Rich's Tongfamily (Richtong.net add-on)

It is rebate time in the camera world, so if you want to get something now is a great time: * “Canon”:http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=PromotionsAct has rebates and most shops like “Canoga”:http://www.canogacamera.com/ and “B&H”:http://bhphotovideo.com are including instant rebates. These work better than mailing something into Canon and praying. Actually I’ve had great luck with Canon rebates and terrible…

For some reason my home directory just went completely invisible. You can’t see it in /Users. The Mac OS X has no way to change this from the user interface, so you have to use a third party utility to turn it on. The cheapest and easiest solutions are: * “X Code”:http://apple.com. Use the command…

Calvin says they are studying the first Americans that crossed the land bridge in about 11,000 BC according to “Sangres.com”:http://www.sangres.com/history/firstamericans.htm. They used a spear and a sprear throwing stick called “atlatl”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlatl. The bow and arrow didn’t show up until 1,200 years ago. They hunted probably “mammoths” (and not mastodons which are older relatives apparently but…

“Modmyiphone”:http://modmyiphone.com has figured out how to downgrade to 1.0.2 and then upgrade it. There are four steps, but the documentation is at least clear: # “Downgrade 1.0.2 Baseband”:http://www.modmyiphone.com/wiki/index.php/Downgrade_1.0.2_baseband_OS_X_iPhone by loading a package of software called Virginize. You then use sftp to copy to your phone over wifi with a freeware utility called Cyberduck # “Upgrade…

Arrgh. Why is color management so complicated. Finally figured it out for the Canon i9900, now it has changed for the later Canon Pro9000. It is complicated and there is no documentation. Fortunately, the bright souls at “Photography-on-the.net”:http://photography-on-the.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-29530.html have figure it out. The key thing is that there is actually a guide that they don’t…

Got a great tip from the comment on low light lense. So if you have Canon here are some good choices: h2. Less than Full Frame prosumer * “EF-S 17-55mm F2.8 IS USM”:http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EF-S-17-55mm-f-2.8-IS-USM-Lens-Review.aspx. It isn’t an “L” lense only because it works only with non-full-frame cameras. So Canon 40D and below. However, it is sharper…

Well at least for this release, the “modmyiphone.com”:http://modmyiphone.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page reports that you can now unlock it. The only real hangup is that you can’t unlock 1.0.2 first as the “guide”:http://modmyiphone.com/wiki/index.php/Dev_Team_Jailbreak_1.1.1_OSX says you need to start with a virgin 1.0.2 build without any new firmward in 1.0.2. So the steps are to take a vanilla iPhone with…

Wow, “Apple”:http://www.macrumors.com/2007/10/22/apple-4q-2007-results-conference-call-6-22-billion-revenue-904-million-prof/ announced really impressive July-September 2007 results. They did $6.2B vs. $4.8B for the same quarter a year ago. To me the most amazing thing are Macs sales. They are up 34% sequentially (2.2M vs. 1.8M a quarter ago) and most interesting, their direct through retail store sales rose from 57% up from 53%…

Since I had to swap back my 24-105 F/4L for repair, it gave me some time to reflect on the right lenses. Also Canon is having its usual “Fall Rebate”;http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=PromotionsAct program that includes $125 off of their 70-200 F/2.8L and 85 F/1.2. Lately I’ve been taking lots more photos in low light (e.g., rainy days)…

After waiting all summer for a good hard disk HD camcorder, you either had the convenience of hard disk, but bad AVCHD quality or really great HD, but you had to use tape with the Canon HV20. Used in 1080/24p mode, the quality is very much like film. Well, with the introduction of the Canon…