Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

It is so complicated to figure out jailbreaks, but jailbrea.kr seems to be the simplest place to figure it out… Running iOS 6.0, 6.0.1, 6.0.2, 6.1, 6.1.1, or 6.1.2. Use evasi0n by the evad3rs. Running iOS 5.1.1. Use redsn0w+absinthe2. Running iOS 5.1. iPhone 4S, iPad 2, and the new iPad: nothing. Other devices: a tethered…

Nothing like feeling dumb all over again. Trying to do some documentation using Sphinx as the language and Github as a repository. There are lots of dependencies, so here’s a cookbook: Get a http://github.com logon Download Github for the Mac Download repositories from there, you will see your repository in your home directory. While the…

Argh. Leaving AT&T I thought that things would get better with Verizon and I must say coverage is better at least. Sigh. We were trying to get Canadian roaming as we usually due and Verizon says no u can’t because u owe $70 for 3 days of usage before your main account started?!! Apparently u…

Well I’m still on the hunt for the next generation lense system to update the five year old Canon 5D Mark II. As we all know, there is so much changing in the camera world right now that the interchangeable lense systems are really overtaking the full frames as smaller and more practical. And the…

Well now that the Raspberry Pi is running and I actually understand it somewhat, its time to move on to the Fit PC-2i that I’ve had in the closet. We got it running a build of routing software but since then I’ve been failing and failing. It has a 120GB SSD in it and a…

I finally got my SD card and so spent the evening trying to get the Raspberry Pi running. Which i finally worked. Although it wasn’t super easy even if you know PCs. Here are some notes: There is no BIOS at all, so to get it running, you have to take the SD card and…

Well, these devices are getting so good. CES shows that they are moving fast. But by the spring, you should be able to get the ideal camera. One that is high definition (1080p or 720p), has night vision and also is Wifi enabled. This is a big trend…The annoying thing is that most of these…

Most credit cards have programs where if you click through a particular portal, you get additional. Here are some I use: Mileage Plus Shopping. It doesn’t even matter if you use someone elses credit card. If you click through this portal to say Newegg, J&R or Blue Nile, you get a boat load of points.…

Mac OS X Recover Lost Root Password | a Tech-Recipes Tutorial If you have the password to an account that is an administrator on the system, then it is easy to recover the password using the sudo command. Open a terminal window and type the following: sudo passwd root You will be prompted for your…

We have one of the original MacBook airs (2009) and it is sloooow. Geeksbench verifies that is running about 2500 compared with a modern MacBook Air (2011) running at 5000. The main issue though a the hard disk. It just grinds along. Can take minutes for it to boot. Other world computing offer an expensive…

Try saying that three times fast. Here is the scoop. USB 3.0 is very fast. I can be faster than a hard disk. You can get speeds up but it depends on first having a USB 3.0 controller on your computer. Only the latest macs and the latest pcs have it. Right now 32GB seems…

ll I guess it had to happen, left the freezer door accidentally open, the microprocessor didn’t like trying to turn the whole house 0F, so instead of just grinding away, it crashed and turned the entire refrigerator off. Apparently fairly common, you have to do a “reboot”: Flip the circuit breaker off or unplug it…

Well I switched to generic RAID-6 and added three additional 3-TB drives successfully, so I haven’t had a data loss. Also switched to two link aggregated gigabit channels and jumbo packets (this is complicated to setup!) Right now Blackmagic Disk test reports that I’m getting 100MBps read and write over the network (?!!!). That’s pretty…

Ok, with all this digital content everywhere, chances you are licensed to things and you don’t even know it. Here is a guide to finding things: Matcha is a really nice application. It shows you want is available online and where. For instance right now Bourne Legacy is only available on Apple iTunes Store and…

As usual, there are a ton of formats: ePub. Mac. Nook for the Mac seems like the best reader on you Mac OS X or ePubReader from within Firefox. iOS. This is the format that the embedded Books reader understands. You do have to jump through hoops to get it there as it requires a…

Well of the four TiVo boxes I’ve had, three are now dead or dying with hardware issues. The hard drives on these things are just not that reliable. I sure wish they had SSDs. In any case, Comcast has definitely caught up quite a bit with programming of their Motorola boxes via the web and…

Well, now that our main Tivo Series 4 is dying. We are trying one last step, but now using the Comcast DVR alot and Plex from the Mac Mini. Seems like this doesn’t work super well as this requires KMTTG to download from yet another Tivo.  To get rid of this dependency time to try…

Well, I was playing with Synology (which seems decently stable). It is a pretty lousy Plex server mainly I think because the processor is slow and it can’t transcode. On the other hand, it is incredibly fast. Running with 1GB ethernet, I regularly get 100MBps which is pretty amazing. Faster than the local hard disk…

As an aside, ITXGamer seems to have some good focused reviews of mini-ITX gaming systems. If I were to do this again I’d probably use the Coolermaster Elite 120 with a traditional ATX (not the smaller SFX) PSU like the fanless Seasonic X460. And if I were going mineral cooled, I’d slam a Kingwin 1000 Watt monster with a…

The sushi of Jiro’s dreams will run you $20/minute Sukiyabashi Jiro is a 3-star Michelin restaurant in Tokyo that many say serves the best sushi in the world. The chef/owner, 86-year-old Jiro Ono, was the subject of last year’s excellent Jiro Dreams of Sushi documentary film. Adam Goldberg of A Life Worth Eating ate at…

Well finding something completely fanless would be a great thing in a mineral-oil PC. No fans makes things much simpler. AnandTech – Streacom’s FC10 and Nano150: Building a Fanless Ivy Bridge HTPC HTPC enthusiasts often place a lot of emphasis on silent systems for obvious reasons. We have looked at systems with passive thermal solutions…

Well Windows 7 is here, but it is reliable. You just need an ISO file of it plus the Microsoft utility to create a bootable USB stick (as an aside, the default ASUS P8Z77-I bios doesn’t activate USB devices other than the mouse and keyboard so it won’t see the USB stick. Check full to…

Well since I’m installing windows machines, nothing like trying to figure out the standard software to use. If you don’t want to pay Adobe, give GIMP a try. it is a freeware utility and with UFRaw, it will edit and convert Raw format. The only glitch is that UFRaw is 32-bit only, so you have…

Well we were nearly done and I was resetting the automatic ASUS overclock and on the first reboot, the SSD reports that it lost the operating system. Didn’t have disk repair utilities and the so had to reinstall. Why is it that Windows 7 requires six hours to install. I can’t believe that it needs…

Well, the next step of the road is here, we’ve built a 12-gallon sized computer that uses an ATX board (P8Z77-V Deluxe), an overclocked Intel Core i5 3570K with dual eVGA GTX-670 in SLI. It’s been running fine (except I can’t get the pump to throttle). Here are notes on the first step of building…

From a day of dealing with legal agreement, high stakes discussions and generally stressful stuff. Let’s take something simpler. Upgrade a random T-mobile Android device to the latest release. I’m way too use to the iPhone ecosystem where there is an update system for all of this. Instead with Android, devices come out and then…

Last minute ideas for geeks… Great Binoculars | The Wirecutter If I needed binoculars for zeroing in on birds, fireworks or the people in the building across the street, I’d get the Nikon Monarch 8x42mm. The glasses cost about $250, but you could spend a lot more and have little to show for it, or spend a…

Well, here are the other gizmo’s you need for your Honda Fit: It’s tiny, but you always need more space for skis and things, the Yakima Whispbar S24 with the K446 feet seems like the quietest roof rack. Should be compatible with most Thule and Yakima gear.

It will still work for existing customers, but sounds like Google is moving away from Microsoft. At least they are still supporting Apple customers as the iCloud stuff just doesn’t work that well (at least for me). Will have to experiment with using CardDAV and CalDAV to see if these work better. And of course…