girton’s devnotes

What is Farro?

Farro, an ancient wheat grain, has become quite popular these days among ingredient-driven chefs and cooks. With this new found interest a lot of misinformation has also come along. I’m not sure when it began, but possibly as a result of a misinformed article written by Heidi Julavits in a New York Times Sunday magazine piece from November 2008. Julavits made a classic mistake often made by food writers in relying on morphological characteristics in trying to understand wheat taxonomy as has her source popular food science writer Harold McGee. Modern germ plasm research has superseded morphological characteristics as a means of taxonomic identification for a variety of reasons and studies using DNA-based molecular markers such as random amplified polymorphic DNA markers (RAPD), simple sequence repeats (SSRs), and amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs) are needed to settle these types of questions.

From the blog Mediterranean Cooking with Clifford A. Wright -- no recipe in this blog post, but I have pre-ordered the Best Soups in the World cookbook.

Next, I have my main computer, which I use for doing research and outlines, as well as light blogging. There are two reasons why I don’t use it for hard core volume writing: firstly, because it’s too easy to end up spending hours on wikipedia or playing World of Warcraft, and secondly because I recently replaced my office chair with a balance board. I got the idea from the Walkstation trend, but I can’t afford a treadmill so I’m using a balance board instead. I would not recommend this at all to people who weren’t fairly experienced with a balance board, but it is a very cheap solution for those of us who are. And for those able to get an actual treadmill, I can’t recommend it enough. Pros: get exercise while at your computer, and have all the computing power you need to have a dozen tabs open in Firefox while taking notes in OpenOffice. Cons: Lots of distractions, including occasionally falling over.

A slow computer with Ubuntu ("ooo you've got some ubuntu on your shoe!") beats out a faster computer with a balance board any day...

We look forward to theRantingGeek.com 's evaluation of iPhone vs. other writing tools.

Thumbnail	Tool Name	Homepage	Tags
	Ample SDK	http://amplesdk.com/	javascript, library, code
	Bespin	http://bespin.mozilla.com/	editor, code
	BrowserLab	http://labs.adobe.com/techlogies/browserlab/	xbrowser, debug, test
	Cappuccino	http://cappuccino.org/	library, code
	CodeBurner	http://tools.sitepoint.com/codeburner/	firebug, debug, docs
	Crosshair	http://www.sprymedia.co.uk/article/Crosshair	bookmarklet, layout, css, debug, test
	CSS Janus	http://cssjanus.commoner.com/	css, code
	CSS Selector Shell	http://selector-shell.appspot.com/	css, test
	CSS Sprite Generator	http://spritegen.website-performance.org/	css, design, deploy
	CSS Text Wrapper	http://www.csstextwrap.com/	css, design, code
	CSSTidy	http://csstidy.sourceforge.net/	css, code
	DabbleDB	http://dabbledb.com/
	Deploy	http://projectdeploy.org/	utility, deploy
	Dojo	http://www.dojotoolkit.org/	javascript, library, code
	DOM Lint	http://thinkweb2.com/projects/prototype/domlint-resolving-name-conflicts/	dom, lint, test
	Doodle.js	http://www.lamberta.org/blog/doodle/	canvas, design, code
	Drawter	http://drawter.com/	jquery, design
	DWR	http://directwebremoting.org/dwr	library, java
	EtherPad	http://etherpad.com/	utility, comet, code
	Ext JS	http://extjs.com/	javascript, library, code
	Favicon Generator	http://favicon-generator.org/editor/	design
	Firebug	http://getfirebug.com/	firefox, debug
	FireUnit	http://fireunit.org/	firefox, firebug, test
	Google Plugin for Eclipse	http://code.google.com/eclipse/	eclipse, google, code
	GWT	http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/	javascript, library, google, code
	Hammerhead	http://stevesouders.com/hammerhead/	firebug, debug, test
	iPhoneDebug	http://code.google.com/p/iphonedebug/	iphone, mobile, debug
	Javascript beautifier	http://jsbeautifier.org/	javascript, code, debug
	JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit	http://thejit.org/	javascript, design, code
	JavaScript Memory Leak Detector	http://blogs.msdn.com/gpde/pages/javascript-memory-leak-detector.aspx	memory, javascript, debug
	Jawr	https://jawr.dev.java.net/	java, css, deploy
	jQuery	http://jquery.com	javascript, library, code
	jQuery Tools	http://flowplayer.org/tools/index.html	jquery, code
	JS.Class	http://jsclass.jcoglan.com/	javascript, library, code
	JSLint	http://www.jslint.com/	javascript, lint, debug, test
	JSLint Multi	http://code.google.com/p/jslint-multi-widget/	javascript, lint, test
	JSLitmus	http://broofa.com/Tools/JSLitmus/	javascript, benchmark, test
	JSMin	http://javascript.crockford.com/jsmin.html	javascript, deploy
	JSON Diff	http://tlrobinson.net/projects/js/jsondiff/	javascript, debug
	JSONView	http://brh.numbera.com/blog/index.php/2009/02/24/jsonview-view-json-documents-in-firefox/	javascript, json, test
	Juicer	http://www.cjohansen./en/ruby/juicer_a_css_and_javascript_packaging_tool	package, deploy
	MODIv2	http://slayeroffice.com/tools/modi/v2.0/modi_help.html	dom, debug
	MooTools	http://mootools.net	javascript, library, code
	MySpace Performance Tracker	http://msfast.myspace.com/	performance, deploy
	Opera Dragonfly	http://www.opera.com/dragonfly/	opera, debug
	Page Speed	http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/	performance, deploy
	Pencil	http://www.evolus.vn/Pencil/	design
	Processing.js	http://processingjs.org/	canvas, design, code
	Prototype	http://prototypejs.org/	javascript, library, code
	RegexPal	http://regexpal.com/	regex, code
	Rule	http://www.sprymedia.co.uk/article/Rule	debug, test
	Scriptaculous	http://script.aculo.us/	javascript, library, design, code, test
	Scripty2	http://scripty2.com/	javascript, library, design, code
	Selenium	http://seleniumhq.org/	test
	Silme	http://wiki.braniecki.net/Silme	l10n, test
	SpriteMe	http://www.stevesouders.com/spriteme/	css, performance, deploy
	Sprockets	http://getsprockets.com/	ruby, package, deploy
	Style Master	http://www.westciv.com/style_master/	css, code
	TestSwarm	http://testswarm.com/	test
	Titanium	http://www.appcelerator.com/products/titanium-desktop/	framework, code
	TraceTool	http://www.codeproject.com/KB/trace/tracetool.aspx	debug
	UA Profiler	http://stevesouders.com/ua/	performance, test
	Visual Event	http://www.sprymedia.co.uk/article/Visual+Event	dom, debug, test
	WaveMaker	http://www.wavemaker.com/	editor, code
	XBug	http://www.xbug.co.uk/	debug
	XRAY	http://www.westciv.com/xray/	css, layout, debug
	YAML Debug	http://debug.yaml.de/	test
	YSlow	http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow/	performance, debug, test
	YUI	http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/	javascript, library, code
	YUI Compressor Online	http://yui.2clics.net/	package, deploy
	YUI CSS Grid Builder

Of course the mozillans do provide a simple interface, one which doesn't require the new "Canvas" feature, a new standard (as we used to say, that will make all other standards obsolete?) that is only met by the very latest browsers.

This new repository comes in response to what Mozilla says is a lack of any centralized and navigable list of open-source tools. The Open Web Tools Directory site features a search box with Design, Code, Debug, Test, Deploy and Docs filters to help direct programmers to the applications most suited to their needs.

"It turns out that keeping up with all the development in this space is really difficult--even for folks like us who have been tracking it every day for years," Galbraith said. "We're looking forward to evolving the directory and working with the Web community to make it a vibrant resource for discovering and tracking the Web's amazing tools universe."

The index is laid out in what Galbraith describes as a "space" theme, with scattered thumbnails rather than a listing. Developers interested in reviewing that index of tools will need a browser with Canvas

Once upon a time, in the dawn of Mac, there was a really cool object database that looked just like this -- with a picture of each item. It was the neatest thing, up until a certain point -- maybe around 600 entries -- when it became completely unusable.

The look of this web page reminds me of that decades-old interface mistake.