Unlocking your Verizon phone
I currently own a Verizon HTC Incredible 2 cell phone.
I’m happy with Verizon (they’re the only ones that have good signal inside my house). But when I go outside the USA (I go to Guatemala often), I want to be able to switch the SIM card to one that works with a local mobile service providers. Otherwise I would have to use roaming with Verizon and that is ridiculously expensive.
I gave Verizon a call and they quickly gave me the ”unlock” code for me to enter in my phone. After entering the code, the phone was immediately unlocked! They only made me agree to a very obvious agreement that if I stick another SIM card in there I acknowledged that I was no longer using the Verizon service and Verizon could would not support me while I had that third party SIM card in my phone. But if I then switched back to my Verizon SIM card and ran my phone in CDMA (or Global) mode, I would be supported again.
And one more thing, Verizon uses CDMA. SIM cards are used for GSM. So I tried removing my Verizon SIM card from my phone and I was still able to get Verizon service. Nice to know.
I then stuck a SIM card from a friend that uses T-mobile and switched my Incredible’s mode to GSM, I could make and receive calls as him. Very cool.
Trying out backpack #2
Trying out the second hiking backpack on a quick walk to see the daybreak ducks.
The first kelty backpack i bought was defective. But this brand makes way better packs than the competition so i stuck to that brand. So far the second pack looks good.
Anika is crawling!
A few days before she turned 9 months, Anika began crawling!
She had been close to crawling for a long time but her right foot would get stuck on her left knee so she was not able to crawl freely with her knees, she would only move a little bit and then go back into the sitting position; after doing that a lot she could move from one side of a room to the other; but it took her a long time.
One night Carol and I placed a few of her favorite toys at a distance she could only reach by crawling, and we helped her get her foot unstuck. After doing that a few times, she was able to crawl by herself! She only did it by herself a few times and then got tired.
The next day, we wondered if she had forgotten her new skill; but she didn’t. After a few days of practice she could go long without stopping:
3rd tooth coming out!
Anika has been really fussy lately, specially around bed time. We’ve been cutting down on her acid reflux medicine (per doctor’s orders) and we were worried that maybe that was the cause.
But today we saw this:
A third tooth is coming! It’s hard to see in the photo so here is a closeup. It’s coming on the right side (Anika’s left side) of the two teeth you can clearly see:
She’s growing so fast! She’ll be 8 moths old on the 21st. And hopefully she’ll be acid reflux medicine free in a short while =)
C# controlled lights via USB port
At work, we thought it would be cool if we could turn on some siren lights when a server goes down.
Step #1 to make this happen was to be able to control simple electronics from custom code. I love C# and the USB port is what is common now so I researched and found the FT245RL “USB to FIFO” chip. This chip made it really easy for me. It plays well with drivers known by Windows.
When I plugged in the chip to the USB port, Windows 7 immediately recognized it and installed the drivers for it. You can use a couple of drivers the default is the simpler one to use where it turns the USB port into a virtual serial (COM) port.
Writing to serial ports is really standard so this is the code that outputs a byte through the chip:
private static void WriteByte(byte byteToWrite)
{
using (SerialPort vcp = new SerialPort())
{
vcp.BaudRate = 9600;
vcp.DataBits = 8;
vcp.StopBits = StopBits.One;
vcp.Parity = Parity.None;
vcp.PortName = "COM5";
vcp.Open();
vcp.Write(new byte[] { byteToWrite }, 0, 1);
vcp.Close();
}
}
Anika is exploring foods!
People always say “we started giving our baby solid food”.. But is rice cereal and purees solid? I think they say that because it’s shorter than saying “we started giving our baby something other than breast milk and/or formula”.
Last Thursday October 27th, Carol gave Anika rice cereal! Anika got a hang of swallowing after about 4 spoon attempts. She ate about 2 ounces and I think that’s pretty good for being her first time.
I fed Anika for the first time this Saturday. It was fun but it certainly takes longer than just giving her a bottle! At the beginning she was really eager to be eating, but after a while she would wonder and was not ready for the spoon that was coming. So I thought she was not hungry any more, but then Carol gave it a shot and Anika finished the remaining half of the cereal!
The pediatrician suggested trying different foods every 3 days so yesterday (Sunday) we gave her pea puree. We cooked them and then ran them though the food processor with some water; we could see the pea skins but I thought it was not a big deal so we gave her some spoons just like that. Carol then freaked out and said that we really should strain the puree to remove the skins, so we did. I don’t think we needed to but I didn’t mind if we did and Anika didn’t mind either way as well.
She finished 2 ounces of pea puree, she wasn’t as excited as rice cereal so I’m thinking she didn’t love them but thought they were good enough to eat.
Bike commuting is over
It has actually been over for a long time but I haven’t posted about it. I didn’t bike to work at all last week. It’s just too dark and I realized that even if I got a front light, cars would see me but I would not be able to see pot holes or other obstacles on the road.
Fall bike rides
This weekend Cody, Shaun, and I did our Alpine ride. We start at Corner Canyon on Draper, and go over the mountain to the Alpine side where we go by the natural water slide, the bike ramp that ends into a pond, we ride the “blood chute”, and go through a ranch that has camels. Yeah, camels in Alpine Utah, strange…
The leaves were falling and changing color. We rode through several spots where the ground was covered with orange/brown leaves and the trees had reddish leaves. It was cool.
It was a tough ride, it took about 3 hours (I haven’t downloaded my Garmin watch data).
I’m still biking to work but I need a front strobe light because it is pitch dark when I leave my house. This morning a car did not see me when doing a right hand turn to merge into the main street I always ride; I had to stop really hard to avoid hitting it. It didn’t catch me by surprise because I always ride thinking nobody sees or respects bikers so I was ready for that hard stop. Besides, it was part my fault for not having a front light.
For safety’s sake I’ll stop bike commuting until I get a front light, which I hope will be after work tomorrow. The commute is getting cold in the morning but it is still not too bad; the night low is still in the forties. I’ll stop riding when the low gets below below 40F. There is no snow or rain so my guess is I still have 2 to 3 weeks of bike commuting.
Anika has mastered sitting down!
For the last month or so, Anika could hold the “sit down” position for a little while, like 10 seconds totally unsupported. When placed on the position she would wobble and then start falling to the side slowly.
But two days ago Carol placed her on the floor and she was able to keep herself balanced! She now does it all the time with no problem. We can’t remember when was the last time we sat her down on the floor, we usually sat her on the bed without realizing it was harder for her to keep her balance on a soft surface.
So we now place her on the floor with some toys around for her to play with. We also put some pillows around so she doesn’t hit her head if she falls.
She’s also starting to enjoy more sophisticated toys like the one you see on the picture. She hits the buttons to play the music, we’re almost certain she does it because she wants to hear the music. She still prefers her old toys though, she can lift those and put them in her mouth =)
Anika’s first cold =(
Boogers and watery eyes did not stop her from smiling yesterday afternoon when I took the picture. But she did have a tough night. She woke up every couple of hours because of a stuffy nose. And had a fever at 3am so Carol gave her some acetaminophen.
I’m totally the one that gave her the cold … It’s one of those mean colds. I hope she’ll feel better tonight…
