Andrew Pollack's Blog

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  1. 11/06/2006If you're reading this and a citizen of the USA If you don't vote, don't bitch. The image below represents the approach taken by those who don't vote, preferring to simply hope things get better on their own.... ......
  2. 11/06/2006Pseudo fairness - a true mark of unthinking bureaucracy.It should be no shock to anyone that school systems annoy me almost as much now as they did when I was in school. Today it's all this talk about responsibility without actually giving the kids any and this idea that kids are born with a set amount of "self esteem" and anything you say to them could rob them of this precious commodity. Of course, that's bullshit. Kids are not necessary born with either enough or not enough of this mysterious "esteem" stuff. Kid's can build CONFIDENCE which is really what ......
  3. 11/06/2006Two hour jobs that take two daysDon't you hate those fairly straightforward jobs when everything that can go wrong does? Between games -- and mostly on Saturday -- I took on the job of replacing an old, noisy bathroom light and fan fixture. At the same time I put two coats of "Killz" on the ceiling and then a coat of nearly white semi-gloss paint. Over the years, some mildew had gotten into the old paint on the ceiling. The new high volume (low noise) fan and the fresh primer and paint (both with newer anti-mildew additives) should help. ......
  4. 11/06/2006Soccer Tournament Results!Cumberland (Ari's team) met Bangor first, and we were surprised by how well Bangor played. Ari started and played a defender of some kind (some kind of "double sweeper defense"?) The game went 0-0 through double overtime and Cumberland ended up winning by 1 on penalty shots. Ari played really well, making a goal saving hard run to shut down a play by taking the ball out at the last second at the goal line -- but was tripped (a real, no-bull, on-purpose, back foot kick kind of trip) for her trouble and came ......
  5. 11/05/2006Happy Birthday Ari!Ari turns 13 today -- and plays in her semifinal game against Bangor, then (we hope) the finals for the fall season. They're the #1 seeded team. I haven't posted pictures of any of us in a while, so here you go. As usual, just click one of the smaller images to see it full ......
  6. 11/04/2006Just let Domino do it! Sometimes we work too hard.Following up from my earlier post about xml and utf-8 encoding, I found "a better way". The earlier post talked about how embedded characters were messing up my xml feed. I spent a lot of time writing a complex formula to handle this. There is a better way. The feed for this site is generated on a "Page" design element with embedded computed text fields to pull in the data to populate the feed itself. I had done all that work to clean up the embedded data, but I didn't need to. The easier way to handle ......
  7. 11/03/2006The new blog design is now up, your comments are welcomeI spent more time than I'd expected, but the new blog site is now 90% in place. What isn't done is the new search form - which will be ajax powered. Some things to note: * No more new window for comment entry. That's done as a layer with an ajax style submit -- I opted to refresh anyway so your comment shows up. Let me know if you agree or dissagree with that. * There is a click to show comments, but no screen refresh. If you turn them on, they stay on -- saved in a cookie -- as your preference when using ......
  8. 11/01/2006SNTT (seriously geeky) - Some helpful @Formulas - clean up your XML, and convert from hex value strings to decimal numbersIn working to improve this blogsite, I found some challenges in creating good XML when the source data can be variable. The problem is that in formula language lacks easy tools for doing this. There is no simple XML transformation process that works the way @URLENCODE works. It sure would have been easier. First off, as you put together your XML string, you want to make sure to replace the "reserved" characters that are valid ascii values but still can't be in your content. By these I mean the greater than ......
  9. 11/01/2006Notes from the HAZMAT Refresher -- how much Benzene did you breathe today?This month’s HAZMAT refresher course, taught by Al Nygren of Training Technologies International, gave us a valuable new perspective on how our metering equipment works and the mechanisms behind some of the dangers we face. The course was a change of pace from the usual HAZMAT classes which focus on the decontamination process and identification of specific hazards. It had a heavy emphasis on the chemistry behind many of the fuels and oxidizers we may run into at any time. ......
  10. 10/31/2006Verizon Wireless - Broadband access for the Portland, Maine area is now active!You heard it here first -- Notice the last line... Cell phone reception at my house is terrible, but the rest of town is covered well. For several days I've been seeing the "EV" symbol start appearing in my cell phone display but haven't been able to actually connect to the EVDO broadband network until tonight. If I am able to get on with it from here with 1 bar and get 350kbps, that means almost everywhere else around here will give me close to 800kbps as an average useable speed. For those unfamiliar ......
  11. 10/30/2006Blog changes - finally. I've allowed the first mods to get out. Threading is still there, but you won't need to click and open new documents to see all the comments. Give it a try. There is a known bug (known to me) that I'll try to fix tonight. Obviously, there are no replies here so you can't see what I've done unless you click this link to see an old ......
  12. 10/27/2006Finally, we are getting very close to EVDO here in MaineI've been talking about how much I like Verizon's EVDO service for internet connectivity via the cell phone system. With a card in my PC, or with a bluetooth connection to my cell phone as a modem, I can connect and get DSL speed connectivity in most major service areas around the country now. In the rest of the places, I get 1xRTT service which is in theory up to 250kbps, but in reality works out to be about like using a dialup modem. The thing is, here in Maine I've had no EVDO service. It's well over a ......
  13. 10/25/2006Upgraded to Firefox 2.0The best news so far about this upgrade, is that there is no news. The upgrade was smooth, the product is slick and user friendly, and the new features work as expected. I am very pleased so far. From a performance perspective, it "feels" snappier though I've done no ......
  14. 10/24/2006Should I quit pretending that I'm going to have time to update this blog site and switch to Domino Blog?Ok, you tell me. I know some of you really don't like the UI on this blog design. I'm tired of it too -- but the idea of using some canned software doesn't thrill me. I've put off doing it because I have some big ideas for the site. So far, as anyone can predict, I've had no time to do anything about them. Tell me the truth -- does this design suck so bad I should dump it as soon as possible? One advantage to this one though -- no ......
  15. 10/24/2006Annoying as hell dialog boxesDon't you hate dialog boxes that offer no option? Here's a new one that really pissed me off yesterday.... Notice that there is no option here. You cannot close the dialog box without using the "Finish" button. You cannot deselect the option to restart the computer. The dialog is "Modal" so it will not go away without you doing what it wants. And it wasn't necessary, since I wasn't using the driver I'd updated. A simple warning telling me to reboot before I use the device would have been sufficient. ......
  16. 10/17/2006Cut the bullshit - the REAL real cost of leaving Notes is........the fact that you don't have it any more. That's right. If you win, you lose. You lose a secure, scalable, stable, redundant, standards compliant, and extensible platform in favor of.....what? Richard comes close to saying this in his blog. So what the hell. Discussions on several other blogs and sites recently about this topic focus on the costs of moving functionality out of Notes and onto some other platform. Some call this vendor lock in. That's wrong. It's a functionality lock in. The reason it is ......
  17. 10/16/2006Second Signal begins to become more publicAs of last friday, visitors to http://www.SecondSignal.com are seeing some early information about the service. Not all the details are there yet, but as there is press on the way it was time to put a bit of a teaser in place. ......
  18. 10/15/2006Small Town - Big Circus, great timeThe circus is in town, and just for a couple of days. Portland isn't a big place. Here in Maine, it's been years since the big top came to town so at the last minute I decided to take Coryn and Caitlin. Ari had other plans already. This is the same big circus that does the three rings in big stadiums -- but here in small town USA it's just the one ring. What a treat to see this show in so small a venue! Before the start, all the kids & parents gathered around the ring for a pre-show right there on the ......
  19. 10/13/2006Excellent History Channel Documentary on Fire Fighting 8-9:30pm tonight.According to several people, this is an excellent and realistic look at firefighting. History Channel Documentary on Fire Fighting 8-9:30 Pm tonight. http://www.history.com/minisite.do?mini_id=51524 About 'Into the Fire'Academy Award®-winning documentary filmmaker Bill Couturié goes beyond the firefighter hero image and into the hearts and minds of the self-proclaimed "ordinary" men and women who perform extraordinary acts to keep us safe. Through intimate interviews with firefighters from big-city engine ......
  20. 10/11/2006Latest conversation with my 7 year oldTalking with my youngest daughter has always fascinated me. She's a geek in all the good sense of that word. She may be the most natural engineer I have ever met. Here's a conversation from this morning, word for word: Caitlin: Can you open the garage door? Use the special button. I am pretending it only works for you and nobody else. Me: Actually, there are things that work that way. It's called 'biometric security'. It means things that only work when they can identify something unique about your body. ......
  21. 10/10/2006Piece of crap inkjet printers - The last Epson I will ever buyI own an Epson Stylus C86. Correct that, I own two. I also own another Epson all in one unit. The all in one sits by my desk, while the two stylus units sit with my kids in their rooms. By buying three which use the same ink cartridges, can keep a pair of each color on hand without having to have a distinct stockpile for three different printers. All three have had ink flow problems. Mine required a simple cleaning process -- it wastes about $10 worth of ink to do it, but it worked. One of the stylus ......
  22. 10/08/2006Have you checked your backup power supply lately?Today I was going through the fall chores, and one of those is testing the backup power and redundancy plan I have for my office and servers here. After changing the oil, filters, and spark plugs on the 12kw LP Gas generator outside, I ran a full power down test. That means walking over to the breaker panel in the basement and shutting off grid power to the house. Within 60 seconds, the house was automatically up and running on power from the generator. That's as it should be. The test confirmed the ......
  23. 10/06/2006Got my vmware server running on linux -- a very sweet setupIt took me a bit of work because first I had to make CentOS 4.3 recognize my AC'97 sound card and the drivers from RealTek wouldn't compile. I wanted sound in my VM's so that had to be resolved first. Once done, I downloaded the vmware server in "rpm" format and installed it. After spending a few minutes looking for what happened to it, I found the vmware executable and the configuration script and was up and running. The vmware configuration script isn't very smart. By default it wants to place your vm's ......
  24. 09/29/2006Tip: Log a user into a Domino website without a page refresh with this simple javascriptThese two functions are all you really need. The trick is in the ultra-simple first function listed below. The function uses the xmlHttpRequest made so famous as the core of the "Ajax" programming style. By doing an Ajax style 'Post' of the credentials to the Domino server, the results you get back which normally redirect you somewhere else, are caught by the request object. You can discard them (or display them if you really want). In this function, I've used the ultra-small icon file "onepixel.gif" as ......
  25. 09/28/2006Rocky needs your help.Yep, the Dawg is buried with work and other stuff -- so much that he hasn't blogged since September 11th. I've talked to him and he's fine -- he's not sick (some of you asked) he's just got so much going on in his world that nothing has made it to the blog. So here's the plan... I want everyone who reads this to write a blog article for his site, and send it to him -- by Friday at noon. Get to ......
  26. 09/25/2006Wow, do I hate web browser programming.I spent the better part of two days now, building a framework in which the next generation of a key website will run. It doesn't actually DO anything yet. The framework provides all the underlying functionality to provide a tabbed interface, and "ajax" based interaction between the multiple form objects and back end data. So when I say it doesn't do anything yet, I mean the tabs work and they change the displayed things as you'd expect -- but there's nothing on them. The ajax backend code works, and can ......
  27. 09/22/2006Help me understand what problem we really have with Hugo ChavezHugo Chavez, current President of Venezuela, seems to be going to great lengths to express his distaste for the current US Government. There doesn't seem to be any love lost on the part of our government for him either. But what has he actually done that's so terrible? From before his election, he's been criticized pretty strongly by US politicians. There were gloom and doom predictions made pending his election, and it almost seems as though he was written off as a lunatic in this country from the outset. ......
  28. 09/21/2006The Republican Party Belief SystemThis was sent to me the other day, it's funny. If someone has one crafted as well to make fun of the Democrats, send it and I'll post that too. WHAT YOU NEED TO BELIEVE TO VOTE REPUBLICAN Jesus loves you, and shares your hated of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton. Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him, and a bad guy when Bush needed a we cant find Bin Laden diversion. Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country ......
  29. 09/21/2006Some good ideas, from what we're hearing about Microsoft's iPod competitor "Zune"I've had half an eye out on this new thing from Microsoft called the "Zune". They are looking for it to be an "iPod Killer" which sounds a little ambitious to me. Something like 3/4 of new cars next year will have built in iPod support available. That, plus the huge add-on products market for the iPod make it a very strong competitor. Microsoft have done some innovative things, from what I hear. Of interest to me is their take on licensing. Apparently you'll be able to use an easy link method (maybe IR or ......
  30. 09/13/2006Had to perform and ugly hack today - to allow Domino web usernames with @ symbols.I have a client who has a web based solution in which the users are passed from an outside system. The NCT SSO works great, but the usernames from the other site are actually EMAIL addresses. Domino will allow them to be logged in since the NCT SSO creates the token for them -- but putting email addresses in groups does not work for ACL's. To get around this, I broke one of my cardinal rules. I modified the Domino Directory. Worse, I modified the most important view in the databases (or one of the two most ......
  31. 09/12/2006Have you tried Google Calendar?It's not new, but for the first time I've tried out Google's calendar application. I like it a lot, and not just for work. Barb and I both work full time. On top of that, I have the fire department work that keeps me busy with meetings and training; between my three kids we have school, tennis club, 3 soccer teams, karate, and Brownies. I travel about once a month, and Barb travels about twice a year. To keep up with just our family activities -- coordinating transportation for the kids mostly, requires a ......
  32. 09/11/2006What should the US do about it's relationship with Iran?What is the US supposed to do about an Iran that is developing seriously dangerous weapons? First, let us assume for this discussion that Iran really is developing the capability to produce nukes, or to supply that technology to others. We have, after all, set the stage in such a way that it makes sense for them to do so. In international politics, having nukes lets you sit at the special table. We've made it clear that if we could do so without fear of repercussion we'd already have invaded. If you don't ......
  33. 09/11/2006Remembering fallen brothers todayOn September 11th, 2001 I was not yet a firefighter. It was something Barb and I had talked about, and on the 14th I got in touch with someone she knew in the department to discuss joining. The first meeting I attended was less than a month later. Five years ago, I didn't really understand yet what a close brotherhood the fire service is. I didn't know that I'd feel personally connected to every firefighter in the country in a very real sense. Thousands of people survived the attack on September 11th ......
  34. 09/10/2006I am furious at hearing of this MYTH that those who are not US Citizens are "Not Entitled" to the rights under our ConstitutionWhat part of the following statement in the Declaration of Independence is unclear?     We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;...   If you haven't read this brief document recently, go read it again. It won't take long. I've been watching "KOPPEL on Discovery" -- a fantastic program focused on the balance of security ......
  35. 09/05/2006Remembering Steve IrwinSteve Irwin, aka "Croc Hunter" died in a freak accident while filming a "soft" segment for a kids show. Listening to an interview with his friend and partner on CNN, it seems that the segment was just a bit of light film to be used for the kids show -- not even a part of what they were working on for the documentary they were filming. Apparently, Irwin had been cooped up inside the boat during bad weather for two days. According to the friend, Irwin "didn't do well" being cooped up indoors. Stingrays are ......
  36. 09/04/2006A New Product Launch ParadigmSoftware products are released as complete and supported, or as beta with the expectation of bugs and little support. For now, there is very little between these two paradigms. The idea of “Release Candidates” is getting more common as are “Gold” releases but something is still missing. IBM launched Domino 7.0 with the DB2NSF functionality marked as “Limited Availability” at the last minute. The name is wrong, really. It’s not the availability that’s limited; it’s more accurate to say that there isn’t ......
  37. 08/28/2006The C.U.L.T. 2007 shirt theme has been picked!Ok, it's still a secret at this point but I can tell you that this will be one of the most fun years for the Certified Unofficial Lotusphere T-shirt. In an exhaustive series of intense meetings and complex negotiations -- we talked about it around the pool at the Marriott Desert Ridge Resort -- NotesDawg and I along with help from good friends Gab & Tim have hashed out the theme for this year earlier than ever. People -- we're stepping it up just a notch. Look for announcements here and on Lotus Geek's ......
  38. 08/25/2006Weather for the Advisor Summit looks great!Weather in Scottsdale at 101 degrees is going to be excellent. Not the 120 that you sometimes see in Arizona, but overall warm and sunny. It's going to be hard to stay away from the pool to attend ......
  39. 08/24/2006IBM have some explaining to do about the cost of Lotusphere 2007As a pricing plan and strategy, this shows an amazing lack of market sense. I'm not saying a price increase is out of the question. The value of the conference is definitely higher than the $1295 many CLP's have paid in the past. The increase in cost to a minimum of $1695 is an increase year over year of $400 -- roughly 30%. To make matters worse, if you fail to sign up before October 14th it goes to $1895 and by December 9th its $2095. Given the number of attendees tends to be somewhere near 7,000 each ......
  40. 08/23/2006All my demos are done for Advisor, loaded on the laptop, and backed up to the spare drive. This may be the earliest I've ever finished. I'm usually working on demos right up to the session. The new laptop helps. It has 2GB of ram in it, so my DB2NSF demo has lots of elbow room. I've set up a windows 2000 virtual machine inside the laptop with 1gb of ram. Its running Domino 7.0.1 and DB2 8.2.x along with the full set of connectivity parts. I'm planning to do a live demo showing two databases with different documents, and a third that has no documents of its own, yet displays a view of mixed data ......
  41. 08/20/2006Advisor Conference at the end of August looks like a mini-Lotusphere!Advisor's conference in Arizona is looking like a MUST SEE. The speaker's like is like a Lotusphere All Stars team with very deep IBM participation on top of my favorite 3rd party types. Advisor's fall conference in Scottsdale, Arizona is almost here. I hear there is still some room open for this and it's going to be a great conference. As a speaker, the thing I like most about the Advisor conferences is the one on one nature of a smaller venue. I get to talk in great depth to people about the issue ......
  42. 08/18/2006Technote update -- Undocumented function @LocationGetInfoAn a post a few weeks back I went into detail about the function "@LocationGetInfo" which I used to help Rocky solve a programming puzzle. He needed to get the current location document's name so that he could do things with that location document. After doing a dxl export of common system files I found some parameters and using those we came up with formula language to get what we needed. Just this morning a response by Jens Winkelmann added a new parameter to that function. [FullName] . I've tested it, ......
  43. 08/17/2006Flew home yesterday from Heathrow to Boston -- its good to be backI had a good time in London, but it's good to be home. The travel day was a bit long but better than expected. First off, I had no trouble at Heathrow. I arrived 3 hours before my flight, having stayed at the Hilton attached by a long tunnel to Terminal 4. On arrival, I was directed to a short check in line for bag drop and within 20 minutes or so was through that. I had checked my large "Swiss Gear" computer backpack inside my luggage and borrowed a 2004 Lotusphere laptop case from Gab. It was a very ......
  44. 08/15/2006BA cancels all flights!Take a look at this image, sent by a client of Gab's who is in the travel industry. ......
  45. 08/14/2006Now not flying today, but will be trying again on the 16th.Arrival at the airport today was interesting. There are people milling about like cattle in the car parking structure as they cannot get into the terminal. The terminal is simply full. BA -- who has staffed the parking area with their own employees as BAA (the company who runs the airport) can't be bothered -- advised that in all liklihood they could simply not get me onto the plane today and have rebooked the next available which turns out to be Wednesday the 16th at 11am. The good news, is the "Home ......
  46. 08/13/2006Cowards, Alarmists, Manipulative Power Seekers, and Terrorists -- the whole lot of them on both sides can go screw themselves.As I will be traveling back from London to Boston tomorrow on British Airways and because some cowardly, manipulative, power hungry men (along with some terrorists) have forced an untenable and ultimately futile set of security measures into place I will be entirely and completely out of touch for pretty much the entire day on Monday. Beginning 4-5 hours before my flight when I check my luggage until the flight actually leaves (probably late, if at all) and through the completion of the flight and my ......
  47. 08/11/2006Hello from London. Yes, I managed to pick August 10th as the date for a planned trip to the UK.I'm here in Gab Davis's offices in London. While we're waiting for a download, I thought I'd talk about the trip. I'd left the house at 0400 on Thursday without catching the news and listened to an audio book for the drive. My first indication of any problem was walking through the pedestrian walkway from central parking to the international terminal in Boston and seeing a bunch of video remote vans in the parking area. I assumed some politician was on the way into town and would cause me a delay. A few ......
  48. 08/08/2006A weird java problem in Domino leads me to this challenging call for help. Anyone?I have a client application out there that kicks off a number of threads. The agent is failing to open some databases -- in a consistent and predictable but otherwise nonsensical pattern. When we spotted the pattern, it looked like we had it figured out. Lets assume the databases are db01, db02, db03, ...... db50. The agent would consistently fail to open db03, db06, and so on -- but not in an every 3rd database pattern. Here is the pattern of skipped databases: 3,6,9, 14, 17, 20, 23, 25, 28, 31, 34, 36, ......
  49. 08/08/2006Great lightening storm! I'm downstairs waiting for the pager to go off...Its 23:56 and I'm waiting for the pager to go off (oh, just went once, but for the west side of town...) The large red blob in the yellow "Watch Box" is a fantastic electrical storm which is going to pass right through town. Gotta love the new "Weather.Gov" radar ......
  50. 08/07/2006Be honest. Have you ever avoided doing a perfectly legitimate search because the keywords might attract negative attention?The use of search engines is now ubiquitous. Whatever you want, start with Google or Yahoo or Ask. I wonder though, as we live in an increasingly paranoid and monitored culture how many people have now started rethinking their use of these tools for legitimate purposes because the terms they're interested in might look suspicious to someone. If you read about the training I did for the Explorers last week, you may recall that we ran into a problem caused (we think) by the residue from tear gas or pepper ......
  51. 08/07/2006What would explain Landis's odd doping tests from the Tour de France?I've been wondering about this a bit. What kinds of things could make a test like that come up with results which we interpret incorrectly? Set aside the obvious nonstarters, that either he cheated or that the test was flawed or tampered with. They're all more probable than anything else, but make for boring discussion. One thought I had goes back to some articles I read a few years back about the role of testosterone in decision reinforcement. If I recall correctly, when you make a good decision -- or are ......
  52. 08/06/2006(UPDATED - SOLUTION) I hate applications that don't obey the Windows Large Font settings. Anyone know a good utility to rectify this situation?The one thing my laptop doesn't do well, is display text large enough for me to actually read. The "native" screen resolution is 1920x1200 -- on a 17" display. I use Window's "Large Fonts" and that works in most apps at least somewhat. Sometimes buttons are skewed or dialog boxes don't fit -- but mostly it's great. The high res with larger text makes works look like they're printed on paper. Products like Skype, Trillian, and that ilk suck though. I haven't found a skin for trillian that fixes the problem ......
  53. 08/04/2006Well, I tried VONGO -- the subscription video on demand thing. I think this picture says it all.Notice the time stamps on the 3 messages from ......
  54. 08/04/2006100 degrees, 80% humidity, turnout gear, and tear gas -- Training Wednesday was TOUGHOn Wednesday of this week I took the day off work to organize the “Roll-Up Scenarios” class for the Cumberland Fire Department “Explorer” Academy 2006. The academy is 5 days where kids participating in the “Explorer Scouts” program from six nearby towns live at the station and learn all aspects of firefighting as a career. Wednesday was the fourth day, and time to put all the skills they’ve gotten so far into practice. “Roll-Up Scenarios” is an all day class where the kids go through six “evolutions” which ......
  55. 08/02/2006Cumberland Fire Academy Week - Today I'm out teaching all day.Some of you may remember me talking about Last year's academy, where we take a group of kids involved in the "Explorers" program through a 5 day live-in program at the fire stations. This year I'm doing a little more to help, and I've signed up to run the "Drive Up Scenarios" day. This is the day we run them through everything they've learned. There are five groups of kids, so we run five scenarios (called evolutions) so that each group tries a hand at each job. Today is also the hottest day of the year ......
  56. 07/25/2006Busy, busy, busy.... Real engineering data from a tech helps me fix the pool heater -- oh, and the new Engine 1's first few calls.I can't believe its been 10 days since my last blog entry. I've been running around like a crazy person since then. I'll try to post more often now that things with the new truck have settled down. I fixed the pool heater today. After having the burner cleaned, it wouldn't run. The guy who takes care of the gas appliances for me from the energy company (I draw the line on DIY when it comes to playing with LP Gas) saw that my previous wiring work was up to snuff and figured I could save a ton of money by ......
  57. 07/14/2006I got to call the Engine 1 into service today. How cool is that?Bringing a new fire truck into service is way more complicated than it should be. Every truck is a custom work of art, unique from the word go. That leads, of course, to a debugging phase on delivery that any software developer would recognize. I've spent a good part of the two days working to herd the new truck through this process. I've spent hours loading equipment and writing up status and location reports on the equipment. Today was the payoff. With both the Chief and Captain unavailable today, I got ......
  58. 07/12/2006List of things to go wrong in the last two weeksIs it just me, or is anyone else having a strangely long list of things 'break' in the last few weeks? Here's my list: Pool Heater -- Still not right, I have a second appointment to have it looked at on Friday. As near as I can tell, the burner needs to be cleaned. Fire Truck -- Engine 1 finally died just a few days before we were ready for the new one to go in serviceWashing Machine 1 -- Died two weeks ago. It took until Monday to get a service guy out to pronounce it DRT. Washing Machine 2 -- Delivered ......
  59. 07/08/2006So the secret is out - I have been in Phoenix for a couple of days. Surprise! Well, it was to me.A family member in Phoenix was admitted to the hospital early Wednesday morning. I didn't hear about it until that afternoon, but decided to try to get out here if I could. There were some complications to this however. First, I can't travel without being ready to do some work if a client has an emergency. If you've been following this blog, you know that Wednesday morning my new Dell Laptop was delivered (which rocks, by the way). That means I was about a quarter of the way through loading software on it ......
  60. 07/06/2006Got my new laptop -- its fantastic. I am very impressed with Dell's work on this D820. Some humor though -- I tried asking a question on their chat tool. Transcript here.The new laptop I ordered finally arrived on Wednesday. I was actually not sure I'd like the screen -- At some point, resolution beyond a certain depth is too fine for me to use for long periods. In this case, the crispness of each character on the screen is amazing, and the aspect ratio being as wide as it is means I have some huge amount of screen real estate while opening easier on airplanes because it isn't as tall. The machine is fast, not too heavy, fast, elegant, and the magnesium case is rigid and ......
  61. 07/03/2006The joy of finding a new book that is wonderfully written!As I was needing to take long drive, I tried to quickly pull a book from Audible to keep me awake. It turned out at the last second the drive was cancelled, but I'd already chosen a book. I chose it almost at random. A familiar author had a book out and the reviews (by listeners) were terrible. In one, a comment was made about the terrible narration but the admission that he could be biased since he'd just finished listening to this other book. It was the frankness of that last statement -- as if anyone ......
  62. 07/03/2006First Beijing train reaches Lhasa -- Why Oxygen on it? That makes no sense to me. The problem at elevation isn't the oxygen.So this train goes from Beijing to Lhasa -- covering permafrost and mountains. It peaks over 16,000 feet. I've been as high as 12,000 feet and hiked around a bit without getting too tired, but I was younger and I'd imagine that extra altitude could really do a person in. So, the Chinese built the train with onboard oxygen. This makes no sense to me. The problem at altitude isn't lake of oxygen per se. Its lack of pressure. The amount of oxygen as a percentage is the same, but with reduced pressure, less is ......
  63. 07/03/2006Here's what FEDEX considers helpfulNote on these screenshots, that the overnight package sent on July 1st, was listed as being in Boston at 8am on the 3rd, and scheduled for delivery by 3pm that afternoon at my location -- 2.5 hours drive from that airport location in Boston. Now, after FedEx has "Helped" the package is shown STILL in Boston, and scheduled for deliver on the 6th - a full 3 days later. WTF? I'm fairly sure I could BICYCLE to Boston AND BACK in less time than they seem to plan to take to get this package to me. I am now ......
  64. 07/03/2006Vonage and FedEX Customer Service StupidityTime for a rant. Both Vonage and FedEx have surpassed themselves over the last couple of weeks in terms of shockingly bad support. Vonage, thankfully, I'm nearly through with as I'm in the process of transferring ownership of my numbers elsewhere (to connect.voicepulse.com) but FedEx I continue to have to deal with periodically. First FedEx. It seems that paying the extra 60 dollars for overnight shipping to Dell didn't actually get FedEx to ship overnight. Maybe. You see I can't tell. If I track the ......
  65. 07/02/2006The New Engine 1 was delivered today! Pics and details are here...It is a big event when a crew gets a new fire truck (an Engine in this case, as a "Truck" is for a Ladder crew). Our new Engine is a Ferrara Igniter chassis. Its a Class A Pumper, with 1000 gallons of water on board, class A and class B foam, a 1500 GPM pump, and all the bells and whistles you can imagine being helpful for a fire crew. Even air conditioning in the cab. The engine will stay parked up at our West station for the weekend, then go out for the "On-Spot" tire chains (which operate from a push ......
  66. 07/01/2006Domino Technote - Undocumented function plus cool code lets you get the current location name, thus any data from the current location in pure formula language.I don't post technotes like this often, but rest assured fans of mine, the old man still knows a few things. Someone we all know and love was bouncing a problem off me. He needed to lookup the currently active location document name. @Environment wouldn't work because you can't lookup non-user variables. The tricky part is that it had to be all formula language. He tipped me to an undocumented function "@LocationGetInfo". After dumping the mail6.ntf and pernames.ntf to dxl, I came up with only a few ......
  67. 06/28/2006I missed a fire while I was traveling last week -- but in my own way, I still did my part.On June 22nd at about 10:30am there was a fire at a home in Cumberland. This time of day on a weekday, manpower is at a severe shortage. The initial response was very shorthanded but was able to hold the fire until more personnel arrived to finish the job. The house is still standing and damage was kept to a minimum. I wasn't able to attend, as I was flying to DC at the time, but I do believe its fair to say I contributed. You've heard me talking about "Second Signal" over the last several months. Thanks ......
  68. 06/28/2006Finally ordered a new laptop. That's a big step -I've been considering it for a very long time but not found what I wanted.Based on its top notch performance and expandability, combined with fantastic price & durability -- and topped off by reasonable weight and size numbers -- I've chosen the Dell Latitude D820. The last new laptop I ordered was in November of 2002. That machine has held up well -- a Dell Inspiron 8200. It has been soaked with water, banged around, upgraded, and poorly treated for all that time. The water did force a hard disk replacement, but otherwise its been a rock. Its just not powerful enough any more ......
  69. 06/27/2006SUV Myths and Stupid PrejudicesI'm sick of hearing about evil SUV drivers. Let me post of a things to consider as you people make your snide comments. Note, by the way, that my present car is a Pacifica which is actually much more like a station wagon than an SUV -- though I do miss my Durango. I'm writing this after getting fed up with things like this stupid article. All SUV are too big for their owners and waste fuel? Not always true. While visiting my family a few years ago in Phoenix, I rented a massive Ford Expedition. This ......
  70. 06/26/2006Got stuck in DC last night in the longest thunderstorm I've ever seen12 hours straight of lightening storm. Anyway, I did get these AMAZING pictures at the Udvar-Hazy museum. I got to stand next to the Space Shuttle "Enterprise", an SR-71, Migs, a Concorde, a Corsair, missiles, and even a Kamakaze. Look closely at the Kamakaze -- its actually a bomb. Just a torpedo shape with a detonator visible on the front, a jet engine on the back, and a tiny cockpit. No eject, no landing gear, and very little steering control. Just fast and deadly. I heard there was a stealth bomber ......
  71. 06/14/2006Quit trying to turn your Notes Client apps into imitations of MDI or Dialog Box based applications. That's not where the value is.This is adapted from a response I wrote to someone in a private forum about the Notes client UI and its value. I realized when I re-read it that it would make a good blog topic, so here goes.... Notes 7 gives you power to do UI things in the Notes client. You will not, however, turn it into a Visual Studio dialog box driven MDI application. The further you go toward trying to do that, the bigger hole you're digging yourself from a scale, support, and stability perspective. Notes is Notes. It is not VS.net ......
  72. 06/11/2006Busy weekend for your favorite Lieutenant About once each quarter, every officer in our department has a turn at "Weekend Duty Officer". Basically, this means you're the go-to person for dispatch when there is a question about anything from burning permits to parade details (parade details are done for school teams that win state championships and other celebratory events). This weekend was my turn. This is also graduation weekend. Oh, and one other wrinkle -- Engine 1 has the graduation details each year which include doing the fire watch rounds ......
  73. 06/06/2006Time to repeat some of the best advice on programming I've ever read.A couple of years ago I read something Richard Schwartz wrote about "Second System Syndrome". I can't seem to find the original now, but here's a link to the topic on wikipedia. Since reading it, an understanding of this topic has been directly responsible for saving my backside about a dozen times. The general idea, is that you build something that by chance, luck, and a little skill turns out really useful. As a reward, you get the chance to do it again. You resolve that this time you're really going to ......
  74. 06/01/2006STTN - Store more than 32k of non-rich text on a document, and let it still be visible -- even in Notes 6.5.4 and 7.0.1I don't do "Show and Tell Thursday" all that often. I'm just too heads down right now. Today though, I thought I'd share a tip after having to resolve some customer issues related to a problem that can crop up in newer versions of the Notes client. Background - What is "Summary" data? When you save a Notes document, it cannot have more than 32k of "Summary" data on it. Summary data is all the values stored from all the fields on your forms that aren't rich text. It also includes any noteitems written to ......
  75. 05/27/2006When you REALLY love the game....Ari earns her team's "Man of the Match" award at her first out of state soccer tournament!You know you love the game when you love the game so much that after two of the toughest games you've ever played, playing hurt on the hottest, muggiest day so far this year, you come back to the hotel for a quick swim and then more soccer out in the parking lot with your team. Ari is playing center forward on a "Premier" level soccer team now, a position she'd never attempted prior to last fall. Her Maine Metro Football Club team entered a tournament this weekend. Tournaments break down into divisions. ......
  76. 05/25/2006New microsoft patch is here to [...help me option a licensed copy of windows..]How is this Microsoft "Update" designed to help me, to fix broken software, or to make my system more secure? Doesn't anyone else think its wrong for Microsoft to stick the newest and greatest license validation tool on my system in the form of an automatic system update? Have you checked your system? I'll be you got one of these ......
  77. 05/23/2006Advisor Conference in Scottsdale, August 2006 -- Discount of $100 Available via Bloggers and User GroupsIn what can only be described as the smartest marketing idea anyone in the history of the world has ever had, Advisor Magazine is offering a $100 discount to anyone who registers for the conference and mentions the name of certain speakers. I'm one of then, so when you register, just type in "Andrew Pollack discount" in the comment field and they'll "Take it from there." While it is true there are other people who can give you the same discount, and so far as I know there is no kickback to any of us -- it ......
  78. 05/22/2006Say what you may want to about Ray Nagin, as long as you call him the winner.The guy may have sounded pretty bad on the news. He may have said some things most of us find pretty ridiculous, but clearly he's a hell of a politician. It doesn't even matter if any of it was his fault. How else could the man right up front in charge of his city when it literally became uninhabitable, the man with the plan ....that left hundreds stranded on rooftops and thousands in a worn out stadium with inadequate food, water, power, and sanitation, the man who left hundreds at what was supposed to ......
  79. 05/22/2006Going bedouinReading in Wired Magazine for June 2006, the "Jargon Watch" column has an item titled "Going bedouin" (choice of capitalization is there's, not mine). This is essentially the idea of businesses made entirely of employees and their virtual connections via cell phone, email, VoIP, and so forth. There is no real estate asset. I suppose this differentiates from the solo consultant in that there is more than one person in the ......
  80. 05/18/2006If you live long enough, I guess you get to do just about everythingBruce and Julian interviewed me tonight for their "Taking Notes" podcast. It was fun to do, and yes it is true that this is the first podcast I've listened to as well as the first one I've participated in. I snuck in earlier this evening and previewed a couple of past episodes to get a feel for how it was done. If you're like me in that you don't do "Podcasts" don't sweat it. The audio is just an MP3 link you can click on to hear. It's telling that for a communication tool we didn't use the phone. We used ......
  81. 05/18/2006Podcasting -- how many of you listen them?I've been invited to take part in (or be interviewed on, or something somewhere in between) a podcast this week. I'm curious as to how many of you listen to them. Drop me and email or respond here and let me know. Its an odd medium that I have to admit doesn't hold a lot of interest (as a blogger) for me in its current format. I've never actualy listened to one until today when I reviewed a few of the site that I'll be talking ......
  82. 05/18/2006I always wondered what it would be like to have IBM's full support behind Lotus Notes and Domino. Now we're finding out.Support at IBM for Lotus Notes and Domino is as high now as I've ever seen it, and its fantastic. IBM's renewed commitment to Lotus Notes and Domino first became noticeable with the now famous whitepaper in 2003. For the first time in a few years, you could start talking about Domino inside IBM seriously again. Revisionists will tell you it wasn't that bad, but I'm not about to let them forget. Before Dr. Goyal was able to sift through the competing strategies and oversee the development of a plan to ......
  83. 05/18/2006I love living in MaineYou've no doubt seen the news about flooding in New England as a result of the rain over the last 10 days -- or as I like to call it, point-two-five on the Noah scale. I live about 45 minutes North of where the flooding is, and though we've had rain that's about it. An hour further North its been fairly dry. Well, its true, the National Guard did have to get called out. Not for looting or security, you understand. This is Maine. We don't do that. No, in fact the Guard had to be standing by for safety as ......
  84. 05/15/2006Infoworld Rates Domino 8.7 out of 10!The results are in, and Infoworld rates IBM Notes and Domino with amazing scores. Take a look at these numbers. What more can I say? Link: http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/05/11/78099_20TCnotes_1.html Overall Score: Excellent 8.7 Criteria FeaturesManagementPerformanceEase-of-useIntegrationValue Score 899899 Weight 20%20%20%15%15%10%   IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 7 Cost: Domino Server starts at $1,145 per CPU; Notes starts at $101 per client; Domino Web Access 7 starts at $70 per client Platforms: ......
  85. 05/15/2006Installation of Domino 7.0.1 on Linux - missing a few JVM libraries?When I started up my new Domino 7.0.1 linux server on Saturday, the HTTP task reported the following error: 05/13/2006 06:37:36 PM HTTP JVM: Exception 05/13/2006 06:37:36 PM HTTP JVM: in thread 05/13/2006 06:37:36 PM HTTP JVM: "main" 05/13/2006 06:37:36 PM HTTP JVM: 05/13/2006 06:37:36 PM HTTP JVM: java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: /opt/ibm/lotus/notes/70010/linux/jvm/bin/libawt.so: libXp.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory 05/13/2006 06:37:36 PM HTTP JVM: at ......
  86. 05/15/2006I ran into an upgrade issue when I moved from Domino 7.0 to 7.01 this weekend.This lost me several hours over the weekend. It seems that 7.0.1 along with 6.5.4 there are some changes in the backend classes or in the LotusScript interface to those cases when storing data into fields. When moving from Domino 7.0 to 7.01 I ran into a problem which was oddly similar to the one I described last week. In this case, a web application just stopped working correctly. It took me several hours to track down, because it happened that I wasn't upgrading a server, I was installing a new one and ......
  87. 05/15/2006Talk about your ups and downs at work! The BBC follows an amazing day with a really bad one....Late last week, the BBC World News announced their listenership in English around the world was up by some massive number -- 47 million people if I can recall. No surprise, they've become one of the most trusted sources of information out there. Then today a friend referred me to this article: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2178097,00.html I especially liked the last ......
  88. 05/12/2006Finally, a great IBM ad on TV -- sponsoring Dr. Who no less!Imagine my surprise at finding IBM commercial on television that (a) was very good, (b) was very well placed, and (c) mentioned collaboration! Of all places, I was watching Dr. Who -- the new series just over from the UK -- on SF channel and a great deep voiced announcer tag came along and said, in 70's style "Dr. Who is brought to you by...IBM. What makes you special?". We then cut over to a pretty good abstract commercial centered around a water cooler in the desert. The quote "Lets tap into a million ......
  89. 05/11/2006Great pictures of my 12 year old kicking butt on the soccer field this weekendFor those who don't already know, my 12 year old daughter Ari has transformed herself over the last year from your basic pre-teen couch potato into a fairly serious athlete. She did this on her own. I never asked her take on more than a general two or three day a week active sport in a noncompetitive way. She opted for soccer and was asked last fall to join our town's "Travel" team. That was more competitive than she'd ever played before in the AYSO or "Rec league" games and it took real effort (and no ......
  90. 05/08/2006Busy, busy busy. Resolution to my earlier field size issue, fire calls, press release work, and half a dozen computer languages over the course of the last four days.Sorry I've been slow to post. Today's debacle was resolved when I stopped using a Lotus Notes text list field to hold a bunch of data and instead write it to a Rich Text field. To do that, I took the array and used "Join()" on it to turn it into one long string of comma delimited entries (there are no commas in the data of this so I was ok). I save the big string to that rich text field which is hidden. When the Java agent runs, it gets the string as one long value and parses it with a String.split() call ......
  91. 05/08/2006Ugly regression bug in Lotusscript - updated** UPDATE -- Thanks to Daniel Nashed... Looks like the regression bug is preventing code from running which may not have run properly before. I'm not sure that's really what happened, as it did seem to run properly before, but thank you Daniel. Meantime, I have updated the product that this "bug" crashed and am using a rich text field and saving the data out then re-importing it later. Ugly, but quick enough. I did some checks. For text items the limit is 64K from API point of view. If you read or write a ......
  92. 05/06/2006Stunningly perfect weather today in Cumberland, MaineToday was one of those days Mainers wait for all through February and March - often standing by the door of their trailers holding lawn chairs and staring out at the snow in anticipation. About 70 degrees, partly cloudy, low humidity and a nice breeze made for a perfect day to work on the yard and get ready for summer. I finished Barb's raised garden and brought in a cubic yard of compost to fill it. Of course, since I can't back the trailer (of course I have a trailer, I live in Maine) back there where ......
  93. 05/03/2006Oh joy, we've got a new I.T. crises to worry about. Lets just go ahead and call this one "BirdFlu2k", as that's how its evolving. The idea is that there's this looming deadline (sound familiar?) only this time its even better because we don't know when it actually is. Its probably at least a year or two away but nobody can be sure. When this deadline hits, it will hit suddenly, and we're all going to have to be prepared to work from home -- possibly without food or power. Yes, its up to our I.T. departments to get their plans in place now and roll out those ......
  94. 05/01/2006A lot of thought and planning, then 9 months waitingA lot of thought and planning, then 9 months waiting and finally I can show you these pictures!           Our oldest is already 22 years old. Its taken years to decide, and months waiting for it to get this far along. Delivery should be within 45 days, but I suspect it will go a bit ......
  95. 05/01/2006Its May Day! A day celebrated by state control freaks and by anachists alike -- who knows why?It is time for all the dyslexic workers of the world to untie, the misspellers of the word brake the bounds of oppression, and for the masses to seize control of industry in the name of mediocrity for all! That's right people, from those who can to those who need. As to the anarchists -- I have no idea at all why they would pick May Day as a day to celebrate. I find it incredibly funny that there is a "They" to even talk about with anarchists. How, exactly, can true anarchists organize? How did they end up ......
  96. 04/28/2006Cumberland Fire Department member Kevin Foster wins WCSH "Teens Who Care" award and scholarship!Take a minute to view this video. Most people will go their entire lives without learning how to be half as good a man as Kevin. I've known him for four or five years now and he just never ceases to amaze me. His work for the community is so tireless that this minutes long TV profile can't begin to cover more than just a few of the things he does. I've never met anyone who has raised more money for more projects, done more physical work on those projects, and been more ready to respond to absolutely any ......
  97. 04/26/2006Release name candidates for the product codenamed Windows VistaI saw this today on SlashDot, it was posted anonymously so the best I can do for attribution is a link. I like your comment on Vista becoming "XP warmed over". But there is a problem. "Vista" is non-compliant with traditional Microsoft OS names. Here are my suggested product names based on compatibility with MS standard naming convention: Windows 2007 Dull but it worked in 1995, 1998, 2000, and 2003Windows XP 2007 XP, new and improved for 2007Windows X[Q...Z] If XP is "extra pain", then XQ is ... Windows ......
  98. 04/25/2006Scott McNealy steps down from Sun Microsystems.Well, Scott McNealy has stepped down as CEO of Sun Microsystems. That's big news. I don't know much about his replacement yet, though I hear he's very P.R. focused and likes to troll the Linux world for attention. The more things change, the more they stay the same I guess. Jonathan Schwartzis the new President and Chief Executive Officer at Sun. Its no secret that I'm not a big fan of what Scott McNealy has done with Sun in the past 10 years. I hope Jonathan Schwartz has an agenda that makes more sense ......
  99. 04/24/2006In other stunning news, the Vatican may soon relax its rules about the use of condoms. According to BBC News, the Vatican is about to announce something as forward thinking as allowing the use of condoms by married people to prevent the spread of disease in cases where one has a terrible disease like AIDS. In this stunning step forward, it seems there may for the first time be recognition that sex may be considered for purposes other than procreation. Massive amounts of thought and prayer -- though of course no practical research -- must have gone into this decision. Overall, this is great ......
  100. 04/23/2006One last warm, dry day to build a new garden -- and now finally some rain to put an end to these woods fires.Yesterday was the last of a long series of warm, dry, early spring days here in Maine. Yes, I realize that you southern types are well on toward summer. Here in Maine we're still waiting for the trees and shrubs to come out of hibernation. I took advantage of the nice weather and finally got around to building Barb that new raised garden bed I'd promised last fall. The hard part is digging out the base and laying in the first layer of 4" by 6" pressure treated lumber so that it is square and level. Once in ......
  101. 04/20/2006Details about yesterdays big woods fires - it was a nice day for a walk in the woodsNearly every fire crew in the state was busy yesterday and today looks to be the same. With the onset of spring we've got warm, dry weather and brisk winds but the ground cover hasn't yet gone through the "green up" process so things are tinder box dry. At 16:45 yesterday I heard the call go out on the radio for two nearly simultaneous fires. One of our crews was requested to help Portland and Falmouth deal with a brush fire off the "Falmouth Spur" of the Maine Turnpike that sounded like quite an event, ......
  102. 04/19/200630 mile an hour winds and very dry conditions made for some good sized brush and woods fires today. I'm too tired to talk much about it tonight, suffice it to say when towns from as far as 15 and 20 miles away are all sending trucks, its a big woods fire. I ended up in charge of what started as a small group of four firefighters sent in around the back ......
  103. 04/15/2006Old stars gone, but new stars emerge - I'm impressed with what I'm seeing from IBM-LotusTalk about full cycle! In Kevin Cavinaugh's keynote he mentioned that the Notes Client is so strong in the combined Workplace Rich Client/Lotus Notes product that makes up Hannover that there is some serious discussion about not even using the "Workplace" ......
  104. 04/14/2006Back in Maine -- its good to be home.To misquote some really great music...-- you know the tune, sing along.... "I flew in from (Las Vegas) via (Southwest Air), didn't get to bed last night. All the way the paper bag was on my knee. Man, I had a dreadful flight....." Well, its only partly ......
  105. 04/14/2006My new favorite Linux Distribution -- yes, Domino runs well on it.Last week I came across CENTOS, which is a Linux distribution extremely similar to Red Hat Enterprise Linux in all respects other than a subscription cost. CENTOS is supported entirely by its community. It took me about 1/2 hour to download the DVD via ......
  106. 04/14/2006Notes on VMWARE Server (free) Beta - It ROCKS. You need this. -- and a free performance tip for the betaTIP: During the beta, turn off the debugging which slows things down by using debug = ......
  107. 04/09/2006Las Vegas - Perfect weather, a good flight, a car "upgrade".Yesterday I got up at 3am and drove to Portsmouth, New Hampshire for my 5 1/2 hour flight to Las Vegas on Southwest Airlines. I like southwest for short flights, but longer flights I really prefer the traditional carriers. Unfortunately, I don't prefer ......
  108. 04/07/2006Well friends, I'm leaving at 3am to make a flight to Vegas. If you're also going to the conference and end up being tricked into attending one of my sessions, please introduce ......
  109. 04/06/2006Serverbeach promotional event has a great deal on dedicated servers starting next week.As many of you know, I've moved from having my own datacenter to having my customer facing servers at ServerBeach. I've been generally very impressed, though the machine I'm using right now is not quite good enough for what I need to be doing. As part of ......
  110. 04/04/2006New architectures sometimes mean old planning toolsSince I've decided that the right way to build the new production website for SecondSignal is "SOA" (Service Oriented Architecture) which is the web equivalent of object oriented programming, I've been thinking about the best way to do the underlying ......
  111. 04/04/2006Its time for a party!From a reader: On Wednesday of this week, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06 At least here in the U.S. which uses Month/Day/Year formatting. That won't happen again in your lifetime. You ......
  112. 04/02/2006Iraq issues spring directly out of our Iran & Korea policies -- We made this problem.Why is Iran so bent on having the ability to delivery fission weapons? Easy. They just look around and ask one question: "What is the difference between Iraq and North Korea?" The answer to that question is very simple. North Korea, despite not having the ......
  113. 04/01/2006Looking forward to Advisor in Las Vegas -- Just a week awayI plan to have a great, relaxing time out there. For me, its great that Advisors uses the Marriot way out on the edge of town away from the strip. Just regular stores, restaurants, and hotel rooms. The place is comfortable, quiet, and has a great pool. ......
  114. 04/01/2006Big news for meYou'll be finding the details out soon enough, but it may come as a bit of a surprise to you that I'll be doing a press release with Microsoft related to SecondSignal. I'm working with the same people who are behind the just finishing "Your Potential, Our ......
  115. 03/30/2006Safety recall on Nite-Lite products -- Please read this one.An electrical short circuit in the nite lite can cause it to overheat and smolder or melt which can burn consumers or result in a fire. U.S. Consumer Product Safety ......
  116. 03/30/2006About to get some really good press for my public safety notification tool -- need help now picking a namePretty much all of you know that I've been working toward commercializing the paging/phone system. Now that all the technical hurdles are met, its just a question of fine tuning and finish carpentry. Part of that though, is picking a name. You'd be amazed ......
  117. 03/29/2006What buttons does your phone need, but not have?I mentioned a minute ago that my Mute button didn't do what I want. I want to have one that mutes THE OTHER PERSON in the conference. I'd also like an "Assassinate" button. It would need to be specific to a single person on a conference call. What other ......
  118. 03/29/2006The mute button on my phone seems to be broken.I'm in a conference call and I keep pressing my mute button, but it isn't working. this idiot just keeps talking and talking. I need an assassinate ......
  119. 03/28/2006The first signs of spring are here in Maine...The first signs of spring have reached us here at TheNorth.... The dry, dead grass without rain had lead to a number of small brush fires, and tonight I've taken the snow tires and cheapo wheels off Barb's minivan and put the shiney alloy rims on along ......
  120. 03/27/2006Fire Department 2005 Year in Review - Town Council Meeting presentationFor anyone interested, this 15 minute video -- about 9 megs to download -- starts off with Chief Small commenting on the awards given out a week or so ago (of which mine is included) then goes into a short slideshow of pictures from training and incidents ......
  121. 03/27/2006Pork. The other white FISH.Speaking of transgenic food, some scientists are playing at intelligent design. They've spliced a gene for making oils of the kind fish make -- so called "Omega 3 fatty acids" -- into pigs. Two of the three pigs in the picture below have it. That could be ......
  122. 03/26/2006Microsoft employees at the front line are mad as hell about Vista, Ballmer, and MS quality control.If you have time, take a look at the rant going on by way of this anonymous Microsoft employee's blog. With comments like "Client appcompat % hovering at Fewer testers, less experienced, with little training, a much (ahem) 'slower' approach to testing. ......
  123. 03/24/2006A very revealing internal memo from Microsoft enumerates the changes in the division responsible for the Windows Platform.The memo from Kevin Johnson (presumably not the one who used to play for the Phoenix Suns) contains the list of new position holders along with this kind of standard issus execuspeak: "I know change is never easy but I truly appreciate the focus that ......
  124. 03/24/2006Do you now routinely ignore the top few search results?Search Engine farmers is a name I've decided to give these sociopaths who create automated tools that suck in content from as many places as they can, generate link farms, and work every other trick possible so as to be the top pick in as many searches on ......
  125. 03/24/2006Large Area Search training last night - details and picturesLast night we had a really great training event put on by some of the guys from nearby Portland, on a new technique for searching large open areas. Now you would not use this at a time when there's a rocking fire going on -- this would be used in the case ......
  126. 03/22/2006Its great when you can be reminded why you like Domino and Notes so muchHello everybody. I'm a bit south of my usual haunts. I'm doing a two day client visit as a subject matter expert on a site review project. I'm finding myself at what by all observations looks like a really successful classic Lotus Notes environment. More ......
  127. 03/19/2006The new Dr. Who on SciFi completely rocks.Watched the new Dr. Who on Sci Fi -- just now available here in the U.S. All I can say is "perfect!" -- its just captured the spirit of the old series in its essentials, added some special effects without making them so good as to lose the low-budget ......
  128. 03/19/2006An award, and some new uniform bling!You know something about all the work I've been doing on an emergency services paging & communication system,right? Tonight was Cumberland's annual banquet. Its one night a year when - out of uniform - we rent a local meeting place, put on nice clothes ......
  129. 03/15/2006I want my six hours back!I wasted about six hours today trying to figure out why despite everything appearing to work correctly, I could not make my phone client software make any noise. It would call out to the pbx, the pbx would play the congratulations demo messages, but no ......
  130. 03/14/2006Marshaling data in and out of managed vs.net code -- may have some value for Domino API work as wellPart of the work I've been doing requires that I make use of an external library in the form of a DLL. This article describes about 2/3 of the techniques needed for the process. If you like it, I'll write another one that deals with the other side of the ......
  131. 03/14/2006Got shell scripts? Get this book.Its not often I really endorse a computer technology book. In the past I can think of only two textbooks I've ever really felt were so good they exceeded my expectations. This one, "Linux Shell Scripting with Bash" by Ken O. Burtch is the third. Like ......
  132. 03/07/2006Amazing - a live capture of what was previously thought to be only a myth. I've been able to acquire a picture.A species of collateral knows as "Dominus Marketus Directum" has been captured live in the hands of a real world business decision maker. Its difficult to imagine, but true. While I waited in the safety of the Jeep, my assistant was able to capture this ......
  133. 03/02/2006Go the next step with VoIP - don't miss out. My S&TT Post for this weekForget Skype and Vonage for a minute. You may be just touching the surface if you’re using Vonage or one of its competitors, Skype, or any of a myriad other VoIP tools. There is so much more out there. My contribution to SNTT is to show you how to get ......
  134. 02/28/2006Proof that "Sender Pays" will not stop spam even one little bitFor those who don't know, the idea of "Sender Pays" is to make the cost of sending an email slightly higher than zero for bulk emails -- some say for everyone. Say a penny a message or less. AOL and YAHOO are talking about using this method for public ......
  135. 02/28/2006Where have I been?Well, aside from living in Linux, Asterisk, VoIP, Visual Studio.NET, Java, Eclipse, and fire trucks -- I was also on vacation in Florida with my family. ......
  136. 02/12/2006A shame President Bush doesn't get out more.Everyone gets tired sometimes, and clearly W needs a vacation. I'd like to suggest that he take some time and go bird hunting with his buddy Dick more ......
  137. 02/07/2006Domino & Notes version 7.0.1 now available -- contains what looks like a couple of REALLY key fixes...There are at least two fairly big deal updates in this release. If I read correctly, the very long standing issue some people have had where servers would seem to become unavailable unless you time-out and reconnect may have been resolved in this release. ......
  138. 02/03/2006Lotusphere 2006 Survey Results are in......Read 'em and weep, my friends! (Updated)I wasn't going to go to the trouble of adding these up from the website, but since all of you seem to being doing it on your blogs it only seemed fitting. Of course, now it's going to be hard to fit my head through the door after reading these. I don't ......
  139. 02/03/2006Creating a Rules Engine class in Lotusscript while cutting process time by more than 1000%Its time for a technical deep dive. I haven't done one of these in a long time and I know some of you couldn't care less about firefighting, shirts, or my daughter's soccer team (which is kicking butt). As anyone who reads this site regularly knows, I've ......
  140. 02/02/2006MS Tech Support?This is unconfirmed of course, but was forwaded to me and its good enough that I felt it could be passed along as ......
  141. 02/02/2006How often are you overwhelmed by things to do to the point of shutting down?Its 9am and I've been up and going in the office for more than an hour already. The list of tech and business items to address on my list is so consumingly huge that at present I'm unable to start any of them. I've learned that at this point there is no ......
  142. 01/31/2006Well, IBM really has set DB2 free. As Domino admins and developers, we are very well positioned to take advantage of this. So, how do we get started?First, I have to say that setting DB2 free was a fantastic move. PC based servers have never been the large part of the revenue stream for DB2 anyway, though it is for Microsoft's MSSQL. DB2 is very well regarded in the I.T. industry and compares very ......
  143. 01/26/2006Lotusphere 2006 Goes out on a high noteLotusphere 2006 came to a close with a flawless performance by Surjit Chana, IBM VP of Marketing and Partners. His fun, unscripted, and very energetic approach went over quite well. I’d heard from others they’d enjoyed his talk on Sunday. Core Lotus ......
  144. 01/25/2006C.U.L.T. 2006 Prize Awarded!Congratulations to C.U.L.T. member Christine Broome who was selected as the winner of this years prize. Christine, shown in pictures below along with our secret spotter Amy Blumenfield -- yes, we're sneaky enough to use our friend from Microsoft as the ......
  145. 01/24/2006More info on Craig Hayman -- he has quite a loyal fan baseI'm just back from the "Meet the Geeks" party (formerly known as the Iris Party) at that Atlantic, and what an earful of great news came from that! I'll sum up without breaking confidentiality by saying a few things in a general sense. Craig Hayman -- ......
  146. 01/24/2006A correction from yesterday's rant ---I should point out -- yesterday I said "almost no mention of Lotus Notes for 2 hours" -- in fact, it was mentioned right at the beginning, and there was talk about the present state of the product. I believe it was so poorly presented that it didn't have ......
  147. 01/23/2006Lotusphere 2006 Opening Session -- The Substance that Style KilledThere were good things in the opening general session at Lotusphere 2006 this year. The Sametime 7.5 announcement and features for example were well handled and well demonstrated. Jason Alexander, the guest speaker, was excellent as you would expect, and ......
  148. 01/21/2006Greetings from Lotusphere 2006! The shirts are here. I am here. Where are you? Here's more SHIRT info, including the Theme and Prize!Hi all --I've been really busy so haven't written much. On Thursday I drove two hours to the airport, waited two hours for the flight, then flew three hours to Orlando. That was the easy part. Once I got my baggage, I took a cab a few miles to the heavy ......
  149. 01/14/2006I LOVE this response on SlashDot to news of Sun and Oracle getting together for yet another potshot at MicrosoftFirst, here's the quote from "bcrowell" on /. "Y'know, I was just saying to myself, "Self," I said to myself, "you really need an enterprise datacenter architecture that leverages middleware based on robust frameworks." Wow, they must have been reading my ......
  150. 01/12/2006Only PARTIALLY hydrogenated. Damn. These people never do something all the way, do they?The image below is what happens if you leave a Cheese Puff on a piece of notebook paper overnight. This is because the cheap bastards are only PARTIALLY hydrogenating their vegetable oil. For those who never bothered to look this up, the big chemical ......
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