Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free Pizza Dough

We've recently discovered Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free Pizza Dough and have made some tweaks to the orignial recipe to make 12-inch pizza suitable for two people. These instructions are quite similar to what's on the website except that I bake it a little longer initially so that the gluten-free crust isn't as soggy when we put on the cheese.

Ingredients

• 8 oz of the pizza mix (half of the 16 oz package), approximately 1.7 cups
• 3/4 cup water
• 1 tsp yeast (half of the included packet)
• 1 egg
• 1 Tbsp olive oil

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 425° F and oil a 12-inch pizza pan
2. Heat the water to 100° F. I usually heat about half a cup in a microwave for 30 seconds and then add/remove water. Some recommend a lower or higher temperature and just use your discretion.
3. In a large bowl, combine water and yeast. Let stand for 5 minutes while the yeast dissolves. Stir in eggs and oil. Add GF Pizza Crust Mix and stir until ingredients are completely combined. The dough is going to be a little sticky and that's expected. This is step 2 in the original recipe.
4. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow to rise 20 minutes. 
5. Place dough in the center of the prepared pizza pan. Cover dough with a large piece of plastic wrap because it's going to be a little sticky. Using your hands, roll or press the dough flat to fit the pan. Use your fingers on top of the plastic to create a crust edge
6. Remove plastic wrap and bake without toppings for 12 minutes. This is 5 minutes longer than the recipe recommends, and I bake it a little longer initially so that the gluten-free crust isn't as soggy when we put on the cheese. I got 12 minutes after trying the recommended 7 minutes and also 10 minutes. 
7. Remove from oven and cover with your favorite sauce and toppings. Store-bought is fine 😀. Bake for an additional 10-13 minutes, until crust is golden brown. Makes one 12-inch pizza.

What to do after finishing Codecademy Web Design

This is a tutorial on what to do once you've finished building a website in the fantastic Codecademy tutorials and want to make your own web pages and limited apps. This tutorial specifically describes how to set up a website hosted by GitHub using the Github Desktop GUI in OSX, though everything should look about the same in Windows.

Check it out here: https://github.com/jwsy/example-website

Prerequisites

• Know the fundamentals of web design, HTML, CSS, and JS from Codecademy or another course
• Register for and setup a GitHub account at https://github.com
• Install the Atom text editor, "a hackable text editor for the 21st Century"
• Install GitHub Desktop, "a seamless way to contribute to projects on GitHub and GitHub Enterprise."

Overview

We'll start by setting up a your "development environment" and then creating and contributing to a repository in GitHub. Ultimately, we'll finish with a page hosted on the internet that you can access from anywhere.

Initial Setup

1. Install the Atom text editor
2. Get an account at https://github.com. Once you've created your account, create a new repository by clicking the '+' sign next to your profile pic in the upper right.
   
3. Create a repository, in this example I create one named example-website. Make it Public and use the defaults.
   
4. Once the repository is created, install and configure GitHub Desktop. Configuration requires you to sign in with your Github account credentials that you created earlier.
   
5. In GitHub Desktop, click the '+' in the upper left and clone the repo you just created.
   

Congratulations, you're ready to start building your webpage! 😄

Create your local webpage

1. Once you've cloned the repo to your computer, let's build a local webpage stored on your computer. Click the branch button and create a new branch named gh-pages -- this name is important and more detail about this can be found in the GitHub Pages documentation.
   
2. In GitHub Desktop, edit your repo in your text editor Atom by right-clicking the repo and selecting Open in Atom. Be sure that the repo you're working on is gh-pages as shown in the upper-right of the below image.
   
   You should see Atom like this, and note the location in the window title. The location should look like /Users//GitHub/example-website
   
3. In Atom, create an index.html file by right-clicking the repo name and selecting New File, and name the file index.html.
   
   
4. Add in your basic HTML to index.html. This should feel just like the Codecademy coding "IDE" (Interactive Development Environment) except now you're out of a browser and creating an actual file on your computer. You can copy the one I used in the example from here:
   
   Keen eyed readers will notice that I missed the closing '>' in my title tag. It doesn't change anything in the tutorial, but good eye 👍
5. You can view this actual file on your computer by right-clicking the index.html file and selecting "Show in Finder"
   
   
   Double-clicking the index.html file should open it up in a web browser where you can see your code rendered like it would be if you were to host it on the internet.
   
   Try making more changes to index.html and refreshing your browser.

Host your page in GitHub Pages

1. Now that you've got a working page in your repo, make a commit and push it to GitHub where it will be hosted. To do this, go back to GitHub Desktop, enter a commit message like "Create index.html" and click the Commit to gh-pages button -- it's important to make sure you're committing to gh-pages. Then click the Sync button in the upper right to copy your repo to GitHub Pages.
   
2. Visit your project site at https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/example-website. If you change the branch from master to gh-pages, you should see the files you've committed.
   
   
3. Finally, view your page at http://YOUR_USERNAME.github.io/example-website (mine is http://jwsy.github.io/example-website) -- congratulations! 😄
   

Update your website

1. Go back to Atom and add a css folder for CSS and a style.css stylesheet for your page.
   To add the folder, right-click below the files in the left pane.
   
   
2. Right-click the new css folder and create a style.css file.
   
3. Edit style.css to add some color to the page, just like how you did in Codecademy. See my papayawhip example here.
   
4. Edit index.html and add a link to the stylesheet you just added. In this example, I add:

     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/style.css">

   
5. View your local website the same way you did before by selecting Show in Finder and opening the file in your browser. Mine looked like this, and note the URL that starts with "file:///"
   
6. Go back to GitHub Desktop and take a look at how it's tracked your changes. You should see your stylesheet and HTML as the two changes.
   Like before, add a commit message, click the Commit to gh-pages button, and click the Sync button.
   If you want to make more changes, follow the same workflow of editing locally, committing, and syncing.
   
7. Go to your project site on GitHub, visit the gh-pages branch, and make sure that your new CSS folder and updated index page are there.
   
   And finally, visit your updated page with your updated code.
   
   Get into the console View -> Developer -> JavaScript Console and see that you can do JQuery selectors and actions.
   

Congratulations: you've made your own simple website using the skills you've learned at Codecademy and hosted it in GitHub Pages! 😄

Simplest Twitter data gathering & initial analysis

I’ve been trying to lower the barriers for entry into data mining & analysis, and think that I’m at the end of the rainbow thanks to code from Mining the Social Web and the Wakari platform that you can check out here: https://www.wakari.io/sharing/bundle/jwsy/Mining%20the%20Social%20Web%20in%20Wakari

Creating an account, executing the notebook, and analyzing data takes _under a minute_ if you have Twitter API keys handy.

The code adapted from the first chapter of Mining the Social Web takes you from nothing to analyzing the lexicographical diversity of tweets, and if that piques your interest, there’s a lot more where it came from at http://miningthesocialweb.com/ like this recent post about analyzing the Amazon Prime Air Twitter reaction:  http://nbviewer.ipython.org/github/ptwobrussell/Mining-the-Social-Web-2nd-Edition/blob/master/ipynb/__Understanding%20the%20Reaction%20to%20Amazon%20Prime%20Air.ipynb

Bonus Shortcat love - keyboard shortcut in Chrome to Duplicate a tab

So after a few minutes of using Shortcat (http://shortcatapp.com/), I'm a huge fan :)

First, I've found a way to get the ribbon interface in Mac OSX Office 2011 that I've described in this post: http://jyeee.blogspot.com/2013/06/ribbon-interface-in-mac-office-2011.html

It's also given me a keyboard shortcut (sequence) in Chrome to Duplicate a tab:

• --Space (cmd-shift-space)
• '.' (period)
• -k (control-k) - note that this could be a different letter, and control-e would work just as well
• -Enter (control-enter) which performs a right-click
• 'd' - selects Duplicate
• Enter

Keyboard shortcut for ribbon interface in Mac Office 2011 with @shortcatapp

Thanks to Shortcat (http://shortcatapp.com/), I can access the Office ribbon interface in Mac OSX Office 2011 with a keyboard shortcut!

After installing Shortcat, use this key sequence to select the Home ribbon tab (which is alt,h):

• --Space (cmd-shift-space) to activate Shortcat
• '.' (period) to display all available Shortcat options
• -J (control-j or whatever letter is above the home ribbon tab) to select the home tab 
• Enter

While a casual observer may think that this is too much of a hassle, this keyboard sequence is extremely helpful when you're working with multiple large monitors and your mouse is far from where you need it to be.

No audio from Thunderbolt to HDMI

I recently bought a Belkin mini DisplayPort Thunderbolt-to-HDMI cable so I could watch videos played on a MacBook Air on my TV. Unfortunately, while video played on the TV, there was no audio. Video played, but there was no sound.

To get audio, I followed the instructions on this page: http://www.justanswer.com/mac-computers/5kqkc-no-sound-youtube-sound-everything-else-i-e.html.

The instructions from the wise Mac Druid were to delete the Macromedia folder: ~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia

Open up the Terminal app and type these two commands:

cd ~/Library/Preferences
rm -rf Macromedia/

Growl notification trigger not opening app or having no reaction on click

Growl is a great way of being politely notified of system events in OSX. I recently upgraded and bought Growl on the app store, and like many other users, I had problems like:

"Clicking notification doesnt open the app that triggered the notification"

or

"zero reaction on clicks when a new notification pops up"

I had this problem because I had a previous version of Growl before upgrading.

To restore this very handy functionality, install the Growl Version Detective (http://growl.info/downloads#generaldownloads currently 1.2.2) and upgrade the Framework version on your app like shown below.

After updating the Framework version for iTerm and Adium, I was able to click on the Growl notification and have that action restore the focus to the respective applications.

Select your app and click "Upgrade FW"

Change OSX volume keyboard shortcut

There isn't a way to customize the keyboard shortcut to increase or decrease (i.e. change) the volume in OSX. That's unfortunate, because it's difficult to hit the fn button in the far bottom left of the keyboard and the F12 button in the far upper right of the keyboard if you're holding a beautiful baby like Bronwyn Massey.

This article provides instructions on how to make your own keyboard shortcut to change the volume on your mac with Applescript and Quicksilver. Since Applescript comes with OSX, you'll only need to download Quicksilver (http://qsapp.com/). Quicksilver is a very handy app that helps you quickly launch programs and has a global hotkey feature for free (vs. Alfred that requires you to buy their powerpack).

1. Get the Applescript code here or in my GitHub repo (https://github.com/jwsy/ChangeVolumeApplescript) and paste it into the Applescript Editor. You'll have to repeat these steps for each individual script.     

 2. Test the code by hitting the Run button. You should see the syntax highlighting and a growl notification in the upper right. If you don't have growl, just delete lines 6-12.

3. Save the script with File Format: Application. You'll need to move the resulting DVolume.app into the /Applications/Utilities folder or somewhere that Quicksilver will index in its catalog. OSX might prevent you from saving directly to /Applications/Utilities, so you might have to save to your desktop first and then copy it to /Applications/Utilities.

4. Finally, open your Quicksilver preferences and create a new HotKey (i.e. keyboard shortcut) in the Triggers tab.

Creating a keyboard shortcut is easy in Quicksilver ^_^

 

I set the keyboard shortcut to option+F3. Note that I'm using my F keys as standard function keys as shown below in the Keyboard settings. If you don't have this checked below (no check is the default setting), you can set the shortcut to fn+F3.