Every now & then I want to randomize a playlist in Spotify.  There’s always the Shuffle option, but sometimes it’s nice to start a new playlist by just mixing it up & then moving a few things around. So, Until Spotify gives us a “Randomize” button, this’ll have to do… A little bit of effort, but it works.

1. Create your playlist the old fashion way by adding the songs, albums, etc.

2. Select all of the songs, right click and select “Copy HTTP Link”, then hit “Delete” to clear out the play list.

3. Go here, click inside the text box that says “Enter your text here…”, hit CTRL-A and then CTRL-V.  That should paste your Spotify playlist into the text box.

4. Hit the “Random” button a few times.

5. Click inside the same text box then hit CTRL-A followed by CTRL-C.

6. Go back to Spotify, make sure your now-empty playlist is selected, and hit CTRL-V.

7. Voila, randomized playlist.

Every now & then I make the mistake of scrolling too far down a news story on CNN.com only to find myself reading the comments left by the best, most shining examples of mental deficiency known to the modern Internet.

Tonight, I fixed it, and you can too.

Option #1, edit your hosts file, which can be found in the C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc folder.  All you need to do is add a line like this:

127.0.0.1 cnn.disqus.com

Option #2, download & install a copy of HostsMan. Use it to map cnn.disqus.com to 127.0.0.1 in your Windows hosts file (Tools -> HostsMan Editor -> Add), then use it to flush the DNS cache (Tools -> Flush DNS Cache).

HostsMan has the added benefit of blocking a royal boat-load of online advertisements as well.

Either way, once you’re done, reload a CNN.com story and *poof* no comments.

Ingredients

1 jar of maraschino cherries

Ole Smoky Tennessee Moonshine

How to make ‘em…

Empty the jar of all but a finger’s worth of the cherry juice.

Pour in enough moonshine to cover the cherries.

Reseal the jar, invert a few times to mix.

Tuck the jar in the back of the fridge for about a month.

How to eat ‘em…

One at a time, slowly. They pack a punch.

When the cherries are gone, use the cherry ‘shine for a cherry coke, mix with some rum for a knock-you-out rum & cherry coke, or sip it neat.

Now that a bit of the dust has settled around the recent Netflix price increases and the #DearNetflix  Twitter trend has petered out, I’m seeing a lot of talk on the ‘net along the lines of, “People are over-reacting about what amounts to a few dollars a month.”

I think the real issue isn’t so much the price increase.  The real issue is that the Netflix streaming service basically sucks, and there are price-competitive alternatives to their DVD-by-mail offering.  Apart from a fair selection of kids’ shows, a “pretty good” selection of TV series, and a small selection of recent releases — just enough to draw you in — there’s just not that much there.

When I was getting that as a value-add to my DVD subscription, the convenience of firing up a “freebie” on my TV was worth it.  But poor selection and a tendency for streaming selections to become suddenly unavailable?  No, that’s not worth $8/month when there are similar services that offer other value-adds (e.g. Amazon Prime).

It’s really not so much an question of the dollars.  I was paying $3/month extra to get Blu-Ray when my DVD player does a pretty good job of up-scaling plain old DVDs to high-def levels. In fact, I’m paying just about the same amount to BlockBuster as I was paying to Netflix, but now I can rent games as well as movies.  See how that works?  Value add.  Bottom line: I can afford a few dollars a month.

The real issue with the Netflix price hike is that they increased my cost without adding any sort of value, and they increased the cost well above the value of the current service.

I’m also feeling some “ivory tower” irritation that they cloaked the price increase in some sort of Jedi mind trick, “This will be better for you!” rhetoric about flexibility and consumer value instead of blaming it on the studios’ Mafia-like extortion tactics, but we’ll (mostly) save that for another rant about the reasons people turn pirate when it comes to movies, music, and books.

I get that Netflix has increasing costs to deal with because of the licensing deals.

Maybe some day Netflix and the studios will get that a fair subscription price means people will consume more, and pirate less.

Maybe this will be enough of a black eye to help them get the message.

Ever since iOS4 hit, my iPhone 3G’s been just this side of a paperweight. If the stars aligned, I could (maybe) launch an app without having to reboot first, but usually even the apps that launched would crawl… It was bad enough that my BlackBerry Torch was seeing more use than my trusty iPhone.

A few weeks back I ran across a post on LifeHacker about a custom, jail-broken firmware called Whited00r, based on iOS3 with some iOS4 tweaks & Cydia included.  Finally got some time to check it out last night and, as usual, Apple doesn’t make it easy to get this stuff working.

After a few hours of wrestling with it, here’s how I made it work… And be warned, this can be a multi-hour process with a lot of reboots and a lot of starting over.  If you get stuck, go back to the Apple Original Firmware for a clean start, and use iREB (see below) to get the iPhone out of any “loops”.

DISCLAIMER: Yes, this could brick your iPhone, although I think it’s pretty unlikely. Yes, it’s possible that some of the links I provide could turn into malware & hose your computer (although I used them all last night and had no issues).  No, I will not buy you a new iPhone or a new computer if you screw this up.  In other words, proceed at your own risk.

1. Back up your data.  You don’t want to do a restore of the backed up image though, so make sure you know how to get everything reconfigured, get all your apps logged back in, etc. iTunes 10 makes that a lot easier since it gives you access to re-download any apps & music that you’ve already purchased.

2. Go to the Whited00r firmware download page here (or, for the 3G, just go here).

3. Grab the “Whited00r Download” firmware that you need, either normal or unlocked.  If you bought the iPhone with a specific carrier (e.g. AT&T) and you don’t plan/need to change, then normal is fine.

4. Download the “Apple Original Firmware” version iPhone 3G 3.1.3.

5. Download iREB (RC4 as of this writing).

6. Download Blackra1n.

7. Find or create a older that’s easy to get to (I used one on my desktop), and unzip the Whited00r and Apple Original Firmware .ipsw files from files that you downloaded in steps 3 and 4 (above) into that folder.

8. Put your iPhone into DFU (Device Firmware Update) mode: Open iTunes, connect the iPhone to the computer via the USB cable; hold the home + sleep/wake buttons together until the iPhone shuts off, then release the sleep/wake button.  After about 10 seconds, iTunes should detect the phone & tell you that it’s in recovery mode.

9. In iTunes, make sure your iPhone is selected, and then shift-click the “Restore” button.  This will open up a Windows Explorer finder.  Go to the folder that you put the .ipsw files into (step 6, above). Find & open the Apple Original Firmware” 3.1.3 file (iPhone1,2_3.1.3_7E18_Restore.ipsw).

10. iTunes will reset the firmware and reboot the iPhone once or twice.

11. When the phone reboots, it may or may not start up with the multi-language “Emergency Calls” screen sequence.  If that happens, iTunes should detect and activate the iPhone.  If it doesn’t, disconnect the phone, close and restart iTunes, and then reconnect the phone.

12. When iTunes asks, set it up as a new iPhone, and do not restore from a backup!

13. If your iPhone gets stuck in DFU mode or you get some sort of 16xx or 10xx error (e.g. 1604), run iREB: Click the “Recovery Loop Mode” tab, and then click the “Set Auto-Boot” button.

14. At this point, you should be running the default iOS 3.1.3 on the iPhone. Go to Settings -> General -> About -> Version to check.

15. If you’re not running 3.1.3 because the install failed for some reason, then run iREB again: On the “iREB” tab, click the “iPhone 3G” (or whatever else you’re using) button.  This should get your iPhone ready to receive non-standard firmware versions.  Now repeat from step #8.

16. Now, with the iPhone plugged into your computer, close iTunes and run Blackra1n.  This will jail-break your iPhone and a reboot or two may occur.  You may also need to repeat steps 11-14.

17. Next, run iREB as described in step #15.

18. Now, close both Blackra1n and iREB, and (with the iPhone connected to the PC) open iTunes.

19. In iTunes, make sure your iPhone is selected, and then shift-click the “Restore” button.  Just like before, this will open up a Windows Explorer finder.  Go to the folder that you put the .ipsw files into (step 6 above). Find & open the Whited00r firmware (iPhone1,2_whited00r441N.ipsw).

20. Repeat steps 11-13.

21. At this point, you should have the Whited00r firmware installed, including Cydia, on a modified version of iOS 3.1.3.

The good news is that the phone will be MUCH faster.  The downside is that your battery life will almost certainly be less… In part because Whited00r does & allows more ‘behind the scenes’ processing, and in part because you’ll actually be able to use the iPhone again.

Ran into this error tonight when setting up my new Spotify account.  Not sure if it’s a glitch or a real bug, but  it looks like you can’t paste your Last.fm password into Spotify, you actually have to type it out.  Annoying to those of us using 15 character passwords through LastPass.

Slight twist on the original, but goes down nicely on a warm summer night…

Raw materials:

• 2 oz. whiskey
• 1 oz. lemon juice
• 1 oz. lime juice
• 1 oz. simple syrup
• Dash of orange bitters
• Maraschino cherry or two

Mix it up:

• Fill a lowball glass with crushed ice
• Add whiskey, juice, and syrup
• Stir
• Garnish with a cherry or two

Sip. Sip some more. Repeat. Repeat some more.

Yes, it really is the best…  A little bit of work, but far better than what you’ll get at most coffee joints!

The Gear:

• Technivorm Clubline Moccamaster
• Baratza Virtuoso
• Chopstick (not plastic)
• Paper filter
• Paper towels (3-4)
• Tall glasses (3-4), iced tea spoons, straws

The Beans:

• 12 rounded scoops (~1 heaping Tbsp.) of whole beans…
• Something with at least a bit of a French, Italian, or some kind of espresso roast if you want the big coffee flavor, but most anything fresh will work.
• Stale beans = no joy. Pre-ground coffee = no joy. *
• A couple that I can recommend : Terroir Coffee, Dean’s Beans

The Extras:

• Simple syrup or granulated sugar (the simple syrup mixes better; organic sugar’s got nice molasses to it)
• Light cream or half-and-half

The Prep:

• Put 3-4 teaspoons of simple syrup (or sugar) into each glass with 3-4 tablespoons of light cream & stir until mixed.
• Fill the coffee maker carafe about 3/4 full with fresh ice cubes.  If your ice cubes stink, your coffee will stink. *
• Fold up 2-3 paper towels into a square (fold in half, then fold in half again… size = the diameter of your carafe).
• Fill the coffee maker reservoir to 6 cups. If you’ve got anything a little “off” with your water, consider getting one of these. *
• Put the coffee filter into the coffee maker filter basket.  Good thing I mentioned this step, eh?
• Put the folded paper towel square on the coffee maker warming plate.
• Grind the beans medium-coarse (on the Virtuoso, somewhere from 25-30).
• Put the ground coffee into the filter basket & flip the filter basket switch to the “off”setting.
• Put the carafe on top of the folded-up paper towel.

The Magic:

• Turn the coffee-maker on.
• When the reservoir gets down to 4 cups, stir the coffee grounds in the filter basket to get an even slurry.
• Flip the filter basket switch to the “slow” drip setting.
• Wait till it’s done.
• Swirl the coffee pot slightly and pour coffee into the glasses with the sugar & cream.
• Add a straw.
• Sip.
• Be happy with your over-priced coffee paraphernalia.

Notes:

*Yes, I’m a coffee snob.  On a slightly more serious note, a burr grinder makes a HUGE difference. The Virtuoso does almost-Espresso to French Press, it’s built like a tank, and it’s easy to clean. The Technivorm makes some of the best coffee, period.  No bells and whistles like timers, clocks, or grind-n-brew.  It does one thing, and does it well.  :)

If your brewer doesn’t have a drip switch, you might be able to just pull the coffee maker out to have the drip valve close.  The key is to let the grinds steep for a bit to get the best extraction.

Ingredients

2 slices of pumpernickel rye bread, lightly toasted

Limburger cheese, warmed to room temperature

2 thin slices of Vidalia, sweet, or red onion

Brown mustard (Grey Poupon or your choice)

Preparation

Spread cheese on one slice of the toast.

Spread mustard on the other slice of toast.

Lay onions on the mustard.

Put the slices together.

Eat.

Prepare to sleep on the couch when your spouse kicks your smelly a__ out of bed that night.

This is how my daughter assisted with the clean-up after the tree asploded while we took it down…