terminal window type:
sudo pppconfig
a nice text menu appears and guides you through the process.

• Create a new connection
• name your connection something like: neotel
• use dynamic DNS
• use PAP - when I specified CHAP the modem no longer worked
• type your login name from the Neotel box. something like 0881234567@neotel.co.za
• enter password, default is 1234
• leave baud rate at 115200
• tone dialing
• telephone number is #777
• type port manually and enter /dev/ttyUSB0
• Confirm that you typed everything correctly and Write the config file

Now you can use pon to start your network. Type
sudo pon neotel
the network should start. You can check the progress by looking at
plog -f

3) 12.4 does not come stock with wvdial, so I had to download it after I got the connection up with pon.
First:
sudo apt-get install wvdial
Then run:
sudo wvdialconfThis will scan your modem devices and create a config file. However it always sets the baud rate to 9600 (ugh)
Now edit wvdial.conf
sudo vim /etc/wvdial.conf
change all the settings to the correct ones. Remember to remove all ; (comments)

Followed by:
sudo wvdial

I'll update this blog once i get it running with NM.

These forums helped:

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-1411741.html
or
http://techsk.blogspot.com/2009/09/installing-usb-modem-zte-ac2726-in.html

and this site may have been helpful but has a horrible error
http://www.pharscape.org/networkmanager-0.7.0-and-3g-wwan-modems.html

Search page:
https://www.google.co.za/search?q=19d2%3Afff1+ubuntu&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

swedish house mafia

Swedish electronic dance music trio

source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_House_Mafia

voir dire

from the Latin verum dicere - to tell the truth


An oath previously used to judge a challenge to a juror, but now used in the US for a trial within a trial to determine the eligibility of the jury.

In the new recently because of the Samsung vs Apple trial in the US and subsequent fall-out.

Apple vs Samsung juror misconduct?

clay baker recipies

I have a clay pot but I have used it so rarely. Now that I'm living along it's high time to start using the thing. What I was looking for is some nice slow roasting recipes to stick in the oven in the morning and have a lovely dinner ready for you when you get home.

This is what I found:
This site extols the virtues of a clay baker (which I already knew) http://www.reluctantgourmet.com/clay_pot_cooking.htm
It also has a link that gets me to a book on Amazon :( I want to cook now, not in 14 days when Amazon delivers.
This recipe looks delicious though http://www.reluctantgourmet.com/clay_pot_beef_recipe.htm

tried to refine the search by adding slow and pork and found this recipe
http://www.livestrong.com/article/553411-slow-cooking-a-sirloin-in-a-clay-pot/
and this
http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pork-recipes/bone-in-shoulder-roast
and this
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/slow_roast_shoulder_of_85988
but still not quite what I'm looking for.

after searching for '8 hour slow pork roast' I found this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/slowroastedporkwithf_65663
but not within a clay baker.

 then I got interrupted with work.

some nice recipes here:
http://homecooking.about.com/library/archive/blclaypot.htm

and one more
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/07/dining/071CREX.html