Today I attempted (successfully at the moment!) something that I have been looking to do for a long time now, an upgrade to my oldest Mac Mini.  I finally got round to installing the two memory chips that I have had for ages, to make the total RAM in my music centre to 1GB.

I have two Mac Mini computers and jolly good they are too.  The one I use all the time (I am typing this on it now) is a newer version of the affordable, compact Mac desktop.  It has an 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 2gb RAM.  I also have a Mac Mini that is connected up to the TV downstairs which works as a media centre, streaming music around the house, and in particular into the rooms downstairs.  This Mac Mini is a little older, and in fact I got it a little cheaper as it was being super seeded by the new generation minis at the time.  Its is a 1.83GHz Core Duo processor and just 512mb of RAM which for just playing music in iTunes was fine.

Anyway I wanted to upgrade for the simple reason that I wanted to install Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard on it and therefore I thought that it would be much better suited to having at least 1GB RAM.  I also had to spare 512mb chips handy because when I bought my newest mini that had been upgraded, it came with the original chips, which I thought that the time I could use to upgrade my media centre mini downstairs.

I have put it off so long because I have been aprehensive about doing the job.  Mac Minis are, well, mini and compact and therefore poking around inside them can’t be the easiest of jobs and if you don’t know what you are doing then something could easily go a miss.  I searched around the net for a few minutes and found endless guides on how to replace the memory in an Intel Mac Mini, many of them where video tutorials and they are all pretty easy to follow.

The hardest part of the upgrade was getting the case of the Mac.  You have to prize it off with a putty knife or a thin wall paper scraper would do the job.  Its hard because you really don’t want to put too much pressure on the case as I was affraid of breaking it.  However you do need a little brute force in order to free.  I did make some minor scratches on the case, but most of the internet guides said as much.  The good thing is, is that the marks are left on the bottom so that you don’t see them when the Mac is in use.

From there is was easy, however beware as at the front there is a small black wire that needs to be removed in order to lift off the CD Drive and hard disk, and you must remember to replace it.  I forgot to replace it and although the Mac worked the fan was going mad and therefore I assume it is something like a temperatire sensor.

On Saturday night I experienced my first comedy night.  We decided to take a trip to the Guild Hall Preston for an evening of comedy with the Red Dwarf computers.  Off course the Red Dwarf computers, for those who are not ‘Dwarfers’ are more (actually perhaps less) commonly known as Norman Lovett and Hattie Hayridge.

I have never really been to anything like this before and therefore didn’t know what to expect but I have to say that it was really good.  I have always been a fan of Red Dwarf and therefore new the two comedians.  They both did about a 40 minutes stand up and then did some Q and A from the audience.  Well worth going to see.

Today I got my hand on a nice new gadget. The gadget in question is a Panasonic SD card camcorder. So I thought that I would share my opening thoughts.

I have been looking for a Hard Disk camcorder for a while now, and I also needed one for work, however there are few, reasonably priced hard disk camcorders that are compatible with iMovie 08 and therefore when I saw this SD card one was compatible then I snapped it up at a good price. The advantages of using a hard disk or SD camcorder are that you do not have wait for the tape to play into the computer before you can start messing with your movie. However they do have their disadvantages, the main one being that the quality of the movie that is shot is not as good as a DV camcorder. With me not wanting to shoot movies that will end up on DVD I thought that I would give this one a try. Most of the movies that are shot end up on the web at around 500 pixels wide and therefore I am hoping that it will do the job.

First impressions are good. The camcorder is very light weight and is in fact much more like a camera than a camcorder. The small sample clip that I shot was decent quality although I hardly used it really. iMovie seems to pick the camera up a dream and drop the clips into the iMovie library really quickly which is great. So, so far so good, but I will keep you posted on the quality!

You really can’t beat a nice bit of Sirloin, Rump or even Fillet steak if you are pushing the boat out and it seems that not an awful lot of people can cook steak just how they like it.  I know this as people keep asking me how do I do it.  I am no expert but my wife and I do enjoy steaks cooked by me, so here goes on my preferred method.

First and foremost is the get the cooking method right.  Many seem to grill it, which if you have an industrial strength ‘Salamander’ style grill you may be successful, however if you are on a regular grill it simply cannot get hot enough.  Heat is what you want with cooking steak, the hotter the better.  Why?  It’s simple.  Too cold and the meat will start to boil and not grill/fry.  Therefore you need to cook it on the stove.  To do that you will need a quality pan in which to do so.

When I tell people what pans I have for cooking they often laugh at home much I spent on them.  I bought a Meyer Circulon set of 5 pans including the frying pan that I use for my steaks for £79.99.  Actually that was a cheap deal as they should have been about £129.99.  Basically the more you spend the better they are and these are great.  I have now had them for almost 5 years and they are still magnificent pans.  I also have a Wok that cost £30 and was great.  What is so good about all the pans is that they are non stick, but not just a cheapy non stick that last for a round 6 months before washing away in the sink water.  No these non stick are true non stick and then have lasted well.  In fact they are so tough and durable that you can even use metal utensils and pan scourers on them without ruining the pans.

So now that you have the pan, the next thing that you need to get is the steak.  Personally I prefer Sirloin to fillet or rump.  Rump is a little too fatty for my liking and fillet is a little too lean.  It needs to have just the right amount of fat in the steak to make it tasty without being too greasy and grissly.  The fat gives it a nice taste, as long as it is in the right amount!  It should have small flecks of fat running through the meat, which is what chef’s often call ‘marbling’.

The next thing is to prepare your steak.  It should be cooked at room temperature and therefore you need to leave it out of the fridge for a good 30 - 45 minutes before you cook it.  Once you have it ready you should season with pepper, but not salt as this will draw the moisture out of the steak and can make it tough.  Plenty of freshly milled black pepper is my personal choice.

Now put you pan on the stove (a gas stove is always best for this as electric stoves just don’t get hot enough) on full heat on the biggest ring that you have.  Leave it there for around 5 minutes to heat up.  If should be lightly smoking before you start cooking anything.  Then once really hot, add a few sprays of oil (I use the spray oils that you can get from the supermarket).  You should only use sunflower or vegetable oil and not olive oil as the high temperatures will burn the olive oil and leave a nasty taste in your mouth.  Once the pan is pipping hot add your steaks.  Once in the pan don’t move them about, just let them cook after seasoning with a little salt.

Depending on how you like your steak, will depend on the cooking time.  Personally I am a medium type person and there fore around 3 - 4 minutes on each side will do, depending on the thickness of the steak.  Once you have cooked the steak, remove from the pan and place on a plate in order to rest.  This is crucial as it will prevent any blood from the steak running all over your plate.  Let it rest for around 5 minutes.  People often say what is the reasoning behind leaving your steak to rest?  Well the best way I can think of to explain this is imagine you jumped into a ice cold swimming pool.  Your body would contract into itself, and you would curl up into a ball, shivering no doubt!  Well this is what happens to the steak when it enters a hot pan.  Therefore allowing it to stand after cooking gives the meat time to relax and ’separate’ again.

Once you have it cooked then all that is left is to serve.  I think that it is best with a small salad with a vinigarette dressing and some simple boiled new potatoes (if it is spring/summer then good old Jersey Royals are always a good choice).  I also like a little Dijon or Peppercorn mustard on my steak to finish it off.  Lovely!

It has now been 4 long weeks since the budgies were born and this week as seen both of them venture out of their box for the first time.  Bruce (who may yet still be a girl!) is a lot more adventurous than Eddie as he has been out most of the time.

Eddie still seems a little unsteady on his feet although he is the most beautiful yellow and blue colours, not to dissimilar to Stanley.  He still stays sat in the box most of the time waiting for mum (or dad for that matter) to bring along the next meal.  He doesn’t seem to have developed as well as Bruce but I am sure he will catch up.  Bruce seems to rather large for a 4 - 5 week old baby budgie, in fact I think he is probably larger than Christina.  She has had to be isolated from the babies as she has been pecking them, causing a small cut on Eddie’s face.

Mum and Dad (Niles and Daphne) are still in true romance (see photo below).  They take it in turns to feed the little ones although I am sure that it will not be long until they are fending for themselves.

I have been so busy over the last few weeks with finishing off the garden, going back to work and then lots of web designing to do for Equal Design that I have  had little time to update the blog.  Anyway I have a minute and so here goes

A couple of weeks ago I got my new mobile phone on the 3 network.  It is a Nokia 6288, which is interesting as I have not had a Nokia for ages.  In fact I still love my Sony Ericsson K750i but depsite numerous attempts I cannot get it to unlock to the 3 network.  I really like this Nokia, which is surprising since it is in White (still it matches the MacBook!).  Everyone has always said that Nokia’s are the easiest to use and I think the evidence from this phone is that they are correct.

Just finished entering all my numbers into the phone which took ages.  The one negative so far is that iSync doesn’t seem to be compatible and so I am struggling to Sync Address Book with it.  Still I think all my numbers are in now.