Zhenya Ciurana - Official Author Blog

Unagi (fresh water eel) is eaten as a summer treat in Japan to combat the extreme heat.  I had the chance to eat unagi donburi there during my last trip and... it was delicious and refreshing!  Today is a super-hot day where I am, so I figured I'd check if unagi donburi would have the same effect here as it did in Tokyo.  The best part about this recipe?  It takes less than 10 minutes of active participation to make (other than cooking the rice).

Ingredients (serves 2)

1 packet of charcoal grilled fresh water eel (unagi)
0.5 cups of sake
0.5 cups of water
1 cup of rice
A squirt of eel sauce 
A dash of sansho (Japanese pepper -- see The Sushi Eating HOWTO) to taste
A dash of salt

Preparation

1. Put the rice in the rice cooker with 1.25 cups of water (check your cooker's and rice's directions; 1.25 cups results in perfect rice with my kit) and a tiny bit of salt; turn it on and wait until it's ready, about 20 minutes
2. Open the eel packet, rinse the eel and remove any charcoal bits stuck to it
3. Put the sake and water in a Pyrex cup and heat in the microwave oven (high setting) for 3 minutes
4. Preheat your skillet
5. Cut the eel in 6 pieces (3 per person) and place them skin side down on the skillet
6. Put the skillet on the stove (high flame) and pour the water + sake mixture; cover with a sheet of aluminum foil
7. Turn the heat down when the liquid boils and let it be for 5 minutes
8. Discard all the liquid, put the skillet back atop the stove, squirt some eel sauce on each piece, and wait for the sauce to warm up
9. Put rice in a bowl, put eel atop rice, sprinkle sansho to taste

You can chase this with some miso soup if you want (you get extra points if you find eel livers and make soup with those...), a poached egg, or both.  Chase it with green tea.

Enjoy!

IPREDator is a public VPN service that helps you mask your IP address (the unique address assigned to your computer by your service provider, such as Comcast or BT). This allows you to transfer data without the immediate worry of having someone tracing those transfers back to you.

Whatever your reasons for seeking privacy (file sharing, you're an Iranian dissident wanting democracy, whatever), IPREDator by itself isn't enough to cover your tracks. Internet surfing leaves plenty of traces of your activities on your hard disk drives: virtual memory swap files, cookies, web browser history, documents, etc. all can be traced back to you if the computer were confiscated or lost. This HOWTO helps you to harden your computer, IPREDator connection, and activities to minimize the ability of a hostile attacker or organization to tie your Internet activities to you...

(Read the complete post)

My first attempt at jailbreaking the iPad Wi-Fi ended up bricking the device.  Here is what you can do to get it back to normal:

Jailbreaking

1. Update iTunes to version 9.1.1 - on a Mac, use Software Update.
2. Download the Spirit jailbreak software (the same package contains Mac and Windows versions) and unzip the file
3. Start iTunes and sync your iPad so that you'll have a data, applications, and configuration backup
4. Leave the iPad connected to the USB cable and close iTunes after the sync operation completes
5. Run Spirit.app
   1. iTunes will start automagically
   2. click on "Jailbreak" and let the Spirit.app complete operations until it presents the "Quit" button
   3. quit and close it
   4. it may start a little spinner - ignore it and close the app
6. The iPad will restart normally; if so, you should see the Cydia icon loaded, and you're done

This process sometimes results in a bricked iPad.  The device pops the Apple startup logo and just sits there, doing nothing.  It appears that it cannot be restored, and it doesn't go anywhere.  iTunes doesn't recognize it, or it starts a sync and then locks up after backing the device up and before finishing the app sync.  If that's the case, this is how you restore it:

Unbricking Your iPad After an Unsuccessful Jailbreak

1. Unplug the iPad from the USB cable
2. Press the Sleep/Awake and Home buttons simultaneously for 10 seconds
3. Start iTunes
4. Plug the iPad to the USB cable
5. When prompted, tell iTunes to restore your iPad from backup
6. Wait for the software download and installation; DO NOT unplug the iPad until this operation completes
7. Attempt the jailbreak right away before you use any apps or perform another synchronization

If your iPad locks up again then assume that the Spirit jailbreak isn't stable enough for your particular setup and just wait a few days for an update and try again.

Cheers!

Hi again!

Here's another Privoxy and Adblock Plus rule for blocking junk from facebook's CDN servers. Add this pattern to your +block region:

profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-sf2p*

This one blocks the Yola and occasional fake photo profiles popping up.

Also... use F.B. Purity for blocking all the craptastic Farmville/Maffia Wars/etc. updates. It cleans the facebook landing page so that all you see are real updates from people you care about, no bollocking. A must have.

Compare my facebook page using all the blockers vs. the unfiltered version:



Cheers!

Greetings.

This is just a quickie post.  It turns out that Mule Enterprise Edition 2.2.5 includes the Python 2.2.1 run-time and scripting factory.

DO NOT USE IT!

It sucks.  It's out of date.  It's in bad shape.  It doesn't support either the Mule or the Python features that you most likely need for development.

Follow these steps to get rid of the sucky Python support:

  cd $MULE_HOME/lib/user
  rm -Rf jython-2.2.1.jar
  rm -Rf jython-engine-1.1-jdk14.jar

Install the most current Jython version. At the time of this post, the best way to go is by fetching the latest 2.5.1 nightly build (the Jython team will release a new version Real Soon Now^TM). Until then, follow the instructions for mule punching your code to install the nightly build. It has several bug fixes required for Mule support, a couple of them that I identified myself.

When done, copy the latest and greatest jython.jar to $MULE_HOME/lib/user and proceed.  Your code should behave as expected.

Cheers!

Greetings.

facebook is now serving ads from both profile.ak.fbcdn.net and profile.ak.fbcdn.com. So here are the changes that you need to make to your Privoxy profile:

1. Go to http://p.p -- the Privoxy configuration page.
2. Click on View & change current configuration
3. Edit /etc/privoxy/default.action (the path may vary in your system, but the file name is the same)
4. Go to the Action: +block
5. Add: profile.ak.facebook.com/object*
6. Add: profile.ak.fbcdn.net/object*
7. Add: *cubics.com

You will need both the .net and .com sub-domains (originally ads were served only from .com).

Beware that some profiles live in the profile.ak.fbcdn.net subdomain - so some images from your friends *may* show as broken.  facebook switched to serving the ads from here because the .com subdomain was easy pickings for ad blockers.  I'm working on the exact expression for filtering only the ads and letting the good images through -- stay tuned.

If you aren't a Privoxy user, you can use Firefox Adblock or find a suitable ad blocker for Safari.

Cheers!

Mule punching is a technique for extending or modifying the run-time code in Mule without stopping the server. The term is based on the Ruby programming jargon duck punching, where if duck typing doesn't work, you punch the duck until it does. If the services app doesn't do what you need, you can punch the mule until it does by changing the methods and attributes of service components and transformers without stopping the server, and even reconfigure the behavior of third-party packages without access to their code... all while the Mule server runs.

My team is building an enterprise-class system that has components that run on Mule and in a distributed environment across hundreds (or even thousands) of systems like in diagram 1. We selected Java/Mule for the data center portions of the project, and Python for the distributed parts, both backed by mongoDB, arguably the most powerful and flexible NoSQL database today. As we got down to business, we realized that several data access and business logic functions had to be replicated in Java and Python...
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Updates to the Sushi Eating HOWTO are less frequent as its completeness and its popularity continue to grow, but they're action-packed when they arrive!  In this release we cover these new and cool topics:

• New items:
  • Amaguri (baked clam)
  • Uchiwa ebi (lobster)
  • Shima aj (striped mackerel)
  • Ika tonbi (virgin squid mouths)
• New photos:
  • kani (crab - the real thing)
  • masago (capelin caviar) gunkan
  • tekka maki
• Updated the entries for wasabi (includes photos of fresh wasabi and the traditional wasabi grater), removed Nobu from the list of "places to go", and cleaned up some formatting.
• NEW!  A section on HOWTO Eat Sushi That Sucks.  You've been at a sushi bar that you know will suck but you have no way to back out because of some social obligation.  Here is how to make the best of a bad meal!

Click on the images to go straight to the latest photos:

 

Check out the most complete guide to sushi on the 'net:  The Sushi Eating HOWTO... and please let me know what you think!

Cheers!

Versions of Firefox prior to 3.6 opened new tabs to the far right of the browser window.  The latest version, however, opens a new tab right next to the current one.  This can be disconcerting if you're used to opening tabs in a certain sequence.  After a bit of research and asking around in the #firefox IRC channel, I found how to revert 3.6 to opening new tabs at the end of the tabs row.

Here is how (click on the links to view sample screens):

1. Open Firefox
2. Type:  about:config in the address bar
3. Click on the button labeled "I'll be careful, I promise!"
4. Type this on the field labeled 'Filter:' at the top of the screen:  insertRelatedAfterCurrent
5. The preference named insertRelatedAfterCurrent will have a value of true; change the value to false by:
   1. Right click on insertRelatedAfterCurrent
   2. Select 'Toggle' to set the value to false
6. Click on the 'Home' icon or close the about:config page; you're done!  The status must say 'user set' and the new value must be false

Warning:  changing the Firefox configuration manually may screw up your browser experience if you start mucking with parameters without knowing what they do.  Be careful!

It's probably a good idea for you to try the new default 3.6 setting for a few days before you decide to toggle this setting.  There are, however, reasons for switching now:  sensory and spatial memory.  If you're using your browser at work or for web development, you tend to arrange tabs in a certain way and expect them to open in a given sequence.  Your productivity may wane if you have to invest time getting used to the new tab behaviour.  Lots of little interruptions throughout the day add up to both wasted time and annoyance that, in balance, you may not want to endure right now.

Remember: Friends don't let friends use Internet Explorer - Go, Firefox!

Cheers!

1. Term limits set to 12 years only, with one of these options:
   1. Two six-year Senate terms
   2. Six two-year House terms
   3. One six-year Senate term and three two-year House terms
2. No tenure and no pension:  a congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay afterward
3. Congress (past, present and future) participates in Social Security:  all funds in the congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately.  All future funds flow in to the Social Security system, so Congress participates along with the rest of the American people
4. Congressmen can purchase their own retirement plan just as all Americans
5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.  Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%
6. Congress loses their current healthcare system and participates in the same healthcare system as the American people
7. Congress must equally abide in all laws they impose on the American people
8. All contracts with past and present congressmen are void effective on 01.Jan.2012.  The American people did not make this contract with congressmen; congressmen made this contract with themselves

I received this earlier today; it has some interesting ideas.  Let's get the word out there.  A tidal wave can start with a drop of water somewhere.

Cheers!