Whilst Emily has been no trouble at all recently, she still takes up a lot of time - that's my choice though... I love coming home and hanging out with her and Laurette after work, and then after that, on the nights that I don't have extra work to do, getting the motivation to write up something isn't coming easily.
I would like to say that I'm about to ramp it up (there's a lot of things I have on my list that I want to get out there), but honestly, I don't see it changing for a little while - work is ramping up big time (it hasn't slowed down since about September last year) and I have a lot of things that I want to do there, a lot to do with Laur & Em, a lot to do at home (we're looking at moving house soon - "soon" is about 3 months in our timeframe!) as well as everything else....
hopefully I'll get a chance to get back into things soon.. we have a lot of things going on with openslice (about 4 versions that have been released to a small group - it's faster & cleaner), a number of standard-based discussions to kick off, and hopefully we'll be able to get things going again with a view to heading over to Lotusphere next year (about a 25% chance at the moment... but still a chance)
hope everyone else is doing well]]>
Laurette and I were just watching a tv show where they showed the "inner workings" of an AI program that can drive cars... don't get me wrong - it's just a tv show - not a documentary...
anyway, Laurette, trooper that she is, and desperate to get her mind active again in the land of code after the birth of Emily, rewound the pvr and paused the code on the screen so she could read it to see if it was legitimate, and give it a quick peer review... needless to say, it drew a number of scoffs at the poor quality - even for the half-baked pseudo code that it was...
scary... true... and one of the many reasons that I love her!]]>
One thing I just wanted to put out there though, is the current state of play of the market in Sydney - I've advertised for a couple of positions and have had some trouble filling the roles - the one that I'm especially surprised about is the Domino role - it's the classic web development role with a Domino background (internet, intranet, extranet sites) but I haven't exactly been inundated with heaps of applicants. There have been a few - some too pricey, some underskilled, some pretty good - but certainly not as many as I would have expected.
What are other's comments on the market at the moment (elsewhere as well as Sydney)?. To me, it seems that the market is pretty good if your skills happen to fit one of the niche jobs (they have some good dollars to offer), but for the rest of the roles, there seems to be a lack of candidates. I've talked with a few friends who say the same sort of situation is represented in places like Melbourne and Canberra so maybe we're in a bit of a rut at the moment. What's interesting though, is that despite the market appearing a little tight, the salary ranges aren't reflecting the demand - there seems to be a price set on a developer salary and no matter what the market is dictating, most places aren't looking to extend beyond their current ranges.
At the moment, it's almost as if there are more positions than candidates - I know that's not the case, but in the past you'd see 10 or 20 people applying for a role on the first day it's announced, now there's more of a trickle effect.
Am I just an anomoly? (don't worry - I've been called worse!)]]>
Yesterday was "Lotusphere Comes To You" (LCTY) for Sydney - there was a pretty good turnout for the 4 or so hours of information on offer - a good sign for those of us in the local industry to see that there is still a lot of interest in Notes8. It was a bit hard to tell, but I think there were around 5-600 guests - most of which who were pretty excited about some of the things they saw and what's just on the horizon for Notes and Domino.
[executive summary - again, another great year of development in the Lotus brand - lots of new stuff on the horizon, looks like a lot of fun to play with, but more importantly it looks like creating a more effective and efficient user experience in the Lotus suite - good stuff guys]
Unfortunately I don't really have a lot of time at the moment but just wanted to kickstart myself into blogging about some of the details - I hope to give a bit of detail about the sessions, but this entry is a more general outline of the (half) day's events.
First, the location - the event was held at the same place as last year - probably one of the nicer hotels in Sydney and it showed - well turned out, relatively comfortable chairs (although after a couple of hours people get fidgety), good audio/visual presentations and visibility, good catering, and when you needed to get outside for a little break, you were literally on the doorstep of Sydney's famous Circular Quay and the Sydney Opera House.
The sessions were pretty good - especially the keynote - lots of great stuff, mixed in with some demos (I don't remember them from last year so that seems to be a great new addition to the day - way more like the "real" Lotusphere).
I guess I'm pretty hard to please (but I also think I'm pretty indicative based on the people that I talked to), but I'm still not sure as to exactly what the concept of LCTY is supposed to be - or more correctly, I'm not sure if my concept of LCTY is the same as the concept IBM have. It wasn't as bad as last year (which could have been called Portalsphere or Workplacesphere), but, being a technical person, and recognising that this is effectively the *only* event that IBM will throw during the year in relation to Lotus, I would have liked some more technical presentations, or demos, or hands-on, or whiz-bang stuff that we can all take back to our places of work and really show off some of the cool stuff that can be done with this tool that we all support so much.
As a technical person, and due to the name LOTUSphere, and after being at the Orlando event, I kind of expect it to have some breakthrough information, and a lot of it about Lotus Notes in particular. It's just that.. well... LCTY kind of doesn't have a very technical, nor Lotus feel about it... ok now... before I get everyone jumping up and down at me... I know that there seems to be some plans afoot to have some more technical sessions throughout the year in Sydney but part of me really wishes IBM would spring for at least a day-long session - morning for strategy and direction, afternoon for technical and breakout.
Ok... so.. that's off the chest - I'll post some more on the sessions later in the week]]>
1 - enables printing of Lotus Notes documents to a PDF file
2 - doesn't require a client side installation of a printer driver
3 - doesn't require any client side dll files
4 - doesn't require http to be running on the server
5 - handles rich text fields without conversion/issue
6 - enables the pdf generation to be done programmatically
7 - is quick enough to be real time
8 - is free/open source (ok - this isn't a "must have" but would be nice in an ideal world)
The documents are just normal documents - but they do contain rich text fields which can potentially have formatting (eg letter templates, images, tables etc)
anyone got/used/heard of something that might help?
(note items 4, 5 and 6 - they seem to be the biggies - I can't seem to find something which does them both)
also - if anyone has played with iText, I'd be interested to hear how it went with rich text fields...
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This time last year we were abuzz with news of our travels around the USA in the lead-up to Lotusphere 2006, but this year it's a very different story indeed. This year, apart from sadly not being able to make the trip to Lotusphere 2007, Laurette and I have welcomed the beautiful little Emily Grace Rynne. There is one similiarity between being a new parent and a trip to Lotusphere for those of us from the other side of the world - the constant feeling of jet-lag!
If you've read the story on Laurette's blog, then you'll know that we've delivered almost the perfect contractor baby scenario - after a 40-week delivery schedule, Laurette went into final UAT (hospital) on the day before the due date. Whilst the baby was technically "complete" and "signed off", there was still the matter of the delivery before the project was truly complete. After considering our options for implementation (delivery) - parallel, rip and replace etc, we decided on a full deployment. After pulling an all-nighter, she was delivered at 3.30am on the morning of her due date (January 4, 2007) - which gave us until around 6am to tidy things up and complete the paperwork... just in time to sign off on the deal as promised before the business day got under way.
How are things going so far? - well... it's certainly a shock to the system to be constantly, relentlessly, on-call 24/7 to her demands (although, I guess being married to Laurette has been a good preparation!). We're getting used to the concentrated efforts every four or so hours - getting through the cycle of feeding, changing, settling, (singing, dancing), and then hoping that she sleeps enough so we can have a chance to recover for the next time around.
It's a case of "so far, so good" I suppose - don't get me wrong - there have been times where I've found myself up at 3, 4 and 5am trying to remember the words to any lullaby I've heard in the last 30-odd years, and finally settling on making up my own... we love her completely, and as new parents, we're facing all the challenges and fears that come with the territory, and, as tired as we might be... if we're honest, we're loving every minute! (well... almost every minute!)]]>
First off, what a fantastic location for a golf course - just next to Rose Bay, home of hundreds of luxury yachts and cruisers, mini mansions which pass as houses, and a place where a car needs European heritage or all the other cars on the block tease it for being "common".
But the main draw of the day was a chance to watch the legend Greg Norman in action on a golf course, and we managed to watch him for about 13 holes. It was quite incredible to see the gallery following him around, just happy to be in the same space as the great man... whenever he stood and considered his next shot, a hush would fall over the gallery as they anxiously waited for his next shot.
It must be tough to only play a few times and have the expectation of a nation on your shoulders, but his game certainly improved over the days of the event. There were moments of greatness - an eagle on the par 5 seventh and hitting a monster drive and onto the green in two.. awesome stuff.. unfortunately followed up by a bogey and double-bogey only a few holes later.
I managed to get a couple of photos during the day
oh... and the sweet irony of one of my recent posts regarding tourists sitting in the sun crackling like bacon wasn't lost on me when I got there and realised that I hadn't packed a hat or sunscreen for the day (we were in the middle of an unseasonable cold snap)... here's a picture of me at the end of the day ->
and the result? Well, unfortunately Norman was unable to get back to his previous days (despite landing some legend-worthy shots in front of the big crowds which followed him every step of the way), however another Queenslander stepped up to claim the Stonehaven Cup -
"Queenslander John Senden has stormed home with the round of the tournament to claim the MFS Australian Open by a stroke from US Open champion Geoff Ogilvy at Royal Sydney."
Australian Open Web Site
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"The patent, granted to CSIRO in 1996, encompasses elements of the 802.11a/g wireless technology that is now an industry standard.
It stems from a system developed by CSIRO in the early '90s, "to exchange large amounts of information wirelessly at high speed, within environments such as offices and homes", said a CSIRO spokeswoman."
CSIRO wins landmark legal battle - Wireless & BroadBand - Connectivity
Following this court case, the CSIRO have to back up and face the same challenges against Intel, Dell, Microsoft, HP and Netgear but could end up scoring a royalty against any wifi device that utilises 802.11a/g.
I guess it will give them more money to develop things like the "Air Guitar Shirt" - yep - it's true... a shirt that reacts to your air strumming to "create" the music associated with your "freakin' flicks"!]]>
umm... well.. yeah... today - not so much...
"This morning's recorded low temperature of 8.3 degrees is the coldest November minimum in more than a century."
Sydney shivers with record low - National - smh.com.au
Welcome to Australia in Summer today - freezing temperatures, icy winds, snow and hail... oh... don't worry.. we still have a couple of bushfires marching on - all within a couple of hundred kilometres of each other! Nevermind though, it will all be back to usual on the weekend - edging back towards the high 20's and maybe a 30-degree day on Sunday...
usual service will have been restored... ]]>
and here's a picture ...
It was my third U2 concert - two in Sydney, one in London - each has been very different, but each has been quite fantastic... In a nutshell - this one rocked - as good as a U2 concert should be - after the massiveness of the PopMart tour it was interesting to see them downsize the use of technology so that it was really all about the music and the message rather than the awesome sight of a 50 foot mirrorball lemon making it's way across the front of the stage with the band inside (which was my highlight from PopMart).... yeah.. this one was less of that, and full of just great music - big screens were utilised to give a better view of the band, and also to show some mini-filmclips during the sets but it was essentially all about the music.
We had some rain at the start of the session, which quickly dissipated once the magic of "Beautiful Day" made it's way around the site of the Sydney 2000 Olympics. During 2 hours of music the guys played some new stuff, some old stuff, some stuff I'd forgotten about, some stuff which made me leap out of my seat and some stuff that brought back memories of floating through the 90's - all in all it was a great night.
This is my third U2 concert - each has been very different from the last but each was fulfilling - I've enjoyed every one in a different way.]]>