Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

OK, so discovered that my microphone wasn’t working. What’s the diagnostic procedure. Well it comes down to a bunch of simple things to try: Go to System Preference/Sound make make sure the internal microphone is selected and not muted Reboot the machine and hold down the four keys Option-Command-P-R to reset the PRAM configuration information…

Alex says my water filter (MSR Miniworks) is too slow at 1Q per minute and that my Steripen Adventurer (thanks Rennie!) is broken with a dead wetness sensor. Both are sad things, so off to find what the latest gizmo’s people have cooked up:  

Well, I finally got the DroboPro stabilized with the data recovered. Because I’ve become paranoid, I’ve also got Crashstation running nonstop (glad Comcast has suspended their 250GB/month limit) so I have an offsite backup. For good measure I’m using my old Time Capsuls (3 x 1TG of them) to get the most important data backed…

Wow, I now have a wonderful tiny box which is the Fit-PC2i. I haven’t run a non-Mac machine in something like 4 years and it is so embarassing. Here are some notes to use it: There is no manual included in the box, so you have to go online This comes without an SSD. you…

Well since I’m buying all this equipment and we’ve settled on Apple for most of our computing needs, there are still that aren’t being met. First is the really small (think AppleTV size) box that is really an open PC with Linux so I can learn that development world and then the massive Gamer PC…

Well the standard trick for sharpening photos is the wonderfully named unsharp mask (ugh what a name), but there have been better approaches. Adobe Photoshop implements something called Smart Sharpen and there are lots of papers on the topic. For a while I used FocusMagic but they don’t have version for the Intel Mac. So…

Right now I’m trying to get most of my videos as 1080p with DTS. Seems to me the highest quality. But this does mean transcoding on playback but with today’s fast processors, its not such a big deal.  But there are still AVI containers around that are chopped up, so how do we get them…

Well got to go to Pax Prime. Man, I had no idea it was such a cool event so close to us. Anyway, need to go there from now on. The gaming section on the 4th floor of the convention center is terrific. Crowded though so you probably just have to get there early to…

Not quite sure what model, but it is an old Time Capsule, I think 2nd generation, in any case, just beware that there is a strange bug with 7.6.1 firmware. If you want to do 5GHz mode, you need to set it to 802.11n (a compatible), if you set it to 802.11n only then the…

Well this has gotten way easier. If you have an AT&T iPhone and it is off contract (e.g., two years since you bought it), here is how you get it unlocked so it will work with any carrier (eg T-Mobile or you can use it overseas with a different SIM): Apply to AT&T. This can…

Well, it is great Apple is spending so much time on iPhone, iPads and maybe a little on MacBooks and AppleTV, but sadly, that leaves much of the promise of home networking in the dust. With Airport Extremes and Time Capsules kind of forgotten and a sea of not so good Wifi routers out there,…

Turns out there are plenty (according to Ars Technica) of password “recovery” tools out there. They use graphics cards to do the work. A good example is that with two graphics card, it takes 56 seconds to crack a random 8 character password! Wow, makes you really think about how passwords are being used particulary given…

Or Skydrive or Google Drive. The main point is that it lets you easily stick things on your home computer, then an application on your home machine can watch it and do something, so for instance, there are application to run a web site from it, its a good place to put all your password…

Gizmodo makes a pretty darn good point, it a dSLR can shoot 14 fps at 22MP, then you can use it to shoot short videos. As frame rates rise, maybe you get to the point where it won’t cost $30K to shoot a fast video…. This is a great example of how one market and intrude…

Don’t you ever wish, you could just take a list of top movies and then have the computer figure out how to get them the most inexpensive way. So here are the top action movies by IGN in reverse order Point Break Goldfinger Mr and Mrs Smith Top Gun Casino Royale Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocl Kill…

I have used a bunch of camcorders. Starting with the old Hi-8 type, then a hard disk-based camcorder for a while from Sony. For the last few years, I’ve been using my Canon 5D Mark II as a camcorder for kids events which has been ok, but I sure do miss the automatic focus and…

But in reading about at dpreview the camera I got to a bunch of mysterious features that I wonder whether to enable. Highlight Tone Priority and Auto Light Optimizer as well as L ISO. The short answer is that you should disable HTP and ALO and don’t go below ISO 100 and use RAW processing in general…

Well I’ve been depressed because the specs of the Nikon 800 at 36mp is so much better than the Canon 5D Mark III at 22MP. But I felt much better than reading the latest Popular Photography, although what it says disagrees with most of the internet sources. They claim the D800 certainly has has the…

Unknown error keeps popping up across all my machines. This is a complaint that seems pretty common and there is a magic key incantation to help…This seems to do a complete delete of all the iTunes Match data, so hopeing that it helps!  Dear XXXXX,   Welcome to iTunes Store Customer Support. My name is…

Somehow I found myself doing a wedding shoot. How unqualified can I be, but in doing this, I’ve discovered I need quite a few more special effects and so here is the search: Sepia and Black & White. A trick that many folks use that can make people look way better is to go to…

OK, did a 360 panaroma view with Hugin. Pretty amazing quality. As a side note Photoshop has a JPG compressor. There are three entries, Standard, Standard optimized and progressive. Pick standard (optimized is actually higher compression apparently) for most compatibility, optimized makes slightly smaller ones. I’ve actually found the difference between standard and optimized to…

Well, I’ve been using DxO quite successfully now to process raw images to displayable JPG or to printable TIFs. But what if I want to use Photomatix to do HDR exposure combination. Does it make sense to run DxO first to get lense correction and so forth. Flickr groups say yes, create some TIFs from DxO…

I admit it, I was a nerd watching macrumors board cast a live blow by blow of the Apple keynote. Some things from the WWDC: Drool, drool, the new MacBook Pro with Retina (wow those product names are getting to be a handful). 768GB of flash plus 16GB of main memory will set you back…

I wish Calvin hadn’t introduced me to this game. So addicting. Anyway, you have to know a lot to play and at least this is not a twitch game like Call of Duty (sad that CoD has become that, it used to be so amazingly interesting as a World War II simulation). Overall, playing Wizard,…

Working at home today and amazed that despite the fact that i’ve used the Donotcall.gov site, I’m still getting robocalls. Tried to reregister there and I’m only allowed three phone numbers per email. So instead, it says, call 888-382-1222 and they will add you to list. Good luck!