We are still here!

     Just letting our followers, and those seeing us for the first time, know that we haven’t forgotten about our blog. Due to several of life’s changes we haven’t been able to make any updates. Cat is in Florida for family emergency and my work has gone into inventory season. After two weeks I’ll be back to a normal schedule, however Cat’s return is still not set. We haven’t been around for long, but we greatly appreciate those who will stick around.

      As for the reason this is in the code monkey section, I’ve started a new side project. After fiddling with spreadsheets Cat and I decided that creating a dedicated budget program would suit our needs and be much easier to maintain. Thus the Budgetizer was born. A rather lame name I know, but it will most likely be changed.

      It will be a simple interface showing a standard week or month layout with a custom length of time also available to be shown. With the date field being required, the rest is fully custom. For our needs we’ll set it up with a category for items, most likely drinks and food, which will have subtotals attached. There will also be an entry for the place that the items were purchased. Each day will be summed up and displayed for the amount of time desired.

     Of course this is just a preliminary description of the program. More in depth information will come with progress posts and of course when it is finally finished. Currently I’m leaning towards releasing the program and the source code on sourceforge.com to be used for it’s designed purpose or even as a learning tool. Any questions about the project or release methods may be submitted in the comments for this post.

Tippy Typing to Fun!

     First Code Monkey post! Finch here, giving a bit of background on the coding side of life. It’s a hobby that can fulfil your wildest dreams or cause you to tear your hair out. Sounds fun right! Well with anything else in life that has large rewards, programming is a big challenge. Thankfully everyone can start small.

     During the course of the Code Monkey posts I’ll be sharing my progress on my final goal of making a game engine, but of course there will be the random forays into other coding stories. With how fun coding is and how distracted I get from my projects these posts will be going for a long, long time. This is not to say all the posts will be about what I like and what I’m doing. No, no. Cat has also expressed the interest in learning how to code eventually. Which basically means that this sight will probably see some flash features in the future. Or who knows, she may fall in love with it and make tons of projects. That’s enough about us, on to the code bits!

    Details will be in more in-depth posts later, but here is a small listing of the things I use on a regular basis. C++ is my language of choice. Though many other languages have been dabbled with, C++ seems to be what just clicks. With it’s many built in features but the capability to easily rewrite whatever you want, it is great for the beginner and the master.

    Tying in with C++ is the wonderful graphical framework Qt. It gives a massive library of functions that ease the creation of those complex window based programs like those we use everyday. A simple combination of code and you could have a text editor. After a bit of planning and some code experience, one could easily recreate most of the functions of the classic Word. Though being able to make such programs is fun, the main reason I use it is due to it’s platform independence. It’s so painfully easy to move a project from Windows to Linux to Mac and back again.

    This post could seriously go on forever so I’ll stop here. More shall come about random coding things so stay tuned!

Victorious Carrot Zucchini Muffins!

     Cat here, I made these muffins a couple mornings ago for breakfast because that’s how I roll and they were to die for. Seriously, they were heaven in your mouth. I found a random recipe for zucchini muffins online which calls for 1 1/3 cup of shredded zucchini. All well and good until you look in the fridge and realize you only have that half zucchini left over from stir fry earlier in the week. Thus the carrot zucchini Muffin is born. This is a great use for all that summer zucchini out and about now because they freeze well. Below is my much tweaked recipe, enjoy!

1. 1 2/3 cup Flour
2. 1/2 cup Sugar (white)
3. 1 1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
4. 1/4 teaspoon Cloves (ground)
5. 1 1/4 teaspoon Baking Powder
6. 1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
7. 1/4 teaspoon salt

1. 1 1/3 cup shredded Zucchini and Carrot (I didn’t measure I just shredded a small carrot and the rest of the zucchini I had left over. It was probably more like 2 cups so you have wiggle room here.)
2. 1/2 cup Milk (recipe called for fat free, I only had 2% and it worked fine.)
3. 2 tablespoons Oil (vegetable, canola, ect. Whatever you have around the house)
4. 2 1/2 tablespoons honey (I added the extra half tablespoon because Finch and I really like honey and like our muffins a bit on the sweeter side. You can tone this down or kick it up a bit depending on preference. Original recipe called for 2 tablespoons.)
5. 1 egg

     You’ll note that the ingredients are split up into two separately numbered groups. The top group is your dry ingredients and the bottom is your wet. I’ll be referring to them by group in the directions but it’s super simple so don’t worry.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Mix together your dry ingredients in a large bowl and set aside.
3. In a separate bowl mix together your wet ingredients. The honey will try to settle on the bottom so make sure you thoroughly swish things around with your whisk.
4. Make a little crater in the center of your dry ingredients and pour your wet in. Mix until everything is incorporated and it looks like batter.
5. Fill your pre greased muffin tin so each cup is about half full.
6. Bake 15 – 17 minutes or until golden brown and delicious.

     Optional -  Sprinkle a bit of cinnamon and sugar on top of the batter in each cup, then add a couple oats on top. We really liked the slightly sweet crust on our muffins tops but this is up to you.

And voila, you’re finished! I told you they were easy, no? Hopefully you all enjoy them as much as Finch and I did. I know I at least will be making many more batches in the future.