SAMSUNG RELEASES NEW SOFTWARE FOR GALAXY TABLET

Samsung Electronics Co. unveiled a software update for its 10.1-inch Galaxy Tab as the tech giant seeks to differentiate its tablet from the other Google Inc. Android devices in the market.

The update, which adds features to the operating system, comes a couple of months after Samsung first launched the tablet in the U.S. The company, like many device makers, has been seeking ways to distinguish its products from similar machines running on the Android platform. But the various Android tablets so far haven't gained much traction against the Apple Inc. iPad.

Samsung on Wednesday introduced new software that it says makes the user experience easier, more visually appealing and more entertaining. It also unveiled new features to appeal to business users, such as WiFi printing capabilities and secure remote network access.

"When we first launched the tablet, we promised our customers that we were going to delight them by ensuring the experience we deliver them helps them with work and with play," Gavin Kim, Samsung Telecommunications America vice president of content, data services and enterprise mobility, said during a press event in New York. "Today we're officially unveiling a major software update that takes that promise even further."

The software includes a new "TouchWiz UX" user interface aimed at taking advantage of the large tablet screen while allowing users to multi-task and customize the system. Other new features include a media hub with popular movies and next-day TV content and preloaded apps such as the Amazon Inc. Music Cloud Player and Kindle.

Users, who will receive the over-the-air download for their WiFi devices beginning Friday, won't be able to remove the Samsung features even if they desire to return to the standard Android platform, Mr. Kim said.

"We've done a lot of research on what consumers are looking to improve," he said. "It follows along those three general categories, with ease of use and visual appeal, much more fun and entertaining and enterprise enablement. It's not intended to be intrusive but is intended to be helpful."

Samsung and Apple currently are embroiled in a lengthy string of litigation that began when Apple filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against Samsung, claiming the South Korean electronics company "slavishly" copied its iPad and iPhone. The companies have also locked horns in South Korea, Germany, Japan and the U.K.

While the filings between the two companies haven't yet resulted in any money changing hands or products being pulled from store shelves, Samsung this week said it agreed to an Australian Federal Court's request not to import or sell a variant of its Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet until either its case with Apple is finalized or the court says it can.

And while Samsung is seeking to differentiate itself on the Android platform, Current Analysis analyst Avi Greengart said it is likely a matter of time before other vendors, such as Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., take similar steps.

"It's a matter of timing," he said. "Motorola wanted to be first to market with the Xoom so they couldn't customize the software. And Samsung itself launched their product without these capabilities. [That is what happens] when you're building off of someone else's platform."

A Motorola spokeswoman said the company has been working to expand its smartphone software offerings to tablets, including Motoblur, a program that aggregates content from social media and other sources, and its 3LM enterprise software. The company hasn't yet specified when the two offerings will be expanded to the Xoom.

Source:The Wall Street Journal

PEAR AND CHOCOLATE STICKY DATE PUDDING

The perfect pudding.

Ingredients

• Melted butter, for greasing
• 250g pitted dried dates
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 firm ripe pears
• 90g unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla bean paste
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/4 cups plain flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 300ml cream
• Extra 100g unsalted butter
• Cream, to serve (optional)

Method

Step 1 Preheat oven to 180ºC. Brush a 20cm springform tin with melted butter and line the base and sides with baking paper. Chop dates using scissors dipped in hot water. Put dates and water in a medium heavy-based pan. Bring slowly to the boil, then remove from heat. Stir in bicarb and stand until lukewarm.

Step 2 Peel each pear, then cut into quarters and remove core. Cut each quarter into 3 slices. Arrange pear slices in the base of the prepared tin. Using electric beaters, beat the butter, caster sugar, vanilla bean paste and eggs in a small bowl until light and creamy. Transfer the creamed butter mixture to a large bowl.

Step 3 Sift flour and cocoa onto the creamed butter mixture. Add the cooled date mixture, then mix with a wooden spoon until just combined. Spoon the date mixture over the

pears in the prepared tin. Smooth

the top of the pudding and bake for 40-45 minutes.

Step 4 Put brown sugar, cream and extra butter in a small heavy-based pan and stir over a low heat until

the sugar has dissolved. Simmer the sauce, uncovered, for 3-4 minutes. Remove the pudding from the oven and pour over ½ cup of the hot sauce. Return the pudding to the oven and cook for a further 5 minutes. Serve the pudding hot, in wedges, with remaining sauce and cream, if desired.

Source:

Better Homes and Gardens

Author:

Better Homes and Gardens Magazine - June 2009

Stylist:

Mary Harris

Photographer

Chris L Jones

QUEEN OF PUDDINGS

Preparation time:

20 mins

Cooking time:

45 mins

Ingredients

• 300g purchased Madeira cake, cut into 3cm pieces
• 3 egg yolks
• ¹⁄³ cup caster sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1½ Tbsp plain flour
• 2 cups milk
• ¾ cup raspberry jam
• 3 eggwhites
• Extra ½ cup caster sugar

Method

1 Preheat oven 180ºC fan-forced (190ºC conventional). Press cake into the base of an 8-cup-capacity ovenproof dish and set aside.

2 Put egg yolks, caster sugar and vanilla in a small bowl and whisk until pale and creamy. Stir in flour. Add milk and whisk until smooth. Pour mixture into a saucepan and cook, stirring constantly, over a medium-low heat for 10 minutes or until the custard thickens. Pour custard over the cake. Put dish on an oven tray and bake for 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 160ºC fan-forced (170ºC conventional).

3 Warm the jam in a saucepan. Carefully spoon the warm jam over the warm custard.

4 Put eggwhites in the medium bowl of an electric mixer and beat until soft peaks form. Slowly add extra caster sugar while beating, 1 tablespoon at a time, until meringue is thick and glossy. Spoon over jam, then bake for a further 15 minutes or until meringue is light golden. Serve warm.

Author:

Family Circle Magazine

HOW TO MAKE VIKING HEATHER BEER

John Wright samples his homemade heather beer. Photograph: John Wright

I was a bit of a worry to my father. He was a man who loved sport - especially football - while I loathed the playing field with a matching zeal. (My decision to go shopping instead of watching the 1966 World Cup Final was more than he could take). Also, and this was worse in his eyes, I preferred lager to "proper" beer. I just didn't like the heavy, sickly, bitter flavour. I think my father considered me to be a little effete, though this is not the word he might have chosen.

My lifelong aversion to all sport I put down to good sense, but my distaste for most beers may be due to my parents habit of providing me with a bedtime eggcupful of "Little Bricky" throughout my formative years. This noxious emanation from our local brewery - Brickwoods in Portsmouth – would, I think, be enough to put anyone off beer for life. I am still a bit of a lager drinker but have, at the behest of incredulous friends, made valiant attempts to appreciate the finer points of "proper" beers and have even started to make the stuff. I think I am finally recovering from all those Little Brickies.

Making beer is easy and quick - certainly easier and much quicker than wine-making. However you do need some more "kit", and big kit at that. With wine you are dealing with just a gallon, but beer can only, sensibly, be made in five gallon (25 litre) batches. Foremost is a saucepan capable of holding at least three gallons of liquid – I use a stockpot. You will also need a food-grade plastic fermentation bucket capable of holding 25 litres and either a 25 litre pressure barrel or an awful lot of beer bottles. In addition you will need a hydrometer and a cooking thermometer.

The following recipe comes from one of the most interesting people I know. His name is Alastair Wallace (a Scot, as if you needed telling). He is a delightful and engaging expert on ancient brewing techniques and breweries who can take a bit of stopping once you set him off on his favourite topic. I asked him if he could come up with an easy recipe using wild plants. He describes the recipe he sent me as a "metheglin" (a honey wine flavoured with herbs or spices) though I would suggest it is a honey beer, albeit one quite unrelated to the modern honey beers that contain very little honey indeed. It is more, as Alastair himself says, like the stuff the Vikings would have drunk.

Heather, yarrow and hops - flavourings for heather beer. Photograph: John Wright

The wild ingredients are extremely easy to find for most people. They are "common heather" – available over the whole country except for a broadish band running from Bristol to the Wash, yarrow – a very common roadside and pastureland plant found everywhere, and hop. It is possible to pick your own hops – it is commonly found as a climbing plant in hedgerows – though easier to buy some from your homebrewing supplier as I did. There is one other wild ingredient – the seaweed, carragheen, used as a fining – which, you will be pleased to hear, I actually did forage for myself, though again it is easy to buy under the name of Irish moss.

The finished result is quite splendid – light, nicely honey coloured and tasting of honey. Dad would, finally, be proud.

Heather beer

125g heather tips (softer green parts of the plant, with the flowers if possible)
30g dry heather twigs (to provide tannin)
60g yarrow (the feathery leaves plus the flowers if possible)
30g dried hops
1.8kg honey (the nicer the better, but cheap honey will be absolutely fine)
1.3kg malt extract (Edme SFZ or similar – from a home-brew store)
500g crushed crystal malt (home-brew store)
1 tsp dried carragheen (Irish moss)
1 sachet of ale yeast
25 litres of water

Steep the crystal malt grains in 10 litres of water at 65C, cover and leave for 30 to 40 minutes. Strain the grains from the "wort", as the liquor is called, remembering to throw away the used grains and not the wort (a terrible novice mistake!). Add 5 litres of hot water to the wort and bring to the boil. Add the malt extract, yarrow, heather, twigs and hops and boil for one hour. Savour the truly wonderful aroma. After one hour add the carragheen and the honey and boil for another 30 minutes, then leave to rest for further 30 minutes.

Drape a large muslin cloth over a large sieve and strain your brew into a 25 litre plastic fermenting bin. Top up to 25 litres by pouring some cold water through the muslin and its aromatic contents. Cover and leave to cool to room temperature. Swish with a spoon or whisk to aerate the wort until there is a bit of a froth on the top. Allow to settle then add the yeast according to the instructions on the packet. Cover.

After 24 to 36 hours a cauliflower-like head will have form on the surface. Skim this off and allow the beer to continue fermenting until the specific gravity has dropped to 1010 (this is where the hydrometer comes in). Siphon into clean beer bottles or into a 25 litre plastic pressure barrel. Check every day or so to make sure the pressure has not reached explosive potential. The beer "conditions" (carries on fermenting) in the bottle, creating more alcohol, reducing the sugar and adding fizz. It is ready to drink after one to two weeks, though I couldn't wait that long and drank a, slightly sweet, pint eight hours after bottling.

Source: Guardian.co.uk

HOROSCOPE:Friday, August 05, 2011

You're passionate in general, but that raw energy is up today. And it's up to you do something positive with it. But that could be a tall order -- maybe an old insult still burns. You know you need to let it go, but right now that seems impossible -- and you may not want to. Still, fight the impulse to showcase with some daredevil stunt. Put your passion into your work or an exciting evening with someone special. Try to forget about the small stuff that just doesn't matter.

You've always been good at putting one foot in front of the other, but today, you've got that extra oomph. This is the perfect time to tackle a big project -- something you may have been putting off. Maybe clearing out your hall closet, or overhauling your garden, or breaking out the sewing machine? Don't ignore the passion that's simmering, either. It's a great time for fireworks with someone special. Most of all, don't be surprised if success knocks at your door, whether you were looking for it or not.

Today, you're a skeptic. But why? Is there any genuine reason to feel so suspicious, so utterly disillusioned? You're operating under some tricky business that's heightening your natural nervous energy. If you work at it, you can certainly manage your expectations -- and your disappointments. In fact, it's an even better bet to forget both and start from scratch. Good thing that's one of your instinctive talents: stopping everything and heading in a brand-new direction. In this case, it's a real asset.

You're a curious mixture of dynamic and placid. On the one hand, your usual, passive nature is still present. On the other hand, you're energized by a deep, internal wellspring of strength, one that sharpens both your desires and your focus. If what you want is money or fame, who knows? If you've got your eye on someone special, today could cement your connection or kick the relationship up to the next level. But will any of this make you happy? That remains to be seen.

Who is that sarcastic, intolerant, uncompromising person? Surely not you! Check in with yourself today. Stop trying to control every aspect of your situation. Don't blow torch everyone who doesn't agree with you. Where is this coming from? You have to admit that you're not being yourself. Somewhere along the way your mission redefined itself, and now you're starting to look like the bad guy in certain people's eyes. Change that ASAP. Keep the niceness flowing. It's what you do best.

You're determined to go with the flow today. That's OK, but you won't get far if you're holding it in a death grip or hanging on for dear life. Nothing's that important, at least not in the way you're thinking. First off, lose the symbolism and don't dwell on the deep personal meanings. It is what it is. Be less literal about your dreams and more practical about what's staring you in the face. You can find multiple uses for pretty much anything. This is what separates the amateurs from the pros.

Things have to follow a certain order today, and you may feel impatient with the wait. If you lost some work you did on a project, do it over rather than moving on without it. It'll take some time and effort, but it's almost certainly worth it. Today is about putting focused effort into something important. Maybe you'll see some improvement in things if you really give it your all. You can relax and have fun again in a few days, but for now, resign yourself to doing a thorough job.

Real friends will be discreet with each other's secrets. Yes, it's the ultimate loyalty test. Don't betray anyone's trust today. Get real about what they value even when you don't actually care about it. If you stab somebody in the back just to gain a few cheap points, you'll lose something a lot more precious. Not that you'd ever do anything like that, Scorpio! It's time to turn over a new leaf in your friendship album. Stick with these people instead of sticking it to them, and they'll stick with you.

You've got thick skin and good humor ahead. Celebrate and enjoy it! You'll be able to do great things in the future, because the lessons you learn now will really stick. Of course, it's okay to settle for something less, too. Don't think you have to get or be the best. Maybe that's a part of your current good-naturedness, Sagittarius. You're aware that a relationship isn't all it could be, or that someone at work has it in for you -- and yet, whatever adversity you're facing, you just keep on grooving anyway. Right on! That's the way to do it.

Normally you have the kind of discipline that will prop you up when you're feeling droopy. But droopiness is not an issue now. Your tireless spirit will keep you going today. This is way too interesting for sleepwalking. It's about believing in what you do. There are also certain traditions that must be preserved, whether it's just you, or your business or club. You know what the secrets are and also why it's necessary to keep them that way. This makes you tough yet tender because you know what you're doing. Isn't it good to be involved?

How comfortable are you with what's going on around here? If you're the one who started it, maybe you're delighted. If it's not your idea, you could probably make a few pointed suggestions. So do you have a useful perspective on all this? If you're either mulishly invested or miles removed, that answer would be no. Today requires a more moderate stance. Go with the flow, not against it. Even if it takes you someplace strange, you could fit right in. You won't know until you get there.

Now you're even more of a mystery to the people around you than usual. Of course, your feelings and perceptions have always been a bit too abstract for most folks to understand, but now your modesty mystifies them even more. How can you be modest when you're so incredibly compassionate and selflessly helpful to others? Don't worry if someone is jealous of you; it's just that you make your currently blessed state look so easy! If they only knew how hard you worked, they'd admire you even more.