General

Basic guide to the internet for beginners

Maia Leave a comment

Say you’re a complete beginner when it comes to the internet. You just got your internet connection at home, after being totally bewildered by other people’s talk about it, or, maybe, you’ve tried using the internet at the library or at work, but didn’t make any sense of it. No problem. Read this and you’ll be ok.

Email

First you’ll need an email address. Some internet providers offer one or more email accounts, but not all. If you get one from your internet provider, hopefully they’ll also supply instructions, but you can’t count on that. There are a couple of words you’ll need to understand before trying to set up your email program.

POP – the incoming mail server
IMAP – also incoming mail server, but leaves a copy of the email on the server
SMTP – outgoing mail server
SSL – a security protocol
Password – not a term unique to email, you’ll need these all over the internet
Authentication – also to do with security
Authorization – another term to do with security
ID/Account name etc: sometimes, but not always your name/username, the part before the @ symbol, can also mean your complete email address (username@emailprovider.com)

If you want a free web based email address, first you need to find a good one. I can recommend Icerocket web mail. You won’t need to worry about pop, smtp or anything else. Just sign up and start using your email. All you’ll need is to remember the URL (the internet address) and your own username and password.

If you prefer to be able to check your email online and on your own mail program, I can recommend Fastmail.fm. It’s an excellent free email provider, that also offers a number of paid options. If you want to receive imap email, you’ll need to know the imap server. Fastmail offers an excellent guide to setting up your email program, so I won’t go into the details. It’s easy to do. Nothing to worry about.

Next you’ll need a free email program. If you’re running Windows you probably already have Outlook or Outlook Express. If you want an alternative try Eudora.

If you’re a Mac user, I can recommend Mail that is included in your OS X. Eudora is available for Mac too.

For more free programs visit Download.com or Tucows http://www.tucows.com/.

Search engines might be the next thing you want to get acquainted with. My favorite is Dogpile, but Clusty, Mamma, Ask, Gigablast, Entireweb, and of course Wikipedia are other excellent resources.

Some of you might want to chat. On Download.com or Tucows you’ll find several free alternatives. My favorite is Jabber, but it seems to be a bit difficult to find a place you can sign up for it. For Jabber you’ll need a multichat program or – a nice web based alternative – sign up for Meebo. MSN is probably the most popular chat alternative. You can use a multichat program, but also the MSN messenger. You might also want to check out ICQ and the AOL instant messenger.

Blog – you might be wondering what that is. Easy. It’s short for Weblog, which is a kind of online diary/journal. Or you can use it as a sort of homepage. A homepage is just a place to put all your stuff – photos, links, stories (if you’re a writer) and whatever else you might like to put there. There are many easy-to-use blog platforms. First you need to decide what you want your blog for. WordPress is a very versatile, free and very easy-to-use blog platform. There’s a web hotel where you can get your free blog hosted. You can choose between several different themes. There are also many other ways of costumizing your blog. WordPress is also available to use on your own server or a paid web hotel. That gives you even more costumizing options.

If you’re interested in joining a community at the same time, try LiveJournal. There’s a free basic account level, but unfortunately, they display ads on that, unless you are logged on. On LiveJournal there are plenty of communities to choose between. LiveJournal has several costumizing options. Vox is a bit like LiveJournal, the main difference being that you get space for uploading media – photos, movies, music.

You might have heard of Twitter. Some people call it a microblog. That’s one way of putting it. Personally, I see it as a sort of mini messageboard.

Microblogs can be described as a sort of blog, but not intended primarily for posting long texts. Tumblr is a good example of a so called tumblelog. I like to describe a tumblelog as a digital, online scrapbook. You post photos and other media, links, quotes and shorter text posts. There are many ways of costumizing your Tumblr, but if you prefer, you can choose a theme and leave it that way and focus on what you posts. Soup is another type of tumblelog – you can set it up to collect feeds from your other sites, so that it becomes a mix of all you do online.

If you have a digital camera or a phone with a camera you might want to keep your photos online. There are plenty of fine places to store your files. I like Zooomr a lot. Like I mentioned before, Vox is another place you can post your photos and other files. In fact, many social networks provide free photo storage.

Online social networks… There are plenty of those, more known or less. You’ve probably heard of MySpace, Bebo and Facebook. Maybe HI5 too. My favorites are Care2 – for those of us who care about the environment, LibraryThing and similar book sites, writing sites – FictionPress is a good example and pet-related sites like Petster, Dogster and Catster, but whatever you’re interested in, you’ll be sure to find a community or network to suit you.

Once you have a blog, you’ll want to promote it. There are several blog directories that you can submit your blog to. Technorati is one of the better known ones, but there are many others, like Blogged, BlogCatalog, BlogFlux, Blogarama, Blogtoplist and Blogs.com.

Important days

Maia Leave a comment

October doesn’t just bring World Vegetarian Day (October 1) but also the World Animal Day (October 4). In fact, that works out really well. If you eat less meat (preferably none at all) fewer animals will die. On the World Animal Day, at least here in Sweden, it’s the day for making cinnamon buns. That too, fits in very well. You see, it’s perfectly possible to make buns without using any kind of animal products.

Instead of the customary cow’s milk, which is the result of exploitation of cows, and which can cause stomach problems, arthritic pain and harm your ability to digest calcium. You might think that it sounds like a contradiction. Calcium in milk should be great for your bones. No? Consider this: why is there so much calcium in milk? Maybe because there has to be, because of the problem with metabolizing calcium. You can get osteoporosis (brittle bones) from drinking milk.

There are many different kinds of replacements for cow’s milk, like soy milk (won’t work if you’re allergic to soy), oat milk (might be a problem if you suffer from gluten intolerance, though if you do, you probably can’t eat cinnamon buns at all) or rice milk. I’ve heard of other cool replacements but where I live they aren’t available commercially. However, I have tried almond cream/milk, which is yummy and sesamy seed milk, which wasn’t very tasty, I’m afraid, but sesamy seeds are good for all kinds of other things. In some countries hemp milk is also available.

Bad music

Maia Leave a comment

Recently, there’s been a lot of talk about the Eurovision Song Contest, and frankly, I don’t feel qualified to comment on the actual contest or the actual music. I don’t watch and I don’t really care which song wins. However, there are a few related issues that bother me.

Here in Sweden there’s been a fierce debate about the song we sent to Belgrade. Was it good? Did it suck? Etc. Early on, some heavy names in the music industry here claimed that it’s the latter. Our song sucked. Ok. Maybe you’re right. What did strike me as wrong, was the solution these people suggested. Send a song people will like better in Europe, or more adequately, in Eastern Europe.

If all you care about is winning and making money, that might be a good idea. But personally, I can’t help thinking that we Swedish people are entitled to liking any kind of music we care to. If the point is merely to win and make money, (see above,) then I guess they can do so. But if you want us, the Swedish people to enjoy the music you’ve created, then maybe it’s time to stop participating in the Eurovision Song Contest.

Like I mentioned above, I don’t care either way, about the type of music here, or the contest itself, but again, in my opinion if it’s for us, then we should like it. If we can do both, then fine. If not, then forget about the contest.

*Our* garden

Maia Leave a comment

Our neighbors have a totally different view than we do of what a garden should look like. We like it green and generous and – according to others – overgrown.

What others term weeds, we like and nurture. Some examples:

Nettles attract butterflies. They’re also nutritious.

Dandelions are lovely, cheerful little suns. They’re staying.

If you don’t agree, consider this: If you don’t like our garden, stay away and look away. We don’t bother you about yours.

Our garden looks this way because we like it. So now you know.

Homemade bread every day

Maia Leave a comment

Smula sönder jästen ner i en lagom stor bunke (2 1/2 l använder jag). Häll i vattnet. Rör ner saltet och olivoljan (och solrosfröna). Därefter tillsätter du mjölet lite i taget. Arbeta en stund med nÃ¥got kraftigt redskap (träsked eller gaffel, slickepott eller liknande). Häll ut degen/smeten i stekpannan (stekpannorna). LÃ¥t det jäsa – minst tjugo minuter till en halvtimme. Sätt in i ugnen. LÃ¥t brödet vara inne i ca 20 minuter – beroende pÃ¥ din ugn). Öppna luckan. LÃ¥t brödet stÃ¥ kvar i ytterligare 2 minuter. Häll ut brödet pÃ¥ ett metallgaller – med rätt sida upp, du fÃ¥r alltsÃ¥ vända det. Lägg en handduk över och lÃ¥t kallna. Det behöver inte vara iskallt för att äta, bara om du ska spara det i plastpÃ¥se eller brödskrin, eller om du vill frysa det, men det är inte den bästa sorten att spara länge.

Finally I get fresh home made bread every day. You know why? Because I bake it myself. Every day. Fortunately, it’s a super easy recipe.

You just mix all the ingredients into a bowl and pour into a iron frying pan. Let the dough swell underneath pot lids of the right size. When that’s done, you put the bread into the oven for about 20 minutes (it depends on your oven), open the oven and keep baking for another 2 minutes. Take them out and put them on a metal grille (it might be a good idea to put the grille on something like a baking pan so that your table or worktop won’t get all wet from the heat).

You van vary the recipe a little. You need to use a total of 5 dl flour (see conversion table), mainly wheat. I’ve tried 4 dl of wheat flour 0 1 dl of chickpea flour and 4 dl of wheat flour + 1 dl of rye flour, but you can try other combinations too, as long as there’s more wheat flour than the rest.
I like sunflower seeds so I put some into the dough along with the more or less wet ingredients.

I always make a double batch, but you can just as well make only one, if there’s only one of you.

Recipe:

half a package of yeast
2 1/2 dl water
1 1/2 tea spoons salt
2 table spoons olive oil
sunflower seeds
5 dl flour (whatever mix you prefer)
some fat (baking margarine or oil – the kind that can be heated – like olive oil)

Crumble the yeast into a bowl. Pour the water in. Add salt and olive oil (and the sunflower seeds). Work for a while with a sturdy utensil (wooden spoon or fork or something like that). Pour the dough/batter into the frying pan or pans. Let it swell – for at least twenty minutes for half an hour. Put it into the oven. Leave the bread there for about 20 minutes (depending on your oven). Open the oven, and bake for another two minutes. Put the bread on a metal grille – right side up, so you’ll have to turn it over. Cover with a towel or cloth and let it cool. The bread doesn’t have to be completely cold just to eat it, only if you want to put it into plastic bags or a bread box, or if you’d like to freeze it. Although this isn’t particularly suited to saving for a long time.

Conversion table

1 pound (lb) = 16 ounces = 453,6 g
1 ounce (oz) = 28,35 g
1 kg = 2,205 pounds
1 g = 0,035 ounces
3 1/2 ounces = ca 100 g
1 US gallon = 4 liquid quarts = 3,8 litres
1 liquid quarts = 2 liquid pints = 9,5 dl
1 liquid pint = 2 cups = 4,7 dl
1 cup = 16 tablespoons = 2,4 d
1 cup = 8 fluid ounces = 2,4 dl
1 fluid ounce = 29,6 ml
1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons = 15 ml
1 teaspoon = 5 ml
1 liter = 0,264 gallon = 1,06 quarts
1 ml = 0,034 fluid ounces

Good Quotes

Maia Leave a comment

I found these at a community for veganism at LiveJournal. Words of wisdom.
——-
There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher animals in their mental faculties… The lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery. Charles Darwin

Now I can look at you in peace; I don’t eat you any more. Franz Kafka

Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds them. We live by the death of others. We are burial places. Leonardo DaVinci

As long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap the joy of love. Pythagoras

It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect on the human temperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind. Albert Einstein

Flesh eating is unprovoked murder Benjamin Franklin

If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian. Paul McCartney

I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other Henry David Thoreau

To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. I should be unwilling to take the life of a lamb for the sake of the human body. Gandhi

I became a vegetarian out of concern for animals, but I wasn’t a vegetarian long before I realized there’s something to that. I don’t think I would have worked for the past five years probably were it not for my vegetarian diet Bob Barker

I became very critical of zoos and circuses and keeping animals in captivity. I wish it was against the law. Christopher Walken

I admit to having worn suede and leather pants myself for a while, but you just never feel clean, and it’s degenerate, anyway, to wear animal skins…. So I went back to bluejeans after my degenerate period. Andy Warhol

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. bibelcitat: Matteus 5:7

The real cure for our environmental problems is to understand that our job is to salvage Mother Nature…We are facing a formidable enemy in this field. It is the hunters…and to convince them to leave their guns on the wall is going to be very difficult. Jacques Cousteau

I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn’t…The pain which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further. Mark Twain

Since visiting the abatoirs of S. France I have stopped eating meat Vincent Van Gogh

He is a heavy eater of beef. Me thinks it doth harm to his wit. Shakespeare

To become vegetarian is to step into the stream which leads to nirvana. Buddah Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.’ Elie Weisel

The soul is the same in all living creatures, although the body of each is different Hippocrates

I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being. Abraham Lincoln

One day the absurdity of the almost universal human belief in the slavery of other animals will be palpable. We shall then have discovered our souls and become worthier of sharing this planet with them.” Martin Luther King Jr.

Shame on such a morality that fails to recognize the eternal essence that exists in every living thing, and shines forth with inscrutable significance from all eyes that see the sun. Schopenhauer