Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

Another feature that jumped out is Google has Cloud Print: 1. Cloud print is something that looks like runs on your Mac, PC or Linux machine 2. You can then print from gmail.com on your iPhone for instance by clicking on the a strange option button in the center mid of the screen. Very convenient…

Well, despite all the things going on, the little things in life continue to break and need repair, so here’s a list: HDMI Balun or Extender. We have a Tivo in the basement because there isn’t a cable near the TV. Got an HDMI extender, but it keeps blanking and having problems. In reading the…

I normally keep my photos on a separate Drobo so that it can withstand two hardware failures. I also back this up online with Crashplan so I have an offsite backup. Finally, I periodically take an image and put it on an old Time Capsule as well. So theoretically, I have three backups of the…

Amazon is out doing incredible promotions again. Nice to see the next wave of Internet hype is hitting. In this case, if you act now, you get: Lady Gaga’s new 14 track album in content unprotect MP3s for just $.99 You get 20GB of Amazon cloud storage for a year (normally $20/year)

Got one of these scary messages about having to recreate everything and here is what I learned is that it appears only with Snow Leopard and what happens is that the backup is marked as bad and you get a choice, lose all your backups or else no more future backups 🙁 As Apple says…

While you could buy a dedicated macro lenses there are so many options with Canon, so there is a good Photos of the Year review which explains the many different options from extension tubes, teleconverters and diopter thingies. Simply put, he recommends getting a 1.4x teleconverter which takes your 70-200 F/2.8 to a 300mm lense that…

Macrumors reports that we will have a real choice with Iphone 5 ships. Might be really nice to have Verizon phones to try compared with the all AT&T phone we have   While Verizon has sold fewer iPhones than some analysts expected, Shammo said he was happy with sales of the “six-month-old phone” that only…

And Sony is working hard to get users back: They are trying to give users free PS3 titles, Of the 5 PS3 titles available for download, users can select two: Dead Nation ($14.99) inFAMOUS ($23.44) LittleBigPlanet ($17.98) Super Stardust HD ($9.99) Wipeout HD + Fury ($19.99) Among those games, both inFamous and Wipeout HD provide the most value, otherwise costing over $40 combined. Finally at…

Well this is interesting. Since HDMI is actually digital, folks have been building transceivers that take say the HDMI from a Tivo and its IR and hauling it over CAT5 or CAT6 to a device far away.  The system we use is quite flaky with audio and video and seems to lose synchronization so you…

Well, it seems like I need to get one just so I can keep up with the world and innovation there. The main problem is that everything points to waiting until this fall with Ice Cream Sandwich coming out. But with this fragmented platform, it is so hard to know which one to buy which…

Very strange problem with our iMac. It kept one CPU busy at 100% with the kernel task spinning like crazy and takes 10 minutes to boot for some reason. Here is what I learned on the web on diagnostic procedures thanks to CNet: Well unfortunately, a virus is the first thing you worry about now…

First there are conventional pastas so you need a pasta maker (also handy for doing cake decorating 🙂 Quick look on Amazon shows that the Marcato Atlas seems to be the high rated and best seller too Making noodles isn’t hard (In theory!) and there are plenty of Internet videos, in particular making Chinese pulled noodles…

Well while other shop in stores I can shop online. With bike computer and lights picked out what about binoculars. Been wanting a super compact and then a high quality one for years. The net is that if you want a midpriced binocular, go with the Vortex Viper HD 8×32 and if you want a…

OK if you are editing on iMovie and have a big video file what can you do? If it is less than 10 minutes or 10GB, then you can upload it to Youtube. Imovie in Ilife ’11 supports this directly If you have less than 500MB you can upload to Vimeo also directly But if…

It is complicated, but iLife does make it easy, it is just ten steps with Garageband: Create new project called a ringtone Then drag in an MP3 Move the yellow slider on top Then choose Share/Export Ringtone to iTunes You then get a nice M3R 🙂  Another great usage is to extract audio (say from…

Finally time to get back to biking, so a quick refresh of gear: Cyclocomputers My cyclocomputer finally gave up the ghost. Loved the thing. A $130 computer from Campagnolo. Best thing was the integration with the buttons on the brake assembly. Really hands-on the stick sort of stuff, but the wires broke. I’ve tried lots…

It’s amazing how costs to dial overseas has collapsed. Here is latest guide tuned for a few sample countries. Calls to and from China, Australia and Vietnam… Calls out.. Vietnam. Right now the rates are 1. Nobelcom. The most inconvenient as it is a traditional dial around service. You register your cell phone then dial…

Been taking lots of photos. Both in Sydney and recently at Skagit, so here’s an update of cool digital tools to use: Photomatix. Try image fusion which isn’t HDR, but uses multiple exposures. More natural. Need to check to see if Photomatix is still the best HDR utility. Here are some notes from Kevin McNeal.…

Eve rocks and rolls as a journalist on Voracious. 

Can’t believe how hard this is. If you do this to get on make sure you move fast. If you don’t the login times out (if say you are studying the pass types) and then you end up in limbo and have to call them. What a strange system. So make sure to type fast.…

Spent way too much time surfing Wikipedia laterly. Iti is an amazing source. But some facts on earthquakes and then nuclear disasters. Well, the Japan earthquake was big, but there have been bigger, remember every increase from say 8 to 9 is thirty times stronger. If you go from 8 to 10, it is 1000…

I’ve been scanning in things like crazy with vuescan and now its time to organize. I do the dumb thing and just put things in folders organized by year, then month then date. So that way I can never lose the information as I do with iPhoto all the time because it forgets where things…

OMG, the earthquake, tsunami and now nuclear crisis have me gripped. Amazingly, I get most of my news from http://google.com/news and from youtube.com videos. The world is changing. But out of all that, my heart goes out to the workers at the Daiichi plant… As an aside, these are the live reporting sites I’ve found…

Well the latest release has a super important feature. Get rid of your $30 a month contract for iPad data access over 3G and use Internet tethering for $20/month and you can use it with your computer too.

Hey with some great work, got a $280 a month Comcast bill (!!!?) down to $130. That’s not bad considering it includes the triple play digital voice, internet and television. Main thing is that the promotions are really confusing. They don’t put them up on the Internet, you have to go to the comcast store…

Hey with all this push to make it possible to manage your home theater from Ipad and iPhone apps, here’s the net for people: Comcast DVR. This thing actually has a nice application on the iPad and iPhone directly from comcast for free that manages the box. Tivo Series 3. I don’t have a Tivo…

With new motion controllers, what are the best games out there. For Move, the funnest one so far is Killzone 3 mainly because the integration with the Move “gun” is so good. It is incredibly natural to use (at least for Dad’s, the kids like the old controllers) and the plot is really fun. You…

Now that ski season is nominally ending (even though Crystal is knee deep in powder with 12″ last night and 10″ the night before), time to take advantage of the close outs. Here’s a list of the mid-fats to drool over: 88mm crazy. The entry level mid fats including my own (sigh) Fischer Watea 84s…Here…