Announcing Free Range News...

Jan 24, 2012 00:00
I’m all excited at attending Macworld | iWorld 2012. The last Macworld event I attended was Macworld Boston 1989 – truly so much has changed since then (well, except that I’m typing on my IIcx’s Apple Extended Keyboard, still love that feel). I’m experimenting with mid-length posts – those too long for Twitter but spontaneous enough that I won’t be able to use my website creation app, RapidWeaver. So what I’ve decided to do is to have a Wordpress blog hosted at http://frnews.info. Do check that out! And if you’re going to be at Macworld | iWorld 2012, we might bump into each other!

Eat Organic, Buy Local, Support your CSA

Jan 21, 2012 14:50 Filed in: Food

Two years ago I participated in a local farm CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) with a neighbour. Each week we would drive to the farm and pick up my fresh vegetables and other produce. There was enough produce that we were able to split the weekly provisions between us.

Last year I decided to participate in a ten week program with the Grinnell Heritage Farm over the summer and into fall. Melissa and Andrew Dunham run the farm in Grinnell, which is about 70 miles to the west. They grow their vegetables and other produce organically and deliver it to collection sites in various cities. You go over to the collection site, usually close by, and pick up your box of goodies on your way home from work.

Each week on Monday I would receive a newsletter from the farm telling me about the items I would be picking up as well as recipes and information about the produce - storage, history. The newsletter also lists several events at the farm which shareholders are encouraged to come to. What impressed me with the Grinnell Heritage Farm was the wide variety of unique and heirloom vegetables coupled with the dedication of the Dunhams to their endeavour.

And then there’s the environment. Instead of many cars driving out to the farm, or worse yet - buying produce in a supermarket which gets trucked in from many thousands of miles, only one delivery vehicle comes from the farm to the local drop off areas - thus reducing overall fuel consumption, and consequently lessening the impact on our environment.

I’m signing up for another season, and I urge you to check with your local CSA farms on joining in. Together we can buy local and support our farms, a win-win, in my opinion.

Downcast - a nifty podcatcher for iOS

Jan 04, 2012 22:39 Filed in: Apple
I recently did a review of Downcast from Jamawkinaw Enterprises on Allison Sheridan’s NosillaCast (Episode 346).

Here's the problem to be solved. I'd like to download and listen to my subscribed podcasts without having to sync with iTunes. Before Downcast I had to download all the podcasts using iTunes and then plug in my iOS or iPod device to sync the podcasts to the device. This meant that I had to lug a Mac along on my trips just to listen to the latest podcast releases. more...

Tags:

Podcast appearances

Dec 23, 2011 13:38
Just added a list of the podcasts I’ve appeared on - quite a few!

iPad iOS 5 update woes

Dec 04, 2011 21:15 Filed in: Apple

Took a while but I finally updated the iPad to iOS 5.0.1. Talk about being an “early adopter”! This update took a little time as the iPad had to be essentially restored to the new version of iOS and then all the content (applications, music, videos, books, and such) had to synchronised back on. All went well until I noticed that the memory usage bar on the iPad summary page in iTunes said 10.9 GB of space had been overrun by “Other” - and on a 64 GB iPad too! I was certainly perplexed by this occurrence and on searching the Apple Support Communities and on Google, found that a simple re-sync of the iPad would suffice, and indeed this fixed the case. Phew… Got back to 17 GB of free space - what it was before.

Tags: ,