Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

OK we have three PCs down and are working our way through it. If you really have a hard problem, here are the steps: Buy a test chassis system. This is something that is case-less and let’s you swap components easily. It is really useful when something goes wrong. Here are the steps, first put…

Well it might be better to wait until after Christmas, but here are some things to get: $100 iTunes Gift card is $85 on eBay. That’s quite a deal from PayPal no less.

OK the world is a little confusing right now, but with a 4K cable, you need a 18Gbps at least to make sure you get 4Kp60: Monoprice Certified Premium High Speed Cables. These are just $5 for a 3 foot length

A buddy asked what’s a decent gaming PC. This is a great time to buy one as the nVidia GTX-1080s are coming down in price and UHD is coming out, so Techradar had a good overview http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/pc/10-of-the-best-gaming-pcs-you-can-buy-in-2015-1304263: Alienware Aurora F5. $800. This is Dell’s premium line. It is tiny min ITX and very fast with a…

I’ve been using the Datacolor Spyder3Studio for years now to get a good calibration on monitors. Despite the fact they are up to Spyder5, this has really served me well even with out of data software. However in trying to calibrate a Monoprice UHDTV display, a 28 inch TN monitor, I had my first trouble.…

I’ve had a chance to use Youtube, Netflix and Amazon on three 4K screens in the last week! I just wish one of them were one I actually owned. Here’s what I learned: The in TV applications work really well. I tried it 0n a Samsung 6300, a Sony OLED and a Vizio. All late…

Ok let’s say that things are going great. You have a s ingle wifi router like the soon to be extinct Apple Time Capsule but now want a little More coverage say in your basement. What’s the easiest thing to do short of living on smallnetbuilder.com.  Well, it’s surprisingly easy and hard to make it…

As Airbnb agrees to hotel taxes and things the costs will rise but a 20% off gift card will take some of the sting away this Christmas from giftcardmall.com. I’ve found really reliable and got amazon and other cards that way. 

Well the thing has been super trustyworthy but lately there have been two problems: Graphics driver crash. The screen locks up and you can see blocks of pixels flashing. Feels like an nVidia driver crash in Sierra. I’ve heard that the increased use of the GPU can cause crashes in old hardware. Sigh. I’ve tried…

I used to use Geotag and then Picasa or iPhoto to make these kind of EXIF changes, but each has sadly died. Geotag doesn’t work anymore. Picasa was cancelled as was iPhoto, so there go the free options. The only one I’ve found that works reliably is Adobe Lightroom, but it’s a little complicated: Import…

With phones dropping the 3.5mm jack its time once again to look at wireless headphones.  One sad thing is the Amazon reviews are pretty worthless. They are filled with fake reviews (I sure hope someone over there is working on this problem).  The review sites are equally useless. Even wirecutter doesn’t do such a great…

Well it sure does look like someone is doing Christmas shopping now and taking notes. Here are some great ones for geeks with a hat tip to 9to5toys.com and to wirecutter.com for the USB-C things as well as Nathan at Google’s recommendations Aukey Dual Port 2.4A Car charger. These are $12 with a coupon. They are flush with…

Cooks Illustrated has a great guide. They recommend the Lodge Cast Iron Skillet. This not expensive and compared with enameled pans they won’t chip and get destroyed. Available at  Amazon  (make sure to click through JetBlue to get 3x miles and use the 5% off Amazon store card) Walmart (make sure to use the visa…

Some kids are really sensitive to loud noises. So what’s a parent to do. Well there are nose headphones and ear plugs but what if the sensitivity is super high. Well time to go to the web and find out how the pros do it. First off how are these things measured. They use NRR or…

I don’t know if this is true or not but Amazon is supposedly offering a deal for triple jetBlue trueBlue points if you click through the jetBlue site via a special https://trueblue.jetblue.com/group/amazonOffer. jetBlue points are worth 1.5 cents, so this is like getting an additional 4.5% rebate on Amazon purchases! As another aside, jetBlue also…

If you want to add cute GIFS, GIPHY is a wonder tool for finding the URL and then you just choose Add Image and away you go. It is a nice IOS application as well 🙂

Well, if you laptop fills up with stuff, what’s the easiest way to handle the overflow? Well, for most folks, the simplest thing remains some that is physical. That is, a USB drive. Now a USB flash drive is nice but a little scary in terms of reliability but is better than nothing, the more…

OK some Macs are having trouble with wifi connectivity, then it looks like some preference issues where you need to delete some plists.

If you aren’t going to spend a boatload, then wirecutter.com is a great resource got good modest prices stuff. If you have an older system, then you only need upgrade your AVR really for the video signaling (that is support for UHD signaling) and to handle digital audio via HDMI. Net, net, replace your AVR…

You better hope you bought it from Amazon. Got a UHDTV and it did have a defect. It is literally a one click call on the site, they call yo instantly and schedule someone to pick up a gigantic TV and return it.

Now that Apple is out of the business, it’s time once again to look for a reliable and fast wifi network for home and small business. But it is really hard to figure out what is going on without at least some background in wifi and how it has evolved. So, this is a huge…

Wow the world has really improved. Three years ago you had to get a dedicated 4K playback thingy from Sony to watch UltraHD content. Now life is way simpler. Let’s start with the easy stuff and then move on to the tougher stuff Movies (a first start) There’s a great movie guide at 4K.com, but…

Ok, we’ve been using Google Fi for a while when we are away traveling because they have the T-mobile wonderful feature where they do not charge for roaming. However beware if you try to use their new group plan. We put two numbers on a group plan thus saving $5 on the second line (Instead…

Well Facebook sharing is cool but limited in resolution. What if you want to share the high resolution images? TL;dr Amazon Prime now offers unlimited high resolution storage for five family members. It’s sort of free if ur amazon anyway  Two sort of good choices: Apple iCloud (for low resolution only but essentially unlimited) and…

Well the price of UHD (aka 4K) has just collapsed. Three years ago a 4K monitor cost $5K now a basic one is more like $500. But if you want a monstrous 70″ one what’s a person to do. Rtings.com is really helpful with detailed reviews and buying guides. They even tell you the best…

OK this is a little annoying, but the standalone (perpetual license) versions of Adobe Create Cloud like Photoshop etc. do not install properly on MacOS Sierra, you have to manually navigate to the Installer/Contents/MacOS/install and run the command line application manually. This seems true for Creative Cloud 2015 and 2014.

Well with Apple making a huge statement by moving to a single connector for everything, it’s time to look back and figure out how we got here. So here in chronological order is a short incomplete history of computer cabling and some explanation for how we got here. TL;dr The future is that all peripherals,…

OK for the last year I’ve been terrible at Amazon affiliate links. First I missed the deadline to update my website information (there is some regulation about sites) so my old affiliate ids (tongfamily-20) were invalidated and I have to start again with new ids. But how to change 20 years of links? Well, at…

(another break from the political news) Well we’ve had two of them break in the last six months, so time to actually spend some time shopping for the. Three big sources are Amazon reviews (I know they are biased for small things, but people do not often give away microwaves for reviews ;-), Wirecutter’s home…

It’s a sad day when the best battery reviews are found buried in an Amazon rating, but there is someone who actually went ahead and tested batteries but: AAA Alkaline. AC Delco. the no-name AC Delco came up on top and for less than the cost of Amazon Basics even? AA Alkaline. Duracell Quantum. Then…