Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

I finally got six weeks worth of Amazon orders and gadgets, and here is a review of the various components: Here are the ones I haven’t tried but will review shortly, but here are some automotive and things: The accessories for the Zoom Studio I’ve been building: Then there are Apple Home devices which are…

Well, it took six months to figure out how to do it, but Brave has this feature where they throw up ads and then pay you in their own coin and it is complicated to get this running and to get the money out. Here are the steps: So if you are still using

Well, there was a time when international roaming was a real hassle. You had to find a store (typically at the airport, then get a new sim, you had to bring a separate phone to make this all run). The move to eSims: From iPhone X to iPhone 14 iPhone lets you use two SIMs…

Well, the 2023 models are out and supply chains have normalized so Bob asked us about what flat panel to buy. The main thing is that the 4K HDR television market has really stabilized and prices are pretty reasonable but if you want super high quality here are some choices The best three TVs seem…

Ok, so against my better judgement I decided to save $5/month and get xFi Complete. You basically use the xfinity cable gateway (a combo cable modem, WiFi access point and switch) because it comes bundled with the $30/month unlimited data. What a mistake! The box arrived and it plugged it in. First of all it…

Well it’s been three and a half years since the start of the pandemic and one of my projects was to fix all the lighting around the house from very high-energy incandescent to LED. So I have a set of lights from 2017 that have been going for six years and a set from 2020…

For a long time, it seemed like it was a decades-long Christmas of lower prices with better services, well no more. So now is the time to be a little more careful with what you are doing. The good or bad news is they are going to discover how price-elastic people are. There are definitely…

Well with the lockdowns ending the new competition basis for service providers is a dizzying array of ways to optimize the rising inflation in streaming services, delivery and car services. So here’s a master thread on this. It’s inverted from normal. That is it covers categories rather than providers: Streaming Someone finally noticed that streaming…

apple.news/A2AFAVmudRwiLpKxLLJ-4PQ This is actually a super good idea. Thieves are now watching you type your passcode, then stealing your phone and changing your Apple account password locking you out and stealing your second factor. The fix is to turn on Screentime Passcode and then enable Content & Privacy Restrictions and disallow to your for passcode…

Man, I’ve been using Google Slides for years and there are two things I’ve never been able to figure out. The first has to do with the many differences between the Web app and the iPad/iPhone. There are many things that have bothered me, but the biggest one is multiple selection (and the related align…

There are a couple of steps to get this to work right because there are a couple of problems to get a Zoom background: So the fix is a little painful but it does work:

Paul asked me a great question. He has a UDM running in a hot room and the temperature is 83C. That sounds pretty terribly warm but the room is 30C ambient. So that got me to wondering. First where is the CPU temperature anyway. (I can’t wait for all computer interfaces to go natural language…

Okay, we have no less than 119 connections (most are burglar alarm points) and with Apple Home in the last week, they’ve all suddenly become unavailable. It could be because of iOS 16.5 The Airplay to our HomePod Mini’s work and the fixes are pretty draconian. Like, reset all your devices. I can’t tell you…

OK, for those of you still Zoom culture, I tidied up my Zoom stuff, and here are some notes:

OK, the last question is that when you have a modern format like Apple Spatial Audio which appears as Dolby Atmos that is going to an old AVR that doesn’t have this format, at least on my Denon, we get two mysterious options, the first is Direct which just means you get stereo, all these…

OK, this setup has actually worked pretty well for three years, but lately, with Ventura, I’ve been having this problem: The trick I was using that since the old Denon only supports HD input, I would normally route all the inputs for the system through the AVR and then to the LG, but instead, I…

Thanks to the incredible Walt Mossberg, he’s on Thread and reminded me that I guess I’m a true Swiftie: My five favorite Taylor Swift albums: Favorite song: All Too Well (10 minute version) But there are excellent songs on every one of her albums, since she’s a truly great songwriter. Walt Mossberg, Thread.net, 2023-07-20 Since…

This week I’ve been trying to do reading in the Kindle Papetwhite which is a nice device but I basically never use it because I’ve zero time to read. But recently I joined a study group where there are no audiobooks for the readings. There is a kindle version or a pdf. Sort of a…

There are so many different variants of French press instructions but 28 grams for 16 ounces is nice and rich and there are some that are half that. Half that is way to yucky I think. And make sure the press is warm and the water is 200F and not at boiling.

Happy Birthday France! And a quick catchup on podcasting, the audio level seems better, there is less “breathing” but there is some clipping of the sound, so not all the way tuned. I also hear clicking as it comes in and out, this could be related to the Shure microphone to the Sony camera to…

OK, I figured out that you can’t use the very fast Apple Compressor unless you don’t have the proxy and do have the optimized (eg ProRes 422) files, but what I didn’t realize is that if you import some clips and do a quick edit and then try to run Compressor it will fail with…

I was thinking about buying a Spyder X because the Spyder 3 software no longer works, but then I found DisplayCal which seemed to crash the last time, but since the Spyder X costs way more so I thought I would try this. This doesn’t help the print calibration, but good to try. DisplayCal has…

Wow, what a great two days Amazon Prime was this year. Normally, I don’t find many things to buy, but this year, I see, but here is a post-mortem on discounts iPad, Anker chargers Sales are not really sales I got really excited when I saw iPads for sale, but the $100 discount is actually…

OK, time to look at Comcast bills again, my fairly reasonable bill at $100/month for 1.2Gbps/50Mbps has jumped to $133 so time to look at it. The big problem with Comcast is that you fall off your one year commitment and don’t realize it and then your bill rises If you look at the pricing…

It’s raining development completion tools. I’m still using vi (as the switch to code is delayed as I figure out how to use a GUI code editor, I’m so used to it being in line with my terminal). But, in the meantime, I was wanting to get off of GitHub Copilot since it cost $20/r,…

OK, for those of you with the Nexus card that allows expedited travel between the US and Canada, here are some things to know (in other words, don’t be me!) Nexus Renewal and make sure to Activate I made this mistake, unlike Global Entry, which when you renew, just works with your passport, you get…

Well, I bit the bullet today and upgraded our Apple Home to use the new protocols. The main issue is that it keeps complaining that one of my Macbook Pros, the 2017 model, has not been updated to the latest firmware. Also, my oldest Apple TV is not compatible, this is another case, where the…

OK, getting a Direct Attached Storage (DAS) is useful if you run out of storage and your Network Attached Storage (NAS). The main reason for this is bandwidth, if you use a Thunderbolt 4 DAS for instance, then you are running at 40Gbps vs Gigabit Ethernet at 1Gbps or if you are direct connected, then…