Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

Ok, hopefully you will never have to do this but we had a flat screen installed and during COVID we wanted to get a new one but didn’t want anyone at home so off to figure out to uninstall a flat screen The main trick is that behind the TV there is a latch and…

Ok starting with the pandemic and thanks to a great sale from Amazon I got a Kindle Paperwhite. Its the first kindle I’ve gotten since the very first original one with the keyboard. It was slow but it had a Sprint connection. In truth I never used it very much and I thought that the…

Well in the continuing quest to make this a HomeKit house, we spent some time looking for reliable garage openers that can be used with the Apple home application. There are quite a few smart garage door openers (and Wirecutter) but the best choice is not obvious. The Tailwind system is the most reliable because…

Well, again about a year ago and fixing the house was a good chance to learn a few things about making things work: Silicone vs Acrylic Sealants. The long and short of it is that in damp climate and where there is rain, silicone forms a water impermeable rubber seal. You can’t paint it but…

Maybe you are wondering why is Tong posting so Much well it’s simple. In the switch to iOS 15 suddenly I have a count of open tabs. I keep a tab when I want to note it for later. Let’s just saying that seeing that I have 286 open tabs (and factoids) is pretty daunting.…

Well because of COVID we ended up getting four home filters for various folks and we even got an air quality monitor from kaiterra to monitor it. Net, net these things seem to work. When we didn’t have one on, our internal air quality rose to 84 on US AQI but putting one in dropped…

Well, now that the RainMachine seems to be working, the next project is at another house where there isn’t any sprinkler built in so how do you build something that can be HomeKit compatible so you can say things like turn the sprinkler on and and other general conditionals. There are quite a few automatic…

Ok, now that I’ve been on the bike for a year now doing 2,000 miles on an indoor trainer, its hard not to do some study and figure out thresholds for training. There is lactate threshold where your muscles start generating lactate and begin to burn out. The main idea is what % of VO2max…

Well, if emojis weren’t enough there is a whole new category of symbols so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ is a great well happy or smug shrug and in fact iOS 15 will replace the word shrug with this set. It’s called a Kaomoji or face mark because it uses the kanji characters in concert with a great imagination.…

Well if you headed off to Montreal it’s going to be very cold. It’s typically -5 C highs and -13 C so you really need a warm coat. Particularly when the cold winds move in. Or just use the Underground City to get around. But there are some good choices from Outdoor Gear Labs with…

For a long time I’ve mainly been trying to get lighter helmets but the latest trend is going aerodynamic. This really matters at higher speeds. Like over 45 Kph. The road bike aero helmet have really evolved and best ones are wind tunnel tested now. This is really important for triathlons where aero is key.…

Ok a big problem has been there are so many ways to do scripting and cd/CI pipelines. There are basically three different approaches: Stuff everything into GitHub actions. With Act you can actually run GitHub action locally. So when you combine this with pre-commit you can have a single method for controlling things. The main…

Ok we have way too many HomePods and recently two really started to act up. One kept on setting off timers and then when we tried to turn them off it would say that none existed. Another kept playing music and when you ask it to stop it would say nothing was playing. Finally and…

What an annoying beeping and an inscrutable message. Our other alarms beep constantly which I just hate. But this little plug-in co2 system dumps this strange code L6. It should be flashing alternately with the ‘0’ with a short beep every 15 seconds. The indication is to replace the 9v battery. And every 10 years…

With sales of vegan foods on the rise, check the environmental impact of plant-based milks. We’ve been wondering which of the many variants of milk are better Turns out that diary milk is pretty polluting so buying different milk and eating plant base proteins are the way to go. Macadamia milk and oat milk are…

You wouldn’t think you should ever have to really shop for these but I’ve had a few over the years. The Bike Rumors and Bicycling reviews are pretty accurate: SILCA Pista Plus. This costs a fortune (more than some bikes at $165) but you are buying a piece of history. The design is nearly 60…

Wow, it is just crazy how non standard and different and difficult HomeKit pairing is. Some like Wemo won’t pair with their native apps but with work. Others like satechi pair fine but do jot connect reliably to 2.4Ghz. Same with the Wemo. The Aqara did pair fine with the M1S hub with the native…

OK, I bit the bullet today and did the iOS 15 upgrade. It actually went quite well. The new iPad catchup to iOS 14 is nice. Having widgets on the Home Screen is great. Also getting iCloud+ is nice, if a little buried, you need to go to Settings > User Name > iCloud >…

OK, I need somewhere to stash all of these strange findings. First of all if you have Docker for Mac as of September 2021, do *not* install experimental new virtualization framework. I did and it apparently breaks docker pull for some reason that is mysterious. I actually did a full install and reinstall before discovering…

OK, I’ve used the Mac for so many years and never knew this hack. If you have a hidden file like .ssh which is by default hidden by Unix systems , then it won’t appear in Finder. But if you want to see them then in a Finder window hit Command-Shift-. and they will appear.…

Wow, so glad that Tony recommended these Aftershotz Aeropex and I have to say they are basically awesome. They are lightweight and easy to use. While the audio is going to be thin, they are perfect for a couple of uses: If you are biking or running and need to hear what is going on…

OK, for a long time, I’ve used a wallet that was integrated into a case on my phone. Then, I looked for proprietary trackers that you could stick on things and even tried the Tile. But, then two things happened, Apple created MagSafe and a charging system, so it wasn’t practically to stick your wallet…

Ok it’s not raining quite yet but it is cloudy. Round 3 of trying the slow smoker. Changes made No smoker chips  was too strong last time 2  chicken breast was over cooked at 160. Did 140 last time and was better 3  ribs were not really done  temperature varies alot by the probe so…

OK, it’s taken a while, but in the spirit of typing rather than clicking, here are some notes about how to do all the common things with… Catching up on dependable pull requests. If you are like me and are getting pull request automatically, here is all you have to do, the only confusing thing…

Well, I had no expectations here, but I have 10TB stuck in a download and Google would not authenticate because you have to use the non-SSL connection to the DSM. I’m happy to report that after a week of “relink” in progress, it actually worked! I can now see all my old backups. All you…

Wow this really works. I have to support a NAS in two remote locations. And like, Ubiquiti, Synology has a nice way of doing this. However instead of a central server, they use an addressing scheme, so that if logon to QuickConnectID then it will do the equivalent of dyanmic DNS and get you to…

OK well, I’ve had my fill of complete drones and I have sitting on my desk (for the last five years) a true open source drone, so time now to be a real nerd and get it all running. So there is lots of confusing terminology here, but basically a complete drone has two (and…

Well for a long time I wore a hydration pack and thought that would be more streamlined than two water bottles. Maybe it was true but it was definitely hot and was heavy. So, I’ve switched to water bottles and a tiny tool bag for a tube, co2 inflator, a key and some money. And…

Back in July, it seemed that Thunderbolt 4 was just around the corner, but now its September and none have really appeared. I’m sure the chip shortage has been part of it. That along with the various requirements that Intel has put on it. But to review, the big advantage of Thunderbolt 4 isn’t speed…

Well, last year with the pandemic, the prices of 2019 television really fell, but through most of 2021, the prices have been high with shortages, but in the last few weeks, this about to be old stock, is falling again so it is not a bad time to buy. When looking at Rtings.com, there is…