Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

Next PC to Buy I’m also going to put a new graphic card into Grace’s machine. Want to get an nVidia, but this piece shows, the new NV30 is the one to wait for in November. Otherwise, it’s a midrange Radeon. The couple of clipped articles here should give you an view for what I’m…

Tom’s Hardware Guide CPU Guide: Hot Contraband: P4 With 3.6 GHz – Comparison Of All P4 CPUs. I can’t believe it, but it is time for me to think about upgrading computers again. Our main server is a Pentium IV 450MHz. The screamer of three years ago. Grace has a very fast 2533MHz that I’m…

High Quality MP3 Encoding OK, this was one night project to figure out how to do really high quality. Some would say archival MP3s. Boy, did I learn a lot between 1AM and 10PM. Suffice to say that encoding is very complicated. The summary of what I learned is: MusicMatch is the easiest encoder. It…

Discussion of Audio Compression. I’ve been doing a lot of MP3 encoding. Finally decided to see who had actually tested it. This is a wonderful site with lots of information and ont much beauty, but it sure is helpful.

Rolling Requiem. Pretty amazing what the Internet can do. This was a project to play Mozart’s Requim around the world on September 11, 2002. From right here in Seattle too.

“The Family Man” Network This is another part of the study on doing a good job in home networking. I did this work for Dynacenter as they figure out the top tasks that folks will have. If you have random thoughts send them on to Steve. It seems to me that for the family scenario,…

Mike Nash. One of my best buddies. he’s got a terrible looking site, but that is probably because he is too busy working making the world safe from hackers at Microsoft. Here’s a much better corporate biography. David J.. Another buddy of mine from Hollywood no less. Of course as part of the Mike Nash…

Mike-Levin.com – Who Let In The Bees? – bees

General Colin Powell

Never Give In? – Winston Churchill never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

Tongs and Friends in print Some great examples of times we’ve been in print and our friends. A great change from three years ago where I’d sweat bullets waiting for the latest PC Week article. Here are some recent pieces about us or those close to us: In Ghana, the beat of life is sounded…

Soundtrack Reviews. Since I don’t have kids old enough to hear really new music, I primarily use movies I watch to get introduced to new sounds. Here’s a site that does nothing but track soundtracks (no pun intended). Rates them, etc. Perfect for me.

Winter Biking It’s getting cold in our neck of the woods. I think I Blogged this before, but here are some of the key places that you’ll need to go to get ready:

Pedal the perimeter of the US. Wow, a fantasy for me. Interesting to see two ordinary people ride 11,000 miles over about a year. Pretty fun journal to read.

Safety Vest for Biking Flashlight Reviews and LED Modifications. OK, the ultimate in nerd factor. This site just reviews flashlights and other things with lights. I got to this because Steve Hooper recommend a Ledtronics safety vest and a quick google search got me hear to order something that is really bright. Electroluminescent vs. LED.…

Road Bike Clincher Tire Review by Greg Pelican This was closest Google hit to a search for road bike tire reviews. Pretty good summary I think. Note that Bethel Cycle is not up, so this is copied from the Google cache Back in my photo science days a common adage was the cheapest way to…

Why 802.11 Networking is great. A note from Tom Hatsukami as he installed the wireless network I recommended: I finally had a chance to get our home wireless network up and running this weekend, and I’m in heaven! This is the best thing since the invention of the wheel–I can check my e-mail or look…

Interbike 2002 OK, this just happened in mid October. I have to get out there sometime I think. Here is a quick report from some pretty good sites… Speedgoat Report The next set of stuff is coming out. Got to remember not to buy until it is fully stocked. Here is a good report from…

Bike Advice I’ve been learning how to maintain bikes for about a year now. Here’s a quick list of the sites and books I’ve used. Good luck yourself! Branford Bikes. This is the more detailed reference I use that has some of the really valuable tips, not to mention hard to find spare and parts.…

Web Hosting CyberPixels WebHosting – Hosting Plans. Recommended by paradoxx. Wow, the prices are great. I just signed up for this and we’ll see how it goes. I’m going to move Geek Fishing as an experiment. Most interesting will be to test out some of the applications they install for you. Here’s a quick list…

paradoxx.net >> it’s nothing, it’s so normal. This is a great example of what’s happening with Blogging. What an amazing site from someone who is 16 years old!

Home Networking I’m involved with Google results for Home Networking resulted in these hits. I’ll be a regular on these, so as of today, here are the top 10 hits with some notes by me. Home Net Help. I would not have guessed this would be the number one hit. PracticallyNetworked.com. A good site for…

Welcome to Bikesport!. They actually do some nice reviews on this site. I liked the one about the Felt DA650. I don’t need a triathlon bike, but who knows. I also updated my Bike Manuals page with pointers to all the components I use and the torques for bolts. This is easier than the google…

Smash’s World. Wow, a pretty cool site. MOst importantly, it has his own Kazaa participation Hack and also a kazaa lite 2.0 patch.

Bikes and HTML coding Just created a page for bikes that I Bikes and other referrals. Amazing what is on the web. There is actually a Vintage Trek Bike site with old brochures from 20 years ago. On the way to doing that I also learned how to make popup windows. Didn’t realize they required…

Web hosters UnlimBand : Against Unlimited Bandwidth. I’m investigating getting a web host that runs PHP and Mysql as well as Perl which Via Networks does not, although it does have FrontPage extensions. Here’s a site that is part of my search of where not to go. Interesting there is a site on this. Hosting…

What About PERL?. Talks about a common bug with running Perl installations. I wonder if this is John Ludwig’s problem. Something about double quotes.

How to install Perl on IIS 4 or 5 Installing PERL on IIS 4 or 5 is fairly straightforward and a good thing too. Here are notes from a great site called

Bike Routes Here are some rides that I’m going to take over the winter and fall. Kingston Ferry rides. Didn’t get a chance to do the Kitsap Color Classic since connie hurt herself. Looks like a great ride from the Kingston Ferry Bainbridge Ferry rides. This is the route of the Chilly Hilly which is…

Bicycle Maps in Washington State. In looking for more places to ride, I found this site with a great list of trails and bike route maps around Seattle.