Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

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!

Scheduledirect seems to be the source of inexpensive TV schedules and it does work well for a decent $25/year. 

I’ve an old Netgear 48 port switch and I set the password at some point. Now I want to see about uploading later firmware etc, it appears that they have a reset button so I pressed it hopefully, it resets and I can find it on the network. And the default password is the very…

Well, I’m still depressed that I don’t have the lenses for a Nikon D800, but in the mean time, what can we do with the Canon 5D Mark II. A good note is that Magic Lantern really helps for both video (what it was designed for) and stills (what it can do). It is easy,…

Isn’t this a bizarre way to say, you can’t (at least in the latest version of iMovie 11 have special characters in the file name). Hope they fix this bug someday…This appears to happen when you say Export Movie…

I’ve been trying to get a movie out for days now with iMovie. There is a strange interaction with Time Capsule backups where with something as long running as an iMovie creation (in my case 7 hours to make an hour plus HD movie), so that Time Capsule tries to backup the file and thus…

Well if you have an old dimmer system, you can’t use the new CFLs, so trying to find the best PAR38 light bulbs. There aren’t many good review sites, so here is a summary. Right now you have a choice of a few technologies: Incandescent. The original, cheapest but last the last Halogen. More efficient…

Proving once again there is an application for everyone, someone wanted to do a stick figure animation and of course Stykz exists to make it easy!

This isn’t super well documented, but here are the things you can do with this photo-quality portable printer: Installing the BU-30 Bluetooth Adapter It is an extra $30, but worth it because then there is no USB wire needed, but it comes with instructions on installation at all and this is one thing Google doesn’t…

Happy Mothers Day. Spent a day watching the Avengers and printing lots of photos (worked well on i9900 with Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl, big change settings were to use Pro Paper Glossy, Saturation and on black point compensation so as to maximize dynamic range and then create a custom profile with SpyderPrint). Anyway, the regatta…

This used to work on me.com, but now with icloud.com, I haven’t been able to make it work. Turns out it needs to be 7.6.1 or better to run BAck to my Mac with icloud

Well Mothers Day is almost here and the perfect geek present is to get an easy to use computing thing for a mom who doesn’t like technology, so the iPad actually offers some pretty amazing features particularly when paired with an AppleTV and a stand. Here is how we set it up: Picture Frame. I’ve…

I have never had this happen, but when trying to start our old Volvo, you couid hear the starter motor turn, but there the engine didn’t turn over. The AAA guy called this a carbon lock, the Daisywagon folks called it carboned up valves. Not much on the web about this. But apparently, if you’ve…

Well, I’ve pretty much decided that it is just too much to switch from Canon back to Nikon. But for anyone starting with photography and wants a serious camera, the D3200 seems like the dream with the D800 as the higher end version.  I think I’ll soldier on with the Canon 5D Mark II for…

Ok a few quick notes, we have a Steripen thing that cleans up water with a UV light. Needs CR123 batteries, wandered over to Bartells and they are $16 a piece there (what!). A quick search of the internet reveals widely varying prices from $7  on Amazon to $2 at Thomasdistributing.com. I’m going to try…

You should really get this is you can. If you are United Global Services or American Express Platinum, they will even pay the $130 fee, but if you join GlobalEntry, then they will interview you and you can cross the canadian border quickly (Nexus) or use the fast line at the airport traveling internationally (GlobalEntry)…

Its getting sunny, so I discovered I like the clubs i got last year thanks to the internet which are: Mizuno JPX-800 set. 4-9 iron plus 44 loft, 6 bounce pitching wedge and 49 loft, 7 bounce gapping wedge  (their follow-on the JPX-800HDs are still tops) Adams. 3 Hybrid Taylormade R11. Mainly because it was…

  So I’m still working on getting everything right for modern Home Theater and here is the basic problem, you want to get content from any source to any device to any location the device may be, so let’s cover the content, the devices and the locations: Content from Anyone So what is the content:…

Now that the drive shortage is hopefully ending and you can actually get 4tb drives, it’s time to look again for a look at what NAS to get to be a hot backup for all my pictures, music and movies. Right now I have a 12tb drobo pro attached to a Mac mini. It works…

Our oldest MacBooks (technically the model MB466*/A or late 2008) at home are 2.5 years old now and a long way from 2008 when we got them. Here are some of the issues and solutions 1. Dying hard drives. Just a warning they are removable but if you screw them in tight they slowly fail.…