Raising Eli & Ziggy

On day 3 of using Symphony I decided to do the same reporting task in excel that I just completed a few days ago for management. Basically it was a comparison of the number of users utilizing our Enterprise Single Sign-On product per application as compared to previous months since deployment.

In Excel, I can get the job done in ten minutes, including the creation of a fancy chart my managers drool over. In this scenario, the data is gathered and the only thing I have to do is create the fancy chart. I will be honest, I anticipated this to be an extremely easy task. A simple 3D vertical bar graph showing May, June and July users per applications.

My first try, I attempted to create a simple, non 3D graph. This worked, although right from the start I had to modify the X Axis character and font and rotate it 90 degrees to be able to fit the application title in. Excel automatically did this for me. I found it strange that the font size was a whopping 16 in Symphony. That font size would never work in any chart I have done except for the title and maybe the legend.

I also wanted to see how customizable this basic chart was. It took a lot of playing around, and even after an hour, I am no closer to figuring out the spacing between my bars. Bringing reinforcements into my cube, a guy I work with who is VERY knowledgeable in Office and excel and we worked hard just to change some basic things such as spacing out the X axis legend from the chart itself, by default, the words are squeezed up to the bottom of the chart which is horrible. Two hours later, we still know less about customizing a basic chart than we should. Score a point for Excel for ease of use.

Moving to a much fancier chart (3D) we were even more confused. The chart drawn out should look decent, and the customization should be easy. It was not. This was extremely disappointing to me because even after a few hours of banging my head on the wall I am no closer to reproducing my excel chart in Symphony with even acceptable responses. I am sure it is just user training that I need, but part of any migration for users to this product should not require days of training. If there was a show stopper for an application on my desk, this might be it. I need to be able to create charts, manipulate them with ease, with little or no help from the outside world. Symphony fails to achieve this.

More next week after the July 4th break on the functionality of the document writer as compared to word.

UPDATE: After a few more hours of playing, I have figured out how to manipulate the graph to look like I want in 2D. 3D has limitations and the amount of data along the X axis determines whether the graph is possible or not, actually more like pleasing to the eye or a jumbled mess. Clearly, the functionality exits in Symphony, it is just a matter of patience and changing the way you operate, which is normal when using a new software system.

As for math formulas, creating complex multi-page spreadsheets I see no difference in ease of use between the offerings. I rather like Symphony over Excel for these functions, and doing a budget was easier via Symphony than Excel.

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In my testing I am going to compare the functionality of Lotus Symphony 1.3 to Microsoft Office 2003 and 2007 because those two products are the biggest competitor to Symphony in the market. In my workspace, Office 2003 is the deployed version of choice with many of us IT guys struggling to cope with the 2007 version (slower, horrible navigation…don’t get me started).

The idea is simple, IMHO a competitor of the Office suite of products should do things Faster, Easier and Better than the market share leader. If you can’t win business because it is better, you should not even try to complete in the same space. Nobody likes to be second, and nobody should spend countless dollars trying to convince others that second is better than first. So this is going to be a tough sell for me, although I am completely in favor of open source products we have to be honest when we say, until now…they just don’t have any real competition.

Installation

Installation was quite simple for Symphony 1.3. I decided, even though I am using Lotus Notes 8.5 that I would wipe my machine clean, do a fresh install of the OS (Windows 7), and Notes (8.5 without Symphony 1.2). The OS is 64bit, Notes is 32bit (because Lotus has not released the admin/dev/notes client in 64bit). I have 4GB of RAM, a fast 160GB Hard Drive and the machine is actually a Dell Optiplex 745.

Upon rebooting the machine after the install (an unnecessary step), I found the icons for each of the suite members and also saw the integration to my notes client was done automatically. I had a fear, that because I did not install the 1.2 version of Symphony with the Notes client install that I would face difficulties later on, but my fears were unjustified.

Look & Feel

To launch Symphony you simply click the icon, but what I was surprised to find was the missing icons in the All Programs directory for each individual program that made up the suite. I don’t necessarily want to click on an intermediate step to get into the document writer. Of course, a few simple clicks and this can be resolved but it would have been more intuitive to add the three icons instead as part of the install process. I think IBM believes that anyone using the product will use it by launching an embedded window within the notes client tabbed window. Either way this is easily fixed.

One of the weaker points of the product is the lack of an easy and direct method of adding clipart or templates. When I first went to create a document, I selected to create a new document based on a template. Guess what, no templates are included. Hmm…how odd. I can install any office suite and be presented with templates galore. After doing a google search I found dozens of templates and was able to download them all with one click, unzip them to a directory and then import the templates. But why should we have to go through that step. Once again, any product competing with the shark of the market share should not require extra steps, it should just be easier.

The same holds true for clipart, I was able to download clipart, but importing the clipart is not as simple as dumping them into a directory. There is actually a technote with instructions on how to do this. There are 9 steps for adding clipart, 9 more steps for adding bullets….wow.

Tomorrow: Using common actions in Word & Excel vs Symphony 1.3

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I bleed blue. I have been so intertwined with IBM products for the last 15 years that I really don’t remember when my job did not include administration of Lotus Notes, Websphere Portal or even going as far back as cc:MAIL (yes…I know…IBM only bought the Lotus brand a few years back, but does it matter?).

In that time, I have watched Lotus Notes go from version 3.x (yes, I missed, or don’t remember v2.x) to the full glory of 8.5. There have been years that I have been an angry IT professional, and years where I was extremely proud of the product line Lotus was offering.

I have grown up in the industry learning from some amazingly brilliant people who understand the inner workings of the product better than I could ever pretend to know it. I have watched the word collaboration used loosely, to finally understanding what it really means, and I look forward to the future. I am a Domino and Websphere guy. It is what I do, and I am proud of it.

But we have hurdles to jump, we IBM fans. One of these hurdles is to break the legitimate grip Microsoft has on corporate America with their products, licensing game, and product quality. Microsoft Office is a great product, it works all of the time for me, and the tens of thousands of users I have supported over the years.

Telling a user they will be losing Microsoft Excel in favor of a Lotus/IBM product either makes them grin wildly (the fans of Lotus 1-2-3) or grimace with thoughts of the same product. Love it or hate it the bottom line is simple. Open Source applications like Symphony ARE going to save your corporation a lot of money. The question is simple: Can Symphony hold up and perform to the scrutiny of the power user?

Over the next few days I am going to take a look at each application in the suite. But more importantly, I am going to uninstall my Office 2007 completely, and give Symphony 1.3 all my time. I will let you know how it goes, and I hope you will comment and let me know what you think of the product also. Maybe together, we can learn something.

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People are shocked that I am not sad about the passing of Michael Jackson. They wonder why I have a negative attitude towards the singer, and think his death is not a tragedy. Let me make this clear, I am a parent first, and the allegations of his predatory behavior towards kids stands out far more than his accomplishments in the field of music.

He created a ranch to lure children into his trust, and I feel he abused it. Even if he never did a single thing to any child, his admissions of some of the behavior “done out of love” was flat out wrong. I can’t celebrate a man who has done what he has done in his life.

I think people are clouded by the thought that a popular star is above the social norm. I think people have been blinded by his story. I felt bad for him when he was being accused of the child molestation because I felt it was a play to get money, but in the end I could never trust him.

I admit he was an amazing talent, and maybe being an amazing talent makes you go a bit insane, but with his entire record I think the world is a better place knowing that this guy is not on the street anymore.

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I have to be honest, I have never watched the show, but lately it is hard to not look at any online news source and see the bitter battle being fought between this man and woman which will eventually, if not already, damage their 8 kids.

Did I really say 8 kids? Who in their right mind has 8 kids. I don’t pretend to know the story, or really care, but I tell you what. There is a double edged sword associated with divorce and overall, in the cosmic sense of everything, seems to be a lose-lose situation.

Happiness

How long can someone pretend that a relationship is healthy when inside you know it is not and you are miserable? In the case of these two people, it is clear that they hate each other. What was once love, turned into co-existence and eventually lead one person to look at the situation and say, I no longer love this person, I really don’t even like them anymore. I think this leads to behavior changes which causes the dislike to become bitterness and disgust. Eventually, all you can do is yell at each other and shake your head and start living your life for yourself and the kids.

Don’t get me wrong, people can not be happy but be content in being married. These types of people stay together when they really would be happier apart. The problem is the children. I read a poll one time that said that parents who have kids are 75 times more like to stay in an unhappy marriage because they don’t want the children to suffer.

This double edge sword affects all parents. At what point do you say, “My happiness (or unhappiness) is directly affecting my children. When can the bitterness and disgust in the partner actually rub off on the child, and when would it be better to just walk away from the marriage knowing that if you are happy, eventually the children will be happier.

I remember when my father told me once that he wanted to divorce my mother. Now at the time, my dad was a real prick to my mom and I was the youngest kid (I was in college at the time). I told my dad that if was that unhappy that all he was doing was making her unhappy with his attitude and told him to shove off and find a life that he could enjoy. He never did, he always had some excuse and he didn’t realize what she truly meant to him until she passed on.

Back to the topic. Jon & Kate are getting divorced, which leaves 8 kids in limbo. Weekend visits, visitation rights, the court battle, spousal support, splitting of resources….all of these things are going to create such a sense of hatred between the parents that these kids will suffer long term problems. Why? Because this man, and this woman let fame and money get in the way of being nice to each other. They stopped supporting each other for the greed associated with the documentation of their life.

In twenty years, these two morons will wake up and realize what pathetic parents they are. For all the bullshit quotes about them wanting the best for their kids, and the kids come first they sure seem to be thinking about themselves as individuals first

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When Eli was younger we enrolled him in a Daddy/Mommy and me swimming class. Our goal was simple, to have Eli comfortable in and around the water at the earliest age possible. At the time, Eli did not hesitate to swim and bounce around with his mother or myself but that changed when he was between the ages of two and three. Eli’s idea of being in the water was limited to taking a bath.

As frustrated parents, we tried last year to make swimming fun, but we were always faced with a screaming, miserable child when going into the water followed up by a shivering miserable child getting out. We needed this to be a happy outlet for Eli, not because it is summer time, but because we love the water and need Eli to be safe and able to swim.

Deciding that maybe having Jodi or I bring him into the pool, we figured going to a class would be best, and we have not been disappointed yet. Eli took his first lesson the other day and it was a great success. He did EVERYTHING he was asked to do, and even got his head wet and jumped into the pool a few times. It was an instant success and Eli is already talking about wanting to go back and do it again. We hope that the future classes will build on his excitement and skill level and maybe, if we are lucky, he will be swimming on his own by the end of the summer!

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I usually do not take advantage of things like Fathers Day, but this year is different. I just didn’t want to be in the house all day so I declared, after receiving my wonderful gifts, that I wanted to go to the Children’s museum and then out for a late lunch to Kimi in Port Jefferson.

The plan was changed a bit because Jodi wanted me to do what I really wanted, which was to go to the Cradle of Aviation museum instead, but I think we were all secretly concerned that Eli would not have a good time. Turns out, we were wrong. All of us had a fantastic time. Here are some pictures!

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I think I finally understand how to keep a house full of happiness. Don’t laugh but the simple cure for all problems seems to be exercise. Now, before all of you couch potatoes go screaming and whining (Matt) here is my thought process:

Dogs are a bored animal. They need to be challenged mentally and physically. The more you walk them and play with them, the happier they are and the less destructive they become. Every dog trainer in the world says the same thing….exercise your dog and your dog will reward you with great behavior.

Case in point, I have a 16 month old Bernese Mountain Dog. She will eat the house, literally if I don’t walk and play with her enough. What is enough? A brisk long walk in the morning, another at night with a catch play session somewhere in between. If I exercise her enough, she sleeps soundly the rest of the time. A tired dog is a happy dog.

Kids are just like dogs (oh lord, I can’t wait for the comments). If you let them watch TV all day or stay in the house doing nothing, then they become fat, and eventually destructive. Outdoor play wipes kids out. They stay healthy, they stay thin, they become active healthy adults. Lock a kid in the house all day and they get bored, destructive, unruly and become truant drug addicts. A tired kids is a well behaved kid.

A active wife who exercises is a happy wife. Guys, this does not mean doing all the chores, it means giving them an out that they enjoy. Maybe it playing soccer like my wife, or gardening like someone other than my wife. It is not about cleaning the house, but going outside to do something fun. This makes your wife more vibrant and less likely to cut your balls off in the middle of the night. A tired wife is a cranky Happy wife

You can’t be in the house all day either, but you can’t be out of it. Do some yard work, volunteer to do some yardwork. Fix the house, but it is more than that. Be active with your kids playing outside, go kayaking, golfing, join a sports league. Get off the sofa, put down the case of beer and get active.

Bottom line is simple, raising a healthy family is about becoming active. Drop the lazy, lethargic, TV watching habits and raise your energy level. You will notice, almost immediately that everything becomes…better (and easier)…especially with kids, families and dogs!

(1 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)

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Eli has some pretty serious teeth problems, and it is not because he has not been brushing (he brushes, and we brush for him multiple times per day). It is just how his teeth seem to be. So with the first dentist disaster we decided to follow the recommendation of my sister in law.

Calling the dentist and explaining the problems, we were immediately seen this morning and had such a better experience. Eli was able to take 1 xray, something the other dentist never even attempted as well as a full checkup of his mouth. Eli will need oral surgery to fix a tooth that is broken that did not come in correctly and that will set off a chain reaction of other dental issues that need to be fixed long term (orthodontics) but we definitely feel more comfortable with the prognosis and effort of the dentist.

Even though Eli was uncomfortable and not happy about certain aspects of the visit, he was extremely brave and well mannered. I am extremely proud of him. Let’s face it, it is never easy for an adult to go to the dentist, now imagine that fear in a four year old.

I suggest to all parents, start your kids at the dentist early, and don’t be afraid of checking out multiple guys. Dr. Miller was highly recommended to us, but to be honest, he is an ass. Dr. Marc Bennet at the Adelberg Montalvan Pediatric Dental center was great. I give him a thumbs up, more importantly, Eli seems to like him a lot.

Next phase? Knocking Eli out, fixing the broken tooth, filling in some very minor cavities and then sealing his teeth to protect them. All of which will be done in one visit, while Eli is sleeping.

Dr. Marc Bennet can be found at: 260 East Main Street, Suite 110 in Smithtown, NY!

(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)

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FIOS must mean Fucking Incapable of shit. My father-in-law calls me up today, because the Verizon FIOS install guy says he can’t hook up his computer to the FIOS system. He (the tech) says he doesn’t know computers, only phones and wants me to come over and hook it up!

I ask the guy what the problem is, he tells me that the wireless router (linksys) must get a new IP address and he can’t get it to work. I told him to unplug the wireless router and just get the computer online and I will come over and setup their wireless if he can’t figure it out.

Thinking about it, I call my father in law back and the guy is not even hooking up the computer. I tell my dad, don’t let him leave until he has your computer system up and running. Unplug and bypass the wireless remote and connect the FIOS router to the back of the PC and get the computer running. The technicians answer? It is not working, I don’t know how to get it to work.

I told him to call his office, submit his resignation and tell them to get someone who knows how to do the job at their house. God these people really piss me off.

(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)

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