Brandon's Blog » Tech

Dear Big Media.

Brandon — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 19:12:48 +0000

This is a perfect example on how you stop piracy. You sell us content with no restrictions (DRM). You be polite and you do not attack you own customers. Watch the video and take notes.

Video Codecs 101.

Brandon — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 04:29:54 +0000

The WebM project posted two videos about video codecs and video compression. I think they did a good job explaining the subject to the non-techie crowd.

Video Codecs 101

WebM: A Video Codec for the Web

WebM Project’s blog post.

Ubuntu 11.10 Released!

Brandon — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 14:04:57 +0000

It is finally here! And the new features look great. Check out the video by OMG! Ubuntu that highlights some of the improvements.

I know what I will be doing with my evening!
Read OMG! Ubuntu’s post about the release.

New Firewall.

Brandon — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 18:19:39 +0000

Setting up the new firewall at work. WE CAN HAZ NEW FIREWALZ AND SUBNETZ!

Startup folder Hell.

Brandon — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 15:24:08 +0000

I think you could use a few moar programs in your startup folder.

Testing My Solar Oven.

Brandon — Sun, 22 May 2011 16:50:57 +0000

I have recently purchased a solar oven from Amazon.com. The oven is made in the good ol’ USA by Sun Ovens. The manual recommended that I heat a pot of soap and water before cooking anything in the oven so I thought that would be a great chance to test the oven out. It was an overcast day with the sun peaking out every 10 to 15 minutes and the outside temperature was 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

Soap, water and sun check!

As soon as I set the oven up the temperature jumped to 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Awesome! The time was 4:00 p.m.

4:15 p.m. 230 degrees Fahrenheit.

4:30 p.m. 240 degrees Fahrenheit.

Getting very steamy in there!

I had to open the oven to clean off the condensation in order to read the gauge which dropped the temperature back down to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. 5:00 p.m.

The sun was setting so I decided to follow it by tilting the oven towards the sun using the included stand.

Great feature of this oven is the built in adjustable stand.

Had to open it up to snap the picture due the condensation. 250 degrees Fahrenheit at 5:30 p.m.

The sun was setting behind some trees by 6:00 p.m. 220 degrees Fahrenheit.

I am guessing the reason the manual says to heat up a pan of soap and water is to disinfect the oven and it did get rid of the new car smell. My findings are thus: On an 80 degree day with overcast skies the oven will hold a temp close to 250 degrees Fahrenheit if you don’t open the door very often. What I have here is a free energy slow cooker in these conditions. Which is great because meat and chicken cooked all day slow is really tender and juicy! I also suspect the statements about the moist bake goods that come out of these ovens are true. The manual does recommend that you cover what you are cooking unless it is bake goods. It states you cook those just like you would in a conventional oven. The oven heated up to 150 degrees Fahrenheit very quickly so making noodle dishes or hot tea would be a snap in this little gem.

I am not sure if I could have built one myself for the price ($289). The time and the materials may have been more expensive with the cost of the metal used. I think I am going to enjoy using the oven and since my stove is an electric I hope to save on electricity bills this summer while I am running my A/C unit.

Linux Turns 20 Years Old!

Brandon — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 04:38:04 +0000

This year the Linux Operating System turned 20. Here is a video with the details.