Brew the Best Cup of Loose Tea Ever, Effortlessly

I'm a serious tea junkie and what better time to cozy up to a mug of tea than the winter. I only really drink loose tea. These days my favourite teas are Japanese Green Tea (usually Bancha), Tulsi Tea (Organic India), and Sage Leaf Tea. I do occasionally brew Camomile and Mint. I usually use organic leaves, but if the Green Tea is Japanese I will make exceptions.

I've been brewing tea for a long time. I don't drink coffee because I can't handle the caffeine. Even decaf is too much. Besides I love tea. I went through a Yerba Mate stage. I loved it, but ultimately I found my body didn't take to the stuff.

I've brewed tea in all sorts of ways. My favourite ways up until recently were to brew it 1) in a bodum, 2) in a Japanese cast tea pot, or 3) brew it in a glass mug with a stainless strainer (the kind you buy at Japanese shops). Forget about tea balls, etc. because loose tea needs to be able to float freely.

Macbook Pro 2.26 Ghz 13 Inch: Brief Review

Thought I'd do a quick post on my impressions of the June 2009 release of the Macbook Pro 13" entry level configuration. I sold my 2.4 Ghz late 2008 Macbook Unibody in order to finance this purchase. I had updated the stock drive on the previous machine to a 500 GB Seagate. So the update was painless. I just moved the drive over and swapped out the RAM for the 4 GBS I had.

The 2009 Macbook Pro I find feels more solid without that flimsy battery hatch on the 2008 machine. The display is also light years ahead in terms of viewing angles, color and the general look of images, text and webpages. The battery is obviously superior. I found it charged much faster after running it down for the first calibration. Obviously the addition of the extra ports, like SD and Firewire are an added bonus.

How to speed up Apple's Magic Mouse: MouseZoom

I love the new Magic Mouse. Some people say that the clicking is a bit stiff, and so it is. But I can live with it. I like the way it feels. Coming from a PC, I like a fast mouse. But even with the Magic Mouse cranked to full speed I find it a bit slow for my liking. Enter MouseZoom. It hasn't been updated in a while, but it works great under Snow Leopard. It gives you the ability to get some more speed from the Magic Mouse. Sweet. Download the utility here.

A brief review of Safari 4 Beta: Possibly the world's best browser?

I'm a recent convert to OS X. I've been a Firefox guy. Gotta love all those plugins! Although you can get Firefox 3.x looking pretty cool on OS X with the GrApple Delicious theme, it isn't integrated with services, which is a pain. Anyhow, I thought I'd give Safari and Camino a whirl. I checked out Camino and it's great too, but I find it a bit limited for my needs in its current iteration, and a bit slow (even 2.x beta). So, I started playing around with Safari 4 beta.

Use Steel Reinforced Epoxy Putty to Stop Thieves From Stealing Your Bike Parts

Losing your bike to a low-life thief sucks; losing your bike parts comes pretty close. Personally, I recommend the New York U lock by Kryptonite, if you harbour any thoughts of hanging on to your bike in the big city. Lock it to something that can't be cut or easily broken; remove the front wheel and lock it to the back wheel and frame; old school. If you don't want to remove your front wheel, then use secure stays, like Pinheads, or get used to living without your front wheel. Use the smallest lock possible. The New York Standard (SD) is a good side, unless you're a messenger. Avoid cables or chains; even the best of them can be easily cut with the right bolt cutters; they're generally a waste of time and money. Carry an extra quick release stay in case someone takes the one from your front wheel. Replace quick release back stays with something less removable.

IBM Model M Keyboard & OS X

I just got a new Macbook Aluminum unibody. I'm loving this machine so much. But when I'm at home, I like to plug into a 24 inch screen and I love to type on the IBM Model M keyboard, probably the best keyboard ever built. I have 3 of them. Anyhow, I did some googling around to try to find a solution to remapping the Mac Command key to the right control key on the M. Most of the key remapper programs out there do not appear to support OS X 10.5.x or Leopard. Anyhow, I found a little program called PCKeyboardHack that did the trick. It allowed me to map the right control key to the Mac Command key. Obviously you could go into the preferences -> keyboard & mouse and under "modifier keys" you could map the cap locks key to command for all keyboards. Personally, I use that key. So, that wasn't a solution for me. Anyhow, download PCKeyboardHack here if you think it might be useful to you. Update: PCKeyBoardHack works with all current versions of OS X including Lion.

Copernic Desktop Search 3.0 Home (Free) Version gone to the dogs!!

I loved Copernic Desktop Search v2.3. It was better than Google, or Windows, or even X1. Anyhow, they've just released version 3.0 and they've taken back what has been given for free in previous versions. No more search as you type, or saving searches, for instance. And the biggie is that they're making the free version adware! Absolute Nonsense! Anyhow, I would suggest finding version 2.3 on one of those old version download sites and downloading that until something better comes along. Copernic, you're on the wrong track. Taking back features in an upgrade is pretty bad practice. Obviously greed is overtaking common sense. Why not just make the Pro version so much better that previous Home version users will gladly shell out the $50? It puts a bad taste in user's mouths and makes you not want to go Pro even if you might otherwise have. Anyhow, sticking with version 2.3 until something better comes along. Copernic Desktop Search 3.0 Review