Making cider: Here are two gallons of Cider I started. One will be dry and the other sweet.
So you want to try home brewing, but you don’t want to spend a lot of money on something that you’re not sure you’re going to like? Well, here’s a super easy way to get started without spending lots of money.

I’m talking about making hard cider. Technically, this isn’t really “brewing” since you’re not actually cooking anything. And it really has more in common with winemaking, than beer brewing, but it will get you off on the right foot.

QR code

I first learned of QR codes from a colleague who spent time in Japan. These little bar codes are fairly ubiquitous in Japan.

QR codes are square barcodes in which you can embed text Web links, SMS messages or phone numbers. Using a camera phone, you can snap a photo of the QR code and special software will decode the hidden message.

Conehead Eddie

There are two lessons in this post. Most importantly, never, ever let your dog chew on a corn cob. Secondly, buy health insurance for your pet – it’s well worth it!

Unbeknown to us, Eddie our Jack Russell Terrier got a hold of a corn cob at a family barbecue and ate the whole thing. Unfortunately corn cobs don’t digest in a dog’s digestive system and part of it got stuck in his intestines. The blockage was preventing any food or water from going through, which means he’d die unless it was removed.

For some reason, I could never get the cron jobs feature setup from Fatcow.com, my Web hosting company. This morning, I decided to look around and see if there was any free con job services out there.