Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

Well the summer is here so here are some of the best gizmos: UE Boom ($170 from Best Buy and Amazon) is pretty cool and small. You can get 1.5% off via a Best Buy rebate and also they have a rewards program with an additional 2% off, so pennies,…

It has taken me that long to open up the cabinet and give iRule a try. But with our Comcast Motorola DVR dead, we replaced with X-1 which means most of the our old Crestron programming doesn’t work. So I’ve installed a Global Cache iTech IR to IP with POE…

Wow, this 300mm f/2.8 is quite a lense according to slrgear.com and also lensrentals.com. It has no distortion even wide open at f/2.8 and a very slight resolution improvement at F/4, but it is really good even at f/2.8. I cranked the shutter speed to 1/800 and left it at…

Never thought you’d see those two words on the same line. We are working away at more overclock. The old Sandy Bridge runs at 4.95GHz reliably (48×103) as long as the mineral oil bath stays cool (less than 98F), but the cooling fans alone don’t do that when running a…

Chase Freedom. Has 5% on categories and the big one is Amazon is 5% in the fall. It is also no fee so a great way to build up credit.  When you combine this as a grownup with the Chase Sapphire or the Ink Plus (the business card), then you…

Well that is a lot of acronyms, but right now if you are last generation camera owner, that is have a 20MP or so full frame like a Canon 5D Mark II, it’s been pretty unclear where to go, but right now there are 2 1/2 entrants to consider and…

Well having used Bash quite a bit, we finally got to the point with single stepping via a flag where it was pretty usable. Now with Sublime and Anaconda there is a good system for looking for autocomplete, definitions and for doing simpling linting  and you can use the Anaconda…

Wow I hope github.com gets this running soon. It lets you manage large files with version control in a github repository. I installed the whole thing and then discovered the welcome mail I got wasn’t actually a welcome but just a reminder that I had signed up. Blah. The main…

Well, it’s never too early to start building a good credit record (assuming of course you are responsible). Here’s a quick survey of the cards and what is recommended by Nerdwallet, The Simple Dollar and Get.com. Nerdwallet even has a cool calculator to estimate what you save with one of the…

Nothing like going through a list of things for this camping season, I’m wondering what we need: Bivy sack. We needed one and I got a Outdoor Research Helium Bivy. At 18 ounces, it even has a hoop. It hasn’t been super durable although the three week trip through the desert wasn’t…