about all aspects of life
Archive for November, 2009
How to decorate name plates made of test tubes?
0903 days
Test tubes are available online at a very low price. One can get 100 test tubes for about 20€.
Test tubes can be decorated with special glass colors, e.g. Glass Color BodyLine.
When I decorated name plates made of test tubes, I dipped the test tubes into dark violet glass color. To dry the test tubes they were installed on wood sticks. It took a very long time to dry them… at least a few days.
Then names were printed on paper (in the right dimensions), were cut out and subsequently inserted into the painted test tubes.
To fill up the test tubes I used heart-shaped sugar and cotton.
In the end, test tubes were decorated with a white ribbon.
Annotation
This is a really simple way to decorate name plates for special occasions. And it’s not expensive. But it really takes a long time for the glass color to dry and it does not smell very healthy.
And of course, one should take care of the test tubes. They can easily break when handling them too harsh.
Vanilla cakes
0Ingredients for 11 pieces
300g flaky pastry
250g whipped cream
250ml milk
Marrow of a vanilla bean
1 package of vanilla pudding powder
2 egg yolk
50g sugar
Preparations
1. Mix whipped cream, 200ml of milk and marrow of vanilla bean and boil it up. Mix 50ml of milk, vanilla pudding powder, egg yolk and sugar and add it to the previous mixture. Boil it up again and then let it cool down to a lukewarm temperature.
2. Cut out 11 circles of flaky pastry (11cm Ø) and put them into pre-lubricated muffin forms. Then add the vanilla cream.
3. Insert them in the pre-heated oven (230°C) on the lowest rail for 20 minutes.
Annotation
This recipe is really simple. But beware of taking the cakes out of the muffin form. Of course they are hot and the vanilla content is quite fluid at this time. So beware of taking them out slowly or elsewise they could fall and all the vanilla content is gone 
How many oranges do you need for 1L orange juice?
0
Well, we tried it out yesterday… we prepared 3kg (!) of oranges to get 1 L of orange juice.
Annotation
Better drink it as soon as possible. Not only because of the vitamins It’s very sweet and delicious in the first place but when you wait a few hours it will taste bitter.
Consumer behavior for Christmas: Austria vs. Luxembourg
0Click below to see the links
Austria vs. Luxembourg
Of course one can not really compare these two polls ’cause they are dependent on the people asked and both polls are not based on only one single event. But of course they still have an important impact…
A new trend: Documentaries about environment, money and food
0909 days
Have you already noticed lately… You are going to the cinema, want to spend a few relaxing hours not thinking about your day or worries. You probably want to get entertained by new special effects or romantic stories… and lately there are these documentaries on the movie list which are intended to show you new insights into our world. Of course, with no special effects .
Well, personally I like such documentaries. Even if they tell you that all you eat, all what’s produced in our world nowadays, all we use for paying our bills, is all BAD…VERY BAD. But I must say I’m coming out even more optimistic of such a movie than e.g. G.I. Joe.
In the last few weeks, I watched several documentaries. There is, e.g. this new documentary about plastic, called PLASTIC PLANET. It’s been directed by an Austrian, so it won’t probably be in theaters all over the world. Well for me, the documentary wasn’t very convincing first. Some days later, I watched another documentary called “Addicted to Plastic: The Rise and Demise of a Modern Miracle”.
“Food, Inc.” was also worth seeing, as well as “Let’s make money”.
What is your opinion about these new documentaries? Has anyone already seen “Capitalism: A Love Story”?
Do cats dream?
1Favorite activity of Blacky and Bianca
I just listened to the podcast of wissenschaft.de from last week.
Question was: Do cats dream?
Answer: Of course do cats dream. They are sleeping up to 20 hours a day… they really could challenge panda bears . I wonder what they are dreamin’ about
Backup VMWare virtual machines using Powershell
0910 days
Finally I got some time to update my VMWare Backup Script!
I had to change some of the features I had in mind. But it is still enough to get a backup done. So first, let’s see what we have to do on our VMWare Infrastructure Server. The custom fields we defined earlier have to be changed as follows:
0_BackupEnabled (”Yes” to enable)
1_BackupAccess (nbd, san, …)
2_BackupRotation (days to store the backup)
3_BackupCurrentStatus
4_BackupLastStatus
5_BackupSize (in kb)
6_BackupTime
So after updating the custom fields as described we can use the finished script to enable the backups by editing the custom fields for every virtual machine you want to backup. It’s quite easy and you can enable the backup of a virtual machine after creating a new one. No need to edit configuration files on the backup server, or to add new backup schedules.
The finished script can be downloaded here: http://idisk.mac.com/polysign-Public?view=web
(Folder “code”, Filename: vcbackup.txt)
Just edit the configuration in the script file and you are good to go. Have fun!
Creating chocolate truffles
0
Chocolate hollow hearts filled with egg liqueur-poppy cream
In a two-day-course, Georges and i had the chance to learn how to create chocolate truffles. I’ve already tried it some years before at home but of course the result wasn’t that perfect. So we signed up for a course held by the VHS here in Vienna.
In a group of 9 people, we first created all kinds of truffle fillings. It’s surprising that in only 2 and a half hours you can prepare the fillings for butter, cream liquor, fruit, nougat and “canache” truffles.
On the next day, chocolate hollow balls filled with the diverse sins are closed up by – guess what – chocolate and are eventually decorated.
We’ve learned that creating chocolate truffles is not really difficult. You just have to own the appropriate material… and always check on the right chocolate temperature.