Author: eboisen

In my last post I talked about the issues I have had with Project Fi.  At the time I joined there were only two options for phones – the Nexus 5X and the Nexus 6P.  I opted for the 5X because it could fit in my pocket.  On Sunday I called my parents and the phone and the service worked well.  I finished the call, connected the phone to the charger and did other things.  At bedtime, I went to retrieve my phone and noticed it was off.  I tried turning it on, but it did nothing.  I had to drive somewhere unfamiliar in the morning, so not having a GPS or phone was not a pleasant thought.  I did a Google search to see about resetting the phone and did get the phone to almost go into a reset mode before once again going black.  I printed maps to follow to get to my unfamiliar destination.  I also contacted Project Fi for help.  The tech person had me try everything I already tried then talked about a current $100 rebate special on new phones.  My phone was 15 months old and looked just like the day I received it.  I was determined to not give this company any more of my money.  My experience with their service was really poor and given that they also sold me a really lousy phone, I decided to leave.  I went to Verizon late in the day and unbeknownst to me, just in time for their “Black Monday” sale.  I got a good deal on a 128GB Pixel phone.  It is made by HTC, but has the Google brand on it.  Project Fi is run by Google.  I guess Google gets some of my money anyway, but at least I will not use their crappy cell network.

I just enjoyed a full week off for the first time in over 2 years.  I really enjoyed not looking at anything electronic for that week.  I swam, ate, and enjoyed the sun of the Caribbean with my baby!  I even inadvertently scheduled my vacation to include the fall-back time change, so I milked an extra hour!   I am back to reality, but with a better-adjusted outlook.  I should not go that long without a nice vacation!

Google has had a cell phone company for about two and a half years.  It is fairly inexpensive and offers a nice web interface to track usage.  I have had their service for about 14 months.  I previously had Verizon for many years and was happy with their service, but the bills were a little too high for my liking.  Project Fi is limited in their phone choices, but I am not too picky.  I had only two phones to pick from at the time I switched.  I am happy with the features of the Nexus 5x that I have been using.  The Project Fi service, however, is another matter.  For the past four months, I have rarely been able to place or receive a call on most occasions.  I am beginning to wonder what I am paying for.  I contacted Project Fi via email, and they were very quick to respond.  They sent me some obvious suggestions like restarting and updating my phone.  They also gave instructions on forcing a switching of providers.  Project Fi uses T-Mobile, Sprint, and US Cellular networks.  I have implemented their suggestions without any improvements.  Project Fi looked like a great idea, but I believe my little cell phone experiment is soon to be over.  I will be switching back to Verizon.

It was pretty easy to figure out how to populate a drop-down list with the results from a PostgreSQL query in php/html, but doing so with multiple dependent drop-down lists proved to be a little bit more of a challenge.  I am writing a web-based training log and needed to figure out how to do this.  I used Ajax.  It looks incredibly simple, but it took a little while to get it figured out.  It didn’t help that most examples on the web are for mySQL and not PostgreSQL.

I also learned that I needed to alter Apache’s php5.conf file to allow php to run inline in an html file.

On a non-technical related note, I just finished reading George Orwell’s 1984.  An excellent read that had me thinking about throwing my cell phone into the river.

With 1984 done, I have moved on to Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon.  I read Snow Crash, one of his previous books, enjoyed it, so I am giving this one a shot.  I found it used for six bucks.  At 900+ pages that’s a heck of a deal if it’s any good.

I have had an interest in MES systems for a while now and have been assigned to two days of training in Siemens Simatic MES system. I’ll be in this training all day today and tomorrow. This information should be really valuable.  I am psyched to be given this opportunity!

 

I have added links to the new license generator page. It will provide free single computer licenses for both the FHX_Parser and FHX_VersionExporter software when a user enters his/her email and name. Without the license, the software will operate with limited functionality.  It’s free!

Here’s the link:
http://www.erikboisen.net/FHX_license.html
The software itself, which provides the unique 24 digit code needed to generate the license, can be found here:

FHX_Parser

FHX_VersionExporter

 

Acquired Google domain name, Configured Linode, installed apache, installed postgres, postgres php plugins, wrote web pages, and installed WordPress last week.  I was a little rusty using Linux and writing web pages and I have never used Apache, Linode, or WordPress.   I am pretty happy with Linode and Apache.   I ran into a few issues with the Linode install, but was able to Google my way out of them.  I used postgeSQL with WordPress instead of the default MySQL.  I think that made things a little more difficult, but I like postgres, so it was worth it.

I learned some php and created a page that generates a license for each of the DeltaV tools I created and also logs the user’s information in a postgreSQL database table. The license generated will work on one computer. I will make the page public soon.