Isaac Adams

Streaming iTunes to your iPhone or iPad

Isaac — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 02:26:54 +0000

By Isaac Adams-Hands

Here is a quick tutorial on how to stream your iTunes library from a PC or Mac to an iPhone, iPad, iPod…

If you are unfamiliar with Streaming, it allows you to play music and videos stored in your iTunes library on a Mac/PC computer over a home WiFi network without actually storing them on your mobile device.

First, go to iTunes >> Advanced >> Turn On Home Sharing

Turn on Home Sharing >> enter your iTunes username and password

* If you need help with your Apple ID. You can create, manage, reset, and even find out if you already have one at: https://appleid.apple.com/

Then on your Apple device (an was iPhone used for this example)

Go to the Home Screen on your device and select >> Settings

Select >> Music

Enter your Home Sharing information

Select More >> Shared

Select your Library

Check your stream

Enjoy!

Revisited: The McDonalds Hamburger

Isaac — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 01:20:40 +0000

By Isaac Adams-Hands

The Results:

It didn’t mould!

If this confirms your beliefs, that McDonalds hamburgers are chemical derived food, with absolutely no nutrition, then read no further.

The Theory behind the burger

Things we know so far:

A plain McDonald’s Hamburger, when left out in the open air, does not mold or decompose.
In order for mold to grow, a few things need to be present: mold spores, air, moisture, and a reasonably hospitable climate

Given those two facts, there are a number of theories as to why a McDonald’s burger might not rot:

There is some kind of chemical preservative in the beef and/or bun and/or the wrapping that is not found in a normal burger and/or bun that creates an inhospitable environment for mold to grow.
The high salt level of a McDonald’s burger is preventing the burger from rotting.
The small size of a McDonald’s hamburger is allowing it to dehydrate fast enough that there is not enough moisture present for mold to grow
There are no mold spores present on McDonald’s hamburgers, nor in the air in and around where the burgers were stored.
There is no air in the the environment where the McDonald’s hamburgers were stored

Of these theories, we can immediately eliminate 5, for reasons too obvious to enumerate. As for number 4, it’s probably true that there are no live molds on a hamburger when you first receive it, as they are cooked on an extremely hot griddle from both sides to an internal temperature of at least 165°F—hot enough to destroy any mold. But in the air where they were stored? Most likely there’s mold present. There’s mold everywhere.

Theory 1 is the one most often concluded in the various blogs out there, but there doesn’t seem to be strong evidence one way or the other. If we are to believe packaging and nutrition labeling (and I see no reason not to), there are preservatives in a McDonald’s bun, but no more than in your average loaf of bread from the supermarket. A regular loaf of supermarket bread certainly rots, so why not the McD’s? Their beef is also (according to them) 100% ground beef, so nothing funny going on there, is there?

You need to include a control. Something in which you already know whether or not the variable being tested is present.

Sample 1: A plain McDonald’s hamburger stored on a plate in the open air outside of its wrapper.
Sample 2: A plain burger made from home-ground fresh all-natural chuck of the exact dimensions as the McDonald’s burger, on a standard store-bought toasted bun.
Sample 3: A plain burger with a home-ground patty, but a McDonald’s bun.
Sample 4: A plain burger with a McDonald’s patty on a store-bought bun.
Sample 5: A plain McDonald’s burger stored in its original packaging.
Sample 6: A plain McDonald’s burger made without any salt, stored in the open air.
Sample 7: A plain McDonald’s Quarter Pounder, stored in the open air.
Sample 8: A homemade burger the exact dimension of a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder.
Sample 9:A plain McDonald’s Angus Third Pounder, stored in the open air

The Results

Turns out that not only did the regular McDonald’s burgers not rot, but the home-ground burgers did not rot either. Samples one through five had shrunk a bit (especially the beef patties), but they showed no signs of decomposition.

What does this mean?

Because of the larger size of a Quarter Pounder, it simply takes longer to dehydrate, giving mold more of a chance to grow.

The McDonalds Hamburgers are essentially burger-jerky. A completely dehydrated product that will never rot, as without moisture, nothing can survive.

This is because 93% of the moisture loss in a regular burger occurs within the first three days. The Quarter Pounder, on the other hand, takes a full 7 days to dehydrate to the same degree. It’s during this extra three day period that the mold growth began to appear (and of course, once the burger had dehydrated sufficiently, the mold growth stopped—the burger looked the same on day 14 as they did on day 7).

So Can It Mold?

The final two burgers I tested were a McDonald’s burger and a regular homemade burger of the same dimensions placed in plastic zipper-lock bags side by side. Hopefully the bag would trap in enough moisture.

The question: Would they rot?

Indeed they do. Within a week, both burgers were nearly covered in little white spots of mold, eventually turning into the green and black spotted beast you see above.

The Conclusion

The burger doesn’t rot because it’s small size and relatively large surface area help it to lose moisture very fast. Without moisture, there’s no mold or bacterial growth. Of course, that the meat is pretty much sterile to begin with due to the high cooking temperature helps things along as well. It’s not really surprising. Humans have known about this phenomenon for thousands of years. After all, how do you think beef jerky is made?

Now don’t get me wrong—I don’t have a dog in this fight either way. I really couldn’t care less whether or not the McDonald’s burger rotted or didn’t. I don’t often eat their burgers, and will continue to not often eat their burgers. My problem is not with McDonald’s. My problem is with bad science.

For all of you McDonald’s haters out there: Don’t worry. There are still plenty of reasons to dislike the company! But for now, I hope you’ll have it my way and put aside your beef with their beef.

[Sources]

Mobile Facebook: Posting links on friends walls

Isaac — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 19:17:41 +0000

By Isaac Adams-Hands

Here is a very quick tutorial on how to add links to friends Facebook walls when you are on a smart phone:

1. Find a link you’d like to share.

2. Copy the URL

3. Open Facebook

4. Find the friend you’d like to share the content with

5. Paste the link in “Write Post”

Why people friend / unfriend you on Facebook

Isaac — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 01:01:27 +0000

Why people friend / unfriend you on Facebook

How-to: unfriend and unsubscribe people on Facebook

Isaac — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 00:47:02 +0000

By Isaac Adams-Hands

With Facebook constantly changing and upgrading, here is a quick tutorial on how to Unsubscribe (a.k.a. Hide) or Unfriend people on Facebook.

Unsubscribe

(formerly known as “Hide”)

On your Facebook feed, find a post that you wish to hide, click on the downward arrow, then select Unsubscribe from…

If you decide that you do not wish to Unsubscribe, but would like to see less of their posts, select Only Important in the drop down menu.

Unfriend

When you want to Unfriend a person. Go to their Facebook page. Click on ✓ Friends on the right hand side, then scroll to the bottom of the list and select Unfriend

How to make money on the Internet [Infographic]

Isaac — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 02:01:29 +0000

Money making idea #1: Build a website, but make people pay to see it.
Money making idea #2: Flip a flood-raveged home using your blog’s valuation as equity.
Money making idea #3: Make a search engine like Google, but better.

The psychology of colour [Infographic]

Isaac — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 01:35:20 +0000

We all know colours are a big deal in nearly everything. We also know that colour can have many psychological effects on us as humans. Different colours represent different things, and sometimes can represent different things in different countries.

The Effect of Colours

Green – Health, tranquillity, money, nature.
Purple – Royalty, wealth, success, wisdom.
Pink – Calming, love, romance.
White – Purity, innocence, empty, spacious.
Black – Evil, death, mourning, slimming.
Brown – Reliability, boredom, practicality, earth.
Orange – Excitement, enthusiasm, warmth, caution.

What Colour Should You Paint Your Home?

White – Gives the effect of purity, space and cleanliness. Great for bathrooms to represent cleanliness. Also great for small rooms to give a more open feeling.
Blue – Seen as a productive colour. Great for offices and workspaces.
Green – Ideal for the bedroom. Gives off the effect of tranquillity and health.
Pink – Obviously seen as a very feminine colour in the western part of the world. Ideal for girls rooms and other feminine things.
Purple – Great for the living room. Very calm and relaxing colour.
Yellow – Ideal colour for the kitchen. People say it’s great for metabolism. Gives the effect of energy too.
Red – Great for encouraging your appetite. It’s why you see brands such as KFC, McDonalds and others use it in their logos and restaurants.

Is Social Media worth it?

Isaac — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 17:33:45 +0000

By Isaac Adams-Hands

It’s hard to stay away from social media sites. Almost everyone is using them to promote their business or for personal use. From a business stand point; there are advantages and disadvantages of using social media for your business.

Advantages

It’s free! Setting up an account is easy and ready to go in a several minutes. When using social media sites to promote your business, it has the potential to go viral.
It drives traffic to your site.
It helps build credibility, exposure and transparency.
It builds relationships and brings people together through similar interests, ideas, thoughts and conversations.
It helps with your online branding.
It’s an easy way to share and educate others about your products, services and industry.
It’s a good way to build a community with local people.
It’s another way to provide customer support and get customer feedback.

Disadvantages

Social media is time consuming so it’s easy to spend a lot of time doing non-business socializing. It’s easy to be involved in more than two social networking sites and spreading yourself thin will do more damage than good.
To be effective, you have to be consistent with your presence. You can’t promote your business now and then. You need to interact and continue to build relationships.
How well you handle yourself in negative light and not owning up to your mistakes and correcting them can ruin your reputation. Word of mouth negativity travels quickly in social media outlets.
In order to get social media’s full effect, you need to understand how it works, when and how to use it and which channels to focus on depending on your end goal of using social media.

The importance of a good Web Producer

Isaac — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 01:27:03 +0000

By Isaac Adams-Hands

When managing a business website, it is easy to want to skimp on content management, marketing, social media, and search engine management costs.

If you do not plan on having a Web Producer / Internet Marketing Specialist, instead using someone internally to take on the extra workload, here are some very basic issues in content management that you need to remember.

4 Common mistakes in Content Management

1. Not making sure everything is working.

A major website should never have broken links, broken images, and missing content, especially on the homepage. Broken links need to be repaired immediately. Broken content is unprofessional and makes the website lack creditability.

Here is an example of broken links left for more then 3 weeks:

2. The layout must be uniform.

a. Font and text size needs be consistent with the companies style guide.

Click to enlarge

b. Images need to be saved for web (cropped, in colour, JPEG, optimized @ 60%), and properly aligned (not on top of each other)
c. Everything has to be SEO friendly. That means images should be named “first-name-last-name.jpg”, and not named “DSC0987.gif”

3. No “dirty” code

Uploaded content needs to be clean, not just copied and pasted into the CMS (content management system)

Dirty code examples:

4. Not adhering to the company’s Style Guide.

Every company has specific branding and style guides that must be applied.

RIM (BlackBerry) and Skype have specific style guides that stand out from the rest. They are creative, specific, and exact.

Style Guide examples: [RIM.pdf] [Skype.pdf]

Click to enlarge image

Remembering these rudimentarily steps, and avoiding these mistakes, are a vital part in making a successful, profitable website.

Advantages and responsibilities of a good Web Producer

Responsible for day-to-day maintenance of a global website
Coordinate with Content Editors to ensure updated information presented on global website and micro sites
Coordinate troubleshooting of technical problems
Coordinate and monitor the production of web implementation projects for business initiatives including the e-campaigns and social media
Support the production and development of applications and visuals

The Ten Legal Commandments of Photography

Isaac — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 22:53:02 +0000

I. Anyone in a public place can take pictures of anything they want. Public places include parks, sidewalks, malls, etc. Malls? Yeah. Even though it’s technically private property, being open to the public makes it public space.
II. If you are on public property, you can take pictures of private property. If a building, for example, is visible from the sidewalk, it’s fair game.
III. If you are on private property and are asked not to take pictures, you are obligated to honor that request. This includes posted signs.
IV. Sensitive government buildings (military bases, nuclear facilities) can prohibit photography if it is deemed a threat to national security.
V. People can be photographed if they are in public (without their consent) unless they have secluded themselves and can expect a reasonable degree of privacy. Kids swimming in a fountain? Okay. Somebody entering their PIN at the ATM? Not okay.
VI. The following can almost always be photographed from public places, despite popular opinion:

accident & fire scenes, criminal activities
bridges & other infrastructure, transportation facilities (i.e. airports)
industrial facilities, Superfund sites
public utilities, residential & commercial buildings
children, celebrities, law enforcement officers
UFOs, the Loch Ness Monster, Chuck Norris

VII. Although “security” is often given as the reason somebody doesn’t want you to take photos, it’s rarely valid. Taking a photo of a publicly visible subject does not constitute terrorism, nor does it infringe on a company’s trade secrets.
VIII. If you are challenged, you do not have to explain why you are taking pictures, nor to you have to disclose your identity (except in some cases when questioned by a law enforcement officer.)
IX. Private parties have very limited rights to detain you against your will, and can be subject to legal action if they harass you.
X.If someone tries to confiscate your camera and/or film, you don’t have to give it to them. If they take it by force or threaten you, they can be liable for things like theft and coercion. Even law enforcement officers need a court order.

What to do if you’re confronted

Be respectful and polite. Use good judgement and don’t escalate the situation.
If the person becomes combative or difficult, think about calling the police.
Threats, detention, and taking your camera are all grounds for legal or civil actions on your part. Be sure to get the person’s name, employer, and what legal grounds they claim for their actions.
If you don’t want to involve the authorities, go above the person’s head to their supervisor or their company’s public relations department.
Call your local TV and radio stations and see if they want to do a story about your civil liberties.
Put the story on the web yourself if need be.