Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

Well after having gotten various costs like cell phones down quite a bit (they are right now at an all time high as we transition from AT&T to Verizon), but that should be a six month bump. Thank goodness for family plans! But what about content costs, here is where we currently are: Comcast. This…

Well it’s been two years at least since I’ve a passion for biking, (maybe a little burnout), but would be great to get back to it. Nothing like a little bike lust to get the competitive juices flowing and hopefully get back to it. Here are the big changes since my last big purchase (a…

Lifehacker has an incredible set of good tips and tricks for computers: Photography. The best one is to download the Magic Lantern firmware for the Canon 5D Mark II. You throw it onto a compact flash card and it turns a decent HD camcorder into a great one. The main thing I haver to fix…

I’ve always wanted to have the complete setup that includes speakers, projector and the ability to print and make super cool post card books. Now, it looks like I actually need it, so time to look for a great pico projector that is small and lightweight and throws a good enough picture for casual use.…

Well Christmas was wonderful this year and as always, there are some great lessons. First the mundane. Some great gifts that aI saw moving through. Some expensive some not, the: 1. Parrot Ar.Drone. This was listed as the top gift in USA Today. And although pricey and not for kids, I have to say it…

I don’t use Photoshop very much for fixing photos. I actually like to get the exact image (which is why I spent way too much time with DxO and Spyder3Elite to make sure what the image was appears on the page). But there are times when it makes sense to fix things. For instance blemishes…

I’ve been living with awful prints for a while. I used Red River 68lb Glossy Pro (they don’t make it anymore) and could just never get the profiles to work right. Everything looked so red. This used to work fine on my Windows machines on the same Canon i9900. I don’t know if it is…

So Christmas is nearly here, but what is coming in 2012. Some good thoughts for: Android Phones Well they are so popular, I do kind of want to try one. But it is so complicated because of the warious upgrade paths. Heres a good summary of what is happening, but like windows, the big issue…

Ones to try include 1. Slanted door. New Vietnamese in the ferry building 2. Park tavern. And I guess SF folks love deviled eggs of all sorts!

A good discussion of what happened in Haiti and how it became a huge cholera outbreak area. In some ways it was inevitable because of the politcis of clean water. Sad but well documented in Wach Non Soley that talks aboiut how America blocked water projects in 2001 and thus there wasn’t enough clean water during…

Sitting with another buddy who loves cameras and has been going through all these mirrorless cameras fast. This is the most active area right now and I want one that has great quality and is also decent to use (not easy). Right now, the choices are: Fuji X10. Amazing image, but autofocus misses and hard…

Its so sad, I used to be so good at these games when they were on the PC and now on consoles, I’m just dead last in our house. There is a big shift from single player to multiplayer. Multiplayer isn’t really a combat simulation, but something else entirely. So no more sneaking around with…

Yuck why is it so hard to find a decent webcam. The izon looks nice and nice way to integrate. Like the time capsule when it starts it creates it’s own private network and I connect to that. But what a strange mess of software. There is no web UI. U create an a count…

Well, I’m not sure I’d get the Fire vs. the new iPad 3, but for reading books, it does seem like a dedicated device is the right answer. So is it Nook or is it Kindle? Both are $99, so what are the pros and cons? The pushes are: Identical hardware, both are touch screens…

I’m not usually a scaredy cat, but I have to admit yesterday while slamming through heavy rains on the highway, I did have the chance to do some mental calculations. So why is it so bad to do the speed limit (65-70 mph) while there are heavy rain? By heavy, I mean rain so think…

Well, it’s thanksgiving and now its time to do some shopping. Everyone is standing in line, but it is incredible what you can buy online, so here is a list of best of’s: Big Agnes UL3 Tent. The Big Agnes 3UL is the lightest tent for 3 people that you can buy. It’s really for…

Good noodles places in Seattle courtesy of the Seattle times. Ba bar. Capitol hill. Bang Hoi heaven. Hue dumplings handmade. 550 12 Ave. 206-328-2030 Il corvo. Hillclimb. The best lunch pasta ever. Northwest tofu. Central district. Tofu noodles. Yum! 1913 S Jackson. Ting momo. Tibetan dumpling. Yum! Southlake union. 310 Terry Ave. Perche No. Try…

Well I have an old Seagate 1TB drive I’ve been using to store photos mainly on my photoediting workstation. Been using USB as this thing from Seagate has mini-USB, firewire and eSATA. The iMac has USB and Firewire, but the pins are different. The iMac looks like it has Firewire 800 and the little Seagate…

For learning Chinese, I’m using Qingwen on the iPhone quite a bit. It has really good recognition, but mainly it has word lists which are great. It also gives example phrases and the ability to use Handwriting for Chinese is terrific. On the Mac, there are a host of resources that are scattered all over. Yale has…

Lots have been written about the best channels to use on 2.4GHz. The short word is that in a big installation you want to use channel 1, 6 and 11 as these are the only non-overlapping channels. So in say a big house, you’d want the basement atl channel 1, the 1st floor at channel…

Ugh, I did this update and all seemed fine, but reports are that it does cause problems. An Airport Extreme 3rd generation and a Time Capsule 1st generation kept hanging at the steady amber. Finally, just went back to 7.5.2. This is actually quite hard to do. here are the instructions from Max;   To…

Well in no particular order, some truly cool things on the web: iTunes Match. Wow, this works amazingly well! Just spend the $25, it recognized 19 thousand plus tracks in my itunes and I can download any play list onto my iPhone, iPad, Mac or Windows machine. Wow, that is way cool! AT&T announces their…

Well there seem to be two choices. First are the cards that just give you dollarls back and then the second are award cards. Personally, I have an older card, the United Visa Select because it gives you 3x miles for trips booked with United or Continental which is great for those of us booking…

Ugh, I have a Vodafone sim and an Optus one. Optus seems cheaper, but man are they an incredible amount of trouble. First I got something called connect4less which is a special SIM and they lock you into a program. And nothing works well on the web either. Maybe I’ll go back to Vodafone. You…

Well I have to say apple customer service is amaZing. Have a Mac problem overseas. U can download the apple store app on your iPhone. It finds the nearest apple store. U can set an appointment and look for other genius bars nearby. And then it has mapping to find the store (although google couldn’t…

Well, the world keeps moving, just when I thought I had a NAS picked out two things changed: 1. The Synology shipped their DSM 3.2 which supports Lion so it is now OK to buy 2. The first 4TB (!!?) drives are now being released and there is a move to 1TB per platter, so…

For learning Chinese, I’m using Qingwen on the iPhone quite a bit. It has really good recognition, but mainly it has word lists which are great. It also gives example phrases and the ability to use Handwriting for Chinese is terrific. On the Mac, there are a host of resources that are scattered all over.…

Well, my buddy Scott recommends the NAS from Netgear I think, but when I look at reviews, folks seem to really like the Synology. They have their new DSM 3.2 which is finally Lion compatible so it can emulate a Time Machine. That is very useful for doing restores directly. So just to check, what…

Now with a choice of three carriers for an iPhone, its interesting to see if it makes sense to migrate off the AT&T network. In particular, if you go to Verizon or Sprint, then they will unlock your phone for GSM overseas. Great for us international traveling folks and no more jailbreaking needed! So how…