Matt McQuillan

Aug 13 / 5:31am

Sunday Morning Caffeine Perfection

Espresso and dark chocolate almond milk make the best combination.

Aug 1 / 7:54am

I am smitten with VirtualBox + Debian

Using a virtual machine with Debian is so much easier to develop in than trying to get all of the [ PHP | Python | Mongo | Memcache ] stuff to work properly in windows land. VirtualBox has been incredibly easy to setup, use and is very stable.

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Jul 14 / 6:51am

What I Learned All Over Again Camping This Past Weekend

It has been a few years since my last unsuccessful camping trip and too many years since my last successful one.

It takes three bug bites before I am smart enough to put on bug spray.
As the size of a camping party increases, so is the likelihood that they have somebody who knows every campfire song every written.
Campfire songs sung at midnight are not as much fun as the ones sung three hours prior.
Cicadas are much better heard and not seen.
Man made lakes are still lakes. but you must look only from a certain angle.
Most of this country has been entirely clearcut and the evidence of early reforestation projects are all around (grids of trees).
Cured meats rule and take away that whole messy internal temperature worry.
Avoiding a step in mud is not an obvious rule to a boy.
Keep the tent zipper closed is the #1 rule.
The best part of the Nature Center is the air conditioning.
E-books make it hard to have a firm "no electronics" rule while camping.
There is never enough chocolate, but always too much marshmallows and graham crackers.

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Jun 23 / 8:32am

Styling Nightmares

Larger font. Highlighted. Bolded. Underlined. All caps. Something tells me this is confusingly important.

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Apr 2 / 4:56am

Why is there always a bad egg?

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Mar 26 / 2:04pm

Natural, not Normal

I love the word choice here, "oil separation is natural" not normal.

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Mar 20 / 8:45am

Rye Chocolate Bread v1

This was a spur of the moment creation as I was in the mood for rye
bread and wanted to keep the tart theme with some cocoa powder added
for a bit of fun. Turned out pretty good.

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Mar 15 / 10:58am

I Love Microsoft's Enthusiasm for 64bit

...and yes, I know what WOW means.

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Mar 15 / 5:40am

High Tech Office Equipment

Are those #2 pencils?

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Mar 13 / 11:44am

Pecan & Cinnamon Bread v1

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Mar 5 / 10:43am

New Development Environment

It's been a while since I have owned a computer of my own. As much as I love my Google Chrome CR-48, it is hardly a proper dev machine. I have tried to do some amount of playing around on my Amazon EC2 instance, which is a Debian Linux machine with a few basic tools installed. I do love some good command line action and know my way around VI, but it shall never compete with a good graphical editor for common use when I am spoiled with Visual Studio at work.

I purchased an HP laptop, dumped the prefab OS install and here is what I ended up loading.

Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/compare/ultimate.aspx
Microsoft Security Essentials http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/
Windows Live Essentials http://explore.live.com/windows-live-essentials
7-Zip http://www.7-zip.org/
Drop Box https://www.dropbox.com/
Evernote Windows Client http://evernote.com/
Meebo Notifier http://www.meebo.com/notifier/
Google Chrome http://www.google.com/chrome
Mozilla Firefox http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
Opera http://www.opera.com/
Safari http://www.apple.com/safari/download/
Rdio Desktop http://www.rdio.com/apps/desktop/
WampServer http://www.wampserver.com/en/
Slik Subversion http://www.sliksvn.com/en/download
Komodo Edit http://www.activestate.com/komodo-edit

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Feb 19 / 9:35am

Maple Oat Bread v3

Went for a baton shape this time and did some nice ribbed cuts into the dough for a more artistic flair.

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Feb 6 / 6:28pm

Maple Oat Bread v2

Took out the Kahlua as it was lost in the flavor and upped the amount
of maple. With a nice dusting of oats and a smaller loaf size, it
looks nice. We shall see how it tastes.

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