Friday, September 30, 2011

sacks for the tablet interface

Instead of user accounts to organize a tablet interface (as I mentioned in May)  it might be good if, when I turned on my iPad, I saw an icon of a sack, labelled "Margie's", and there'd be other sacks for the other people using the iPad.  The same app could be in several sacks.  The apps we most often use could still be splayed out, or in their "most often used" sack.

There should be a way to tell the iPad to put all the music stuff in a Music Sack, and, more specifically, to put all the ukulele apps in an Uke Sack.  All the kids' games should be in a sack, instead of cluttering up my view.  All the News Readers (Huffington, NYT, ABC, etc) should find their own sack for when I want to read a magazine or check the news.  Apps are very easily categorized, and they should be thus self-organizing.

My kids have downloaded a lot of games and I am tired of sifting through them all to find my stuff.  It is awkward to drag things to the bottom and then pull them out on the screen where I want them.  Just let the iPad organize this for me.  Why can't it?

As for email, if the user sack most recently opened was "Margie's sack", it would be nice, when I click on email, to get one of my email accounts, instead of Zoe's.  And vice-versa for "Zoe's sack".  Although, as her mom, it is good that I can read her mail.

Friday, September 23, 2011

A New Paradigm for Business: Company Showrooms replace Retail Stores

People are already behaving that way: They examine the product in a retail store, then go home and find the best price online.  Retail stores are going out of business as a result.

We like to see and touch many things before making a purchase decision.  To fill this niche, large manufacturers will create showrooms, like the Apple Store, to display their products.  Smaller manufacturers will pay to have their products displayed in new Showroom companies that will spring up to provide this service.

Sunday, September 04, 2011

using ground turkey for spaghetti & meatballs


Why?  
  • preference: I've grown less used to beef, since I haven't been eating it as often.  
  • economic:  Ground Empire Turkey, $3.99/lb at Trader Joe's, vs $6.50/lb for beef when they have it.  
  • Health: turkey's less bad for you anyway.
The fear was that ground turkey wouldn't taste enough like "real" meatballs to go with red sauce.  I think it turned out better, in a way, since it didn't have as much of the excess grease that beef burger produces.  

Spices to make the turkey more beefy:
  • Worcestershire sauce
  • tamari
  • ground sage
  • ground bayleaf
  • coriander
  • thyme
  • oregano
  • ground peper
  • Ro insists on cumin, so I added a bit
  • egg to bind it
  • next time, I'll try potato flakes too.  Ro says he's been adding it to the turkey burgers.
Previously, meatballs turned into meat sauce.  Yesterday, I learned to have enough frying-pan surface to allow each to cook on the bottom and be turned before it can stick to its neighbor and be merged.

The sauce: sauteed red onion, rosemary, celery, garlic clove, zuchinni, in olive oil then added meatballs as I formed them.  Moved the meatballs to the auxiliary frying pan before dumping in a can of tomato paste and 2-3 cans of water.  After the water stirred in to a good sauce consistency, I put the meatballs back in.  Then added a few sprigs of chopped frozen broccoli and some frozen spinach to give it more green.

Served on top of whole wheat spaghetti.  Thought red wine would go with it.  Looked in Christmas-present crate from Gonzalo and Lisa.  Chose THE VELVET DEVIL MERLOT 2009 WASHINGTON STATE.  All caps on the label, so here too.  I liked it quite a lot.  The first Merlot I've liked.  Screw-top cap.  Fun.