Tong Family Blog

Well, Idid the upgrade to MovableType 4.0 on this site and it seemed to fix just about everything!

But, moving over to bluehost.com, so this older site is now only at http://richtong.org.

The new site with the new look and 30x (Wow!) more storage is at tongfamily.com

Posted by rich at 4:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, its been ages since I've really touched my hosting (thanks Mark at TQHosting) or my blogging with MovableType 3.3. But last week, my 3.3 installation finally broke with all kinds of strange Perl errors, so it is either upgrade to MovableType 4.0 and do a clean install or figure out what's the latest. So, I just swapped to Wordpress and am giving Bluehost a try.

Instead of 500MB for $10/month which was an amazing deal back three years ago, Bluehost gives an amazing 1.5TB (that's right terabtyes!) or storage and they install Wordpress automatically. Also the cost is basically $95/year ($7/year) and they provide free registration (so you save $7/year for registration too). Quite a deal. It uses the same cpanel setup.

Getting over to richtong.com was a handy domain to mirror tongfamily before I do a full cut over. Upperhost.com seems to liek Bluehost although you can never tell with web site spamming whether these reviews are real or not.

Moving over was straightforward, with the biggest problem my using Textile 2 for text entry, but fortunately, there is a plugin that deals with that and putting things into plugins is super easy with wordpress. You basically put it into the /wp-admin/plugin directory and it detects it automatically. Same with themes, you just fine them and stuff them into the /wp-admin/themes directory.

The biggest problem I have faced is resetting my Scribefire since you have to look in ~/Library/Application/Support/Firefox/Profiles/*.default and look for performancing.* files and delete them.

Posted by rich at 11:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Wow, finally a site that has it all for us lousy Chinese speakers at ChinesePod. I found it via iTunes and it has it all and it is free. For instance, look at the most popular intermediate lessons, it has both an MP3 podcast you can download as well as a PDF with English, pinyin and simplifed chinese. And the vocabulary is pretty useful and real world. Thanks guys!

Posted by rich at 6:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

OMG, I just love Sweetest Girl by Wyclef Jean. it is terrific Hip Hop for those of you who like that kind of stuff. Check out the video

I'm also listening to Avril Lavigne's Keep Holding On

Posted by rich at 6:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you are unlucky enough to have your wallet stolen, it isn't the $50 in it, it is that the thief can sell your identity on the internet to just about anyone. So, what can you do about it. First, you can place a 90 day credit alert for free, but of course every thief in the world knows that. So after cancelling all your cards and changing your bank accounts, you need a longer term monitoring system.

These are really expensive for reasons I don't understand. Typically $80-$200 per month for just a database check, but that's the scam for these credit reporting agencies. You need a service that monitors all three agencies, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Consumer Reports agrees that they aren't really that much protection mainly because if they use your social security number with a different name, the databases don't figure it out immediately and it can take 60 days for someone to report a new account.

Fightidentitytheft.com has a decent review, they appear fairly similar with a $25K reimbursement coverage and monitoring all the scores and also see their credit monitoring review

1. TrueCredit costs $15/month and monitors all three services and has a good rating. Underneath it is TransUnioin that provides this. You get a report from all three. It also monitors every business day. 5 out of 5 stars, but the most expensive. You do get unlimited access to your credit scores if you need that.
2. Citi has a $13/month service that covers all three as well. 4 out of 5 stars
3. Equifax also has a $15 service but you only get FICO and Equifax credit reports. 3 out of 5 stars

Then there are frad alert that comes from services that aren't owned by the big three. They basically layer the continuing 90 day realert for credit monitoring and a few things onto the services listed above:

1. Debix which is a more comprehensive system. It is not just reporting, it maintains your fraud alerts (you have to manually reactivate every 90 days the fraud alerts for all three services to keep it going). Besides wiping you off of junk mail lists, the main thing it adds is a special number you give all the banks. When they call, you have to type in a PIN to make sure it is really you. So folks pretending to be you can't run any transactions. It is $90 per year so a little cheaper too. What happens is that in your credit report, is the Debix number, then Debix has a find me feature that calls you at any of your numbers to validate this is right. It is definitely the cheapest service. The main knock I'd say is whether this is a legit company, there look like about a dozen sites in a google query on Debix that look phony and are positive reviews of the service, so beware.
2. Lifelock. I love this gutsy little startup. The president of the company puts his name and social security number on their site to show how safe it is. Like Debix, it sets a fraud alert on everything, they then remove names from credit card application junk lists, then you get the WalletLock which is an operator that will cancel all your cards for you. Otherwise, like Debix it is a layer on top. They do claim they will spend $1M if you are ever the victim, but its hard for me to believe that particular claim. It is mainly a timesaver over the credit agencies and the constant recycling of the 90 day alert is valuable
3. IdentiyGuard also monitors all three and is $13/month. 4 out of 5 stars. It has a couple of levles, but at $17/month, they claim they do monitoring, and also claim to monitor public records.

Posted by rich at 10:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hey, if you are buying lots of gear, now's the time to do a few things. First, if you know an REI member, if you sign up this month for $20 fee, you get a 20% off for a non-sale item. So if you've been eyeing something that is $100, now's the time. Also REI Visa let's you save 5% on every non-sale REI purchase. It is also free and gives you a 1% rebate on other purchases. I've been using frequent flier credit cards, but if you have big dollar items, this can make some sense.

Posted by rich at 9:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

After our most recent trip, nearly all of our earbuds have simply died. Usually, the little cable breaks, so what to do if you need a lot of these and they take abuse. Headphones.com has some of the best reviews I've seen. It is how I originally got the Etymotic ER-6i and ER-4p and ER-4s. Sadly, I've lost one ER-6i and two have broken, so what are the best headphones now:

Ten Best Headphones

Most of these aren't practical for travel but the real winner seems to be the Shure SE310. It got 5 out of 5 (The Etymotics ER-4Ps are 4.5 out of 5, so close) and it comes in white. Amazon has them for $200 and the list is $299. While headphones.com has them for $250.

Entry Level

If you can't stand paying more for your headphones than your iPod or you've got kids who will likely rip and destroy them, then try the Sennheiser MX300 which lists for $10 and Amazon has for $9. They don't say it but I'd expect the white MX500 probably works just as well although it is $17 because of the color :_) and because there is a volume control on it. Macworld also likes the MX 500 and it is nice it comes in a little case too. iLounge also liked the MX 500 giving it an A- saying that while they are uncomfortable for long usage, they sound as good as the Apple ones. BTW, if you don't mind, you can get blue MX 500 for $10 from TigerDirect.com

If you want in the ear, so called in-canal headphones, these are a great step up and much less bulky that on the ear headphones, so a budget set would be then try the Jays j-JAYS which are just $50 and do have that snug fit and noise reduction. or the d-JAYS which sound better at $100 and got a 4 out of 5 rating.

Posted by rich at 9:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)