Time for Some Clean Up.

You may notice I am updating some posts. Fixing typos, mostly removing links to some graphics that I had linked to that are no longer there, etc..

Ugh. That took some time. There are probably still some mistakes, etc., but I got rid of a lot of them. The biggest being that it appears textamerica has dropped off some old pictures which I had linked to in some posts. I worry when the day comes that Hello decides to do something like that.

Confidentiality Statement

It has been talked about for some time now, but today was the day I was told to add a confidentiality statement to all of my electronic mail at work.

My feelings tend to go more along the lines of the ALARMED column entitled, "Don't Read This"
"Disclaim all you want. The fact is, most e-mail 'confidentiality notices' accomplish nothing." ("Alarmed" is a CIO Magazine biweekly column about security and privacy. New versions every other Thursday by Columnists Scott Berinato - sberinato@cio.com and Sarah D. Scalet - sscalet@cio.com).

I don't know how well they stand up in court, but I think if you really have to have one then just put it on the things that are confidential, not everything. We have functioned fine without them since at least 1996. My guess is that it alone is probably longer than 95 percent of the e-mails sent. Oh well.

Looking for a few Confidentiality Statements, Confidentiality Notices, Disclaimers, or whatever you prefer to call them, you might look here for a few examples.

Ringtones for AT&T and Cingular Customers

What a tease. On Sun's Java site they have a Java Ringtone Remixer. It states:

The java.com Ringtone ReMixer gives you the power to create custom mixes of the hottest hits on your PC browser and send them to your mobile handset. From your PC browser to your mobile phone, it is easy to compose your own custom ringtones and caller IDs. Get your handset ringing with style!

It sounded interesting, so I thought I'd try it out. You have to have the newest Java loaded, check, then you have to put in your mobile info. Click on My Carrier and it has the options "AT&T, Cingular, and Other?"

Of course, being a Sprint Customer, I select other. Then it says, "Sorry, only AT&T and Cingular are supported at this time."

You could have mentioned that earlier!

Well, if you are a SprintPCS customer and you are trying to get some files (jpg, jpeg, png, qcp, mid, m4a, mp4) to your phone you might try the Focus uploader on the SprintUsers site to get them there.

Losing your mind - Part 2

A follow up to my previous post about our Electronic Service Request (ESR).

Monday while we were off for Washington's Birthday ( stated as 3rd Monday in February in statute), I received the following from Lotus Application Development regarding our ESR.

Could you please send me the code that is being interpreted as syntactically correct? I think it would be easier to reproduce your problem using your code. A copy of your database, or a design-only copy of your database would be even better! If you are able to send me a copy of your database, please let me know exactly where to find that code(the name of the field, etc).

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me. If I don't hear from you, I will follow up with you on Wed., 2/23.

I received the following e-mail this morning.

I was wondering if you received my email sent on 2/21. I've forwarded it to you (see below) for your convenience. To recap, I would like for you to send me the code that is being accepted as syntactically correct so I can reproduce your problem here.

If you have any questions, please contact me. If I don't hear from you, I'll follow up with you on Friday, 2/25.

I sent her a reply mentioning that the developer that found the problem was out yesterday and that we would get something to her today.

I was a bit surprised to see the request though as it seemed pretty straight forward. I wasn't going to send the database we are working on out the door, so the developer went ahead and mocked up a formula in an queryopen and postopen and we sent a database. Easy enough.

I e-mailed the database around 11:30am:

As we are able to re-create the issue within any database having the formula in the postopen and queryopen we are just sending a simple database used to illustrate this and not the original database we were using when we stumbled upon the problem. We did verify that we have this issue with this database. Simply open the "View with event code" in designer and look at the queryopen or postopen. Simply edit the formula to make it syntactically incorrect (remove last parenthesis for example), hit the check mark and save, then move away from it and go back and you will see that it did not keep the change. It does not indicate that the code is incorrect. As mentioned if you make a change that does not contain an error it will save just fine.

Instructions were additionally put in the database.

By 2:50pm, I received the following:

I successfully reproduced the issue in 6.5.3 and triaged this call. This will add to the weight of the SPR GFLY57ZRY8. I will keep you informed of any updates to this SPR.

Please contact me if you have any questions.

Hopefully we'll see the fix at some point. 6.5.4 is already in Code Freeze.

Jaguar ALC

I would have to say that I like Jag's new Advanced Lightweight Coupe.

It does appear to be treading on some Aston Martin design elements though.

Notes Developers are you losing your mind?

We ran into an issue that was giving a developer fits. She has been working with formulas in views on a project and believing she might be loosing her mind. After determining what was going on, she came to me and demonstrated the problem. I did a quick search on the forums and knowledgebase and came up with a document describing our issue, but relating to R5. I think she is feeling a bit better about her mental status now, but I wonder how many people it has had banging their head against the wall. I put an ESR in on it this morning. We have not tested all scenarios, but if one is working with formulas in views and happens to be trying different things and making changes to their formulas within PostOpen or QueryOpen and happens to make a syntax error one does not receive any indication that there was a syntax error and upon saving the formula reverts back to the way it was. Of course, if you get the syntax correct, great, it is saved, which makes figuring out what is going on even more of a challenge as it appears to be a random occurrence as you never realized that you had the syntax error. How nasty!

This appears to be documented in TechNote 1095067 (SPR# GFLY57ZRY8 - Status: Open/Reproduced), submitted 3/13/2002 and updated 3/14/2002 (per viewing via Notes it shows an updated date of 9/13/2004), in relation to R5, but we have found that it is in 6.5.2 which we use and tested 6.5.3, to find that it is still there as well. The workaround the developer will probably work with for now is simply to put the formula in an action to test syntax and then copy and paste it into her PostOpen.

So maybe some of you are not going as crazy as you thought you were.

Updated 2/18/2005 @ 2:15pm: Response from Electronic Service Request

I have read both the technote(1095067) and SPR(GFLY57ZRY8) that you mentioned in your ESR regarding incorrect syntax in views being accepted as syntactically correct. The SPR says that this problem has been fixed but since you're having problems, I will try to reproduce your issue here. If I am able to reproduce your issue, I can then submit a new SPR regarding this issue. In the meantime, the only known workaround is included in the SPR. I've pasted the workaround below for your convenience:

Workaround:

Make sure the syntax of your formulas is correct if you don't want to redo changes again and again and...better yet, copy the formula into the clipboard before saving it.

I will follow up with you on Wednesday, 2/23 or sooner with updates. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Cliche

Did you see the tidbit in CIO Magazine that listed the 15 most annoying cliches as identified by Accountemps survey.

Well if not, here they are:

1. AT THE END OF THE DAY
2. SOLUTION
3. THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX
4. SYNERGY
5. PARADIGM
6. METRICS
7. TAKE IT OFFLINE
8. REDEPLOYED PEOPLE
9. CORE COMPETENCY
10. WIN-WIN
11. VALUE-ADDED
12. GET ON THE SAME PAGE
13. CUSTOMER-CENTRIC
14. GENERATION X
15. ALIGNMENT

Sharper Image Ionic Breeze gets the Freeze or Sharper Image's Image a Little Duller.

Are you starting to see more particles in the air? Are you finding it harder to breath? That might be how Sharper Image feels.

The results of a libel suit Sharper Image had against Consumer Reports requires Sharper Image to pay Consumer Reports $525,000 legal costs (See the MSNBC article "Consumer Reports' legal tab picked up".

Excerpt from Jim Guess' post "Check this out: You won rights".

In 2003, The Sharper Image tried to silence us by filing a product disparagement lawsuit in California after we rated the company’s Ionic Breeze Quadra air cleaner “ineffective.” We fought back. We filed a motion to strike the suit under California’s Anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) statute. Such statutes protect against meritless lawsuits designed to chill constitutional rights, particularly the right to free speech.

I’m proud to say that we prevailed. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed the case, rejecting all of Sharper Image’s claims and thereby powerfully affirming Consumers Union’s reputation as an objective, unbiased testing organization.

I wonder how many of the people out there that bought one of the 2 million Ionic Breeze Quadra Silent Air Purifiers at about $350 each will start returning them. That could be enough to hurt any company. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

One might also want to check out Jim's post for other reasons. In the first paragraph of his post he talks about your credit report and the second about your "health report" (one can now an get a copy of their MIB report once annually without charge!

WiFi @ Panera

I tried out the WiFi connectivity at our local Panera this morning. It worked well. I had someone come back from the front of the building and ask me if I had a good connection. They said it was really slow up front. After telling them it was working well for me they moved to the back. I did not see the access point, but I was getting an Excellent signal from it. Checked some e-mail. Outlook didn't like the fact that the Exchange server wouldn't always talk to it, so it locked up a couple of times. I resorted to Outlook Web Access (OWA) at that point, with better success. I had no problems connecting to our groups Team Room on our Notes server. Browsing the web was quick as well. I wish we had WiFi at work. Oh well.

Another one of those articles

Application Development Trends has another one of those articles, "IBM crosses signals: Domino or Workplace?". It use to be Notes is dead, notes is dead, and now it seems that articles tend to kind of hint that Notes could be dead.

Tell me this, what makes so many run out and state that Lotus Notes/Domino is so likely to die, yet they don't anticipate the same fate for Exchange?

Implementing Active Directory alone was a big one that kept many from moving from 5.5 to 2000, our shop being one of them. One could have probably said Exchange was dead, but as they keep the same name with the new releases the press doesn't seem to make an issue of it.

If the whole IBM Workplace thing was branded a Lotus Notes/Domino Lite product, and if it did eventually take over Notes/Domino, I wonder what the articles would be saying. Would that be much different than the transformations that Exchange has taken and/or talked about taking.

Keeping the name and changing the product has worked well for others. Simply look at the new Ford Mustang. It may take some of the design cues from the original, but it is a totally different car from the original. Some would simply call it progress.

You might even remember when there was talk of changing the Mustang to a front wheel driver (remember when the Probe was talked about as being the Mustang replacement?). The Mustang fans let it be known that they didn't want anything to do with it and look where the Mustang is today.

As more IBM and Lotus software technologies mesh together between the two brands, maybe it is time to bite the bullet and put the IBM label on everything or spin off another name for all of the software to go under. Who knows there might even be some good press come out of it. I can see the headlines now:

"IBM and Lotus Make the Smart Decision to Combine Software Under One Roof!"

"Users Applaud Lotus and IBM's decision to Have Software Share One Name."

"IBM and Lotus Software Strategies Align with New Name."

Of course, you and I both know what we would probably see:

"IBM and Lotus are dead!"

Sametime Plug-in for Trillian

Did you see that an update was posted for the Sametime Plug-in for Trillian.

From the alphaWorks site:

Update: February 8, 2005
Version 1.1.2 adds support for Trillian Pro 3.x and an enhanced interface for adding users. Enhancements enable searching for a contact and setting a contact's display name when adding it.

What is Sametime Plug-in for Trillian?
Sametime Plug-in for Trillian adds IBM Lotus instant messaging (Sametime) to the Trillian Pro instant messaging client. Trillian is a communications tool that manages connections to multiple instant messaging services. The Sametime plug-in allows Trillian users to connect to one or more Sametime servers, manage contacts, and conduct one-on-one or group chat sessions.

As we don't use Notes/Domino for mail and are limited on licenses, we don't use SameTime either, but sounds like it might be nice for those that do.

Nvu - Free HTML Editor

I saw a post or article mentioning a free html editor called Nvu (It has Linux, Windows, and Mac versions). I don't know much about it, but thought I would pass it on. There is another one that I mentioned some time ago, that a friend said they liked called 1st Page by Evrsoft.

It's Official

Press Release on Ask Jeeves.

Press release on Bloglines.

Post by Mark Fletcher.

Another blog

Here is a blog that has been keeping me busy the last couple of months.

7 am

I played with this a long time ago, shortly after we put up our Intranet. The fact that one could through some of their own content in was kind of fun, but unless you pay, you get the ads popping up advertising thier service. Okay for a personal page, but not necessarily good for an enterprise page. Anyway, I threw the code on the page just to play around a bit. It almost looks like it was meant to go there. Not sure that I'll leave it. Anyway if you are interested in the ticker you can wait for the Advert to display or simply go to the 7am ticker overview.

Update: Kind of neat, but a pain to keep the Local one's updated on the blog as one has to republish the template each time, so I disabled it.

Bloglines Purchased

I have mentioned several times how much I like Bloglines. I just read on Colin's site that Bloglines has been purchased by Ask Jeeves. I don't have anything about Ask Jeeves, but hope that the marriage does not lessen Bloglines great service.

SprintPCS Customer Serviceless

6/8/2005

Yes, you read it correct. Customer Serviceless, as in SprintPCS does not have Customer Service. There are to many problems with their Customer Service to mention, but the two main ones are they don't understand the concept of the Customer and they don't understand the concept of service. My wife had a simple question yesterday about a service they offered and was given an answer by customer service. She then went to the local Sprint store to see about adding the service (evening minutes starting at 5pm) that she had asked about. After waiting for 20 minutes for someone to help her, she was told that she was misinformed, she could only get the service in question if she had a local plan. The service is being test marketed and depending on the results it may then be available for other plans. Well, we don't have a local plan and don't want to be that limited. She then spent multiple times on the phone with customer service. What a pain. She was spoken to rudely at which point she asked to talk to a supervisor and they would not let her. She called back in and asked to speak to a supervisor, which took some time for the rep to finally say that they would transfer her, at which point she was disconnected. They had all of her info, they could have called her back and said sorry, did they, no. I had heard about her trials and knew how frustrated she was, so I picked up my phone and dialed Customer Support *2 (Tip: I you want to quickly get to a talking person when it goes into the voice driven part asking you to say your problem, so that it can spout some pre-recorded answer, simply say, "representative", and it will say something, like hold while I connect you.) I stated the issue my wife was having and the results I had were really were no better.

More on the report

I think the wording used in the Grading the States 2005 report is a bit clearer than the verbiage presented to voters in 2004-016 RE: Highway and transportation petition (version 4).

Verbiage from report:

A ballot measure in November had the effect of shifting some motorfuel and auto-sales tax revenues out of the general fund to the Department of Transportation. This will be phased in, with a $70 million impact in 2006, but by 2009, the DOT will see $187 million more funding, while the general fund will get that much less.

The effect of this switch will be to enlarge a general fund gap that is already serious: The current year’s budget was funded with about $400 million in oneshot revenues that will not be available next time. Meanwhile, Medicaid continues to be a budget-buster. The legislature has consistently underestimated the annual cost of the program, requiring regular supplementals. This year is no different—spending for Medicaid is expected to exceed plans by around $100 million.

Verbiage from the petition that was presented on the voting ballot:

The constitutional amendment has a zero net fiscal impact. The amendment increases funding for the Department of Transportation to be used for transportation purposes only and limits the use of highway user fee revenues by other state agencies. The indirect fiscal impact on state and local governments, if any, is unknown.

Even though the Net Fiscal Impact may be zero in regards to the State, following the philosophy of State Money is State Money, it would have been good to note what services were funded by the money when it was part of the general revenue, and what happens to those services when the money is moved. Who wouldn't vote for it. In a nutshell it came across as we are going to use the money for what the money is suppose to be used for and there will be no impact. From that, who could say no?

The Springfield News Leader commented on the report today.

Interesting Post

Yesterday David Fletcher posted about the Government Performance Project's (GPP) Grading the States 2005 report.

I have only glanced through at this point, but being on the IT side, I was happy to see that even though the overall grade was a B, Missouri garnered the highest grade given in the Information category, an A-, along with four other states: Utah, Virginia, Washington and Louisiana.