Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

It may seem wierd by if you want make a family name plural (like the Tongs), you don’t need an apostrophe Plural Noun Forms The plural form of most nouns is created simply by adding the letter s. more than one snake = snakes more than one ski = skis more than one Barrymore = Barrymores

Well, time now to slow down if you don’t really need a computer right, right now. The major tock in the Intel release strategy is coming. It is called Haswell and uses much lower power.  Leaked document reveals Intel ‘Haswell’ chips potentially bound for 2013 iMacs Details on 14 new desktop processors set to launch…

This has to be the most complex rewards program I’ve ever used. They don’t tell you much and you have to read a lot but if you get this. We have a grandfather account so it isn’t clear what is standard and not, but you have to read this huge PDF to get some gems. …

For a 1080p monitor you need 358hz to run at 120hz but nvidia limits this to When you are running your monitor ultrafast in 1440p at 120hertz u need to unlock the pixel clock and the sli lock as well. See  ToastyX fix. I installed this last week and then Nvidia complained the driver wasn’t properly…

It is just a 1080p 27″ monitor and is an older TN panel but that means it is very fast. We are using it for 3d and standard and there seem to be quite a few tuning parameters: Lightboost.This pulses the LED backlight in 3D mode so it looks brighter. This buried in the color…

If this isn’t the hardest category to figure out, I don’t know what is. The first thing to figure out is what you want: Midi keyboard. This doesn’t have any ability to produce music, you hook a computer up and the computer makes the sound. Very cheap. Keyboard. These are the classic synthesizer device, lots…

A good time to get toasters and things for the home that has everything: Brevet BOV800XL. Cook’s Illustrated likes it, Consumer Reports likes it and the Amazon reviews are great. It’s just amazingly expensive at $250. AMCO Houseworks Model 06-0354. A $11 juice squeezer that works 🙂 Vollrath Cookie Sheets. These are really solid and…

Seems like everyone wants one for this Christmas and the price spread has never been wider. Like sunglasses, these are hugely marked up item, so you can literally pay from $10 to $10,000. Wirecutter has a pretty good handle on it. (personally I’ve always like the Etymotic ER-4i and ER-6, but that’s another story). Headroom.com…

Just what I need. Now that we’ve made a mongo (12 gallon tank) monster PC that is running at an amazing 150fps on Black Ops II and 1GBps disk access on an overclocked 4.5GHz Ivy Bridget 3570K processor and dual GTX670 SLI overclocked by 72Mhz and 200MHz on memory, time now to look at smaller…

You can build an amazing tiny PC. I’d just change his build to put in a bigger power supply and a gtx-690 to really have a rocking system and probably cut back to a 3570k as its $100 cheaper, add a noshua nh-14 cooler, goto a Samsung 840 ssd as the only drive and drop…

If you want to backup all your expensive Blu Ray disks, there are two tools, first MakeMKV which takes the raw video and audio down and then Handbrake to compress the Blu Ray a bit more for convenience without (too much) loss in quality. How to Rip a Blu-ray Disc With MakeMKV | PCWorld If…

Amazing, I pretty much accidentally plugged it all in right. But if you have a late model generation 7 motherboard (we have a P8Z77-V Deluxe from ASUS) and you do things magically right before you submerge the thing in mineral oil, you can get amazing disk performance: 1. Get the fastest SSDs you can. They…

Seems like if you want to admire Canon (and use your EF lenses), then you have to go to their professional like like their 4K Canon C500 (shoots at 4x more pixels than 1080p! in RAW (or 120fps in half-RAW whatever that is) and with 10-bit color wow! FYI 2K is the sames as 1080p…

The Canon EOS 6D – beta test footage – as good as mark III? » cinema5D news The EOS 6D has a full-frame sensor that gives you the typical full-frame look at almost half the price of the 5D mark III. That sounds like a bargain. But for HDSLR the beta model of this camera…

United Airlines – Premier priority travel services Global Entry™ compensation benefit Global Entry is a U.S. Customs and Border Protection program that allows expedited clearance for pre-approved, low-risk travelers upon arrival in the United States. MileagePlus compensates 2012 Global Services, Premier 1K and Premier Platinum members for the $100 Global Entry application fee, for new…

Well Sony has really been rocking it (even as the company moves to junk bond status with a crumbling TV business, etc.). Their NEX line is amazing and this camaera is full frame and has a super fast fixed lense. Pretty incredible as it is the same sensor used in their top of the line…

You need to make sure your two SSDs are on the Intel SATA connectors (the ASUS P8Z77-V has so many SATA connectors it isn’t funny and two controller. One by Marvell and the other by Intel). Also you need to have 6GB capable SATA connectors. These look different from the vanilla 3GB ones, then you…

Windows 8 is off to a slow start | TG Daily “Since October 26, Windows device sales have fallen 21 percent versus the same period last year,” Baker confirmed. “Notebooks, which have been weak throughout most of 2012, saw that trend continue as they fell 24 percent. Desktop sales have fared better this year, dropping…

Well when you get a new car, the really important things are the kit that you need for those emergencies (that hopefully won’t ever happen). Here’s an updated list thats great for christmas 🙂 Flashlight. You want one that is going to be bright and last a long time. This is a good application for…

Well there are quite a few that are out there now. 9to5mac.com has a long list, but here’s a short list, Apple’s lightening to usb is $19, but Boxwave sells one for $12 and there is also a retractable version for a similar price at iphonemod.com

Seems like the rechargeables that we use just keep finding new uses. This is great as (except for the Wii controllers), everything seems to like them. But time to buy some more. Using a combination of Amazon and Thomas Distributing, here are the best buys: Battery charger. I have a bunch of these and the…

Well have instability with our old BIOS, but just upgraded our ASUS P8V77-Deluxe and did an update (why does everything require updates all the time). The original nVidia driver also needed an update, so you have to download the beta driver but didn’t have an SLI profile. YOu need the latest 310.61 beta driver with…

Well, the initial reviews of the Canon EOS M are coming in and it looks more and more likely that a move to the E-mount Sony line is coming. Sad that Canon has these kinds of problems, but on the other hand, the 5DII is a pretty amazing camera that is going to soldier on…

Well if you are a professional film makers things just got way better. Sony just announced a 4K capable (that is four thousand lines vs HD which is 1080 lines) camcorder that shoots in RAW and does something called global shutter. This means that the entire frame is taken at once and you don’t rolling shutter…

Wireless speakers. Now that the 30-pin connector is dead, seems like wireless speakers are going to be more and more important. If you just want a local solution then you can use Bluetooth adapters to connect any speaker set Belkin makes one for $25. Airplay actually works better because you can communicate on Wifi. We use…

Some little tidbits for mac users and iDevices I get back to wanting a nice clean database of my songs. So artwork for each and lyrics for each song. Well this is easier than ever with Lyrical. This one does seem to work. Select a song in iTunes and it adds it.  Adding more storage. There…

Few quick things about Apple: Well it turns out that the “Fusion” drive technology works old Macs and across any SSD and any hard drive if you create a proper “storage” group with diskutil command line. Also you can use ZFS on top of it. Of course I can’t figure out how to ZFS (no…

Well we are up and running and we are definitely on the bleeding edge right now. Puget Systems has been great answering questions, but this is the kind of thing where there isn’t much out there on the Internet on what is going on and how to make a mineral-bath PC really work. They essentially…

Hope everyone on the East Coast weathers Sandy OK. In the mean time, if you ware wondering how the Caribbean is faring, there is a great site for monitoring what is happening at the ground at stormcarib.com And of the course the National Hurricane Service site is terrific.