On the 15th day of the Chinese eighth lunar month is the time when the moon is said to be at its fullest. To us Chinese, this is also the time of the year where we get to taste mooncakes!
These days we can also expect a new tasty flavoured mooncakes every time! Honestly I’m amazed at the variety we have to choose from every year. My favourite is the traditional Baked Mother of Pearl Mooncake with Single Yolk & White Lotus Paste from Raffles Hotel. $45 per box. What’s your favourite? From where?
But mooncakes these days don’t come cheap, so I figured I’d better keep a record of how to make mooncakes just in case. Here are some recipes to get you started.
Syrup for mooncake
Ingredients: (A)
- 1200g sugar
- 1kg water
- 1 lime - cut into 4 pieces, squeeze in the juice and put in the skin as well.
- 3 tbsp maltose
Method:
Put ingredients (A) into a pot and bring to a boil till sugar has dissolved. Lower heat and continue to simmer till thick and syrupy. Switch off the fire and add the maltose. Stir well to dissolve. Leave to cool and keep for use as syrup for the dough (skin).
Mooncake Pastry
Ingredients:
- 400g golden syrup
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1 1/2 tbsp lye water (kan sui)
- 100ml peanut oil
- 550g flour
Method:
Pour golden syrup, bicarbonate of soda and oil into a mixing bowl. Add in lye water and mix with a wooden spoon. Fold in flour gradually and stir to form a firm dough. Let dough rest for five hours.
Lotus Paste Filling
Ingredients:
- 500g lotus seeds (seong lin)
- 1 1/2 tbsp lye water (kan sui)
- 340ml peanut oil
- 450g sugar
- 1 tbsp maltose
- 1 tbsp kao fun (cooked glutinous rice flour)
Method:
Add lye water into lotus seeds, mix well and leave aside for 20 minutes. Pour in boiling water and cover up for 20-30 minutes. Strain and wash the lotus seeds to remove the skin. Boil lotus seeds till soft. Put them into a blender with some water and blend into a thick paste. Heat wok with a quarter portion of oil and a quarter portion of sugar. When sugar turns light brown, put in blended lotus paste and the remaining sugar. Stir constantly until paste is smooth and thick in consistency. Add in the rest of the oil gradually. Keep stirring the paste until thick. Lastly, stir in maltose and stir well to blend. Sieve in 1 tbsp kao fun for a thicker and firmer consistency in the paste. Leave orernight before use.
Making of Mooncakes
Method:
Divide your dough into even pieces of 40g each. Roll the dough into a ball and flatten out with your hand. Weigh the lotus seed paste. If you like the yolk of salted eggs, you can insert one in the centre. Place the filling in the middle of the flat dough and slowly wrap around it. Seal the edges and roll dough lightly between your palms until the filling is hidden. Dust mould lightly with flour. Press dough ball into the mooncake mould. Knock the mould against the table to dislodge the mooncake. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees C for 10 minutes. Remove and leave to cool for 5 minutes. Brush on beaten egg glaze. Return to bake for another 10 minutes or till golden.
I hope this recipe will help someone out there too… If you have a mooncake recipe to share, feel free to add it here too. I’d love to pick up a few tips here and there. 
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Freshy 10 by Julien De Luca. This is a two column, top menu and right sidebar WordPress theme, it’s very colorful which is great for happy people. Customise it further by changing the menu color and the menu picture. Everything is pretty much done up already. You just need some minor adjustments to make it look it even better.
Foliage Mod by Derek Punsalan. This is a single column, top menu, plus a pitch of ajax. The entire menu is hidden within the top, just click the tag and the ajax menu will slide down. It’s another great theme for personal weblog.
Black Minimalistic by Valter Nepomuceno. This single column beautifully designed theme is great for personal use. The psd file also comes along with this theme, so you can customise it further to meet your needs. Everything look great in Firefox and Opera, however IE this template just look strange. Damn! That IE!
Neo-Sapien by Small Potato. This is a 4 column wordpress theme, I feel that this theme is great for the blogging network. I get the most click through in my Google Adsense with this template. Somehow I think the color combination and the layout have much to do with the click through.
Hemingway by Kyle Neath. This is yet another great personal theme. Minimum number of posts on the front page and bottom menu. Much can be done with this theme if you are great in your photoshop and if you understand abit of php. The potential of this theme is huge!
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First… I’m sorry for being late posting this interview.
This is an interview I’d with Jeremy Johnson, the guy behind jeremyjohnsononline and the famous pixelimpact! He’s really into the whole information architecture and usability stuff.. Not to mention that he’s a great guy to chat with, I hope you like this interview too.
- Care to give our readers a short introduction about yourself?
Sure, I’ve been in the Design business for around 7 years - working on a range of different projects from video editing to user experience. I’m currently working for geniant here in Dallas, TX as a Information Architect, but I also play a User Experience and Interaction Designer role.
- You have quite a number of websites, care to give us a brief intro to each of them?
Since the web is also a hobby of mine, I spend some (most?) of my free time blogging and designing just for fun. I’m currently running:
www.pixelimpact.com - where I blog about creative photography on the web (part of the 9rules network)
www.jeremyjohnsononline.com - my professional blog where I write about user experience and design
www.metrolifestyle.com - my photoblog - I also have a passion for photography (part of the 9rules network)
www.23hd.com - my personal blog where i’ll go off-topic on whatever is on my mind
www.digitalbauhaus.com - my visual portfolio (somewhat updated…)
- First… from your jeremyjohnsononline.com blog, we see you are really into User Experience and Information Architecture, does it really matter? Do you think User Experience can sometimes be more important than the actual application itself?
User Experience is the whole solution and encompasses IA, Design, etc… When you focus on User Experience you are making sure the full process is usable and useful as well as engaging. In the past we’ve seen a disconnect between the different areas that make up User Experience, as an example a site may of been designed well visually, but had poor interactions. We want to make sure the full experience is enjoyable.
- We really like your previous article on Web UI. It gives us a sneak preview of what we can expect from web application and websites to come. Do you think there’s a UI template which work best for web application? Why yes? Why not?
I don’t really see a template, but there are best practices - like the Yahoo UI library for example. Web applications will become more like desktop applications as browsers and other technologies progress, but there is still room for innovation in interaction design, which I believe will be a good topic for the next few years.
- pixelimpact is another blog we love, but too bad it’s not posted too often. How did you manage to get to know of all these photos?
You just called me out! 
I know I’ve been slow to update pixelimpact, but running four blogs, working full time, and having a two year old around the house is time consuming. I’m trying to speed up posting, but it also has to do with what’s going on online. I have a huge amount of feeds I read, and I also keep up on photographic trends and news - this is where I come across most of the posts for pixelimpact.
- You have quite a lot of photos on the Italian CarFest in Grapevine, TX, a lot of fast cars too. So what’s your ride? Lamborghni?
I wish! No I drive a very economical car, I have a long commute to work (need to save on gas these days). I love taking photos of cars, especially the details the designers put into them. The curves, door handles, air intakes, etc. The smaller the detail the better.
- Any exciting new projects we can expect from you in the coming weeks?
At geniant I work on a range of projects, most of them I can’t talk about per NDA’s or they are internal systems. One new thing everyone should be seeing in the next couple of weeks is a re-branded geniant. We’ve been working on a new identity and should be revealing it shortly. Personally I have a couple of new ideas in the works… If I can expand my blog network to six blogs in the next year I’ll be happy.
- Tell us 3 things we never know about you.
One… I currently live in Dallas, TX - but I’m originally from Indiana. Two… I’m a huge fan of video games and can’t wait for the Wii. Three… I’m a die hard mac user, but you already probably already knew that 
- Anything you want to announce or shout to our readers.
I’d like to send a shout out to my co-worker and fellow Designer Jared (you need to interview him next, he’s a much better writer then me!)
- Any fav. websites you recommend us visit.
The “interenets” are huge! But how about a plug for my co-workers here at geniant:
http://www.jaredigital.com/
http://www.garrettdimon.com/
http://markup.thekraemers.com/
http://www.theynow.com/
http://www.handcoding.com/
http://www.luisgarcia.com/
http://www.suitedcowboys.com/
http://www.morethan2cents.com/
I hope he can achieve his six blogs goal in the coming year, and maybe more blogs on usability, I can use more advices on this subject.
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Sakai is an online Collaboration and Learning Environment. Many users of Sakai deploy it to support teaching and learning, ad hoc group collaboration, support for portfolios and research collaboration.
Claroline is a free application based on PHP/MySQL allowing teachers or education organizations to create and administrate courses through the web.
.LRN is a global community of educators, designers, and software developers who partner together to drive educational innovation.
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Can’t design a decent website even if your life depends on it? Not a problem, that’s always a workaround solution that we (I can’t design too. :P) can use without spending any $$$.
Search for freebies or tutorial photoshop psd file. - This work really well for me, whenever I visit a designer’s blog, I always search their blog for psd source file. So far, here’s my archives freebies psd source files - The Filipino Web Designer, Authentic Boredom, and Feed Icon.
If you prefer not to ‘take advantage’ of others hard work, good for you! Here’s some great Photoshop Tutorials websites for your reading.
- Planetphotoshop.com
- PhotoshopSupport.com
- Good-Tutorials.com
Alright, something to do over the weekends, remember to hand in the assessment on time!
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Create an e-mail to send to the future - Two fellas started this so that you could write yourself a letter to be delivered at a later date. FutureMe.org is based on the principle that memories are less accurate than emails.
Blackberry Pearl - Determined to develop one of the smallest and lightest smartphones in the world while staying true to the iconic BlackBerry user experience, Research In Motion announced its latest innovation in mobile handsets – the small, smart and stylish BlackBerry® Pearl™.
PodcastAwards.com 2006 - The Podcast Awards was created to recognize the best podcasters in the world by allowing the people (Listeners and Podcasters) to nominate, and then vote for their favorite podcast.
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I’m not if you have heard of Goplan, an online collaboration and project management from the guys at Webreakstuff. I have 2 Goplan invites to give away. If you are keen on an invite, leave a comment.
Also I’ve got about 96 Gmail invites to be given away! Can someone pls help me get rid of them!
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If you are familiar with keywords like GM and RPG, you might be familar with Treasure Tables! Treasure Tables who is ran by Martin Ralya brings together a community of intelligent, passionate GMs who are interested in reading about and discussing a wide range of game mastering topics. Here’s our short 10 questions with Martin Ralya.
- Care to give our readers a short introduction about yourself and what you do?
I’m a general manager for a national parking company, and I do freelance writing in my spare time. I was born in France, grew up in NYC, went to college in Michigan and now live in Utah with my fiance, Alysia, and our Beagle, Charlie. Alysia and I are getting married in less than two weeks.
- What 5 words best describe you? Why these 5 words?
Man, I’m terrible with this kind of question. Can I slide by with A, And, The, This and But?
Seriously, though, I’ll go with: Laid-back, Friendly, Smart, Stubborn and Tall. All of them are things you’d notice about me within a few minutes — except for Stubborn, which might come as a surprise later on down the road.
- You do quite abit of freelance writing… How did you get starting in the whole writing thingy? Is it a full time job?
No, very definitely part-time. I’m more of a hobbylancer — my goal is to pay for my annual trip to GenCon by freelancing, not to make a living. By comparison to other areas — like journalism, or writing articles for magazines — the pay rates in the RPG industry are so low that I can’t imagine trying to make a living at it.
I got started back in 2004, when I reviewed a small press RPG product and was asked to help write the next book in that line. From there, I answered open calls from different companies, gaining experience whilegetting a chance to work on a range of products. There are more efficient ways to build up a list of published RPG credits, but I’ve had fun with this approach.
- Did you learn writing from someone or school?
I grew up without a TV, so I’ve always been an avid reader. That plus a knack for writing got me started, and three great English teachers — plus several excellent teachers in other writing-oriented classes, mainly in college — got me to where I am today. I’ve never taken any formal classes in writing.
- Any advices or lessons you want to share with us about writing?
Reading a lot will improve your writing — any author, any genre, as long as it’s not crap. The crap can be pretty instructive, too, but the older I get the less time I have to waste on it.
I learn something from nearly every freelance project that I take on, which is part of what I enjoy about writing — there’s always room to improve. Recently, I’ve read a few very good books about writing, and learned quite a bit from them as well. They were: Bird by Bird, The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop, On Writing and Robert’s Rules of Writing.
As far as freelance writing for RPGs goes, the single most important thing you can do is meet your deadlines. Do that, and you’ll be bucking an unfortunate trend that (understandably!) drives editors frothing mad. Self-editing is also a good idea — not just spellchecking, but reading the whole thing several times and cleaning it up before sending it in. The less work your editor has to do, the better — and the more likely they are to get in touch with you again.
- Any exciting new projects or writing we can expect from you in the coming weeks?
I wrote 11,000 words of The Mother of All Treasure Tables, which comes out this month. I wrote my chunk as a freelancer for Tabletop Adventures, one of my favorite RPG companies to work with, and I’m really looking forward to seeing it in print. I’ve got a couple of other very small projects in the pipeline, none of which have been announced yet.
I’m also involved in a new endeavor that’s quite different from anything I’ve done in the past, but unfortunately that’s all I can say about it at the moment. Ooooh, mysterious.
- We are not going ask too much about TT or GM, that’s probably covered your previous interview. Has your favourite game changed since the last interview?
Nope, D&D and Call of Cthulhu are still my favorites. They’ve been my favorites for years, and while I like to play different RPGs, I don’t expect them to change anytime soon.
- Any games you would like to recommend our readers? Game we must play this lifetime.
I have a raging nerd-crush on Burning Empires, which came out a few weeks ago at GenCon. I just finished reading it, and it’s awesome — a fight-for-your-planet sci-fi RPG that’s all about character drama, high-pressure situations and tough choices.
It’s written by Luke Crane, who created the Burning Wheel RPG, and based on the Iron Empires comic books by Chris Moeller. The setting is mix of original material and shades of Dune, Stargate SG-1, Battlestar Galactica (the new one) and Warhammer 40,000. It’s a brilliant book — well-written, gorgeous, satisfying and
I haven’t actually played it yet, but I see no reason why it wouldn’t rock on toast. It’s number one with a bullet on my list of games to play, and probably will be until I can talk my group into it.
- 3d6 is another blog of yours? What’s it about? Another websites you got but we dun know?
Yep, 3d6.org is one of my sites. It used to be my only site, and back then it was mainly a gaming site. Once I started Treasure Tables, I revamped 3d6.org to be all about my photos, although there’s a bit of gaming material on there as well. It’s strictly a personal site now, and there’s not much on it that I think would interest anyone outside of my family and friends.
I also have one other small site, Utah BSG, which is dedicated to building the Battlestar Galactica CCG community in Utah. So far, it hasn’t been very successful.
- Finally, anything last words you want to announce or shout to our readers?
Thanks for having me here, Paul — I had fun with this interview!
First of all, I would like to congratulate Martin Ralya on getting hitched in less than two weeks. And I can say that the whole marriage is going to be great fun! Martin Ralya is a very humble person and a quite a pro in writing…. I must say. It’s great having him onboard in our interview.
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Have you heard of Odds&Ends? Well, Odds&Ends is one of the runners-up in the 2005 Photobloggies Award in 4 distinct categories: Best South East Asian / Indian Photoblog, Best Writing of a Photoblog, Best Kept Secret Photoblog and Best Photoblog Design. I’m happy to do a short 10 Questions with Lim Zhi Xin, the owner of Odds&Ends.
- Care to give our readers a short introduction about yourself and what you do?
I’m Zhixin Lim; student and photographer by day and your friendly neighbourhood Sleepyman by night.
- What 5 words best describe you?
Smart, charming, funny, witty and delusional.
- You are in London right doing your Actuarial Science studies in City University? Er… what’s Actuarial Science really?
The official blurb for Actuarial Science is that it makes financial sense of the future. An actuary evaluate the probability that an event would occur and devise ways to minimise the ensuing undesireable financial impact. Some actuaries are so good, they’re almost clairvoyant.
- In your photoblog you stated that you are looking for freelance or part time a job as event photographer. What’s your rate like? They always say if you dun tell me how much it’s going to cost me, we might not never buy it from you.
My first gig was for a 2-day holiday camp for a group of kindergarten kids (here’s one of the shots from the event. As it was done on my aunt’s request, I was paid pretty much next to nothing. I’ve wised up; I’m open to any offer as long as it’s in the region of 500 to 1000 pounds. Nah, just kidding… The rate would have to depend on the amount of work involved and the availability of free food and booze.
- How did you get started in the whole Photography stuff? Any advice for upcoming photographers out there who wish to to learn the trade of photography?
I kind of knew instintively since young that I would take an interest in photography later on in life. It probably has something to do with the fact that my dad used to be an avid photographer and having seen his collection of photos (I have vivid memory of seeing his experimental long exposure shots), I thought it would be a cool thing to do. I started with a “prosumer”-level camera with shutter and aperture priority and have since moved on to a dSLR. If you’re a photography enthusiast, you’ve got to have a dSLR in your arsenal; it doesn’t translate to better photos (subjectively) but on the technical level, your Canon IXUS just can’t beat the high-end optics and the lack of shutter lag of a dSLR. If you’re just starting out, here’s a great site on the basics of digital photography: http://www.shortcourses.com/using/
- You are quite a gal person with Cammie and Nikki around you all the time. Meet anyone new recently?
A gal person? I wish! Am still waiting to meet Alexis Bledel.
- Has Odds&Ends won more any awards recently? What’s your plan for the future? Full time photography maybe?
Nope, but I would like to think I’m awarded everytime someone responds to my posts. In the immediate future, I hope I could get the all-important summer internship in the insurance industry. In the long term, my passion is in movies and film-making and I see photography as a stepping stone to that end.
- Any exciting new projects we can expect from you?
Not at the moment as I forsee a busy term ahead. Plus, I’m experiencing my longest creative dry spell to date.
- We really like some of your pictures, how can we get our hands on them? Do you sell them? How?
I hope to get a photobook out one of these days. I was supposed to work on it during the summer but it didn’t quite work out. It might turn out to be a blessing as at the moment, I don’t have enough shots fit for a book.
- Finally give us some websites you really really like.
I love my daily dose of imagery at http://wvs.topleftpixel.com and my Rocketboom fixes http://www.rocketboom.com/vlog/ and most of the sites on my links page http://www.odds-and-ends.net/links/
I’m thankful to Zhi Xin for agreeing to do an interview with me, this really help to kickstart the whole 10 Questions initiative again. I hope you like this interview and the many more interviews to come.
Finally, remember if you are in London and need a freelancer to help you cover your events. Maybe you want want to give Zhi Xin a shot, I must say his rate are quite affordable, free food and booze will do.
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Here’s a few good Nike Soccer Commericals I like. Enjoy.
Brazilian team at the airport.
Brazil vs Portugal.
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Seem like everybody nowadays is looking to include Google Adsense into their blogs or website. If you are using WordPress, perhaps you would be familiar with the Kubrick wordpress template by Binary Bonsai. This is by far the most flexible wordpress template around, integrating plugins and codes modifications is a breeze.
Following tips provided from Google Adsense Help Center, I completed the enhancements to Kubrick WordPress template in less than 30 mins. I can’t say the same for the rest of the templates available out there. Some has just too much coding bundled into the templates. One mistake in the codes and you will break the template.
Savvy Ad Placement - Increase the likelihood that readers will see and click on the ads, ad units are blended into the background and content of the blog.
Section Targeting - Allows emphasize to match ads to the blog’s content.
Ultimately this is what I have… A Google Adsense ready Kubrick template for WordPress.
If you are keen to get a copy of this template, leave a comment. I will email you a copy. Hopefully this will help someone out there who wish to make some money of their weblog.
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