Keep the Web Open, don't kill due process. Don't kill freedom.
I had to take a minute to sit down and write about the incredible blessings that we've had this Christmas season, that have allowed us to bless others' lives. I am grateful that we have been able to provide Christmas presents for people outside our typical ring of family. We've been able to bless other people's lives in other ways beyond physical gifts. It has been a great reminder that much of the reason for giving gifts at Christmas is to be symbolic of the great eternal gift that we were given the Savior. I'm very grateful for that gift as well. This season, we have much to be grateful for. I'll post more details.
I hesitate to even write this, because I really do love VMWare products. We’re currently using ESX 4.0 at work (moving to ESXi 4.1) with vCenter Server managing 3 hosts, and then we have a couple of independent ESXi 4.0 servers running as well. Because we’re getting ready to upgrade the 4.0 servers to ESXi, we wanted to have a support contract in place to make sure we were covered in case something blew up.
Our contract expired back in 2009, and because we hadn’t needed the service contract, we just let it lapse. Unbeknownst to us, when you go to reactivate your license, VMWare makes the effective date of the service contract retroactive to the first day after your contract expired, in our case more than 2 years ago. OK, that would be fine, EXCEPT THAT THEY CHARGE YOU FOR THE WHOLE TIME IT WAS EXPIRED!!! Apparently, VMWare is under the impression that you can travel back in time and take advantage of their support contract in the past or something.
My boss, who is a diehard VMWare fan actually said, “Move everything to Hyper-V. They can stick their license…” (and because I’m clean, and he’s Australian, I’ll not quote the rest of his diatribe. 
) I’m going to see how much it is just to buy NEW licenses, as I have a pretty good feeling it’ll actually be cheaper to go that way, and then we’ll just apply the new license keys to the install.
Anybody else had this problem with VMWare?
I realize that I’m probably going to follow my typical pattern of making a few posts to my blog every once in a while and then forget about it for months as I usually do. I really hope that’s not the case.
On August 31, 2011, my father, C. Edward Clark passed away in Salem, Virginia. Dad and I hadn’t been close for years and the last time I went to see him, dementia was really beginning to set in. But even with those facts, it was an emotional time. Tammy tried to call, but I was in a meeting so I didn’t answer the phone. She then texted me that he had died, so I called and we drove up to Virginia.
That night, before we left, I was feeling a very strange combination of sadness and melancholy. I felt like I should be more upset and sad than I was, though, because it didn’t really seem to impact me. After driving all night (we left at 7pm CDT and arrived in Waynesboro at 5AM EDT the next morning) and only getting 2 or so hours of sleep before meeting at the funeral home, I was still in a bit of a haze. We met with a great funeral director who was very kind, helpful and loving. Luckily, most of the plans had already been taken care of with his lawyer and Tammy years ago, but even so, it took 4 hours or so to finalize the plans.
I was able to call the Bishop of the Waynesboro Ward and get him to request some brethren to help me dress Dad. Steve Sweeney, Frank Willoughby and Jarrett Gold all showed up at the funeral home and assisted me in getting Dad dressed. I took a few minutes to say some goodbyes to his mortal body, and to remind him that he was now ready to be resurrected. As we were dressing him, I had the realization that the last time I had seen him in his temple clothing was when he had attended with me as I received my own endowments at the Washington DC temple in 1995 before I went on my mission. This caused the tears to flow, as it reminded me of one of a number of good things that my father did for me.
I was able to assist Tammy with his eulogy, an exercise that was healing for us both. I was then able to dedicate his grave, and we had a wonderful talk from Ron Fauver at the gravesite. As per Dad’s requests, there was no public viewing, and there was no funeral service; he simply wanted a graveside service. After seeing the grief that it caused my aunts and uncle, it helped me to realize that the funeral and visitation aren’t for the deceased, they’re for the survivors. I know that’s an obvious thing, but it had never really hit me. Finally, as per our agreement, Tammy presented the flag to Owen, because of their shared birthday, and because of the fact that he is the only member of his generation to remember Dad. Owen was overcome and broke down in tears, which inspired Zoni and I to do the same. It’s a moment I think none of us will ever forget.
Since his burial, I’ve had a number of times where emotions overcame me. I think this is part of how I’ve been dealing with his death. I am eternally grateful for the plan of salvation and the comfort that the knowledge of the temporary nature of death brings. I have always been able to handle death well, and this was just another example of that.
Moreso, I’m grateful for the people of the Waynesboro Ward. It was so very humbling to have the assistance of those brethren in dressing my father. It was an enjoyable (though awkward, to be sure) experience because of their attitudes and their spirit. Going home and having them there to help truly felt like I was returning to my extended family. I guess, in many ways, I was. As I bore my testimony yesterday in our home White House Ward, I was overcome by the realization that our children will do the same one day with the White House Ward. Their Steve Sweeney or Frank Willoughby or Jarrett Gold will come from the people they’re growing up with now. What a pleasant blessing they are in our lives.
I was also so impressed by my mother. Though she and Dad divorced some 20 years ago, I know that she has always cared for him, which is just amazing considering the abuse that she suffered mentally from him. She was upset and emotional, but as always, she was a support for Tammy and I and stayed strong for us.
As I was copying posts over from previous blogs, I came across the open letter I wrote to my father. If they have internet on the other side, perhaps he’s able to read it. Just as it was therapeutic then for me to write out my feelings, it has been therapeutic now to do the same. Death is only temporary. My father, who was racked for many years by Multiple Sclerosis, which led to his inability to even think straight, is now free of this mortal coil and can exercise his spirit in ways he hasn’t been able to for years. He was welcomed home by his mother and father and by his brother and sister who passed on before him. He is now hard at work, I’m sure, spreading the gospel of peace and repentance. As I have reflected on my memories of him, it has helped me realize how much I wish I had his journals. Perhaps, this will serve as an impetus for me to continue writing my thoughts, so my children can know how special they are to me.
So, I’ve created my blog again, and I decided that I wanted to go back and capture all of the previous blog posts I’ve ever made from the (now 5) different iterations of my site. Thanks to the wonderful magic of the World Wide Web Archive (aka the Wayback Machine) at archive.org, it was actually pretty easy.
I highly, highly recommend taking a look at your site over the past few years. Luckily, they had archives from riceboyler.com all the way back to 2001. That’s impressive.
Way to go guys, I love what you do for us!
At some point, I'm going to quit just removing all of my previous blogs and actually keep an old record of the stuff I've written, but this is the newest iteration of my site/blog. It's been sitting dormant for too long now, so I figured it was time to get it back up and running and post stuff that probably nobody will ever see, but it sure will be therapeutic for me.
So, look for an introduction post in the not too distant future, but for now, hi. I'm back. :)
First, I absolutely freaking love jQuery. It is absolutely, positively the coolest thing for a web developer since the IDE.
One of the requirements for one of the projects I’m working on is that we have a categorized DropDownList (in ASP.NET). Of course, this is nothing more than a <select> list in HTML, so the same concept applies. In this case, the dropdownlist is a Report selector, so each category header contains the word Reports.
Thanks to the magic of jQuery and the wonderful DOM Traversing tools it has, styling those headers can be done in a few linesof code:
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function() {
$("[id$='_ddlReports'] option:contains('Reports')")
.css("font-weight", "bold")
.css("text-decoration", "underline");
});
</script>
So let me break that down a little. The $(“[id$=’_ddlReports’] is the shorthand way of getting the control with the id of ddlReports because it’s buried in an ASP.NET UpdatePanel. The magic happens with option:contains() which in essence says, “Get all options in this select list that contain (in this case, Reports)”. Then, I’m just applying of couple of styling elements to make them bold and underlined.
Couldn’t really get much easier. Thanks jQuery!
Weird title for a blog post, right? Well, those exact words were uttered to me this past weekend from my sister-in-law, Tori.
She came down for a visit from Virginia a few weeks ago, and had just bought a new AT&T Tilt2 (aka HTC Touch Pro2, codenamed Rhodium) during AT&T’s $.01 Windows Mobile sale. She had previously given me an HTC Fuze (aka HTC Touch Pro, codenamed Raphael), and I showed her what I had done with the phone with a custom ROM (Thanks to @NRGZ28 for his great work) and she was impressed. So, I did the only sensible thing and HardSPLed her phone and put a custom Energy ROM on her phone.
This past Saturday, as she was preparing to go back to Virginia, I asked how she liked the phone, and she mentioned that she was returning it. She said the software was MUCH better than the original AT&T Bloatware-infested ROM, but the device itself was just too big, bulky and heavy and she didn’t really like quickly the screen got funky (96 degree average highs for the month of August in Middle Tennessee hasn’t helped that issue). I told her it was a good thing she mentioned it because I needed to relock her phone so AT&T didn’t get stupid and say she couldn’t return it.
So, I installed the most recent Tilt2 AT&T ROM (updated with Sense 2.5, but still Windows Mobile 6.5, not 6.5.3) and relocked the phone for her to return it. After 5 minutes of using the phone after I reflashed it, she said the phrase at the top of this post. I asked her why, and she said it wasn’t fair to have been using what she WAS using (the Energy ROM) and then have to go back to this piece of crap. I agreed…
This morning, I came in to work and found this blog post from one of my favorite Silverlight developers, Shawn Wildermuth. I saw Shawn a couple of weeks ago at DEVLINK 2010 speaking about Windows Phone 7 and his experience developing for it. To summarize his blog post, while he has a Windows Phone 7 device that he’s testing with right now (lucky freaking dog!), he still uses a Motorola Droid on Verizon as his main phone currently, because the WP7 phone uses a SIM card, and the Droid doesn’t.
He recently upgraded to Android 2.2 (Froyo) and found he had some performance issues. He had to go track down what was causing the performance issues, because 2.2 should be (and in my experience, IS) faster than 2.1 was. He then expressed his concern that MOST people either won’t KNOW how to do that, or won’t WANT to do that. This point then expresses his thoughts about Windows Phone 7 and how he is GRATEFUL that Microsoft is locking it down as much as they are.
I’m really torn on this topic, personally. I love tweaking my phones. For example, a friend at work decided he wanted a Blackberry instead of his Touch Pro2 (see my blog post last week ripping Blackberry) so I ended up with a Verizon TP2. I’m on AT&T. I’m happy to say that thanks to the fact that the TP2 is a
World Phone, it has a SIM card slot, and the AT&T radios (except for 3G). So, I was able to unlock the phone, unlock that AT&T radios and put my SIM card in, and now I’m using a Verizon branded CDMA phone on my AT&T GSM network. And the irony is that it seems to download faster on this phone on Edge than it did on 3G. Or at least more reliably, I’m not sure which it is. And, I’m running Android 2.2 on it as well. And I’ve overclocked it successfully. But, I’M A GEEK! (Yeah, huge shock, I know)
My wife, sister-in-law, mother, colleague at work, etc., will NOT do any of this sort of thing. It’s part of the reason iPhones are so popular. You don’t HAVE to be a geek to use them. Luckily, I’ve finally come to this realization, and so I agree with Shawn’s point. In order for Windows Phone 7 to be truly successful, Microsoft actually needs to ignore us geeks for a little bit and go after the regular consumer market. THEY are who will determine the success of these phones, and this platform. After having played with a device at DEVLINK for a few minutes, I can honestly say it feels like a device my wife, sister, sister-in-law, etc. will use. I don’t know that my mother would use it, because it’s got too much stuff for her. She just wants a phone. But as that’s the case, she’s not the intended market.
So, while my geek side hates the fact that WP7 is so locked down, it will be kind of nice to have a phone that I don’t HAVE to flash to get it to do what it should out of the box. It’ll be nice to be lazy, maybe.
BTW, if you have an HTC device of any kind, make sure you visit http://forum.xda-developers.com and check out the info on your phone. It’s like a second home to me!
Now, there is a bit of irony that I’m writing this on the release date of the new Blackberry Torch, because for all intents and purposes, this new Torch is their attempt to answer the iPhone and Android (and upcoming Windows Phone 7), and from what I’ve read and seen, it’s not too bad. But I’ll make a Bold prediction (see what I did there?) and say that I think it’ll be a relative flop.
Why? I just got done setting up our first Blackberry device for one of our users. To this point, we had been exclusively Windows Mobile, Android and iPhone, but had not purchased the Blackberry Enterprise Server, so we told our users to avoid Blackberry devices. Well, that changed when the VP decided he wanted one because his daughters had one and they loved them. Mind you, he was coming from a Verizon Touch Pro 2 (which I hadn’t yet updated to Windows Mobile 6.5.3, but I have now) and it was too “fancy” for him. He just couldn’t get the touch screen figured out and didn’t like having a keyboard on the face of the device. Ok, fine, whatever.
So, we got BES installed and configured, and I got his device configured yesterday. To show my extreme ignorance to the Blackberry Model, I had no idea that the device actually synced with Research In Motion (RIM)’s server, not the Exchange Server (like Active-Sync). So, I was clueless as to how it worked.
Unfortunately, sometimes ignorance truly is bliss. In this case, once I realized that in order to sync email, the device has to talk to the RIM servers in Canada which then have to talk to the Blackberry Enterprise Server, which then has to talk to the Exchange Server to get mail/calendar/contacts/tasks. Honestly, it’s a bit amazing that a) they ever got it to work, and b) anybody ever accepted that model as something to use. Active-sync, on the other hand goes from the device to the Exchange Server. Period. No wonder Google, Apple, Nokia and Palm have all paid the licensing fee for Active-Sync from Microsoft. It just makes sense.
So, anyway, then I moved on to the device, a Blackberry Bold 9650 (I think) on Verizon. I kept trying to hit stuff on the screen, and it wouldn’t respond. Then I remembered what it was like to have a non-touch screen device. It was agony. The stupid optical trackpad worked, but what a pain. The device moved really quickly, right up until I synced it with the BES server. Then it slowed down to a relative crawl. After 5 minutes with the Bold, I wanted to rip my hair out.
But then it hit me, the very reason that I hate that device so much is the very reason that so many people in the corporate world swear by them: they’re simple basic devices. They really are, in my opinion, the dumbest of the smartphones. I’ve played with every other Smartphone OS (except Symbian), and they’re all considerably more powerful, but also a bit more complex to use on a regular basis. Sure, iOS SEEMS easy now to most people, but for a 50+ year old, it’s just not intuitive. WebOS is beautiful, no doubt, and once you get used to it, very easy to use. Android has a bit of a learning curve, as it’s more tailored for geeks. Windows Mobile 6/6.5, as much as I love it because I’m a total geek and can do just about anything with it, it NOT user friendly. Yeah, I’m a Microsoft fanboi, but comparatively, it sucks. Windows Phone 7 is natural for me to use because I have a Zune HD. I think the interface is simple and easy, but I’d be willing to be that if I handed it to my 60-something year old mother, she wouldn’t be able to make heads or tails of it.
Blackberry still exists because of two groups of people:
- The people who’ve been using it for years and are just really comfortable with it
- People who are, uh, more advanced (in years) and just want something simple that they can still get their email and contacts on
There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but I do believe that it’s a diminishing market. Much like Buick has had to reinvent itself with the new Lacrosse and Regal, I believe Blackberry will have to reinvent itself. Maybe the Torch is that device, but I don’t believe it is. I think they’re going to have to change their model to keep up with the iPhones, Androids and (hopefully for my sake) Windows Phones. HP may be able to do something with WebOS and Palm, but I wouldn’t say the future is looking to promising for them either.
So, Blackberry users, enjoy your devices. But when the younger generation looks at you with questioning eyes, understand that just as you find these new-fangled touch-based devices awkward, we find those old-fashioned, touchpad-based devices antiquated and difficult to use.
Oh, and RIM: Get a clue about single point of failure. Just license Active-Sync like everybody else and make life easier. kthxbye
Well, yet another successful devLink Technical Conference in the books. This year was my 3rd year volunteering, but the first year I really stepped up to the plate in helping get communications ready and organizing things. In spite of that, I heard many people say it was the best devLink ever, I certainly have to agree.
I was thinking about the factors that make devLink such a great conference, as I saw a good number of tweets asking if devLink was better than this or that conference, and I realized that part of what makes it so great is that it is truly a community conference, supported by some great corporate sponsors.
The speakers/presenters tend to run the gamut from big name keynote presenters (like Tim Huckaby and Ted Neward) to well known community speakers to average Joes who really want to share something cool they’ve found. This large range of presenters seems to help promote networking and building relationships. I’ve been to a few Microsoft run events (Mix, PDC, etc.) and while they are big dollar and have fancy giveaways and big name presenters, the networking that happens at community-driven events like devLink can’t be touched.
The planning for next year’s devLink has already started (as of Saturday night at dinner) and we’ll be striving to make it even better than this years. Huge thanks to John Kellar, Leanna and John Baker, Rachel Twyford, Randy Walker, Dan Weese, Bryan Meyer, Tommy Norman, Cicelie (sp?) Neel and the Kellar family for all the help with making the conference go off without a hitch. What a great way to spend a weekend! Huge thanks also to all of the speakers who set the bar even higher this year.
A couple of take-aways for me:
- It’s time to get more involved with the community as a whole and to start presenting. I’m going to start working on some talks and hope to be able to present them the the Nashville .NET UG and then move on to CodeStock and devLink next year. Additionally, I’m going to really start working on blogging more about technical things, and trying to collaborate on projects. Like a new devLink website (yeah, we know it’s ugly…)
- Windows Phone 7: Do. Want. NOW! The development stuff I saw just got me even more excited about it, and I didn’t think that was possible.
- I’m recognizing that I’ve fallen way behind in my database (SQL) skills over the last few years due to focusing so much on programmatic code. Given my redirection at work to more of an infrastructure/DBA role, it’s time focus on those again.
- Jeremiah Peschka (@peschkaj on Twitter) and Robert Cain (@arcanecode) are two of the coolest guys in the SQL Server World. Kevin Kline (@kekline) and Louis Davidson (@drsql) were already there.
- It was interesting to see how “regional” devLink has become as compared to years past. There were many attendees from outside of Tennessee, and while that’s a great thing for meeting people, I’m a little disappointed that Nashville didn’t make a better showing. Still, great to meet and eat with Nashville (ok, and Chattanooga now) folks at dinner on Thursday night. You guys were geniuses and I felt honored to be able to eavesdrop on, and participate in your conversations!
Having attended every devLink ever (including the gray shirt year), it keeps growing and improving. While a lot of the credit for that goes to John and Leanna, and the board, a lot of it goes to the community for stepping up their game and making it even better.
IT Infrastructure companies, we’re putting you on notice now: We’re planning on having an infrastructure track next year at devLink. It would greatly benefit you as a company to sponsor the conference and get prime placement. VMWare, Sun/Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, Dell, NetApp, Cisco, etc. I’m looking at all of you. There’s a NEED for the infrastructure community to come together just like the developer community has. You can help drive it, and as you do, I guarantee you’ll see a return on your time and monetary investment. Hope on board, it’s gonna be a fun ride.
So, another year is done, and hopefully I’ll be able to help even more with planning and running devLink 2011. With John Kellar having moved to Chattanooga, I have a feeling Leanna will need the help up here. Here I am! Thanks to all the devLink 2010 attendees for making it a great experience! See you all next year!