Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

OK, this is the strangest product in some ways on the simple things. It is so tightly integrated with github, but it isn’t clear how to use it. Logging into another account it isn’t clear how to logout of it and sign it with another github account. You actually have to do this by going…

Well what are the cool tools we’ve been using lately: Slack. Wow I see why they got a billion dollar valuation. Slack is already a verb in our shop and I barely read email anymore. It is much more public than email and has some really convenient features for developers: a) you can edit your…

We have some really old Linksys switches, but they still work, so trying to get them up from 2007 software. Here are the steps: The switches ship with firmware 1.0.0.45, to get them to the new graphical interface called version 3.0.0.17, you have to use the Easy Upgrade utility that only runs on Windows. In…

Trying out different firewall specific builds. One small gotcha. If you are trying pfsense, then you download the memstick version if you want to make a usb stick and you need to use dd to create a 16k sector size system   gzcat pfsense-memstick.img | dd of=/dev/rdisk2 bs=16k But if you are using VMWare Fusion…

Seems like i have to do this every six months. Well here’s the latest update on how to do it: howtogeek.com has a new graphical method rather than the command line approach of Ubuntu. It uses an open source tool cleverly named Mac Linux USB Loader. It even downloads a distribution for you and then installs…

You know there are some moments when you really achieve something incredible. Not something that is good. Like seeing your brother or going to the hospital for a friend but which is truly amazing and unique? Well this shot to me symbolizes that. After thousand of photos and thousands of dollars, I really learned something.…

There are so many out there that I just limited myself to analyzing those that are small enough and made of metal so they can fit on your key ring: Kingston SE9 G2. I’ve been using these for quite a while and unfortunately for USB 3.0 they aren’t super fast at 30MBps read and 10MBps…

Ok, now that I’ve worked on Python debugging (Sublime in Vintage mode, Anaconda, Logging, winpdb in a loop), although given my personal keyboard speed, using vi a lot because winpdb errors are not as clear as just the python interactive errors. Then there is the Javascript thing I need to learn and here’s what I’ve learned about debugging:…

Argh this has been so frustrating. If you run VMWare Fusion full screen on a Mac, and hit the wrong magic key, then your cursor is captured and the help is invisible in the title bar, the magic is Command+Ctrl to get you out of it.

We are just at the eve of the next turn of the crank with Skylake nearly here and the arrival of: DDR4 memory. So higher speeds are coming. NVMe SSDs. These are also arriving and are showing 2x the performance of SATA (1.2GBps) up to 4x PCI Express (2.4GBps). 4K Monitors. Even at 60 frames…

Ugh monopolies are horrible. No choice for any broadband and yet despite paying them $$&s for years, we have service just collapse in the last year. Had five truck rolls and technicians all report the same thing good signal at the street and terrible signal by The time it gets to the house.  Even had…

Well the summer is here so here are some of the best gizmos: UE Boom ($170 from Best Buy and Amazon) is pretty cool and small. You can get 1.5% off via a Best Buy rebate and also they have a rewards program with an additional 2% off, so pennies, but they will add up!…

It has taken me that long to open up the cabinet and give iRule a try. But with our Comcast Motorola DVR dead, we replaced with X-1 which means most of the our old Crestron programming doesn’t work. So I’ve installed a Global Cache iTech IR to IP with POE (now that’s an acronym full…

Wow, this 300mm f/2.8 is quite a lense according to slrgear.com and also lensrentals.com. It has no distortion even wide open at f/2.8 and a very slight resolution improvement at F/4, but it is really good even at f/2.8. I cranked the shutter speed to 1/800 and left it at f/4. In bright daylight, it…

Never thought you’d see those two words on the same line. We are working away at more overclock. The old Sandy Bridge runs at 4.95GHz reliably (48×103) as long as the mineral oil bath stays cool (less than 98F), but the cooling fans alone don’t do that when running a video game. It looks like…

Chase Freedom. Has 5% on categories and the big one is Amazon is 5% in the fall. It is also no fee so a great way to build up credit.  When you combine this as a grownup with the Chase Sapphire or the Ink Plus (the business card), then you get lots of bonuses: Use…

Well that is a lot of acronyms, but right now if you are last generation camera owner, that is have a 20MP or so full frame like a Canon 5D Mark II, it’s been pretty unclear where to go, but right now there are 2 1/2 entrants to consider and some great choices. Personally, I’d…

Well having used Bash quite a bit, we finally got to the point with single stepping via a flag where it was pretty usable. Now with Sublime and Anaconda there is a good system for looking for autocomplete, definitions and for doing simpling linting  and you can use the Anaconda menu to find definitions. It…

Wow I hope github.com gets this running soon. It lets you manage large files with version control in a github repository. I installed the whole thing and then discovered the welcome mail I got wasn’t actually a welcome but just a reminder that I had signed up. Blah. The main thing to know is that…

Well, it’s never too early to start building a good credit record (assuming of course you are responsible). Here’s a quick survey of the cards and what is recommended by Nerdwallet, The Simple Dollar and Get.com. Nerdwallet even has a cool calculator to estimate what you save with one of the cards. As a final aside,…

Nothing like going through a list of things for this camping season, I’m wondering what we need: Bivy sack. We needed one and I got a Outdoor Research Helium Bivy. At 18 ounces, it even has a hoop. It hasn’t been super durable although the three week trip through the desert wasn’t the best. An alternative is…

Well not a bad time to look through Wirecutter for the many miscellaneous gifts I haven’t had time to buy: Ooma. For $109, you get telephone service that is free. What a great deal compared with the $20 a month that Comcast charges Cable modem. If you cut the telephone cost, then you can get…

Ok, I’m trying to use Scons and finally had half a day to finally get some sort of IDE going. Anaconda for Sublime is pretty cool. Complicated to setup, you actually have to paste in Python code if you can believe it, but the punchline is that it lets you do a goto any definition…

One of the most annoying things that Comcast has done is to turn all their customers into unwitting public hotspots. Not to mention the potential security problems, this creates a new entry point to your network. They have buried it under three layers of menus, but you can turn it off: Goto comcast.net and log…

I fat fingered the password and couldn’t remember it, but it’s easy, just hit the reset for a second and you five minutes of no password required. That’s smart! Thanks Lena!

Wow, I’m pretty impressed. Read up on UASP (USB Attached SCSI Protocol?) which runs SCSI over USB in an alternative mode. Supposed to be supported natively by Windows 8 and Mac OS X  and Ubuntu as well, I popped in a slower Corsair 960MB SSD to see. Here is what I got using the Blackmagic…

While it is nice to use the various photo processing applications, sometimes it makes more sense to change the underlying data. Here are some ways to add geotags directly into the JPEGs. This is most useful for dSLRs or for scanned images that don’t have it. I’ve used iPhoto for much of this, but Photos…

wow what a bazooka of a Lense. And a 36mp sensor. Took some time to learn how to change things. It’s got lots of buttons. Shooting a regatta and got this and a te14 and te2 teleconverter.  Photozone.de has a nice technical review. It shows that maximum center sharpness is at f/2.8 but while center declines…

Well, we keep using these and running out. Finally settled on a high, medium and low mix strategy: Low mix USB 3.0 keys that are bullet proof and that can live on a key ring. They aren’t super fast, but they are tough. The two contenders are the Kingston SE9 G2 which is decent on…

I fat fingered the password and couldn’t remember it, but it’s easy, just hit the reset for a second and you five minutes of no password required. That’s smart! Thanks Lena!