Archive for the 'Tutorials' category

Making steak

BJ | February 18, 2008 11:29 am

This is specifically a recipe for boneless rib-eye. Fundamentally it’s the same as Alton Brown’s and requires the use of a Cast Iron skillet.

When purchasing the meat, make sure you’re getting a cut that isn’t already old. If it’s graying, it’s already been sitting out under the butcher flourescents for a while so get a cut that hasn’t grayed at all, and look for tight even marbling. The best bet is to find a good butcher.

There’s a few things I’ve altered to make it even better. First let the steaks sit out on butcher paper in your fridge for 2 days. 1 day for each side. We want to use the fridge since it is a dry environment. After the 2 days the steak should look much brighter red and the gristle/fat should take on a more transparent look with dry spots making it look a little splotchy. It’s going to look a little ugly. Remove from the fridge 4 hours or more in order to let them come to room temperature before cooking.

Here is where we start following Alton’s recipe.

Place 10 to 12-inch cast iron skillet in oven and heat oven to 500 degrees. Bring steak(s) to room temperature.

When oven reaches temperature, remove pan and place on range over high heat. Coat steak lightly with oil and season both sides with a generous pinch of salt. Grind on black pepper to taste.

Please note that you can also use light olive oil, (not virgin or extra virgin as their burn points are very very low). For our specific steaks we used salt, something called Garlic Garni, and cracked pepper. My mother uses onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and tarragon, for her rib-eyes.

Now back to the recipe.

Immediately place steak in the middle of hot, dry pan. Cook 30 seconds without moving. Turn with tongs and cook another 30 seconds, then put the pan straight into the oven for 2 minutes. Flip steak and cook for another 2 minutes. (This time is for medium rare steaks. If you prefer medium, add a minute to both of the oven turns.)

Remove steak from pan, cover loosely with foil, and rest for 2 minutes. Serve whole or slice thin and fan onto plate.

Just a note. At these temperatures, we’ll be past the burn point for light Olive Oil and Canola oil. Not to mention the meat itself. I preferred an even crust on both sides so I actually did side 1 for about 40-50 seconds, before flipping then doing the other side for 30 seconds then immediately putting it in the pre-heated oven at 500 degrees. Just a note. When you go in to flip the steak over after 2 minutes (medium rare really is how you want to have steak), the smoke from your oven will probably set off your smoke alarm. Seriously. This is how you want it. If it’s not setting off your smoke alarm you probably need to test them.

There you have it. Have fun. Oh and the drying process that is mentioned prior to Alton’s recipe helps the steak take on a nicer crust, it also gives the steak a more potent flavor as some of the surface water has dried off. Try it. The drying/ageing in the fridge comes from a segment I heard on NPR here in the Dallas area where they were interviewing a chef, it really does make a difference.

Halo 3 Skull Locations - Yes, all 13

BJ | September 25, 2007 11:21 am

Sierra 117 - Silver skull - blind

The first area where the covenant drop ship extends over the small pond. If you go towards the cliff drop off to your right there will be a rock outcropping that is completely bare except for the skull.

Sierra 117 - Gold skull - At the very last area when you’re at the base that the covenant have overrun there’s a long hallway type section over the dam. With the water basin from the damn to your right jump onto the higher area to the right at the edge of the damn. Then continue running across the damn on this higher access point. Jump up onto the concrete abutment and then up to the side of where the large glass ceiling where the jackal sniper were shooting from when you dropped into this area. Walk all the way down this ledge and follow it around the larger concrete structure until you get to the end of the ledge. if you look down and to your right in the corner you’ll find the skull.

Crow’s Nest - Gold Skull

Right when you start you’ll see a large pipe above your head. Jump onto the pipe and run back towards the large video monitor… the skull is on top of the pipe at the end. You can use the railing by the stairs to jump onto the framework around the pipe, then onto the pipe.

Crow’s Nest - Silver - Grunt birthday party.

You’ll get to a section where there are drone’s flying in between pipes, when you’re in some sort of ventilation system. Normally to exit this area you drop down the opposite end where you can in from. What you want to do is creep up to the edge of the drop off. Look straight down and you’ll see a green arrow pointing back. What you want to do is barely fall off the ledge then pull back. You’ll go into a pipe where you’ll find the skull.

Tsavo Highway - Gold skull

There are two methods to get to this skull. I believe after exiting the first large tunnel that had been blocked by the energy shield you had to destroy you’ll see a large pipe to your left and some pumping equipment or something. There’s also a break in the bridge in front of you. Jump fron the equipment bos thing to the pipe, then run along the pipe and jump over the yellow grill/gate. Right after jumping over look to your left and down, you’ll see a large piece of the metal supports for the bridge. Jump onto that. It’s a far enough drop that it’ll take some life from you. Walk all the way to to almost the end of the support then look left, you’ll see a pretty long jump to an outcropping in the cliff face. Jump to it and grab the skull. The other method is just climbing down from the break in the road to the same support beam.

The Storm - Gold Skull

You’ll arrive in an area where you have to take out an anti air wraith. You need to get the skull before both wraiths are taken out, which means you’ll probably have to use the first wraith to jump up, or grenade jump with a regular grenade to get to it. It’s on top of the water/fuel silo looking cylinder right next to where the anti- air wraith was firing from. If you take out both wraiths it will not be there so you need to do this while one is still alive.

Floodgate - Gold Skull

This is right near the beginning of the level. Just proceed as if you’re starting the level. Right after the first checkpoint there will be a flood who jumps from the building on your right to the building on the left. He’s holding the skull. You can’t get on the buildings so you either have to headshot him in mid-air… or the easiest way, throw a grenade right before he appears and because of the explosion the grenade should land on the ground instead of just falling down on one of the roofs. After trying to shoot him 10 times or so you’ll have the timing down on when to toss the grenade behind him. After unsuccessfully timing my headshots a dozen or so times, I got the grenade first time.

The Ark - Gold Skull

While fighting along you’ll come to a large basin with an ark structure on one entire side of the basin. Fight your way through the basin, then next section will take you under the ledge of the ark structure where you’ll get to another ark ledge above your head. Continue around until you get to some rocks that will allow you to get onto the ledge of the second ark structure. Jump onto the ledge and follow it back to the last buttress. This one is a little tricky. as the skull is on the horizontal surface of the buttress. You’ll need to grenade jump out to the horizontal portion of the buttress. The skull is at the end of the buttress.

The Ark - Cowbell - Silver Skull
Note: Credit to Dodgeboy from OT for confirming the location.

Play through The Ark until you get to the Scarab. Kill it, then go into the building with ramps on it to the left of where the scarab came in. There should be a brute chopper in there and maybe some other stuff. Find one of the gravity lifts in there (there are several), and then continue with the mission. From where you killed the scarab, go up the series of ramps with enemies. Get into the building and continue for a few rooms til you get to a long, thin hall with a downward slope. After this room, continue until you meet resistance. Kill em, then continue. The very next room will be a series of downward ramps with a purple hue, unless your tv is messed up. Look at the floor and count the blue dots on the right hand side. Drop the gravity lift on the right hand side of the hall a little to the left of the 4th dot. You’ll see some platforms at the end of this hall on the left hand side that you’d have to walk under if you were normally playing the mission. Run and jump over the gravity lift and try to make it to the top platform. The skull is up on that top platform. It may take you a few shots so make sure you have grenades so you can become an hero and kill yourself to get back to the checkpoint, which is the door you just crossed.

The Covenant - Gold Skull

Play until you get to the Pelican section where you have to fly a pelican around. Fly the pelican around the cliff face to the right, and you’ll see a large forerunner structure. It has a large sloping exterior abutment over a stairway and terrace. the skull is on the terrace area under the sloping abutment.

The Covenant - IWHBYD - Silver Skull

Note: this one is yoinked direct from http://www.halo3planet.com.

Skull Effect: Unlocks hidden dialogue throughout Halo 3’s campaign.

The IWHBYD Skull has been found! After countless hours from the Halo3Planet Community, we finally present you with the location of the final skull, the IWHBYD Skull!

The Skull is located in the level, “The Covenant”. After defeating the Scarabs, and going inside, get to the location with all 7 Ring Holograms. You must jump through the rings in a specific order. That order is as follows (1 is at the entrance, 7 is at the end):

4 5 6 5 7 6 5 4 1 2 3 2 7 2 1 3 4 6 7 5 4 6 5 4 5 3 4

These rings also produce the notes:

E F# G F# A G F# E B C# D C# A C# B D E G A F# E G F# E F# D E

After jumping through them in this sequence, you will be awarded the “I Would Have Been Your Daddy Skull”. It will be right next to the bridge that brings you over to the Prophet of Truth.

Cortana - Gold Skull

Fight through the tunnels until you get to the first area that has a circular purple forerunner structure in it. It’s leaning a bit but that’s okay. As you approach the area for the first time, on your left there will be a slight drop down and a small vertical looking purple thing you can jump on. Jump to the very top of the small vertical piece of the structure. While facing the two large doorway like ends look up and to your left, you’ll see some shale looking outcroppings. You need to jump onto this one. It looks high, but you should make it. Next move to the very outside of the outcropping and turn around and look up, there should be another one. this one is harder to jump to because part of the forerunner structure is directly above you so you have to move to the very edge of this outcropping until you’re sure you don’t hit is while jumping to the next one. Next jump onto the organic looking pipe/tube and walk onto the top of the purple surface. There’ you’ll see organic goo and a skeleton, oh and the gold skull.

Halo - Gold Skull

When starting out, just hug the right cliff face. Keep moving forward until you go into a little cave that curves back around in on itself. The skull is at the end of the little cave. It’s right near the beginning.

Tutorial: Automatically Download Your Favorite TV Shows

BJ | July 14, 2006 8:49 pm

This is a relatively easy and short tutorial for downloading your favorite shows via bittorrent. When Sophia came along, Heather and I decided to cut back on some expenses. Up to that time we had been using DirecTV and TiVo to record and watch all of our favorite shows. This was about 70 bucks a month. Lo and behold, we could get basic cable for about 15 bucks a month. The main problem was, we couldn’t time shift our favorite shows anymore. So I found a free solution. Read on for the details

This tutorial uses the BitTorrent client uTorrent, and the web scraper RSS site tvrss.net. Please note that you can use almost any torrent feed imaginable to supply yourself with television shows. My purchase of an HDTV and Home Theater PC has moved a lot of my feed downloads to a tracker that specializes in high definition content.



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Xbox Soft-Mod Guide

BJ | July 10, 2006 10:20 pm

Everyone with an Xbox should modify it. It’s amazing. You’ll be able to emulate almost every home console from the N64 and playstation 1 on down. My favorite homebrew application is Xbox Media Center. You can use it as a Remote Media Player that will play anything from Xvid to mp3s over your home network.

Modifying your Xbox to run unsigned code without installing a modchip, can be accomplished in various ways. You can run unsigned code by using a hacked save file on an exploitable game. You can run unsigned code via bugs in the MS Dashboard (the green screen with the orb that your Xbox boots into if you start it without a game in the tray). We are going to use a combination of both, in order to modify your Xbox, so it will run unsigned code by default. It’s actually very easy to do, so hit the jump for the full tutorial.


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