Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

Eureka! MythTV has never quite worked right nor has my HD Homerun Prime. It should but didn’t, but finally, all the software is coming together. Here is what is working: 1. MythTV 0.27 on MacPorts. This appears to work and build. It is insanely hard to go through all the directions, but you basically install…

And even if you use your nonstick pan only a couple of times a week, the Cookware Manufacturers Association concedes it isn’t built for the long term: “If you get a year to a year and a half of life out of [a new nonstick pan], we think you got a pretty good deal,” says…

So with all the devaluations that have occurred, what are points really worth. In a nutshell, mile value.com explains what happened. Basically the very valuable international flights were just hammered, so values are about half what they were: Here is a quick analysis, so most people thought United was worth vs now. The metric we…

The Harman Kardon Aura may look like The Jetson’s spaceship has collided with a ultra-modern kitchen blender but this quirky design housing is actually a wireless home speaker. If you’re seeking a showstopper in speaker design that is also small and compact enough to live anywhere in the home, then the HK Aura certainly ticks…

Ugh, keep getting this error. Looks like a mavericks bug:   After logging in, you are repeatedly prompted to unlock the “Local Items” keychain in multiple apps. Follow these steps to prevent prompts to unlock the Local Items keychain. In Finder Select Go > Go to folder… (??G) In the window that appears, type the following: ~/Library/Key…

See Donald Starchan has a good overview. The short answer is First is that you can get a sim at the airport or via any cellphone store in town. The main issue is what plan to get. You have to go through all the carriers and here was the data as of last summer which…

I never seem to have enough disk space. Right now most of my systems are at 2/3TB going to 3/4TB, given the cost of only getting an extra 1TB though, it might make sense just to buy more NAS enclosures. I’ll probably end up doing this when all my old 2TB drives are swapped out.…

Been buying quite a few accessories over the last few months. Here’s a quick retrospective on what works: TwelveSouth HiRise vs Konnect. These are both nice iPhone stands. The TwelveSouth is more expensive but works better if you have a case because it doesn’t have a fixed distance it won’t work on all cases. All told,…

I had no idea it was this bad. Basically dSLR, mirror less and compact cameras are all in a sales crash. No one is sure why, but it does seem as though most folks just are fine with a camera phone 🙁 1) DSLR shipment dropped down to the lowest level since two years. 2)…

Our Editor’s Choice Award goes to the Smartwool Midweight Crew. In all honesty, it was difficult to find anything we didn’t like about this baselayer. It is durable, provides excellent breathability and temperature regulation, looks good, and is totally versatile. While more expensive than some of the other tops, it proved to be well worth…

Latest on headlamps. A fast changing category, this review is great because they do their own realistic battery tests: Selling at an amazingly low street price of $36, the Coast HL7 blew us away with a combination of huge 128 meter beam distance, relatively light 4.4 ounce weight, and best-in-class floodlight optics. The main issue is short full…

Need a few more things to fill up a cart on Overstock (and get a 10% coupon too). So what to get. Movies seems easy, so which Blu-ray’s don’t I have. Although we do lots of netflix etc, the actual Mbps on a Blu-ray still can’t be beat, so here are some lists for filling…

Man life has gotten a lot more complex than just being a student waiting in the TKTS line. Here are some notes if you are headed that way: Matilda The award winning show is on right now. The big question is where to buy tickets. There are a zillion sales sites and what seats to…

Ok, who can stand it when Ludwig checks in on github at 30K feet. Well, I’ve got you beat. Satellite wifi on the way to Shanghai, here’s a post about the most amazing (yes sentimental to a fault) movie, About Time. There are fewer more romantic examples of wonderful british humor and the incomparable Bill…

Well once you get into it, it is hard not to go whole hog. Here are the latest schemes to get more points. It’s earned us a whopping $300 or far just from Xmas shopping rebates, so here is what is in progress.: Bluebird. This is an Amex debit card that let’s you write checks…

What a pain this actually is. Here are the steps assuming you have Photoshop: Take your photo against a white background (a wall for instance). If you can turn on the grid feature of your camera, so that you take a “square” picture. On a 3:2 system that means you want to chop off the…

Just got one to try for our long trip. Was starting to use it and suddenly the screen went blank. When you try to change things like RAW to JPEG, it would refuse to do it. And when you try to initialize it would fail. Argh! I’ve never had camera firmware crash so hard. But…

Oh my goodness, this is the most obscure product on planet earth! It is crazy how hard it is to get work. I have had it working for a few seconds and then it seems to die. Been on the line for hours with Sony Tech Support and their basic strategy seems to be to…

Yuck, we have no less than four different remote systems for the various flat panels around the house. And now the venerable Crestron is giving us fits. Josh recommended we try iRule. At last something that makes some sense. It is programmable (like the old Philips Pronto) and it is IP based (sort of like…

Well there always seem to be new ways, but reading http://millionmilesecrets.com/2013/01/03/airline-miles-expiration/ here are some easy ones and that site has the right links: United Buy something through the United portal. Can be a $1 iTunes gift card. Use Bcksgr which gives you miles if you like companies on Facebook (free!) If you have a credit…

OK, going on a trip and I just have to try the new Sony A7r. The A7 is probably really the right one for me for general use, but the A7r as a landscape (auto focus is slow and it doesn’t have phase detection so can’t take videos) product it is pretty superb apparently. And…

Wow, finally got this to work on a Mac. Amazingly reliable with the HD HomeRun Prime. The main limits right now are the premium channels (need Windows for that or a Comcast DVR). But it works with good performance on a 2010 Mac Mini. The main thing is how to get a remote to work.…

Wow, I’ve been on a tear thinking about this. Right now this has yielded probably an incremental 20,000 points probably worth $1000 just from Christmas shopping and buying various year end things. So once you have that, it makes me think about how to maximize. Here is an architecture to think about your own lives:…

Well I’ve been trying to get a Mac based DVR going for a while. Maybe I should just use NimbleTV and pay, but here is the home-brew option: Install macports Download macports from the site Install Xcode from Appstore From Mavericks, command line tools are installed in separately or by running “xcode-select –install” Install mythtv by…

OK, for our conference room we got a Sony X900A and boy is it a learning curve to get it working right. Here are some of things: 1. It was working fine and then I changed some of the network connections and to the FMP-X1, I know get a Cannont Connect to 4K Media Player.…

Yuck, the problem with free printers and ones you don’t use is that they clog and jam. Printing is so 20th century! Anyway for this one, the documentation http://h20566.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hpsc/template.PAGE/public/kb/docDisplay/?sp4ts.oid=4311836&spf_p.tpst=kbDocDisplay&spf_p.prp_kbDocDisplay=wsrp-navigationalState%3DdocId%253Demr_na-c02206095-21%257CdocLocale%253D%257CcalledBy%253D&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken is incorrect. There is a Mac Utility to do this and it is in the printer driver area. We tried to run cleaning twice and it…

Run don’t walk to get your free $25! Free money from Radio Shack – The Frequent Miler RadioShack has an amazing promotion going on now through February 28th.  Trade in 5 portable electronics for a gift card worth at least $25.  You can trade in almost anything: old headphones, video games, digital cameras, etc. Free…

Well, in addition to the normal portals, the various cards also run promotions so here is a great quadruple dip: 1. Go to a site like Amerideals and see what direct cash back there is. These are a pain to manage in that you constantly need to sign up (which I think is the point),…

Follow Baldricks suggestions. Handbrakes constant quality mode at CRF 18-19 will give you very good quality. You can go to 17-17.5 for even better quality, at the cost of more filesize. via DVD to mkv with same quality as orginal?.

In my quest to get rid of closed source products, I’ve been moving over quite a few things. One important one is virus checking as you don’t want an exploit where they take your virus scanner out. There is only one for the Mac that appears to be open source (just like there appears to…