Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

If you are constantly have to type your password in due to a long installation (like a few hours), then here’s the trick. Add the following line with   ““ sudo visudo   You should use visudo so that it checks your sudoers file and makes it work, but to exempt a user from ever…

Paying $200 for an SSL certificate which is really just a set of numbers does seem ridiculous. Now there is a free service for this called Let’s Encrypt (http://letsencrypt.com)

The mirrorless E-mount A9 will have all the things needed to be “PRO”: Worlds fastest autofocus in normal light conditions Close to 50MP FF sensor weather sealed body Can’t wait to see this!

Talk about mysterious, if you actually want to use this particularly on VMWare Fusion, there doesn’t seem to be much documentation: Google Hangout starts and looks to see what active /dev/video[0-9] are open. That is, if you want this to work, your webcam needs to be active or any synthetic source you create with v4l2loopback…

This is a really annoying bug that seems to happen very regular on some systems. It looks like this has something to do with mail transport bugs and the wrong error being reported according to Stackexchange I’m running Mac OS 10.8.1 and have a (personal) Gmail and a (work) Google mail account setup inside Mail…

When you are trying to migrate DNS Servers, http://viewdns.info/dnsrecord/ is really useful. Let’s you look at what is up there so you can easily recreate it and then do the cut over. To remind everyone here is what you have to do. It’s a three step process; Figure out who the registrar is for the…

Wow more things to worry about, but the net is : Update your Windows system now. There is a 19 year old bug found in their SChannel security layer. IBM folks discovered it and allows software you download to take control Dark Hotel. This is a targeted attack where people in Hotels get what looks…

I’ve seen quite a few reviews of the two. I’ve been using Lastpass for the last few years and it isn’t expensive ($12) but most reviews seem to prefer 1Password. Last time I tried it it was unusable because it didn’t grok multiple users on the same site (e.g. I have 15 google.com accounts that…

Well, use task manager for basic performance monitoring Here are some other things: Install chromium which is open source chrome: sudo apt-get install chromium-browser Flash for the last four sites in the world that use it sudo apt-get install pepperflashplugin-nonfree VLC seems way better than the native player sudo apt-get install vlc with all the…

Well, I remember well the days of regedit horrors, but it was sure better than .ini files anywhere. Linux has followed much the same evolution going from .conf files to XML files to a binary registry. Of course with Unix, you get now one but four major ways to edit settings: dconf-editor. A graphical tool…

It’s a scary world out there and Vlad was wondering what I use to make browsing safer. Here’s a list ordered by how hard it is to live with:: Password manager. There are two good ones. I’ve used Lastpass but 1Password at least is open source so you can inspect it. Two factor authentication. Turn…

Well, you have two choices. Manage all your .sh scripts so you know what is happening with your system configuration. Or use etckeeper which pours things into a git repository, so you can play back your /etc changes. Then use the Some cool uses: – For your web server configuration files if you have manually…

Having spent 24 hours trying to figure out how to share a file, it sure doesn’t feel good have so many different versions and release of Linux out there. Over the last two years, we’ve had the (mis)fortune to use a bunch of different Linux distributions so here are the tips, tricks and traps: Decoder…

ARgh, this should be so simple, but it isn’t. Trying to build a linux file server is complicated mainly because of the network naming (how do you file your server) and the administration of users. Here’s a quick guide for Ubuntu. It is amazing to me it took a whole day and a half to…

  Small choice UCFF Form factor This idea of a next unit of computing (NUC) that Intel gave name to is just the next in a series of very small form factor PCs that are mainly fanless. So SFF has given way to UCFF (Ultracompact) We have had an Atom based processor a while ago,…

This is a great question that Vlad asked me. I’ve done special builds now for file servers, gaming PCs of course, but what about just doing image editing, what’s the best build. Here are some criteria: Very quiet. I know this shouldn’t be, but why not, who need a roaring fan when you don’ have…

Well, if you can stand it, waiting for Black Friday or the virtual black fridays makes some sense. So here’s what I’ve got on hold: New hard drives for the many disk arrays. New monitors New MacBooks Hold on to those items as we are so close to the date. I’ve been putting things into…

Actually the move to Yosemite has gone pretty well for me. We’ve dodged some of the bugs I’ve heard about (Wifi connection) and it is definitely faster on small machines because the 3D effects are less. The only thing I’ve seen is a strong losing of SMTP passwords. In terms of thing that change, mac…

But it sure is interesting to learn about all the tools that are out there thanks to various contests online including: Disassembler which let’s you know what’s in a binary. SWI Prolog. Many of these problems need a constraint solver. If you can believe it, people are still using Prolog to analyze constraints. Pomona has a…

So what’s the best way to bring up a Ghost site on Digital Ocean and then have another site which is the test one. There is some support for a development version and a production site in a separate place. I tried the instructions in Digital Ocean but this didn’t work and nginx failed. I…

Wow this is a great thing for those of us who want to save a few things by using the Monoprice store on Rakuten. Rakuten has some good discounts (right now they are running a site-wide 10% off) and they also have a point system (1% rebate). Combine that with 2x points on Bank of…

Well with the market changing so quickly, our top choices of just two months ago (the the ASUS PB-27Q and the Benq 3200PT remain. The big problem is that the ultra nice Benq 3200PT has shot up in price from a decent $620 up to $750, so is pretty out of reach. So what’s a…

Well since we are all on Mac Mail, here are some typical issues and problems. Normally the thing works fine, but there is something strange with how it stores things and sometimes it forgets the SMTP password. Here are some of the tricks: You want to run IMAP and SMTP on initial setup, OS X…

Ok, doing the final purchase analysis as usual, the process was: Initial price on Amazon Check price on Newegg Check similar prices through rewards portals (BoA) to Rakutan, Overstock as these guys have better prices usually. See what the rebates are on with cashbackmonitor.com and what coupons are with slick deals.com Google search looking for…

Ok, nothing like learning a new stack everyday. It sure feels like I do that these days. This one is digitalocean.com running node.js, running the ghost blogging platform using handlebar for templating and bootstrap for the front end. What fun! Here are some tips: Digitalocean’s one click install really works. A $5 droplet and you…

Well it is probably unfashionable to still use the same editor that I first learned in college, but heck, vi is still around. It is arcane and hard to figure out, but man is it efficient. There are two modes, edit and command, but that means that your fingers never need to leave the keyboard.…

Well, Twitter’s Bootstrap is the most popular front-end framework and it works against just about any backend. WordPress, Ghost, whatever. So it’s a good time to figure out how to use it: The most minimal form w3schools explains that it is entirely hosted on the web, so you just need to create a web page…