Tue, 30 Aug 2011

A New Fidonews

Yes, finally Fidonet has a new fidonews after 10 years of "same-old, same-old"..and a new site for fidonews, thanks to Bob Seaborn (fidonews.ca)

After 10 years of USA-bashing in the fidonews echo, and about as long that we've seen the site at fidonews.org being frozen at sometime in 1992 (how sad! ), fidonews.ca carries the current issues of Gary Perkins' issues with Gary as editor of Fidonews, and an electronic magazine with actual content! The fidonews echo has taken a trip on the way-back machine to the friendly place it was 10 years ago as well.

For those interested in the historical issues of Fidonews, you'll also see at fidonews.ca all issues available to downloand as archives and also single issues if you'd just like to read them online. Hopefully the user-interface is easy on the eyes, and easy to negotiate. :) Send email to me if you find any problems.

It's not like I haven't tried to get the owner of fidonews.org to update the pages there, or geez, just let me take care of it for him (Jim Barchuk), but for some reason he feels like the right thing to do is to support this anti-USA person from Sweden who some people (NOT all) in zone 2 support.. Jim, WAKE UP! We in Fidonet (those of use who _still_ belong) decided that we'd had enough empty issues with just boilerplate topics, and constant negative comments regarding the US in the echo. Hey Jim, did you know that JoHo and Vince Perriello still read FidoNews??

posted at: 02:34 | path: /fidonet | permanent link to this entry | 1 comments | "

Wed, 10 Aug 2011

Gluten-free Crabcakes

Combine the egg, mayonnaise, mustard, Tabasco, lemon juice, salt, worchestershire if using, and pepper and stir until well-incorporated.

Add the cracker crumbs, rice and parsley and mix well. Gently fold in crabmeat until just combined (try not to break up lumps of crabmeat). Using wet hands, shape mixture into 5 patties. Gently press down the crabcakes with a spatula. Place the crab cakes on a large cookie sheet as they're shaped. Cover with foil and freeze for 20 minutes before cooking (no longer than 20 minutes).

Set oven on HI Broil (about 450F). Using a spatula, place crab cakes a lightly oiled cookie sheet. Reshape the cakes after they are on the cookie sheet. Put crab cakes in the broiler on medium height rack if your broiler gets good and hot; if your broiler is like mine, and doesn't get "that" hot, put them closer to the broiler flame. Watch the cakes in this instance so they don't burn.

After 3-5 minutes of initial cooking time, turn the crab cakes over using a spatula in one hand, and your other hand to gently turn the cakes. Cook an additional 3-5 minutes or until golden brown. Serve immediately with with lemon and tartar sauce.

posted at: 23:38 | path: /non-gluten | permanent link to this entry | 1 comments | "

The Best Gluten-Free Cake

This is really the best gluten-free cake I've made.. The texture was perfect, not grainy as will often happen with rice flour.

Lemon Pound Cake
Lemon Pound Cake

Grease and flour a 10" Tube pan. Preheat the oven to 350F

Ingredients


Mix flours and baking powder and set aside. In a mixer, beat eggs well until light in color, then add melted butter and beat for 5 minutes. Eggs and butter should be creamy and light. Add sugar gradually while beating until well mixed. Add lemon juice and lemon zest and beat for 2 minutes.

Add the flour gradually to the egg and sugar mixure, alternating with the milk. Beat on high speed for 1 minute, then fill prepared pan with batter. Bake for 1 hour at 350F.

Flour Mix

posted at: 17:42 | path: /non-gluten | permanent link to this entry | 0 comments | "

Thu, 04 Aug 2011

New Pages

I've redone the pages at http://www.filegate.net/zone1/, and http://www.fidonet.ca/

I've included a new page there for current issues of FidoNews from our new FidoNews Editor, Gary Perkins. Gary is doing a really great job in encouraging people to write articles for FidoNews again, what a relief!

Right now, the only issue available is the current one, but once we get some issues under our belt, I'll update that page to accept a list of issues.

Speaking of FidoNews, the Fidonews echo has returned to being a nice place to visit and share ideas. Thanks to our Moderator Ross Cassell and the Zone 1 Backbone for that one! Gary, our new editor, will also be a moderator in the echo.

posted at: 15:01 | path: /fidonet | permanent link to this entry | 0 comments | "

Tue, 02 Aug 2011

Lemonade!

Mood: smiling

Lemonade stand
Lemonade!

You know it's summer when kids get together and put up a lemonade stand. Boy do I wish I lived closer to Ithaca!!

posted at: 18:27 | path: /technical | permanent link to this entry | 0 comments | "

FidoNews Reborn

FidoNews, the official newsletter of Fidonet, has languished in a mire of negative attitudes towards Zone 1, North America, for several years. Under the editorial direction of Bjorn Felten, the snooze, as it's affectionatly called by members of Fidonet, suffered lack of moderation in it's echo mail companion of the same name, and also suffered from a lack of articles written by members of Fidonet. It was the message echo's constant negativity that drove the message conference into a flame fest where members were more likely to be insulted than engaged in discourse. Of course, it must be said that if the snooze itself had no articles to discuss, the bent of the echo would turn to personal insults and vindictive attitudes; These however COULD have been contained, deflected, stopped, certainly not encouraged, by the Moderator. Unfortunately, the moderator felt none of that was necessary because he had some warped sense of what "freedom of speech" meant. Rather, some of the negativity in that message area was actually generated by the moderator himself.

The Editor/Moderator of Fidonews historically selects the new one, it's just the way it has always been done outside of emergency situations. For instance, when one of the Editors died while in office the International Coordinator of Fidonet then selected the next one. Once, a long time ago, the editor of FidoNews just "disappeared".. and so another SysOp just started publishing new issues. With no International Coordinator in Fidonet, and no documented method of replacing the editor, the Fidonet Star systems in North America decided to take action.

Fidonet uses a transport mechanism in North America, where it first started, of three Backbone Star systems. From those three systems echomail and file distribution is carried to other Zones (Africa, EU, Australia, and South America) where those other Zone's backbones then carry and trade the traffic to and from their SysOps.

This drastic move to replace the editor by the Fidonet Star systems was not something that was entertained lightly.. yet as a Star system myself, I knew that it was the only way to accomplish anything positive.

The new editor of Fidonews is Gary Perkins, and he has been given a nodelisting of 1:1/1. He and the current Zone 1 moderator of the FidoNews message echo, Ross Cassell, will share in the moderating of that conference.

posted at: 13:06 | path: /fidonet | permanent link to this entry | 0 comments | "