Gregg Eldred

There must be something with new authors and 2009; this is the 3rd novel I've read this year by a first-time author. Although it was originally self-published on-line, David Moody's Hater, found a publisher and, with that, should enjoy a lot of new interest. It wasn't until the last few pages that I realized that this is the first novel in a series. Finishing Hater, I can't wait for the next installment.

Set in an unnamed city in Britain, Danny McCoyne works in the Parking Fine Processing office, a government job for those workers on their way down. Husband and father, he watches his money closely, as he doesn't have much to spare. After he gets home from a long, tough day being shout at from upset people with parking fines or wanting boots removed from their cars, he can't even relax in front of the television, his kids are monopolizing it. But there are times where he and his wife are able to escape from their modest flat. On one outing, they are at a club enjoying one of Danny's favorite bands. However, mid-set, the lead singer stops playing and simply stares out into the crowd. And then he goes berserk-using his guitar as a weapon, he lashes out at his bandmates. Danny and his wife escape the ensuing chaos and rioting patrons. Later, the 24 hour news stations begin to show other seemingly acts of random, vicious violence, eventually calling the instigators "Haters.". These random acts are occurring all over the city, at such a rate that the government tells people to stay indoors, create a "safe room," and to wait for further instructions. And then the military gets involved and starts house to house searches.

Moody has written a book that is very hard to put down. Interspersed with scenes of violence, shocking in it's fury and randomness, Moody carefully introduces us to Danny McCoyne until you really care about the character. You go with Danny to his job, experience his home life, his interactions with his children, and witness his relationship with his father-in-law. Then, when it appears that Haters are tearing society apart, you hope that Danny is able to protect his family. Moody increases the tension by investigating the mundane; if you are locked in your flat, how do you provide for your family as your food stocks diminish? How do you protect your family, especially if you don't know if one of them is a Hater? How do you explain to your children the scenes of violence on the television and out in your street? Suspenseful, disturbing, and utterly enjoyable, Hater is world full of fear, mistrust, and madness. And it is one of the best books I have read.

Technorati tag: book review David Moody Hater
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Auburn University is probably best known for its football team. While that is nice, they count among their alumni author Tim Dorsey, who writes some of the most twisted, hilarious, and entertaining books concerning a serial killer running around the state of Florida. Another writer has emerged from Auburn, Prioleau Alexander, and his first novel is You Want Fries With That: A White-Collar Burnout Experiences Life at Minimum Wage, a novel as twisted and hilarious as the best Dorsey. But while Dorsey works the fiction aisle with success, this novel is an extremely fun non-fiction book.

Contents:
Acknowledgements
Prologue: White Collar, Short Leash
The Pizza Man Cometh
We All Scream, Eventually
Why the Roofer Wants to Kick Your Ass
Good Things Come in Big Boxes
10 ccs of Sanity, Stat . . .
You Want Fries With That?
Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys
Epilogue

At age forty-one, Prioleau Alexander left a highly lucrative job in advertising and marketing. While thinking about all of things that his wife needed him to do, Alexander decided that he needed a job to get out of the house. But he didn't want to get back into advertising and marketing. With no other skills, he decides that minimum wage jobs give him the best opportunity for employment and to stay out of management. Each chapter begins with a little history of the position, provided by Google searches. How much ice cream, pizza, or hamburgers does the average American consume in a year? How did the Bog Box stores get started? Through the magic of Google, Alexander provides you with those answers. And then he launches into his job hunting and interview processes. Finally, we experience him scooping ice cream, delivering pizza, working a construction site as a laborer, and more. All delivered with keen insight, pithy commentary, and, quite often, a large dose of humor.

The premise, alone, lends itself to hilarious shenanigans; a 41 year old attempts to find work at a minimum wage job. Imagine such a person walking into a fast-food restaurant and asking the person behind the counter for an application. Or walking into a local ice cream store. You get the idea. One chapter that really hit home for me, and provided the most laughs, is the dealing with the Big Box stores. I was assisting my son with a job search when we rolled into a well known Big Box. Sitting at the job kiosk, I had similar thoughts as Alexander as we slogged through 30-some pages of on-line employment application. And the results for my son were the same as for Alexander; No job offer. In addition to the actual job search and work, Alexander provides some keen insight into the people that work at minimum wage jobs. Though rife with humor, there are areas where he shows the human side of these jobs. They are not heavy handed, but do lend a nice balance to the comedy. Further, you may actually regard the person behind the counter in a new light. His Epilogue wraps the book up nicely; I think that Alexander has found what he was looking for. An excellent novel from a first time writer; it moves quickly, is edited very well, and leaves the reader looking forward to another book from this excellent writer.

Technorati tag: book review Prioleau Alexander
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At NEOLUG today, we were fortunate to have Declan Sciolla-Lynch present on XPages. As there were some "technical difficulties" with the web meeting, he has provided his presentation (in ODF format):

XPages XPlained

If you want more information on XPages, be sure to seach his blog for an excellent series of articles.

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From CIO.com:

One customer that's made the leap (to hosted e-mail) is Ingersoll Rand, a $13 billion industrial company with 60,000 employees that makes everything from golf carts (Club Car) to air conditioners (Trane). According to John Kalka, Ingersoll Rand's VP of technology deployment, the opportunity to move to a cloud-based e-mail arose in 2007, when the company was deciding whether or not to renew its contract with IBM for Lotus Notes.

Ingersoll Rand was running the e-mail system in-house. It had also developed many custom apps on the Lotus Domino server, but the cost was taking its toll, Kalka says. After looking at the on-premise, traditional version of Exchange, Kalka says "the numbers didn't look much better."

Then Microsoft approached him about online version of Exchange. Kalka saw the cheap per user price. Coupled with the fact he didn't need to manage hardware, he decided to sign up.

"That big e-mail cost went away," he says. "We had e-mail servers all around the world. 95 percent are shut down or re-allocated for something else."

A couple of read throughs of the article, and nothing is said of the Lotus applications. I am only guessing, but I would imagine that Ingersoll Rand still has Lotus Notes for the custom applications. And that some of those re-allocated servers are being used to put the Lotus applications closer to the users.

The rest of the article talks about Sharepoint Online Services and the seriousness of Microsoft's efforts with the cloud. Interesting reading.

Link: CIO.com: Hosted E-Mail's a Hit, But How Far Will Microsoft Go with Cloud?


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Amy Alcott joined the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) in 1975 at the age of 19. During her career, she won five majors and a total of twenty-nine Tour victories. It is safe to say that she knows golf, competition, and what it takes to win on the highest levels. Even with the assistance of Don Wade, former senior editor at Golf Digest and the author or co-author of twenty books, I am saddened to report that with The Leaderboard: Conversations on Golf and Life, Amy does not know how to craft an engaging and interesting book on golf and some of the people that play the game.

Contents: Foreword by Jim Nantz; Preface; Jane Blalock; Bill Clinton; Ben Crenshaw; Kenny G.; Dennis Hopper; Steve Kroft; Leslie Moonves; Jim Nantz; Jack Nicholson; Lorena Ochoa; Don Ohlmeyer; Donna Orender; Dottie Pepper; Kyra Phillips; Rex Pickett; Dennis Quaid; Pam Shriver; Annika Sorenstam; Ken Venturi; Robert Wagner; Karrie Webb; Sandy Weill; Jerry Weintraub; Tom Werner; Jerry West; Jack Whitaker; John Williams; Acknowledgements

Using the premise that every golfer has a story, Amy Alcott mines her Rolodex to bring you stories from her many friends; fellow golfers on the PGA and LPGA Tours, politicians, titans of industry, and celebrities. Amy introduces each with a personal note and closes with her thoughts on the individual as well as what she took away from the interview. Most of the chapters are but a few pages (roughly 10), little time to actually get to know the person or care about their inclusion. However, Amy makes it easy on the reader by closing each chapter with her personal insights into the subject and the key to their philosophy; in golf as well as in life.

It was a struggle to get through this short (224 pages) book. Never did I connect with any of the subjects or care about them. Some were hardly worth Amy's time or mine - for example Sandy Weill, former CEO of Citigroup, only gave her an hour of his time. It is evident that Amy has no time to really probe his best golf stories or life lessons. But we do get a feel for all of the pictures in his office, pictures of Sandy with heads of state, political and civic leaders, and other framed proclamations and letters. Amy put too much importance on the "ego wall" and not enough on the person behind the desk. It is an example of how I felt cheated as I read this book. And how little I cared about any of the subjects. If you are interested in a mini inventory of a wealthy person's home, or the commanding views from their corner offices, with a little conversation thrown in, this is the book for you. There is, however, a really good idea for a book in here; this one just wasn't presented properly.

Technorati tag: book review Amy Alcott The Leaderboard
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From my search referrers today:

"import csv into gmail frustrated"


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At 11:56 am on June 22, 1969, an oil slick caught fire on the Cuyahoga River just southeast of downtown Cleveland, Ohio. Cleveland's image is still scarred as people recall how "the river caught fire."  The 1969 fire is the most famous fire on the Cuyahoga River, even though a previous fire in 1952 on the Cuyahoga caused nearly thirty times the amount of damage. No press photo exists of the 1969 fire - news agencies used photos from the 1952 blaze. Yet the day after the 1969 river fire, the two major Cleveland papers both ran front page pictures showing the aftermath of the fire.  Only The Plain Dealer ran a short story on the fire. 

Not until a Time Magazine article on August 1, 1969 did the river fire begin to get national attention.  Eventually the river fire, with its seemingly implausibility, became a rallying point for the environmentalists in their fight for cleaner water.  President Richard Nixon signed the Environmental Protection Act into law in January, 1970.  The Clean Water Act passed three years later in 1972. 

Not exactly one of Cleveland's finest hours, however it drove the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency and passage of the Clean Water Act. After a lot of hard work and billions of dollars, the river has rebounded and is home to many pollution intolerant species. And you can celebrate it's rebirth by hoisting a Burning River Pale Ale.

Link: John Carroll University: The Cuyahoga Revisted

Link: Cleveland.com: Cuyahoga River fire 40 years ago ignited an ongoing cleanup campaign

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ChannelWeb has a comparison of Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5 and Microsoft Outlook and Exchange 2010. In the review, they looked at five areas for comparison; installation and deployment, interoperability and customization, feature set, performance, and pricing. The products were running very close until ChannelWeb looked at pricing:

Consider a 100-user shop. To deploy the Enterprise Edition of Exchange 2010, you will need to purchase the software for $3,999. CALs will be another $3,500. That's about $7,500.

To deploy Domino Enterprise Server in the same-size organization would be $137 per user. That's a total cost of $13,700. But wait, as they say, there's more.

It would seem that IBM's pricing far exceeds Exchange. Yet, considering Domino is a platform upon which Notes and virtually limitless applications can run, it is economically reasonable. Also, the fact that Domino and Notes can run in an open-source environment can really reduce the amount an organization would otherwise have to spend on operating systems and other proprietary software licenses.

By the time an enterprise has purchased Exchange and the CALs for it, plus the Windows Server license and CALs for Windows Server, costs begin to snowball.

The edge in pricing, when all is factored in, goes to Lotus. You simply get more bang for your buck.

I can't help but wonder how the numbers would stack up if they looked at the cost and time to upgrade to the latest releases.

Link: ChannelWeb: Take a Message: It's Lotus Vs. Exchange


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