Saturday Link Round-Up 8
Phew, it’s been a hectic week what with moving to Lunarpages, dealing with being sick and planning out my wrap dress from Simplicity 3877 and generally just running around like a chicken with its head cut off.
I did have time to make an interesting little discovery, though. I hate cream cheese. Well, I like flavored cream cheese on flavored crackers, but that’s pretty much it. Every single time I see cream cheese and chocolate mixed together a little piece of me dies, such a waste of a good cake/pie/square. In start contrast, I love bagels. Love them. Everything bagels from Tim Horton’s are my favourites, I always get them toasted with a bit of butter and they are very nomable. My dad got a cream cheese everything bagel the other day and he let me try a bite of it, surprisingly enough it was pretty good. Today when he went to get my brothers soup he picked me up a bagel with cream cheese.
I have found religion.
Actually no I haven’t, but I might as well have because I’m worshipping at the alter of cream cheese on breakfast foods. And crackers. Gah, so good. While there are no cream cheese recipes in this weeks round-up, I heartily encourage cream cheese haters to take a leap of faith and try it on a nice toasted bagel. There are a few good recipes in here though, particularly the chocolate souffle which I am going to try as soon as I possibly can. Enjoy and remember that you can see all the links that didn’t make the cut on my new del.icio.us account.
Food
Reconsidering the Chocolate Chip Cookie – Remember the massive chocolate chip cookie bakeoff I did last year, all in that elusive, neverending search for the perfect recipe? Well, with the New York Times throwing its formidable hat into the ring, a revisit definitely seemed in order.
Chocolate Chip Cookies – Chocolate chip cookies must be the pinnacle of all cookies – or else why would we be willing to spend so much time dedicated to finding the ultimate chocolate chip cookie recipe? I suspect that some people are just in it for the chocolate and might be willing to forgo most of the actual cookie part if it meant more chips.
Garlic lime shrimp – …he absolutely loves: shrimp. For the hubby, the simpler, the better. And the recipe I adapted from the DH mag #37 was a huge hit.
I cooked the shrimp using a frying pan, but also posted how to make them on the grill, if anyone wants to give it a try.
Microwave Chocolate Cake for One – Baking is really something that needs to be done in an oven because no matter how many instructions give you optional microwave directions, the food is always going to turn out a better when it is cooked in an oven. Frozen dinners are a good example of this, as they’re always more tender, more crisp and just plain tastier when they’re cooked in the oven before serving. But the microwave isn’t all bad, you just need to know its limitations. So, when I heard that there was a recipe for a 5 minute chocolate cake out there that was made in the microwave, I had a general idea of what to expect before I even tried it.
Meringue… the Difference that Folding Makes – I am always intrigued by technique and how the simple action of folding ingredients together can completely change the texture and consistency of a product. Such is the case with meringue. The infamous macarons are usually nothing but egg whites with sugar and ground up nuts. But how do they get their tiny feet and the crunchy exterior with the moist interior?
Cookies baked in a car and other hot weather favorites – The ultimate summer baking project is one I tackled last summer: Cookies baked in a car. The inside of a car can get up to more than 180F when the temperature outside is above 100F – just hot enough to bake a batch of cookies. It takes a bit longer than a conventional oven, but doesn’t heat up the house and will leave your car smelling amazing.
Chocolate Souffle and Rediscovering a Cookbook – I have to admit I have a cookbook addiction, but after I get them, I tend to leave them on the shelf and never really bake from them. I do enjoy photographs and they do bring much inspiration, but I don’t usually copy a recipe from a book. However, this time, I was drawn to a chocolate souffle photo. It was beautiful, full of texture, dark, rich. I said, “I have to try this”.
Tips/Tricks
How to get rid of oily hair fast! – Let’s face it, we all have times when, for one reason or another, we can’t wash our hair and it looks a little greasy. Sometimes when you are camping, there is little opportunity for a shower or hair wash, or maybe you overslept and have to run out the door without a hair wash. Here is an easy tip that works GREAT in a pinch!
Quick Tips For Kitchen Cleaning – 5 quick tips for kitchen cleaning.
How to Find Comfortable Shoes – Relief at last! Foolproof tips on picking comfortable pumps, flats, and sandals
Freebies
“40+ Extremely Beautiful FONTS Hand-picked from deviantART”: – The web is rich with creative and amazing fonts, and one of the most unusual source of Beautiful Fonts are those you can find on deviantART fonts gallery. Today we would like to present 40 incredible FONT which you can use for web or print design.
400+ High Quality Patterns – Patterns can be found every where. Most commonly we can see them in fabric and wallpaper, but they also make great visual elements for web design. Here is a collection of patterns of all shapes, sizes, and color. Some are images, and some are pattern files for Photoshop and Illustrator.
Layered Desktop – Get the full size version and set it as your desktop background. Make sure you select a centred layout instead of stretched to fit, or the fine lines will be blurred.
Create Freehand Screenshots With Snippy – Snippy is a portable application for Windows XP and previous versions of Windows if they have the redistributable version of GDI+ installed that brings an interesting feature to the table of screenshot applications. My favorite screenshot application MWSnap supports only screenshots that are rectangular and I encountered several situations in the past where I had to include lots of whitespace in the screenshot to include all the relevant areas in the image.
Orca Browser is Avant for Firefox – Windows only: The free Orca Browser is a web browser based on the Firefox 3 core with the same speed and features of Firefox in addition to a handful of extra features. Those extra features include a built-in ad blocker, flash blocker, auto form-filler, and perhaps most useful, an online storage account that syncs your bookmarks, auto-form information, and more with an online account.
20 Free Wordpress Themes That Make Great Starting Point’s For Customization – You can never have too many themes to choose from when starting a wordpress site, whether you plan on using the standard free themes that are available in their default guise or are looking for a base theme for customization, wordpress has a plenty of themes to choose from. Today we though that it might be nice to list some of our favorites for you.
Inspiration
47 Inspiring Web Designs – Over the past few months, I’ve put together a number of new designs, such as MVH Media. Though I normally have a rough idea of what I want a design to look like before I start, I end up skimming through online design galleries, looking at other interesting designs. As I look at other peoples’ designs, I come up with more ideas that may go into the finished design. I ended up bookmarking some of the more interesting designs I came across, like I tend to do anyway (whenever I find a site with an interesting design, I bookmark it).
Comment Zones : 15+ Creative And Original Examples – …while the form design can be appealing, and sometimes entertaining, the actual comments themselves should be the larger focus. After all, you want your readers to feel comfortable engaging in a discussion on your blog
Web Typography At Its Best – I have been very interested in typography, I have also noticed the growth of typography moving to the web. More specific, designers are paying more attention to typography when design for the web. There are many sites now that use typography to be a very powerful element.
Coding
Easily Password Protect a Website or Subdirectory – Working on a website that you need others to see, but not the whole world? Password protecting a website (or a sub directory within a website) is actually a pretty easy thing to do.
Solving 5 Common CSS Headaches – CSS is a relatively simple language to learn. Mastering it, on the other, can prove a little more difficult. Compensating for various browser inconsistencies alone can produce a migraine. In this article, we’ll demystify five of the most head thumping issues that you’ll encounter when building web applications.
CSS Frameworks, just make your own – While in theory, and from an educational standpoint I do not have a problem with CSS Frameworks. On the other hand, I do not personally see a point in relying on one that someone else made, for my projects.
Enhanced Sidebars with Dynamic Content – After writing Effective Use of Blog Sidebars a couple of weeks ago I decided to look into the topic of dynamic sidebars. Typically, most blogs will us a standard sidebar for the entire site. WordPress users have a lot of potential functionality that is rarely used in terms of creating various sidebars and displaying them in different situations.
Is it Finally Time to Ditch IE 6? – It’s no secret that those of us who do professional web design/development despise Internet Explorer 6. With IE 7 out for a while and IE 8 on the horizon, more and more leading companies and web folk are pressing ahead and dropping / degrading support for the ancient browser.
Tutorials
Create a Complete Vexel Image Using Photoshop – This tutorial will instruct the reader on how to take a picture and create a vexel image out of it, through Photoshop. Numerous vexel techniques are taught. You’ll learn how to use the Pen Tool, and then put it to good use to construct hundreds of shapes that will compose a full vexel image.
20 Amazing Photoshop Light Effects – Many of these light effects look great not only by themselves but also as elements of a design.
How To Upholster A Chair – We’re back with another handy dandy tutorial, and this time it’s an exciting lesson in chair covering. The main takeaway should be that this is a super simple way to completely reinvent a chair. Seriously. It’s a snap. So let’s get stapled, er started.
Sewing
New Blouse- S2938 – This is what I did this morning instead of going to the grocery store. The thing I love about princess style seaming is that it is so much easier to get a FBA than with darts! Well, at least I think so. I use a combination of methods so this is how I do it.
Tiny Booties….cute. – I made those tiny shoes today ( yes there is a second one). I used this tutorial and found it much easier in practice than on paper.
Tablecloth Dress – Last year I went to Greece. It was fantastic. I never ran across any fabric stores, but I did go to the flea market in Athens and bargain for some tablecloths, a rectangle white one with Battenburg type lace and a round blue one with appliques.
New Look 6648 neckline – Jan was wondering how to narrow the neckline of this (or any) top so I thought I’d just post a quick photo showing how it’s done. The heavy green line is the original neckline. I do not recommend using markers for your pattern work (messy and the lines are too fat) but the pencil lines wouldn’t show up.
Miscellaneous
The Insane Waiter – Running wild on customers, chefs, owners and managers since 1997. I bring to you, The Insane Waiter. What do bring to your table? A crisp bottle of San Pellegrino ? Perhaps a lovely seared Sashimi Tuna? Start off with a wonderful bottle from Tuscany perhaps? Why I’ll be more than happy to bring you your White Zinfandel and Chicken Caesar. No you can’t order the mac and cheese off the kids menu and sorry no, we don’t serve cheese sticks….
AgencyTool Web Design Dashboard – The definitive resource list for anyone designing, developing, marketing or maintaining websites
Better Way To Install Fonts In Windows – The default way to install new fonts in Windows (except for Windows Vista) is to click on the Font entry in the Windows Control Panel and to select Install New Font from the File menu. That’s not very handy especially if you install fonts regularly on the system.
Bohemian Revolution’s 10 Best of June posts – For those of you new to the site (or anybody else!), here’s a list in no particular order of our most popular articles last month.
Photoshop vs Fireworks – Photoshop. Fireworks. If you’re a serious web designer (and not using the GIMP) you’re going to be using one or the other. But which is best?
Tracing and Marking – Friday’s entry on cutting brought to mind an annoyance I experienced over ten years ago when I hired a small sewing contractor who didn’t have much experience. This is somewhat related to a previous brief tutorial I wrote on marking and cutting. Specifically, this entry is about the proper method of tracing patterns onto fabric, or even paper.
How to view the original size of a Flickr photo when the All Sizes option is missing? – When you’re browsing through pictures on Flickr, you should have seen an ‘All Sizes’ option above photos. Clicking on the ‘All Sizes’ option takes you to a page that has links to the photo in various sizes, including its biggest version.
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Hi I'm Becky, often referred to as The Knitting Hillbilly and Pussybear, owner of this site and general nuisance. I'm a knitter, serial complainer, known whistle blower and I run the ever popular
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