Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

Ok, you can now see all my podcasts on a dedicated Podcast page thanks to the miracle workers at Blubrry with the PowerPress Plugin. This gives you a dedicated view that is either standard HTML5 or their own flavor. There are a sea of other Podcast plugins at Optin Monster but I just picked the…

More fun for posts as for February 28 and back to January 5 2021 at Anchor.fm, Spotify or Apple. Git madness and pull request splitting https://richtong.org/2021/02/28/github-madness-what-happens-if-you-do-not-protect-main/ Olive oil shopping from wishlist https://smile.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/genericItemsPage/3PBCKT8DWZ7HR?type=wishlist&_encoding=UTF8&tag=rich20-20 Zoom hacks for multiple windows. Mars 2020 Perseverance videos and things. Richt starts a substack newsletter at https://richt.substack.com What to do when your computer get hacked. Cool keyboard oriented apps like Superhuman, fzf and rg plus Vimari Tips…

Sigh, here is what happens when an idiot like me doesn’t pay enough attention and you don’t protect your main branch and how to get out of it. The problem: The free version of git does not allow protection of the main branch. That means any one can do a git switch main && git…

Ok this has always required a git checkout and then copy some files somewhere and then go back, but with July 2019 Git 2.3, you can now use –source in git restore to get a single file back. The place where this really comes in handy is that if you do a git pull request…

Well, we have the generic olive oil for most cooking uses, but one of the joys of the pandemic are that you can sample things from around the world, particularly if you are like us and are eating at home a lot (ok all the time). So here is a review of olive oils we…

OK, I’ve spent so much time on this application, here are some tips for bigger meetings and how to handle them on Zoom. On a Mac, turn on dual monitor in the Zoom/Preferences, this doesn’t do what you think and is more general. What it does is give you two windows, so you can actually…

Well, if you are smart, you are using Adblockers and anti-tracking technology. I find that even with Safari, and the Mac stuff, you still need more technology. I use Ghostery on Safari and uBlock Origin (and yes I’ve temporarily forgotten which one of the variants() I’m using on Chrome and Firefox. And also NordVPN which…

Wow during this Pandemic, Climate Change, Fake News, Inequity, it is hard to remember some of the good things in life. While it might be a huge long-term, not very clear use of money, it does inspire to think about the achievements that show the hope for the future. ICMYI, quite a lot of amazing…

OK, the paid news letter is not dead, welcome to https://richt.substack.com where you can create paid newsletters. I just turned it all on. And I’ve got to create a Clubhouse time to, so I can talk with myself.

Well this is a really common hack, Garret. But without the right protections it’s super easy to go to Google, search for something and end up on a scam website. Then you will get a pop up and it says “You’ve been hacked call this number.” Then they will take/steal your credit card number. Have…

Well continuing the basically weekly podcast. I skipped Sunday because it was Valentine’s day, but hopefully will stay on the every Sunday track. The main thing is that I go through the newest posts and then go through the back catalog of posts (I have 5,000 of them, so this should work for a looong…

Ok, some quick news for WordPress geeks: One of the great things with WordPress is the ability to publicize your posts automatically on Facebook, Twitter, etc. This is buried deep in the marketing tab of your website, but the problem is that LinkedIn keeps saying it doesn’t connect. It’s a known bug with WP-Calypso probably…

Well, continuing the basically weekly podcast on Anchor.fm. You can subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Google, Tunein or Stitcher Podcast as well or search for “Rich Tong” in your Podcast application. I skipped Sunday because it was Valentine’s day, but hopefully will stay on the every Sunday track. The main thing is that I go through…

OK, I’m off making my weekly podcast show and I’ve finally figure out how to turn off all the echos and other things that are on in GarageBand, but here are some notes: When you create a new GarageBand, the most annoying thing are all the automatic things that are happening. First of all I…

Well time for the geek post of the week. A new feature, I’m labeling my really nerdy programming hacks. So don’t bother reading unless you have this exact problem. Command Completion Basics OK I admit it I’ve gotten kind of spoiled. One of the advances features of shells is what is called Tab Completion. This…

Tl:dr So Paul asked me for a friend, should I get a second internet provider. Things are slow at home. Most of the time probably not. Make sure it’s not a problem inside then upgrade to the fastest you can afford do watch fir expensive data caps. Decoder ring The decoder ring for the below…

I can’t believe I just spent 20 minutes of my life reading about wiper blade replacements but like anything with tesla might as well learn it all. The short story is that you can get various 26″ and 19″ blades but the issue is the adapter to get them on the tesla. Some require clipping…

Well, if like me, you are trying to find a vaccine for your parents, then here is the place to look. Yes, you can click relentlessly on a website but that sure does seem like a waste of time, so while I’m doing that, the other alternative is to learn a little bit about computers…

The latest for the week ending February 6. The top 10 posts read to you! And here is an embedded player for this, or checkout Anchor.fm, but you can search for it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcast, in your Tesla or other cars via TuneIn and Stitcher as well a bunch of others (see…

Welcome to the February 6 episode of Rich’s Tongfamily Tips, Tricks and Traps in Technology. You can always see the written posts on https://richtong.org, but included here are: Understanding Robinhood, Gamestop and settlements Anaconda is a great virtual environment with a big leak Distributing your podcast manually when Anchor.fm doesn’t Moving to Jupyter, Python and…

Well, Paul asked me a very good question today, I don’t understand why Robinhood had to stop trading Gamestop GME shares. Sadly, a lot of the commentary has been pretty confusing about it, but I had a chance to study for the registered representative class about 1.5M years ago so at least I sort of…

Ok, I don’t this is well documented and it has been causing me headaches for months, but here it is: If you are using a virtual environment, a very common one is Anaconda or miniconda. This let’s you install python packages on your machine and switch between environments. Another package like this is pipenv which…

I started using Anchor.fm as an easy way to publish Podcasts and have a place to host the content. It is pretty incredibly, but they do all that for free. So all you need to do is sign up for it and then get started by either uploading audio (I use GarageBand and then export)…

Well, I’ve had two events over where Excel (or Google Sheets) is just too small and/or not maintainable, so the question is what we can do about it. For instance if you have over a million rows of data (looking at your Brian) or where there is lots of logics (looking at you https://restart.us) There…

Thanks to Dave and John, they reminded me of all the hard things that Windows users face when they first move to the Mac. Both have new M1 MacBook Air. This is a blazing fast machine but it is definitely different from Windows. So here’s a quick starter guide on how to get there quickly.…

Ok, in the days of COVID, it seems strange that the march of high-tech, high-end and unaffordable gizmos keeps coming. But, an amazing number of companies are shipping some incredible products that are really pushing the boundaries. So this is like an issue of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” plus “Lifestyles of the Rich…

Ok with Apple it’s usually pretty obvious how to get an update done. You just set things to auto update and then Apple TV or a Mac or an iOS device. But how would you make a HomePod update itself. That was super unclear to me. That’s like a lot of the Home features and…

Well, there is always the need for a nice looking logo, so if you are starting a company how do you get one quickly that looks decent. There are a couple of choices that I’ve used over the years in order of simplicity: Use a logotype with a cool font. My favorite was actually ignition…

So a good buddy is installing a new system and has some great questions. There is nothing like a new install to remind me of the FAQs… First of all the base installation is a Unifi Dream Machine Pro and a Unifi FlexHD AP plus a Unifi G4 Doorbell. So a nice setup. The Unifi…