Spring 2013,

As the real Spring starts to arrive, somewhat late this year indeed, I am reviewing my Social spaces and what which offers to me and those that follow me. There are still lots of places, although with the loss of Posterous, there is one less.

G+ is quick and easy to post upon, but a recent discussion I had there did indicate that it is more image orientated than here.

So I am thinking "where does Blogger fit in?", being a G property, it is one egg in basket that should not contain all my eggs, on the other hand they have just revamped Blogger to integrate it more with G+, so it could be useful for more "page" orientated posts than G+ and more personal posts than GCommunities.

Any followers thoughts are most welcome.

This Week In Google 174: Reggae Jeff - Section 1h48m37s

I'm testing this "autopost from YouTube" feature by seeing if this link passes the bookmark with the video link. I set at 1h48m37s where an amusing and informative interchange between Leo and his team starts. 

The scenario is that Leo (The Boss at Twit.tv) has just returned from a trip away in Australia on a Geek Cruise boat and while he was away his team were prepping for Xmas. The end of year show is always a highlight episode to give the live presenters a break.

To solicite feedback, regarding the best clips to include in the show, a member of the team created a web form...... this mini-rant by the boss will be familiar to anyone who has worked in IT... but is still fun to watch or listen to.

If you are a budding IT person listen and learn.

Alcohol in LCHF Diet

Here is one answer posted in reply to the question of beer etc. when on a LCHF diet.

Eva-Brit Kram posted in Swedish at post


My interpretation of the post is: 


Alcohol stops the fat burning process and gives a craving for carbohydrates..A glass of red wine every now and then is ok. After a time on LCHF you will not be as tolerant of alcohol as before. The alcohol pulls down blood sugar and it makes it possible to be very poorly.

Steve Gibson mentioned in his podcast that Chardonnay is his tipple of choice and he also referred to reports that some people on the LCHF  diet produce vapours that can trigger a breathalyser  false positive.

Low Carbohydrate High Fat Diet

After listening to Steve Gibson @stevegrc and www.grc.com and Leo Laporte of twit.tv discussing Steve's analysis of a diet based on the principles of LCHF. The dramatic results that Steve described inspired me to feel it is worth looking at my diet through a pair of LCHF tinted glasses.


I am posting notes, info and links here as I find them. It may help others who are similarly inspired and find, as I am, that the answer to 'what can I eat?' is not as easy to find via Google as I expected.


I found this Swedish website that seems promising. For example this page was translated by google and I have re-written it to make smoother sense as the raw translation was good, but not great. (and yes, I have posted my suggestions back to google)


Original written by Kamilla Fredberg. Find it at http://www.lchf.se/Mat/Ist%C3%A4lletf%C3%B6rkolhydrater.aspx


My interpretation:


Instead of eating traditional carbohydrates like rice, pasta, couscous, potatoes, etc. use vegetables (up to 100g food weight). This way you only need to cook one dish with two different accessories for a meal where others wish to eat high carb vegetables. Nuts can also be an option for those who can tolerate them. It is important is that you increase your fat intake, because that is what makes the big difference. It lowers blood sugar and makes you feel full.


Here is a shopping list of low carbohydrates. For most vegetables, you can ensure that you always have some in a bag in the freezer, but buy any fresh. Broccoli,  Cauliflower,  Green Beans, Brussels,  Squash,  Eggplant,  Cabbage, and Red Cabbage, Asparagus, Broad Beans.


Sweet Pea Salad, mix a range of different varieties of Cucumber, Tomato,  Mushroom, Artichoke.


To replace Rice: 

• Use Cauliflower, Broccoli  & Vegetables: Fry squash, mushrooms, fennel and pepper. Grate the selected vegetable using the rough side of a grate or mix in a food processor. Fry in pan with butter or oil until it is cooked through and has the consistency you like. Season with salt, pepper and your favorite seasoning. 

To replace Pasta:

• Use Squash strips. Cut into bars, 0.5 cm thick, 4 inches long.
• Use Squash slices: Use small, thin zucchini and cut 0.5 cm thick slices.
• To replace spaghetti use slices of cheese cut in fine thin strips, or cut into 2 * 3 cm pieces instead of macaroni.
• Lasagne can be replaced with Courgette slices. Use large courgette, cut into slices 0.3 cm thick. Layer with meat sauce and whipped cream, top with cheese and brown in the oven.

To replace Potato: 

• Cook cauliflower then mash and mix with cream and butter, salt and pepper.
• Vegetable Beef and potato pancakes. Use the trunk of broccoli and cauliflower left over when you boiled florets. Grate and blend with a food processor adding grated cheese, egg, salt and pepper. Fry the patties or pancakes in a pan with plenty of fat.
• Aubergine. Divide in half and cut cut in. Salt, pepper and pour over the olive oil. Bake at 200 ° C for 20 min. Scoop out and mix with, for example, ground beef, or just add the minced meat on top halves, top with cheese and browning in the oven for 15-20 minutes.  
• Cauliflower or broccoli florets, raw, cooked or baked with a topping of cheese 
• Green Beans, Other Beans, Brussel Sprouts,  Asparagus,  Artichokes, boiled or oven baked with a topping of cheese. 
• Eggplant, fried, diced, cubed or oven baked with a topping of cheese salad.
• Tomato, cucumber, lettuce, red onion, bell pepper, sweet peppers, capers, olives, sun dried tomatoes. 
• Salads: Red and/or White Cabbage Salad.  Tomato Salad or Mushroom Salad. Cut into slices and mix with finely chopped red onion. Pour over a good vinaigrette and let sit for an hour before serving. 

Nuts: Almond Flour, cashews, hazelnuts, peanuts, walnuts, pissacio, pecan, brazil, coconut

A real face for the brand.

@Krishna De ( http;//twitter.com/krishnaDe )retweeted a link about Three things Google is up to while we focus on Google Plus http://goo.gl/K9eeN < an important post by @SteveRubel in Adage

The thing that came to my mind was about the reference to companies needing 'real people' to represent them. The larger the company the more difficult, maybe undesirable, and possibly false, is the idea of having a single 'real person' representing the 'brand'. G+'s lack of brand support at the moment highlights the difference wants of the people behind the brand and the brand itself.

Many geeks 'are' the brand and this may be an opportunity for the micro-businesses to have a higher profile than larger ones, the question is how to make the most of chance.

Excitement about Nanode

I attended Ken Boak's ( http://sustburbia.blogspot.com ) Nanode Workshop at the London Hackspace recently and built my Nanode5 kit. This AVR microcontroller is a low cost simple version of the Arduino + Ethershield. It is ideal for Home Monitoring and simple Automation projects.

I have created a special Blog to track my progress and experience with my Nanode.

You can find it at http://j.mp/ntbee [ http://nanodethebee.posterous.com ] and also a twitter log at http://twitter.com/nanodethebee

Saving separate audio from DOT flv file

I recorded an audio only broadcast using uStream and wanted to use the audio in a podcast after editing. I usually use Audacity to edit audio and could not import the flv format into Audacity 1.13beta directly using Windows Vista.

I search Google but the suggested solutions using VLC command line seemed to be Linux specific, but they triggered me into looking at VLC more carefully and found that using VLC 1.1.7 [ http://videolan.org ] I can save the file from within VLC using "right-Click/Save/" and selecting "Profile Audio/mp3"

I am noting this here as I could be helpful to others.