Book 2013.03.28 - Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

The novel by John Berendt reads like a history of Savannah and its myriad inhabitants. Central narrative revolves around antiques dealer Jim Williams and his alleged murder of Danny Hansford, a local male prostitute. After four trials spanning almost a decade, Jim was finally acquitted. A few months later, he died of heart attack.

What's remarkable about the book is that it's supposed to be non-fiction. The characters and stories are based on real people and events in Savannah, although the sequence have been altered a bit. Still, it makes for compelling reading. Heard that the movie adaptation didn't perform well at the box office.

Goodbye, Google Reader

Very, very surprised to find out that Google is killing off Reader after July 1, 2013 in another round of spring-cleaning. I mean, out of Google's many offering, Reader is the one I use the most. Even more than Gmail and Search. And that's saying something. It's the only way I go through my hourly fix of tech news, product reviews, blog posts, and online bargains. Without Google Reader, I'll probably have to spend literally hours visiting each and every website on my subscription list. Or not.

And it's not just me, I guess. I started looking for alternative RSS readers. Don't even mention Flipboard or Google Currents. I want a real down-to-earth RSS reader. The Old Reader, Feedly, and NewsBlur are supposedly good contenders for the throne, but they're getting hammered bad at the moment. "Declining usage"? Right.

I've checked my stats just now: "Since April 2, 2006 you have read a total of 203,721 items." I'm gonna miss you, Google Reader.

Recipe 2013.03.10 - Leche Flan

Ingredients

• 110g (½ cup) caster sugar
• 6 eggs
• 395g can condensed milk
• 375ml can evaporated milk

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 180°C.
2. Put sugar in a loaf pan and heat. Swirl around until sugar becomes caramel. Stand for 5 minutes.
3. Beat eggs in a bowl. Add in condensed milk and evaporated milk and mix well. Pour into the pan through a sieve and cover pan with foil.
4. Place loaf pan in a roasting pan filled with boiling water up to the halfway mark.
5. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes until firm.

Other recipes call for egg yolks only. Try it.

Books 2013.03.08 - The Hunger Games Trilogy

I'm surprised that The Hunger Games trilogy is classified as children's books. Relatively heavy reading for kids. You've got civil wars and assassinations, torture and murder, deception and delusion, pain and suffering, blood and gore. How did these become children's books? Maybe kids nowadays are more sophisticated.

That said, I liked the trilogy a lot. Better than the Harry Potter series, if I have to make a comparison. The movie doesn't do justice to the book, but still would be interesting to watch Catching Fire when it comes out in 2013, and Mockingjay in 2014 and 2015.

Upgrading the Atrix-MROM

Let me say it again, Atrix-MROM is the most stable ROM I've tried for the Motorola Atrix 4G. No complaints whatsoever. Upgrading is a cinch, too. Nothing to re-install, nothing to re-configure.

Basically, you download the Atrix-MROM-update package. Copy it to your internal or external SD card. Reboot to recovery. Install from ZIP. Wipe cache/Dalvik. Reboot. Simple as that. Remember, the first boot always takes longer.

Restoring iPod Classic

So I got this 120GB 6th generation iPod Classic on eBay. I noticed that it's running a bit slower than normal. Here's how to check the hard disk stats:

1. Press Menu and Select simultaneously until iPod reboots.
2. Immediately, press Menu and |<< simultaneously to go into Diagnostics Boot mode.
3. Go to Manual Test, then I/O, then Hard Drive, then HD Smart Data.

You'll then get a screen that shows you counters for reallocs and pending sectors. The higher the count, the higher probability that you're hard disk is being bogged down by bad sectors. Your best bet is to replace the hard drive, but if you're a cheapskate like me, there are still a couple of options.

Option 1: Use Windows to attempt recovery of bad sectors

1. Press Menu and Select simultaneously until iPod reboots.
2. Immediately, press Play and Select simultaneously to go to disk mode.
3. Make sure iTunes is configued NOT to sync with iPods automatically.
4. Connect iPod to PC.From Windows Explorer, right-click on the iPod drive, go to Properties, then Tools. Under Error-checking, press Check Now. Under Check disk options, tick Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors.

In my case, Windows didn't detect anything wrong. So we take the more drastic option.

Option 2: Format the hard disk
Again, go to disk mode. Use Windows to format the iPod drive.
In my case, Windows reported that it cannot format my drive.
Regardless, fire up iTunes, and do a Restore.
In my case, HD diagnostics reported the same bad stats as before. But give it a try - might just work for you.