Author: AJ Touchstone

Thank you Pebble

It was a little difficult but I have a brand new Pebble Time again. And surprisingly it is not a refurbished unit. The steps to gain a warranty replacement was more than usual. I suspect that Pebble is trying to avoid being taken advantage of by less trustworthy folks.

The best part is that while my original Pebble was embossed with “Kickstarter Backer” on the back, I had little hope that the replacement had this unique feature, long after the original Kickstarter campaign. I was pleasantly surprised to find my replacement featured the same bragging right as my defective unit. Thanks Pebble.

Lockitron Bolt Installed

After much waiting (seriously waiting; I mean years worth of waiting) I think that Lockitron is finally setup perfectly and in a long-term method.  This is the second generation of Lockitron called the “Bolt”.  I waited for Lockitron to ship me the device (took a few months) then even though I requested a Kwikset “keyway” they shipped me a Schlage.  I complained and was sent a new keyway within a few days.  After that, I needed to find a locksmith to “key match” the keyway with our existing set of keys.  After making numerous calls from searching locksmiths, I determined that the only places open on the weekend was a mobile locksmith.  I was quoted $35 to perform the task however once it was said and done the bill was $75.  Fortunately everything works perfectly.  The existing keys are smooth, installation was perfect, the door aligns with the jamb perfectly, and firmware was up-to-date.  The only glitch was programming the Bridge module which was done via flashing the screen of my Android phone in a pattern to the sensor.  This did not work until I increased the brightness of the screen to maximum.  Hopefully everything continues to work for many months to come.

bolt-bridge

DFS Replication and Dirty Shutdowns

Again, a simple problem is fixed by just checking the Event Viewer.  There are two servers on different subnets connected via VPN.  Replication has not happened for a while simply because it was not a pressing issue.  I vaguely remembered that I had this problem with AD replication so I went into Event Viewer of both sides and checked the Application and Services Logs > DFS Replication events.  Clear as day you can see Event ID 2213 that reports that the database was “not shut down cleanly” and Auto Recovery is disabled (I should check into that later).  But the important part is that it shows how to fix the issue.  I have highlighted it in the screen snip below.

dfs-event-log-dirty-shutdown-error

Almost immediately after running the command I can see that replication is occurring in the background trying to catch up with the changes.

Pebble Time Down

Unfortunately the first problem has occurred in my usage of the Pebble smartwatch family. My Kickstarter Edition Pebble Time has stopped working when it got wet from minimal submergence in water. I’m talking about 1-2 feet maximum. I looked closer and found the bezel came unstuck from its adhesive. I have emailed Pebble support and hope for the best. We shall see how much loyalty says for Pebble.

osTicket and IIS 8.5 and PHP 7

I just wasted about an hour because Google failed.  I just extracted the contents of osTicket to the desired folder and attempted to browse to the setup folder.  It generated an HTTP 500 error and I could not figure out why.

“osTicket does not support PHP7 at this time.  It will once 1.10 is released.”

Make sure you use the PHP Manager for IIS to change the PHP version being used to version 5 on the site you are using.  Restart IIS services after doing this.