Apple iPod event 2010 predictions

On 01/09/2010, in tech, by thomas

Here are my predictions for this year’s iPod event. Mostly based on rumors and intuition.

Certain

New iPod touch and nano

New iPods. iPod touches are guarantied, so are nanos. I believe that the rumors of a touch-based nano is true, but I don’t know if the screen is the only input.

The iPod Touch will be much more like the iPhone 4, certainly on the inside but also partially on the outside. At least one camera should be a given, but I won’t say for certain if it will be front, back or both. My gut feeling is that there will be both, but that the back cam won’t mach the iPhone 4′s.

Likely

iPod classic and shuffle

I don’t know about the iPod classic or the shuffle, but my guess is that the shuffle will be replaced or dropped. The classic is dependant on how much the storage is increased in the touch.

New iTunes

I haven’t read anything to suggest this, but I believe that Apple will launch a streaming service and iTunes X (10) to follow. It will have both music and movie streaming.

iTV

This rumor comes from the almighty Kevin Rose. The Apple TV will be redone based on iOS and renamed to iTV. It will be a part of the grand streaming plan. It will be priced to sell at $99.

The only rumor I won’t buy is the 720p limit. It would be downright stupid to have such a limit. It would put of many buyers, me included.

iOS 4 for iPad

This would be very possible. This hasn’t been mentioned in rumors, but the time is right. Media features may be the excuse for launching it at this event.

Unlikely but possible

  • New iPhone with fixed antenna
  • iTV is an actual TV
  • New Macbook Air (with iOS?)

Edging to impossible

  • Steve jobs uses the word “sorry” related to the antenna issue
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Salmon fillet with home made sauce

On 24/08/2010, in iPhone, by thomas

Perfect salmon with white sauce

This was an instant favorite when I found the perfect combination. It took some trial and error, especially with the sauce, but I’ve found it.

Since I never measure spices exactly, it might take a couple of tries to get this perfect, but this recipe is a great starting point for a perfect fish meal.

I’m going to skip vegetables for this dish, as it works with a lot of different stuff. I used steamed vegetables. Rice works great too.

Ingredients (2 persons)

  • 2 salmon fillets (100-150g each)
  • Olive oil
  • Soy sauce
  • Milk (4dl)
  • Cream (1dl)
  • Lemon juice
  • Butter (150g)
  • Mild cheese (20g, grated. I used Tine Norvegia)
  • Parmesan cheese (20g, grated)
  • Flour (2 tablespoons)
  • 1/2 vegetable stock cube
  • Spices (fish spice mix, garlic powder, pepper, salt)

Recipe

Marinade for the fillets

Make a marinade for the fish: 3/5 parts olive oil, 1/5 part soy sauce, 1/5 parts lemon juice. Season richly with salt and pepper. Brush the marinade on all sides of the fillets and pour the rest over the top. Turn the fish in the marinade every few minutes while you prepare and cook the vegetables.

Sauce

Melt the butter in a kettle and add the flour. Stir until mixed. Add a little milk and cream and stir. Keep adding a little bit at a time and let it boil in between until the consistency is how you like your sauce.

Add the grated cheese, parmesan, 1/2 stock cube and seasoning. For the seasoning, you should have about two teaspoons of fish spice mix, one teaspoon garlic powder and salt and pepper to taste. More salt than pepper.

Keep adding seasoning and other ingredients until it tastes great.

Frying the fillets

This may be a little different depending if you have skin on your fillets or not. I prefer having skin on my fillets because it is easier to cook and cheaper. Warm a pan up to medium /high heat (I use heat setting 7 out of 9).

Fry the fish on each side for almost 2 minutes (fried but not burned). Keep turning the fish until all sides are done. If you have skin on your fish you can let it rest on the skin for a little while longer when the other sides are done.

The end result should look something like my picture above, and taste wonderful. Good luck.

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Back from a week in Greece

On 23/08/2010, in food, meta, projects, tech, by thomas

Sunset from a family restaurant in Platanias

I’m back from a week in Greece. I chose not to tell you beforehand because of insurance reasons. I had a great time, both relaxing and getting much inspiration for food and drinks. I’m experimenting my way to the perfect frozen strawberry daiquiri and much more.

Being away from technology for week was easier and more refreshing than I’d expected. Getting back to my web habits will likely take some days, but I’ll hopefully throw up some articles and recipes soon. I’m also looking forward to my new iPhone project together with Kristian Hjelle. In his words:

Kristian Hjelle and Thomas Sunde Nielsen (That’s me) = awesome little application. In the meantime, enjoy your tea!

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How to: Set up a disk nuke station

On 06/08/2010, in tech, by thomas

My nuke station

Every IT department should have a way to securely erase old hard drives before you throw them way. This is my suggestion for a DIY solution.

Find some free desk space

It helps to have a permanent place to do this. It can be dual-purpose as a test lab, but should not be someones desk. A great dual use is to use the same desk space for fixing problematic computers and preparing new ones.

Find a spare monitor, keyboard and mouse

These doesn’t need to be any good, just usable. I use an old HP 17″ flat screen and old PS/2 keyboard and mouse. If I weren’t using a permanent nuking machine, I’d go for USB instead.

The nuke machine

Here you have two options. You can either bring every computer to nuke to this desk, or you can take out the hard drives and have a permanent machine at the place.

I chose the latter one because many of the hard drives I need to nuke are in non-working computers.

Preferably the computer you choose has both SATA and IDE connectors. If not, you can find many nice external disk connection kits that use USB or firewire (or use E-SATA).

I use an old Dell Optiplex small form factor computer, because it is easy to open and replace the drives.

The software

Screenshot of DBAN. I use the autonuke option.

You can probably buy some expensive software to use, but I prefer to use Darik’s boot and nuke. It is free and very secure. Nobody will ever be able to recover the data when DBAN is done. The computer you use must be able to boot from a CD for this software to work.

Just download the CD image and burn to a CD, and you’re ready to go. Put the CD in the CD drive of the “victim” computer, and restart.

You might need to set the CD to a higher boot priority in the BIOS if the software doesn’t automatically run.

I use the autonuke option, because it is easy and will thoroughtly clean the system for all data.

Tips

  • WARNING: All attached drives will be ereased, including USB drives!
  • The time it takes to nuke a disk depends on the capacity and speed of the disk.
  • Don’t use this for SSDs if you plan to reuse them! This can permanently degrade the performance!
  • You can connect multiple disks at once.
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New landing pages

On 05/08/2010, in marketing, meta, tech, by thomas

I’ve made new landing pages for my tech and marketing writing. Currently they contain an explanation of my interrest and a collection of select articles. Check it out at http://thomassnielsen.com/tech and http://thomassnielsen.com/marketing.

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