Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

If you’ve got a regular commuter bike and you are trying to survive the long winters without rusty chains or getting (heaven forbid) hit by a driver, here are some things to get: Puroma Bike cover. The snow and the wet are murder on a bike, so if you can keep your bike in a…

Well, T-Mobile free roaming actually works incredibly well in so many countries. It’s a bit slow, but it works. And if you pay $5 to Skype, then you can even get very low cost (two cents per minute calls to the US or free to toll free numbers). Or try FaceTime Audio if you are…

Now that so much of lives are tied to mobile phones, one of the key things to do is to protect yourself against number porting thieves. This is a dastardly plot where an identity thief gathers enough personal data (SSN, Mothers Maiden Name) to be able to port your number. Then suddenly all of your…

Well if you are even mildly cold temperatures like 32F, we’ve found that range falls significantly. There are quite a few factors but a very smart guy at Tesla Motors Club lays it out well: Preheat your battery. Turn your range mode off on the Tesla, turn cabin heat on while you are plugged in.…

OK, some quick notes on the logistics of managing the home IT. It’s a real job 🙂 I never could get the Synology DS-212J to work. It is so frustrating. I’m pretty sure there is a firmware bug, but can’t prove. The symptoms are that it worked fine, I did a firmware update and suddenly…

This has been bothering me for a while, this takes up a High Sierra device slot and so you can’t run VirtualBox, VMWare Fusion, OS X Fuse with this loaded. And I keep getting the error “No peer process to connect to”. There is a red herring that has to do with the kernel extension…

Well, it’s a shame when printers outlast their drivers (which seems more and more common), but we have a decent Canon Pro9000 that I use literally once a year to print photos for grandparents. This printer has been obsolete for the last four years and MacOS no longer has the right drivers for it. A…

Well, on High Sierra when installing with Home-brew, I get this error over and over. I fixed it previously by checking on the System Preferences/Security/General and enabling a kernel extension, but this doesn’t seem to appear anymore. It worked fine until this latest Fusion 10.1, so I’m wondering if that is the problem. Note that…

Seems like every two years I have a post like this, but here is an update on how to do this: Ignore the guides that talk about unetbootin, this does not work on High Sierra nor did it work on Sierra. When I tried to use it with a Windows ISO, it did create a…

Well there are all kinds of new things you need with a Tesla, one of the main things are additional applications including: EV Trip Planner. This takes in actual data from real cars and then calculates mileage with wind and elevation taken into account. A Better Route Planner. Like the one above. You can set…

OK I’m an idiot, when you delete photos with your iPhone, they live for 40 days or so in your deleted folder which is great. But when I just took an old iPhone out and it started to sync again, it left 1,000 duplicated in there. So I started deleting things on my Mac iCloud…

OK, I’m sure this is a common problem and I’m no Windows 10 expert, but some notes on making a computer work that is trying to use an older camcorder with Firewire: Make sure you have taken the updates. Windows 10 has lots of them. I can’t actually remember where I found the automatic Windows…

A few years ago, we use AdoramaPix to do two photo albums. They were stunning, color matched and hand done, the software was a little clunky in terms of layout. This year looking through the reviews, trying Mixbook. I don’t know how this will come out, but they are supposed to do a decent lay-flat…

Well I haven’t been doing much camera work in 2017 and I’m probably 80% iPhone (thank you X!) and 20% Canon 5D Mark II (yes I know I need to upgrade but with the iPhone being such a big part of it all, I’m confused as to whether to move all the way to medium…

Wow this latest version of iTunes reminds me how much it is an anachronism.  Before iPhones went total direct, you had to dock to get your music. And now with streaming music services, who ever needs a real MP3 anyway. Plus the interface has gotten hard to figure out. For instance, I still have some…

Covered elsewhere but you no longer get 5x points on Ink Plus/Cash on eBay using Paypal Digital Gifts. Also does  not work with giftcardmall.com anymore, although giftcardmart.com still works. But most reliable way is to: Right now on chase, there is a 4x bonus for using chase mall to get to staples.com but only for physical…

Even as airlines relentlessly devalue their points (United alone has gone from 2.4 cents/mile to 1.4 in the last five years), there is one thing to try. As all airlines are trying to recruit companies, if you have a small business (or a large one), you should sign up for their corporate programs: United Perks…

Ok the many oddities of a complex car, but here are some simple things I didn’t figure out until I RFMed: The Tesla X trunk memorizes a particular open position. This is so if you are short the tail gate will be in reach. It also uses the center beam sensor to determine if there…

OK this has to be the most undiscoverable thing ever. When will someone say that every option needs a visible menu item. Anyway, if you hate the complex “grid” view on your watch, then in Apple Watch, you hard press on the grid view and you can change. And another strange thing is getting into…

I can’t believe how hard it is to figure out how iPhone and iPad charging work. The mysterious parts are what cables and what chargers work where… Here’s a quick summary The original USB standard was 5V and 500mA. This is why when u plug a phone into old computers it charges so slowly. That’s…

How sad is that. The 2018 is though so if you fit your phone into that little slot it will work there. Sad to say I’m not sure why they made it a spot rather than a tray. The 2016 Prius has it about right although as a tray underneath the dash it still isn’t…

Ok this is actually pretty hard to decipher but here’s the scoop: Apple finally supposed USB C Power Delivery. This means that with a USB C to lightening cable it can vary the voltage and amperage. The shipped system is a USB A to lightening cable and adapter that charges at 5V at 1A so…

OK, I love Veracrypt, it is a very nice tool for running encrypted volumes on your system. On the Mac though, it uses MacFuse underneath and you can run into not having enough file system slots to run it. You will get a cryptic message like: mount_osxfuse: File System is Not Available (255) Thank goodness…

If you have someone at home that has allergies or other health issues, it’s nice to be able to track. There are a host of startups and home devices that track this and let you see them in the cloud or on your phone: PM2.5. These are the small particles that get past your defenses.…

Wow it is so cool the world is finally converging on Qi Charging (and USB C), we are near the grand unification. The idea that a phone never needs to be plugged in is nearly here with Air Pods (as long as you don’t lose them) and putting charging pads everywhere. So here’s the scoop…

Ok this is probably pretty obvious to Tesla geeks, but it took me some time playing with ABetterRouteplanner.com to really understand how to minimize the time you spend waiting around. The big things are to minimize the power consumption TL;dr You really want to draft behind big cars and realize that going from 75mph to 80mph…

The main thing as The Wirecutter points out is to get adapters which are solid. I’ve lost all kinds of electronics because there is arcing across the plugs. So you really want a set that is durable and really plugs right in. The big decision is whether you should get 3-prong which are safer, but…

Wow, it’s a good thing I’ve spent time working with Raspberry Pi’s because these wifi connected devices that try to be consumer friendly are really a nightmare, here’s a set of notes on this particular product. Note that it is not their fault, it is so common for these problems to crop up: The Greater…