The tried and true family recipe for making the best Thanksgiving turkey and gravy. Gotta try it!

Prep

• Pre-heat oven to 350℉
• Pull out innards & put in fridge
• Rinse out and pat dry turkey
• Rub salt around inside of cavity
• Rub outside of bird with salt, pepper, sage, thyme, rosemary and any other desired spices
• Stuff skin with fresh herbs (esp. rosemary)
• Place a couple daubs of butter on the top of the turkey
• Stuff turkey with home-made or Stove Top stuffing, chicken/turkey broth, onions, celery and fresh herbs

Basting broth

• Slow cook gizzards in about 1 cup of chicken broth to use for basting bird

Cooking

• Cook for 15-20 minutes a pound
• Place in oven covered in tinfoil for half the cooking time
• Baste turkey when skin begins to dry, keeping it moist at all times
• Cook the turkey until it reaches 162℉ inner temperature (check a thick part of the bird like the breast)

Gravy

• Get pan scrappings & juices from the turkey
• Put in freezer for 3-5 minutes
• Remove from freezer and boil for 3-5 minutes
• Combine flour to thicken (6-8 table spoons or about ¼ cup)
• Stir in sage and chicken broth and mix well and boil for 5-10 minutes (until at desired thickness)

Suggested cooking times

• 5lb turkey = 1:15 – 1:40
• 10lb turkey = 2:30 – 3:20

Eat it!

If you try this recipe let me know how it turns out for you! Bon appetit!

A list of the software I use and recommend for both Windows and Mac OS X

Universal

Software that works on both Windows and Mac.

• Skype — The best video chat software out there.
• FileZilla — An excellent free, open-source FTP client.
• Firefox — One of the most feature rich and robust browsers.
• Google Chrome — Pretty much the fastest browser in town.
• The Last Ripper — A good music gathering tool.
• Pidgin — A multi-client chat tool that lets you connect with a lot of services (AOL, MSN, Google Chat, etc…)
• Open Office — An open-source Office like application suite.
• Synergy — Share one mouse and one keyboard between multiple computers.
• 7-zip — The best file compression/decompression tool out there, free and open-source.
• DeVeDe — A great DVD/CD creation and burning tool.
• Jing — A tool that makes screenshots and screencasts simple and fast.
• VirtualBox — Easy to use and free virtualization tool. Run Windows/Mac/Linux/UNIX/etc… on your computer.
• Dropbox — Makes a virtual folder on your computer that syncs with a server.
• iTunes — The most popular media player, and my personal favorite.
• Adobe CS4 — The leading editing software.
• Blackra1n — An easy to use tool to jailbreak your iPhone.
• Flickr Uploadr — An easy to use and robust Flickr uploading tool.
• BitTorrent — The most popular and easy to use bittorrent client.

Mac

• TextMate — My text editor of choice. Has a robust “bundle” system to add new features.
• SequelPro — A tool to visualize MySQL databases.
• Adium — A chat client that works with all popular clients (AOL, MSN, Facebook, Google Chat, etc…)
• WriteRoom — A bare bones writing client that makes focusing on the task at hand a breeze.
• CandyBar — Skin your Mac like a pro.
• HandBreak — The best ripping tool in town.
• Google Quick Search Box — A way better spotlight.
• LittleSnitch — A reverse firewall that alerts you when programs attempt to access the internet.

Windows

• E-text editor — The self described TextMate for Windows.
• Putty / Pageant — The defacto SSH tool for Windows.
• TortoiseSVN — A great SVN integrated command tool.
• AVG antivirus — My anti-virus tool of choice.
• Ad-Aware — Essential to keep your computer free of ad-ware. Scan regularly!
• DVD rip — Rip your DVDs to your computer in just 1 step.
• InfraRecorder — The best free DVD/CD burning tool I’ve found.

Have you recently had your 3 and 4 finger gestures just stop working in Mac OSX Snow Leopard? Well I did today and after a bit of searching found three different fixes for them and decided to write them down here for future reference.

Solution 1: Shutdown

The first and simplest solution is just to turn off your computer and turn it back on. Restarting may work for you, but for me I had to completely shutdown and start back up.

This fixed the problem for me, but if it doesn’t for you, try these other solutions:

Solution 2: Create a new user account and switch to it

Some people have had success creating a new user account, logging off and then logging in as the new user. Once logged in as the new user the gestures started to work so they just logged back in to their main account, deleted the test user and went on their way.

Solution 3: Error check your hard disk

This solution was offered by a Mac technician named Majicman (see the 8th post down the page.)

The solution involves shutting down and then booting into single user mode, then checking the disk for errors and repairing them.

1. Shutdown.
2. Reboot while holding down Apple+S.

3. When you see the command line type:

   fsck_hfs -f /dev/disk0s2
   

4. Shutdown by typing:

   shutdown -r now
   

5. Reboot.

This, if not the other two solutions, should fix your 3 and 4 finger gestures problems.

I hope this write up was helpful!

Cheers.

What do you get when you type in every letter in your browser address bar and write down the first result? Read more to see my results.

After reading this post from Andy Clark’s blog, I decided to give it a shot; type in every letter in my browser address bar and write down the first result. Here are my results:

A – http://www.apple.com/
B –  http://www.bbcode.org/reference.php
C – http://www.chromeextensions.org/
D – http://www.danawoodman.com/ (yay, thats me!)
E – http://en.gravatar.com/
F – http://www.facebook.com/
G – http://www.google.com/analytics/
H – http://www.danawoodman.com/ (again!?)
I – http://www.iconfinder.net/
J – ttp://www.javascriptcompressor.com/
K – http://www.kayak.com/
L – http://localhost:8000/ (Django’s home on my computer)
M – http://www.mcshanesnursery.com/
N – http://www.nathanborror.com/
O – http://www.organixcms.com/
P – http://www.panel.webfaction.com/
Q – http://www.qinsb.blogspot.com/
R – http://www.robotson.com/
S – http://www.simplebits.com/
T – http://www.twitter.com/
U – http://utidylib.berlios.de/
V – http://www.vimeo.com/
W – http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/
X – http://www.xp-dev.com/
Y – http://www.youtube.com/
Z – http://www.zillow.com/

This was actually an interesting experiment (game?). I ended up getting a mixed set of results including services or sites I frequent combined with pages I don’t even remember visiting.

Another enjoyable waste of time, try it out!

[b]bold text[/b]

<strong>bold text</strong>

[i]italic text[/i]

<em>italic text</em>

[s]strike-through text[/s]

<strike>strike-through text</strike>

[u]underlined text[/u]

<u>underlined text</u>

[size=30]30px text[/size]

<span style="font-size:30px">30px text</span>

[color=green]green text[/color]

<span style="color:green">green text</span>

[center]centered text[/center]

<div style="text-align:center">centered text</div>

[quote]quoted text[/quote]

<blockquote><p>quoted text</p></blockquote>

[quote="John Smith"]quoted text[/quote]

<blockquote>
    <em>John Smith</em>
    <br />
    <p>quoted text</p>
</blockquote>

[url]http://www.google.com/[/url]

<a href="http://google.com/">http://google.com/</a>

[url=http://google.com/]Google[/url]

<a href="http://google.com/">Google</a>

[list]
    [*]List item[/*]
[/list]

<ul>
    <li>List item</li>
</ul>

[ul]
    [*]List item[/*]
[/ul]

<ul>
    <li>List item</li>
    
</ul>

[ol]
    [*]List item[/*]
[/ol]

<ol>
    <li>List item</li>
</ol>

[img]http://foo.com/img.gif[/img]

<img src="http://foo.com/img.gif" />

[img=200x80]http://foo.com/img.gif[/img]

<img src="http://foo.com/img.gif" width="200" height="80" />

[code]# code here...[/code]

<pre># code here...</pre>

[code=css]body { background: #fff; }[/code]

Depending on the implementation of BBCode you are using, some or all of these codes could be implemented and more could be potentially available. Consult the documentation or FAQ on the BBCode variation you are using to see what is available to you.

If you need to test you Django app’s email sending functionality locally, you’re in luck. Python has a built in “dumb” SMTP email server for doing just that.

All you need to do to run it is open up your console and type:

python -m smtpd -n -c DebuggingServer localhost:1025

EMAIL_HOST = "localhost"
EMAIL_PORT = 1025

See this page for more info: http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/email/#testing-e-mail-sending

Hope that helps, cheers!

A listing of all available Pygments languages including their code names.

Recently I have been working on making a Django power forum (that I may release shortly!) and it has built in BBCode highlighting. With the BBCode in my forum you can use any Pygment supported language which is great but I could not for the life of me find a decent resource that lists all the languages with their corresponding character code (to use in BBCode for example) so I decided to collect a list myself. Below is the list of languages with the language code on the left and the language on the right:

If you see anything I’m missing let me know! Hope this was helps someone out there!

Today I needed to match everything in a string after a certain character, in this case a quote (“). To accomplish this I needed to do the following:

"(.+$)

The " part can be any character or combination of characters and the (.+$) matches anything (.) to the end of the line ($).

That’s about it, nothing fancy but useful none the less.

I get a lot of requests from non-technical friends and family about fixing their computers so I decided to write up this brief guide on how to troubleshoot common issues in Windows, specifically Windows XP.

Step 1: Buy a Mac

Yeah, I’m serious. The first step I offer people is “could you buy a Mac instead of a PC?” The reason I offer this step first is because the people I know that are both inexperienced computer users and “Apple Mac owners, send me substantially less technical requests. The reasons for this are many but basically boil down to the fact that Macs are generally more stable (built on UNIX, etc…), easier to use (actually designed well, good usability, etc…) and closed source (you buy Macs from Apple, not anywhere else so they are sure everything works on your computer). So if you – or your technically inept friend or family member — can afford it and need a new computer anyways, go for a Mac if possible.

Step 2: Do you have a virus or ad-ware?

This is probably the second most common issue I see in the Windows world and it is that Windows is highly susceptible to viruses and trojans if you:

1. Don’t have and run anti-virus software regularly, and
2. are an active internet user/downloader.

If you peruse the internet looking for music and programs and don’t know what you are doing, you are almost guaranteed to inadvertently download a virus or trojan (usually without knowing it) and if let to its own devices, it will quickly clog your system with crap and send all your hard earned money and identity to some 14 year old Chinese or Russian hacker.

So, at this stage I suggest scanning the whole computer for viruses and ad-ware. This can take a while. I’m serious, this could take hours or days depending on how much crap you’ve let pile up on your computer.

I recommend AVG anti-virus which is a free and well known anti-virus solution. I also recommend scanning for ad-ware which are not particularly a problem but could potential steal information and slow your computer down. To remove ad-ware download the free Ad-Aware program.

Run both programs multiple times until they come up with no viruses or ad-ware.

Step 3: Do you have proper drivers?

I’ve been getting this one a lot lately because I have a few friends who decided to reinstall Windows without first knowing what they were doing and second not having their drivers CD.

So, to those out there that are planning on taking the most drastic — and seemingly the most common — step and starting with a fresh copy of Windows please heed this warning: Make sure you have the right drivers before “reinstalling! Let me repeat that again for those that skim, Make sure you have the right drivers before “reinstalling!

“Why would I need to do this” you ask? Because I just told you and thats all you need to know!

Well, other than the fact that you should always do what I tell you, you also don’t want to be trying to set up your nice clean copy of Windows and then realize you have no internet connection to download drivers and updates (not to mention the fact your video resolution sucks and your audio doesn’t play). So, make sure before you reinstall to have your manufacture’s driver install CD.

If you don’t have that anymore, then do the next best thing, go to the support website of your computer manufacturer and download the appropriate drivers and burn them to CD or put them on a USB drive so you can install them after you install Windows. Since it is hard to find these support pages I’m including an (incomplete) list of manufacturer support websites below to speed up the process for you:

• Acer
• Alienware
• Asus
• Compaq
• Dell
• Fujitsu
• Gateway
• HP
• Lonovo
• Panosonic
• Sony
• Samsung
• Toshiba

To find your driver downloads on these sites you will need to either know the make and model of you laptop or desktop, or you will need to know the serial number.

If you don’t know the make/model or serial number of your computer, look for the name and model number either on the screen, body or base for laptops, or the front/back/bottom of the tower (the big box that has the CD drive in it) for desktops. If you still can’t find the manufacturer, you may have a custom made computer.

When selecting the files make sure you are downloading them for the right version of Windows! If your computer is WindowsXP Pro SP2, make sure to select drivers that correspond with that version. If they don’t, it just won’t work. To find what version you have go to the Control Panel and then find System and you should see the version there.

In that case, I really can’t help you more than to say take it into either the person that made it for you or a computer repair shop (or the Geek Squad as a last resort!).

Step 4: Do you have room on your hard drive?

Check to make sure you have free room on your hard drive.

Not having enough hard drive space will cause your computer to slow down a lot and could cause other problems.

To find out how much free space you have go to My Computer and right click on the image for your C:/ drive and go to Properties. Under that pop-up menu you should see the amount of free space available.

Depending on the size of the drive, it is recommended to keep about 10% of your hard drive free.

Step 5: If the above did not work, then seek more help…

At this stage I usually either take the computer apart and sniff around for burning smells or tell them the are out of luck. Usually if the problem is not a virus or not having the right drivers it is a hardware issue or some serious software woes.

In either case it is time for a professional. Take the computer into a reputable computer repair person or if you can’t find one, take it on down to Best Buy and talk to the GeekSquad.

Conclusion

Anyways, that is a brief overview of the process I go about when trying to fix other people’s computers. I hope it was somewhat helpful to you and that I didn’t waste too much of your valuable time!

Thanks for reading!

I looked around for a good input text replacement plugin for jQuery but couldn’t find anything that did what I wanted so I created one myself. Learn how to use the plugin in this post.

I just released a new jQuery plugin on Google Code called jquery-input-replacement:

http://code.google.com/p/jquery-input-replacement/

The code performs a simple but useful function that I seem to always need so I decided to create a plugin that I (and others) could reuse.

Basically, the code replaces blank HTML form inputs with a string of text that is used to supply default values into the field. This is primarily used to give a field a default value, such as search fields. Below is a short little video showing what it does:

The plugin lets you define the field (or fields) that you want to apply the text to and (optionally) the CSS class to apply to the input when the text is applied to it.

When a user clicks on the field (when it gains “focus”), the CSS class gets removed and so does the initial text, allowing the user to enter in their content.

This can be used for search fields, login forms, and a number of other applications.

I hope the code is useful to someone out there and if you use it or have questions, feel free to post a comment or submit a bug to Google Code.