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Spraying texture on a drywall ceiling

This is a quick "note to self". I purchased a can of ceiling-oriented knockdown texture spray (i.e. the nozzle aims upward), and after a bit of experimentation I have learned a few things: Practice first on cardboard. And not just spraying, also the knockdown bit.  Use a finer spray than you think. The knockdown action really widens things out, more than expected. Warm up the can. When they say it should be between 70-80, they aren't kidding. At 65, the material weakly froths out of the opening. At 70, it sprays about 6 inches out of the can. At 80 it sprays a foot and a half!
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Dual boot with Ubuntu

Well, I did it - I finally set up Ubuntu as a viable dual-boot desktop system. I wanted to document some of what I did to make the thing work. Dual boot setup I have two hard drives, XP on one, and installed Ubuntu on the other. Note: During the Grub config step (near the end of the preinstall), I specified *not* to install to the MBR but to install on the boot drive for the linux install. Then, using Bootpart in XP I generated the boot.ini entry that allows me to boot to Linux from the Windows boot manager. At this point, I can hibernate, but can't suspend. Video I have an NVidia card, so I used the Restricted Drivers Manager to install the nv driver. Sound I have two soundcards - onboard Realtek and an add-in Audigy. My goal is to have a media player use the Audigy, and have the line out connected to a stereo. I selected AmaroK because it's the only app I've found that has rich playlist capability and also allows specifying which output device to use. Note: I had to insta...
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MVC framework

I'm setting up a little MVC web app for my kids' school. First I experimented with Catalyst (perl-based), but I've become a little un-enamored with Perl as a web development language. I'm now experimenting with Ruby on Rails. I found a great walkthrough on setting up RoR in Ubuntu at http://www.urbanpuddle.com/articles/2006/06/10/install-ruby-rails-on-ubuntu-dapper-drake . Another option I experimented with (but it's still too beta for me to quickly figure it out) is Scaffold (http://scaffold.jupiterit.com), a web-based Javascript-based IDE and engine. It runs on Rhino, a server-side Javascript tool. Clever idea, and if I could figure it all out, a pretty quick way to whip together an app!
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Camp Stove

Last summer we bought a Camp Chef 3-burner stove from Costco. What a cool investment! The thing is a cooking monster, boiling a large pot of water in under 5 minutes. I am very happy so far with the Camp Chef quality, and with the number of accessories that are offered. I've read mixed reviews on the igniters, but recently bought a pair of the shelves, which have worked out really well - easy to install, strong, and they hardly add any dimension to the packed unit. They can't be folded up unless the windscreen is removed (and I discovered I've had my windscreen on backwards this whole time -- oops!).
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