Magic Jewball

Hope everyone had a delightful Purim and/or is having a happy Easter!

First off, the bake sale is over but thank you so much! It was hugely successful and we’ll have another one late this year with a different kind of treat (maybe rugelach will make a repeat appearance). Sorry for the lack of posts but I wanted that one to stay on top, plus I was busy baking. And will be for a while!

Second, for those who are interested in the aftermath of the Station Fire, there is a special tonight at 10pm on VH1. There was a tribute concert and excerpts of that will be shown as well.

Lastly, I did not, in fact, win the contest on Randa Clay’s site for my Just.Do.It post (boo! hiss!) but I think it was more meant for tech and practical blogs, rather than personal ones. As well, I was going to write that post anyway if not exactly framed that way, so it’s OK. And I was glad to inspire and get inspired by the various comments.

Oh, and an update on something I mentioned on a Page: Nalby lost at Indian Wells this week. But I don’t mind! He lost to Chokemaster Mardy Fish, my second favorite player who then went on to beat… Roger Federer! He’s in the final today. Godspeed, Chokemaster!

It’s Monday in Australia and you know what that means: tennis is back! Game on! So far I have nothing to say about that, though. Lucky for you, non-tennis fan. Tomorrow it’s Monday in the US and if you had as many tech feeds as I have, you’d know that Macworld begins. What does that mean for me? Nothing! Despite having a MacBook Pro and really loving it, I’m not a fanboy. Or fangirl, although I’ve never heard that term used. I don’t even use any of the programs that came with my Mac, other than iTunes and I’m actively looking for a replacement for that. So I thought I’d use this occasion to describe to you all my favorite non-Apple programs that fill my hard drive with utility. Also, lots of people probably got shiny new Macs over the holidays and your minds are fresh and open!

If you are a non-tennis fan and PC user, today is not your day on J-Ball. Come back tomorrow. No, actually, many of these are available for PC. And they’re all free! I’ll go in alphabetical order.

Adium is the program I use instead of iChat. Adium is the sister-program of Pidgin for PC’s and I can see all my AIM and gTalk contacts in on place. It also plays Crowded House’s “I get your tongue in the mail” line when I get e-mail. But that was my customization.

Audacity lets me edit song files. Make your own ringtones!

Burn does just that. It burns CD’s and DVD’s. This is how I make DVD’s because I find iDVD clunky and full of all kinds of stuff I never use.

Cyberduck is yet another bird themed program that I use for ftp.

DoubleCommand lets me remap my keyboard. I use that for precisely one thing: to make shift-delete do a forward delete. The fn key is way too far away to make this convenient the way Apple has it set up.

ffmpegx is what I use to convert video from one format to another.

FireFox is the browser I use instead of Safari. Safari makes sites look prettier but FF has all those add-ons that I can no longer live without.

Gimp is the open-source (read: free) substitute for Photoshop, if you do Photoshoppy type things.

Handbrake rips my DVD’s to my hard drive so I can load them onto my iPod. Then people can look over my shoulder on the subway while I watch The Simpsons.

Max is a program that encodes CD’s. That is, I use it to rip CD’s to my hard drive because iTunes doesn’t use LAME, what I consider the best encoder. You can also use it to encode in lots of other formats, like Ogg and FLAC and others. Occasionally, I use iTunes-LAME, which encodes right in iTunes.

MPEG Streamclip is what I use to edit video. I find iMovie iAnnoying.

Quinn is Tetris. That’s all you really need to know.

Senuti (read it backwards) moves songs from my iPod to my hard drive. Sometimes I rip a CD at work and then I want to listen to it on my home computer. And there we are.

Skype is a “phone over Internet” program. It’s free to call people who also have Skype and reeeeally cheap to call those who don’t. You’ll need a headset.

SuperDuper! is the back-up program I use. I don’t have Leopard but even if I did, it doesn’t make bootable back-ups. It’s free for the basic and like $28 for the version with the bells and whistles.

Thunderbird is the e-mail program I use instead of Mail. I use it because it’s cross-platform, so I keep it on a USB drive and tote it around between my work PC and home Mac. You need a special script to do that but it’s easy. Even easier is if you have either two PC’s or two Macs.

VLC is what I use instead of Quicktime. It plays lots of video formats that QT can’t or won’t.

Wiretap Pro (I have the paid version but the free one does quite a lot) records any sound the Mac is making. This includes cassettes that I want to import and make into mp3’s, Skype conversations with sketchy customer service people (check legality in your state - in NY only one person needs to give consent), Internet radio interviews, etc.

I should also mention Songbird, which is Mozilla’s (the FireFox and Thunderbird people) alternate to iTunes. But it’s in Beta and is full of bugs. So I downloaded it but never use it.

I also have lots of candy in my menu bar.

Alarm Clock makes the most expensive one you’ll own. I use it as a kitchen timer, actually.

Google Notifier tells me when I have Gmail.

You Control Tunes puts the controls to my music in the menu bar so I don’t have to switch programs when I’m in another and want to change songs or pause.

Show Desktop is something I missed from PC’s (actually, that’s their slogan: “The only good pc feature, now on the macintosh”). It automatically hides all your active windows so your desktop is clear.

If you have any others, please share! I’ll need something to distract me from Nalby’s foibles this week.

Title comes from:
The Who - Substitute

Bakery is closed! Thanks so much to everyone who donated - you raised $200 for Doctors Without Borders. And soon, if the USPS actually understands what “Priority Mail” is supposed to mean, rugelach will be spanning the globe. And I mean globe the same way Major League Baseball understands “World” in the phrase “World Series.”

That’s a lot of dough!

Maybe we’ll do this again next year. Or sooner but with easier cookies.

Supertramp - Give A Little Bit

My, the pictures in the last post looked good. You could practically taste them. If only you had the time or the inclination to make rugelach. Or you lived above Zabar’s. Or you knew me. Yes, I will be willing to make you a batch of rugelach (about 40-45) for a small donation to my favorite charity, Doctors Without Borders. And shipping. No handling. What the fuck does handling mean anyway? I don’t really want my stuff handled. So! Let’s have a FAQ, shall we? Faqtastic.

But Becca, I thought they were so labor intensive?
They are. Indeed. But I am off all next week. And did I mention? I won’t be in London. I will be right here.

What’s Doctors Without Borders?
To quote them, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières is an independent international medical humanitarian organization that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural or man-made disasters, or exclusion from health care in more than 70 countries.

To quote me, they are completely non-political and help poor and needy people who need healthcare all around the world.

You can read more here.

Who pays for the ingredients? Who pays for the shipping?
I pay for the ingredients. That’s my donation. And it isn’t even tax-deductible! You pay the shipping. That isn’t tax deductible either.

Shipping will be via USPS priority mail, otherwise they will be stale. If you want to pay for faster, be my guest. You can calculate your shipping here:

http://postcalc.usps.gov/

It will be about 1.5 pounds in a package from 10025. The average seems to be $6-$7.

But I don’t want you to know where I live.
Unless you would like to meet me on the west side of Manhattan, you will have to give me an address to ship to, sorry.

So how much of a donation?
Whatever you feel comfortable with. Let’s say, minimum $15. This part is tax-deductible.

I don’t like raspberry. Can you make another flavor?
Sure, anything they sell in jelly. Preserves don’t work. I hear apricot is good but I don’t like apricot. It’s my understanding that there are different strokes for different folks, though.

I’m allergic to nuts. Are you nuts?
Yes, I am. But the rugelach have no nuts. Or eggs. They do have wheat and milk, though. If this matters to you, they are suitable for vegetarians and are kosher-dairy. If it doesn’t matter to you, they are still suitable for vegetarians and kosher-dairy.

How many calories?
It’s for charity!

What’s your deadline? I mean, what if I want them in January? I have a lot of cookies in my world right now.
I’d like to be done by New Year’s But I can’t say how busy I’ll be later on; maybe we can work something out.

How do I pay?
I have a charity page set up at firstgiving and it all goes through them. It’s a secure website and you will get proof of your donation for tax purposes. They’re slow on FireFox, though, sorry about that.

Shipping goes directly to me through my PayPal account.

I’ll send you all the details when I get your e-mail. So that’s it! Drop me an email at becca at magicjewball dot com and place your order today. Feel free to ask any other questions in the comments area or through e-mail. Thanks for your interest in Jewish pastry!

PS, invest in good coffee beans in advance.

Due to circumstances beyond my control, J-Ball will be on a short hiatus. If you’d like to do your part in entertaining each other please fill in the blank of your choice.

a. You know what movie you should see? ______.
b. This one time at band camp ______.
c. ______ will win the ________ party nomination for President of the United States.

Thanks and see you soon.