Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

FBI Taps Hacker Tactics to Spy on Suspects – WSJ.com The FBI develops some hacking tools internally and purchases others from the private sector. With such technology, the bureau can remotely activate the microphones in phones running Google Inc.’s Android software to record conversations, one former U.S. official said. It can do the same to…

Well the good, Comcast is offered to send us a new Docsis 3.0 modem. They even did a robo voice mail and then gave me some magic URL to ask for an a new modem. It asks you for a letter reference (?!) and since I don’t think I got a letter, I guessed. In…

This is such a confusing topic. There is UVC which provices webcam drivers (but can’t take stills) and gPhoto which works for tethered still cameras. To get the best performing camera takes some work. The top selling Amazon webcam, the Logitech C920 gets marketed as a 15MP camera, but is actually 3MP underneath according to…

Well, our Mac Mini server 2010 has a mere 4GB of memory and we wanted more of course. However PC8500 ram is very expensive, so we got the much cheaper ($180 for 2x8GB PC8500 vs $120 for 2x8GB PC12800). But the problem is putting in both doesn’t work. It appears that the Mac Mini needs…

We’ve had the MSR Pocket Rocket for years and it is durable and very light. and has stood the test of time, but it isn’t very stable for sure, but technology has moved ahead: JetBoil Flash. $100. They started the revolution. The main advantage is that it is smaller than the MSR Whisperlite and is…

Wow, Amazon has been expanding its membership programs. Here’s a list: Amazon Student. This is a great program. Half price Amazon Prime ($40 a year). It’s free for six months, you get free two day shipping, but you don’t get to stream movies nor borrow free kindle books until you pay the $40 a month.…

Nothing like visiting REI and getting gear lust all over again by Outdoor Gear Lab: Mountain Hardwear Ultralamina 15 is the best synthetic speeding bag tjat is great for colder temperatures and soaking wet conditions. We just got this bag and it is heavy, but obviously warm. Feathered Friend Hummingbird 20. If you don’t live…

While this is a nice printer and seems decently reliable, it sure is expensive to keep the cartridges. Two quick tips, get the: Canon 0621B016 CLI-8 3 Pack C/M/Y Value Pack. Just $32 from Amazon Canon PGI-5 BK 0628B009 2-Pack Pigment Black Ink Tanks. $25 from Amazon gives you two tanks of black

I have literally no idea what this means and the disk looks good. Have run disk utility and the disk structure looks good. Also gettting strange lock ups on this iMac (late 2009) running Mac OS X 10.9.4. Strange. But serveral a second read: kernel: cksum: out of data by 20 Looking at the manual…

We’ve had two outages in the last two days. I’m getting a partition down message and it lasts for several hours. A chat with the bluehost live chat folks isn’t encouraging. They don’t know why the file system check is running nor do they have log file indicating what is going on. So I guess…

OK, what kind of gear do you need for a 4 day trip, here are some notes from outdoorgearlab, backpacker.com and outdoor.com: Backpacks. They really like the Arcteryx Altra 64 is the best by a long margin with the main issue being its cost (but on the other hand, a backpack lasts a lifetime). Backpacker…

It is hard to find reviews of these and most seem like junk. Monoprice does a budget set for $83, but Sound and Vision just did a review set and for not very much, you can get a nice sounding set of outdoor speakers: Niles OS5.5 Black (Pr) 5 Inch 2-Way High Performance Indoor Outdoor…

Well time once again to figure out how small and low power you can make something. Let’s look at form factor, chip set, processor, memory, disk, in that order for a basic Haswell system. Here are the recommendations for a Linux running Haswell simple single board computer (and following some models like iafeche) for $584…

We’ve tried this before and the graphics drivers are the big pain. Got an Atom processor and their GMA500 graphics were such a pain to get working. Linux users: watch out for last-gen Intel Atom It hit the market during the last few weeks. Last generation of Intel Atoms: CedarView (D2300, D2500, D2550, D2600, D2700)…

Some kind of cool treats you don’t often see in the US, but thanks to Amazon, you can get them: Here in the Netherlands, it is apparently perfectly normal behaviour for an adult to merrily sprinkle some fruit or chocolate flavoured sprinkles on their bread at mealtime. from No. 3: Hagelslag | Stuff Dutch People…

We don’t use the Kindle too much, but pretty soon it gets reall cluttered. There are book loans from our library that don’t get cleared for isntance. YOu have to manually whack each one in the web app or just hide them from the Kindle app itself: If you are talking about the Carousel, which…

It is hard to find reviews of these and most seem like junk. Monoprice does a budget set for $83, but Sound and Vision just did a review set: We really liked the Niles OS5.5, and we thought the Definitive Technology AW5500 and the Klipsch AW-525 were both pretty good. Review: Outdoor Speakers | Sound…

As Scott says, with cameras getting so much better, we’d all better learn how to shoot and what makes a great photograph. Here are some lists of these, starting with Ken Rockwell’s list: Ken Rockwell’s What Makes a Great Photograph.. He’s a great resource and puts things into plain English. In this case, his point…

Well, it is not so much obscure as local, but we had a chance to visit Agriloro and meet with the owner. He’s a wonderful guy and reminds me of the day when winery owners had the time to meet with customers. He even got into his car to try to find us as we…

I have a bunch of the orignal Camelbaks (the MULE amongst them), but now that every backpack is hydration bladder compatible and these things get dirty (you want to get a cleaner for them especially the tubes). It’s time to see what a good option is for just getting a new set of bladders. Outdoorgearlab.com…

Well, if you are every going to Basel, it is indeed beautiful, but on Sundays most of the shops are closed, so what to do, Wikitravel has some good tips: Kunstmuseum Basel, St. Alban-Graben 16, city center, +41 61 206 62 62, [29]. Basel’s exquisite art museum houses an impressive permanent collection of 19th and…

While digital means you mainly just share photos, sometimes it is fun to make a photo album during a party. We have a Canon iP100 and it produces incredible quality prints up to A4 or Legal size, but it is slow and the automatic paper feed doesn’t work super well. We used the Selphy CP900…

Just a reminder about how to minimize your roaming costs when you are overseas: If you are on Verizon: Sign up for the $25 for 100MB international data plan. Works in most European countries (and China) When you call, use Skype to call the US using the international data. Way cheaper than the $1.29 a…

Been using and playing with virtual machines a lot and it is pretty clear, you benefit from having an SSD and more memory. While the latest macbooks are faster, etc., even a five year old machine still work great. I’m amazed at the quality of the keyboard and the cases and the displays. The SSDs…

Bluehost has been good to me, even though expensive at $10/month (can’t believe that is expensive), the only limitation is that it is pretty insecure to use FTP and they don’t like large files (greater than 1GB), so it isn’t the perfect server for everything. And they only allow the main account to use SFTP.…

We are using Mailman for simple lists. And got this peculiar errot What does “message has implicit destination” mean? – Documentation – Confluence 2) The message was BCC’ed (blind carbon copied) to the list, and was actually not addressed to the list directly (not that you can see). If you’re running an umbrella list, you…

Been trying to figure out what to get folks for their birthdays, etc. The default choice is of course an Amazon Gift Cards, but you can do better than that. I usually check Wirecutter for instance as a place to find geek gifts.

Well, I have nearly everything, but our little pen thing broke (which purifies water), so back to the drawing board for something. It is a confusing topic but outdoorgearlab.com has some good advice. There are three kinds of systems: filter, chemical and UV. The net is that a filter doesn’t take care of viruses, but…

Nearly everyone needs one now, so here’s the free exam and then you mail a form in and $10 and get your certificate.