Not the best time for this, but I am looking for a new position

For the past 5 months I have been working for a small consulting firm in Chicago. It had been a real good position for me as I could work out of my home office and I only needed to go to the client site for the occasional meeting.

Unfortunately, the firm has claimed that due to financial issues they cannot pay me for my services at this time. I have 2 months of invoices outstanding with them and have yet to be paid on any of them. They have made numerous promises to pay me and have broken almost every one of them.

I have been more than patient but I can no longer accept any more excuses. On Thursday, I asked that they compensate me for my work and they came up with only 10% of what they owed me. This was after a conversation with them where they claimed they wanted to continue our relationship and were looking forward to my working on their next project.

Because of these developments, I have to start looking for a new position immediately.

So, if anyone out there has any knowledge of any Lotus Notes Development positions in the Chicago area, I would be real appreciative hearing from you. I am also available for any remote positions.

The trials surrounding the installation of a Lotus Foundation Server

This week I was tasked to install the first Lotus Foundation Server (LFS) I had ever worked with. I had 4 days to download and set up the software in my office before I took it to the client's office.

Now, I want to state that I am not an expert when it comes to networking. I am a Lotus Notes Developer and have been since v2, back in 1992. I can perform most Administration functions, but when it comes to setting up networks, I have always left that to those that understand what IP addresses and ports are all about.

I have a very simple network set up in my office. It consists of 2 printers, a desktop, a laptop and my Dish Network DVR running through a switch, wireless router and cable modem. Without the use of Network Magic from Cisco I probably wouldn't know what IP addresses the various machines were using. Okay, I am exaggerating, I know I can run IPConfig to get that information.

But I digress. This is about my experience setting up the LFS at the client this week.

According to the marketing material, the setup of the server should take about 30 minutes. What I found out is that time is based on a number of items, none of which were known by me beforehand. I did not know that they had a DSL modem or that they did not want to use the server as the firewall, DNS, file server or any of the other features available inside the box. They wanted to make the LFS a server on their network and only utilize it for Notes/Domino, Symphony and SameTime.

Okay, I got to the office, set up the server, monitor and keyboard and discussed the options with their network administrator. He had some basic skills, knew how his hub was configured but was ignorant about the DSL modem.

Total time so far: 1 hour

Alright, time for me to make some phone calls to the Foundations Tech Support (FTS) to get the lowdown on how to set this all up.

First let me state that FTS has some of the best support people I have ever had the pleasure of working with. These people have a lot more patience that I do and were not worried about how long it took to get me through the problems or how many times I had to call them.

The first step in the process was learning how to connect the LFS to the network and what settings needed to be set internally. We connected ETH0 to the hub and ETH1 to the modem. This process should have allowed us to access the network and the internet and allow the server to control the traffic. After trying a number of different settings, FTS determined that the modem's firewall was not allowing us to do what we wanted. The recommendation was to either bridge the modem or set up 10-15 port forward settings. We choose to bridge the modem at this point.

Total time so far: 2 hours

Now I had to contact AT&T to learn how to bridge the Netopia DSL modem.

I was able to get to a tech support person at AT&T who walked me through the process of logging into the modem, resetting it and setting up the bridging option. She then gave me a direct 866 phone number and extension in case I needed to call back later. That should have been my first clue something was going to go wrong. After rebooting the modem, we immediately lost all access to the internet. Fortunately the office staff does not use the internet except for email and did not notice the outage. Okay, second call to AT&T to find out what we did wrong and fix it. It turned out that the number I was given was for their pay-by-the-minute tech support line.

As a consultant I knew I did not have the authority to bill them for this call and the owners of the company were not available to give me that permission. I called AT&T back and was told that they do not support this modem in their 1st and 2nd level support department. Their 3rd level department was a pay-by-the-minute department and I would have to talk to them. After politely explaining that the previous person I talked to was not level 3 and in fact did talk to me about configuring the modem, I was transferred to a level 2 support person.

The reason that I could not bridge the modem was due to it's current firmware version. I needed to upgrade it to the most recent version. This proved impossible as the modem I had was incapable of being upgraded over the internet. So, I had to revert the modem back to it's original state.

As an aside, every time I had to reboot the modem it would come back with a new external IP address.

Total time so far: 5 hours

Now that I was back to square one with regard to connecting the server and accessing the internet. I called LTS again to discuss the process of setting up Port Forwarding (PF). Now, remember my disclaimer at the beginning of this post: I am not a Network Administrator. I did not even know what Port Forwarding meant before this phone call.

FTS was able to locate a document online that explained how to set up PF on the modem. They sent me a document that listed all the ports that I needed to forward and along with their help, I was able to get everything configured. FTS was then able to access the server remotely to verify that all the settings were correct.

Total time so far: 7 hours (time to go home and continue from here tomorrow)

Back at the client's office the next day.

Now that I had the server up and running and it could access the internet, I decided to create the users and install Notes, SameTime and Symphony on their desktops and laptops. Remember earlier when I said I downloaded and installed all the software I needed when I had the server at my office? Well, it seems that one of the files I downloaded was patched the previous day and needed to be downloaded again before I could proceed. Remember also that I am at the client's office and they have a DSL modem. The 700Mb file I downloaded at my office in 10 minutes took over 2 hours to download at theirs. To make matters worse, the first download was corrupted so I had to redo the entire thing.

Total time so far: 11 hours

Once the file was finally downloaded, the server patched and everything restarted, I proceeded to install the desktops and laptops.

Total time: 13 hours

I guess that if everything is lined up and you know all the variables ahead of time, a 30 minute install is a possibility, but I do not know how anyone can know ahead of time what they are going to encounter unless they installed the network themselves. Not really a scenario a consultant is going to encounter in most circumstances.

Late update from MWLUG

I know this is late. Sorry Richard.

Thursday 8/27 - I had to get up at 6am to catch the train at 6:57. I got to IBM at 7:45am which for someone who works from home and is usually in bed until at least 8am is saying something.

As soon as I walked in, I see Gregg Eldred standing there holding my badge and ready to welcome me. I could tell from the number of badges on the table that there was going to be a large showing at this event. Richard estimated that 140 people registered - a very impressive number for a first time event.

The keynote address was done by a very tired world traveling Ed Brill, who as everyone knew had just flown in that morning from Australia via Hawaii after a week long trip. Excellent keynote as usual and lots of very good information regarding the future of Notes and the advertising that IBM is about to unleash on the planet. I still don't know how he did it, but he did manage to stay awake afterwards and talk to everyone. I guess maybe it has something to do with being 10 years younger than I am.

Next up were the sessions, the reason that we all came to Chicago and got up so early for.

First up for me was John Head's Coexistance between Notes and MS and Symphony. While I have seen this presentation a few times in the past, this time I had a specific application in mind and wanted to see if what I wanted to do was possible. Time will tell if the users like what I am going to put together for them.

Next up was a round table discussion lead by Bernie Leung on Lotus Foundations. It seems that IBM has not stepped up to the plate and worked with the channel to deliver product in a timely manner. A lot was said in this session and we will see if Jane (I think her last name was Wilson) from IBM follows through on anything.

After that was Composite Apps. I am very excited by how easy Michael Masterson made it look to build one. I am going to have to spend some time learning this new technology, but I think it will be a very powerful interface option for everyone.

Now that the day was over, it was time to have some fun. We boarded a double decker bus for the ride over to the Wendella boat for a 90 minute tour of the lake front, from the north almost to Lincoln Park to the south almost all the way to the museum campus and then an architectural tour of the river all the way down to Marina City.

While the temperature was lower than it whould be at this time of year, the rain held off for the entire time. I had a great time talking to people who had never been to Chicago and showing them all sorts of things that they would never have seen otherwise. The tour guide did a fantastic job explaining everything about Chicago, from Fort Dearborn to the Great Chicago Fire to the new Trump Tower and hopefully the 2016 Olympics. She really knew her stuff an believe me we tried to stump her a few times.

After the cruise we went over to the Hyatt for a light dinner and drinks. I left around 7:00 so I could catch the 7:40 train home.

Friday 8/28 - Back again Friday after once again getting up more than 2 hours before my usual time. On the train at 6:57 again and back at IBM at 8:00

Gregg Eldred and Denny Russell did a great job discussing Social Networking. Good examples of websites and do's and don'ts were discussed.

I then went to Tim Tripcony's XPages session and sorry to say, that getting up early two days in a row caught up to me. I dozed off during the session, but thanks to John Head and Chris Blatnick, I didn't make a scene. They did make sure everyone knew about it on Twitter though.

To make it up to Chris, I went to his session immediately afterwards. He was talking about Web 2.0 UI Interface Patterns and, to be honest, it was a great session. It was the same session that he did at Lotusphere last year, but with the smaller audience I think he was able to explain a few things better.

During the show, a few people had asked me where to get good Chicago Deep Dish Pizza. I took advantage of this to take a group of 8 to Giordano's down the street. WHile we had to break into two groups of 4 each in order to get in and out in a timely manner, I know everyone had a great time and really enjoyed the pizzas.

It was after this that I decided to catch a train back out to the suburbs and call it a day. The remaining sessions while I am sure they were as good as all the others simply didn't interest me. They were mostly centered around Administration and as a Developer that is a dirty word.

All in all, it was a great show and Richard and his team did a fantastic job. I am looking forward to seeing what Cleveland does next year.

One other thing came out of the show and that is there is a need for a second Granite User Group (a subchapter) out in the suburbs. Richard and I discussed this at length and I have taken it upon myself to organize one. If you are a member of Granite or want to be, stop by the LinkedIn Granite Group and see the post I made there regarding this subject.

Happy anniversary to my wife

This is a totally shameless plug to say Happy Anniversary to my wonderful wife of 14 years. I cannot imagine what the last 14 years would have been like if I had not met you. I know I am a better person for it. I love you and am looking forward to the rest of our lives together.

Away for a few days

I have finished packing, what little I needed to pack for 2 days, and am about to drive to St. Louis for the IamLUG conference. For the uninitiated, IamLUG is the first annual North American Lotus User Group meeting. It is being held in St Louis, MO at the Hotel Lumière. I will be back on sometime late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning depending on when I actually decide to leave.

Total Sports Bar & Grill of Naperville

Karen and I visited this new bar tonight and were impressed. We have been looking for a sports bar that serves more than bar food close to home for a long time. Well I think we found a candidate.

Walking into the place you find yourself in the middle of the bar. Off to the sides are the regular seating while the entire center of the building is given over to a bar and high top tables. We opted to sit, as we usually do, at the bar.

Did I mention that this place used to be called Jimmy's Char House. The place has the same owners and management staff, they just decided that the char house was not making the money they wanted and decided to remodel the whole place into a sports bar.

They updated the menu, adding in the appetizers required for a bar, chicken wings, potato skins, sliders, chicken fingers and nachos. They also brought over a number of items from the old place, chicken, skirt steak or shrimp quesadillas, mediterranean shrimp and BBQ ribs. Jimmy's used to be known for their roasted chicken and they carried that over to the new place.

I was intrigued by the Shrimp Dejonghe , a dish I tend to try whenever I find it available. If a restaurant can make a good Dejonghe, I find that they are usually good at most regular options. It was listed as an appetizer, but with 12-15 shrimp, it was more like a main course. The breading was a little dry, it could have used more butter, but the shrimp were cooked properly and it tasted very good. It was served with four pieces of pita bread.

Because I thought the dejonghe was an appetizer, I also ordered a Caesar salad with blackened chicken. I never even got near it and asked to take it home to eat for lunch tomorrow. The salad is large enough for two people as an appetizer or one very hungry person as a meal and the salad dressings are all made from scratch on the premises each day.

Karen decided to try the 8 inch four cheese pizza - made with extra virgin olive oil, grilled tomatoes, parmesan, mozzarella, fontinella and goat cheese. She at half of it and took the rest home to take to work tomorrow.

The girls behind the bar were very friendly, attentive and the service was fast. The noise level in the place was a touch high, but that was probably due to it being a Thursday night. The bar area was less than half full, the dining area was about 2/3 full.

There are at least 10 televisions around the bar with another 4 in the dining area. Every baseball game that was being played while we were there was displayed on one or more of the televisions.

For the rest of July and through August they are having a 1/2 price burger special. They have eleven different 8 or 12 ounce burgers. A couple sitting across from us said that the burgers were excellent and they would come back again for another one next week. We also decided that if the timing works out, we would try to return again in the next few weeks to try them for ourselves.

If you are in the area and are looking for a sports bar, this place will more than satisfy you. The menu is more extensive than most sports bars but that is because they used to be a full service restaurant and are still trying to cater to the people that used to frequent them then.

Hacienda De Los Fernandez (Naperville)

My wife and I think that this is the best Mexican restaurant we have in the area. The decor of this place is very nicely done. The service is courteous, attentive and professional. The margaritas are excellent.

The moment I walked in this place I was impressed. I was immediately greeted by the manager and sat next to the fireplace. The decor is beautiful from the art work on the walls to the hand carved wooden tables and chairs, to the agave shaped sconces on the walls. I give an A to the person who decorated this palace! The food was awesome. On our successive visits we sat at the bar in the back and have been very pleased with the service and the bartenders.

Started with chips and salsa. Chips a little thicker than I typically like but quite good. Salsa was very good. Mildly spicy, fresh tasting, and never ending bowl of it. I would like a hotter salsa but that is just me. Karen thinks the salsa is hot enough. Before our entrees came we each received small cups of chicken soup. Super! Very flavorful and a great start. Don't skip it.

Each time I visit this restaurant I try a different meal. I really enjoyed their nachos with beans, beef and cheese and found myself wanting more after I finished the plate. Be sure to ask for some jalapeño peppers to spice it up a little.

Their beef fajitas are served just like everywhere else, sizzling skirt steak, peppers and onions, side of beans and tortillas. The quantity of food on the plate is a little overwhelming and I always find myself having enough to take home and make a meal of the next day.

The Tacos, Tostadas, Quesidellas and Enchiladas are all excellent. I prefer beef and beans on mine, don't like sour cream or guacamole, and lots of jalapeños. Karen usually gets all my sour cream and guacamole to put on her meal.

For people who know real Mexican, this place has great Mexican food and the decor is the nicest I have ever seen in a Mexican Restaurant in the area. If you want to go for Mexican, I suggest this place.

Note: They are currently running an "all you can eat" lunch buffet on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays for $8.99 For the price, you can not go wrong. Almost every item on the menu is available on the buffet including desert.