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

Well, the Macbook Air shipped today and everyone from “Engadget”:http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/25/macbook-air-review/ and on are running reviews. Not much new to report except that folks love the keyboard, the screen and the thinness and folks really don’t like: # Battery life is only 2.5 hours. I only get about 2.5 hours with…

It’s been a while, but if you want to backup an audiobook that is on a CD, you don’t have to record it in full 44KHz glory, instead, you can use reduced settings. Here’s a guide for doing it with iTunes…. # Choose iTune/Preferences on the Mac (on the PC,…

Finally got a replacement TomTom 720, here is what you do if you corrupt the software on it. This is very easy to do with the TomTom software. So, before you do anything, you should first connect the TomTom and copy the entire contents of the “Internal Drive” folder to…

Hey I actually googled my dad’s name and found his “patents”:http://www.wikipatents.com/de/2750000.html. He worked on data communications. Kindof cool to have patents. Kind of a cool site “wikipatents.com”:http://wikipatents.com Powered by ScribeFire.

Well just about everyone is going to be headed up there the february break, so here is a compendium of notes: # Unless you have a Nexus card, don’t just go to Blaine and pray. Consider taking one of the alternative like the Aldergrove-Lynden crossing which is about 10 miles…

As stocks fall around the world, I’m using the Apple OS X default widget from Yahoo. Main issue is you can’t sort the entries and it doesn’t allow you to look at overseas markets. Fortunately, “Maba”:http://maba.wordpress.com/widgets/ adapted a version that uses Yahoo’s international feed and “Qing Wang”:http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/business/chinastockwidget.html has a dedicated…

“Outbackphoto”:http://www.outbackphoto.com/CONTENT_2007_01/section_workflow_basics/20071213_ToopTools_2007/ has a good review of phototools on top of the standard Photoshop. I just tried “Photomatix”:http://www.outbackphoto.com/workflow/wf_a106/essay.html and have to say it is easy and amazing. Just get a tripod, take five bracket exposure, then you generate an HDR and map it. Comes out easily. What does it do? Well,…

Brett says, the “Western Mountaineering”:http://westernmountaineering.com bags are really the best for light and warm. The “Highlite”:http://www.westernmountaineering.com/index.cfm?section=Products&page=Sleeping%20Bags&cat=ExtremeLite%20Series&viewpost=2&ContentId=16 is an amazing one pound in weight yet works down to 35F is a good example. Or for two pounds, you get the “Alpinlite Super”:http://www.westernmountaineering.com/index.cfm?section=Products&page=Sleeping%20Bags&cat=ExtremeLite%20Series&viewpost=2&ContentId=28 which is two pounds and good to 20F. Powered…

Well, if your wallet does get stolen, it used to be folks worried about the money in it. Now the game is different, it’s about identify theft. So here’s the check list: # Cancel your credit cards. In the US, every credit card issuer has a cancel number. Do it…

Someone was asking me about sleeping bags. Good reviews are at “Outdoor”:http://outside.away.com/outside/gear/gear.tcl?gear=sleeping-bags&gear_cid=10589 and they have some good synthetic bags including Mountain Hardware UltraLamina 32 for $175 and a three season synthetic bag from North Face called Cat’s Meow. Then there are some bags that are ultra lightweight. For instance, the…