Italian Seitan Sausage

Dry Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cups Vital Wheat Gluten (found in most health food stores)
• ¾ cup Nutritional Yeast (found in most health food stores)
• ¼ cup Garbanzo Bean Flour (or any flour of your liking)
• 3 Tablespoons Onion powder
• 4 Tablespoons Paprika
• 2 Tablespoons Fennel Seeds
• 1 Tablespoons Crushed Red Pepper (aka Chili Flakes)
• 1 Tablespoon Oregano
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• 2 teaspoons Black Pepper

Wet Ingredients:

• 2 ½ cups Water
• 1 Tablespoon Minced Garlic
• ¼ cup Olive Oil
• 2 Tablespoons Tamari or Braggs

Preparation

1. Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
2. Mix all the wet ingredients and add to dry ingredients. Mix well to combine. You should have a very wet feeling dough.
3. Scoop a 1/2 cup of dough and place on a square sheet of aluminum foil.
4. Now roll the dough into the shape of a sausage link. I made ‘brautwurst’ sized links.
5. In a steamer place all the sausage links in a single row. Steam for 30-45 minutes.
6. Remove from steamer and let cool. These can either be eaten immediately or can be refrigerated or frozen for later use. Keep wrapped in foil until needed. These can be treated exactly like meat sausages, cooked with some kraut, sliced, fried and added to an Italian dish, or simply eaten on a bun.

Notes

• I have used the same recipe to make meatless balls - I have found that the silicone cake pop molds work great! Two batches fill up my xl crockpot for making meatless ball subs at potlucks.
• I originally took this recipe from rockinthestove.com, but their site is down.

Microsoft No Longer Offering Custom Domain Hosting

In my last post I discussed the problems I've had with Microsoft's Live Domain hosting for email. As it turns out, I think I fell into the period where they were winding down support for their service anyways. As of a few days ago, Microsoft is no longer offering custom domain hosting for email as a free service. Like Google, they have opted to monetize the service.

I'm fairly pleased with Zoho's service so far...however, I have encountered one issue when it comes to their support. They offer 5 email accounts for free, and offer bonus accounts when you refer other domains. I have added a secondary domain successfully and received the bonus accounts. However, I have not received the bonus accounts for the second domain that I referred (maybe because they realize it was another domain owned by me). Fortunately I do have a couple of smaller potential clients that I will be setting up sites for so I can probably gain the needed additional users I need for one of my larger client's base.

Google Apps Alternatives

Since Google decided to no longer offer a free version of their Apps suite there has been a void that has been difficult to fill. I've been aware of numerous paid options, but trying to find a free option has been difficult - especially one that has the capabilities that are similar to those offered by Google.

Most recently, I opted to use Microsoft's Live Domains offerings. Not only do they offer mail, but the account ties in with their OneDrive cloud storage, and Office Online. However, there is one glaring issue that I could not deal with. The ability to reset user passwords is not available upon setup, and the only way to obtain this capability is to post in the user forums (not easy to find) and hope that a moderator gets around to (1) viewing your post, and (2) responding to you and setting up the capability.

It was nearly a month between when I posted in the forums before I got a response, and then their moderator seemed to be unclear as to whether my domains were registered with Microsoft's domains.live.com. After almost another week, I opted to leave Microsoft and head over to Zoho.

Zoho offers 5 email accounts, each with 5GB of space. They offer their own document suite, complete with dropbox synchronization. The also offer up to 15 additional "bonus" accounts for referring others to use their services.

So far, I'd say I'm pleased with their offerings.

Long overdue updates...

I'm in serious need of updating my site, so expect some changes soon.

I've been in the process of setting up a few sites for a few friends. First off, you've got The Box, which is owned by Jon Tan (a.k.a. Jon Box) - an eclectic collective of performers and artists who are working to build a thriving art & music community in Erie.

Then you also have Jenna Colby. She's an amazing artist (or paint slinger, as she prefers) that I'm so grateful to have gotten to know and start sharing my life with.  I highly recommend checking out her stuff...and not just because I'm dating the artist.

I've got a few more potential clients in the works, so there may be even more updates before too long!

Windows 8

I am almost embarrassed to admit this... I have been playing around with Windows 8, and it's not nearly as horrible as I thought it might be. It'll take some getting used to, but having dealt with the interface of the Xbox 360, it's not extremely dissimilar. Microsoft is clearly going for consistency between their various products, which would also feed into their new logo.

However...this does not mean it will be all that easy for newcomers to the UI. I honestly think it'll be a challenge for people who have are used to the Win95->on layout and Start menu. Good luck for those of you who have non-tech savvy parents who might be upgrading to Win8.

If you haven't seen the vid, check out Chris Pirillo and his dad experimenting with Windows 8. (link)

QR Codes

I've been experimenting with QR codes lately, and they are extremely interesting & versatile ways of distributing information. The primary uses of these two-dimensional barcodes has been to link users to websites for more information about products and services, or to link users to apps in the iOS & Android marketplaces.

One of the many uses of QR codes is to differentiate yourself from the competition. With the prevalence of smartphones, more and more people have access to QR code readers, and almost every recruiter will have a smartphone and is familiar with these boxy images. One way to make your resume or business card stand out would be to incorporate a QR code that links to an online portfolio. Not only will your card/resume stand out, but while a recruiter at a job fair is standing there, they could scan your QR code and gain additional information about you that they wouldn't have had the opportunity to otherwise.

The QR code that I have incorporated into my resume and the business cards I'm developing links to my personal website where recruiters can not only access an online copy of my resume, but also my web portfolio and my Linked-In profile.

For more info on QR codes, you can check out the Wikipedia page, or you can check out QR Codes Anywhere and the Social QR Code blog.

OS X 10.8 - Mountain Lion

So far am liking Mountain Lion - it's definitely not revolutionary, but it's a nice evolutionary development from Lion. So far only one program I use (Snapz Pro X) isn't working at this time...but the developers are working on it.

Once again, not that my laptop was feeling sluggish - but still, I've got that new-OS feel where it's gotten 'teh snappy' feeling. I'd say that it's worth the $19.99 to drop on the upgrade to Apple's latest operating system.