Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

So if you don’t have an unlimited hoster (like bluehost) and don’t want to maintain your own gallery (like zenphoto), here is what you can do. There are a zillion of these things according to wikipedia: * Flickr. This is 1TB of storage which is pretty close to unlimited for free. They also allow seamless…

MacBook Pro this morning turned on but no bong and the screen is black. Google searches leads to either a motherboard failure or try a PRAM reset. That means hold down the on and then p, r and the option and command key. Quite hard to do but it worked!

Well every release of OS X seems to break our trusty old Drobo Pro. The things that really don’t work: iSCSI initiator. The one they use needs an old Java 6 and is pretty flaky, but there are not complaints like the Firewire and USB. I’ve had lots of prior issues with this as having…

Now that world is moving to 4K displays, it’s interesting to see what hardware actually works where. This is 4x more pixels than a 1080p display and double (about) that of a retina display (which is 2.8K or 1800p depending on the measurement system). So here is what seems to work. There are two semi-deep…

Weird assymetry, you can control an iTunes from an iOS device, but not from any Mac OS X computer… Here’s how to fix that… lion – How can I control iTunes from another Mac? – Ask Different I’ve got a Mac Mini running Lion that stores my iTunes library. It’s hooked up to my receiver…

PSQX4645ZA_TD7695_OI – KXTD7695.pdf This phone’s off mode is pretty obscure, but one day one then another of our phones looked dead. The battery showed fully charged, but when you pulled out of the charger, the screen went completely blank. Well, it turns out that unlike most devices, this just means the phone is off. It…

Well, if you had a bunch of time on your hands and just wanted to fly somewhere (loving adventure), then you’d want to maybe fly in the best first class seats in the world, so here they are: Etihad Airways continues winning streak as it’s First Class seats are named the World’s Best in the…

When looking for things for the home, I use three sources. First is Consumer reports (subscription required) and they do some nice tests Then, Cooksillustrated.com (subscription required) which is mainly about recipes, but they do some great tests of kitchen stuff Then there is the meta site, The Sweethome which is a branch of the Wirecutter.…

How do I password protect my albums? « zenphoto forums. I haven’t used zenphoto in a while, but still like it mainly because it is file system based, so I can do big reorganizations of my 7,000 photos without painful user interface interactions. In this case, the main thing is how to get the right…

Hey it’s freezing up here. So how do u keep warm? Pelonis. Not a super choice. The delonghi hmp 1500 is very popular on amazon $79 and is very small and light and not ugly like the oil filled radiator models. $69 at newegg. $64 at Walmart but out of stock, $80 at best buy…

I remember when figuring out a font was impossible, but now it’s easy, just myfonts.com/WhatTheFont  or whatfontis.com by feeding it a jpeg of the font you don’t recognize and it popts it back to you. When you get a match, then you can see how to download it by typing the name into google. There…

When you get a new job, you have to look the part. Some good reviews at the Wirecutter: Filson Original Briefcase. This is such a cool looking vintage thing. The one from Apolis is really amazing. It is canvas leather and made from cotton from Ugandan farmers. How amazing is that. The O.G. This is…

What a terrible time to love home theaters, we are the start of a big transition to 4K TV (4x the resolution of HD) and prices are literally crashing. The top models seem to be according to hdguru.com and soundandvision.com and their uhd reviews: Sony XBR65W900A. (TrustedReviews)he price is falling like crazy, now Amazon is…

Well if you care about the world, might as well put your money where your mouth is and also some cute local manufacturers; Apolisglobal.com. They source from around the world and help coops just about everywhere. Metamorphicgear.com. This is a Seattle company that recycles goods. Maybe not the prettiest but you can feel good about…

Well buying a vacuum cleaner might sound like the height of boooorrrringgg, but what if you have someone who really needs 🙂 Consumer Reports is usually a good source for this and the $30 a year subscription is well worth it. After looking there are other places, the best “stick vacuum cleaner” is the kind…

I had always thought that Amazon didn’t have any deals that include cash back. I was wrong. For certain stores, evrewards says ebates.com has them. 6% off for Toys for instance on top of the savings today. I’m so sorry I didn’t see this earlier! And its getting late but Cyber Monday is still on:…

Ok, I haven’t used a Windows machine in a long time, but here’s a tip. If you are lucky enough to have a fancy display like the ASUS 27 which is a 144 Hz monitor, then you can turn on Lightboost to get much less flicker and motion artifacts as http://www.blurbusters.com/zero-motion-blur/lightboost/ describes. You can either…

OK, I may regret it, but if you love bugs and other critters, you can’t live without: Sea Monkey Aquarium. Because brine shrimp are so cute.. Antsalive.com. The place to get ants and their habitats!

Well, you’d need a mighty big stocking for some of these things, but they are useful, so simpler  to more expensive: Cord wrappers. Don’t you hate it when your headphones cords are all over the place. I like the little man you wrap around Case of headphones. Headphones are too cheap to ship with one,…

Nothing like a few stuffers, but the Katoona Microspikes. Ok, they are nerdy, but when it is icy, you’ll be thanking me. Just $51 from EMS and if you click through mrrebates.com, you get an additional 10% off and if you sign up for emsrewards, you get an additional 3%. Plus free shipping and this…

Ok, the Playstation 4 and Xbox One might be a little big to stuff into a stocking, but they are clearly the big news of the gaming world. If you haven’t gotten one, then use zoolert.com and find one (like we did!). If you have these systems, then here’s a list of things that gamers…

Yikes, you can get this error on your own site if you (like me!) sometimes forget your passwords and use an automatic connection like Scribefire. In my case, I mistyped the password so Better WP Security locks my own IP out. Now when I try to access tongfamily.com, I get some strange errors: 403 forbidden…

Well if you are getting late into Boston airport and don’t feel like riding the T until 1AM, then what are your options: The Taxi cab quote is $95 out to the suburbs A check of Uber gives you $65, but you can’t do this in advance and make sure you have the app on…

OK, I got the dreaded, turn on your MacBook Pro with Retina and it boots to a black screen. Yikes! The fix appears to be to do a PRAM reset. There are lots of other suggestions, but you basically hit the on and then hit Command-P-R until you hear the ding.

Hey these sites really do work. Got a notice last night from Zooalert.com and Nowinstock.net that there was a PS4 that you could buy on Gamestop and it actually worked. Good to try for those hard to find items. The Gamestop store was really slow and hung several times (man a reminder of how good…

Alex told me that you could use “VI” commands with it and that got me to wondering about Sublime and what I was missing. Quite a lot. First decision is using Sublime 3 or 2. I’m going to try Sublime 3 for a while. Now I was wondering how to get it to: Be a…

And didn’t have the foresight to preorder. Well, use Zoolert or Nowinstock to get a notification. Amazing that things sell out online in 3 minutes!

An offhand remark about why some code was going to get implemented as a sea of events and handlers and wouldn’t a state machine be a better way. So what is it anyway? A few months ago I saw a great little blog post about state machines on the Shopify blog. The message was that…

Sigh, becoming more dependent on Netflix and got this error: netflix an error occurred loading this content Not too much help, but folks suggested: I was having the same issue with Netflix and HBO GO. Go to Settings > General > Restart. That worked for me. If that doesn’t work, check for software updates.. Netflix…