Category: Day to day life

Updates on what’s going on with us

Fixing LG French Door Light Coming On Its Own

We bought a LG French Door “knock-on” fridge around 2017 (model #LMXS307xxx). The concept looked cool as fuck on the show floor. But over the following months, I grew to dislike the feature (but that’s a different story). And about a year after that, something absolutely annoying started to happen — The “knock-on” door light would come on all by itself whenever a certain sound frequency around the house is just right that would trigger the light sensor. So if someone talks too loud or maybe dish plates hitting the counter at a certain pitch, the fucking door light comes on. It drove me crazy.

So it turns out there’s a way to dampen the sensitivity of the sensor by simply layering a few pieces of common office tapes on the sensor responsible for detecting the “knock-on” vibrations. Here’s a service bulletin PDF file that LG issued to licensed service technicians on addressing the issue. Note that with some models, the location of the sensor could be slightly different. On my fridge, the location is on the lower right hand side of the door panel. The fix was easy, quick and effective. All is good again.

Resolving “error: failed to attach to process ID 0” in Xcode

This was a bitch to track down.

error: failed to attach to process ID 0

Basically it means Xcode is not able to attach a build of your app to the simulator. I was, however, able to build it directly on the iPhone. To solve this problem, simply do the following:
* Click on Simulator and reset the simulator by going to the “iOS Simulator” main menu and choose “Reset Content and Settings…
* Back in XCode, choose the menu "Product" > "Edit Scheme". On the left menu panel, click on "Run <em>Your_Project_Name</em>.app" > "Run _Your_Project_Name.app". The info display on the right should have the "Debug Process As" radio button picked as "Me (your-user-name)". If not, make sure you do not login as root. On Stackoverflow there are many reports of running as root will have problems
* Next, still in Xcode, go to the menu "Window" > "Organizer". On the top menu, click on "Projects". Go ahead and delete "Derived Data".
* Finally, go to "~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/6.0/Applications" and delete everything that’s in there

Restart Xcode and the simulator. And Bob’s your uncle.

I am Back?

Been thinking about giving my blogging a reboot for the past couple of years. Hopefully this time it’ll stick. But Facebook just makes it so much easier to “share” my thoughts. But one thing sucks about Facebook is I can’t easily search for my previous status updates (I’d have to go through 3rd party apps or websites to do that). And more importantly, there are often things I’d personally like to keep handy (like videos or photos I’d shared).

So going forward, I’ll try to be more proactive back on my own blog creating content that I will own. And I’ll probably find a plugin (or maybe write one) that’ll publish my blog entries (and maybe images?) to Facebook.

Tough Questions

A typical conversation with Bryan, my three-year-old….

Me: Bryan, Look. It’s raining.
Bryan: Why is it raining?
Me: Because there’s too much water in the cloud. And when there’s too much water in the cloud, water drops fall and becomes rain.
Bryan: Why is there too much water in the cloud?
Me: Because water evaporates into the air and eventually end up in the cloud.
Bryan: What is “evaporate”?
Me: ….
Bryan: Why is water falling from the sky? Is there a big hole in the sky?
Me: …. Um, no.
Bryan: Is the sky hard (as opposed to soft)?
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I need to visit some science 101 sites for kids….

CitiMobile, CitiSuck

Firethorn released a pretty cool iPhone app today that allows mobile banking (check balances, transfer funds… etc). But Citibank is simply not ready for this roll out.

First the website on CitiMobile was buggy. Then I found out they don’t service the iPhone. I wonder how much longer I can take their crap before going with BoA or another tech savvy bank in terms of customer-facing applications…

Why am I still banking with them anyway?!

Update: Citibank has been rolling out incremental updates to the app. Unfortunately it still sucks and is not very intuitive when it comes to mobile UI. Some companies just don’t get it.

Chain Reaction

Insecurity breeds suspicion.

Suspicion leads to misunderstandings.

Misunderstandings bring out the worst in people.
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It’s as if we didn’t already have enough to worry about on daily basis to go the extra mile to be insecured about ourselves to be suspicious of others just so that we can misunderstand each other. C’est la vie.

About the Kids

Bryan started pre-school… He secretly loves it but always tries to get our sympathy by fake-crying about it…. Amelia is growing up fast — sleeping through the night pretty much within the first two weeks of coming home. We are pretty sure she’s going to outgrow Bryan in a few more months… That’s what happens when a baby gets baked a few more days in the oven…

Bryan sings and tells his teddy bear stories in his spare time. He even prays (yes, prays) during meal (it’s a Christian-run pre-school he’s attending… long story). And his smart mouth is going to get him in trouble soon enough like mine always did to me in school…

It’s Been A While…

It’s bee a few months since I last actively blogged. Maybe it’s time to pick it up again…
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It’s been seven months since my dad passed. And in this seemingly long time, quite a bit has since taken place — the birth of our daughter, a huge almost grant-like photographic assignment, a well-paying full time job that my cousin hooked me up with, and a fallout with the same cousin that got me the job over the very job he helped secure… Oh, the ironies of life…
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The busy life style of the job, coupled with the fall out with my cousin, makes going to work somewhat unpleasant. Yes, the money is very good but the life style and all the misunderstandings that caused the fall out with my cousin make it almost unjustifiable. I now know that when money was more of an issue but time and patience weren’t, everyone seemed happier then. There are certain things money just can’t buy — time and happiness being on the top of my list.
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The same client who hired me to photograph her action pistol shooting event offered me more money to help promote her cause by becoming her campaign manager of some sort. I know that I can pretty much name my price and she’d be happy to pay for every penny with her trust in my work. But after some soul searching, I decided that I just couldn’t be part of any campaign that has anything to do with pro-guns (even though the whole campaign is really about her, not the guns, but because of the nature of the work, dealing with the NRA and pretending to not dislike that part of the world is a prerequisite… something I can’t live with no matter how much I’m paid).
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The real reason I stopped blogging was a promise to myself to first finish my clients’ projects before I can indulge myself in blogging. Today I finally posted the final edits of the “gun event” for the client to see. Technically I still owe her a few things that came with the package. But I think I’ve crossed the biggest hurdle that’s made me feel uncomfortable about doing what I like before giving my clients my priorities. I’m thankful for my clients’ patience to allowing me to slack for a few months… I’ll find some time to post some images shortly… and hopefully even find time to post process images of my own family!
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I love photography. But until I can find a way to live off of it comfortably, being a programmer will have to do.
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To be continued….

A Heartfelt Good Bye to Professor Randy Pausch

Last year I wrote about Professor Randy Pausch’s last lecture. It saddens me to even write about his passing after a few weeks of non-activity on my blog. I especially feel bad for his young children. But fortunately their father left a lasting legacy in this world for them to remember him by for a long time to come.

Farewell, Professor Pausch.