Geek's Journey - Still 8 Bits per Byte

New Tech for Father's Day

2011-06-21T20:43:00.000-04:00

For Father's day last Sunday, my family got me a Motorola Xoom tablet. I have be lusting after them for a while. It was a complete surprise. In my opinion it is better than I had heard. It is a great media "consumption" device. Books, music, and video all perform well on this device.

On the bad side, my son's head pain came back 3 months ago. We got him to the doctor that helped before but the treatment didn't work. He is having a terrible summer as are his mother and I. The doctor is still looking at what options we have. Need to get something done before collage in August.

This was also the first Father's Day since my dad passed away. It was harder on me than I expected. I missed calling him and listen to his complaining. I am glad we had gotten closer those last few years.

Still looking for another job. The one I wrote about a few months ago just didn't work out. I was picked for the position but the benefit package just was not nearly good enough. I will keep looking and hopefully something will open up. I am luckier than some; I have a good paying job with stability.

Possible New Job

2011-03-03T13:46:00.001-05:00

I have been looking for a change for a few weeks now. My current long commute is getting tiresome and with the good chance of much higher gas prices, I felt the time was right. I used one of the large online job sites and now have had a phone screening and am scheduled for a face to face interview. The job is very close and looks to be just what I am looking for. If it works out I will miss the people I work with but I have to move on.

Christmas 2010

2010-12-27T21:45:00.000-05:00

Another Christmas has come and gone. It was good to spend time with family. But the loss of my wife's and my father this year has had an impact. Neither of us was very close to our fathers but their loss was felt during the holiday season.

With the health issues that other members of the family have, I think we will be loosing more before next Christmas.

New Router

2010-10-24T19:46:00.000-04:00

After a power surge bricked my router, I went out a purchased a Linksys E1000. I did have problems getting it set up, which is not what I had experienced from Linksys products before. After trying different approaches, I started an online chat with Cisco tech support. In less than 20 min the issue was identified and new install software downloaded. Following the instructions provided, I got the router set up in 15 minutes. Took about an hour to get all my network rebuilt, but everything is working.

This week is the last week of testing for the phase II of my major .Net application. I hope that the testers do what they are supposed to do. This project has high visibility and I want a clean go live.

Son's First Visit Home

2010-09-05T22:31:00.001-04:00

My son who left for his freshman year in college in August came home for the holiday weekend. It was a great visit; I think he is adjusting well. We will all miss him but he will be home again in a month or so.

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Son off to College

2010-08-24T20:44:00.001-04:00

Today took my son to start his freshman year at college. It will be strange not seeing him everyday. I hope he has a great four years.

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Son is Off to College

2010-08-23T12:05:00.001-04:00

Tomorrow my second oldest son leaves for his freshman year at college. While I know this will be a wonderful experience for him, I will worry about him. With all the medical issues he had, I hope that he thrives at school. O am sure we will keep in touch. It will seem very strange no seeing him every day.

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Buried My Father

2010-08-18T21:50:00.001-04:00

Today I buried my father. It seems strange that I will never see or talk with him again.

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My Father Passes

2010-08-13T23:01:00.000-04:00

24 hours ago at 10:55 pm on August 12, 2010 my father P. Richard Henry passed away. Today was busy collecting his personal papers and making the final arraignments for him. He and I were not really close but we got along fine and spent some time together. Despite all our faults (his and mine) we were father and son. I will miss him.

Work Week Winding Down

2010-07-30T14:19:00.001-04:00

Another fun work week is coming to a close. I got quite a lot done this week even though we are short handed. One major web project went live early and I got two major requirements done for another. I was to have a budget application go live today but testing started late and the manager of the application is not around to sign off.

The freelance project just keeps going and going. I released it two weeks ago and now the client wants the site layout changed. We will meet next week to discuss.

Hopefully this weekend I can get a serious start on some Silverlight development.

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First Droid Post

2010-07-29T21:02:00.001-04:00

I am seeing how posting from my droid works. Maybe I will be a more regular poster.

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New Mobile.... Finally!

2010-05-16T00:19:00.000-04:00

After waiting two years, I have finally gotten a smart phone. Boy, did I go to the top of the currently available phones. On Friday, 05.14.2010 I bought a HTC Droid Incredible. I cannot believe how great this piece of tech is. I have been playing with it for two days and can't believe what this phone and the applications that have been written can do. For me, this phone has performed beyond my expectations in ever way. I am still getting used to the touch screen keyboard but my slowness is an issue with me and not the phone. As I get more usage out of it I will let everybody know the pros and cons as I see them.

I am just about done with the freelance job that I have been working on. I have all the photos and text that I will need. I will be glad to get the site out to the customer so she can start using it. It's taken longer then I expected but some things were out of my control.

Major Microsoft Upgrade

2010-05-04T19:43:00.000-04:00

Two weekends ago, I finally did a major upgrade of my main workstation. I had been a bit worried about Windows 7; I had installed it for one of my children and was having issues (I thought) getting my wireless printer hooked up. The manufacturer's site said I had to cable the printer to the PC. Since it's on the other side of the room that was going to be a pain. I figured I would give Windows a chance to find it and install it. Worked fine.

I then went ahead and installed Windows 7, Visual Studio 2010, and Office 2010. After two weeks.... Nice job Microsoft. I am no Microsoft Fan-boy, but they did a great job here. I am looking forward using these apps.

Web Application Go Live

2010-03-18T20:55:00.000-04:00

Monday, the big project that I have been that I have been working on the last few months web live. Everything went smoother that I expected. There were a few very minor issues; mostly user questions. This is just Phase I of the application; we already have our list of enhancements for Phase II. The plan is to release this application throughout the organization once Phase II is complete. If that happens, my team and I will get some very high visibility.

I the mean time I have been tasked with doing a major rewrite of another web application. It needs so work to polish it up. Most of the code (which I didn't write) is pretty solid. It also has hight visibility so I want to make sure all the client issues are addressed.

Web Developer Web Site

2010-02-25T20:05:00.000-05:00

I ran across a very useful web site on Slashdot the other day. The site is called Smashing Magazine and it's filled with well written articles on all phases of web design. The original Slashdot article was talking about the book that the site has just put out but for now I am more interested in the site itself. In addition to the articles the site contains many useful downloads. I highly recommend checking the site out.

On a related note, once my freelance project is completed (next week I hope), I am going to finally do a total overhaul of my personal site. Curently the whole site is password protected and has not been redone since 2007. I am going to see if I can include some Silverlight based controls.

Father-in-Law Passes

2010-02-13T23:23:00.000-05:00

This afternoon at about 4:00 p.m. my wife's father passed away. Even though they were not very close, his death has had an impact on her. She was with him at the end which makes it even harder on my wife. He was heavily medicated at the end so the end was painless as possible.

Requiescat in Pace

Getting Slammed with Snow

2010-02-10T13:52:00.005-05:00

No work today. I live in the northeast and am really getting slammed by the snow storm. I had a terrible time getting home last night but I made it with no damage to the car. Today there was no way I was going to be able to get in. I'll bet that I will be not going anywhere tomorrow.

I stepped out and took a few photos from my garage. If you are living in warm climates this is what you are missing...Not.

I did bring some work home so I can get payed for at least part of the day. I am just finishing up a major project for the client. So far everyone is very happy with it. If successful it's going to be a big accomplishment and become very well know in certain circle.

Here are some more snow pictures. THINK SPRING!!

Blogs and Other Social Media

2010-01-22T21:55:00.003-05:00

Despite my extensive use of the web, until recently I never was into the social media aspect of the internet. Now that I have started a new job and am separated from people that I have known for years, I find that I am able to stay in touch with them. In addition, I have started to get back in touch with my classmates from collage via Facebook. I am not to the point that I think I'll start using Twitter; I can't seem to keep this blog updated very often.

New Decade

2009-12-31T22:31:00.003-05:00

The first decade of the 21st century will soon draw to a close. For my family and I, it's been filled with lots a bad luck. But we have each other and that's what is most important. It will be interesting to see what the next 10 years brings.

The new job is going very well. I have been there just over three months and still feel that it was the right move to make.

An Ending - 01.21.1981 - 09.11.2009

2009-09-11T22:39:00.003-04:00

It's been over two years since I have posted here. It seems only fitting that I post tonight. After 28 years with the same firm, I resigned today and have taken a new job. One door closes and another opens. I wonder what the future holds; I hope it's everything I have hoped for.

Life Goes On

2007-07-23T21:40:00.000-04:00

It's been quite awhile since I last posted. Everything has pretty much gone the way I had hoped. It was decided that I did not need to have more surgery; the mesh stopped rejecting. In early July, my surgeon released me from her care. Other than having a nice scar and two navels; I am almost back to normal.

Work is picking up with one of our major clients wanting a demo of our product on short notice. In fact right now we are working out the bugs before the demo. Multi-tasking is such fun.

To Slice or not to Slice... That is the Question

2007-06-06T23:01:00.000-04:00

Over the last few weeks my surgeon has been monitoring my opening that I talked about in my last post (has it been over a month??). She is concerned that the mesh that she put in during my last surgery was being rejected by my body and needed to come out. I have outpatient surgery scheduled for June 22nd to do this.

However, over the last few weeks, I seem to be healing up quite well on my own. I am feeling much better and everything seems to be getting smaller. I see my surgeon on Monday to get the final decision. I am hoping that I don't have to go under the knife again.

Work is going ok, seems my days are filled with meetings and it's tough to get everything I need to done. Even though I am feeling much better, my stamina is not what it used to be. I am sure that it will come back in time.

Going Pop!

2007-05-01T08:47:00.000-04:00

Just when everything seemed to be going well, I have had a set back in my recovery. Last Tuesday, I was going to get some lunch when a 1 cm hole opened in my wound and drained about a pint of fluid all over my kitchen floor.

As you can imagine, I was pretty scared and gave my doctor a call right away. They said that it was a good thing that all that fluid drained. I was scheduled for an appointment for Friday anyway. The doctor took a sample of the fluid to see if my wound is infected. I have not been running a fever or feeling ill but I'll find out this Thursday for sure.

The biggest issue that I was having was that the wound wanted to drain every time I stood or sat up. The doctor has me (well my wonderful wife has to) putting packing in the wound twice a day which helps a lot. On the down side, the removal and insertion of the packing into the wound just about drives me nuts. Of all that I have gone through this bothers me the most. There is just something about having this hole and "stuff" going in and out. I can't even watch. I hope this is all over soon and I can get back to total recovery.

Back to Work

2007-04-17T14:27:00.000-04:00

Things are progressing very nicely. I am now on my second day of work and am feeling pretty good. I still get a bit tired but I am sure that will improve with time. I had all the staples pulled from the incision last week and am healing up very nice. I am sure looking forward to having a fun summer this year.

It's hard to believe that this medical issue took almost a year of my life away from me. I know the alternative would have been much worse. I just hope that I can make it up to my wife and family who supported me every day of my illness.

On the technical front (for a change), I am in the middle of a total redesign of the Boy Scout Troop web site that I support. It's really needed a change for sometime and with a new Scoutmaster the time was right. I hope to have it completed by June for rollout to the Troop and parents.

Back from the Hospital

2007-04-01T21:46:00.000-04:00

I made it back. The scheduled surgery went well until the gall bladder removal. Mine had completely rotted and at first the surgeon couldn't even find it. Finally got everything out and closed and all was well.

Two days later it was discovered that I had a blocked bile duct in my liver where the gall bladder had been removed. Another surgeon was call in and I was given the following choices: Do nothing and die in a day or so or have surgery that may fix the problem. If the surgery does not go well I will not make it out of the OR. My children were brought in from school so I would have a chance to see them before surgery. I don't mind saying that I have never, never been so scared in my life.

Somebody was watching over me. I made it. The surgeon said that he was able to access the duct and make repairs with few problems. The hospital stay was relatively short (11 days) and I came home yesterday. Two weeks to rest and recover and it's back to work and life.

One Week to Go

2007-03-13T15:40:00.000-04:00

These last posts have really been focused on my personal medical issues rather than technical "geek" issues. But it's a true reflection of how my life is now. I am sure that once this situation is behind me I will be better able to focus on moving forward.

Surgery is one week away. In fact, one week from now, I should be all finished and resting in my room. I am scared, but I do have full confidence in my surgeon and the hospital staff. As I have mentioned before, I will have a week to ten days in the hospital then two week recovery at home. I sure hope I feel up to making a post during those two weeks.

I don't know if I will be making any more posts until I'm back. If not, see you soon.

Testing Done - 14 Days to Go

2007-03-06T10:39:00.000-05:00

Last week saw all my pre-operation testing completed. Most of it was pretty standard stuff except for my fistulagram which was not the most pleasant way to spend an hour. For it the radiologist had to insert flexible needles into each fistual opening and then inject die to create a "road map" of my small intestine. Not painful, but not fun.

I am now down to counting the days. I hope that everything works out, it's been a long road for everyone in my family.

Work is going pretty well. I still get a bit tired by the end of the day, but I no longer need a nap :) . I am sure that once I get closed up and rest for a bit, I will have a lot more stamina during the day. I am still getting hit with lots of meetings, some days it's hard to get any work done for the meetings. Today isn't so bad. In fact I am making this post while I take a break from some documentation updates.

It's a Go for Surgery

2007-02-18T23:29:00.000-05:00

My visit to the doctor (surgeon) when better than I had expected. She feels that I am ready to be closed up!! It's not going to be an easy operation(4+ hours), but the end result is going to be more than worth it. I am going to need some pre-operation testing that doesn't sound very nice but I'll get through it.

My surgery is schedule for the 20th of March. I will be spending a week to 10 days in the hospital and then about two week recovery at home. I think I will be in more pain than after the first operation(s). I am mentally prepared for that, and I am sure I will get medication as needed. I just hope all goes well and I can start to put this episode behind me.

Seeing the Surgeon

2007-02-14T22:11:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow I go to see the surgeon for the first time since I left the hospital. I am pretty nervous about it all; I wonder when I am going to be closed up for good. I am praying that it will be within the next two months. I don't know how well I would handle too much longer. In addition, my wife is getting pretty tired of having to change my dressing every three days or so.

Neither one of us is sleeping well and we both worry about my wound leaking all the time. On one hand I have had no physical problems since I came home from the hospital, but this has been such a trying experience, it's hard to be optimistic.

I'll know soon.

Way Too Many Meetings

2007-02-05T09:46:00.000-05:00

Last week and this week I am really seeing the downside to this new position within the project. My entire day is filled with meetings, many of which I have about 5 minutes worth of information sharing. Today for example I have meetings from 11:00 a.m. till 7:00 p.m. with only one half hour break. For me it's too many and too late. My last meeting is from 5:30 p.m. until 7:00 p.m. which is not in business hours in my opinion. I know I am going to run into conflicts with my evening activities. I will not give up everything for this project. Folks are going to have to schedule meetings during regular business hours if they want me to attend.

I have been running Windows Vista Ultimate for about a week now. Very few problems, mostly hardware related. My scanner (HP) still does not have Vista drivers for it but they are to be released in about a month. I don't understand how a company the size of HP could miss the Vista launch date for their drivers. The more troubling issues is my video capture device from Plextor. According to their technical support, they do not intend to release Vista drivers for this product. Since it's only a few years old, I find this pretty anti-customer. I don't think I will be buying anything from Plextor in the near future.

I have started a total re-write of the scout troop web site that I support. It's been over a year since the look and feel has been changed so it's time. I also intend to move it from VB.NET to C#. I figure that I will have it done in a month or so. I'll post the URL when it's done.

Running Vista

2007-01-29T10:32:00.000-05:00

After sitting around for 3 weeks, I finally got my new workstation up and running Windows Vista Ultimate. All in all it was a smooth transition; I have to admit I am quite pleased. The only piece of hardware that I can't get to install is my ConvertX - PX-AV100U video capture device. I have written Plextor to see if they are going to have new drivers out soon.

I had heard how different the Vista interface was from XP. Sure, some things are in different places but I have not run into too many issues. Now Office 2007 is a different story. The UI is very different from what the previous versions had. I sure that it's going to take a bit to get used to it. When this rolls out into the business world, there is going to be a pretty steep learning curve for some folks.

On the work front, I have been asked to take a major role in the product that I support. I am happy that the powers in charge think that I am able to take on these duties. It's going to keep my busy but I am really looking forward to the challenge.

End of Year 2006

2006-12-31T23:13:00.000-05:00

In about 45 minutes 2006 will enter the history books. It hasn't been a good year for me or my family. I am grateful that I am living to see 2007 and surely hope that the new year brings an end to my medical issues. I hope that next year at this time I can look back on this post and be able to say how much things have gotten better for my family and I.

The entire family is having a good holiday season, and I am truly grateful that I am there to see it. 2007 has to be better for all of us, I just hope that I can make everything up to my family; my wife most of all. Everyone has be so supportive and helpful over that last 6 months; I just hope that I am worthy of all that has been given to me.

First Week Done

2006-12-03T22:53:00.000-05:00

My first full week back to work went pretty good. I can't sit straight for more than about an hour after which I have to lay down for 20 minutes or so. I am really glad to be back and being productive (somewhat) instead of laying around and watching TV. I am sure that I will continue to build up endurance as the days and weeks go on.

I have converted this blog to the new format. I am still adjusting and adding items as time permits.

Back to Work

2006-11-27T23:39:00.000-05:00

Today was my first day back at work since June. It was good to feel productive again and start catching up on what's been going on with the project. I am just so lucky that this project still has room for me; one less thing to worry about right now.

I spent most of the day catching up on some of the corporate courses that I missed during my absence. In addition, I have been reading the system documentation. This is going to be a great project; interesting work and a great team of people.

The only low point is that after a few hours of sitting my abdominal area gets pretty sore and I have to lay down for a few minutes. I hope I continue to build up stamina as the days and weeks go on.

Back from the Dead

2006-11-02T10:11:00.000-05:00

It's been a long road since my last post. In early June I developed a hole in my small intestine that required major surgery. All in all I came closer to death that I every thought possible. I spent a total of 13+ weeks in the hospital - my whole summer was spent there! I am at home now still recovering. I am getting better but it's still quite a way to go. I will not get my final surgery to close my gut until next year.

Spending all that time in the hospital sure has changed my perspective on life. I have come to realize what is really important; family, friends, and faith. If I bring anything out of this experience, I hope to have a better perspective on how I plan to live the rest of my life.

It's good to be back.

On New Assignment

2006-05-30T11:52:00.000-04:00

As I had mentioned previously, my current work assignment is ending in a few weeks. I was a bit worried, I really didn't want to be "on the bench" for any length of time. Last week I got notified that I have been given a new assignment. If that's not enough good news, I will be working with the technical team from my last assignment. This is one great bunch of folks to work with.

The last few weeks have not been very busy. I am starting to give whatever knowledge transfer that I can be done before I move on. Nobody seem real sure who is doing what (no surprise there) so I am sure there is going to be some issues after I leave. I am going to make myself available for emergencies; I don't want to keep folks hanging.

Winding Down

2006-05-10T10:40:00.000-04:00

Now that it's been decided that we are not going to put any more major enhancements into the application, the project has been sitting pretty much dead for more than a week. Getting any information about what's going on has been pretty impossible to get. One person had told us to complete the two enhancements we had pretty much completed (reports and some application functionality), then nobody could decide if or when they should be moved into the test or production application. After some fun back and forth emails and phone calls it's finally been decided to go ahead and move the changes. This will be the last change to the application.

Everyone is naturally wondering what is going to happen to them personally. Nobody has been able or willing to come out and say what the plan is, but I am actively looking for another assignment. I have a very good possibility that I think I mentioned before; hope that works out.

I have been using this down time to try some new things in .NET. I installed and started working with Atlas which is the .NET framework "plug-in" for quickly adding AJAX code to a .NET web page. So far it has been very easy to use. I have added some of the functionality to my personal development site. In addition, I have a number of video/media projects that I have been working on for various folks.

Ending Support

2006-05-02T13:19:00.000-04:00

How's this for a change? In our regular status meeting on Thursday, we find out that it has been decided not to support our application any longer. It will continue to be used but no additional enhancements will be funded. I can't say I broke out in tears, but it did come as a surprise. None of the project managers had any idea this was going to happen. I will not miss a number of folks from the users side, but I need to scramble to find a new assignment.

I talked with one of my contacts that I worked with before on this project. He would be glad to have me work with his team on their current project. It would be nice if I could move to a new assignment without going on the bench. Hope to know something more in a few weeks.

Requirements Coming In

2006-04-25T23:05:00.000-04:00

I spent most of last week and much of this week reviewing the requirements for our part of the new release. I had made it pretty clear why we needed to have clear and complete requirements. While what we got was not perfect, it was much better than before. After the review of the user's suggestions we had a number of questions and a redesign. They had submitted their ideas for one of the pages to us. Unfortunately, it was not a viable solution. So we have come up with some other ideas. It will be interesting to hear back from them.

In addition to all that, we had to convert from CVS to Visual Source Safe. This has been pending for a few weeks; mostly because since I never used VSS before I needed so assistance with the conversion. After so problems finally got it done today.

If work wasn't enough, scouts has asked me to do a 15 minute media show and a HUGE PowerPoint. Of course I didn't know just how big either project was when I said yes. At least it for a good cause.

No Rocket Scientists Here Today

2006-04-10T19:43:00.000-04:00

I don't mind answering questions. Really. Even the ones that are less than, shall we stay, "stellar". I know that we are all at different technical levels; some higher, some ah... lower. Questions are and always will be a part of the type of job I do. But there are some aspects of this that could either drive me to heavy drinking or an assault and battery charge.

Late this afternoon our production system failed due to a hardware issue on a server. We were not the only application affected and the Sysadmin folks got right on it and resolved it very quickly; no complaints. However, when this situation occurred, the business user contact (whom I have talked about before; same questions how many times?!!) send me her typical is production down (duh? Are you getting an error message?? Yes? Then guess what; it's down.) email. If that wasn't bad enough, this person continues to attach HUGE bmp image (screen shot) attachment. This time it was 5,000 + kb and managed to hang my email client until I was able to delete it. Then the user whined via IM that it was taking me too long to answer the email. I asked again that if an image attachment was going to be sent, please use something smaller like a jpg or gif. I offered to explain how, but I got the brush off with "I'll try next time". Gee, thanks for all the help from your side. I am getting close to setting up a filter to route messages with huge attachments to never-nerver land.

Once we got passed that and I saw what was happening, I realized that we were having a real issue, and not the typical "I think the application is running slow" problem. I tried to open a trouble ticket but the ticket system was having the same problem. I emailed out team and let everybody know what was going on. I told everyone that unless they had a phone number to call to report the problem, there was not much I could do. I figured that the sysadmin team knew about the problem and was working. In addition, I contacted my DBA (I thought it was a DB issue) to see if they could find anything out. While this was going on the business user continued to ask me what I was doing to fix the problem; as I have told her before I neither have access to the machines to do server trouble shooting nor am I as qualified as the Sysadmin folks. Even after explaining this face to face on my last trip they still don't get it. I keep hearing "You are the technical support person, you need to fix it." and I keep saying, "I am the application support person, if the application has a problem, I the go to guy. But if it's a server issue, it's out of my hands." I am sure I am going to hear more about this tomorrow; it will really make my day.... NOT.

Why IT and Users Hate Each Other

2006-04-06T09:05:00.000-04:00

There is little hope that IT will ever truly be aligned with the business--at least if you judge by this sometimes hilarious, sometimes maddening conversation thread on Slashdot a couple of weeks ago. It displays all the worst behaviors of business and IT peopleâ??and by accident reveals some good lessons.

A little lengthy but worth the read.

read more | digg story

FlightAware - Free IFR Flight Tracker: Status, Tracking, History, Graphs, and Maps

2006-04-04T08:16:00.000-04:00

FlightAware - Free IFR Flight Tracker: Status, Tracking, History, Graphs, and Maps

I was told about this site on my trip last week. It's a great resource either for tracking a flight of somebody your are expecting or just get a better understanding of air traffic in general.

Common Sense

2006-04-03T23:35:00.000-04:00

Lots of frustrations abounded today. To me it seemed that some people's minds were just not engaged completely. There was some question about the movement of updated files. Should be simple right? Took at least 5 emails back and forth till the person took the time to read the first email I sent. DUH! Next, at the end of the day (of course) the system started running slowly. Once again I said lets wait a bit to see if it clears up on it's own; but nooooo "we" just had to open a trouble ticket right away. Less than a minute after I did the ticket things were back to normal. Finally when I stupidly check my email this evening, I saw that I had received a meeting invite at 4:30 p.m. for a 5:00 p.m. meeting. They know that most days I leave about 4:00 p.m. ; can't wait till they fuss about me missing this. Hey, ya do crap at the last minute; ya get what ya get.

I was checking out Feedburner last night. Looked pretty cool so I registered and added the link to this blog. I'll play with it for a bit and see how I like it.

I hope things go with less pain tomorrow. But with this bunch, I won't count on it.

Back Home

2006-04-02T21:59:00.000-04:00

As you might have guessed, I got home on Friday as planned. I was a bit worried about the weather in Chicago. They were having high winds which made the landing there a bit rough. But my outbound flight left almost on time (some runways were closed due to the winds).

I was pretty tired from all the travel so I didn't do much on Saturday. Today have a few places to go and I got a newsletter that I was working on finished and out for review. I was hoping to get it to the printer's last week but my travel prevented it.

Tomorrow starts another fun week. I will see if what I said at the meetings last week made any impression on the business users.

Trip - Final Day

2006-03-30T21:17:00.000-05:00

It's the last night of my trip down south. You can't believe how happy I am going to be going home. It was nice to meet everyone both old and new team members, but I would just as soon stayed home. On the plus side we did get more done than I thought we would. I think we have a pretty good idea how we are going to handle the next release.

I will be spending all day traveling home tomorrow. I just hope that weather in Chicago does not cause any problems; I don't want to spend all weekend trying to get home. Depending on how things go I may build the next blog entry on my PDA and the trip progresses.

The kids and wife are doing well at home but are ready to have me back as much as I am ready to get there. If all goes as planned I will be setting in my own house in 24 hours.

Trip - Day 1

2006-03-28T12:05:00.001-05:00

This is going to be "different" type of entry. Since I am going to spend the whole day traveling, I am going to keep a running commentary on the day.

I am sitting in the Harrisburg airport with about an hour till my flight. Got to the airport with few problems; I sure hope the rest of the day goes as well. I won't really relax until I get to the hotel tonight. I hope I am settled by 8 p.m.

In the air on the way to Chicago. At least it's a beautiful day for flying. Still, I hate to fly.

Sitting out a 2 hour layover in Chicago. I all ready had a nice (if expensive) lunch. Going to relax and read the book I got here at the airport.

In the air and about 1 hour and 10 minutes out from DFW. My least favorite part of the trip is next; the drive from DFW to the hotel. Hope it goes smooth today.

The trip from the airport went much better than expected. I did not get messed up leaving DFW, I see where I made the mistake last time. Got into the hotel about 8 p.m. Long day of travel. I was not able to connect to the wireless in the hotel last night so was unable to post this until today.

Heading South Again

2006-03-24T08:24:00.000-05:00

I intended to post this yesterday but fell asleep before I could do it.....

I found out yesterday that I am going to have to make another trip to Texas next week. I was hoping to avoid going since it was pretty late to get plane and hotel reservations made. Depending on how you look at it, I was able to get everything reserved. At least this time I will not be leaving until Monday morning. Two of my children are having a birthday party on Sunday and I was not about to miss it because of a last minute trip. On the bright side, I am looking forward to seeing some of my friends who work down there.

The main purpose of this trip is to define scope and start the requirements gathering for the next release of the application. We had a "kick off" meeting yesterday and what I heard pretty much confirmed what I figured. The users want all the enhancements on the list even though that due to staffing and time constraints there is no way it can be done. They can't seem to agree on what is a priority so they want everything. That's going to make my week interesting next week to say the least. I'm sure that they are not going to be happy with me but I am going to have to make sure that what is agreed upon is possible. I am going to also make them understand that before anyone starts coding we need clear requirements. I am also going to push hard for good, extensive testing. Since this may be the last release of the application, they need to make sure it's as bug free as possible.

There's a Down Side to Everything

2006-03-22T13:18:00.000-05:00

I am now seeing some of the downside to working from home. I just got a reoccurring meeting request for 5:00-6:00 pm. If I was working from the office, I would not feel bad about requesting the time to be moved a bit. However, since I am working from home I don't think I can do that. I have determined that I will not agree to any ongoing appointments that go later than 6:00 pm. My time is still my time and it's up to me to protect it the best I can.

We are starting up the next application enhancement cycle. I have limited staff and time; let's see how much the users want us to do. I am sure based on experience; they are going to want more than we can deliver in the time frame. I am also going to politely demand a decent set of requirements before we start coding. This "don’t give me what I asked for, give me what I want" BS isn't going to cut it with me.

Crankin' Code from Home

2006-03-17T12:57:00.000-05:00

Amazing isn't it? Posting two days in a row! I am still doing the update to my work application. The users were all worked up about doing the update during the afternoon; even though we have done it all the other updates. So here I sit copying files from server to server. At least working from home has made it a lot more convenient.

I am still getting much more done at home than from my old cube. I don't know if it's going to last; guess we will have to see. It's also nice to be able to switch back and forth between my personal workstation and my work machine via a kvm switch. While I am waiting for something on one, I can work on the other.

My daughter is having a sleepover tonight for her 12th birthday. Not a big crowd and they have been really good about me working in the other room. If it goes as before, neither my daughter or her friends will get much sleep tonight.

Working From Home

2006-03-17T00:18:00.000-05:00

A big change started today. I am now working from home on a full time basis. The situation at work now made it seem the right thing to try. I really believe that with a little luck this is going to work out. I will sure enjoy not having to drive back and forth to work each day and this summer it will sure be nice to wear shorts and a t-shirt to work. That will sure be a boost to my moral. I just need to keep the line between work and home defined. It would be too easy to be available all the time. Tonight the new project leader called at 5:30 my time; I let the answering machine pick it up. I'll call him back in the morning.

We are doing a big release tomorrow and the users are freaked because we are doing it during the day, just like every other one we did. I guess I will have to explain again why it's best to go during a scheduled time during the day. I would prefer doing it first thing in the morning but the users always wanted to do it in the afternoon; we will see what happens.

I wonder now that I am working from home, if I'll find the time to post more.

No Fun Today

2006-01-23T23:18:00.000-05:00

No fun to be found today. Most of the day the web server which host my application was going up and down. Seems there was a server issue which took out a number of company internal sites. Our application users were not very happy; neither was I. Not much I could do but ride it out. Hope everything is stable tomorrow.

We are putting out another new release tomorrow. Compaired to the last one it's very small. A few fixes here and there for things that were found and one small enhancement. I get the feeling that we are going to spend lots of time this year fixing and re-fixing things as the users continue to change their minds as to what they want.

New Release

2006-01-18T22:52:00.000-05:00

First off.... I still suck at blogging regularly. Is that a problem?

Released some extensive updates to the application this morning. Over the last few weeks I have had to be aggressive to make sure that the users didn't push us into something that could have turned into a disaster. Pretty much got what we needed so the update went well. I am finally getting time to write down some instructions and documentation that should help as time goes on.

Of course we are still battling the user errors. I have one today that I think I know what happened; basically use error. Of course, they blamed the upgrade as the issue. I knew that there was nothing we did that could have caused the issue. I know... I know... But I am 100% sure. I bet I'll be working on this issue for the rest of the week. Well at least it keeps me off the streets.

Family stuff and such has been keeping quite busy in the evenings. This is not an excuse for not writing like I should. I seem to have lots to say (no I don't talk to myself... much) when I am not at my 'puter. Someday I'll figure out the best way to do this for me.

The End of 2005

2005-12-31T23:35:00.000-05:00

Another year is almost over. For me and mine, it was a pretty good one. No major disasters or illness. Having my family safe and well (and me too!) makes any frustrations pretty trivial. Just about 15 minutes away from the new year. All the kids are up; getting them to church tomorrow is going to be painful.

The last two weeks; which I have spent on vacation; have been great. I have really been able to relax and prepare for the new year. Did fun things with the kids and really got a chance to play with .Net 2.0 in detail. I will be writing about some of the good and frustrating parts of this new release in the weeks to come.

Speaking of which, I am going to try and be a better blogger in 2006. I don't know if anyone else reads this blog, but I find that I enjoy a place that I can put my thoughts down on a regular basis. I just need to be a bit less lazy and take the time to write.

Happy New Year

Christmas 2005

2005-12-25T21:27:00.000-05:00

First I know that I really suck as a blogger. Every time I get ready to write something comes up or I fall asleep. It's not that I don't have something to write about, I guess I am going through a lazy period.

Christmas 2005 is winding down here. Everyone here has had a good Christmas; couldn't ask for more. A happy and healthy family is the most important gift.

Where is My Parachute

2005-11-07T23:20:00.000-05:00

I really starting to get bored and frustrated with this assignment. I have spend the last week and a half playing scheduling games and not getting any real work done. I know we need to plan but geeze; it's almost impossible to get the various users to agree on anything. Well they all agree that they want everything now. We are trying to set a doable scope for the first release; I know they are not very happy but hey, we don't have much staff to do the work.

I talked to my manager about getting a new assignment when my contract is up and not getting it renewed. He does not seem to think that would be a bad thing; so I am starting to look around and see what's available that I could switch to. I would love to start of the new year with a new assignment; but I am not going to rush and do anything stupid just to get away from this clueless bunch.

I just hope we are finally going to reach some understanding this week so we can start to work on code. Next week is my last before my week + vacation. Nobody better even think about asking me to cancel; that is not going to happen.

I'm Alive

2005-10-24T23:39:00.000-04:00

Yes, I am still alive. The week I got back from my trip was crazy. You would not think that we just went live. We spent all week making "must have" changes. Put out the first patch the Friday after go live.

the following week I was on my first week of vacation for the year. I was not in the mood to do much more than relax. I had a really good week away. :

This week marks the start of me being the primary developer. I spent much of the week doing estimates fir all the things the users want to change. Since we went from nine people to three, it should not have come as a surprise that change were going b take longer.

Heading Home

2005-10-01T14:47:00.000-04:00

On the last part of my trip home. As I write this, I am at 30 some thousand about an hour and 30 minutes from home. So far it's beautiful weather and a smooth flight.

I didn't get done what I wanted to on this trip but it was good to see everyone and get somethings finished. I will get the rest of the information I need next week.

Wanted to post this last night, but fell asleep.

Last Night Away

2005-09-29T22:30:00.000-04:00

Heading home tomorrow afternoon. I sure hope it doesn't take three days like in January. I will be very happy to see my family again. I have not had a good night's sleep all week and it's really starting to wear me down. Tomorrow I will be in my own bed at last.

We will be having the funeral on Monday. That's going to be a long stressful day. I am still sorry that I was not home to give my wife more support. She knows that I would have been home anytime she called. I still wish I could have been home, but this was unexpected. I will give her as much time to relax as possible.

I was good getting to see the rest of the team this week. I wish we could have had more time for me to get up to speed but with the issues we had this week it just didn't happen. Sounds like I'll be flying by the seat of my pants again.

I do hope my next entry is from home.

A Death in the Family

2005-09-28T22:49:00.000-04:00

This morning my wife's step mother passed away. Something like that kind of brings everything into perspective. You realize that time is short; spend the time you have with great care. I don't want to regret things not done or said.

I am still away, nothing is going to be settled until Friday at the earliest. I would have been willing to come home but my wife insisted that I stay. I hope she is doing ok. I will keep in close contact.

One More Day of Fun

2005-09-27T22:13:00.000-04:00

I finally had the (miss) fortune off meeting some of the users that we have been dealing with. I don't know how the folks that have had to deal with them can stand it. We are still being forced to be so accommodating with changes (we added new fields today!!!), that I think we are putting the entire project at risk. When are the users going to be held accountable.... NEVER.

It sounds like tomorrow is going to be a long one. The only bright side is that tomorrow is the very last day we will be making updates. Though to be honest I'll believe that when I see it. I am enjoying getting together with the rest of the tech team. Being in the same location does help things move quicker.

I will be really glad to get finished and head home on Friday. I miss my family a lot, and I know that they are missing me. Friday is going to be a short day. I do need to make sure that I get the vacation that I have scheduled. Since I have not had any yet this year. I don't want to hear about schedules or staff issues, I need time off. I hope that I don't have any issues at this late date. We will see.

Travel Day One and Two

2005-09-26T22:16:00.000-04:00

09.25.2005

I am sitting in the Chicago airport (Gage L1 to be exact) waiting on my connecting flight to Dallas. Once again I am spending most of the week in Dallas. Last time (January) it took me three days to get home, don't think I have to worry about a snow storm this time. The only good part (other than getting to see the rest of the team) is that it is not to be too hard of a week. Wonder what I will be saying on Friday.

Finally got to the hotel with just a little bit of hassle. Got dinner out and watched a bit of TV. I am going to make an early night of it; who knows what tomorrow will bring.

09.26.2005

It's didn't even take to Friday. A few of our more clueless users over reacted and set us into a "fire drill". Some of the others on the team had to spend a huge portion of their day just calming the project leadership down. All because of some non-issues.

In addition it looks like we will be making even more changes as we head toward Mondays production build. These folks just don't have any idea of how a technical project should be run. The rest of this year is going to be such fun. Can't wait to see what happens tomorrow.

Almost Done

2005-09-23T23:24:00.000-04:00

the last 24 hours have been quite a Pain in the ass. Yesterday it was decided to once again care into our users a push through some pretty extensive changes. We hid to enter 20 or so input fields on various forms. It was fun to do InfoPath at 1 am.

Finally went to see my doctor. Not exciting but its good to know that I am in good health. Just wish I could loose some pounds.

Lots going on in the evenings this week. Just to make it even more special, I get to leave for a week business trip or Sunday.

Found the link on Dell's site and ordered windows Mobile 5. From everything I have real this is going to be a major improvement to my PDA.

Coming Down to the Wire

2005-09-20T02:13:00.000-04:00

I am getting the feeling that my annoyance level is going to peak today. I have been sitting around not doing much for an entire day. Now that Friday is here I bet I am going to be expected so be in late. I try to be flexible but I have a school function this evening that I will not be willing to miss. I really don't want to miss it because somebody else can't plan. Once again, screw the technical team; they don't have lives. I have made more accommodations than most. I am not giving up my life for this project.

I am glad to say things are working out better than expected. For the most part the users are very happy with the application. Most of. The issues they found are minor and can be worked next week.

Never did get this entry posted on Friday (duh). As usual the weekend went fast. So far, I am reviewing the application code for turnover next week. I am also working a few defects. These are in the reporting section and so far I can't see anything wrong. I have a call in to the reporting user. See how that works out.

Will the Fun Ever End?

2005-09-16T01:07:00.000-04:00

Well, it's coming to the end of development for this project. we have users in town few days to test. So far, nothing major has been reported. Earlier this week we had some more proof that some of our users are less than stellar. A few were now saying that the enhancements, which they had agreed to hold off on until after release, just had to go in. We did what we could.

I am not looking forward to taking over technical support for this application. We are going from 6 people to 2.

Two for One Posting

2005-08-25T08:43:00.000-04:00

Day 1 (08.23.2005)
I had a back to school night last night. It is hard to believe that I am sending my third child to middle school. Time passes so quickly. I am glad I spend as much time as I an with family.

I spent some time on some minor formatting issues. I was hoping by this time these would be all cleaned up. Was going to spent the rest of the day on reporting. But that was interrupted by an issue with the form field sizes. Going to be a pain to fix.

Day 2 (08.24.2005)

Last night I saw on slashdot that Google has there own I’M client now. For fun I downloaded and installed. It's ok, nothing new. My biggest issue with all clients is when are they going to talk to each other?

Monday, Monday

2005-08-23T01:57:00.000-04:00

The team members that where on vacation are back and getting up to speed on all the changes from last week. Even though the users are getting rid of one report, all the additions to the other reports and going to take time. I also have some questions about the formulas being provided.

I have a meeting this afternoon to explain why we are using InfoPath and not excel. If nothing else it should provide some amusement.

I also spent time this afternoon documenting just what needs to be installed on a user's workstation. This should put any outstanding questions to rest.

The meeting was a total bust. The person The person who called the meeting did not even show up for it. Guess it wasn't so important after all.

Fun...Fun...

2005-08-18T00:40:00.000-04:00

The fun just Keeps on rolling. We an now going to have to make even more changes to the reports. Of course the user don't have the detailed requirements yet. In addition they ''just don't understand" why these changes will take at least a week to do. The new pm is doing the best he can. But I don't think he understands some of the ramifications the changes will cause.

And if that wasn't enough, I am attending a meeting to "explain" why we are using InfoPath and not excel. What is it with these people and excel? So I put together a simple PowerPoint that will put this to rest; I hope!

I am very concerned that these report changes are going to have a major impact on the app. I think we are right on the edge of disaster.

Onward

2005-08-09T09:02:00.000-04:00

I am going to try something different. Instead of making or not making a post once per day; I am going to write a bit as things happen. Hopefully I will have more timely an interesting posts. We shall see.

Been doing a variety of things this morning. I was happy to be able to solve a form refresh problem that has been driving me nuts. Turns out that the ampersand in the row label waking on development of some report tables and code. The day has gone along pretty good. I am glad to be doing some csharp coding; I was getting tired of all, that InfoPath development.

Tonight I would like to get my connection issues fixed. Seems like the problem is not with my connection string but will my network connection. I tried to run the mySQL administrator and could not connect. I have run this before with no problems. Guess I will be doing some network repair.

Monday's Almost Here

2005-08-07T23:31:00.000-04:00

Weekend was pretty good for me. Brought one of my sons home from camp. He had a good time but it's good to have him home again. I really didn't get much work done over the weekend with everything that went on. I am having problems getting connected to my SQL server from my workstation. Until I can get that resolved I am pretty much stuck.

Project is coming along pretty good. We will release the final section this week if all goes well. Still have a few minor defects to fix. There are about 14 enhancements but they may not go until after the initial release; depends on how much time we have.

Another Day

2005-07-28T02:02:00.000-04:00

Mind numbing slogging this morning.
I have been adding validation code to all the rich text boxes on every form (4000). This is going to take me all this week and most of next.

I think that blogging from my pda is going to work pretty nice. I can make notes and upload at the end of the day. Another score for Geekness.

I hope this heat wave ends soon. I am sitting at a scout function and It hot and humid.

Testing My PDA

2005-07-27T00:59:00.000-04:00

I finally decided to install and try posting from my PDA. Maybe I will be able to be able to post on a more regular basis.

Defect Fixing

2005-07-21T00:01:00.000-04:00

Spent most of the day fixing application defects. Most were not too hard; I did get to do some creative coding to improve the alert box when an InfoPath form is submitted with missing or invalid data. You would think that the red asterisk or dashed lines would be a clue!

Finally worked out the last of the appearance bugs with my personal site. The navigation is sweet. Works just like I want it to. When it gets a bit closer to being ready I will publish a post and ask for comments. I hope I can get the updated site out by the end of summer. It sure feels good to be doing some more complex coding again.

Things are pretty good here. Wife was in bit of a bad mood today; kids were being a bit of a pain. Hope things are better tomorrow. I can't believe that we are heading quickly to the end of July. Summer will be over before I know it. With no vacation any where near that really sucks.

Correcting Defects

2005-07-19T00:11:00.000-04:00

Spent most of the day fixing defects in the system. Most were valid and fairly minor. I am sure that once more of the system is ready to test; the defects will start to pile up. Pretty typical for a new system; we are still running less than 1% so the system is pretty clean.

Weekend was pretty good; still didn't get much done on my personal site. I don't know why but lately I am beat by evening. Guess I am just getting old. I would like to get the site finished by the end of summer.

No Title

2005-07-12T00:15:00.000-04:00

Well another week starts off. The project manager who was killing us has finally moved off the project. The new one seems better but I guess time will tell. Making good progress overall; hope we get the chance to do it right.

As I said before I am going to try an include some more non-tech information. I don't want anyone to get the idea that the only thing that is important is my work. Family come first with me always. That said, I got my vacation that was schedule for August cancelled last week. Makes me pretty upset; I was going to go to a week of camp with one of my sons. He (my son) is not very happy either. I hope this project is worth it.

I tried out the picture upload for Blogger. This way is pretty slick; much easier than before. I know I will be including more pictures now.

Look Who's Here

2005-07-05T00:10:00.000-04:00

Well it's been almost a month since my last post. I didn't know if I should let this blog die or not. It's not like I didn't have stuff to say, but every time I thought about blogging I was either falling asleep or on to something else.

I see that blogger.com has some new tools. I will use the image one the most. I had uploaded some images before using the suggested app but found it to be confusing for me. I have not yet installed an application on my PDA to blog, I might be tempted to use it during lunch.

I am going to try and include more of my personal life as well as my work/technical life. All I talked about was my job and various projects I am working on; I think a little diversity will be good.

That Sinking Feeling...

2005-06-06T22:18:00.000-04:00

I have been keeping my head down and getting some significant work done over the last few week. While the project person worked on the schedule the rest of the technical team just worked and got quite a bit done. We still have quite a bit to do but everyone has been making excellent progress. Due to all of this I thought that we were over the worst of the administrative nightmares. Boy, was I wrong. No matter how we work the schedule it works out that we will finish sometime in mid - late October; depends on the user testing. Found out today that it is not acceptable; we need to be completely done by October 1st. In addition the majority of the technical team will be moving on to another project on the same date. All of this puts me in a difficult position; I am going to have to give it some serious thought. I am not sure just what I am going to do in October myself.

Some of the non-technical team has been tasked with doing some help creation for the forms. This involves HTML and XML we is totally foreign to these folks. While I deeply appreciate getting help; I can only image what we are going to get back. Once again we are up against the attitude that everyone is interchangeable regardless of skill set. You would think that we would have learned that lesson before.

So all of this adds up to a project that is heading toward major issues. I know given the proper support we could have built something very useful. I still have hopes that we can produce something that we can be proud of.

That Flushing Sound You Hear...

2005-05-23T23:03:00.000-04:00

Well that flushing sound you hear is my project starting to go. We still have a good chance to pull it off but last week the project plan updates did not go over well. Of course this caused some of the project leadership to run around and start to micro-manage the project. The entire project plan is now being "adjusted". But the bottom line is that we are going to have to fit into a schedule that may be unrealistic. I shouldn't be surprised; the project has all the makings of a classic "Why IT Projects Fail" story. The user's couldn't figure out what they wanted for months and months but it's the technical team that's going to have to pay. If they pull my vacation (which was scheduled months ago) I am going to become VERY annoyed. It will not take much; I have been forced due to last minute meetings to miss some family activities in the evening. I do have a life outside of work.

Because of all this I am over a week behind in my studies for MCSD. I need to start doing more in the evenings but so many times by then I am totally beat. I have quite a few things I would like to get done at night but usually all that happens is I fall asleep. It's hell getting old.

Maybe my Head Will Just Explode

2005-05-18T23:44:00.000-04:00

This project continues to drive me nuts. We have be working for 2 days on some fairly large tedious InfoPath forms for the one group. Today I got an invite to a review meeting (no problem there) but include was a totally different layout for the form. I just don't understand. Do these people think that they can just go on their merry way making changes and expect us to keep doing rework. Someone need to explain the facts of life to them. If we are expected to ever to produce a workable application, the changes need to stop. This project is starting to exhibit all the classic symptoms of an IT project heading toward failure.

If it does fail, I am sure the finger will point right at the technical team. Never mind that system requirements were 3 months late and kept being changes on a whim. I am sure I will hear that I need to be flexible and adapt to change to satisfy the user. While true to an extent; when does the user take responsibility to provide complete and finalized requirements so we can do our job? I have kept my mouth shut (which is the right thing to do) but I am so frustrated right now I could explode.

I hope things get resolved this week or next so we can put our energies into creating an application that we can be proud of. At this point I have no confidence that we will get the chance to do the job we can. With the changes we had before the inplementation date had been pushed out by months. Can't wait to see how that goes over.

And the Fun Begins

2005-05-17T23:40:00.000-04:00

We have spent the last week or so getting the "final" set of requirements for the application. Of course there was lots of change and the need to do things differently. I sometimes wonder if any of these folks ever listened to one another. We then spent quite a bit of time reviewing our schedule and coming up with a time estimate. We will be presenting that estimate to the project's leadership sometime this week. I am willing to bet that there is going to be some real pain over the new schedule.

Along with all of that going on, I have gotten behind in my MCSD studies. I am currently running about 4 days behind. I hope to be able to make up most of that this week, I am going to be away all weekend and will not have the chance then. I know I will be able to get back on track and still finish in November.

I was happy to see that Dell will be supplying the Windows Mobile 2005 updates for my PDA. From what I have read, this is going to be a major improvement in the operating system. Once I get ahead on the project and studies, I am going to give mobile development a try.

Feel the Pain

2005-05-03T23:10:00.000-04:00

What a wonderful meeting today. We had the first set of discussions with the last two areas to review their InfoPath forms. It seems they don't like the way the data is related and summarized for all the other areas and decided to do it differently. They are insistent that this is the way they are going to do it. It totally kills they entire structure of the application. We are going to have meetings for the next two days to try and figure out what we are going to do. Just to add to the fun another area is getting all hot to do it the same way. This will add weeks to the development time. I know as developers we need to be flexible (I am sick to death of hearing that!!!) but the line has to be drawn somewhere. None of the other areas are organizing the data this way; I wonder if anyone knew this was going on! The way things are going we are going to waste a huge amount of time.

I just don't know yet how we are going to handle this new data relationship. This kind of thing is one thing I simply hate about my job. Users that just go off on their merry way doing what they want without even talking to anyone about the possible impact they are going to have to the overall project. Of course if we the technical folks push back at all they will complain that we don't understand/support their needs. This is going to be a big pissing match and the tech folks are going to be the losers no matter what happens.

On a happier note, I continue to enjoy my PDA. I had ordered a case for it a month ago but due to a backorder situation I have yet to receive it. I had this brand before (EB Cases) and was very impressed with the quality. My new one is scheduled to be here on Thursday. I have made a few tweaks and modifications to the PDA but I have pretty much what I need installed. Once I get further along with my MCSD and get some free time, I am going to play with development for the mobile device. One of the reasons I picked a Pocket PC over a Palm (which I had before) was the ability for me to build apps with Visual Studio.NET.

Well I am going to do some more MCSD studying before bed.

Frustrations

2005-04-25T22:59:00.000-04:00

The one part of my job which can drive me nuts is when you can't seem to get ahead because of all the changes that the users keep pushing. I know it's part of reality that there will be changes and as a developer we have to remain flexible. Sometimes, it seems that no matter what, the project keeps going around and around in circles. We are going to have to review the InfoPath forms again, and it sounds like that all the fields that were removed over the last few months are going to be put back in.

I want to provide an application that meets the needs of the users. So I will make any changes that are needed from my end. However, this is not without a cost. I am going to have to push the complete data out. How far, I will have to wait to see what the changes are. I am just afraid that there is going to be some unhappy people with the new date. In the past the end user wants changes and does not understand (or care) what is involved. I am sure there is going to be complaints about how long the development is taking. I sure hope that we can finally freeze the changes so that the application can get completed.

On a happier note, I got the PDA updated with the new OS/ROM. The update went smooth and everything reinstalled with few problems. I sure hope the case I ordered gets here soon. It was shipped on the 21st and I am hoping that it gets here this week.

I have been studying for the first assessment as I mentioned in a previous post. I was going to take it tonight but the browser kept locking up. I will try and make some time tomorrow to take it once I get some more InfoPath forms finished.

And Now for Something Completely Different...

2005-04-21T22:55:00.000-04:00

Well another upgrade to do. This time my X50v has an OS upgrade. I downloaded it today but am going to wait till the weekend to apply it. Seems that I will have to reinstall all my apps after the upgrade. Not that big a deal but I don't want to be messing with it late at night. Since I am going away camping this weekend, I will not do it until Sunday at the earliest.

I am also going to hold off on the firmware upgrade for the router until later. I want to make sure that all the other upgrades (Windows 2003 SP1) are not causing any issues. So far so good but I want to give it another week or so.

Upgrades, Upgrades, Upgrades...

2005-04-19T22:48:00.000-04:00

Been busy the last few days getting all my machines up to date. The biggest job was putting SP1 on both my Windows 2003 servers (Web/DataBase server & File/Print server). The web server was not any problem but I had major space problems with the file server. I had been meaning to do some clean up there anyway so everything worked out. So far I have not had any issues related to the install of SP1. I also updated my virus software on all my machines. The next day got a hit on the kids workstation from my real time monitor. Cured virus in the windows/font folder. In all my years with computers this is only the 3rd time I have had a virus. The only upgrade left is to update my router's firmware. I guess I'll take care of that in a few days.

My work toward my MCSD cert is coming along very well. I am currently about 3 days ahead of schedule. Since I have to do most of the training on my own time, I want to keep ahead. If something comes up I will still have a bit of a buffer before I get behind. I am scheduled to do the first assessment early next week; guess we will see how much I have really retained over the last two weeks.

We are really pushing the outer reaches of InfoPath on this project. We had the need to create a very unique functionality on one of the forms. On of the other team members whipped up some very cool XPath code in about 4 days which I implemented on one of our forms today. Works very well.

Well time to get some more coding done before bed.

Going to Sleep

2005-04-12T22:55:00.000-04:00

I should be working on MCSD stuff; studying or doing one of the labs but I am dead tired tonight. Work wasn't bad today; in fact I got quite a bit of studying done there. I am hoping that a good night's sleep will perk me up for tomorrow.

Change in User Requirements

2005-04-10T23:36:00.000-04:00

Can't say I'm surprised but we learned on Friday that there are going to be some fairly major changes to the application. Different users are in control now and they want to add all the data input fields that were taken out over the last few months put back in. And people are amazed that IT projects fail. Personally I want to give the users what they want. I just wish they could figure that out. Anyway, the go live date will get pushed and I will stay billable for longer. This week we should find out what changes are going to be needed.

I have enjoyed my new PDA. I think that I have everything pretty much the way I want it. I will not load every piece of software that looks interesting. So far I have not run into any major problems. Had a little out of sync condition with Outlook but I got that fixed without too much trouble.

Fun and Games with my PDA

2005-04-07T00:00:00.000-04:00

As you can image, I have spent the last few days tweaking and playing with my new toy. I am amazed how much more this one can do than the one I got a few years ago. I am still in the process of seeing how everything works. I have not run into any major issues yet.

On the work project, we continue to meet with the SME's to review the forms and get suggestions for updates. I am glad that we have a formal change control process; we can't do everything the SME's would like and still meet our dates. Once again I am glad that I am on the technical side. Having meetings all day is not the way I want to spend my time.

New PDA has Arrived

2005-04-04T22:28:00.000-04:00

I'm pretty happy today. My PDA came this afternoon and is charging right now. The screen protector that I ordered came today also so along with the SD and CF cards I bought today I am just about ready to have some serious play time. It needed to be charged for about 8 hours so I will not get to do anything until tomorrow evening.

The first draft of the InfoPath forms have been completed and our users can now start testing them. I am sure that a few minor bugs will surface but overall everyone from the user side has been very impress and satisfied with what they have seen.

I still have two technical issues with the forms that I need to finish up this week. I am working on improving the functionality of the form online help system. I really like how I have the task pane showing and hiding as needed. I am also working on doing more robust date validation. After posting some questions online, I think that I know how to do it; just need to code.

This week I will be starting on my MCSD education. I will be certified by the end of 2005. I have put this off for long enough, I have no excuse not to do it now. I have heard all the pros and cons about certification; I know it the right thing for me to do now. It will me some long days and nights but it will be worth it in the end.

Once I have had a few days to test out my new toy I will post my first impressions.

New PDA Ordered

2005-03-30T22:51:00.000-05:00

Well I did it. I ordered a new PDA less than a minute ago. I ordered the Dell Axim X50v which I have been lusting after for months. Believe it or not, it took me two attempts to do the ordering. The first time I was ready to push the final order button then chickened out. I was (and am) feeling really guilty about spending that much on something for me. I know I will get lots of use out of it but we could use the money for something else more "practical". After I get the thing and have a chance to play with it I am sure I will have lots to say about the darn thing.

I have decided to get my MCSD certification this year. I am finally getting some education assistance from my company and I am sure going to take full advantage of it while I can. I know that I am going to have to do some very serious work and study but it will be worth it. The training resources seem to be pretty good. It will be interesting to see how all of it works out. No matter how things work out with my current company, having a certification can only help me out.

Finishing up the InfoPath forms. We had our first review with the SMEs on a form. For the most part it went very well. The SMEs had never seen the forms before and we were hoping that they would like what they see. They were pleased with the look and feel for the most part. There were a few questions but they were mostly centered around application functionality. So we are still on track with this project. I hope that I can finish up most of the forms that I am responsible for by the end of the week.

Continue On

2005-03-28T23:51:00.000-05:00

Well here I am again. I don't know why I can't seem to write more. Maybe it is a case of having nothing to say (in which case writing nothing is a good idea) or just being too lazy to spend a few minutes. I am going to make time to do this. Not because I have to but because I want to.

The project at work is really going well. Most of the InfoPath forms are completed and are in the process of being reviewed by the business side. I am very please how the forms came out; I think that MS has a winner with this product. It certainly a niche product unless they come up with a free viewer that can be used to view and fill out the forms. Otherwise you have to have Office 2003 or InfoPath stand alone installed. Outside of a internal project you can't count on the users having the needed software.

In addition to my work-work, I am in the process of redesigning my server's site. I am redoing all the code in C# to get pretty proficient. That project is going very well, I am pleased that I was able to get C# basics down quickly. Along those lines I have decided that I am going to make the commitment of time and get my MCSD this year. It's something that I have been meaning to do but kept putting off. A few of us from work are going to go for it and study together. I think that will make it easier for all of us.

Finally, I am even more in need of a new PDA. I thought that after all this time I would not still be missing the darn thing. Sure hope that I can get a new one later in the spring.

Where Have I Been

2005-03-14T22:36:00.000-05:00

I know... I have not been very faithful writing. It's not like nothing has been going on. It's been the opposite; between work and evening activities with the kids I have been too tired to even do much more than glance over my email.

The project at work is really picking up speed. I am in the middle of form development with InfoPath. For a version 1.0 product it's going very well. I hope to have all the forms that I am responsible for drafted by the end of this week. We still have a way to go with the application as a whole but the team is making good progress. I do worry about saying too much here. More and more is being published about bloggers running into issues with the companies that they work for. I don't feel that I have even come close to crossing the line but I am aware of my responsibilities.

My New Cell

2005-02-24T19:33:00.000-05:00

My cell contract was up so I was able to get a good deal on a new handset. I was getting tired of the Nokia brick I was using and decided to get this one. Not as good as a new PDA but at least I am able to satisfy a bit of my lust for technology. I also want to have an excuse to play a bit with uploading pictures to the blog. For me it just doesn't seem to intuitive but at least I got the picture uploaded.

My New Cell

Busy and Sick

2005-02-22T23:24:00.000-05:00

Between having something doing almost every night during the last week and coming down with the flu I have not done much more than to clear out the spam from my email. I did find out today that at least one person has read this blog; if you are there "Hi Janyce!".

I am continuing to covert my VB.NET web applications to C#. Other than a few syntax errors and the like I pretty much have a good handle on C#. I think that I used my time wisely during this little lull in my project and picked up C#. I think that my InfoPath project will finally start some progress this week. One can only hope.

CSharpin' It

2005-02-16T08:38:00.000-05:00

Note: This message was to have been posted via email yesterday. Don't know why it did not work.

It seems that I never get around to blogging in the evening lately. I was doing some updates to one of the sites that I support and when I got finished, I sure didn't feel like doing any more typing. I have the blog set up to accept and publish email postings so I thought that I can take advantage of it.

The project that I am working on is pretty much at a standstill waiting on requirements. The InfoPath form layouts are almost complete pending user review. I hope we can get that review done sometime next week as I would like to get the layout finalized. I still have a few outstanding issues with the dynamic help that I want to add to the forms. I have some posts out to various InfoPath sites while I do some research on my own. I should have all those loose ends tied up by the end of the week. I really am impressed with the functionality of InfoPath and I hope that MS continues to make improvements. If anyone has URL's for InfoPath related sites, please post a comment or email me.

Over the last few days, I have been really focusing on learning C#. I am pretty accomplished with VB.NET but have been a real newbie with C#. I really feel that I should be able to code in both C# and VB to be really considered a well rounded .NET developer. Also, the project I am working on now is being done in C# and I want to make sure that I am contributing as much as I can to the success of the project. So far I have not found C# to be all that difficult. I mean, programming logic is programming logic. I have had the typical problems of case and including the correct namespaces. I figured the quickest way to learn it was to convert some of my existing VB pages to C#. After a bit of a slow start, things are going quickly. I have decided to convert my personal development site over to C# and increase it's functionality at the same time.

Finally, I am wondering? Is anyone reading this? Does it matter?

Blogging in the News

2005-02-10T22:51:00.000-05:00

I have been reading quite a bit about blogging and how it may impact a bloggers employment. I am note really worried at this point. I haven't said where I work or intend to at this point. On the other hand anyone reading this who knows me surely knows my employer. I really intend this blog to be about my personal challenges; both technical and personal. While I do discuss some of the technology I am using I am surely not giving away any great secrets.

Reviewed the InfoPath form design with the rest of the technical team today. I got some good feedback and will be making some changes. I have been doing some testing with using jscript to modify the toolbars displayed. Unfortunately the forms must be fully trusted for that to work. This would require our users to install the forms on their workstations. This is not the direction that we are planning to head. I am still setting up the forms to be in protected mode so many of the toolbar buttons will be "greyed" out. I think it's important to keep the users safe... from themselves. :)

I have been doing some development in C# over the last few days. Up till now most of my .NET development has been in VB.NET. It seems that more and more of the development work is heading over to C#. I don't want to be left out of assignments so I am going to spend some time picking up C#. I have been running into some of the typical newbie errors (case sensitivity, type casting, etc.) but for the most part doing pretty well. It's not like I can used the coding experience that I already have.

I'm Back

2005-02-08T00:10:00.000-05:00

It's funny. I don't know if anyone is reading this other than me but I still feel that I should explain my absence. It's been a busy week and I have been totally exhausted by the time evening comes around. Over the weekend I was in bed by 9:30 which is very unusual for me. Guess I needed to catch up on my rest. At least I was smart enough to listen to my body and go to bed.

My project continues to move forward. I am adding and testing additional functionality to the InfoPath forms. I think that we should use some conditional formatting to highlight both required fields and data entry errors. There seem to be some disagreement on the team; but we are still talking it through. I don't want the forms to look like a Xmas tree but they could use a little visual feedback.

I am convinced by now that the InfoPath forms should have all the files extracted from the .xsn files. The form can still be build with the drag and drop GUI interface but you know have access to the raw XML files. Just like web pages knowing the code as well as using a GUI interface will make the end result much better. I am currently working on adapting one of the examples (dynamic help) from www.infopathdev.com. Instead of field level help like in the example, I am going for more of a section level dynamic help. For our application and the number of input fields some of these forms are going to have; field level help would make no sense. Despite a few relatively minor annoyances, InfoPath is working well for this project. If we can solve the offline form issues we are having we should have this part of the project designed. After that as soon as we get specs we can start building the live InfoPath forms.

Diving into InfoPath

2005-02-01T12:45:00.000-05:00

Last week was a killer. Lost to do at work after my trip. I took last Monday off, so that helped with keeping the workload high for the rest of the week. Just glad that I am home, don't want to get stuck like that again.

Really getting deep into InfoPath development. A great resource can be found at InfoPathDev . Another good spot is the InfoPath Team Blog. I am pretty pleased with the flexibility of the product seeing how this is the first release. With this project we will be pushing it about as far as it can go. I think we are going to extract all of the files from the .xsn file and edit them separately. This will keep out source control system happy (it really only handles text not binary files like xsn) and enable us to do some of the data population that we will need to do. Our other big issue is security with the forms. As you may know, InfoPath wants to "phone home" to make sure that there are no form updates. We are having some issues with working offline because of that. I think we just need to do more research and testing. If anyone has any suggestions please post a comment or email me. Thanks.

My Trip Ends - Finally

2005-01-23T22:39:00.000-05:00

This is one business trip that I will NEVER forget. I finally got home TODAY in the afternoon. I was stuck due to weather another night in Chicago. Of course my luggage didn't make it home with me. But it's been found and was to be delivered tonight. I don't think that's going to happen but I will get it tomorrow. I am so glad to be home; I getting to think I was never going to make it. I will have more to say tomorrow when I am more up to writing.

Can't Get Home

2005-01-21T23:12:00.000-05:00

I am stuck and can't get home! I was to fly home tonight but due to the storm hitting the east coast of the US I am stuck. I should be driving home right now; instead I am sitting in another hotel room. I have be rescheduled but who knows if the airports will be open tomorrow. I know that there is nothing to do but I really wanted to see my family after being away. In addition I sure would love to get home before the major storm hits tomorrow in PA. If I get stuck here all weekend I am going to be very very unhappy. I am sure glad that I took Monday off, I am going to need it. I guess I will laugh about this in the future but for now I am not very happy.

I was really looking forward to getting home tonight. To have my plans and maybe the entire weekend screwed up has really depressed me. I want to be with my family and know that everyone is safe. I don't think that I will be getting much sleep tonight; I keep wondering if I am going to get out of here. I checked the airlines web site and as of now (10:15 Central) both of my flights are scheduled.

I hope that my next entry is from home.

Getting Ready for Home

2005-01-20T22:21:00.000-05:00

I am happy to say that this trip is coming to an end. I had an extreamly productive week, the company sure got it's money's worth out of all of us this week. I was good to put faces to the folks I have been talking with over the last months. It's been a long week, everyone has been working hard. The other folks who are working on requirements had it even worse I think. They got a lot done but we still don't have the technical requirements that we need to really start extensive coding. I am glad that we are going to be given the time to develop the application that is needed. I am pretty fired up about working on this project; going to be fun and a great learning experience.

I have been keeping in touch with the family throughout the week. Things are going pretty good there but it will be fantastic to get home. I sure am missing my family. I am glad that I don't have to travel very often. I would not be surprised that I will be down here again before this project is over.

I still think that the technology that was picked is correct. I am please to see that as we dive deeper into both InfoPath and SQL Reporting Services, I find more and more capabilites that meet the needs of this project. I think that if we stay flexable this will be a very successful project.

I am going to really relax this weekend. Don't know if I will even turn on a computer.

On the Road

2005-01-17T21:25:00.000-05:00

It's now my second night on my business trip. The trip down was interesting, the airline managed to loose my luggage. I was wondering just what I was going to wear today. Fortuneatly, the airline delivered my back about 4:30 this morning. I talked to my family and everything is going ok there. I really miss them, it's worse here in the evening. During the day I have been quite busy like I expected.

I am glad that the hotel has high speed internet access. I need to feed my need to surf (and blog of course!!). I will need to do a bit of work later but I needed some down time after the intense day today. It was good to finally meet the rest of the technical team I am working with on this assignment. We really seem to work well togethger and I think that if we are given the right amount of time we can produce a very good application. It seems that we will have the chance to do it right which really has made me optimistic about the whole thing. We still don't have the final requirements for the input forms or the reporting. However it looks like overall we will be reducing the amount of data collected which is a good thing. The prototype application is coming along nicely and should be ready for Wednesday's demo. I am looking forward to great success on this project.

I am sure that in the future (near) when I read this again it will be from home with my family. It is nice to be able to express my thoughts and feelings of the minute; and can reflect on them later. Maybe no great insights but at least a chance to review my thoughts.