We're nearing September, the kids are ignoring the reality of the new school year. But I can't. Twice today I've found myself on the Harvard Extension school site, trying to figure out what course to take... Data Structures? Been there, done that. The Science of Google Searching? That's a course? Unix/Linux System Programming? Probably should, but if I have to, I can probably figure it out as I go....
Introduction to Old English Literature? Hmmm... Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales? Introduction to Modern Irish? One of those could be fun... But is there time?
Every fall I go through this. Every fall there seems to be too much else to do to tackle a course... This year promises to be busy, too. But still, September beckons....
Friday, August 24, 2007
visiting an old friend....
This has to be role reversal in a most serious way. My seventeen year old is off helping his older brother move from Brooklyn to New Haven as he goes back to grad school. What is the first thing I do? I take his car for the day....
Tom normally drives Blueberry, my precious 94 Camry wagon, so I haven't been able to drive her in months. Yesterday I drove her to work, as I will today. She has 195,600 miles now, and except for a vibration in the wheels when she goes over 70 (maybe a tire threw a weight?) she's in great shape.
In three years (when Rory goes off to college), I get her back. In the meantime, I'll keep stealing her for short snippets while I can to make sure she's ok. And enjoy driving a car that is as comfy and fits as well as an Aerosole shoe.
Tom normally drives Blueberry, my precious 94 Camry wagon, so I haven't been able to drive her in months. Yesterday I drove her to work, as I will today. She has 195,600 miles now, and except for a vibration in the wheels when she goes over 70 (maybe a tire threw a weight?) she's in great shape.
In three years (when Rory goes off to college), I get her back. In the meantime, I'll keep stealing her for short snippets while I can to make sure she's ok. And enjoy driving a car that is as comfy and fits as well as an Aerosole shoe.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
still free
I've been walking around for the past week with a little bandaid on my leg. There was a little bump that wasn't going away, and with my history, I found my mind was spending cycles on it, so I had to go have it checked. The dermatologist said it was almost certainly nothing, but given my history, it was best to remove it and biopsy it.
I haven't been as nervous about waiting for the results as I was for similar events in the first years after dealing with Merkel Cell Carcinoma. But it's been in the back of my mind... What if I have to fight *that* battle again. What if...
But the message on my answering machine when I got home said "benign." There is no more beautiful word.
What doesn't kill you does make you stronger :-) But you never forget.
I haven't been as nervous about waiting for the results as I was for similar events in the first years after dealing with Merkel Cell Carcinoma. But it's been in the back of my mind... What if I have to fight *that* battle again. What if...
But the message on my answering machine when I got home said "benign." There is no more beautiful word.
What doesn't kill you does make you stronger :-) But you never forget.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
I'm not winning the desktop battle
No, not that one. The one on our own computer at home. The computer used predominantly by my teenage sons that I wouldn't dare do any banking on.
A few days ago I walked by it, and it had a desktop picture on it that I ordered removed as inappropriate. After the predictable statements that it wasn't offensive, I turned into Imperious Mom and ordered it off anyway.
I just walked by it again. It does have a new desktop. It's a tiled picture of Stalin with a cartoon bubble saying "I am not offensive."
I should be glad he knows enough history to consider that "blatant sarcasm"? There's a bright side here somewhere, I just don't see it yet....
A few days ago I walked by it, and it had a desktop picture on it that I ordered removed as inappropriate. After the predictable statements that it wasn't offensive, I turned into Imperious Mom and ordered it off anyway.
I just walked by it again. It does have a new desktop. It's a tiled picture of Stalin with a cartoon bubble saying "I am not offensive."
I should be glad he knows enough history to consider that "blatant sarcasm"? There's a bright side here somewhere, I just don't see it yet....
Friday, July 27, 2007
I was hoping it wasn't quite this bad...
but I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Seems like minoring in English should have helped a bit more, though!
Thursday, July 26, 2007
puppy love
I finally got to see Georgia's new litter yesterday - and it was lots of fun to see them and cuddle them and take their pictures. Here's the result, because the pictures are worth a thousand words!
Georgia and James had three boys and a girl on June 7, 2007. The pups are seven weeks old now, and soon will be off to their homes.
If only I had room for one more....
... See my Tabblo>Tuesday, July 24, 2007
the old girl lives on
http://www.mvgazette.com/commentary/editorials/?doc=20070724_editorials
An 800 yard run is child's play for the Islander, but it is a far better next step than the scrapyard.
I may have to make a trip to Manhattan!
An 800 yard run is child's play for the Islander, but it is a far better next step than the scrapyard.
I may have to make a trip to Manhattan!
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
processes and directories, oh my....
I am determined to separate the Notes client and Designer processes at the same time we put Domino Designer into Eclipse (I can't say when yet, but we are still hard at work on it!). This will require a few decisions... I was pretty sure I knew the right path, but then I talked to some customers at the recent NE Notes User Group meeting I realized I needed to validate some ideas.
As I thought about how to solve this problem, I came upon one thought that is very important to verify. My belief (please say if I'm wrong!!) is that the "typical" Notes developer *uses* a different set of databases than he or she *designs*, and based on several Lotusphere conversations, people who design also often want to design using a different ID than they use in the client.
That would mean that the data directories (and desktops) could be different between the client and designer, making the process separation much, much, MUCH simpler. We could still do a Notes preview in this world by launching a separate instance (in Eclipse-speak, target platform) for the Notes client to view the preview of interest.
Things get less simple if you actually want to preview a database that you use in your local client data directory, with the data that's there. So I need to know how important that case is...
Do you most often design databases that you simultaneously use locally in your client or are they typically different?
Your responses will really help me work this issue through! Thanks!
As I thought about how to solve this problem, I came upon one thought that is very important to verify. My belief (please say if I'm wrong!!) is that the "typical" Notes developer *uses* a different set of databases than he or she *designs*, and based on several Lotusphere conversations, people who design also often want to design using a different ID than they use in the client.
That would mean that the data directories (and desktops) could be different between the client and designer, making the process separation much, much, MUCH simpler. We could still do a Notes preview in this world by launching a separate instance (in Eclipse-speak, target platform) for the Notes client to view the preview of interest.
Things get less simple if you actually want to preview a database that you use in your local client data directory, with the data that's there. So I need to know how important that case is...
Do you most often design databases that you simultaneously use locally in your client or are they typically different?
Your responses will really help me work this issue through! Thanks!
Friday, July 13, 2007
happy birthday, Nana
Today would be my grandmother's 110th birthday. She only made it to 84, but she packed a lot of personality into her 84 years, and she lives on in at least my mother's and my memories of her... Her lifelong mischief streak started with her birth.
It is a great family mystery as to whether she was actually born on the 12th or the 13th. July 12th is of course Orangemen's Day and my grandmother was of 100% southern Irish descent, and it would be completely inappropriate to be born on that day. Rumor has it that she was born on the 12th (albeit near midnight) but that *her* grandmother deemed that a completely unacceptable birthday, so her date of birth was officially recorded as the 13th, and we certainly always celebrated it on the 13th.
She was quite an artist, and I am lucky enough to have a few of her paintings in my house. They are rare - she painted just enough for her house, and then stopped painting when she started raising her family.
She threw elaborate parties, and hated to be left out... When my grandfather had a company Christmas party that did not include wives, she called the party anonymously to tell them that their headquarters was on fire, sending all the partygoers racing to their building to discover all was well.... When they still didn't invite spouses the next year, they were surprised with the delivery of an unfathomable amount of ice cream.
It is her name, Grace, that is my middle name. May I live up to it :-)
It is a great family mystery as to whether she was actually born on the 12th or the 13th. July 12th is of course Orangemen's Day and my grandmother was of 100% southern Irish descent, and it would be completely inappropriate to be born on that day. Rumor has it that she was born on the 12th (albeit near midnight) but that *her* grandmother deemed that a completely unacceptable birthday, so her date of birth was officially recorded as the 13th, and we certainly always celebrated it on the 13th.
She was quite an artist, and I am lucky enough to have a few of her paintings in my house. They are rare - she painted just enough for her house, and then stopped painting when she started raising her family.
She threw elaborate parties, and hated to be left out... When my grandfather had a company Christmas party that did not include wives, she called the party anonymously to tell them that their headquarters was on fire, sending all the partygoers racing to their building to discover all was well.... When they still didn't invite spouses the next year, they were surprised with the delivery of an unfathomable amount of ice cream.
It is her name, Grace, that is my middle name. May I live up to it :-)
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
maybe I just shouldn't fish....
Steve loves to fish, and starting last summer, I have been trying to learn how to surfcast. I'm mostly getting better, and fortunately haven't actually caught anything, so haven't had to deal with how I feel about actually causing a living thing to stop breathing.
I have caught a crab, which was safely returned to the sea, a bit annoyed, but fine.
I can mostly deal with the reel and the lure, and I know I don't like to cast from the uneven rocks of a jetty, I need the steady sand beneath me whenever possible.
My cast goes out a bit farther each time, though I still struggle with having it land where I want it to.
Today, casting from the rocks by the side of the bridge at the Oak Bluffs/Edgartown border, on the very first cast of the day, I watched to see where my plug landed. I couldn't see it anywhere. Then my line started going out pretty fast and I couldn't figure out what was going on. Til I realized that the line was going towards the road above me. And that it was going about the speed of a car. I had hooked an SUV headed in the opposite direction. Steve told me not to drop the rod (which I thought was a perfectly good idea, but I figured he knew better). The line got tauter and tauter, and after what seemed an eternity, relaxed.
Steve told me to start reeling in the line, but it was caught in the bridge. The lure was gone, but eventually we got everything back together and I moved much farther from the bridge before I dared cast again.
I didn't catch anything else.
Driving back home, about a quarter mile up the road, I saw my lure at the side of the road. That was an immense relief, as I was really worried that it could have hurt someone.
My "one that got away" was a 2 ton SUV. I think I'm going to leave the fishing to Steve.
I have caught a crab, which was safely returned to the sea, a bit annoyed, but fine.
I can mostly deal with the reel and the lure, and I know I don't like to cast from the uneven rocks of a jetty, I need the steady sand beneath me whenever possible.
My cast goes out a bit farther each time, though I still struggle with having it land where I want it to.
Today, casting from the rocks by the side of the bridge at the Oak Bluffs/Edgartown border, on the very first cast of the day, I watched to see where my plug landed. I couldn't see it anywhere. Then my line started going out pretty fast and I couldn't figure out what was going on. Til I realized that the line was going towards the road above me. And that it was going about the speed of a car. I had hooked an SUV headed in the opposite direction. Steve told me not to drop the rod (which I thought was a perfectly good idea, but I figured he knew better). The line got tauter and tauter, and after what seemed an eternity, relaxed.
Steve told me to start reeling in the line, but it was caught in the bridge. The lure was gone, but eventually we got everything back together and I moved much farther from the bridge before I dared cast again.
I didn't catch anything else.
Driving back home, about a quarter mile up the road, I saw my lure at the side of the road. That was an immense relief, as I was really worried that it could have hurt someone.
My "one that got away" was a 2 ton SUV. I think I'm going to leave the fishing to Steve.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
living up to my blog's name
today I really am an mvgirl again :-) I'm on island, breathing in the sea and the sky, listening to the birds in the trees, feeling peaceful. The shallow stressed breathing of the last few days before vacation is being replaced with deeper, more cleansing breaths...
Life is good.
Life is good.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
private in desktop views
In a DDE (Domino Designer in Eclipse) meeting yesterday, when I was talking about how important it was to separate the client and designer processes at this time, Andre asked what I had in mind for private in desktop views... Part of the solution for separating the processes means a separate workspace/desktop for the Designer client, so that does indeed present a challenge for private in desktop views.
Driving in this morning (since I had to drive in by myself, and could be relaxed rather than clinging to the armrest because Steve doesn't like to brake as early as I do, but that's another story), I had the thought that we could probably get away with editing such views only within the context of a client. It is my belief that most of the users/editors of such views are those users who have an ACL access where they can create views, but do not have design rights to the database. They do their view design in the client anyway.
So I am seriously considering removing the ability to create private in desktop views when in the Designer, and only providing that function if you are editing a view in the Notes client itself (we'd probably have to have some UI to open the design in the client then even if you had design rights). The alternative for all this is some kind of replication between desktops.
Is my belief correct that that is the predominate use case for that kind of view? If so, I am leaning hard towards having them be client only. Anyone think that's a terrible idea?
Driving in this morning (since I had to drive in by myself, and could be relaxed rather than clinging to the armrest because Steve doesn't like to brake as early as I do, but that's another story), I had the thought that we could probably get away with editing such views only within the context of a client. It is my belief that most of the users/editors of such views are those users who have an ACL access where they can create views, but do not have design rights to the database. They do their view design in the client anyway.
So I am seriously considering removing the ability to create private in desktop views when in the Designer, and only providing that function if you are editing a view in the Notes client itself (we'd probably have to have some UI to open the design in the client then even if you had design rights). The alternative for all this is some kind of replication between desktops.
Is my belief correct that that is the predominate use case for that kind of view? If so, I am leaning hard towards having them be client only. Anyone think that's a terrible idea?
Thursday, June 21, 2007
question....
We're trying to prioritize some tasks for LCD, and I could use some help.
Particularly, we're trying to figure out in what release to include the support for the Notes client as a target development platform for LCD. In 6.0, we could deploy to portal, and with our alphaworks edition, to WASCE. My own sense is that supporting Notes client applications is tremendously important, but it would really help if I could reference a cast of thousands who agreed with me :-)
Is it important to you that LCD build Notes client applications? If so, do you plan to predominantly use Domino data in them, or would you want to use LCD's onboard XML document store, or both? If you would need the XML document store, would it be ok or not to wait for offline access to that data from the client?
I'll try not to prejudice the answers with my own views other than my already saying I think supporting Notes is important :-)
thanks for your thoughts!
Particularly, we're trying to figure out in what release to include the support for the Notes client as a target development platform for LCD. In 6.0, we could deploy to portal, and with our alphaworks edition, to WASCE. My own sense is that supporting Notes client applications is tremendously important, but it would really help if I could reference a cast of thousands who agreed with me :-)
Is it important to you that LCD build Notes client applications? If so, do you plan to predominantly use Domino data in them, or would you want to use LCD's onboard XML document store, or both? If you would need the XML document store, would it be ok or not to wait for offline access to that data from the client?
I'll try not to prejudice the answers with my own views other than my already saying I think supporting Notes is important :-)
thanks for your thoughts!
Monday, June 18, 2007
we didn't forget....
LotusScript & HTML editing - I just didn't post the pictures before. Due to popular demand, here's the LotusScript editor:
And here is the HTML editor:
Cool, isn't it?
And here is the HTML editor:
Cool, isn't it?
Saturday, June 16, 2007
I guess I still sound like home....
Thanks to Bob, I found this quiz... There's no doubt, I still have a Buffalo accent. And if you heard me say the "a" at the beginning of accent, it would be quite clear :-)
| What American accent do you have? (Best version so far) Northern You have a Northern accent. That could either be the Chicago/Detroit/Cleveland/Buffalo accent (easily recognizable) or the Western New England accent that news networks go for.
|
| Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests. |
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Domino Designer DNUG presentation
Today I had my Domino Designer presentation. Showed all the new stuff in 8, then got to show all the progress on the Domino Designer in Eclipse effort. We have more things working now... A Java editor:
A JavaScript editor:
and just a little bit of fun:
There's more to do for sure, but it's fun and moving forward!!!!
A JavaScript editor:
and just a little bit of fun:
There's more to do for sure, but it's fun and moving forward!!!!
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Safely to Dresden, via Prague
First time ever in Prague, what a beautiful city! I know we only scratched the surface of what to see, but I was amazed by the churches and the castle... The city is incredibly beautiful, and there is history at every turn. I didn't even get through half of the castle, so I just have to go back! Lots of pictures, I'll create a Tabblo once I'm home (where the cable to my camera is...)
We took the train from Prague to Dresden, negotiated the Metro several times, including a final ride to get from the wrong train station to the right one... Who knew?
Haven't been in Dresden very long, but so far seems like a very pretty city. Have heard that it is all rebuilt to look as it did, but it looks quite authentically old (or I'm easily fooled!)
Drifting off to sleep, but so far a great start to the DNUG adventure!
We took the train from Prague to Dresden, negotiated the Metro several times, including a final ride to get from the wrong train station to the right one... Who knew?
Haven't been in Dresden very long, but so far seems like a very pretty city. Have heard that it is all rebuilt to look as it did, but it looks quite authentically old (or I'm easily fooled!)
Drifting off to sleep, but so far a great start to the DNUG adventure!
Thursday, June 07, 2007
on my way to DNUG
Tomorrow night I fly out of Boston on my way to Dresden for the DNUG conference. I am giving one presentation on Domino Designer (yes, there's some neat new stuff to show!!!), and Martha and I are doing a talk on Lotus Component Designer together. New stuff to show in LCD, too :-) Enough to make me lug two laptops across the ocean!
On our way there, we're stopping in Prague - which I have heard is an intriguing city. Hoping to see Prague Castle and get a new stamp on my passport!
On our way there, we're stopping in Prague - which I have heard is an intriguing city. Hoping to see Prague Castle and get a new stamp on my passport!
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
memorial day
I can't say it better than John Gorka did in his song "Road of Good Intentions" on his Writing in the Margins CD.
One of those soldiers was my dad.
He was sent to the Pacific just before the end of WWII, served in the army of occupation in Japan, went back to school, returned to the army, went back to school, went to the Korean war, went back to school....
His story was too short, but I remember it.
I always come back to the soldiers
with their courage and ideals
I’ve seen them smoking in the airports
there’s no telling how it feels
on the road of good intentions
all gets justified to hell
the price revealed in stories
too short, too sad, to tell
One of those soldiers was my dad.
He was sent to the Pacific just before the end of WWII, served in the army of occupation in Japan, went back to school, returned to the army, went back to school, went to the Korean war, went back to school....
His story was too short, but I remember it.
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