I don't usually post personal content on here and my daughter usually doesn't read my blog.
But 22 years ago today - my whole world changed when a wriggling, crying, wrinkly bundle of joy came into my life.
Over the years I've watched her grow and blossom, make mistakes, throw fits, torture her brother, make friends, lose friends and develop and grow in her relationship with God. I've been able to experience all the stages from toddler, to big sister, to student, to girl scout, to teenager, to band geek, to college student, to adult.
Over the next month and a half she'll go through even more transformations as she graduates from college, gets married to Andrew and begins her first real full time job. She's ready for all these new challenges and I can't wait to see what's in store for her in the future.
You're a wonderful young lady Megan. You've made your mother and I proud. I wish we could take all the credit for how you've turned out but I know there have been many other grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, teachers, mentors, pastors and professors who have helped and that in truth you are the wonderful person God made you to be and you're following the path He wants you to follow. Have a very very very Happy Birthday.
- Love Dad
Friday, April 25, 2008
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
How I started with Lotus Notes
Well, looks like everyone is posting about how they got started with Notes. I already posted most of the details weeks ago... but what the heck.
When I came to the gas company in 1993 PC's were rare, networks almost non-existant and the mainframe was king. I worked as the IS liason to the engineering department on a GIS project - boy they loved me, they didn't trust IS to do anyting, were running their own thin net Netware 2 LAN and a proprietary thick-net LAN for GIS workstations. The only other networks in the building were a hand full of IS systems running OS/2 on token ring and a 3 user Netware 3 network for HR.
A couple of years later the decision was made to move the accounting system off of the mainframe. We bought three little IBM RS/6000 C10 servers - one to run Lawson, one to handle NFS file systems and one to act as print server and handle other administrative issues. This led to the creation of a corporate wide network .... though it actually took several years to peal the Engineers off their own network.
With the new network in place my boss brought up the subject of email. We discussed a POP/SMTP set up, and cc:Mail and other options but I had read about Lotus Notes
and mentioned it as an option. Our first server was on an OS/2 workstation and most clients were on Windows 3.11. Within a few months we had our mail server running on one of the C10s with the OS/2 server relegated to other Notes databases. We wrote tons of small applications for IS department use one of my favorites - because I designed it and also because of it's name was the UFO's database.... this due to my boss's sick sense of humor.... we had a standard IS department form for Unplanned Failures in Operation.... so my first major notes development experience was the program bugs database.... we used it to track any user issues - that program stayed in operation through 2000.
The RAD capabilities of Notes were GREAT! In our place there were the mainframe programmers and us strange network / PC people but all of a sudden we could quickly write quick little databases to fix user problems.
Looking back now the hardest thing to believe is that from late 1995 through late 1999 we ran our mail server on a box with less than 4GB of disk space... I've got a couple of users who would fill that by themselves now.
When I came to the gas company in 1993 PC's were rare, networks almost non-existant and the mainframe was king. I worked as the IS liason to the engineering department on a GIS project - boy they loved me, they didn't trust IS to do anyting, were running their own thin net Netware 2 LAN and a proprietary thick-net LAN for GIS workstations. The only other networks in the building were a hand full of IS systems running OS/2 on token ring and a 3 user Netware 3 network for HR.
A couple of years later the decision was made to move the accounting system off of the mainframe. We bought three little IBM RS/6000 C10 servers - one to run Lawson, one to handle NFS file systems and one to act as print server and handle other administrative issues. This led to the creation of a corporate wide network .... though it actually took several years to peal the Engineers off their own network.
With the new network in place my boss brought up the subject of email. We discussed a POP/SMTP set up, and cc:Mail and other options but I had read about Lotus Notes
and mentioned it as an option. Our first server was on an OS/2 workstation and most clients were on Windows 3.11. Within a few months we had our mail server running on one of the C10s with the OS/2 server relegated to other Notes databases. We wrote tons of small applications for IS department use one of my favorites - because I designed it and also because of it's name was the UFO's database.... this due to my boss's sick sense of humor.... we had a standard IS department form for Unplanned Failures in Operation.... so my first major notes development experience was the program bugs database.... we used it to track any user issues - that program stayed in operation through 2000.
The RAD capabilities of Notes were GREAT! In our place there were the mainframe programmers and us strange network / PC people but all of a sudden we could quickly write quick little databases to fix user problems.
Looking back now the hardest thing to believe is that from late 1995 through late 1999 we ran our mail server on a box with less than 4GB of disk space... I've got a couple of users who would fill that by themselves now.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Early Adoption Pains
I'm paying for the fact that I decided to jump the gun and update my email template to 8.0.
I'm now starting my second week without email on my Blackberry. Our BES server version is below the level required to support the 8.0 mail template. Funny thing is everything ran okay for about a month.
We had to come in a week ago Saturday to shut down all the computer equipment for the cut over to a new UPS. After the BES server came back up it started periodically crashing with a the following error showing up in the server logs.
Process C:\Lotus\Domino\nBES.EXE (3912/0xF48) has terminated abnormally
After a quick Google search I wound up with this post from Chris Miller's blog. Popped open Blackberry Manager and deleted myself from the user list, restarted everything and voila.
Unfortunately with all the problems still popping up from the SAP upgrade it may be a few weeks until we can upgrade the BES version to something that works.
Until then I guess if anybody needs me they'll have to call me.
I'm now starting my second week without email on my Blackberry. Our BES server version is below the level required to support the 8.0 mail template. Funny thing is everything ran okay for about a month.
We had to come in a week ago Saturday to shut down all the computer equipment for the cut over to a new UPS. After the BES server came back up it started periodically crashing with a the following error showing up in the server logs.
Process C:\Lotus\Domino\nBES.EXE (3912/0xF48) has terminated abnormally
After a quick Google search I wound up with this post from Chris Miller's blog. Popped open Blackberry Manager and deleted myself from the user list, restarted everything and voila.
Unfortunately with all the problems still popping up from the SAP upgrade it may be a few weeks until we can upgrade the BES version to something that works.
Until then I guess if anybody needs me they'll have to call me.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Sapped!
Definitions courtesy of Dictionary.com.
SAP
noun
1. The watery fluid that cirulates through a plant, carrying food and other substances to various tissues.
2. An essential bodily fluid.
3. Slang. a fool; dupe.
4. A leather-covered hand weapon; a blackjack.
verb
5. To undermine; weaken or destroy insidiously.
6. To hit or knock out with a sap.
7. To undermine the foundations of (a fortification).
8. To deplete or weaken gradually.
The move has been made. Tomorrow (if all goes well) we will close the books on our first month on SAP and I'm finally sticking my head up out of my bunker to say we survived.
It hasn't been all bad. Our old system had plenty of flaws and our people have been surprisingly accepting of the new system and resilient in the face of the first troublesome weeks on a new system. The process itself forces you to examine and rexamine your business processes - since you want to avoid doing anything in a way different to the "SAP way" if at all possible. This means that you've really, really, really got to justify everything that's outside of the norm. The implementation process with it's onslaught of consultants from around the country has exposed our quiet little local group to people from other backgrounds and lifestyles. The process has also helped break down some of the internal company silos as cross department teams have struggled together over the past eighteen months toward a common goal.
We in IT still feel a bit like we're tight rope walking over the lava pits while juggling chain saws, blindfolded... but we'll make it.I hope.
SAP
noun
1. The watery fluid that cirulates through a plant, carrying food and other substances to various tissues.
2. An essential bodily fluid.
3. Slang. a fool; dupe.
4. A leather-covered hand weapon; a blackjack.
verb
5. To undermine; weaken or destroy insidiously.
6. To hit or knock out with a sap.
7. To undermine the foundations of (a fortification).
8. To deplete or weaken gradually.
The move has been made. Tomorrow (if all goes well) we will close the books on our first month on SAP and I'm finally sticking my head up out of my bunker to say we survived.
It hasn't been all bad. Our old system had plenty of flaws and our people have been surprisingly accepting of the new system and resilient in the face of the first troublesome weeks on a new system. The process itself forces you to examine and rexamine your business processes - since you want to avoid doing anything in a way different to the "SAP way" if at all possible. This means that you've really, really, really got to justify everything that's outside of the norm. The implementation process with it's onslaught of consultants from around the country has exposed our quiet little local group to people from other backgrounds and lifestyles. The process has also helped break down some of the internal company silos as cross department teams have struggled together over the past eighteen months toward a common goal.
We in IT still feel a bit like we're tight rope walking over the lava pits while juggling chain saws, blindfolded... but we'll make it.I hope.
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