Archive for October, 2008

Cocoa Animation in Mac OS X Tiger

Link to Apple Docs: Cocoa Drawing Guide, Animation Programming Guide

Free 3D models

Misc useful links

Cashew cake

Ingredients:
Cashewnuts- 50 gms
Gram flour- 160 ml
Sugar- 400 ml
Ghee- 160 ml
Grated Coconut- 80 ml
Vanilla essence- a few drops
Cardamom powder- 1/2 teaspoon

Method:
Dry roast the cashew cool and powder in a mixer. Keep aside. Fry the gram flour in half the ghee until fragrant and keep aside. Make sugar syrup of one string consistency. Add grated coconut and mix well. Add the Gram flour and ghee and keep stirring for a few minutes. Lastly add cashew powder, essence, cardamom and stir without burning till the mixture leaves the sides of the pan and is ready to be poured for setting. Remove from fire and pour on to a greased plate/ tray. Allow to cool and set a little. Cut into pieces before it completely sets. Remove the pieces after it cools completely and store airtight.

Random number generator

Mersenne Twister

Versions released from 2001-2006 are GPL. versions after 2006 can be used closed source/commercial.

Free Mac Apps for Graphics/Media

  1. Scribus: Open source, Desktop publishing
  2. JAlbum: Create photo galleries for the Web
  3. Paparazzi: Make screenshots of webpages
  4. Linotype Explorer: Font management app 
  5. FotoFlexer: Image editor
  6. Xee: Fast image viewer
  7. Lego Digital Designer
  8. Colorate
  9. Front End Digital Media WorkShop
  10. Autodesk Maya
  11. Graphisoft ArchiCAD
  12. Simple CSS
  13. Blender
  14. HyperEngine-AV
  15. POV-Ray
  16. Gnuplot
  17. DAZ Studio
  18. Bryce
  19. Goldberg
  20. Image Tricks
  21. Inkscape
  22. NIH Image
  23. Comipro Plus
  24. Scratch
  25. Gimp
  26. Google SketchUp
  27. Seashore
  28. Pencil

Summary of Cocoa Initializer Options

The correct way to write initializers in Cocoa.

Dokla

Ingredients:

240 ml Bengal gram flour
40 ml Bombay rawa
3 tsp sugar
salt to taste
2 tsp Enos fruit salt

For tempering-

1 tablespoon oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
2 green chillies slit
a few curry leaves

For garnishing-

1 tbsp grated coconut
1 tbsp chopped coriander

Method:

Mix the bengal gram flour, rawa, sugar and salt well. Add enough water to make a thick batter- like idli batter. Add Enos fruit salt. Sprinkle water on it and blend in well. Pour batter in a greased thali and steam for 10 to 15 minutes. Remove, cool and cut into squares. DO NOT REMOVE FROM THE PLATE.

In a pan, heat oil, add mustard and when it crackles, add chillies, curry leaves and add 30 ml water, a pinch of sugar. Bring it to boil and then pour all over the cooked dhokla. Decorate with coconut and coriander leaves.

Green Chutney:

Roast 120 ml of ground nuts until fragrant. Cool and grind with 2 green chillies, salt, 1 tsp sugar and a handful of coriander leaves. Add 5 to 8 drops of lemon juice and mix well.

Tahini

Ingredients:

100 grams sesame seeds
50 grams Bengal gram dal
3 green chillies
3 cloves garlic
6 tbsp curd- should not be sour
2 tsp vinegar
2 tsp oil
salt to taste

Method:

Roast the sesame seeds and gram dal separately until fragrant.Powder in a mixer. Add all the other ingredients and run the mixer for 10 seconds. Garnish/ decorate with chilli powder and a little oil. Serve with Carrot, cucumber sticks and potato fingerchips.

Celestia cheat-sheet

[Shift+left-click+drag] or [,.] (comma,full-stop): Change Field of view
[Ctrl-V] : Changes vertex shading options
[Shift-R]/R : Changes texture mapping
[`] (backtick) : Toggle FPS display. Note if this drops below 6 you may crash
the app
[Home/End] : Move closer/farther
[Cmd-f] : toggle full-screen/window modes
[Ctrl-R]: Split view vertically
[del] : delete active view
[/] : show constellation shapes
[Ctrl-B] : show constellation borders
[U] : Enable galaxies
[Shift+(] and [Shift+)] : Galaxy brightness controll
[Shift+^] : turn Nebulae on/off
[O] : show orbits
[Ctrl-S]: Adjust display of stars

Direction keys: Pitch and yaw
Shift + direction keys: rotate around object
Right click+drag: rotate and change perspective

Links:
Celestia