18/07/2008

Déjà vu

QuickImage Category Announcements Personal

July 18th

A lot of really interesting things happed on this date. See if you can guess which of these had the biggest effect on my life:

  • 390 BC - Battle of the Allia: A Roman army is defeated by raiding Gauls, leading to the subsequent sacking of Rome.
  • 64 - Great fire of Rome: A fire begins to burn in the merchant area of Rome and soon burns completely out of control while Emperor Nero reportedly plays his lyre and sings while watching the blaze from a safe distance.
  • 1195 - Battle of Alarcos, great victory of Almohad ruler Abu Yusuf Ya'qub al-Mansur over the Castilian King Alfonso VIII
  • 1536 - The authority of the Pope is declared void in England.
  • 1792 - John Paul Jones dies in paris
  • 1830 - Uruguay adopts its first constitution.
  • 1857 - Louis Faidherbe, French governor of Senegal, arrives to relieve French forces at Kayes, effectively ending El Hajj Umar Tall's war on the French.
  • 1863 - American Civil War: The first formal Negro military unit, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, unsuccessfully assaults Confederate-held Fort Wagner but their valiant fighting still proves the worth of Negro soldiers during the war.
  • 1872 - Britain introduces voting by secret ballot.
  • 1873 - Oscar II of Sweden-Norway is crowned king of Norway in Trondheim
  • 1898 - Marie and Pierre Curie announce the discovery of a new element and proposed to call it polonium.
  • 1914 - The United States Army's Signal Corps is formed, giving definite status to its air service for the first time.
  • 1918 - Three days after a German offensive near the Marne River in the Champagne region of France meets with failure, Allied forces launch a major counterattack, ending the Second Battle of the Marne and decisively turning the tide of the war toward an Allied victory.
  • 1925 - Adolf Hitler publishes his personal manifesto Mein Kampf.
  • 1929 - Pioneer of "gonzo" journalism, Hunter S. Thompson is born in Louisville, Ky., on this day. (Happy Birthday dude!)
  • 1938 - Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan arrives in Ireland.
  • 1939 - MGM screens a sneak preview of The Wizard of Oz. (After the screening, producers debate about removing what will later become the movie's signature song, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow.")
  • 1940 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who first took office in 1933 as America's 32nd president, is nominated for an unprecedented third term.
  • 1942 - World War II: The Germans test fly the Messerschmitt Me-262 using only its jets for the first time.
  • 1944 - World War II: Hideki Tojo resigns as Prime Minister of Japan due to numerous setbacks in the war effort.
  • 1947 - President Harry S. Truman signs the Presidential Succession Act into law which places the Speaker of the House and the Senate President Pro Tempore next in the line of succession after the United States Vice President.
  • 1948 - Juan Manuel Fangio, a.k.a. "the Maestro," made his Formula One debut finishing 12th at the Grand Prix de l'ACF in France.
  • 1964 - Spanky's birthday.
  • 1966 - Gemini 10 launched.
  • 1968 - Vietnam War: The two-day Honolulu Conference begins in Honolulu, Hawaii between US President Lyndon B. Johnson and South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu.
  • 1968 - Intel incorporated.
  • 1969 - After a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Ted Kennedy from Massachusetts drives an Oldsmobile off a wooden bridge into a tide-swept pond and his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, dies.
  • 1969 - Apollo 11 makes preparations for landing on the Moon.
  • 1976 - Gymnast Nadia Comaneci, aged 14, scores first ever perfect 10 at the Olympics.
  • 1977 - Vietnam joins the United Nations.
  • 1982 - 268 campesinos ("countryside people") are slain in the Plan de Sánchez massacre in Ríos Montt's Guatemala.
  • 1984 - McDonald's massacre in San Ysidro, California: In a fast-food restaurant, James Oliver Huberty kills 21 people and injures 19 others before being shot dead by police.
  • 1986 - Video of the Titanic wreckage released.
  • 1989 - Rebecca Schaeffer is shot by a crazed fan, prompting California to pass America's first anti-stalking law in 1990.
  • 1992 - The ten victims of the La Cantuta massacre disappeared from their university in Lima.
  • 1992 - 'The Late Show (Australian TV series)', starring the D-Generation debuts on ABC.
  • 1994 - In Buenos Aires, an explosion destroys a building housing several Jewish organizations killing 85 and injuring many more.
  • 1994 - A court upholds NBA salary cap and draft rights.
  • 1995 - On the Caribbean island of Montserrat, the Soufriere Hills volcano erupts. Over the course of several years, it devastates the island, destroying the capital and forcing most of the population to flee.
  • 1996 - Storms provoke severe flooding on the Saguenay River in Quebec, beginning one of Canada's costliest natural disasters ever.
  • 1996 - In an event very similar to the Oklahoma tornado that would occur three years later, an F5 tornado hit the town of Oakfield, Wisconsin.
  • 1997 - 8000 low-caste Indians riot in Mumbai (Bombay) following a funeral for 10 children who had been killed by police.
  • 1998 - A 23-foot tidal wave kills nearly 3,000 people in Papua New Guinea.
  • 1999 - David Cone of the New York Yankees pitches the 16th perfect game in baseball history against the Expos at Yankee Stadium.
  • 2001 - In Baltimore, Maryland, a 60-car train derails in a tunnel, sparking a fire that lasts days and virtually shuts down downtown Baltimore.
  • 2003 - Kobe Bryant is charged with sexually assaulting a 19-year old girl.

Still can't figure it out? Here is a hint: my Amazon Wish List.

Of course, if you really wanted to make my day, you could always buy my house.

-Devin

16/07/2008

Selling my House

QuickImage Category Personal

Interested in moving to Grand Rapids, MI?

We have put our house up for sale.

Our house, even though it is awesome and beautiful, simply won't work in the event that Tanya's dad recovers enough to be able to come live with us. We need an additional bedroom on the ground floor (wheelchairs and stairs don't mix well).

So, if you are interested in living in a little piece of paradise with an awesome corner office, check it out.

-Devin

18/06/2008

Lotus Notes, Microsoft Web Browser Controls, Mapped Network Drives, and You.

QuickImage Category Show-n-Tell Thursday Technical

I know it is a day early for a SNTT post. If that really bothers you, come back tomorrow. I'll wait.

This post was inspired by two posts pointed out to me by Nathan, and a few phone calls with the Domino Guru himself, Mr. Chris Toohey. This is also an example of how well our community can collaborate to find a solution to a thorny problem.

The first post, Embedded Windows Explorer/File Browser for remotely-stored file resources in the Lotus Notes Client UIM, gives a basic explanation about the business need for using some form of an embedded file browser. The second, Sorting Hat - Embedded File Browser in the Lotus Notes Client UI - Flash Preview, gives a really good demonstation of the cutting / pasting & drag and drop capabilities available when using an embedded file browser.

I immediately got in touch with Chris, because this is something I can use right now, to solve business problems today. However, putting this to use is not really as simple as it should be.

The core of the solution relies on using an embedded control within a form. The embedded control has the official name of "Microsoft Web Browser"; with a class name of "Shell.Explorer.2". The primary purpose of the control is to allow a developer to embed a web browser control into an application. Savvy Domino developers (such as Tommy Valand, Tim Tripcony, or Nathan Freeman) will quickly realize that such a control should be able to pull double duty as an embedded file browser. And it can, (with a little bit of tweaking).

The control will, by default, work perfectly for local system files. The problem however, it that we need to use it to access mapped drives / network shares. Microsoft sees this as a security problem, and the February 2005 security hotfixes (and subsequent service packs) include security changes which effect embedded Microsoft Web Browser controls when interacting with mapped drives / network shares. The purpose of these changes is to disable drag-drop and cut-paste operations for such embedded controls. However, these security changes are not design or code changes; but rather changes to configuration settings. (Which, IMHO, is how it should be).

If you search the web for documentation on how to set the control to work with mapped drives, you will (as did I) find a whole bunch of solutions which involve custom log in scripts, registry changes, and even some (really scary) VB code samples which make real-time, undocumented changes to the registry. This is absolutely unacceptable to me.

Here is a fun idea! Tell a customer (while keeping a straight face) that in order to provide them with the functionality they want you are going to need code which can run with unrestricted access on all of their employees desktops which will modify the registry settings in real time. With no back out capability. And no documentation. Oh, I'm sure there are some folks who see this as a reasonable solution, but I'm not one of them.

So I set about the task of testing every single custom security configuration setting option (with restarts between tests) in order to find out what the settings need to be.

I'm happy to say, I figured it out.


Read More

09/06/2008

Viva La Theatre Geeks!

QuickImage Category Fun Podcasts BleedYellow

Finally got a chance to listen to YellowCast Episode #2; wherein Chris and Tim discuss, among other things; the separation of UI and document data, a Project Broker Update, and community news. They also reveal that they were both Drama Geeks (as was I) whilst in high school. All in all a very good show.

I'm curious, how many YellowBleeders are also former (or current) Drama Geeks?

-Devin

09/06/2008

Dreaming of Horatio

Category Fun

Got this quiz from Gregg. Looks like I need to look up some big words as well.


What philosophy do you follow? (v1.03)
created with QuizFarm.com
You scored as Divine Command

Your life is directed by Divine Command: Your god and religion give you meaning and direction.

“Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations.”
--Deuteronomy 7:9

“Even as a tree has a single trunk but many branches and leaves, there is one religion--human religion--but any number of faiths.”
--Mahatma Gandhi

Divine Command
100%
Existentialism
75%
Hedonism
65%
Utilitarianism
50%
Kantianism
50%
Justice (Fairness)
50%
Strong Egoism
20%
Apathy
5%
Nihilism
0%

-Devin

30/05/2008

ILUG 2008

QuickImage Category Lotus Technical

The Irish Lotus User Group Conference starts next Wednesday

Unfortunately, with schedules and finances being what they are; I will not be attending.

The Agenda and Speakers List looks awesome. This looks like it is going be the best technical conference for Lotus folks anywhere in the world this year.

If you are attending, make sure to thank the folks who set it up (you know who they are) properly (such as with a pint of Smithwick's and a shot of Bushmills). Don't forget to visit the sponsors as well; without their help this great conference would not be.

-Devin

25/05/2008

Memorial Day 2008

QuickImage Category History

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
-John McCrae, 1915.


Memorial Day is tomorrow.

For those of you who don't recognize it; the photo at for this entry is of the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery.

The inscription reads: Here Rests, In Honored Glory, An American Soldier, Known But To God

We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.
-Moina Michael , 1915


Do you remember?

-Devin

23/05/2008

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

QuickImage Category Reviews

I wasted 2 hours of my life last night.

I'm very sad to say that Steven Spielberg has Eragoned the entire Indiana Jones saga with this latest installment. If you think Temple of Doom is the worst Indiana film; you are very much mistaken.

Spoiler Alert: While the following may give away some details about the movie, characters, and story; it really shouldn't be considered a spoiler in that I seriously doubt I any part of this film could be spoiled any further.


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23/05/2008

Never had it, never will get it.

QuickImage Category Bitching Technical

If you're curious about whether or not I tweet; I do not.

Twitter is the White Noise of the modern, technology centered lifestyle; and has almost zero signal. Some people like it; good for them. Some people like having their testicles pierced with hot needles.

Enjoy your tweets and twattles, have fun with your endless prattle about nothing. Eventually you'll tire of it and realize how much you miss meaningful, contextual conversation with other adults. One can only play Patti-Cake for so long before recognizing they are no longer a child.

-Devin

22/05/2008

Best Tag Cloud Ever

QuickImage Category Fun BleedYellow News and Events

Is paying people to use your software a good thing?

Jimmy doesn't think so.

-Devin

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