Welcome to my virtual space

where I share my journey with you

Old blog

 

Most of the posts here were written originally many years ago but they were transferred to this new home in 2024. The dates are transfer dates.

Hong

Sell Used Car

Get appraisal from Cargurus and dealers interested in the car. $11,725 Submit a request to Harbro Auto. Get an offer from Carvana. $11,600 Post a listing on Facebook Marketplace Post a listing on Craigslist Most responses to the ads on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist are…

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Hong

Video Card

Ever popular 4K monitors require a video card with at least 4 GB RAM. GTX 1050 with 2 GB is not sufficient because it often has to resort to slower system RAM. RX 570 should be sufficient.

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Hong

Owned Cars

Nissan Stanza (Brown) (bought for $200 in Graduate School) Mercury Topaz (Maroon). Chevy Lumina (White) Mercury Sable 1993 (Green) Mercury Sable 1997 (Silver) Mercury Sable 2001 (White) (never sent to a garage for repair) Mercury Sable 2005 (Gray) (never sent to a garage for repair)…

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Hong

Green Card Renewal

It is done by filing I90 - APPLICATION TO REPLACE PERMANENT RESIDENT CARD online. The instructions are good. The filing can be done in less than 30 minutes. The filing fee is $450. The receipt notice is sent out immediately upon the filing. Another notice to…

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Hong

EDID problem for some monitors

Some EDID problem may cause a monitor unable to use the correct resolution. For example, Acer AL2416W is detected by Windows 7 as a generic monitor. The best resolution (the only appropriate resolution, in my opinion), 1920x1200, is not on the available resolution list. To remedy…

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Hong

RTSP/RTP over TCP has very limited value

RTSP/RTP over TCP can address UDP blocking problem, but it has both the overhead disadvantage of RTSP over HTTP and requiring a port that may be often blocked. RTSP over HTTP almost guarantees firewall traversal. RTSP/RTP over TCP has no advantage over HTTP tunneled RTSP.

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Hong

Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid by Jimmy Carter

In light the current Palestinian bid for the UN membership, I repost this review originally published on Amazon.com in 2007. The Israel- Palestine mess is heartbreaking and frustrating for people who care for both peoples. It is also very complicated - so much history and…

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Hong

Prisoner of the State

This review was originally published on Amazon.com in 2009. Anyone who has any interest in contemporary Chinese history or current state of China should read it. Even those who have no interest in China can benefit from reading this book (I will explain this later).

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Hong

Midwest Trip (August 2024)

12 States: MA-CT- NY-PA-OH-IN-IL-MO-IA-NE-IA-MN-WI-IL-IN-OH-PA-NY-MA 6068.9km 08-16 8:00 FRI Nouria Convenience Store, Worcester Crowley Nissan, Hartford Tom Hesser Nissan, Scranton Bald Eagle State Park, Howard, PA 08-17 8:00 SAT Keystone State Park, PA Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, Pittsburg Baker's Motel, Norwich, OH 08-18 8:26 SUN…

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Hong

Streaming with MP4 Container

ISO/IEC 14496-12:2015(E) has details for MP4 including fragmented MP4 (fMP4) MP4 file is a popular multimedia container format. Many video and audio files are in this format. It should not be confused with the codec method MPEG-4. It is an instance of the more general…

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Hong

RTSP and RTP for streaming

Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) is the best choice for what it is designed for - streaming. To the contrary of what it may appear to be, RTSP plays only a small, nevertheless important role in streaming. The bulk of the work is done by…

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Hong

RTSP over HTTP streaming of H.264 video in Android

Android Jeally Bean and later (API Level 16 and above) support MediaCodec thatn can handle H.264 encoded video. There are some samples using this feature. To use MediaCodec display H.264 encode video streamed using RTSP over HTTP: This blog has a good explanation of codec specific data. MediaCodec is…

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Hong

Principle of ListView and RecyclerView of Android

There are four components in using ListView or its better version RecyclerView: The adapter links a list to the instances of ViewHolder (via onBindViewHolder) each of which corresponds to an item and inflates the layout that displays the item. Each view model corresponds to an item,…

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Hong

Free digital TV programs via clear QAM

I have noticed that many (probably most) people do not know, or are confused by, clear QAM. QAM (quadrature, amplitude modulation) is the format used by cable companies to carry digital TV channels. Clear QAM means unencrypted QAM. In other words, clear QAM channels can…

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Hong

Obtainable TV Signals

TV Fool has a great tool to find out available TV signals for any specified location with detailed information as following (annotation): The best indoor antennae appear to be Mohu's. Mohu's Leaf Ultimate Indoor HDTV Antenna is superb. Amplified antennae such as those of RCA…

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Hong

Bye, my TV set.

Most TV programs are not worth watching under any circumstances. Some good programs such PBS News Hour do not justify my time to watch it alive and in its entirety. A TV tuner and a good DVR program such as BeyondTV allow recording TV programs…

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Hong

Distribute to Android TV

Google's official document is good but has a serious flaw that can cost developers a lot of time. "4. Opt-in to Android TV and publish" is grossly inaccurate. It is under Setup > Advanced settings> Release types, not Pricing and Distribution that actually does not exist.

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