Woot!'s March Madness is underway... Woot! OFF

If you haven't checked out Woot! today, they are having a Woot!OFF. Once an item has sold out, another will take its place, until they tire of the Woot!OFF.

Check it out!

First round of golf in 2009

As noted yesterday, I played my first round of golf of the 2009 golf season. I played at The Grande Golf Club in Jackson, MI. While the weather was beautiful for March, about 65-70 degrees, it was pretty windy.

I played with three friends, all who had played about a week ago, at the same course. I hadn't swung a club since my last round back in November. I didn't even have a chance to hit balls on the range prior to teeing of on the first hole. I did, however, hit one ball, from the first tee, into the driving range, while waiting for the foursome ahead of us to hit their second shots.

When it was our turn to tee off, I hit my first official tee shot of the year. It was almost perfect. No bad habits to start the year off, at least on the first hole. I finished the first nine holes with a 43. Never three putted, never got anything worse than a bogey, got a par or two, but no birdies. Not a bad start, if I don't say so myself.

The second nine, which was a little more challenging, as the wind was against us for many of the holes, was much better. While I did three putt one green, I had two bogies, and one birdie (the last hole), and finished with a 37. To shoot an 80 my first time out this year was unreal. I should hang up my clubs and not play again this year... that won't happen.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I'm going golfing!!!

Yes, today is St. Patrick's Day. For those of you who whoop it up, make sure you have a designated driver!

Also, today in my part of Michigan, it's supposed to be close to 70 degrees today. Therefore, I am going to take a half days vacation and go golfing for the first time this year. I can't wait!

Have a great day!

Brain Dump - My Lotus Domino/Notes Environment

It's been awhile since I've posted anything about our Lotus Domino/Notes environment. I thought I would just ramble about things that are on my mind concerning my Lotus Domino/Notes environment... basically a brain dump that I can refer back to later...

(begin brain dump)

We have a very small Domino/Notes installation. We've got one primary Domino server (7.0.3) and a secondary Domino server (7.0.3), which services our Good Mobile Messaging server. We've got about 110 Notes users (6.5.4 and 7.0.3 clients.) Some of the Notes clients are using Citrix to access Notes, via a published app, as most of these people share a desktop or thin client. Most, if not all, desktop/laptop users are using the 7.0.3 client. I've got about 20 clients that are 7.0.3 Domino Web Access clients, which was needed to be able to sync address books to their phones (or so I was told.)

I am planning on upgrading our Domino servers to 8.0.x in the near future (mid to late 2nd quarter), but I have a lot of "stuff" that I would like to do, either before, or after, the upgrade. This "stuff" is as follows, in no particular order:

1. Deploy DWA, or iNotes, so that all clients could access their email, calendar, to do's, etc. via a browser. My thought here is to reduce, or eliminate, the need to install a Notes client on Citrix. I'm not sure if this is the way to do it, but until someone gives me a better idea, that's what I'm looking for.

2. I desperately need to get ID Recovery working in the 7.0.3 or 8.0.x environment, and keep it working. This is a major issue for me, as I've deployed some single sign on clients, but have had some (major) issues with it. Right now, I need to disable the SSO on the installs I have, but haven't gotten around to it yet. I'll explain the issues in another post a little later, but the biggest problem I have is that when the network password changes, the Notes SSO doesn't always see that it has changed, or somehow already knows what the new network password is, and doesn't ask the user to enter the new password.

3. This kind of goes with #1 above, but I need to get everyone on the latest client. With the Citrix clients, this isn't the easiest thing to do, as I just can't push an upgrade of the client to the user (not that I know how to push the upgrade down to the user anyway.)

4. I need to get Quickr installed, at least in a test environment, so that I can demo it to the masses (well... to the powers that be, anyway.) I know that what I've seen of Quickr could help the company organize and collaborate better. I just need to get it installed and running. I've got a lot of questions concerning the use of Quickr internally, as well as externally. The problem I have right now, is that there seems to be two versions of Quickr, the Domino services and the Websphere services, if I understand things correctly. Some Quickr features are only available in one version or the other. We don't use the Websphere Portal, so the Websphere version won't be the one we will be implementing. I'd like to see a side by side comparison of the features of each version, so I know what I'm getting with the Domino services, and what I will be missing out on with the Websphere version.

5. I need Admin training... plain and simple. I haven't had Admin training since R5 or maybe R6. I'm trying to approval to go to a Domino 8 Admin Bootcamp in April, but with the economy the way it is, and the company finances not being the best, I'm doubtful that I can attend right now. In the meantime, I need to find some cheaper alternatives to attending a training session. I know, I know... I could always read the Admin guide. The problem with that is I'm more of a visual type person. I need to see it shown to me, not just read it in a book.

6. This goes along with #1 as well... I would like the people who travel, and our remote users to be able to access Notes through the web, instead of using the Citrix web client that they are using now. It would quicker and easier for them to access their emails going to a website, instead of going to our Citrix web access site, and opening up a Notes client through Citrix. Most of these people get their emails on their Windows mobile phone right now, but there are times when they need to get in to do some things that they can't do, or is more difficult to do, with their phones.

As you can see, I have a lot of "stuff", and there's plenty more that I haven't put into this post. Before this year is up, I would like to see 4 or 5 on this list go away, and new items take their place (in a good way.)

(end brain dump)

I feel a little better now.

Homebrewing - Schwarzbier

It's been awhile since I posted about this beer, too. It's still sitting in secondary fermentation, in my brewery fridge, at about 35 degrees Fahrenheit. It's been sitting their patiently, awaiting me to bring it out of the cold and bottling it. It won't be long now. I see some time coming in the near future.

With the problems I had with the priming tablets on my Spiced Winter Ale, I think I will be making a priming concoction the old fashion way for this beer, as I have been longing to sample this beer for quite some time. I don't want anything to discourage me, or hinder it's finishing. I know that the warmer weather is approaching (it's 65 today!!!), but I will carbonate this beer the proper way, and know that it will be good, when the time comes.

Bottling time is coming... I can feel it.

Homebrewing - Spiced Winter Ale

OK... so it's been almost three months since I've posted anything more on the beers I brewer back in November. This post is about my Spiced Winter Ale.

The last I posted about the SWA, it was being transferred into secondary fermentation. It sat there for about a month (until I had time to bottle it.) I finally got around to bottling early in January. I did something different this time, in regards to carbonation.

Ordinarily, I would cook up a concoction of priming sugar and water, dump that into the bottling bucket, and then transfer the beer from the secondary fermentor to the bottling bucket. This time, I decided to try some tablets of priming sugar. For this, one needs to put 3 to 5 tablets (they look like little aspirins), into each bottle, and then fill the bottles with the beer. The package says that 3 tablets for low carbonation, 5 for high carbonation. I would then assume that 4 tablets would be for moderate, or normal, carbonation. So I put 4 tablets into each bottle.

After the bottles were filled (just over 2 cases of 12 ounce bottles), I capped them, and put them in some boxes and let them sit in the dark. Usually, carbonation takes about two weeks. I waited about three weeks to try the first bottle, to see how the carbonation was going. I was greatly disappointed. No carbonation at all. Now, to be fair, I won't blame the tablets for this epic failure. It had been cold in my neck of the woods, and my brewery, which is my basement, was a little on the cold side, which is not optimal for carbonation to happen. I moved the bottles into another, heated portion of my basement, to see if this would be more conducive to creating those heavenly bubbles. I waited another week. Nothing. Nada.

Now I was heartbroken. I've got two cases of beer that are flat. I like my beer to be a little carbonated, to feel the bubbles on my tongue. It tells me that the beer is happy. I took matters into my own hands. I noticed that there was some sediment on the bottom of the bottles. This is normal for homebrewed beers, as we do not filter our beers when bottling. I decided to get that sediment floating around in the beer again, hoping to jump start the carbonation process again. I turned all the bottles upside down in the box. This would get the sediment from the bottom of the bottles to the top. After a day of being turned upside down, I flipped the bottles over again, in their correct position. This has to help things. It has to.

After another week or two, I checked another bottle. By this time, my two cases of beer has been reduced by about 4 or 5 bottles. I took one more bottle and opened it. I heard that refreshing sound of CO2 escaping the bottle. This was an exciting sound to hear. I was giddy with anticipation, preparing to pour this beer into a glass. I made the pour. If I hadn't gotten married or had two kids, this would have been the happiest day of my life... the beer had a head on it. And it was a good head too... not too thin, not too thick. It was almost perfect.

As for the taste, well... this beer will take some time to mellow. It seems the mulling spice I used was a little too, well, spicy. Not hot spicy, but too flavorful and aromatic. A little too overpowering for what I was looking for. Since the beer is now carbonated, I can let it sit for a few months until it matures, and hope that the spices mellow out some.

Who knows... maybe by the time next winter comes, this beer will be ready to drink. All I care for now is that it did carbonate, and for that, I am a happy brewer.

A lesson I failed to follow is this...

"Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew" - Charlie Papazian

Messing with the Google Feed Reader

So, I've been messing around with various feed readers for Firefox for awhile now, but never really settling one particular reader. Besides the fact that I have different feeds in the two readers I've been playing with, and not being all that organized to begin with, I've decided to try something a little different.

I've exported my feeds from the readers I've got, and imported them into my Google Reader. Since I'm in Gmail all day long anyway, I figured it would be just as easy to use the Google Reader as it would be to use some extension to the Firefox browser. It also gave me an opportunity to clean up the feeds that I've got, and tag them into various "folders". I still have a lot of duplicates, and it will take some time to weed them out, but so far, so good.

I've got nearly 300 feeds that I follow... well, not necessarily follow closely, but look at from time to time. I've got feeds for Beer and homebrewing, Lotus Domino/Notes (and a lot of the various bloggers I follow), IBM, various news feeds, football (news, fantasy football, my Cleveland Browns), web development, etc. I know it sounds like a lot of feeds, but I'm kind of an information junkie. I may not read everything I've added, but I do read the headlines for most of them. If I find something interesting, I'll dive into it a little deeper.

So far, I like the Google Reader. I've gone into the "Browse for stuff" and found a ton more feeds to add. There's a lot of interesting stuff out there that I wasn't aware of. Some of which I have added, and some that will need to reviewed a little closer before I add them.

If you are looking for a feed reader, I would suggest checking into the Google Reader, especially if you already have a Gmail account (if not, you'll need to register with Google to keep your feeds.)