The Turtle Partnership Blog

Creating a Scandal at the Hairdressers

07/24/2008 08:52:59 PM

It seemed quite a innocuous idea.  I had to have a passport photo taken for the first time in 10 years and when I compared it to my old photo I realised how much better my hair looked shorter (nothing to do with the difference between me at 30 and me at 40 I'm sure).  So today I went to the hairdressers and said "cut it all off" and was met with stunned silence. Apparently that statement was the equivalent of hitting the red panic button, as I was then told that the only women who walk in demanding that kind of cut are getting divorced, getting back at their cheating husbands or changing sexuality. Your hairdresser's job in those cases is to provide counselling before agreeing to the cut.   I felt bad I could only offer up my 'lousy passport' story, but it was accepted and I got suitably shorn.

Gabriella Davis | London | TrackBacks (0) | Comments (0)

Permalink | Bookmark :

Lotus UK "Blackout Breakout" video made me smile

07/22/2008 04:35:04 PM

There's an old saying in British TV advertising that if you are going to ask for people's time to tell your story then you have an obligation to entertain them in return. I think the new video from Lotus UK is a nice example of that, delivering a message about the value of collaboration in a fresh and funny way.

We all work in a serious business world but I believe that makes the right use of humour even more valuable to underline basic business truths.  

Anyway, that's what I think - so if you have yet to see the video then please take a look and see what you think:
 
By the way - how many calories are there in NOBO board paper?

Mike Smith | London | TrackBacks (0) | Comments (0)

Permalink | Bookmark :

Web of Deception. Chapter 12: My That Reboot Button Looks Tempting

07/18/2008 06:51:36 PM

Thanks to Chris Miller, we left Mike on a deserted and destroyed boat with his baby as Loki and his minions approached on a heavily fly-posted dinghy.

The word he has kindly handed to me is ‘dubs’...

===============================================================

Chapter 12.  My, That Reset Button Looks Tempting

Instinctively, Mike drew the baby closer to him as he backed away from what appeared to be the most pathetic group of pirates he’d ever seen.  Everything about them was worn, torn and falling off. From their clothes to their skin it all fell in noxious clumps around the boat as they moved towards him.  More worryingly, their leader, looking like a burnt and melted waxwork of Mike Tyson, was clearly a moron.  Who else would view the wreck they stood on and consider it was worth pillaging?

Mike watched them approach warily and rules 10 and 58 of the agent’s handbook came to mind:- Never challenge a moron and never rile someone with nothing to lose. This guy clearly checked both boxes. Sadly, no-one had told the baby as much and, picking up on Mike’s tension, she started to cry.
 
“Hand over the child.” said Loki as he moved towards Mike with hands outstretched.

“What? No. What do you want with my child? Who are you? How did you find us?” Fear of losing the only thing he had left of Callie made Mike forget his training and, as the crying got louder, he instinctively lifted the baby high onto his shoulder and started rhythmically rubbing her back to calm her down.

“She’s not your child, she’s not anyone’s child.  She’s my vessel." said Loki. "I created her, and within her is contained that for which I have searched and fought for centuries.  Now even gods get tired and my patience has worn thin. It cost many lives to bring you here with the egg and I’m happy to add yours to the reckoning.”

“What do you mean you created her? She’s mine, mine and Callie’s.” Mike mentally flicked through his agent's manual as he realised he was dealing not with a run of the mill moron but a complete nutter.

Loki laughed and stopped in his tracks looking pleased with himself. “Yours and Callie’s? Do you mean Cara?”

As Mike watched, the air shimmered and where Loki once stood, now stood Cara. “Hello, Mike.” it said in Cara’s familiar voice, then the air shimmered again and there stood Callie. “I’ve missed you.” said Callie, and as Mike reached for her she smiled, but a second later where she had stood was left only Loki and a whiff of beetroot.  

“So it was not the beautiful Callie you merged with, but me, the great god Loki!" . "Get that look of horror off your face. You loved it, you know you did!” he protested. “Why do they always look so horrified afterwards?” he muttered to his minions. “And they never call the next morning, either.” But all Mike could hear now was the baby crying even louder.

Suddenly the crying was replaced by a single revolting cough. Mike felt something warm and wet drip onto his neck and what felt like a stone lodge under his collar.  The baby gave off a happy laugh and looked up at him with her spit-covered face. Mike smiled down at her. “Very nice, so that was what was upsetting you, just a bit of wind. You weren’t worried for your Dad’s safety at all?”  

He fished in his collar and brought out a small black egg-shaped stone.  “The Egg!” screamed Loki. “Give it to me!”  As Mike nervously went to throw the useless stone to him, he suddenly turned an even sicklier shade of green. “No no no, not like that. Don’t hand it to me. I can’t touch it. It’s too powerful!”

“It’s a stone.” said Mike, truly weirded out at this point and trying not to make eye contact with his apparent seducer. {Don’t think about it, Mike, just don’t think about it. It was Callie, you know it was.} said the voice in his head. {Just give him the freakin stone and jump in the water.}

“You said you wanted it, so here it is.” but as Mike approached, Loki backed away in fear waving his minions back. Mike smiled. Now this was interesting. “So what would happen if I were to throw this 'Egg' at you?”  

“Well, that would be bad.” said Loki, attempting to smile at him.  {He’s trying to placate me.} thought Mike. {This gets more interesting all the time.}

“Well here’s the thing, um, Loki? Yes? You did say your name was Loki, right? I’ve had a very weird honeymoon so far, what with zombies and cats and a disappearing, reappearing, pregnant then dead wife, and I’m tired and pissed and me and my little girl here, we just want to go home. And here I am with this egg you want but don’t want and I can’t help wondering what would happen if I just, you know, threw this at you. I mean, the day can’t get any worse, right?”

Loki was now in high speed reverse and as he reached the railings he halted. “Nooooooo!” he cried. “After all I’ve done, after centuries of struggle.  I mean, I like a joke more than the next man but it can’t end like this. It’s just not funny, destroyed by some no neck monobrow who doesn’t even know the power...”

“Power? This thing’s powerful?” Mike’s ears pricked up. “No, forget I asked. I don’t care. I’ve had a day of weirdness and fairy stories, maybe it’s all a dream, maybe if I throw this at you i’ll wake up back in bed with Callie in the cottage.”  As Mike spoke he grinned, raising his arm holding the egg. “Just like throwing a coin into a fountain. I’ll throw and make a wish.”

Loki screamed and hurled himself over the railing of the boat into the water below, and as Mike rushed forward there was yet another explosion and all went dark and quiet.

________________________________________________

Some time later.  Let’s say hours rather than minutes or days.  

Flat on his back, Mike attempted to move and suddenly became aware of two unexpected things, not the smell of burning or the screaming of Loki and his minions, but the smell of coffee and the sound of humming. The humming was definitely going somewhere, a song of some kind. God, he hated when that happened, what the hell was the song?  Whoever it was got to the end of what sounded like the first verse, and then started again! What, no chorus? How was he to work out what it was without a chorus?  Annoyed now, Mike opened his eyes and sat up.

“Morning, Mike.” said Callie, who was sat cross-legged on the floor of the bedroom. Between her legs was the baby, smiling and laughing.

“Callie!” cried Mike. Excitedly, he leaned towards her but was frozen in place by the look on her face. This was not a happy woman. In fact this was a very angry woman. What the hell had happened now?  He dialled his tone of voice to ‘pleading’ and tried again. “Callie? Is that really you? My god, I thought you were dead.  I can’t believe you’re here, I can’t believe we’re all here...”

“Yes. I can see that you might be confused, Mike.” said Callie, stiffly. “Beautfiul baby by the way. Yours?”

“Ours. Well, kind of ours. I can explain.” Clearly he had to tread carefully, he wasn’t “Schmoopie” right now.  

“Yeah, an explanation would be nice.” scowled Callie.  “You bring me to this beautiful cottage, I get attacked by the neighbours, you have to rescue me from zombies, then you disappear for three days whilst I panic and the guys in black jackets tell me to keep still and quiet.  This afternoon I walk into the bedroom to find you asleep holding tightly onto this beautiful baby with a huge smile on your face.  Yes, an explanation would be very nice indeed.” But she was looking into his eyes as she finished, and he could see the start of a smile forming on her lips.

“Well, I’m kind of glad you met zombies, honey, because the rest of the story takes some believing...”

____________________________________

Some time later.  Say about 30 minutes.

Callie looked horrified. “So you had sex with this guy...”  “No no no!" cried Mike. "Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I thought he was you.” At Callie’s frown he rushed to explain. “I’m not saying you look like some kind of zombie, he made himself look exactly like you.  I would never cheat on you, Schmoopie.”  The voice in his head started muttering {see what she’s reduced you to} but Mike put on his most beguiling and self-effacing smile and reached towards her.

“Well... OK. I guess I kind of understand. Like you said, it’s been a very weird honeymoon so far.”

“Yes, yes, a weird honeymoon, but it’s all over now, we can start over, can’t we?” Mike walked over to Callie and sat down next to her and the baby, wrapping his arms around his new family.  He couldn’t help noticing, though, that Callie still sat stiffly and she was back to not meeting his eyes.  

“What is it, Callie? What’s wrong?”. She turned and buried her face in his shoulder so he could barely hear the words. “Don’t you even want to know how we got dragged into this?” she whispered. “Or why your father and his friends insisted I stay here and not come with you?  Haven’t you even wanted to know what happened to me before we met?  It’s just I don’t think we can start over until we’re honest with each other, can we?”

As Mike watched, Callie carefully placed the baby in his arms then got up and walked towards the bed. She gestured to the bedside table where he saw a folded scrap of paper.  

“My secrets, Mike. All my secrets are in there. I’m going for a walk now. You can read the letter and find out my secrets, or you can burn it and we’ll never speak of them again. Either way, I hope you’ll come and find me and that we can start our honeymoon over.” At that Callie let out a sob and, covering her face, she ran from the room.

For an hour Mike held his baby and stared at the note.  Could he and Callie have a future with her secret between them? Would it indeed be better not to know something she had spent years trying to hide?  Eventually Mike took a breath and reached out for the note. After the week he’d had he could handle anything and Callie deserved his support as well as his love.  He unfolded the piece of paper. “What the f...??”

Mike,

juur://www.pqpdgpdgnku.qti/Lget/pd/rbddy.juon

Love Callie


Footnote:  Cypher is case sensitive.  I'll update the link for anyone who can't decode it on Monday

Gabriella Davis | London | TrackBacks (0) | Comments (6)

Permalink | Bookmark :

Re-assigning a Blackberry Without Needing Activation

07/14/2008 03:51:15 PM

How do you re-assign a Blackberry to a completely new user without having to re-activate the device?
 
That was the challenge for a project I did recently when we wanted to change the names of every user who had a Blackberry, moving them into a new domain and organisation but without them being aware of anything having happened or needing the user to do anything*.
 
I eventually managed to work out how to perform the change so that the BES simply sees the new documents and new names as a regular name change and updates the devices without the user knowing.
 
In case it's useful for anyone else, here's what I did for our specific project (where we were actually replacing the person documents) - cut your cloth to fit
 
-  Shut down BES service on BBServer (if multiple BBServers share the same MSDE or SQL db shut down both BES services) - Tell BES Quit. Leave SQL engine running
-  Delete (cut / paste offline) existing person document out of Domino Directory
-  Register new user and person document
-  Use MSDE Manager (from Valesoftware) to edit the table Userconfig to change the name of the user
-  Use Lotuscript code to update the account document in userprofiles.nsf changing fields UserProfile, DocumentEditors, DocumentReaders, Authors - appending the new name
-  Use Lotuscript code to update the userinfo document in the user's state database to modify the username field - appending the new name
-  Add the new username to the ACL of both the userprofiles db and the user's state db
-  Ensure the Domino directory is replicated to any BBServer using the MSDE db being changed
-  Start BES
-  The Domino console should show device updates being sent out to the 'new' user on that device - the device itself will show no changes
-  Test the device (after 30 mins approx) by sending an email to an internal user - it should arrive as from the new user name
 
 
* for several project related reasons I won't go into here the Adminp name change process wasn't an option for us

Gabriella Davis | London | TrackBacks (0) | Comments (1)

Permalink | Bookmark :

Collaboration University early-bird pricing and a new Workshop concept

07/08/2008 02:32:17 PM

Its worth mentioning that there is still time to get the early-bird pricing for Collaboration University for Lotus Sametime and Quickr which runs up to July 31st.

Meanwhile back in Kansas City Rob Novak is currently working on the final sessions list but has already gone public about the optional workshops - which this year have something new. They are focusing on Quickr Domino development and admin around a slice of "real life", and it sound like an interesting ride with at least one twist. You can see more here.

Mike Smith | London | TrackBacks (0) | Comments (0)

Permalink | Bookmark :

Something to make every geek feel special - Geek Hierarchy

07/04/2008 10:37:19 PM

In my first step back into blogging after a solid 3 months of being off radar travelling I'm starting easy by sharing this..Not being a geek myself I'm obviously considered off (beneath?) this chart completely but I know how granular the levels of geekdom can be so where do you sit in the pecking order ?

The Geek Hierarchy

Gabriella Davis | London | TrackBacks (0) | Comments (0)

Permalink | Bookmark :

Share your experiences at UKLUG

06/26/2008 02:47:29 PM

Warren Elsmore has put up a great post about the forthcoming UK Lotus User Group conference 2008.  This two day event is all about meeting fellow Lotus users, sharing your "war stories" and talking about your technical issues.  

And so the bit of Warren's blog that really jumps out for me is that  "the most  (and most appreciated) part of the event are stories from people who have been there before - telling it how it is. If you'd be interested in being one of those people this year - we'd love to hear from you. If you would like to speak, drop us an email to info@uklug.info."

Warren says that there are already some great customer speakers lined up so if you "want to hear how one company use Sametime, Quickr, iNotes and custom Domino applications to drive their business forward?" or "about the organisation that migrated 30,000 users from a rival product to Lotus Domino?" then UKLUG is the place to be.

Mike Smith | London | TrackBacks (0) | Comments (0)

Permalink | Bookmark :

UK Lotus User Group conference is coming to London in September

06/12/2008 12:05:34 PM

Well the news came out at ILUG that the second UK Lotus User Group conference is coming. The big idea behind UKLUG is to foster networking between IBM Lotus customers and the conference is a great way to do just that.

Last year was the first ever UKLUG conference so it was conservatively sized for about 100 attendees. Well all those seats were taken with a further 100+ people waitlisted. Kevin Cavanaugh, IBM Lotus VP Messaging & Software, kindly provided the keynote and there were some great speakers from companies using IBM Lotus software - including Prudential, S&N, Standard Life and the Salvation Army - talking about their experiences.

Following last year's success (and after listening to feedback from people who came along) the conference has moved to a Central London venue - the Church House Conference Centre next to Westminster Abbey - and has increased its capacity. There will be the same focus on IBM Lotus users, that's what a user group is all about, but its also now been lengthened to two days to allow more content. So UKLUG will be on both Thursday 18th and Friday 19th September.

To find out more and and register for your seat at UKLUG just go to http://www.uklug.info

Its been said that the true strength of a user group is our shared participation so if you want to be involved, or speak, or sponsor at the conference then please get in touch with Warren Elsmore - warren.elsmore(at)besystems.eu - who is coordinating that side of things.

Mike Smith | London | TrackBacks (0) | Comments (0)

Permalink | Bookmark :

Collaboration University for Lotus Quickr and Sametime 2008 opens for registration

05/29/2008 10:48:08 AM

The big day has arrived and Collaboration University 2008 for Lotus Quickr and Sametime is open for registration! That's CU in Chicago from September 8 - 10th and CU in London from September 15 - 17th.

We are very pleased to be helping SNAPPS produce CU in London and Chicago for the third year running. Collaboration University 2008 will again be a deep-dive technical educational event, focusing right in on Lotus Sametime and Quickr, plus we are adding Lotus Connections too. So there will be a lot to cover as Rob Novak explains:

"...since last July's conference we've seen two releases of Quickr, two releases of Sametime, an entire new product with Sametime Advanced, the Webdialogs acquisition which became Sametime Unyte, two point releases of Lotus Connections (with a massive 2.0 release coming any week now)...there's a lot to talk about, isn't there? While we will cover the "basics" to some degree, you can count on the content being fresh, new versions and old covered, and we'll be delving into Connections for several sessions  - enough to satisfy everyone's need for new technical information."

And as past alumni of CU know you will get unprecedented access to well-known industry experts in a friendly and informal atmosphere.

There will be a great venue for CU London at IBM South Bank, that's on the Thames and right in the middle of town. To turn on tour guide mode you get a panoramic view North across the river from the venue, and directly opposite is Somerset House where the 18th Century Admiralty briefed their officers before they sailed - officers such as Admiral Nelson, Captain Cook and Captain Bligh of the Bounty. And in my opinion the neighbouring Waterloo Bridge gives the best view you can get of central London without riding the London Eye.

If you are coming along to ILUG and want to hear more about CU then Rob Novak and myself will be in Dublin next week. So if you see us then please say hello.

Mike Smith | London | TrackBacks (0) | Comments (0)

Permalink | Bookmark :

Lotus techJam technical event gets off to a good start

05/28/2008 04:00:51 PM

Enjoyed the first Lotus techJam event at Lotus Park Staines today. techJam is run by the Lotus Support team and its a "technical event for technical people" using hands-on demos to show what the latest products can do.

I thought it worked well as a relaxed and informal tech tour which brings you up-to-date on the latest developments across the whole Lotus family. We could also pitch technical questions, give some feedback from our experiences, and get a chance to chat with the Lotus Support team and our fellow techJammers too.

There was a good turnout which confirms my view that with the new developments coming out of Lotus we need this sort of technically-led event. So it was great to hear that the Lotus team are working on having more techJam events in London and across the UK.

If you are interested in hearing more about techJam then get in touch with Nick Davis of IBM at nick_davis(-AT-)uk.ibm.com (please de-mung address).

Mike Smith | London | TrackBacks (0) | Comments (0)

Permalink | Bookmark :