I’m not an expert on finance. I write neat websites for people. I have a degree in civil engineering (which means I had to fight through some calculus classes). I’m not at all qualified to make judgement on what’s going on in global credit markets.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have an opinion however.

Hearing the amount of security trading going on is astounding; something like 60 trillion dollars of potential debt being traded on 5 trillion dollars worth of bonds and other investments. To put that number in perspective, the entire GDP of the country is 12 trillion dollars annually. That means, that the value of what our whole freakin country makes every year (the largest economy in the world), is worth 20% of what might need to be collected at any given time.

Again, I’m not an expert, but wasn’t much of the cause of the bank run in 1929 based on a re-valuation of assets in the stock market? When people started needing some re-assurance of the value of the companies they were buying into, and companies couldn’t produce proof of value, the value was adjusted, violently.

History, always repeating itself …

It’s a cliche, I know, but ‘Those who fail to learn from history, are bound to repeat it’. So, folks have invested 60 trillion dollars that’s only really worth 5 trillion dollars? Am I reading that right? If not, please let me know. But that’s the way it’s been explained to me. Imagine if your salary dropped to 8% of what it was before. In other words, if you made 100k a year before, you’d be down to 8k a year afterwards.

Nobody is going to take that sort of a loss lying down. People are going to fight to keep as much of their money as they can. That’s what makes the current ‘crisis’, sound much more apocalyptic. When folks are put in desperate situations, they do desperate things. There are a number of instances this has played out in history, and many of those instances were bloody. 

So, what does a normal guy do? How do you get food, and service when green money has no value? I’m jumping a few steps here, I know. However, I can’t see any other outcome, than a complete devaluation of printed money from this. I could be wrong (actually, I am quite likely completely wrong).

But seriously, if money has no value, then what does?

Welcome to a bartering society. What can you barter? Sex always sells. Drugs will sell. Food will sell. Post-economic collapse, it’s likely that they will sell in that order too.

Sad fact about all of that, all of the progress our society has made in tolerance, civil rights, equal protection under law; forget it. The entire basis of our society’s ability to enforce these ideas depends on the general populace’s willingness to abide by them. When folks can’t find their next meal, you can forget it. Outside of divine intervention, we will plunge into the sort of violence most people normally associate with the third world. You might hope that we would all come together in the worst of times. History does not bear that idea out. Remember, if you don’t learn from history …

So, what does a normal guy do? Get in shape, stock food, stock ammo, and hedge any investments you have with tangible worth. When society fails, you’ll need to provide worth in a society that will only require services that provide immediate security and well-being. 

Good luck.

My Mom’s dog, Chopper. He’s a slobbery stinky dog, that I love to death. Anyways, I thought I’d share.

For a while, I’ve heckled folks who keep their blogs on wordpress. I guess I really shouldn’t have, since it really is an awesome tool. It’s lightweight, quick, and gets the job done with super-ease.

I’ve settled on a pretty minimalistic, if not Gator-esque theme for the site. I don’t want people to have any sort of hassle to see what I’ve got to say, so I elected to not add too much to this.

Anyways, I just thought I’d say something about it…

I’ve learned a lot about relationships lately. Chief among the things I’ve learned, is what I don’t like about myself. It’s a strange paradigm, but one worth examining: Why is it so much easier to see the flaws of others in our relationships with them, than it is to see the flaws in ourselves?

Usually, the ugliest part of ourselves is what we convey to try to achieve social acceptance. That is, the part of us that usually is the worst, is the part that we’ve developed as a coping mechanism to adapt to the environment we want to be in.

There are a myriad of ways people use to adapt to social pressures. I’ve seen the arrogant, flamboyant, narcissistic, as well as the introverted and withdrawn attitudes people use as a method for dealing with social interactions with other people.

In other words. I’ve seen a lot of ways people deal with relationships.

What’s wrong with any of the attitudes folks use to deal with social interaction?

I can’t help but think that a difference in personal character due to the interpreted pressures of relationships (boss/employee, husband/wife, friend/friend, competitor/competitor, etc…) somehow steals the opportunity for your opposite (the other person(s) in the relationship) to gauge who you are.

There may be significant reason for you to wish your opposite in relationship to not know who you really are. Usually though, those reasons are nefarious at best. If you’re looking to hide who you really are, than you have something to hide.

Most of us, do not have a significant reason to hide our true intentions from normal conversation, with any of our typical relationships. We do the things we do, because somewhere down the road of life, we learned how to do these things, as a way to protect that part of ourselves that’s vulnerable to outside interaction. One time as a kid, you told someone something that left you open to ridicule, and you were laughed at for it. Or, perhaps you trusted someone with something important to you, and you were betrayed.

None of the previously mentioned situations really matter. That’s because it’s not important how you got your knack for lying (yes, it’s lying). What is important, is that you realize that by adjusting your attitude and / or demeanor for specific situations, is paramount to a lie. That lie sells you out, and steals a bit of your life away.

While that may seem like a bold statement, I’d challenge you (the reader) to think about that a minute. Think for a second, that you are 16 again. You are in high-school, and you’ve barely a real care in the world. If any of the same people that you know now, came to you while you still possessed this cavalier attitude about life, would you still act the same?

Most likely, the answer is that you wouldn’t be nearly as quick to hide key facts about yourself as you are now. Some of you might think that this is a good thing, and that by acting appropriately to your environment, you’ve seeded yourself as more professional, and more apt to succeed in your field of occupation, or more likely to make a significant other happy, or more likely to keep a friend friendly.

Think again…

Fundamentally, we are all human beings. If you speak from your heart on any topic of conversation, with respect to those you are speaking with, how can you go wrong? In the off-chance that your are lambasted by your opposite in your relationship for speaking your mind (with all due regard to your opposite), then perhaps the relationship with your opposite is worth examining.

A fundamental paradigm of this dichotomy, is self-esteem. You have to believe enough in yourself, to allow others to believe in you too. This can be a tricky subject, as many folks simply do not think highly enough of themselves, to speak honestly of what they think, to allow others to hear what is truly on their mind.

It’s been a busy week, so the site has remained down since then. I’m just outside of Knoxville, TN right now, and the computer that I saved all of my old DB info (like, ummm, any content) is back home in Altamonte Springs, FL. So, this is the only content available right now. I should have everything up and running again sometime early this week.

My dad showed up around 11am. I had invited him the week earlier, but I really didn’t expect him to show. I’m super-glad that he did though. Not only is dad a lot of fun to be around: He’s super useful as well. I was able to get a hell of a lot of stuff done before the party, that I probably wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise. Many thanks to dad!

Bill and Amanda were the first to show up to the actual party. I was a little upset they didn’t bring their XBox360 and Rock Star. We spent some time at their place the week before, and had a great time with that. I even had my buddy Austin bring his drum seat and sticks just for it. Oh well.

Chris and Kiel came after that, then Shandyn and Eric, Greg and his wife Nevin, my buddy Matt, then it gets nuts.

My workout partner Tony came with his wife Mardi. They got us a bottle of Johnny Walker Green Label. I was pretty stoked about it, as the picture shows:

I’d be remiss if I didn’t also show the picture of Tony’s wife Mardi, with my wife, Melissa:

I was really stoked that Greg made it out. I’ve mentioned it before, but I feel like I could talk with that dude for days. We’re sorta on the same wavelength with tech stuff. Outside, but sorta in …

My buddy Austin showed up with his girlfriend Jen. They’re easily some of the coolest people I know. Austin was the best man at my wedding. I’ve known him since the 6th grade. He’s a nutbag, and he’s a Death Metal drummer. We used to rock out in industrial parks when we were underage. Awesome times… Jen is pretty much the female version of him. I guess it could also said that he’s the male version of her?

Taylor and Jason made it out as well. They’re a lot of fun to hang with. The only time I’ve ever been maced was hanging out with Jason. You know you’ve had a full night when local cops are telling you how to deal with a face full of mace. That reminds me, I’m supposed to be working on their website.

Of course we were all blessed with the presense of the amazingly talented Bender . I give that guy shit all the time, and I plan to continue. Bender usually tells a joke for us when we’re in a social setting with alcohol. So, after a few rounds, we started chanting ‘Bender’, and demanded either a joke, or shotgun a beer. Bender chose to shotgun Coors Light. Gross. Anyway, I should give him credit for some of the work he’s doing for an upcoming project of mine, Florida Death Metal.

Here are a few more candid shots of the good times:

That one is Melissa’s sister Megan, Kristina, Lisa, and Melissa. The following is a good one of Krista’s baby, Kaydon:

That’s a really good segway to the next part of the story. I had a moderate amount of alcohol to drink that night. However, I guess I didn’t know exactly how much I had.

To say little of it, I had too much. I wound up very sick the next morning., incredibly sick. Austin thought it’d be funny to talk smack about it all, and throw stuff at me. That super sucked, and I wound up starting the worst round of vomiting that I’ve ever had. I even punched a hole in the wall next to the bathroom. Melissa was pretty pissed about it all, so I’ll have to fix it.

I spent all Sunday either throwing up, or sleeping. It was a total waste of the day. Melissa was awesome and stayed around to take care of me. It’s a shame that I allowed myself to get that sick, but it’s great she was around to help me get out of it all.

I shouldn’t let that overshadow how much of a good time I had the night before. There was a great collection of the some of best friends that I’ve had the opportunity to every have.

So a whole bunch of us got together and had a few drinks, a few laughs, and made a lot of good memories. It was really good to see everyone. I’m reminded of why I work so much, and why I love being alive. I have the best friends and family I could ask for.

I checked my bank account this weekend and found my host, A2Hosting, had charged me for a year’s worth of hosting earlier than I expected. I was initially upset, but after some digging, I found that they had tried to contact me before hand.

Well, I canced my account and moved to a cheaper host anyways. I guess it really pays to keep up with even your most obscure email accounts, just in case you have something important going there!

The site has been down for a few days while I make the migration. Of course, it’s been tough to complete, since the world hasn’t slowed down for me to get things done. I’m still working on getting all of the content back up, so if you’re favorite content isn’t around, don’t despair: I’m getting it.

It’s funny how I started going to networking events a while back in order to meet people to further my career. I suppose that’s still a possibility, but these days I go because I geniuinely enjoy the company of the characters I get to talk to. I can’t say enough good things about all the guys I get to see every couple weeks.

I can try however:

So, I’d like to buy a beer for Chis , Erik , Gregg , Al , Ryan , John , Greg , and yes, even Bender. I should buy a beer for a few more of y’all, but those are the first few honkies I can think of.

I also had the oppotunity to meet a few guys from a really young startup, Dyverse . It’s neat to see the ambition of people who are willing to lay a lot on the line, to get where they want to be. John looks a lot like a younger version of Sterling, which might be a good thing for him.

Speaking of startups, I had the great opportunity to meet Gabriel Chapman, CEO for the locally started Talent Database . Talent Database is a great idea with tons of potential. I was thoroughly impressed with the humble nature of a man behind something with such promise. I guess it reinforces my egalitarian view of what the world should be.

So, this being the ‘Thanksgiving’ edition of Florida Creatives, I suppose I should mention what I’m grateful for: Having a Florida Creatives to go to. Thanks to all of you who keep it going.

Figures.

The story is that the new owner of the property the Improv leases, Cameron Kuhn, had agreed to provide a liquor license to the Improv as incentive to stay in the largely vacant historic Church Street district. The day before their existing liquor license was due to expire, Cameron reneged on his side of the bargain. Corporate management for the Improv decided to vacate the location, and sue for breach of contract.

Here’s where it gets interesting…

When the story hit the news today (dammit), Cameron decided to change the locks on the building to effectively lock the Improv out of their leased space. The only reasons I can come up with as to why he would do such an obviously dumb move, is

1.) Bullying – perhaps he thought he could scare Improv management out of a lawsuit.

2.) Collateral – Maybe Cameron thought if he removed Improv imployees immediately, he might be able to steal some valuable property of theirs, and use it as leverage against any possible lawsuite.

3.) Spite – The most auspicious of all possible reasons. Cameron might just be mad at the thought of being sued over something he thinks he has the right to do.

My good friend, was recently promoted to at the Improv after a debacle with the former GM (**details removed upon request**). That’s another story entirely. WFTV talked to her about it for their 11pm broadcast It’s always cool to be interviewed, I guess.

I called her after the broadcast to let her know they spelt her name wrong. She was typical about it, but she did mention how she won. The original locks are back in place, and they might just turn the space into a haunted house until they’re required by law to leave.

So, you might just have a downtown haunted house to go to this year! I guess there’s always some silver lining to be had.

Here’s what still frustrates me about this: Why would a developer who’s known to be broke right now, evict a stable tenant from a property that isn’t producing stable tenants!!?!!??!? Furthermore, Orlando needs steady downtown entertainment to keep people coming, and push business downtown .I can’t imagine why someone with such a vested interest in downtown Orlando (something over $50 million) would do anything to sabatoge that.

Well, the cat’s out of the bag now. All of the local news stations have it out for Cameron, so he may wind up in a similiar situation to what Lou Perlman faced before him. It’s unbelievable how people with so much to lose self-destruct in the most obsurd ways.

UPDATE October 17, 2007:

Upper Improv Orlando management has made a decision on where to move to. I’m under oath to not say where. However, I will say it’s in a more ‘touristy’ area of town

We were at our deadline, so we had to work as long as it took to get the product out.

That meant we weren’t able to watch UCF’s first game against NC State.

We were quite dismayed at the prospect of missing out on our Alma Mater’s season opener.

Enter an unnammed friend of ours, who streamed the event from his TV so we could check it out ourselves, as we worked. I’d like to publicly thank him, but I’m not sure if I should. Anyways, thanks anonymous friend!

The topics were varied. Subjects like iMIS integration, LISP for AJAX, new time-sensitive transport protocols, and general business stuff. It’s always a good time. Plus, I’m a big believer in the local tech crowd here. There’s some amazing stuff going on around here, so it’s great to get everyone together to talk about it.

Chris and I also met up at the B&S Local Market for the linkmind event there at 8:00am this morning. It was much of the usual suspects. Alex , Ryan , John , Chris , another Chris , and I were there. Greg even made it out there, which was really cool. A local newspaper columnist, Etan , made it to the event as well. Anything that happens at 8 in the morning on a Friday has better be good, and the likemind events always are.

It was really interesting to hear the things some of the guys had to talk about. Alex discussed his recent success exposing poor customer service at Spirit Airlines (google “Spirit Air”, you’ll be impressed). Etan, being a tech reviewer, had some interesting things to say about the new iPhone. John is always fascinating to listen talk about the local business scene.

Overall, both events were a great time. The exposure to people like us is a great thing. There are far too many socially-inept geeks out there. That’s the sort of thing that’s slowing down tech culture in the world.

So, kudos to those who are running these events that bring us all together. It really helps everyone.

I’m flattered. I guess that means I can’t keep talking trash about the french!

I recommended a Windows SBS 2003 box. The client obliged.

All was fine until the issue of VPN came up. I’ve done VPN’s before, but usually it’s through hardware, not through the OS. The client eventually was paid in full, and the issue still wasn’t completely resolved. I felt terrible about it, so I made it my priority to fix. The client was really cool, and I didn’t want them to feel cheated or upset in any way.

I won’t go through the whole tutorial on how to setup an SBS box, but I will say that usually, it’s very intuitive. Well, when I set up the box, I configured it to work on one subnet. However, the modem supplied to the client wouldn’t allow GRE packets through, so they needed to get a new modem.

When that modem arrived, it didn’t work with their existing Linksys wireless router. So I used the modem as the router, and plugged the wireless box into it, and ran it as a separate subnet. Keep in mind, this was after I had already configured the SBS box for the previous subnet.

I thought I had configured the server to work with the new network settings, but I missed a couple of items.

Clear ARP cache.

Since RRAS was started, you couldn’t clear the ARP cache (the table with the addresses of machines according to the old subnet). I had to stop the RRAS service to clear the ARP cache. Keep that in mind if you have to move an SBS box from one network to another.

Change ALL network settings. When I changed the TCP/IP information for the network adapter (only one), I only changed the information on the front dialog box. Which means I forgot to change the WINS information! Since the client was using VPN so he could navigate to files on the network, that was pretty important.

Also, I needed to add the dns suffix to the DNS settings area as well.

The moral of the story, take the time to get it done right the first time.

The initial trailers from the site starcraft2.com/ look amazing. The story is evolving, and new characters have been introduced. I guess the guys at Blizzard aren’t too far along, since the only race they’re announcing characters for are the Protoss. There have been plenty of newer games to come out since the orginal was introduced. However, I still find myself playing Starcraft, even to this day.

I haven’t been this excited since Terminator 2 was announced.

There is one thing that concerns me about the actual site. I quick view at the source code reveals only an xml doc with a root node of ‘page’ and a child node of the page being displayed. I checked Firebug, which usually picks up on the DOM scripted stufff, and that comes out blank too! I right clicked to see if the whole site was in Flash, but no dice.

I’ll have to do a little digging, but I intend to find out how these guys are writing their sites. It’s my business, and I should know.

I found an excellent article by Bob Selden about this at lockergnome.com. I use much of that article to convey my point here.

One of the things Bob points out is how much people rely on visual and audible cues in conversation to understand the meaning of what is being communicated to them. In any type of written word, that variable is lost, opening the floodgates of potential interpretations of what you’re trying to say.

Consider the following sentence:

“You’ve didn’t give me the report”.

I interpret this as accusatory, though it may not have been meant that way. Maybe “the report”, is a laborous task that the writer doesn’t want to recieve, and is grateful for not being given. It may very well be an accusatory statement, but without the malice behind it that a reader might believe.

For those of you who’ve been to college; I’m sure you can come up with some textbook example of ways to make sure that your point is taken verbatim. However, that relys on the concurrent thinking of the reader. By assuming that using well documented rules of writing will ensure your message is accurately recieved, you assume the reader is abiding by the same rules.

Quite frankly, that can be a big leap.

The flip-side of this discussion is; if you believe someone offended you in something they’ve written, take the time to be sure that they actually have. This may sound defensive, given the point of view I’m writing this from. However, I honestly believe that unless you know someone is being rude or inconsiderate to you, give them the benefit of the doubt.

Some things are, usually, more certain cues that you are, in fact, being persecuted by someone

• All caps writing (YOU DIDN’T GIVE ME THE REPORT)
• Foul language (You didn’t give me the d@$% report)
• Superlative statements (You never gave me the report)
• Excessive punctuation (You never gave me the report!!!!)

In short:

• Before you write: think about it (re-think if you need to)
  • If someone’s feelings can be hurt by what your writing, they probably will.
  • If what you’re saying can be taken out of context, take the time to write each of your statements so that it cannot.
• Before you react: think about it (call someone if you need to)

The following links have some information well worth reading:

http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/windows/2006/03/28/email-etiquette-whats-the-missing-link

http://online.uwc.edu/Technology/onlEtiquette.asp

http://www.cadence90.com/wp/index.php?p=2793

http://www.cafemama.com/etiquette.html

I sat in a sort of star-struck gaze as I listened to what these guys were talking about.

Erik and Alex were both talking about things I could barely keep a handle on. I’m incredibly impressed by the in depth knowledge these guys have not about coding, but business. Alex is a well established software developer, So I wasn’t surprised to hear him talk about that. but the things those two, plus some others (I forgot the names already. I know I’m a bastard, but I can’t remember anyones name unless I’ve spoke it at least 10 times. I only know Erik’s name because I’m looking at his card).

Oh yeah, Al & Erik got me turned on to Bon Echo. It’s a Firefox derivation (a version of the web browser, Firefox). It’s the “longhorn” version of Firefox. It’s pretty neat. Most of you probably don’t have any reason to use it. But, if your a web developer, it’s not a bad idea to test your client side stuff out on what will eventually become the next big browser.

FYI – Alex and some of his ilk have created emurse.com. It’a resume hosting an job searching site. It’s very nice. They already have a substantial base and they’re growing. I’d be seriously remiss to not mention it. It’s very much worth your time!

So, in short, I’d just like to say thanks for humoring me, and letting me learn a thing or two.

Muchos Gracias

By chance, I wound up with a new Apple MacBook. My boss’ daughter broke the screen on hers. It was as much to replace the screen as it was to get a new computer. So, they got the new computer. They asked me to get the data off of the old computer and on the new one.

They left the old one with me.

I figured I could use it for something (target practice maybe), so I went to the local Apple store and got an external video adapter for it. Then I went crazy and got a new Samsung 22″ widescreen monitor too (Samsung SyncMaster 226BW).

I hooked the thing up and started playing around. I’ve been amazed at how simple thing are with this. I don’t know how I’ve been so wrong for so long.

It figures I suppose. My mother-in-law will be giving me hell.

I got the task to update our Timberline Accounting software from 9.2.1 to 9.4.0. I’m ALWAYS hesitant to do this sort of thing, because it never goes right. However, I was getting pressure from the accounting dorks to make it happen.

FYI…
Engineers = nerds
IT = geeks
accounting = dorks

There is a difference.

Anyways,
So after I dealt with our e-mail issues I wrote to all of you about before, I felt motivated to get this taken care of as well.

First, I had to install the software to the server that holds the data and runs the Pervasive database. Well, for whatever reason, I wasn’t able to install this remotely, so I had to rig up a monitor, keyboard, and mouse to that server to install the app.

The first installation took about 15 minutes, then failed. The failure results in a rollback of the installation. Well, I’m hard-headed. So I installed it again (quite irritated too). This time it worked. However, I was forced to install to a different location than where we used to run the software from. That really sucks, since we map network drives to the data folder locations. So I was going to have to change the network drive mapping to 20 workstations. I run a batch script at login (though group policy) that maps network drives (I’m forcing the disconnect and reconnect for this very reason), so I changed that script, but just to be sure, I did the manual thing for the first workstation.

After the install to the server, the server has to restart. That sucks too, since that server is also our exchange server, and main file server. In other words, all of the users have to stop what they’re doing while the server is restarting.
It was taking forever (shutting down for 10 minutes) so I did a hard shutdown on it (hold power button). That’s sort of nerve-wrecking too. The server started up fine, and I proceeded to the first workstation.

So, I installed the upgrade to the first workstation. It took about 5 minutes, and it failed. I’m still hard-headed so I installed it again, and it worked. There was a small problem however. None of the applications we pay a lot of money for were available. Apparently the second install didn’t catch the registration codes for installed apps.

Grrrr. So I had to modify the server installation to pick up the correct apps, restart the server (another hard restart), and go back to the first workstation. The workstation picked up the available apps without reinstalling (great). then came the task of updating the data files.

2 hours later…

Did I mention nobody can use Timberline while this is going on?

I went to the next workstation to perform another install (just to make sure I wasn’t going to face any problems doing this remotely. I live in Orlando and it was time to go home.). Sure enough, the upgrade wouldn’t take, even after 4 attempts. I kept getting an error about an uninstall log not being found.

So I figured it was the exception, and went to another workstation. The first install failed, the second worked.

I drove home, figuring to finish remotely.

I got home, connected to the server, then to a multitude of workstations (I love RDP). Several of the workstations had the problem about the uninstall log not being found. So, I faked it. I created the directory, performed the install again, and it worked. I got all of the workstations upgraded, and had a well deserved good night’s sleep.

The next morning, I tried the install on our terminal server. Nothing worked. Even worse, I had forgotten to upgrade the CFO’s version of Timberline. When I did, I got a new error!!!! This one was a JIT debugging error that a registry subkey tree couldn’t be deleted without a subkey existing.

I could feel the office resentment for me building.

The terminal server upgrade HAD to be installed at the console. Well, I was in Orlando, and not about to drive back to West Palm to make it happen. I had one of the employees plug in a monitor, keyboard, and mouse to the terminal server. The employee did, and nothing came up on the screen. A check of device manager revealed a bad display driver. I looked everywhere for a driver (ATI 3D Rage Pro PCI) for win server 2003. The most recent driver was for win98SE!!! Hey, my company can be cheap, just ask Chuck.

After a while, I figured I could get someone to logon blindly, and I could remote control the console session. That worked! I performed the upgrade once, it failed, then I did it again, and it worked.

I had to call Timberline support for help with the CFO’s install. We didn’t buy the phone support package, but I figured since we did just shell out some good cash for the upgrade, they’d help me anyways. I was right. For the record; Timberline has EXCELLENT tech support. The tech on the phone with me directed me to a windows installation cleaner application. It’s provided by Microsoft and it fixed the subkey tree problem. I didn’t even have to install twice to the CFO’s machine. You can check it out at the following link:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301

Next disaster, the CFO uses a data mining program called Monarch to pull our Timberline data into composite models to see where we stand across company subsidiaries. That program uses ODBC to connect to the Timberline data. The ODBC connections weren’t working. The CFO mentioned that he used to be prompted for a username and password when he connected to the data, but now he wasn’t.

I checked into this, and it turned out that all applications were available to all users. That’s a problem. Not just anyone should be able to look at payroll files and arbitrarily give themselves a raise. A quick look showed that when I copied over our data files to the new location, I failed to copy the security definition files. A quick fix, but that still didn’t fix the ODBC problem faced by the CFO.

I checked everything for this. No solution. I wound up with a huge headache from the stress. Enough of a headache that I was vomiting for an hour. I took a nap (2 hours) and went back to work. I need to learn to handle stress more effectively. My wife suggests we take yoga together. I’m thinking about a Guinness.

This morning I kept searching around for a solution the the ODBC problem. The CFO was hinting that maybe we should roll back the installation if we couldn’t get the DSN’s to work. I couldn’t even begin to fathom the nightmare that would entail.

I mustered up the courage to call Timberline tech support again. They work out of Oregon. So when I called at 9:00am, it was 6:00am there. The screener that I spoke with kindly forwarded me to a tech and within minutes he had the ODBC problem solved. Remember the situation I spoke about with the applications not being available to users, because I had failed to enter the registration code for them at the server? Well usage of the ODBC driver isn’t free either, though the tech gave me the code over the phone.

So, I had to have an employee rig up a monitor, mouse, and keyboard to the main server, and log on as the administrator (yes, I gave them the administrator password). They started a console session which I took over. I modified the installation, entering the registration code for the ODBC driver, restarted the server, and was done.

Did I mention that ALL of the workstations have to be restarted each time they are upgraded?

Well now everything is working better than before. I’ve kept my up my job, and kept down my lunch.

In summary….

• Do your upgrades over the weekend, when no one is around to care.
• Take the time to read the manual.
• Resist upgrading anything at all costs.

Thanks,
Cory