By (author unknown), MacNN | The Macintosh News Network – August 31, 2012 at 04:30PM
Apple has published a new white paper on FileVault 2, the whole-disk encryption and security tool first introduced in OS X 10.7 Lion. The document describes deployment methods for the technology and provides extensive information about the utility’s architecture and implementation in OS X….
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By noreply@blogger.com (How to Carve Roast Unicorn), How to Carve Roast Unicorn – August 30, 2012 at 11:44PM
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| “Welcome to the Internet, Please Follow me” by Jason Heuser aka SharpWriter |
EPIC!!!
By Alan Henry, Lifehacker – August 31, 2012 at 08:00AM
Caramelizing onions is a process that can take well over an hour, even though many recipes conveniently omit that fact from their prep time estimates. Thankfully, the folks over at Serious Eats came up with a method that gets the job done in a fraction of the time, and all you need is a little tap water.
If you’ve ever caramelized onions, you know it can take well over an hour of watching and stirring as the onions cook down. This method however, gives you the same results, and all you have to do is pay close attention and keep some water handy:
As you can see, the key is good stirring and temperature regulation. I use a heavy Le Creuset enameled cast iron pot, which is great at transferring heat slowly and evenly, preventing the hot and cool spots that are the bane to good caramelization (a tri-ply stainless steel saucepan would also work well). Every time the fond (that’s the browned bits of sugars and proteins that stick to the bottom of the pot) threatens to burn, I add a few tablespoons of water and use a wooden spoon to scrape the bits up. The browned sugars and proteins end up dissolving in the water then spread themselves evenly around the onions.
Kenji does note that the catch here is that the resulting onions aren’t quite as cooked down and tasty as they would be if you spent an hour poring over them, but he says they’re 90% of the way there, and still better than cheats like adding sugar or baking soda to speed up the process, and saves a lot of time in the kitchen.
How to Caramelize Onions in 15 Minutes | Serious Eats
2012-08-21 Firsts…Pool and School, a set on Flickr.
2012-07-07 Pizza Party, a set on Flickr.
By Ryan Dube, MakeUseOf – August 30, 2012 at 10:30PM
How do you know when a computer is reliable? How exactly do you even define something as abstract as “reliability”.
When I think about what makes my computer reliable, in my opinion it is all about whether or not the computer can run the applications that I need it to, without any sort of lagging, freezing up or crashing. When an application suddenly crashes on me without any explanation, or with nothing more than some odd Windows error code, I start to get concerned. Is my computer infected with a virus or malware? Why can’t it run a program that normally runs under any other Windows PC?
This is essentially how Microsoft decided to define “reliability” as well. In fact, embedded into Windows 7 is a useful reliability monitor that lets you not only visualize the current reliability level of your computer, but you can also see a historic log of how reliable your computer has performed over time.
How can you see the reliability of your computer? Well, Chris recently covered using a tool to research windows software error reports. This is a great tool to research current software errors you may be experiencing, but the beauty of this tool is that it also serves as a historic log and research tool for your Windows 7 reliability level over time.
Why should you care about your past reliability? Isn’t it only today that really matters? Well, not really.
Sometimes patterns can reveal a whole lot about how your computer may be infected without you even realizing it. An infection may not cause your computer to come to a screetching halt, but it may cause a background service to crash every few days. But, by monitoring your reliability history, you’ll be able to spot those patterns and shut down malicious software before it can do any damage.
To use the reliability monitor on your Windows 7 machine, go into the Control Center and make sure “View by” is set to “Category”. Click on “System and Security” and then under “Action Center”, click on “Review your computer’s status and resolve issues”.
Click on “Maintenance” to expand that section, and then click on the link to “View reliability history”.
Now you’re in the reliability monitor tool. This is a very large chart that will range over approximately a month at a time. It shows you how your reliability level has fared on a daily basis from week to week. You’ll notice that as each day passes without a Windows or Application crash, or without any system failures, your overall reliability rating continues to climb. The goal is obviously to have a perfect 10.
The tool logs application failures, windows failures, miscellaneous failures, system warnings and even informational notifications. When you click on each day, you’ll see the actual details of those alerts and notifications in the lower display pane.
The category of alerts are displayed in the monitor with a unique icon. This gives you a quick glance at what level of event occurred on that day and how serious any problems were. You may notice that on some days the notifications had no effect on the reliability index – the error was not serious enough for the index to get lowered. However, on other days you’ll notice that one application crash drops your overall reliability by nearly 30 to 50 percent.
It all comes down to what caused the crash and why. In the detail pane, you can investigate some of those serious failures that caused a huge drop in reliability. The “Summary” field gives you a brief explanation of what happened, but to see more details you can click on “View technical details”.
For example, I noticed that at least every 3 or 4 days, MotoConnect.exe was crashing. This isn’t even an application that I use anymore – it was a version of the driver for the Motorola Droid that I installed back in 2010. The Description will tell you a lot of information about the application that crashed, right down to the dll file that faulted.
Certainly, there’s a newer version of the Motorola driver software. Sure enough, on the Motorola site I discovered a much newer driver called Motorola Mobility that can replace this older version that’s driving my system reliability down with its constant crashing.
The lesson to learn from this is that it’s not always a virus or malware that can make your system unreliable. Sometimes it might just be an outdated service that keeps crashing in the background and you may not even realize it, because it doesn’t kick off any active alert windows. However, the reliability monitor can help you spot those background issues you may not normally be aware of. Sometimes, fixing those background crashes can improve the overall performance of your computer.
Another thing that can affect performance and reliability is whether your computer is properly up to date and patched. In the process of analyzing my reliability log, I noticed a constant warning message popping up about every week. Clicking on the alerts, I learned that there was a list of about 10 critical Microsoft patches that were failing to install automatically.
I thought that was odd, so I checked my Windows Update icon in the task bar and upon opening it up, sure enough there were a number of updates waiting to install. To fix this constant, ongoing problem just required a quick manual install of the critical updates, and voila – I ensured that my long-term reliability level for my computer would increase over the next few weeks.
By the way, the daily log is also a great place to go to see not only “bad” events that take place on your computer, but also any other activity that might occur, like software installations.
If you work in IT, this can be a real life-saver when you’re trying to figure out what a user did on a computer that made it start crashing constantly. Did they recently install or uninstall an application? You can see it all here by date and time. This is an awesome IT troubleshooting tool.
If you want to get to the most serious issues causing problems for your computer, go after those huge drops that kill your reliability in one fell swoop.
Typically, you’ll see a critical event that occurs on a recurring basis. Fix that one issue and you’ll go a long way in improving your overall computer reliability.
As you can see, the reliability monitor has a lot of uses for troubleshooting and monitoring a lot about your computer. If you make it a regular habit to launch the monitor and review any recent issues, you’re sure to keep your computer running at it’s top possible performance.
Did you already know about the reliability monitor before reading this article? Is this the first time you’ve seen it? Does it seem like something you will use to maintain your computer? Share your thoughts and insights in the comments section below.
Image Credit: stock diagram via Shutterstock
By Melanie Pinola, Lifehacker – August 30, 2012 at 12:30PM
FindTheData is an incredibly cool tool for comparing all kinds of information—from job salaries to auto fuel economy to celebrities’ heights and weights. The webapp parses data from all kinds of public databases and other sources to deliver all these facts.
FindTheData is part of the FindTheBest family of comparison sites. While FindTheBest compares dozens of categories to help you make better decisions (e.g., pick the best college), FindTheData is more of a research/reference tool.
Once you browse to or find the datapoint you want to compare (e.g., libraries, hurricanes, or serial killers), you can filter the search results, select individual items to compare side-by-side, and see more in-depth details.
Fair warning: It might be hard to stop browsing the databases, especially if you’re a trivia buff.
By Adrian Covert, Gizmodo – August 30, 2012 at 09:49AM
Researchers at the University of Cape Town in South Africa have developed a pill that can wipe out malaria with a single dose. It’s a development that could save millions of lives in Africa alone, not to mention the rest of the world. But there’s a teensy weensy little hurdle that must first be overcome: human testing. More »
By Adrian Covert, Gizmodo – August 29, 2012 at 06:40PM
We’ve all seen pictures of fireworks before, but never have they looked this amazing. Captured by refocusing he shot during a long exposure, the explosions are almost 3D in appearance. They look as much like sea urchins made of clay as they do pyrotechnics. Shot by photographer Davey Johnson, the appeal of these photos is immediate. But the more you stare, the more you find to like. [Davey J via Colossal] More »
