I saw Lisa for the first time with my left knee recovery. She thinks it is making good progress and approved a return to biking, as long as the rides are limited to 30 minutes each and to remain on flat ground. Tomorrow I’ll head to work by biking to a light rail station, riding light rail to Mall of America, and biking from MoA to work – each segment will be 30 minutes – yessir!

A good chunk of the swelling was down by Saturday, the 4th day of taking naproxen. At today’s post-op followup with Dr. LaPrade, he asked me to keep at the quiet knee approach and get swelling down further when I can resume biking. I’ll see him again in 3 weeks. Until then, I’m allowed to work with the PT team on resuming bike exercise, with the goal of improving range of motion and reducing swelling.

Twin Cities Orthopedics’ team has been diligently helping my left knee regain function, all while Lisa is away. Despite increased swelling, I got off crutches last Wednesday and have been icing and elevating whenever possible. As of today, the swelling has only seemed to increase and mostly on the lateral side at the incision to grab some of my left knee’s IT-band. Jake was concerned about the swelling and that my stitches might let go, so he connected with LaPrade’s team who ordered me to take an anti-inflammatory for four days. I hope that does the trick!

Last week’s MRI indicated a bleak prognosis for my medial meniscus, but LaPrade’s team found otherwise when they got inside my knee today. The medial meniscus was able to be somewhat salvaged, some fugitive meniscus tissue was removed, and my IT-band was harvested to construct a new LET ligament – the recovery begins today! LaPrade told me it would be about 4 months.

Thanks, LaPrade team for saving my left knee and giving me another chance to have more fun with it. And thanks, Dad, for taking care of me! And thanks family and friends for being patient with me and my knees, yet again!

I’m logging my experiences with the above-referenced open source project and our 2001 New Beetle. Why? We bought brand new keys for the Beetle, had them cut by a Highland Park Locksmith, I coded the remote buttons at home, and now for the last step I’m trying to code the immobilizer chips on the new keys so that they can start our New Beetle and not kill it after 4 minutes.

Before KW1281Test can help, it needs a computer and a compatible cable. I’m planning to use my macbookpro11,5 and this cable. When I have them connected, I plan to follow the steps Kermit123 laid out. Expect continuous updates, here. I bought our New Beetle from my parents, who bought it secondhand from a dealer. The scratch off is no longer around that displays a security key code (SKC); however, it appears the dealer passed the following string to my mom who wrote this down on manual 3.1 and the key section on page 21: 1729 / 01699. I assume the SKC is 1699, but I’ll verify it with KW1281Test after I have it running with the USB cable and a Mac. Greg writes that this cable is compatible with KW1281Test, but before ordering it I perused KW1281Test’s wiki that says to consider this cable for a Mac and load these drivers. I plan to follow syntax similar to what this Mac user posts or another or just stick to what the wiki says.

** UPDATE 12-5-2024 **

I can confirm that the above-referenced USB cable works. I’m posting a screenshare video, below, that I used to execute the command:

Screen Recording 2024-09-07 at 5.08.48 PM

Also, here are additional commands I needed (in reverse order) to get the USB driver working with the cable:

./kw1281test 12345678 9600 17 Adaptation Save 21 2 01729
./kw1281test 12345678 9600 17 Adaptation Save 21 3 01729
./kw1281test 12345678 9600 17 Adaptation Save 21 0 01729
./kw1281test 12345678 9600 17 Adaptation Save 21 4 01729
./kw1281test 12345678 9600 17 GetSKC
brew install libdvdcss
sudo cp WinTypes.h /usr/local/include/WinTypes.h
sudo cp ftd2xx.h /usr/local/include/ftpd2xx.h
cp ftpd2xx.h /usr/local/include/ftpd2xx.h
cd release
sudo cp release/WinTypes.h /usr/local/include/WinTypes.h
sudo cp release/ftpd2xx.h /usr/local/include/ftpd2xx.h
cd ..
cd release
sudo cp release/ftpd2xx.h /usr/local/include/ftpd2xx.h
sudo ln -sf /usr/local/lib/libftd2xx.1.4.30.dylib /usr/local/lib/libftd2xx.dylib
sudo co release/build/libftd2xx.1.4.30.dylib /usr/local/lib/libftd2xx.1.4.30.dylib
sudo cp release/build/libftd2xx.1.4.30.dylib /usr/local/
cd dmg ** UPDATE 1-13-2025 **

I used KW1281Test back in December using a 2009 white MacBook, but this evening I need to try talking to the Beetle again and this time I left the white MacBook at work. For today’s update, I am loading KW1281Test on to my 2015 MacBook Pro (macbookpro11,5):

• Install FTDI’s USB cable drivers (for my Mac running Sonoma, 14.7.2) using this driver and following the instructions contained in the download’s ReadMe.rtfd file.
• Tap this link to view the latest release and click “Assets” to find the build for macOS.

I bought some Mazda replacement keys on eBay that came without stickers. Aliexpress came through with these stickers, which are nearly identical to the OEM stickers. My only very minor nitpick is that the stickers sold in this listing are a little bit thinner (they sit just below a key fob’s outer plastic shell).

I would definitely buy these stickers again; however, I returned to this listing to learn they are no longer shipping to customers in the United States – doh! Anyway, I’m posting here to remind me should they become available again in the future.

Over years of bike commuting, I have come across many things laying in the street. When they are phones, I frequently find the owners by popping their SIM into my phone or if their phone is unlocked I can communicate with the incoming text messages to find the owner. Sometimes it gets tricky, the device can be disabled and then MDM-locked. Ugh. I just want to help someone get their phone back! I recently came across this situation for an old iPad 5th gen that likely would otherwise end up as e-waste, but using these steps got me back into the device:

If the main screen says the device is disabled and MDM-locked, try the following:

1. Plug the device into a computer.
2. Put the device in DFU mode (varies by device) and upgrade iOS to the latest version.
3. After the iOS upgrade completes, some devices refuse to download their MDM certificate. In this case I jailbreak the device and then bypass the MDM.
4. To jailbreak the device, I used palera1n.
5. To bypass the MDM, I used MDMPatcher-Universal

Jailbreaks for the latest iOS are likely to change, this site may recommend what to use to jailbreak the latest iOS. For the above-referenced iPad, iOS 16.7.10 could be jailbroken with palera1n and MDM-bypassed with MDMPatcher-Universal. Anyway, hopefully this helps you reconnect someone with their darn device, but it would be easier if people just put a label with contact information on the back of their device.

If the above MDMPatcher-Universal stops working, this project may be another option if development resumes.

While cleaning our KitchenAid KSCS25FJSS01 evaporator tray, I noticed that our water filter inlet line was weeping water and, fortunately, it was dripping directly into the tray. If the weep increased in flow, it may have started dripping on to the floor. I looked up the water filter housing, which had part number 2199840 that has since been replaced by WP2199840; however, local parts houses want about $150 plus tax for the darn thing. I figured the housing inlet and outlet quick-connects had failed and fortunately 97ktmduke shows how to repair/rebuild the existing housing.

I found a similar SharkBite adapter at Menards and, this evening, I’ll be using it to replace the existing o-rings at least than an order of magnitude of the price.

** UPDATE 8-7-2024 **
Worked like a charm, the KitchenAid’s water filter and ice machine are back in business!

** Update 8-17-2024 **
Fix is still working great and helped avoid purchasing most or all of these parts:

2199840 – filter housing
2209707 – tubing, filter inlet
2203127 – tubing, filter outlet

I heard some scratching behind a corner in the basement ceiling, so I figured I’d check to see what Menards sells. They had a silly Pest-A-Cator 2000 Electronic Rodent Repeller in-stock, so I grabbed one. I was curious what was inside the box and what guarantees the manufacturer made.

The manual inside appeared to be some word salad that the device is a phase shifter for the electricity in your house. Seemed like a fancy phenomenon to me, so I decided to research it and see if there was any truth to it.

Brief enforcement history…

From 1985 through 1997, FTC brought law enforcement actions against six companies that manufacture devices like the Pest-A-Cator 2000. In 2003, the Pest-A-Cator was part of a docket launched by FTC; however, the ensuing consent order shows the sales restrictions only last for 20 years, which have now lapsed, hence why I was able to find a Pest-A-Cator on a Menards shelf. More FTC info on Charles Patterson, here.

Science, please help me!

Seems EPA (Publication No. EPA 340102-80-001) and USDA have done some research on these devices and the results are anything but favorable.

I found more along the way that was also not favorable toward these products, but the links above are the highlights. Why a company like Menards carries products like this is frustrating. Maybe I’ll ask them more about it later and this post might be a spring-board for bullet points. For now, I am returning the Pest-A-Cator 2000 and will start to look into cameras to figure where the little critters are getting in.

Occasionally I test software in a Windows XP virtualization environment and if the software goes bad with an environment, I need a quick way to recover by purging the environment’s drive and replacing it with a copy: probably the quickest way is to duplicate a virtualized environment’s .vdi file and, should testing go awry, replace the compromised .vdi with the pre-compromised original copy.

Sometimes I simultaneously test two environments or .vdi files. Since the .vdi are copies of each other, VirtualBox sees them with the same UUID and doesn’t allow you to set up the second environment until the .vdi files have differing UUID. To get around this use Terminal.app to change your copied .vdi’s UUID, before you attempt to set up the new/second environment. To change the UUID, use the following steps:

1. Open Terminal.app
2. Navigate to the folder where you have a .vdi file you’d like to change the UUID on
3. Execute the following command in Terminal.app while replacing “WinXP_2.vdi” with the name of your second .vdi file:

   VBoxManage internalcommands sethduuid WinXP_2.vdi

After changing the UUID, you can now continue setting up a second virtualized environment that is linked to the .vdi changed above.