Big A** Mutant Blog

With IBM's announcement, Alan Lepofsky suggested that we should make August 11th "Yellow Day". With this proclamation YellowBleeders are encouraged to show their spirit in any way possible.

Some possible ideas that have been suggested are:
1. Wear something yellow to work.
2. Use the graphic in this post on your website/blog/email/whatever else. Or download a larger version!
3. Give your users a useful tip for the day.
4. If it's your thing, podcast.
5. Write a cool piece of software using Lotus technology and show it off.

Alan has also thrown down the gauntlet for Lotus 911 to do something to commemorate this, and we will. So stay tuned!

With the introduction of Carl Tyler's Sametime Wallpaper Plugin, I decided to make a few of my own backgrounds for the Lotus Community.

They are pretty simple, standard Lotus logos and as always, the BleedYellow Claws.

I also made one with the Lotus 911 logo, but sorry, that is for employees only.

So if you are so inclined, head on over to my Flickr page and download them. Also if ther are any requests, drop me a line and I will see what I can do for you.

Have fun!

Beginning in August, Lotus 911 will now have a representative covering the great state of Pennsylvania and surrounding areas.

Yup that's right, Pennsylvania will be invaded by the Big Mutant.... and it will never be the same.

My wife has accepted a position at Geisinger's Center for Health Research and we will be moving to Lewisburg, PA where she will be a Research Associate and I will work with Lotus 911 fom the remote location of my home office (as well as some traveling). I want to thank Jimmy and Jennifer Bracco for allowing me this opportunity to work in this capacity, because this is the best company I have EVER worked. YOU ROCK!!

Lewisburg is a very central town in Pennsylvania so I will be able to reach many of our customers within a few hours. So, if anyone needs any Lotus Notes / Domino help in PA, just give us a shout.

IBM Certified Advanced Application Developer
Lotus 911
770.517.0092 x129 (phone) | 404.663.1058 (cell) | 678.594.6756 (fax)
http://www.Lotus911.com | http://www.BleedYellow.com

I am Joe Perry. . . . NOT!

It's Here! It's Here!

Activision™ has finally released Guitar Hero - Aerosmith© and it is awesome! My copy of the complete bundle (game, special guitar, etc) arrived on Thursday and I started playing it the next day. This is my first foray into the Guitar Hero© universe so I started off with the practice mode and found out.... I need a lot of it!

My wife is not that much into video games, Tetris and Centipede were the only ones to grab her attention, but she is now hooked on this, but that could be because she is also a huge Aerosmith fan as well. She picked up the controller and started playing and after a little a lot of practice, she's really getting into it. She is stating that it is giving her carpel tunnel syndrome, but she won't relinquish control of the game.

This version combines the band characters from the original games and Aerosmith, incorporated by using capture-motion animation from the guys themselves. The game also consists of interviews with the band themselves between the gigs in the form of cut scenes.

You start off as an opening act for Aerosmith and for each level you must complete a couple songs before Aerosmith comes out. Your band plays the music of Cheap Trick, Joan Jett and The Blackhearts, Run DMC and more.

For more information, click here

For ordering information, click here

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.

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:

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:

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....

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.

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!

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

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.

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)"

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