Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

OK, now that I’m all btrfs on this Synology, there are ton of implications. The big one is that this is a Copy-on-write file system. That means, that, normally when you do something like a massive 1TB file with other files systems like ext4 You are actually literally copying. So it will take a long…

OK, I finally got a message I’ve been avoiding for two years. One of my disk arrays is finally at capacity. So time now in 2020 to think about what to do about home storage. Alot has changed in the last two years most notably: Disk sizes have grown incredibly. Two years ago, 10TB was…

SVB is one of the top bankers for high tech companies. They have a nice program for startups to get access and be part of the community. At the same time, the interface has some tricky parts so here are some tips: SVB does have some nice discount codes for services like Docusign that you…

Wow a cool side effect of the switch to btrfs for Synology is that backups have now become easy. With b-tree file systems, doing a backup is as simple as doing a snapshot. When ever there is a change, it will just remember what has changed. Another advantage is that you can clone over the…

Well two friends have been asking me about buying laptops and general advice. Here are some things to know: Laptop longevity. No one really talks about this, but if you buy a $700 laptop and it lasts three years before it falls apart, it’s not necessarily cheaper than a $1,500 laptop that lasts 10 years.…

Just did this transition and there are some things that are a little tricky, here’s a list: There isn’t an easy way to migrate mail. Assuming you aren’t a big company, the easiest way is to just have individual people open up mail in their Outlook or Mac Mail clients and copy the mail back…

Ok, you have a placeholder name for your startup, but then a brilliant flash and suddenly placeholder.com becomes cool.com so how do you make the switch. Well, there are two places where this needs to happen. First is with Gsuite so that your email comes from the right place which is technically called, changing your…

Ok the third major episode. Really a test. A quick 12-minute review of how to get your companies online https://anchor.fm/richt/episodes It’s also on Spotify check us out https://open.spotify.com/show/ And then Google as well. https://www.google.com/podcasts

It’s been a while, but reading from last week, the main focus has been getting a website up and running. From finding a new name on Namecheap to connecting it to Digital Ocean or AWS Route 53 and then GSuite. See https://richtong.org for the text posts. For the Amazon book list Send in a voice…

I’ve been slowly moving my organizational stuff to either AWS or Digital Ocean and just had a strange thing. Normally it’s pretty simple. If you have Namecheap, you just to to Route53 on AWS, choose create Hosted Zones. This is their name for a Domain Name. You will get some NS records which are four…

I hit this bug at just the wrong time. But with two factor authentication turned on (and you really want 2FA for something like 1Password), I was getting a strange hang. Fortunately, their message board is awesome and you just need to upgrade to the latest Mac App Store version 7.4.3.

If you have a small startup or a family, 1Password is an awesome tool. For $5/month, you get a very secure zero-knowledge system for storing passwords. The main issue is that it is pretty complicated to figure out how to use it properly. So here are some tips: You are allowed five user accounts with…

Well if you are on a desert island or recovering from a surgery, what a great time to catch up on reading (or if you are like me, listening to a book tape while driving). Here are some great sources: Readings on philosophy. Hat tip to Keith for this one, but from Massimo Pigluicci Rich’s…

Ok I’ve been buying a bunch of domain names for folks. Namecheap makes it makes it super easy to buy new domains and there are so many new top level domains that it’s never been easier to find a good one. So how do you transfer a domain well there are the easy steps First…

Ok something changed with iOS and MacOS so now with Bluehost mail we are getting all these SSL errors. See https://my.bluehost.com/hosting/email_manager/config for your personal configuration. In looking at the instructions, it looks like with non-SSL. Which you never want to use, you use `mail.domain.com` for your domain, this then maps to your actually shared host…

Argh, this is so frustrating. I had an unusual two hours between meetings today and it didn’t make sense to go home. So I thought I would try the T-Personal Hotspot that is on both my phone and my iPad. While I absolutely love the iPad with the cellular. Yes, it costs $20/month, but the…

Well, while I’ve been following Tesla very closely, I’ve only been peripherally aware of what is going on with SpaceX. Obviously, they are really shaking up the launch business and someday we will go to Mars because of them, but more practically, what they are doing with Starlink promises to have a much more immediate…

Well the build of a monster machine is always interesting and being at the bleeding edge is a sheer joy (agony!). So if you are crazy enough to want to build a 32-core, 256-GB memory with 2TB SSD and 16TB hard disk (https://pcpartpicker.com/user/richtong/saved/#view=gH4K4D) As always you can either work for a gigantic company where they…

One of the problems with the really nice Sony RX100 series of cameras is that they don’t come with a cold shoe at the top anymore. That means you can’t mount a video light if you are shooting in low light and you can’t mount a high performance microphone if you are vlogging. The solution…

Man, Comcast. What a racket. You pretty much need to every year, figure out what the best plan is. I would actually put it into your calendar for a yearly check. So here is what I’ve found for 2020: They have a new charge system where they have “unbundled” the licensing fee. So if they…

OK word to the wise. This is actually a really hard thing to debug. But today when we got home, the Internet connection was completely dead. It is so hard to know what happens, then, but the debugging steps are: Find a computer and see if you can get a WiFi connection. If not, then…

OK, some really strange things trying to get a public repo working. Many times when you are trying to recreate a machine learning work is that you need to have the data along with the actual code. It’s unfortunately completely non-standard how this is handled. I had thought that I could just turn Git LFS…

Ok so what if you want the ultimate machine. To our things into perspective. When the IBM PC first launched, the hot rod computer was the IBM PC XT. It had a 5MB hard disk. The first of its kind. And it cost $5-6K if you can believe that. And that was in 1985 or…

OK, so the first season was one episode of five minutes, that still counts! Seriously, starting the podcast series up. Getting to know the equipment. Using Anchor.fm to publish which is pretty cool. I don’t have an Apple podcast listing yet, but it is on Spotify and Google Podcast. Here are the links to the…

I normally have a terrible time using the rewards programs on various merchant sites. It’s not easy, you get the rewards later and they quickly expire (which is obviously the point). A buddy got $60 of Dell Rewards that expire in March 2020, so what’s a decent deal, well, it’s pretty hard to find, but…

Well just had a friend do this. You do need to be careful. So here’s the scoop. Don’t force the nozzle in. They are designed to be incompatible. Also diesel is black and car is clear so be aware. Finally what happens. Well if you put diesel into a gas car. It gums up the…

Man, this has gotten to be nearly impossible. Here are the issues. If you use your personal id for a developers account, you can only have one corporate account per. My personal Apple Id is locked to an old company and I’m not sure how to get rid of it. The longer-term solution is to…

I’m learning how to write Dart using Flutter and that’s a whole new tool set of me. It works like React but is much better with nicer debugging tools and way nicer than trying to figure out what Webpack did wrong. The tutorial at Udacity is semi-decent and free. The main issue is that they…