Gideon Tong's Latest

Yesterday, April 4th, 2018 Google introduced an HTTPS option for Blogger websites that used a custom domain. They made it extremely easy to simply enable this option with one click, and the resulting certificate seems to be from Let’s Encrypt. As a result, many websites hosted with Blogger that use custom domains can now use custom domains, making it very appealing to use Blogger as an alternative to Google Sites for a easy to use, easy to set up website that can sustain large amounts of traffic for free. Although probably not sustainable for ecommerce websites, informational websites as well as websites that don’t require dynamically updating content (and even some that do, for certain use cases) can take advantage of these new security policies. Once you click yes, the banner at the top, originally warning about content policies in the EU (if you never dismissed it) will change, changing into a banner that displays a small warning that you have changed HTTP to HTTPS on your webs...

For the purposes of keeping this write up simple, and the fact that while I'm writing this I've only completed the multiple choice section so far, I will be limiting this small analysis to only the 90 multiple choice questions that were required for the extra credit. I was curious to see how much time I would spend working on it, as this was an extra credit assignment where you had to complete 90 multiple choice questions for APUSH with a paragraph explanation for every question. I spent 8 days working on the extra credit assignment, starting from Christmas day and skipping December 29th, and usually spent between 2 and 4 hours per day working on the assignment. In total, I spent 17 hours and 23 minutes working on the assignment, and this is a first draft, which means I still have to check my work, add any additional details that are needed, as well as the final 12 document based questions that I have not yet completed. Overall, it seems I spent about the same amo...

There is a lot of good documentation on how to install Alamofire for iOS Swift development on the internet, and I thought I'd add to the cacophony of articles detailing how to do so, since a lot of terms were not explained to me, as a first time beginner not only to programming in the Swift language, but also the iOS and macOS operating systems. The first thing you'll do is install Cocoapods: it's a manager that allows you to quickly install libraries for Swift. Run sudo gem install cocoapods in a Terminal window and enter your admin password. Cool, now in the root path of your project, run pod init . Some files will automatically be generated for your Xcode project, so navigate to the root directory of the project you selected and open Podfile. You'll find a line that says # Pods for testing . Underneath the line, add pod 'Alamofire' and save and exit. Go back to the Terminal, navigate to the root directory of your project, and run pod insta...

Before everyone starts hating me in the comments section. Face ID options on the iPhone X Face ID is great. It's the hot new kid on the block, and everyone is ranting and raving about it, since it comes shipped on the shiny new iPhone X ( it's pronounced ten ) that Apple just launched. I'd have to agree, it's a cool piece of technology. Using a dot scanner for additional security and being extremely fast are some great benefits of Apple's Face ID unlock system. In sunlight, it's faster than Samsung's facial recognition system and Windows Hello, both which become interfered with the sun's own infrared light rays. However, that's not the problem I have. The problem I have is the UI of all of these unlock systems. Of all of them, only Microsoft (and maybe OnePlus, now) gets it right, but it still has other shortcomings. Microsoft's Windows Hello is not available on most computers, and is more than just IR scanning. It's the name that e...

I've now been a Mac user for 2 weeks. It may come as a surprise to many of you that know me quite well. As I have not used a Mac long-term for 7 years, many things have changed since then, and I have switched from being an Apple apologist to a user the PC world. Ever since I went there, I do not think I'll ever able to go back: the upgradability, moddability, price, and consumer choice offered by PCs/open mobile computing platforms are things that I can't leave, once experienced. There's also software that I use on Windows that I can't use on Macs. Granted, I know I can use virtualization software or a separate partition to boot to Windows, but given that I'm only borrowing  a MacBook Pro for the long term, I don't want to do too many irreversible things. That being said, I already miss Solidworks, EAGLE, and other engineering programs that only work on Windows machines. I may decide to later, but considering I'm swapping the drive for a 250GB SSD, t...

Dear past me, I guess... I don't think I would have made it this far successfully. I find it kind of funny how much I brushed off freshman year - big, big mistake. I'm already paying for it - I don't even need to look at college applications to know that. Everyone older than me tells me not to worry about college. Everyone my age tells me not to worry about college. Everyone younger than me tells me not to worry about college. Maybe they're right, but it's like a snowball effect. If I don't do well in high school, I won't get into a good college. If I don't get into a good college, I might have a harder time finding a job. And so on, and so forth. On the flip side, there's plenty of good opportunities even for people who go to community college, or people who don't go to college at all. It's very true that college is not the end all be all solution, but for me, sometimes it really does seems like it is. I've... made friends I guess. M...

I'm sure by now you've heard of the single board super cheap yet super powerful $35 mini computer called the Raspberry Pi  that is known to make its way into almost any computer project due to its abilities, hardware, size, and accessibility. Such wireless technology (like over your WiFi network ) makes printing from any device in your house just so easy! Now, you might have an older printer  and you don't want to upgrade, and it's one of those nice and cheap black and white printers. What's the easiest and cheapest solution? Make your printer wireless! Let's use the Raspberry Pi  and a WiFi adapter  to make this happen! You'll need a Raspberry Pi, a WiFi adapter, and a microSD card . Get started with your Raspberry Pi with many of the getting started guides out there on the internet, then come back to this guide. Let's get started now. Open a terminal window and type in the following commands, following all the on-screen prompts and "yes...

Gideon Tong is someone who is a God lover, enjoys technology, and does typical Asian things! Welcome to the blog; I do hope you'll stick around. I do have quite a few social media, and my YouTube channel can be found on YouTube as "Gideon Tong." I currently post gaming content, although would like to transition to more travel and technology-focused videos. My favorite verse of the Bible is Psalms 118:8 It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. This verse is conveniently the center verse of the Bible, and it really explains well I think, how we are supposed to live our lives: with Christ at the center, and following him rather than believing in ourselves, or believing in our leaders, etc. Anyways, this is my blog, hope to see you around! Gideon Tong