From a web forward:

I never realized that a wet dishcloth can be a one size fits all lid to cover a fire in a pan. This is a dramatic video (30-second, very short) about how to deal with a common kitchen fire... Oil in a frying pan. Read the following introduction, then watch the show... It's a real eye-opener!!

At the Fire Fighting Training school they would demonstrate this with a deep fat fryer set on the fire field. An instructor would don a fire suit and using an 8 oz. cup at the end of a 10 foot pole, toss water onto the grease fire. The results got the attention of the students.

The water, being heavier than oil, sinks to the bottom where it instantly becomes heated. The explosive force of the steam blows the burning oil up and out. On the open field, it became a thirty foot high fireball that resembled a nuclear blast. Inside the confines of a kitchen, the fire ball hits the ceiling and fills the entire room.

Also, do not throw sugar or flour on a grease fire. One cup creates the explosive force of two sticks of dynamite.

BeaterBlade+

A few weeks (maybe more) back, Nicki was telling me about 'a replacement beater for Kitchenaid mixers that had a built in spatula that scraped down the bowl as it mixes...'

I did a little bit of research and found out that it was called the BeaterBlade+.

While browsing through Cooks Warehouse today in Brookhaven, I saw one and picked it up for 30 bucks (twice the cost of one of Kitchenaid's attachments).

I guess I'll make another batch of chocolate chip cookies and see how it goes...

Twitter

Ok... I did it. I signed up for Twitter.

Not only that, but I downloaded the blackberry app for it.

If you want... join me: viiiwonder, and we can stay connected.

Hugin [cool software]

So today, I was re-formatting one of my user's computers and going through their currently installed software when I saw some Canon utilities installed. I would rather etch a drawing than have to install the software that comes with a Canon digital camera - 10 different versions of 7 utilities and their plugins for working with photo formats you'll never even hear of... (you get the idea - if you buy a digital camera, leave the CD in the box.)

The user expressed concern over the fact that he used the Canon software to stitch panoramas together, so I told him 'give me a minute to find something better, because I know it has to be out there, AND open source...'

Sure enough, I found Hugin, an open source project that utilizes a few other utilities together in a graphical interface that does a bang up job of combining separate photos into a panoramic image.

I called the user in and asked them if they had any source images they had stitched together so we could try them out. Turns out, they deleted all their previous source images once the stitches were done.

He went and grabbed his camera and took a few shots of me. A few minutes later, without even consulting a manual, we produced this amazing stitch (click for larger image):

Anyways... for free and that easy, I had to pass it along.

I think I may write up a list of all the open source applications that I think are worth while...