Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

Nothing like a little romance and a proposal and what a way to do it all. Technology does rock :-0   Not surprisingly, Central Park is center stage in many romantic moments in film, as well as real life. Take October 24, 2010 for example. Frank proposed to his girlfriend Kasey on one of Central Park’s most-traveled…

Well I can’t buy wine (the 2009 Bordeauxs!) or new camera equipment because I’m out of budget for this year 🙁 But that doesn’t mean on Black Friday, I can’t want some cool things. So if you are generous this holiday season for the dedicated amateur geek who wants cool lenses and things, here are…

Well Alex’s LG GU280 is hung on the “Please wait…” screen. You can BTW on an LG phone only figure out the model number by typing in the FCC ID into Google. Absolutely no markings on the shell.  

Well I haven’t even seen one yet, but I sure do a want an 11″ MacBook Air. Rennie was right to wait for one. As long as you are doing intensive photography stuff or games, this is a great solution for folks who still need to use spreadsheets and word processors but want portability. Plus,…

The kids took a holiday from these after I let our audible.com subscription lapse, but now it is time to get back to it, here are the choices: Bookshouldbefree.com. These are cool. They are podcasts, so they just load on iPhones Librivox.com is an open project to record in audio every public domain book you…

Well, the GPS on my iPhone 4 would never actually get position. Strangely it might have worked and not. The GPS Status app I downloaded reported bad fix. It actually works in certain fixed locations. Looking online, seems that people talk about turning 3G on and off and there are some reports of just out…

Back in February 2009, I figured out how to make Zenphoto work with my Canon 5D Mark II. But, my whole server got wiped after a virus on the machine. So I forgot how to make it work. I do a query on zenphoto memory limit and I find my old post which says put…

How do you keep them from stinking if you live i cold moist northwest: You can wash your booties in the machine and use McNett wetsuit shampoo with a hand wash in the sink and the dry them with PEET Shoe Dryer You can dry your wetsuit with a HANGAIR hanger

Well, bought some $40 versions of a boat, a tugboat and also el cheapo amphibious car (morphibians). Maybe it is time to get serious. Anyway, first simple upgrade is a battery pack that keeps its charge and doesn’t require 4 hours to charge. What you need is a $11 NiMH battery pack not a NiCD…

Well, if you, like me, are just beseiged with things (Rock Band guitars, Apple Mighty Mouse, Remote control toys) that need AA batteries, then you have to get rechargeables, but what are really the best ones. Well, Sanyo Eneloops have really taken over as they don’t discharge over time but hold them like Alkaline and…

Both are finally out, so if you have lots of Canon glass, you have a low weight APS-sized alternative at least until the cool small camera come out that are mirrorless. Both are 18MP and have the new autofocus systems of the 7D with the new Canon 60D Also, a bunch of cool new lenses…

Can’t thank the folks at Desolatation Sound Yacht Charter enough, they are the closest sailboat charter to Desolation Sound. Their chart briefing alone is worth it. Getting there is a little hard. Either take Kenmore Air up to Campbell River and then Sky High Shuttle down, but seems a waste. Too bad Campbell River doesn’t…

Some general information about pre-loaded Styles: “Standard” is told to emulate Kodak’s Ektachrome 100 slide film emulsion. Also the “Portrait” and “Landscape” styles are told to emulate popular film emulsions. “Neutral” is told to be tweaked to maximize the amount of information transfered to the RGB output (JPEG / TIFF file) and is therefore indicated…

The new iPad is unlocked and the iPhone 4 uses a micro SIM which is pretty uncommon. But you can take any regular SIM (called properly a mini-SIM) by cutting it down according to the DIY Guide Next, you’ll have to get a SIM template printed out at 100% (available here). Setting the printer at 100…

Peta Pixel says Nikon goes first on August 19th, Sony does theirs on August 24th with a Petticle Mirror, and Canon has one scheduled August 26th. Nikon will likely be announcing the D3100, while Canon drops the 60D during theirs.

OK, I had no idea that the iTunes system was so insecure, but it makes sense, it is in essence a massive new credit card system and there hasn’t been 50 years of fraud detection builtin to get rid of unscrupulous merchants and it is entirely online so it is easy to skim. What happened…

Ok, now that the government has said jailbreaking isn’t a violation of the DMCA, here is a current (it changes every 15 seconds!) guide to jailbreaking and unlocking as needed. Here are the key steps: First you want to save your SHSH blobs and a jailbreakable firmware version. Right now everything up to 4.0.1 can…

Where can you go to launch rockets around Seattle? Magnuson isn’t a bad place to go if you have a small rocket (e.g., Class 1) NW Rockets has a bunch of places, but the nearest is 60 Acres which is a set of soccer fields in the Sammamish River valley along the bike trail. There are also…

Been getting excited about using the Canon 5D Mark II as a professional quality video camera. Need some add-ons as there is no electronic viewfinder and the screen is way too washed out and hard to see as well as the fact that it won’t focus while shooting, so you have to focus manually. But…

The two places online you need to go. According to Rennie, Scancafe.com does a high resolution scanning job and then you can pick your photos that you want. Perfect for all my photos that I never have time to scan. And you can use smugmug.com to load your high resolution photos and share it. 

If you don’t want to get locked into AT&T (which I don’t!!!!), then you can buy an unlocked phone from Canada, use it overseas (yeah!) and also go with T-Mobile or whoever. It actually makes some sense given the lockin that these guys have. I lost $1,000 alone this month just on a month of…

Apple announces new desktop Macs: For $70, you get a Magic Trackpad that has all the magic touch gestures for your desktop machine. How cool. Great for your imac. And most interesting is the iMac which has the new Quad Core i5 and the lower end i3 plus they have moved to the ATI graphics cards.  The…

Thanks to Scott, Gilbert and kai, some great wines 1. Brancaia. A Swiss family looks for a villa and starts a winery. The il blu is a super Tuscan. 2007. Rated 96 by WS. Also got a 2003 which is supposed to be a great year. 2. Pietopan Soave Classico. 2009. Varietals vie nervier heard…

If the sync to your ipad doesn’t complete properly then the ipod music app can come up and then disappear. Very distressing. Google search shows two simple fixes. Add or delete a song on iTunes and resync. This resets the music database. See http://www.ipadforums.net/ipad-help/5770-ipads-music-app-crashes.html But simplest is to start the video app. This resets the…

I was just telling someone that raising kids doesn’t make u an expert. After all it is not like people come with an instruction manual. Eve tells me I’m wrong turns out that dailyom.com has one 🙂 See http://www.dailyom.com/book/ltldl.html

Few minutes in Portland airport but using the iPad as a mobile road warrior. The cant live without apps are Gpsdrive HD. A gps with good navigation for $3. A little more a month if u ned voice. Works decently juts gets confused usually at end where it sometimes gets the location of the street…

Well this 18Mpixel sensor baby (aka the Canon 550D) is now available as a body only. It’s bigger brother, the Canon 50D is about to updated to the Canon 60D, so you might want to wait until August when it ships. The rumor is that it will also get an 18MP and be much faster…

I got comcast phone service and suddenly I’m getting all kinds of junk calls and random mail to my home address. Think they must sell the names. Working on the do not call registry and unlisting the number now. So beware! 

Alex asked what does flashing green light mean? Yahoo answers…http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080105000631AAia3Rd Flashing green means that all other traffic has a red and you are the only ones moving, generally they are for left turns against oncoming traffic but not always, you may have flashing green for both left turns and straight ahead. As far as pedestrians,…

Cookie sheets and things. Cooks illustrated is really then best source of tests. I got the Lincoln foodservice half sheet model 5314 which lists for just $16 and the Vollrath 68085 cookie sheet. Swear by both. See http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=lincoln+foodservice+5314&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari&cid=16878581429678172520&ei=BY4xTKXSBIKyiwTcsbnPDg&sa=title&ved=0CAcQ8wIwADgA#p