rich
rich
@rich@tongfamily.com
6,913 posts
4 followers
  • Argh getting rid of Microsoft Teams email notifications

    This has been bothering me for literally a year. I can’t seem to get rid of these relentless emails from Microsoft Teams. If I want to see random water cooler chatter I would ask for it. Finally, the latest email from them tells you exactly how to shut it off… Update your email preferences in…

  • Ad Blocker and Checking

    Well, I have NordVPN with it’s Cybersec ad blocking and also run Safari with UBlock and while it seems to block some ads, a bunch more seem to appear. So to welcome in 2021, let’s see how to figure out how effective these are. I normally use open source blockers like UBlock origin or KaBlock!…

  • Mac Photos Tricks: Hiding and Adding Faces

    These two things are tiny, but they are very helpful. If you have some photos that you don’t want to transmit everywhere, but still want to keep them around, you can hide them. The interface is really hidden (no pun intended, but here is what you need to do) iOS Devices you Share to Hide…

  • Google Colab with Private Repos in Other organizations

    Well, I’ve tried a number of other hosted Jupyter environments from Google AI Platform Notebook to Saturn and I keep coming back to Google Colab for one reason mainly: We don’t have things that are that complex (yet!), so simplicity is key and Colab is just so simple to use with everything you need already…

  • Merry Xmas Eve and update on dongles (and fires)

    OK, a quick report on my life with dongles and other attachments for MacBooks. Suffice to say these dongles definitely have a spotty record for me. Most of the time they seem to work fine if you leave them plugged in, but it’s detection that seems like the problem (and the occasional burnout, see below).…

  • Quick Take Xmas Gifts: Keyboards Mikes, Hubs and Mice in 2020

    Well, I seem to have bought just a boatload of different keyboards, microphones and mice in 2020. The first world problem of staying at home for the last seven (?!!) months have led me to become the foremost expert on various junk like this. so here’s a flash review of what seems to work and…

  • Keeping NordVPN going on MacOS High Sierra

    Well, it’s probably a testament to Apple hardware design that I regularly end up with machines that are perfectly functional but no longer get updates. A good example is the Mac Mini 2011. It is nearly 10 years old yet still runs just fine for basic tasks like typing this blog entry, but it is…

  • Making a Podcast for Dummies (and for Free!)

    Well, turns out that I had never actually written down how I made a Podcast in the first place and of course I completely forgot how I did it, so here are notes that I’ve recovered: GarageBand. I mainly used this because it is free with the Mac. Lots of people end up using Audacity,…

  • Road Trip Records, Tesla notes and important tools

    Since getting our Tesla’s it’s been massive road trip city. Previous with gasoline cars a drive of 10 hours would leave me complete exhausted. Pre-Tesla Records The first really long trip sans parents I ever took was from NJ to Hilton Head Island. That was an epic 757 miles with two people splitting the driving.…

  • Miracle things you can do with Namecheap for free

    I have always though of Namecheap as an inexpensive registrar with an amazing search function for finding domain names. Their beast mode let’s you browse literally hundreds of top level domains and they automatically generate names for you by adding prefixes like “try” or by deleting suffixes. But there are quite a few other things…