Big A** Mutant Blog

Like Sheep....

2008-06-28T13:50:09-04:00

I will let the video speak for itself.

I was going to embed this but it looks like Connections does not allow it and strips out the code. So click here to see a hilarious (and too true) Apple spoof.

The Best Description of the Love-Hate Relationship of Domino

2008-06-03T23:27:17-04:00

OK, it's time for me to officially declare my status as a fanboy for YellowCast. Yeah, I know, they have only put out 2 episodes but it has really drawn me in (I'm their #1 Fan! - a 'King' reference for you T). Chris Toohey and Tim Tripcony have a great chemistry that makes it really fun to listen to.

I have known Chris Toohey since before I came to work with Lotus 911 and have always thought he has had a great sense of humor and in the latest episode of YellowCast (Episode #2: Vicodin and MonkeyButter), around 42:33, he described the love/hate we all feel for Lotus Notes and Domino...

Domino is the little brother. I can pick on my little brother, because he's my little brother and I can pick on him but no one else...

Domino will always be my little brother... If you come in and you're another Domino Developer, you're a part of my family, and you know what, you can beat up Domino. Because for all the crap that happens, you know that there's benefits, you know that even though my little brother might be stupid, he might be not the brightest one out there sometimes, but you do see that he is amazing in other ways. You see that as a family, but if someone is walking down the street and goes 'Look at that Motard', I'm gonna attack!

That's the little brother...Domino is the 'Little Brother' syndrome.

Beautiful!

(Mutant Note: Chris does state that this is no reflection on his actual little brother.)

Good job guys! And remember... "The Audience is listening"

BigMutant (self-declared YellowCast Fanboy) Out!

Feedburner link:

iTunes download:

There's a New Podcast in Town

2008-06-02T11:29:03-04:00

And it's name is..... YellowCast

The hosts of this podcast are Chris Toohey and Lotus 911's own Tim Tripcony.

Description from their site:

The official website and companion weblog to YellowCast - a geek-flavored podcast discussing technologies and other items of interest!

This is a place fo them to voice their tips, tricks and opinions of everything that is going on in the world of Lotus Notes and Domino. These two get geeky, funny and helpful and is a really good listen. So go get it:

Feedburner link:

iTunes download:

Vacation Log, part I

2008-05-10T19:09:26-04:00

Having a great time key at the Florida Keys. This was a much needed break.

The hotel we are staying in is in Key Largo and yesterday we drove down to Key West and spent the whole day there. We did the touristy stuff, lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe and diner at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville and then topped it off with a romantic sunset cruise of the reefs complete with champagne for watching the sunset which was breathtaking. Pictures will be posted to my Flickr account soon.

Today we had a milestone. This was the first time that my wife has ever been in the ocean. The picture in the upper right-hand corner of this post is the view of the Atlantic Ocean from our room and we just stepped right outside and went in.

First we started off by renting a wave runner (1st time ever being on one of these things), and we ended up capsizing on our first run (Note from Diane "Mike was driving!"). Then we got back up and did pretty good and cruised around for about 30 min.

More later....

Please Check Your Facts

2008-05-06T16:26:55-04:00

I was listening to the the last installment of the TWIT (This Week In Tech) podcast and heard something that just floored me.

The moderator, Leo Laporte, was speaking with a guest named Jason Calacanis who was speaking about what Microsoft does with their applications. What really got me is the statement he made around the 19:52 mark in the podcast:

"Look at what they (Microsoft) did with Lotus 1-2-3. Look at what they (Microsoft) did to Lotus Notes"

Does he really think that Lotus Notes is owned by Microsoft? We should all pray to the binary gods that never becomes reality.

If you want to check it out for yourself, you can download it from iTunes or directly from their website.

BleedYellow Skins -- Spanky Beat Me To It

2008-04-18T23:10:31-04:00

With Florian Vogler putting out the new MarvelClient Skinning Edition for IBM Lotus Notes I started to work on a BleedYellow version. But then I looked at the blogs and saw that Devin Olson beat me to the punch and I liked his version better so I scrapped mine and decided to push his instead

So cruise on over to his blog and take a look. They are really sharp.

Good job Devin!

What I'm Really Trying to Say is.... I HATE SPAM!

2008-04-14T13:01:49-04:00

OK, this kind of freaked me out the other day.

Just the other week I followed along with some tongue-in-cheek responses on Nathan's blog:

Then, a few days later I received this email at work.

Coincidence? I don't think so

How I Began To Bleed

2008-04-13T02:15:16-04:00

OK, since everyone else is doing it, I might as well log my version of:

"How I Learned to Bleed Yellow"

OK, let's start at the beginning... First the earth cooled and then the dinasours came.... oops, sorry too far back,

I was woking as a Systems Administrator for a consulting firm called Origin Technology in Business (later called Atos Origin) and I was on a long term (stress on the LONG) at Procter & Gamble at their data center in Cincinnati, OH. I was mainly in charge of the 2nd level support of their HP3000 midrange systems but I also rotated through 2nd level support for their network as well as mainframe systems.

One day they came by and left these cd's on our desks to learn about something called "Lotus Notes" (this was back in the 4.x days). So I played the CD and watched a bunch of stick figures move around on the screen and after it was through I thought to myself that had to be the dumbest thing I ever saw. So, about 2 weeks went by and they started installing all of the Notes servers so I started reading up on it and found that it was better than the CD led it to be. I was getting real bored with second level support and with the company I was with I needed to prove I could do other things before they would let me move to other things, kind of like proving you don't need a loan before they will give you a loan, So I decided to try and teach myself Notes programming.

Up until now whenever we did our disaster recovery drills it consisted of grabbing 25+ (heavy) binders filled with mostly outdated processes and throwing then onto a cart and hauling them 30 mile away to our secondary site -- PIA. So for my first attempt at making a notes database, I wrote an application to store all of these documents, which were then regularly updated and backed up to a CD. Then all we had to do was take the CD to the secondary site, my (P&G) boss loved it...until her visited our European site. <ominous music>duhn duhn duhn</ominous music>

He was going over to Europe anyway so he decided to show them the new database I had written. What he found out was that 2 months earlier our European counterparts had contracted an outside company to do the same thing and they were not happy that we had already created one. So, even though our's was complete (their's was not) and didn't cost anything the higher-ups decided to scrap ours (but we still used it). When their version was finally completed (a month later) they showed it to us and we instantly began to find holes in it like in the US there were government regulations that needed to be followed that they had no idea of and approvals that were not included. When we presented this I was instantly put on the review committee to ensure their database added all of the US standards that were required.

From that point on I began hemorrhaging (yellow). I was moved to the Lotus Notes team within Origin were I continued to learn until a couple of years later when P&G decided not to place them on the "Preferred Vendors" list (their prices were too high). Slowly the worked dropped off, people began getting layed off and even though I was not officially layed off, they told me they would call when they had work for me, so I began job hunting. I found a job with a trash hauling company in Cincinnati for a few years, where I was both Administrator and Developer. I developed new working relationships with other developers (right Mr. Toohey?) and I then grew the need for Notes there that I was able to hire on one of my previous co-workers from Origin that was layed off before me. A few years later my wife finished her PhD and received a fellowship at the CDC here in Atlanta where I applied for a position and now find myself with Lotus 911 (YEAH!).

I hope my tale was not too long on boring for you. I now return you to the rest of your day.

Hailing frequencies closed.

Sad News for Movie Lovers

2008-04-06T19:49:39-04:00

There was sad news in the entertainment world Saturday, one of the last of the ultimate screen legends has left us. Saturday, April 5, 2008 marked the passing of screen legend Charlton Heston.

Mr. Heston was one of my all time favorite actors and it was hard to hear the news. He starred in blockbuster movies such as Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments, Airport 1975 and Planet of the Apes to name only a few. In addition to movies he was also the President of the Screen Actors Guild, chairman of the American Film Institute and an active member (and past President) of the NRA.

To view a brief write-up of the life of Charlton Heston, see the CNN report here.

"And our intentions true! So I must leave you. (Ben Hur - 1959)"

Opening Day 2008!

2008-03-31T13:56:42-04:00

OK, Here We GO!!!!

This is my favorite time of year.... Opening Day!!

My favorite Major League Baseball team is the Cincinnati Reds, I lived there for 20 years and cheered them on every year. This year opening day is against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

This year we are breaking in a new coach, new to Cincinnati . . . not the game. Dusty Baker comes to us from the Chicago Cubs, so hopefully he can do for us what he did for them.... oh, wait a minute maybe we don't want that (sorry Cubs fans).

Today's opener feature Brandon Webb for the cubs and Aaron Harang for Your Cincinnati REDS!!!

My only regret is that I couldn't get back to Cincinnati to attend the game. So fire up the brats grab a cold one and let's get this party started!

Gametime 2:10PM EST

Now on Twitter!

2008-03-28T01:15:07-04:00

OK, now I can hang with the cool kids!

Thanks to Mr. Chris Toohey inviting me, I have now been exposed to another aspect of social networking -- Twitter! And by the looks of it I am the last one in the world to do so.

I have added some of you to my "Follow" list (sounds kind of like stalking) and will be adding more. So if you want to find me (besides here) drop by https://twitter.com/BigMutant.

Later

My Maps

2008-03-21T09:44:18-04:00

After reading Karl-Henry Martinsson's blog entry on creating a map to places that you have visited, I decided to make my own:

(United States, Austria, Germany, Italy, Slovania, Croatia)

Yea,I don't get out of the US too much . Expanding on that, I decided to zoom in on the individual areas. First, The United States, my home country...

(California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine,Massachusetts,
Michigan, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia)

And finally, Europe...

(Austria, Germany, Italy, Slovania, Croatia)

There are still many places that I want to visit, so the map will be changing.

Buisness Travel Woes

2008-03-17T00:02:54-04:00

This week I have traveled from Atlanta to Pennsylvania for one of our customers. Now, I really don't mind traveling for our clients but what I really hate is that airlines do not allow for people like me. As you can tell from my byline, I am not a small person (6' 7" and > 300lbs) and this does not make for a comfortable traveling experience.

Whenever I have to fly the only way I get any kind of comfortable seat is if I am able to get an exit seat, bulkhead seat or first class. The first 2 I can only get 1 out of 5 times and as for the third, yeah try getting a customer to fit that bill. I am the person that when you see me on the plane you pray that I don't sit behind you. Once I do my legs are so long that my knees wedge right up to the seat in front of me and I cannot even lower the seat try because my knees are wedged against the hinges. If you ever find yourself in the seat in front of my do not even think about reclining because your seat back will not budge.

Although people do try. I had one flight where the guy thought there was something wrong with his chair and continued to slam his back against the chair and impaling my knees. I finally had to grab the back of his seat and ask him to stop. He turned and asked me to sit back so he could recline his chair (inconsiderate *$#&@*%), I just glared at him and he turned around and I didn't hear another word.

So, until the airlines come up with someway of making the leg room in coach better (yeah, right) I will just slink along with the permanent divots in my knees and suck down the Advil to make the pain go away. Ah, the things I do for our clients.

OK, the rant is over, now back to your regularly scheduled life.

Now We're Cooking with Gas!

2008-03-11T10:25:43-04:00

Logged on this morning and when I looked at the count for the YellowBleeders group it was like "Yea, Baby!"

If you still haven't taken advantage of this great feature of BleedYellow, take a look at the instructions here to start.

Thanks Everybody for making it a success!

**UPDATE**
OK, really scary. Shortly after posting this I received an IM from Nathan that we had coincidentally posted the same topic at around the same time, check out Nathan's post here.
I guess great minds really do think alike!

Using BleedYellow for Good...

2008-03-07T10:15:24-05:00

There has been some concern in the community of BleedYellow and logging of Sametime chats. I (amongst others) am here to tell you that Lotus 911 has not, is not and will not log any chats initiated over the im.bleedyellow.com community.

There are extensive and continuos discussions internally of how to provide proof to the community. Stay tuned for more details.

For the official word on this please see the BleedYellow Update blog here.

P.S. - Plus the numbers for happy users cannot lie

Sametime Admin Tip From a Developer

2008-03-06T15:38:13-05:00

OK, this doesn't happen too often.. Administration tips from a developer!

Wait! don't go away so fast! I used to be part admin as well plus I got the answer to my question straight from one of our authentic Administrators, Chris Whisonant.

This is having to deal with Sametime Communities and Lotus Notes 8.0.1.

After uprading to 8.0.1 I was no longer able to add multiple communities to my embedded Sametime client, It would still connect to my current multiple communities but I could not administer or add anything new. So I contacted a couple of our other Admins who tried to help me out the best he could but we could not find the answer together (none of us is a Sametime expert), so we contacted Chris.

What Chris informed me of was that if the Sametime server that is set as the default does not allow multiple communities, then you will not be able to do any type of administration on your embedded client. Therefore, I clicked "Reset User..." in the Sametime Preferences (File --> Preferences --> Sametime --> Sametime Preferences) and then when I logged back in I logged into the BleedYellow Sametime (im.bleedyellow.com) and set that as my default and -- BINGO! -- I could now add a new community.

Here are the before and after settings:

Before		After

The only bad part was that I had to rebuild my contact list for my Non-Bleedyellow group.

Thanks for the help Chris!

Guitar Hero Aerosmith!

2008-03-02T22:43:16-05:00

OK, I know Guitar Hero has been out for a while and it has been through 3 incarnations, not including advancing to Rock Band, and even though I have been interested in them I have held off on buying any of them... UNTIL NOW!

Activision has just announced that on June 30th (4 days past my birthday ) they are releasing Guitar Hero Aerosmith! I love Aerosmith and I am stoked that they are releasing an entire version of GH based on them. I have already pre-ordered it and can hardly wait.

You can "walk this way" (sorry, couldn't resist) to read the interview with Joe Perry and Steven Tyler about working on the game here and see the Activision site for it here.

ROCK ON!

*NOTE TO JIMMY* - Next game night after this is released, OK?

How Do You Keep Your Sanity?

2008-02-29T01:04:23-05:00

OK, when creating applications for your clients, how do you keep your sanity when they insist on changing everything as you are developing?

This is an issue I am dealing with now and have in the past (usually when developing for HR departments). Getting sign offs do no good which usually (read: always) ends up in scope creep and you end up re-coding the same thing 3 or 4 times and end up going back to the way you coded it the first time.

So, let me know my brothers and sisters of the Notes world, how do you stop from losing it?

Oh, I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts..... (oh no too late for me but you might be able to others.)

PlanetLotus.org Rocks!

2008-02-26T22:46:34-05:00

Last week I sent an email to Yancy over at PlanetLotus and yesterday I got the response that my blog was now added to the site. Now the numbers of hits on my site were steadily growing just being on BleedYellow, but after getting added to PlanetLotus, my hits grew by 100 in one day! What a great way to target Notes stuff to Notes people.

Thanks Yancy!

BleedYellow.com on TakingNotes

2008-02-25T13:25:43-05:00

<shameless plug> TakingNotes podcast #79 is out and this time Bruce and Julian are speaking to our own Nathan Freeman and Chris Whisonant about bleedyellow.com. </shameless plug>

If you have not listened to the podcast before (shame on you) this is a good one to start with, these guys have a lot of fun together. And I am still advising people to go listen even though the BAM (Big A** Mutant) wasn't even mentioned, I'll forgive you guys THIS time

The guys explain what it took to get the site up and running as well as what is in store for the future. So click the link below and start listening!

TakingNotes Podcast #79 (.mp3)

TakingNotes Podcast #79 (iTunes)

LOTUS! F*** Yeah! (Nathan cracks me up)

8.0.1 Gold Up and Running!

2008-02-20T16:31:25-05:00

I now have Lotus Notes Client/Developer/Administrator 8.0.1 Gold installed on my laptop and so far so good.

I have been playing around with some of the sidebar apps (Activities, My Widgets, etc.) and it looks to be working OK.

I was wondering if anyone has used any good (read: useful) widgets that I might want to add into my sidebar? Let me know!

New Gadget Time!

2008-02-15T23:43:30-05:00

OK, it's the weekend, time for a personal posting.....

My wife is the best!

For Valentines Day this year my wife, Diane, surprised me with a new universal remote, the Logitech Harmony 880! This thing totally rocks! (I am a major gadget geek, so bear with me)

I used to have 6 different remotes to control my various electronics and I know that it irritated her a little whenever we had to hunt to find the correct one. When recording something on TiVo, we needed the TV remote to change channels, but the TiVo remote when we weren't. When watching a DVD, either on the DVD player or the XBOX 360, we needed to find those remotes. Also, when dealing with the Comcast cable box we had that remote and the Psyclone Selector Switch had it's own remote. That's 6 different remotes to keep track of, stock batteries for, etc.

Not any longer, this little baby handles all of those and is totally customizable so I can expand it as items in my arsenal increase. After programming the remote via my computer (which was a cinch), I can now turn on all needed electronics, turn off unneeded ones and select the correct video input with only 2 clicks.

I know this sounds like a commercial but I am just totally thrilled with it and highly recommend it to anyone shopping for one.

Now, if it could only troubleshoot my Javascript.

Thanks Baby. I love you (and it).

P.S. - The price listed on the site is not what she paid for it (I know, I pay the credit card bill). Check out Buy.com for better pricing.

Blog Addiction

2008-02-11T00:27:25-05:00

Saw this on David DeWell's blog and took the test. I think I need to think about recovery

72%

My Album Cover

2008-02-06T20:18:28-05:00

Here is my entry to Chris Whisonant's task:

The band name came from the article "Special-purpose local-option sales tax"

The quote came from "It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him. (Abraham Lincoln)"

How to make your own random album cover:

Go to Wikipedia's random article page. The first article you get is the name of your band
Go to the Random Quotations page. The last four words of the last quote is the album title.
Go to Flickr's Interesting photo page. Third picture, no matter what it is, is your album cover.

Have Fun!

Lotus Sessions in Real Life, part deux!

2008-02-05T01:52:15-05:00

I couldn't pass this one up.

A couple of posts ago I blogged about bad UI design. A couple of months ago I started a MySpace page just to play around with skinning and messing around with web UI. And if you visit my page you will see there is basically nothing there, but at least I have 1 friend now.

Which brings me to my entry. When I was adding Chris to my friends list it came up with a security prompt:

Hmmmm.... Gee I wish I could remember Chris Toohey's last name.

OK, looks like the MySpace programmers didn't really think this error message all the way through.

Happy Birthday Baby...

2008-02-02T21:00:20-05:00

Today is my wife's birthday (yep, Groundhog's Day) and I would just like to take this time to wish her a big ol' "Happy Birthday". We got to spend the whole day together just enjoying the day of her opening her presents, going out to Dinner and having cake and ice cream.

So Happy Birthday Princess. I love you.

Next year we'll make it to Punxsutawney.

Lotusphere Sessions in Real Life...

2008-01-29T16:30:23-05:00

OK, Lotusphere just ended last week and one of the sessions I attended was Bruce Elgort and Chris Blatnick's session "YIKES!... It Looks Like That?" In this session they discussed items not only of the UI design but also of helpful and helpful error messages.

Well, I just ran into this in real life. I was trying to set up an LEI activity to import data from an external file. When I tried to save the activity document I was presented the error message below:

"Required?... but it is optional.....but if it's optional, it can't be required! ERROR! ERROR!" (brain shuts down)

Just wanted to share this for some levity for the day.

New Look

2008-01-28T00:15:06-05:00

OK,

Well here is my first attempt at changing the default look of the "Slate" theme to my own vision. Most everything is done but I am still working on the left hand boxes.

This is just to demonstrate the customization capabilities of Lotus Connections. What do you think?

Lotusphere 2008 - The Party's Over

2008-01-24T20:24:22-05:00

It's over! The ending session has completed and the walkway between the Swan and Dolphin hotels are all but empty, another Lotusphere is in the can (that's movie talk people). We are now back on the bus and heading for home.

The knowledge transfer that has happened this week is astounding! It was good to see friends from afar and to make new ones. People that you have conversed with over email, IM etc. you can now place a face with the ~~voice~~ text. Time to go home and digest all of the information gleamed over the past week and put it to good use, that's right kiddies, use the knowledge for good and not evil.

So as we cruise back up I-75 on the way to Atlanta, some sleeping, some talking and me, I'm blogging (geek!). But we will all return to the job better for what we have just experienced.

That's a wrap people... and cut ! (more movie talk)

P.S. - To my wife, Diane, I'm sorry I couldn't find you a monkey.

Lotusphere 2008 - Final Day

2008-01-24T12:23:15-05:00

Well it's the final day and everything is wrapping up. Went to the session "The Great Code Away" from Rob Novak and Viktor Krantz, a session that every year is packed so I made sure I got there early. The room filled up fast and Rob abd Viktor show some fantastic stuff to do with the Dojo code.

Right now I am at Gurupalooza. A panal of top-notch developers are answering questions to any one that has questions on anything on Lotus Notes, Domino, Connections, etc. And we have two of our own on the panel, Nathan Freeman and Chris Whisonant.

*Note* - Buzzword of the day is still "BleedYellow"