My current desktop setup.

Looks pretty cool doesnt it?  It's an interactive Heads Up Display (HUD), with current time, date, weather info, network and disk usage statistics, functional media played controls, links to commonly used folders, programs, and websites, and more.  I love the look and functionality of it.  So much cooler than having icons cluttering up my desktoip.

To achieve this you need 2 things, rainmeter and a skin called jarvis.  Rainmeter is available at: http://code.google.com/p/rainmeter/  and the jarvis skin can be found at: http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&q=jarvis+rainmeter+skin#/d36eee6

Once you download and install both of those, you can customize the skin by right-clicking different sections and going to variants, which will allow you to open up a .ini file where the variables are stores, so if you installed photoshop(for example) to a different directory than default, you can point the link to your installation.  You can customize all the clickable links and point them to wherever you like.

Unfortunately the media player controls seem to only work with winamp, but i installed winamp just so that part of the HUD would work.  It was worth it in my opinion.  I might still do some more customizing on this later, but we'll see.  Let me know what you think.

Blackbuntu

I recently installed a new operating system called Blackbuntu.

FaceNiff

This is going on both of the blogs I can post on. 

How to Make Moonshine

It takes time and practice before you can whip up a good batch of moonshine that will be safe enough to drink, but making your own alcohol is one of the most enjoyable ways of breaking the law so here's how you do it.

Step 1, Mash
Buy 5lbs of cornmeal and make a mash by adding 20 gallons of boiling water and 20lbs of sugar.  When the mash has cooled to "warm" add 1.5oz of yeast.  Put this in a warm place for about 3 days to ferment (or until the mash stops bubbling).  After this, the mash will be converted to carbonic acid and alcohol, called "sour mash".

Step 2, Distillation
Distill your mash by heating to 173 degrees F. in a copper moonshine still.  At this temp. the alcohol(ethanol) rises to the top of the still and travels to the cooling part where it condenses and can be collected.  It will be a transparent liquid the colour of dark beer.

Step 3, Singlings
The first liquid to condense will contain volatile oils and should be discarded but after that the liquid can be collected in glass jars called "singlings".  The liquid from the end of the run is referred to as "low wine" and is onle about 10% alcohol so you should add this back to the mash and distill again.  Stop distilling when a tablespoon of low wine thrown on a naked flame won't burn.

Step 4, Distill Again, and Again
Empty the mash.  The ethanol collected in the first singlings will have the highest prof, and the proof level drops progressively after that.  All of your singlings will need to be distilled one or two more times to get rid of any impurities.  After three distillations, some of your singlings should contain ethanol up to 150 proof.  That's 75% alcohol.

Enjoy.  Here's a picture of one type of still to help you get started.