Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

I’ve been using a VPN for privacy particularly on wifi networks (Starbucks). I’ve been using Tunnelblick for a while, but in the most recent releases on Yosemite it has become pretty unstable. Seems to hang and then OpenVPN underneath breaks and network access stops. So I’ve flipped to privateinternetaccess.com’s own VPN utility. I’ve no idea…

OK, if you are really into nerdville, then you know that the DNS queries (what tells the computer where google.com is) is easy to spoof and hack. This let’s people divert traffic from google.com to their own servers. Bad, bad, bad. So there are three solutions: DNSSec. This essentially means that every DNS record you…

Now that there are so many cloud providers, it’s actually pretty complicated to figure out which set to use. It is pretty clear that you have to use a set and when you are in the cloud, you also have to think about privacy and who can look at what, so here are some tips:…

Well, Adobe keeps getting more powerful and with the latest Lightroom, they added panorama and HDR, still it does seem like staying out of the way of companies with a lock on the market isn’t a bad idea. Here are some alternatives: Photoshop This is a product I don’t use that much but it comes…

Well a bunch of things definitely break when using your Mac in a secure way. I have two problems. First is with Tunnelblick, the open source VPN connection. It keeps hanging Yosemite. I finally uninstalled it and am trying privateinternetaccess.com’s own client. Also. I’ve been having trouble with iCloud and with so many hacks, decided…

Well it certainly is a great time to try new high end cameras. In looking at lensrentals.com, it’s a great way to test them without spending thousands. Here’s my drool list: Blackmagic Design 4K Production Camera. This is 4K with a Canon EF mount system, so a great complement to all that Canon glass if…

Well I’ve been using Vuescan and suddenly it started doing dark blue scans and ignoring things in the user interface. it would continuously scan four times. The fix seems to be the age old delete all the preferences and start over. Here is how on a Mac Go to Finder and hold the Option key…

So given all the photos that are happening, where’s the best to store things. Much has changed and it has gotten incredibly cheap to store photos and see them everywhere. So I’ll sort the list with two criteria, size of storage, privacy and convenience: Photos in the cloud Amazon Cloud. They just announced that Amazon…

Adobe continues the drum beat of including everything. Perhaps this is the right subsittute given Apple Photos issues. The latest Lightroom has a bunch of the separate utilities I’ve been using: HDR Merge. This works with Raw and is like the Photomatic I’ve used or HDR Luminance (open source) Panorama. Like Hugin which I’ve loved…

They don’t even make this anymore (heck Minolta became Minolta-Konica and then I think Sony bought them). But it is still a good 35mm film scanner. As I get nostalgic, I’ve reinvigorated the desire to index all those old photos my Dad and I have taken. Here are some operating notes:  Firewire vs USB 2.0…

Wow incredibly useful things that I didn’t know (hat tip to Cult of the Mac) on using Finder in OS X. I’m almost a power user: Get a full-screen slideshow, complete with available index sheet, by hitting Option-space bar with several files selected. You’ll be able to scroll through them all with the arrow keys,…

I don’t know what is going on but it looks like others are hitting this “bug”. With “don’t copy” checked, my 400GB photo database is generating a 250GB (see Apple support comment on discussions.apple.com, macrumors and on reddit) which is consuming essentially all of my hard disk. There’s some debate as to whether these are…

https://launchpad.net/~mamarley/+archive/ubuntu/nvidiaThere are so many different notes about how to do this. Basically, the default appears to be Nouveau open source drivers, but you can also used the proprietary nVidia ones. The main problem is that with Ubuntu 14.04, these proprietary drivers don’t show up in the driver user interface. So how to kick it when…

Now that I’ve got the basics of Swift, time to start learning how to use AVFoundation to take photos and videos. With James’ tutorial gives you the very basics and here are the gotchas: If you plug your phone in for the first time while running XCode it may not work properly. I had to…

All this trying to see the lunar eclipse made me want to: a) get a telescope which I’ve always wanted and b) take some astronomy photographs. Well with modern cameras, it’s so much easier to do both: Mark explains how to take “wide field” photography. The main trick is that you use ISO 1600 and…

Well, imagine my surprise. We suddenly had an access point pop up and I thought it was the neighbors. Actually there were three. One called `tsunami` and another call that started with PS3- and then a PS4- So here are the steps to keeping your network clean: Run an IP scanner, it is incredible, but…

So this can work if you are getting more than 1.87% from your credit cards. This is also potentially a good way of hitting your minimum spend limits, but it does cost you Here are the two lowest cost tax folks I could find: Fed.choicepay.com. They also charge 1.87%. I don’t know about their yearly…

Well, this is indeed the best time to wait for the perfect camera to arrive. Although high end camera sales have literally collapsed (they are 50% of sales compared with 2012!). There seems to be more innovation than ever. So here’s a list of cameras I’m dying to try what with 4K arriving for video…

Well, Apple is changing things again. Now they have stopped development of iPhoto and they have basically ported Photos from iOS. Here are the problems for folks with a decent number of photos (how about 20K!): Apple is focused on people with relativeliy small collections and everything is stored in the iCloud. You have to…

XCode is just so complicated that even the very good Ray Wenderlich Tutorials typically leave something out causing errors. So for the Swift Tutorial Part 2, here are errata: When you are looking at main.storyboard, the tutorial talks about the navigation Document Outline. This is only visible is you right click on the main.storyboard on…

Ok, I admit it, I’ve really liked the Sony RX-100 and then the RX-100 Mark II. Actually, the additional depth of the Mark II at least to me wasn’t super worth it, but now I seem to have misplaced our RX-100 Mark II (I know, I need to put a bluetooth tracker on it!). So…

Until now, I have spent much time on hotel credit cards and optimization. The first thing was a big focus on getting airline status (better seats), then on more credit card points (thank you The Points Guy!), then airline business portals (Easybiz) and then internet portals (evrewards, cashbackmonitor.com) now hotels are gradually in our view.…

When you are trying to eke out a simple machine, there are a few things to think about: Ubuntu uses Unity which requires 3D acceleration. On a Atom Z550 this is unbearably slow. You can actually convert to LXDE with a simple `apt-get install lubuntu-desktop` Then when you log off then you can click on…

Well, if you have an old Windows XP machine then its easy to forget all its passwords. What’s the easiest way to get it back. Well you can try to use a password cracker like ophcrack which is complicated and uses brute force techniques to find the password. Or you can take the easy way out…

Getting this stuff to work on Linux is actually amazingly easy: Deskjet 3050 is part of the HPLIP (HP Linux Imaging Program) that is now part of Ubuntu. You can download an update from hplipopenrsource.com To actually run the setup, you need to do `sudo hp-setup`

Strange and strange, but for our old Atom Z550, we weren’t able to get Unetbootin to put down a reliable image, but when we followed the Ubuntu directions for using DD, it did work. Go figure, utilities that don’t actual make bootables. It would instead say the bootable image is corrupt: Download the ISO you…

This is last time in the next twenty years to see this, but we are on the third for four lunar eclipses that happen in two years. It will only be a few minutes long, but worth watching. But how to figure out where it is. First thing is figuring out if it will be…

You have to opt out, but here’s a way to get rid of Verizon marketing cookies (the other way is to use a VPN).

Well, having suffered through Objective C and liked XCode compiler, it has sure been interesting to see what Apple has come up next with Swift. It’s the brain child of Chris Lattner. He’s had a pretty incredible career, developing LLVM (a compiler backend) and then Clang (a front end) and finally XCode that’s been used…

Are you confused as to the best workflow for your iPhone photos. I am!  At least for my traditional photos, I get it, here’s what I do: Download the photos Delete the ones I don’t like. I’ve been using Preview when it isn’t too slow (but it’s gotten unbearable with Yosemite), so use Lightroom for…