Official Blog of Will Strohl

Ride with Chris Hammond and I After DotNetNuke World 2012

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 17:40:20 GMT

Chris Hammond just announced that there will be an organized ride for anyone that wants to show up Saturday morning following DNN World. It will be an early ride to ensure that we get some good weather and that we don’t interfere with anyone’s checkout times or plans. Don’t worry if you are not a pro rider or don’t have your own gear. We have that covered. Chris found a bike rental place that will being all the gear you want. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to pick up the bill. Sorry.

Here is the run-down of what you need to know:

Don’t have a bike? You can rent your bike, helmet and get it delivered for $90 each
What should I bring? Shoes, clothing, yourself, and any additional gear that you want.
Where are we riding? Still up in the air. It depends on who shows up and what skill levels you are.

Don’t worry if you are not a cycling expert or if you don’t think you can “keep up” with anyone. This is intended to be a community ride for everyone to have fun, so it will be conducted as a no rider left behind (NRLB) ride.

Hammond did a great job of laying out the details and how to register for the ride. I hope to see you there!

How a Bicycle Saved My Life

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 12:53:26 GMT

One of the things I do fairly well with my life is to separate personal from community (business). Whether it’s on the social networks, my blogs, or at events, I don’t generally tell anyone about things that are happening in my personal life. Let’s be honest, most of our personal lives are not that exciting to those that are not already part of your personal life. Most humans suffer from the “what have you done for me lately” mentality. Everyone is looking for something that means more to them. Well, I decided at Day of DotNetNuke Charlotte to change that trend for a very special exception…

In February, I went in for a physical. I hadn’t done this in more than 10 years. The last physical I had was when I was leaving the Marine Corps. As with most people leaving the Marines in their 20’s (without disabilities, that is), that physical was stellar. A lot has happened since then though. Many things about my life have since changed. This was definitely reflected in my most recent physical. I was told that I was literally days away from a heart attack. This is what my presentation was about. View it below.

I started my presentation by saying, “If this story inspires just one of you, this presentation is a success.” Since the presentation, a few people have joined our Strava club, called aptly DotNetNuke. I encourage you to do the same. It’s free and easy to do. You can participate in a large number of sports and activities, and there are apps for both iPhone and Android.

Also, I want to thank everyone in the community that came up to me after the presentation and spoke about their own personal challenges. It was amazing how many people have been through similar, or worse situations. Out of respect for them, I definitely won’t name them. But thank you all! I was truly amazed at your own stories and strength. It has given me even more strength myself.

Finally, I am very proud to report that I have finally returned to running as my primary fitness activity. I of course mix in some weight training and still ride. Honestly, I am surprised at how much I enjoy riding the bike. My longest ride is 38 miles! I couldn’t have done this without the good folks at Performance Bicycle, Strava, Chris Hammond, and many more. You know who you are. Thank you so much for your support!

Vote for Me!

Hey… You’re still here? Why not take a moment to vote for my presentation at DNN World Survivor? Voting ends in September, but my session might not make the cut to then without your help. Even if you don’t want to vote for me, please make sure you attend DNN World. Ask anyone that went last year… You will not regret attending! :)

WillStrohl.com Moves to Mandeeps Live Blog

Mon, 07 May 2012 19:32:26 GMT

Since WillStrohl.com has been up and running, its primary function or purpose has been to host my personal blog about many things, but mostly DotNetNuke. During this time, it has always run on the “core” Blog Module. Say what you want about the core blog module, but it has always been a very functional way to build and maintain a blog presence on DNN. There has always been a way to accomplish anything you wanted using it, whether it was adding other modules to the page, adjusting the design, or simply recompiling the module with any adjustments I’ve needed. I’ve traditionally had time to do this, all with the intention of helping to make the blog module a better module. Though, I recently changed blog modules, and that’s what this article is about.

Disclaimer: First, I work for DotNetNuke Corporation, if you didn’t already know. So, even though I have it posted everywhere, I should mention that this blog entry contains comments and opinions that are my own, and have no endorsement whatsoever from DNN Corp. Second, I am doing a thorough write-up of my experience with a specific blog module. While I feel that I have tried to not make this come off as an advertisement, I want you to know outright that I am not advertising for them.

The “core” blog module has had a very exciting, long, fun, and rough past. At some points it was simply misunderstood. Other times it was missing features. And yet other times, it was laying dormant, waiting someone to give it some long overdue TLC (tender loving care). Such is the nature of a purely open source project. It’s always at the mercy of those that hopefully have the necessary time needed to keep it updated. I’ve always been very patient with the module myself because I love doing things with “core” modules first before going to the ecosystem. After all, how else can the project know where and how to proceed if people are not using it and offering feedback, requests, fixes, code, and more?

Well, these days I have much less time to dedicate to helping that project than I used to. I mean, I already run or contribute to more than 15 other projects on CodePlex. This entire time I was basically working on a fork of the blog module anyway, since I had some specific requirements (or ideas) about how I best wanted my blog to do things on my site. After all, this is one of the many benefits of using an open source module to begin with. Unfortunately for the module itself, I needed to take that off of my plate, so the search for other blog modules began…

The Blog Selection Process

The DotNetNuke ecosystem has several modules that are either built to support blogging, or can be configured to support a blog. Whether it comes from the Store or the Forge, you’re given many quality options. Among them are some really great choices, and even some very flexible ones that aren’t a blog out-of-the-box, but can be after some configuration (some requiring more configuration than others).

After a bit of research, I decided to use Live Blog by Mandeeps. Mandeep Singh heads up Mandeeps, has long been in the DotNetNuke community, and their solutions have always had a positive reputation during this time. All of their modules have regular releases and very responsive support. I tested this through the Store before moving forward. This was the first step to feeling better about choosing Live Blog as my solution.

Next, with very few exceptions, all of his extensions that have been reviewed continue to have 5 star reviews. Whether I looked there, on twitter, or in the DNN forums, Mandeeps overall has had great feedback from those that use their modules.

The final piece that really sealed the deal was that it seemed that no matter which blog solution I was coming from, Live Blog had the hardest part of the migration path already solved for me. It would simply import all of my blog posts and comments for me, maintaining the original integrity of by blog with nearly no effort at all. I tested this several times in a staging environment, and it always worked great! This alone is highly impressive.

The three components mentioned above were the critical first steps in my selection process. Mandeeps Live Blog had very responsive support, great reputation & reviews, and it allowed me to easily migrate my content to it.

My Feature Requirements

Not every blog is created equal. Although many blogs are created or used for the same general purpose, they all have their own agendas and goals. My main goal is SEO. I want to make sure that by blog entries can be found by people, regardless to whether those people were coming from Google, Bing, or {Gasp!} Yahoo. Yes. Yahoo is still around. ;)

Since my main goal was SEO, I needed a solution that practiced some very specific key things in order to not hurt whatever goodness my SEO had already attained. I needed H1’s and H2’s in the right places, great looking page titles and URLs, categories with friendly URLs, site maps, and so on. Live Blog has all of these features and more.

Comments are important to any blog. I have wanted to transition to use Disqus for my blog comments for a long time because their comment engine is unmatched in capabilities and stickiness. Unfortunately, I’ve either been too busy or too lazy to write the code to export my comments using their WP standard. There were two great things about Live Blog in this area… First, it already has them implemented as a forward only feature. However, a very recent release also allows you to export your existing comments to Disqus, allowing you to choose to use their comment engine at any time! Suh-weet!

I also track my own feed status through Feedburner. I have really grown to like this service and didn’t want to move away from it for my RSS links. Live Blog doesn’t get in the way here at all.

The final requirement I had was to be able to make the new blog fit into my own design. Luckily, my design isn’t terribly complicated. Regardless though, the template feature in Live Blog makes generating your own template to suit your needs incredibly easy.

Any Bells or Whistles?

If you’re not familiar with the term “bells and whistles,” it is simply a slang way of talking about really cool add-ons or features. Live Blog has plenty of them.

Beyond what I’ve already mentioned, you get some really cool things like deep Windows Live Writer integration. You can choose your own URL structure for each new blog post. It has an easy to use control panel-style settings view. It will automatically “ping” some common ping services for you such as blog search and feedburner. You can simply paste in social bookmark code from sites like AddThis or ShareThis. It will also allow you to automatically post new blog entries to twitter, but I have to admit that I haven’t tried using this feature yet.

I am sure that you will find some other things to be your own bells and whistles, but these few things are what stood out to me.

Is It Missing Anything?

Unfortunately, like with many 3rd party extensions, Live Blog has the need to fill the use case requirements of a large range of customers, including customers on many different versions of DotNetNuke. As a result, this prevents Live Blog from implementing newer DNN features and APIs, such as editing pop-ups, client dependency framework, integration with the taxonomy API, cloud folder providers, mobile-friendly displays, and more. This is not a deal-breaker (yet), but it will likely be frustrating for me moving forward since I always like to be on the latest version of DotNetNuke.

Did I Have Any Problems?

First, I would like you to know that I tested this module thoroughly in a staging environment before deploying this on my own website. And even then, I made sure to retest everything since I was on my production website. I highly recommend that you do this as well. You never know what might creep up as a problem if you don’t. I was able to do this side-by-side on my production site with the core blog module still actively in use. However, in order to test on my own site and to mitigate any need to re-sync the data, I made sure to cease any blog posts during the testing phase, and I turned off comments during this time frame as well. This made the migration path one that only needed to be followed once. I wouldn’t categorize this as a problem, but you definitely need to be aware of this as well. Otherwise, you will need to manually import and new blog posts or comments when you do the same thing.

There was one specific problem. Unfortunately, the URL structure in Live Blog did not match that of my original URLs. This is not an uncommon issue when switching module vendors or creating a new section on your website. In this case, the original URLs used EntryId to denote the blog id number used to generate the blog post page dynamically in DNN. Live Blog does this same thing, but uses PostId instead. Unfortunately, there is no way to change this in Live Blog. Along the same lines, the imported blog content did not respect the original ID numbers. So a blog post that was previously 123 could be another value like 119 after import. Finally, the URLs that are generated by Live Blog follow a different set of rules when created. Basically, this could result in a scenario where your new URLs are essentially very different from their original URLs.

Initially, I looked to IFinity’s URL Master to fix this since I use this on my site, but without a bit of development by Mandeeps, a solution wasn’t available here. However, if you do have a vendor ready and willing to do so, Ifinity has a module provider solution that allows you as a module vendor to map and generate URLs on sites that use URL Master.

At the end of the day, I couldn’t use a built-in or existing feature to re-map URLs to ensure that when search engines visited or visitors clicked on existing inbound links, the visitor would not only get the content they were looking for, but they would also get the SEO-friendly HTTP 301 redirect. So, in order to fulfill this requirement, I ended up writing a slick little module called Simple Redirect. It’s sole purpose in life was what you just read – and, to keep things simple in doing so.

What About the Future?

One of the things I am going to miss deeply is the ability to immediately support the latest and greatest features in DotNetNuke for the reasons mentioned above. However, the convenience of being able to not need to maintain a separate code base right now is too great to ignore. Mandeeps has been incredibly responsive to feature requests so far though.

Summary

So that’s it. I wanted to have a supported blogging solution that didn’t require me to have a forked and self-maintained version of the code base to achieve my blogging platform requirements. I also wanted to see active releases that incorporated more and more features without the need for me to merge my codebase. In looking for possible blog solution providers that could give my site what it needed and more, I found and moved forward with Live Blog. It was able to meet all of my needs, has great support, actively releases, and is extremely reactive to feedback. At this point, I couldn’t be any happier with my chosen path.

My First 20 Mile Bike Ride

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 08:00:00 GMT

I for the first time in my life since I was a teenager am the proud owner of a bicycle. Purchasing the bicycle was a conscious decision in an effort to have an easier barrier of entry to working out, and less of an excuse not to. A bicycle is the perfect answer for me to burn time and energy on the way to and from work. I can commute since I am only about 7 miles away. For the times when it’s not so convenient, I can simply jump on the train with my bike.

For those of you that are readers of my blog, please rest easy knowing that while Chris Hammond was quite pushy in influencing me to get a bike, I didn’t get it for or because of him! :D

I am not a bike rider. Even though I have ridden nearly 150 miles within the last month (since I’ve owned my bike) as of the writing of this post, for me the bicycle is my gateway to putting my feet to the pavement again. I suspect that I won’t stop riding the bike, but I really can’t wait until I am once again running 3+ miles as a regular workout – like the good ol’ days!

Back to the topic of the post though…

From the first day that I tried riding, I found that riding longer distances wasn’t difficult when you have the right conditions and bicycle. My first ride was with my son. We were just fooling around on a Saturday and decided to see where we could explore. We rode 12.5 miles before we realized how much time and how many miles had transpired!

This is an area where I will give Chris Hammond full credit. The Strava website and app are incredibly great! You can track and compete on all of your bike rides and runs. I highly recommend using this app and service if you run or bike (or both).

Immediately, I set some goals for myself… The most prominent one was to ride at least 20 miles in a single ride. Heck, if I could ride 12.5 miles, what’s another 8 miles?

Luckily, there are great websites like TrailLink that help you find great places and trails to ride your bike, and do other outdoor activities. That’s my primary place that I go to in order to find a new route to ride on the weekends. However, the site isn’t perfect, so it’s a great starting point. I usually end up on Google Maps before I actually leave the house. Another great site if you’re in the San Francisco Bay area is BayTrail.org.

Using both sites, I had intended to have a 20 mile ride under my belt 2 weeks ago. Unfortunately, the maps and sites have no way to let you know if a reserve is closed off due to construction or conservation, preventing access to part of the trail. Those rides were 14.3 and 12.9 miles, respectively.

Finally, I was able to accomplish this on Sunday! I went on a trail that starts in East Palo Alto (almost next to the Facebook headquarters), and ends in San Jose, CA. This is part of the greater Bay Trail, called San Francisco Bay Trail (East Palo Alto to San Jose).

The main portion of this trail is 22.5 miles all on it’s own, but there are other trails connected to it, including loops, making the actual possible distance many more miles longer. I rode from the northern most possible point in the East Palo Alto portion, down to Mountain View (right next to the Google campus). That was just over 11 miles and was the first moment that I remembered to look at my distance traveled. There was so much scenery that I was completely distracted up to that point.

Above all, my proudest realization of this ride is the fact that I didn’t rest for any longer than the amount of time it took to drink a bit of water or take a picture!

Those of you that are bike enthusiasts, you might notice that I don’t have much elevation in my rides. I am not very interested in elevation. My highest elevation so far has been just over 300 feet. I wouldn’t have gone that high if it weren’t me trying to get home. Hehehe…

I wrote all of this for a purpose… I have neglected my health for far too long, giving way too many excuses. Once I put my mind back to it and I stopped accepting my own excuses, I have found that I can put myself on the right road to being fit once again. If I can do it, so can you! :)

The coolest thing is that you can get the whole family out, and you can see some cool things like I’ve been taking pictures of and posting to my Flickr like you see below.

Hanging out With My Klout Out!

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 08:00:00 GMT

Originally, Chris Hammond and I were planning to go to the #KloutDevNight meetup tonight to hang out with the good folks at Klout.com. Well, Chris got a hamstring cramp or something from too much DotNetNuke training and decided not to go. So, I invited Kim to go with me, and off we went to the offices of Klout! Overall, it was a great idea and I’d love to do it again!

Klout is a web service that measures influence on the social web. It takes your activity and the activity of those you interact with (and vice versa) and analyzes it to determine who has influence of others, and over what topics. Despite their controversial scoring algorithm update today, I was very excited to go to their headquarters and hang out with such a cool company!

Overall, the event was fun and we met some really cool people. We spoke with people from Klout, Twitter, and other companies. I was able to get deeper insight into Klout itself, as well as into their scoring update that had happened earlier in the day. They were more than aware of the impact that their update has had on their community, and have a complete understanding of it.

I don’t envy them. DotNetNuke has been there before too. Luckily, it happened before I joined! :)

While Kim and I really did have a great time, there was plenty of room for improvement for future #KloutDevNight’s…

There wasn’t an agenda of any kind. While on the surface this was a cool thing, there wasn’t any announcement of any kind that there wasn’t an agenda. That in itself would be enough agenda for me.

It wasn’t clear who was with Klout and who wasn’t until you actually spoke with them. Sure, you can tell most people apart by body language, but that’s not the point. Only a few of the Klout staff wore their own brand. I’d been more apt to introduce myself to more people that had been wearing Klout gear.

That’s it for the criticisms. Like I said before, it was a great event. There was plenty free beer, sliders, Klout swag, ping pong, and even beer pong. These guys (and gals) sure know how to have a good time. I really do look forward to the next #KloutDevNight.

30 Days Without a Cell Phone

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 08:00:00 GMT

Many of you probably already know who Matt Cutts is. If you’re unaware, he’s one of the first engineers hired at Google. He is now responsible for their Webspam team, but he is also behind tools like safe search. Anyhow, he has a very well-populated blog. He blogs much more than I do. One of his reoccurring blog themes is the concept of trying something out for 30 days and letting his readers know how it worked out. I guess it’s my turn…

A while back, I woke up to find my an arm on my HTC G2 phone broken. It appeared like it simply popped out of socket, but it had actually broke. Since I didn’t break it myself, I thought it would be easy to get replaced. Nope. As it turns out, no matter the reason, some parts of a phone are considered “physical damage” regardless to how the damage occurred. In this case, “physical damage” means that you personally broke the phone, intentionally or not.

I wasn’t willing to pay for damage I didn’t cause, so I just dealt with it – which wasn’t a big deal since I rarely opened my phone to begin with. Swipe on Android is much easier than using an actual keyboard.

Well, just over a month ago now, my screen went out. The touch behavior still functioned, but the picture no longer displayed. Upon battling with T-Mobile and their insurance agency, I would need to basically pay for half the value of the phone to get it replaced. Well, I am stubborn. I said, “to heck with that!” I decided to instead suspend my phone for a while to stick it to the man! Hehehe…

Now, I know that my little stunt will mean little to nothing to T-Mobile or any other carrier, but it made ME feel better. So, I decided to go without my phone. At the time I didn’t have any aspirations to go a full 30 days, but in the end, that’s exactly what it was. As it turns out, this was a very interesting test.

At first, this experiment was easy. It was my choice, and I had no idea how long it would be – but this ease of no phone would soon become more difficult.

I am very connected to my phone. I used it for videos, pictures, social networking, texting, GPS, listening to music, keeping up with work, and much more. Soon I was finding that I need to do things like print directions to before before traveled destinations, stick near my kids so their mother could call me, and wait until I was at a computer to be able to do nearly anything.

It wouldn’t be long before I would have friends and family begin calling and texting Kim so that they could get ahold of me. I even had to borrow my son’s phone when I traveled for business recently. Needless to say, I don’t think I really made it a full 30 days. At least, it doesn’t completely count.

One of the hardest parts of the entire process was not being able to break DotNetNuke news or share cool or funny things with the rest of the DNN community.

Well, I finally received my replacement phone today, and after about an hour of configuration, I am completely tied back to the interwebs with the rest of you again! Hahaha!

Habanero XXX Burger at The Swinging Door

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 08:00:00 GMT

A littler over a year ago, I was hungry and was looking for a new place to have a meal. During my online search, I found a local place that claimed to have the world’s hottest hamburger. It is at The Swingin’ Door and the burger is called the Habanero XXX Burger. You have to sign a waiver just to eat it! I just had to have it…

I am a sucker for some hot food, and I simply love habaneros. Anyone that knows me either knows this, or has even tried the habanero sauce that my family makes. I have my own spin on our family recipe, but it’s still hot! While I don’t strive to look for and complete hot food challenges, when they arise, I often have to hold myself back from trying them out.

The Habanero XXX Burger is probably the hottest thing I’ve ever eaten. Only one other thing I can think of comes to mind (hot wings at the Boulder Creek Brewing Company). Everything else is a distant second place.

Apparently, the Cooking Channel (a subsidiary of the Food Network) thought enough of the reputation of this burger that they filmed an episode of Heat Seekers there to highlight it. Kim and I were lucky enough to be able to hang out with them while they were filming. It was quite a blast to see the hosts react to the burgers, and to literally participate in the “behind the scenes” elements of a television show.

Knowing that Kim and I would probably be on TV, I made sure to wear a DotNetNuke shirt to try and get it on TV, and we made sure to find out when it would air so we could try and watch it and possibly record it. Unfortunately, it aired during the time that the family and I were on a cross-country road trip from Florida to California, so we never saw it. Since then, we could not find it anywhere.

That changed tonight. We went back there for dinner tonight with Joe Brinkman, and we asked about the episode. We were hoping that they were given copies that we could watch. They pointed us to their recording that they put on YouTube! So, watch below, and you will see Kim and I in our ground-breaking roles on television. The sky’s the limit now. We should be movie stars any day! Hahaha!

Pay attention to the few close-ups that Kim and I have, but we are also in the background several times. Unfortunately, they made very sure to edit out and only keep the shots where the DotNetNuke logo isn’t clearly visible. :’(

My One Year Anniversary at DotNetNuke Corporation

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 08:00:00 GMT

It was exactly one year ago that I showed up for my first day of work at DotNetNuke Corporation. The past year has flown by. A ton of things have happened in the 365 days since.

You may (or may not) remember some adventurous tweets from Chris Hammond, Joe Brinkman, and myself discussing some of the details a year ago. It’s worth mentioning again, only because I flew in the night prior on Southwest, who lost my bag. While I waited for Southwest to finally admit that my bag was missing, Chris drove 10 laps around the massive San Francisco airport, waiting to pick me up.

The next day, while I was able to shower and shave, I ended up showing for my first day of work the same way that I arrived to the airport… In a t-shirt, shorts, and sandals! It was classic! And so my adventure with DNN Corp began.

Over the course of the past year, I have been involved in so many projects, meetings, events, and more. Looking back, there’s been so many things that I’ve been a part of, that it’s really difficult to quantify for this blog post. Here are some of my personal highlights:

DotNetNuke product demonstrations
Webinars
Running the user group program
Sending DNN goodies to user groups
Help Fortune 1000 and other organizations learn more about DNN
Participating in Movember
Speaking at DNNConnections
Helping to get two more Day of DotNetNuke events organized
Getting my blog on over 70 times
Generating over 40 DNN videos
Having input on new features, new releases, etc.
Generating internal knowledge bases, processes, and training
Meeting new DNN community members and ecosystem vendors
Working side-by-side with the likes of Shaun Walker, Joe Brinkman, Nik Kalyani, Chris Hammond, Philip Beadle, Cathal Connolly, Charles Nurse, Rob Chartier, and more
Basically, getting paid to do the things that I LOVE!

The only bad part about the list above is that some of the coolest things I’ve done over the past year are things that I cannot mention publicly yet. Argh!

My Promises

I promised a few things when I announced that I was going to be “working for the man.” Among those promises are the ODUG, Day of DotNetNuke, and continuing my social media presence. I promised to make sure that all of these areas continued to thrive and/or grow, even with my employment at DNN Corp. I am very proud to say that the ODUG is living well and doing just fine without me. The Day of DotNetNuke has had three events since I joined DNN Corp, in Chicago, Orlando, and Nova Scotia. And if you’re paying any attention at all, my social media presence had not faded away. I have over 16,000 tweets, I have been posting in the forums more, and although I cannot touch my goal of at least 3 blogs a week, I am still doing that too!

At the time of my announcement last year, a concern was raised on twitter about my participation in the forge too. A comment was made that I may not or would not create any new releases or projects. I am very happy to say that over the past year, I have founded the Widget Suite, a new Code Camp module, and I have had releases for the Media Module, Lightbox Gallery module, and the .Net oEmbed API Wrapper. In the case of the Widget Suite, it’s had a huge amount of traction this past year, so I’ve dedicated more of my free time to that project. I’ve even built out a team on it that’s currently 4 strong.

DNN Corp

I’ve also seen the company grow from me being about employee number 40, to 60 people now – with no signs of stopping. We have employees and offices spread over 5 continents, making DNN Corp truly an international company.

Being at DotNetNuke Corp is rewarding in so many ways. I always equate being part of the DNN community like being part of a family. In fact, I often call the DNN community my DNN family. DNN Corp is like an extension of my family. Between surviving our daily challenges, to hanging out, to our team building events, to our bowling leagues… It’s simply fun to wake up each morning, knowing that I get to come to work to play!

Looking back at all of this, I cannot express to you enough how grateful and honored I am to be part of such an exciting and fun organization, filled with some of the brightest and most energizing people you can hope to work with. I couldn’t imagine working anywhere else!

Thank you to everyone for a fun-filled, exciting, and truly rewarding experience! I hope it never ends…

Thank you to everyone that continues to be there for me, including my beautiful and wonderful family!

Android Apps Used During our Trip Across the Country

Tue, 11 Jan 2011 04:27:00 GMT

As you may or may not know, I recently moved to the San Francisco area in California, which involved moving my family and our entire home. Due to all kinds of things, the family wasn’t able to move with me until the end of December. Finally, the time came, and we drove from Orlando, FL to San Francisco, CA. It was a very fun and challenging journey for a family of 5, across 8 states, and through 4 time zones for 6 days. The trip could’ve been shorter, but we stayed with family in Arizona for a couple of days.

During this time, we used our Android G2 phones quite extensively. There are apps that we always use, but including those, a couple of apps proved to be very helpful to us.

Here I Am 2 Pro

We wanted to keep our friends and family all updated at the same time, with the most efficient amount of effort. Basically, I wanted a fun and easy way to update the social networks, SMS, e-mail, and more using an app. While I could use a check-in app like Foursquare, SCVNGR, or Whrrl, I knew I wouldn’t always want to post my location at an actual “venue.” So that ruled out the typical venue location apps. I didn’t find anything with the best user experience that I was looking for, but Here I Am 2 Pro did a fair job of doing the job.

I loved that (depending on GPS/wireless coverage) I could post my elevation or address along with the latitude and longitude directly to a contact, Facebook, and more. Couple that with the syndication capabilities of the existing social networks, and you can post this information to anyone, anywhere. Due to privacy concerns, I’d only suggest using this for special occasions. I was quite annoyed that there weren’t more places to post my location to. Probably the most annoying thing about this app is that I couldn’t have any more than 5 contacts to send information to.

This is not a free app, but for $0.99, I really cannot complain too much.

Google Maps

We all already know that Google Maps does a more than decent job of providing a very useful and usable online/mobile mapping experience, despite some odd glitches here and there. And don’t even get me started on how much I love the navigation feature (even though I didn’t need it for this trip). However, during a road trip, this experience gets even better, depending on your data connectivity. I had a decent data (G to 4G) through most of the trip across the country.

In the Android version of Google Maps, you can overlay Wikipedia to get useful landmarks and information about the areas you’re driving through or near – as well as get a good idea if there are any places you want to stop. This was very cool to play around with and educate your kids while you travel.

Special thanks to Chris Hammond for this idea! :)

This is a free app that’s normally bundled with your phone.

Google Sky

One of the things that really amazes me out of all of the built-in Google apps is the amazing experience and accuracy of Google Sky. I played with it before, just seeing what it could do. During our road trip, we really got to put it through its paces when we reached certain areas that are void of light pollution, where you can see all of the stars that the human eye can see.

We stopped somewhere in the western side of Texas, and pulled off the road. One of the kids asked what a specific set of stars were. Not being an astrologer, I fired up the app, and proceeded to help them find the various constellations. Then, one of them asked where another one was. This app allows you to search for something specific, giving you visual cues to move to see what you’re searching for. It’s amazing!!!

This is a free app that’s normally bundled with your phone.

Facebook

If you use Facebook like I do, it’s a very useful tool to keep your personal friends and family updated on what’s going on in your life. For the most part, I keep my professional like out of my Facebook profile. However, many people were excited and eager to follow us on our journey across the United States, for various reasons.

Not only was I able to post updates (which I mostly did using Here I Am 2 Pro), but I kept up-to-date on everyone else, and used this app exclusively to upload images from our various stops and landmarks.

The only thing that’s missing from this app for me is the ability to upload videos. I had to plug in to my laptop and connect to wireless to do that – which I did a few times. Also, while it’s nit-picking, if I wanted to tag anyone in my photos, I had to login to the website to do it.

This is a free app, and it’s normally bundled with your phone.

Whrrl

I gave up Foursquare a while ago. I grew tired of not getting credit for my check-ins way too easily, and the growing number of drive-by check-ins by people. Those things take all of the fun out of the experience. I’ve been using Whrrl for a while now though, and it’s great!

One of the things I love the most about Whrrl is the integration with Facebook Places. It will automatically check you in on Facebook too, if you want. You can also tweet your location. However, there are still elements of competitiveness, especially amongst you and your friends. You can compete to become the leader of specific venues, and the level up doesn’t appear to end (so far).

Unlike having badges, there are societies, and these societies help you to not only gain points, but also to find new places, give recommendations, and share pictures.

Probably the thing I like the most about this app is the lack of venues. It appears to mostly be business-centric. Foursquare is overflowing with bogus and meaningless venues, leading to check-in fatigue and losing credit for check-ins, and possibly losing a mayorship. In some areas, you can literally spend all of your time checking in to places as you walk, never having put down the phone.

Another thing I love about this app is that there appears to be more businesses using it than on Foursquare. In even the most unexpected areas, I’ve seen opportunity to win prizes from nearby businesses, or even the one I am currently checking in to. I’ve even won before.

One thing to worry about this app is that it is data-intensive. In Edge and G areas, the app can work pretty slow.

This is a free app, but you will need to download it from the marketplace.

Fruit Ninja, Angry Birds, Paper Toss, Talking Tom

One of the things that you might have automatically thought of during the opening of this blog post is, “Oh my god! I cannot believe the kids are still alive. I would’ve killed them!” This is probably the most common thing we’ve heard when talking to people about our trip. Rightfully so. Children already cause a certain level of stress, no matter how much you love them. Stick them in a car for nearly 3,000 miles, and this becomes much more relevant.

Luckily, besides having a portable DVD player, one of the many things we were able to use to keep them occupied were the games available to us on the Android marketplace. The most popular with the kids included: Angry Birds, Paper Toss, Talking Tom, and Fruit Ninja. I cannot even begin to tell you how many pigs and birds I heard die over our 3,000 mile trek to San Francisco.

Fruit Ninja and Angry Birds will cost you around a dollar each, and Talking Tom has a paid version. Otherwise, these are free apps. The paid versions are well worth their $1 price tag.

Xfinity Mobile

We are a Comcast Cable customer with an Xfinity plan. This gives us our cable broadband and plenty of HD programming on our HD DVR. However, we also have access to an Xfinity Android app that allows us to manage our account and watch videos, but also browse through programming to remotely program our DVR to records specific shows from anywhere in the world.

This is just what we were able to do. I spent a few moments one day looking through the programming over a week on the Food Network. I was looking for a show that Kim and I are supposed to be on. We were in the background during the filming of one of their shows. I scheduled a few shows to record, and when we arrived home, they were waiting for us.

Technorati Tags: Android,Mobile,Apps

MOvember End of Campaign Pic

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 19:35:00 GMT

DotNetNuke,PersonalMon, 10 Jan 2011 19:35:00 GMT

A looooooong over due blog post here is to reward you, my readers, Twitter/Facebook followers, and basically anyone who helped to support my effort to get to $1000 in donations to help support the Movember effort. You all came through like rock stars and indeed helped me to raise over $1000, reaching my goal. However, I promised something to you… A crazy pic!

Well… I have quite a few suggestions for the crazy pic, and most of them I cannot mention here – or should not, at least. However, one suggestion was repeatedly mentioned, and you will see that result below.

Thank you again for your immense generosity!

Technorati Tags: DotNetNuke,DNN,Movember

Team DotNetNuke Movember Results

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:13:00 GMT

DotNetNuke,PersonalWed, 01 Dec 2010 00:13:00 GMT

There have been several blogs about the Movember effort, in order to raise awareness and funds to support the effort to reduce prostate cancer in Men. You can think of this as the male version of breast cancer month. This is very relevant since 1 in 6 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer at some point in their life. We as a company jumped on the chance to participate, as did several DNN community members.

All in all, the DotNetNuke Movember team had 37 members from around the world, and although there are still about 8 hours left in the event, we were able to get to #122 in the United States for the most money raised by a team. At the time of this writing, that’s $6,264 raised, with Chris Hammond taking the lead a couple of hours ago, thanks to his dare.

Chris pledged to shave his head if he reached $1,000 in donations, and he did. Though the donation didn’t come through until after our luncheon started, but it was a strategic one – meant solely to force him to shave his head. It was a hilarious moment! Rebecca shaved his head on the spot!

DotNetNuke Corp dove into this event completely, with nearly the entire company participating. In order to commemorate this event, we did it right too. Today was a world-wide luncheon, mostly done via video conference. We all had awards for the best “Mo” (mustache) in our own categories. This was done as a look-a-like award contest for each of us. This was absolutely hilarious! The slide deck is below:

Mustache presentation

View more presentations from Will Strohl.

As promised, here is a picture of my “Mo.” As previously warned, it isn’t pretty, and I cannot stand having it. This last week was literally torture to keep it on!

The next step is to have you all comment here for my pose for my official “Mo” picture. What should my pose be?

Technorati Tags: DotNetNuke,DNN,Movember,Cancer

Why Movember is Important to Me

Mon, 15 Nov 2010 20:15:00 GMT

PersonalMon, 15 Nov 2010 20:15:00 GMT

I am one of thousands of people around the world participating in an event called Movember. Between my previous post about Movember, Chris Hammond’s post introducing it, and the amazing amount of activity about it on the various social networks, I am sure this isn’t the first time that you’ve heard about this cause. However, just in case you were on vacation or something, I will give you a quick summary…

What is Movember?

This is an international event that happens every month of November, originally in Australia. Basically, men around the world agree to start the month clean-shaven, and spend the next 30 days growing a mustache – also known as a “Mo.” This event is meant to create awareness and raise funds to donate to help fight cancer in men. You can think of it as the male version of National Breast Cancer month. Even if you don’t want to or can’t grow a mustache, you can donate money to help benefit organizations like Livestrong and the Prostate Cancer Foundation.

What’s In It For Me?

Some of you may know from my post about my Grandfather, that I lost him last year to cancer. What I haven’t publicly discussed is how I also lost one of my uncles when he was just 16 years old to cancer. I was only about a toddler when it happened, but I can still remember fragments of him. Cancer has claimed the lives of many thousands of people each year. This has hit home to nearly every family in the world. What do I get out of this? It’s simple. I get to help keep the memories of my loved ones alive by honoring their memory to help others that will find themselves in this situation in the future. Hopefully, you and I both can so something help prevent cancer, and maybe even eventually find a cure.

My Challenge to YOU!

On my first day of publicly announcing my participation, I challenged everyone with getting my donation pool to $100. As a reward, I promised a picture of my resulting “Mo” on my blog for all of you to laugh at. Until then, there is a black out on all online pictures of me.

I have never even attempted to grow a Mo in my life before due to the known level of amusement that it will bring to those around me, at my expense.

Thanks to some of you, I actually reached the $100 goal in less than 8 hours! So, I had to raise the stakes.

For $500 donated to my campaign, I will also allow all of the followers of my blog and twitter to vote on the pose that I should take my end-of-the-month Mo picture with. I am currently at $466 as of this writing. So…

Should you all prove to be true cancer-fighting rock stars and get my campaign to $1000, I have another pay-off for you… If you are able to get my campaign to a whopping $1000, I will not only post a picture and allow everyone to vote for an end of month pose… I will also do the following:

Anyone with a donation of $100 or more will receive an 8x10 copy of my horrible end-of-month mustache from my online photo
I will wear my disgustingly ugly Mo through the month of December!

Those previous two promises only apply if we get my Movember campaign donations to over $1000. So please make sure you donate today, and share the donation page with all of your friends and family. Remember, this is all in good fun, but more importantly – it’s for a GREAT cause.

My MO picture above is courtesy of Chris Hammond and his camera. ;)

Technorati Tags: DotNetNuke,DNN,Movember,Cancer,Charity

Movember: A Worthy Cause for Men’s Health

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 19:02:00 GMT

DotNetNuke,PersonalMon, 08 Nov 2010 19:02:00 GMT

My Movember Picture on November 1st

With everything going on leading up to DotNetNuke Connections, something that didn’t receive its due attention was Movember. If you’re not aware of what Movember is, Chris Hammond did a great job of explaining Movember to those of us who are less informed. Basically, for the entire month of November, men are encouraged to grow a mustache and get donations to help support men’s health, including cancer. This is kind of the men’s version of the women’s breast cancer movement.

There are a few ways to participate – and it’s open to everyone:

Grow a “Mo” and get donations for yourself, or the DNN team
Ladies can get a surrogate “Mo” grower to participate
You can simply donate to the cause

I’m All In!

I am indeed one of the many in DNN Corp, and the DNN Community who are participating in Movember, and growing a “Mo.” I have never grown a mustache in my life because I know I can’t and it will look like crap, but I have committed to growing one for the 30 days of November for a worthy cause. So… Everyone who sees me on a daily basis is definitely in for a laugh! :D

Donations

I am telling you about this for two reasons though. I would love for you to participate in any way that you can. This is a great cause! However, I have been blogging and doing things in the community for a LONG time. During this time, I really haven’t ever asked for anything in return. As of this blog post, this is no longer true.

If you have gotten anything out of my blog in the past…
If you have enjoyed any of my DNN videos…
If I have ever helped you solve a problem on twitter, the DNN forums, or elsewhere…
If I have ever inspired you to try something new…
If you have ever attended a Day of DotNetNuke…
If you have ever attended any of my presentations…

Please consider donating anything that you can to my Movember page.

If that is a single dollar, that’s fine. Donate anything that you think is fair and affordable to you. While this helps me at a competitive level to beat everyone else in the Movember DNN Team (especially Chris Hammond), this really goes to help all men in the world through bettering men’s health. Just make sure that you click to donate to me, and not the team. ;)

What’s In It For You?

I cannot promise you anything in return for your donations, except that I will continue to do my best to give you the best DotNetNuke content that I can, through my blog, the DNN forums, twitter, and everywhere else that I participate.

However, if I get over $100 donated to my page, I promise that I will post a picture of my malformed “Mo” here on my blog for all of you to see and laugh at! :D

Okay, okay… Even if you don’t want to donate to my page, feel free to donate to the DotNetNuke team. Either way, it’s a win for ALL men, and men’s health overall. :)

Technorati Tags: DotNetNuke,DNN,Movember

Rumbly In My Tumbly: Thoughts About My Diet

Sun, 24 Oct 2010 21:01:00 GMT

PersonalSun, 24 Oct 2010 21:01:00 GMT

Since I’ve arrived in the San Francisco area, I had resolved to do a few things. First, use public transportation. Next, eat better. Finally, exercise. I have been doing a pretty good job of all of it. In fact, since I haven’t really been able to cook, most of my food has been thanks to Amy’s Frozen Meals.

For lunches, I have been doing a little bit of lunch meat, but mostly fish tacos. There’s a really great Mexican restaurant near the office. They have some fish tacos that are not deep fried. So, I’ve been eating them a lot.

With primarily having fish tacos for lunch, and Amy’s meals for dinner, my only consumption of red meat has been coming during breakfast – sometimes. My breakfast has mostly contained pork. Not all the time, but for nearly all meals for about 4 months now. This nearly makes me a pescetarian, and it’s made me lose quite a bit of weight.

Pescetarianism is a form of being a vegetarian, but you’re allowed to have fish.

I tell you all of that to really say this… I have some rumbly in my tumblies!!! (An old saying from the Winnie the Pooh stories.)

Whenever I have had red meat recently, my stomach has been complaining at me. You can be within walking distance of me after a meal and clearly hear my stomach yelling at me. :) On more than one occasion though, the sounds have been accompanied with pain. Ouch!

I’ve always thought some of the people I knew were a bit of a sissy when they ate something like red meat and had tummy issues. However, now I have a fresh perspective on how and why that might happen.

I apologize to everyone who I’ve made fun of for this in the past. :D

Technorati Tags: Pescetarianism,Dieting,Weight Loss

Book Review: Presentation Zen

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 21:17:00 GMT

PersonalSun, 15 Aug 2010 21:17:00 GMT

This book review will serve as numbers 2 and 3 in the three total that I promised you in my review of Confessions of a Public Speaker. The reason being is that the first book in this review is Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds. He later wrote a follow-up to that book, Presentation Zen Design. The first book focuses strictly on presentation itself, so the design aspect is somewhat glossed over. The second book talks strictly about design to make up for it.

The design book is not written for professional designers. It is actually written for non-designers.

Garr Reynolds writes both of his books using the very concepts he’s trying to teach to us as readers. Many of his inspirations come from everyday things and concepts in Japan, so he regularly uses Japanese words and pictures to get his points across. This does a great job of maintaining a common theme throughout the books, and also is very relatable to those, like myself, who find beauty in Japanese culture and objects. Some of those concepts include less is more, harmony, simplification, symmetry, and more.

Reynolds uses real life examples of his points in slides throughout his books as well. He demonstrates the use of type, white space, and more in these example slides to give us visual representations to reinforce his points.

Throughout both books, Reynolds also includes sections from topic experts to reinforce points and concepts, from people like Nancy Duarte – an expert in the creation of presentation slides, and the CEO of Duarte Design.

Even if you can’t read, the example slides found on nearly every page of this book do a fantastic job of showing you what you should and should not do in your own slides. This is a testament to the job that Reynolds was tasked with. Every page is fresh with examples of things you can and should do to enhance your presentations.

Like the previous author I spoke about, Scott Berkun, Reynolds makes sure to reference the books and materials that he quotes throughout his books. This is refreshing, as we can go and do more of our own follow-up research, instead of just trusting the quote.

One of the other things that Reynolds does that I really enjoy, is that he talks to us about ways he looks for and suggests for us to look for inspiration. For example, looking at books about design, other industries, nature, and more. He also pushes us to plan our presentations offline, which is a great, non-standard way to plan your presentations without the usual boundaries that we have and don’t think about.

Both of these books do an outstanding job from cover to cover in helping us to become better presenters, regardless of whether we’re talking in the boardroom, or on stage. Reynolds challenges us to build our presentations with a story in mind, to connect to our audience in visual ways, and to take every precaution to not bore people with “death by powerpoint.”

Like the previous book, you’ll be a better presenter for reading these books.

Technorati Tags: Review,Books,Design,Public Speaking

Book Review: Confessions of a Public Speaker

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 19:08:00 GMT

PersonalSun, 15 Aug 2010 19:08:00 GMT

I have been doing technical presentations and training for several years now. Like any level-headed person though, I know that I don’t know everything, and that I can always use more training myself, and do plenty of other things to make myself better at what I do. So, I came across and read a few books about presenting. This is the first of three book reviews.

One of the first books that popped into my head when I though to do this was Confessions of a Public Speaker by Scott Berkun. I have heard of this book before from a friend who once ran a public speaking workshop that I attended. So I picked it up first from Amazon.

I had no idea what to expect with this book, despite having a great review from a friend. So, upon reading, the author did a great job of telling me what to expect – and he didn’t disappoint. This book is for everyone. You may not be a professional speaker, but you likely stand in front of your peers from time to time, presenting information to them. This book is for all of you.

Scott Berkun turned out to be an author of several other books, and a professional speaker. He has spoken all over the world, to all kinds of audiences, include some who spoke an entirely different language. By the time you get to the end of the book, you will definitely know that he’s experienced a little bit of everything during his speaking career. He validates many of the points he makes by telling us about those experiences.

I loved Berkun’s method of story telling, which is one of the points that he tells us over and over in the book. A speaker needs to learn how to engage audience members, and the best way to do that is to return to our primal roots of story telling. Humans have been telling stories since the beginning of time.

Berkun obviously does his research too. He relates many of his points and experiences to scientific explanations, and cites reference material whenever he quotes anyone or anything. He even delves into many of his real life experiences of things that have gone wrong, and things that you can do to prevent things from going wrong.

What’s more, Berkun also dispels many of the myths surrounding public speaking, such as thinking about the crowd being naked. He later brings things into perspective when he tells us how and why we experience physiological symptoms when confronted with speaking in front of an audience.

Overall, I really enjoyed Berkun’s writing style. It was easy to read, and fast to get through. I think you will find your experience to be the same. Why not pick up a copy for yourself? I don’t care who you are… You WILL become a better speaker after reading this book.

Confessions of a Public Speaker

Technorati Tags: Review,Books,Public Speaking

Need Recommendations on Walking Shoes

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 16:08:00 GMT

PersonalWed, 04 Aug 2010 16:08:00 GMT

When I agree to come onboard at DotNetNuke® Corporation, it was understood that I’d have to move to San Francisco. This excited me, because I knew I would be able to change my commute of 30+ miles (when not telecommuting) to < 10 miles, and make use of public transportation. As a result, I even sold my (*ahem*) truck.

“Don’t pay attention to the man behind the curtain!”

Anyhow, I made a commitment of walking and using public transportation as much as possible, with the possibility of upgrading to a bicycle and scooter in the near future. As a result, I am walking my Nike cross-trainers to death. The soles are coming loose now.

So begins the trek, looking for suitable walking shoes since I spend plenty of my time doing that. I want a pair of shoes made for walking, that will last a while, and still look somewhat professional.

Professional is not a requirement, as I come to work pretty casual. But I am trying to stray away from the neon designs that some athletic shoes have.

I have begun looking on Zappos, but haven’t settled on anything. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Technorati Tags: Shoes,Walking,Zappos

Random Thoughts From My First Week in San Francisco

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 05:12:00 GMT

PersonalTue, 06 Jul 2010 05:12:00 GMT

Tomorrow night will mark a full week that I’ve been living here in San Mateo (just south of San Francisco). I am not a resident yet, as we are still waiting for our chosen residence to become available, and the family is still waiting to join me from Florida. So, I’ve had plenty of alone time while exploring to ponder some of the thoughts that continue below…

Walking

I have walked more during this past week than I probably have all year long so far. This is mainly because I don’t exercise like I should, keep myself too busy, and – most of all – Florida is simply not walker-friendly. The only places where you can walk and feel relatively safe are the bicycle trails or beaches, if you’re lucky to have any near you.

Let’s not forget that Florida is HOOOOOOTTTT too!!!

I have been walking to breakfast, lunch, dinner, and work – and everything else in between. One thing I noticed immediately was that no matter where I walked, all of the cars consistently go out of their way to let me pass. As it turns out, I looked it up, and there’s a pretty good crosswalk law in the State of California to protect walkers. I was pleasantly surprised to find this out.

I hope to continue this trend of walking as much as possible where ever it makes sense to do so. The San Francisco area makes it too easy to do this, so I no longer have any excuses.

Commuter Train

I rode the CalTrain today to get to Redwood City and back to San Mateo again. I was a little nervous about the experience, because this was one of the rare times where I didn’t really do much research about something before doing it. This turned out to be a good thing in retrospect, as I was able to give you the following perspective from a true outsider. :)

I arrived at the closest train station just in time to see that there wasn’t anyone there (I thought). However, I had no clue how to get a ticket to ride the train. And it was pretty clear from all of the signs that I needed a ticket before boarding. After walking around for a few minutes, I noticed that this particular station had ticket booths at the center of the station on either side of the tracks. Luckily, the ticket stations are pretty simple to use. I had my day long pass bought in seconds.

I wasn’t sure at first which side of the tracks I should be one, as there weren’t any clear indications which side I should be one, despite there being plenty of other signs for various purposes all over the place. Conventional wisdom kicked in, however, and I chose to follow the rules of the American roads, and chose the appropriate – which turned out to be a smart idea. :D

The train was fun. It was a quick ride to the nearby city, and a smooth one too. In fact the stops were very well-planned, as they were all more than convenient, and I was happy to find out that they offer monthly passes, and allow bicycles onboard.

I will definitely be taking advantage of this system in the future. And why not? It will run whether I use it or not, and I can spend half the money that I usually spend on gas on a monthly pass!

Skype

With the family still in Florida, we’ve been making extensive use of Skype. If you’re not familiar with Skype, it’s an instant message-like program that allows you to use it like a telephone with video. Most people know this, but we have also been using it’s “extras” where you can do things like play games. The kids and I have been having a blast playing checkers, hangman, bowling, and more.

I am just extremely surprised at how well it still works when the wireless connection at my hotel begins to fade away. Great job by Skype! (And they are moving their offices pretty close to where we’ll be living soon too.)

People

Over and over again you hear people talk about how the people in the south are so nice. This is true in many places in the south, but not all. In fact, Orlando is probably not one of them. However, I have been impressed by the number of helpful and friendly people of all ages and appearances.

I say appearances because of a few of the people I have come across. There have been two homeless people I’ve come across, and both were very friendly and cordial. Only one asked for money, but he was super nice about it. Hehehe…

I have also come across a few of the younger people that look like a typical “punk” that have been nothing close to that. Appearances mean less here than anywhere I have ever been so far.

That’s not to say that there’s no mean people here. I am sure that there are plenty. I just haven’t encountered then yet. I have even been asked if I wanted a ride during one of my walks. That simply doesn’t happen anymore these days.

The Little Things

I have been noticing many little things over and over that just make me laugh or make me think. For example, at the CalTrain stations, there are signs posted to tell people to not commit suicide (not in those words).

At many paid parking lots, there are solar-powered pay stations. I have only one thing to say about this, “Duh!” Municipalities world-wide, follow suit.

The cross walk buttons at each intersection actually work! You press the button, and sometimes immediately, the light may change to allow you to walk. I am used to those being a decoration on light signal poles.

Yelp and Foursquare is a way of life here. Pretty much anywhere you go, you can only check-in because every place is already added. However, Yelp also helps you to find places and review on places to make your decisions easier. In fact, numerous businesses I have seen proudly display “Yelp Loves Us” stickers on their doors and windows. I wish Orlando businesses would get it together!

All of the apps on my cell phone work better here too. Part of it is clearly that the network infrastructure here is better, but there’s also more data here too. This combination makes social apps so much more powerful (like those above).

Houses in this state generally don’t follow the same cookie-cutter pattern that the entire State of Florida has grown accustomed to. I am so sick of entire neighborhoods looking the same. It’s so great to finally see originality again.

Finally, I need to make a conscience effort to remember one thing… I need to remember to no longer use the word “highway.” Here, everyone says, “freeway!” Hahaha!

Thanks for putting up with this dribble… Enjoy your day!

Technorati Tags: San Francisco,San Mateo,Redwood City,Orlando,California,Florida

Beware of Stolen Blog Content and Avoid the Thieves

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 21:56:00 GMT

PersonalSun, 20 Jun 2010 21:56:00 GMT

I occasionally get requests from various people if they can repost one of my articles here and there. Usually, these requests are from those who want to translate it for their own sites or visitors. However, this is usually a win-win relationship. They always link back to the original article, and clearly post who wrote the content. However, I have just been made aware of my first known content thief who is blatantly stealing my articles and changing all of the links to go to their own categories.

The unfortunate thing about those who steal content from other sites, is that if they do it right, they can easily generate a lot of visitor traffic to their website. In turn, they get a lot of revenue from their ads and embedded ad links throughout their site. This is the same traffic that some of us who work hard to provide a valuable service and meaningful content would love to have.

I am sure that you will run across my current thief, and I really want to let you know who they are so that you can do your best to stay away from them at all costs. However, I am going to give them a couple of days to respond to my request to remove my content first. If they do not respond appropriately, I will let you know everything! ;)

For those of you that don’t know, in the United States, nearly anything that gets committed to a medium is protected by copyright laws. Luckily, through various treaties and agreements through the UN, these copyright laws are enforceable in many other countries in the world – including the home of my current thief, Australia.

Help me protect myself and the others out there who spend their valuable time trying to provide content to you for free. The little bit we might get from our own ad revenue helps to offset some of the costs of the hosting and content generation, which gives a little bit more incentive for us.

As of this moment, the only website and entity that have given explicit permission to republish my content on their own is DotNetNukeBlogs.com. If you see my posts aggregated anywhere else (besides on DotNetNuke®), please refrain from visiting that website.

Technorati Tags: DotNetNuke,DNN,Copyright,Protection

Forbes: Where Americans Are Moving

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 12:48:00 GMT

PersonalWed, 16 Jun 2010 12:48:00 GMT

A very cool link was just posted by one of my Facebook friends for an interactive feature on the Forbes website. This feature allows you to click on a specific county in the United States, and it shows you how many people are moving in and out of that county. Unfortunately, this data isn’t even close to being recent, as it is using data from 2008. I am very interested to see 2009, and 2010 when it’s available. Regardless, this is a very cool, but interesting tool to use and play with.

Map: Where Americans Are Moving (via Forbes)

This is especially relevant to me since I am moving to San Francisco in a very short period. So, I decided to check Orange County, FL and San Mateo County, CA, which is my current moving path. First, I checked Orange County. (The red lines are outbound moves.)

In this view, it clearly looks like people are fleeing Central Florida. As a resident, I can tell you that since the job and housing market became hosed, this is indeed true. Numerous friends and acquaintances have sought out and found employment elsewhere for any number of reasons. The main two have been to get a better job, and to buy cheaper land and/or a house.

In fact, depending on this data was aggregated, it may be slightly incorrect. A number of people I have know also bought an additional home in other areas for a vacation or a planned retirement home, since the homes had gotten so cheap during the housing market crash. If the map doesn’t account for this scenario, I am not sure how different it’d be.

Next, I checked the San Mateo area to see how their locals have been handling everything. So I clicked on San Mateo county.

This is a drastically different image. You can easily see that far fewer people are leaving the San Mateo (South San Francisco Bay) area. You can make many assumptions considering the information I have given you thus far. It would be my opinion that the economy, while not so great for the state of California overall, is doing just fine in the Bay Area. People are happy with their current situations, hence the lack of moves.

To further prove that point, pay attention to the black lines in the map. Those are inbound moves. It’s far easier to see a visual of how many people are moving INTO that area, then in the previous map. I am encouraged to say the least! :)

Another (almost hidden) feature of this map is that you can hover over the individual counties to get a more granular or detailed view of a single county to county migration. Sweet!

Play with this map yourself. I found it to be informative and insightful, if not just plain fun. Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Moving,Move,Migration,County,Orange County,San Mateo County

My Sons Chargers Room

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 14:34:00 GMT

PersonalSun, 13 Jun 2010 14:34:00 GMT

A while back, I posted some pictures and information on how I painted my sons room, using the San Diego Chargers as inspiration. This was a long and tedious task, but it was very fun. I especially feel relaxed when painting, whereas I know many people who cannot stand doing it. I have since gotten some inquiries, comments, and e-mails wanting to know what the final room looked like. Unfortunately, I had procrastinated a lot in getting his room 100% finished. Between work, and everything else, the touch ups that were needed never were made. However, I did manage to take a few pictures before disassembling his room for our move – but not before some of the things were taken off of the walls.

Getting the Paint

Before we get to those pictures though, I thought that I’d post to you the colors I used. If you use Glidden, the official Chargers colors are already pre-determined. No color matching or other steps necessary. However, we insisted on using Behr paint. Mostly on my (non-expert) opinion that it’s a better brand of paint. This meant that we needed to figure out the colors. This was a long process. We ended up bringing most of our fan gear in to try and get the right colors mixed. Some items were faded, and others weren’t officially licensed, so there were a few hoops there. In the end though, we were able to leave with some samples of the Chargers light blue, dark blue, and yellow. Once we tested them on the walls to see how they’d look when dry, we were sold.

Here are the colors (with pics):

Light Blue

CLRNT	D	E	KX	L
_OZ_ 384th	0 55	6 286	6 279	0 21

Yellow

CLRNT	T
_OZ_ 394th	14 0

Dark Blue

CLRNT	C	E	V
_OZ_ 394th	0 192	7 352	2 320

From there, the painting experience is pretty much the same as you’re used to, except for the designs that I managed to flush out. I spoke about those in my previous post, so I won’t do it again this time.

The “Final” Pictures

Here are the final pictures. Some of the items are missing though. For example, his LT poster, Chargers Fan Zone sign, and other stuff like that. You will see in the pictures though, that I didn’t get to a couple of the touch ups. For example, in the white part of the bolt, you’ll see where I smudged my hand there when I tried to catch myself during painting. :D

Technorati Tags: Chargers,Paint,Painting,San Diego,Fan,Football

My Son’s Very First PowerPoint Presentation

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:39:00 GMT

PersonalMon, 08 Mar 2010 16:39:00 GMT

My 9 year-old son has to do his first science project at school this year on his own. Until now, his science projects have been a class project. Having gone through this before, my only requirement to the kids is that they come up with their own idea for the project. I don’t want them doing what their friends are doing. This forces them to use their brain to figure out an experiment using scientific method – which is the whole point of the project in the first place. I am not a fan of any child using their friends or siblings ideas. Be as unique as you can! :)

Well, the first part of the project is to turn in your idea of the project to the teacher. This involves handing over your scientific question, project title, hypothesis, and so on. The project he chose to do is about saving electricity. He wants to prove (or disprove) that you save electricity when all of your appliances that are not in use are unplugged. I love this idea! It shows that he cares about the environment, thinks about saving electricity, and (indirectly) cares about how much our bills are. Hehehe…

He chose to “present” his project idea. In turn, he decided on his own to use Microsoft PowerPoint to do this. I didn’t know this until after his finished product was done. I just assumed he was going to use Microsoft Word.

About 2 hours (or less) later, he called me into his room to see what he had done. He was so excited, and for good reason. I think he did a fantastic job! I have literally seen worse slide decks from full grown adults. Seriously.

Here is his slide deck. Pay special attention to the graphics he found and imported all on his own, and how they relate to the content on the slide. I am amazed! :)

Saving Electricity

View more presentations from hismightiness.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,PowerPoint,Slide Show,Slide Deck,Science Project

Multi-Tasking Can Indeed Make You More Productive

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:21:00 GMT

PersonalThu, 18 Feb 2010 12:21:00 GMT

Not too long ago, I mentioned on twitter how much I had accomplished in one day by multi-tasking. You never know what statements will return comments to you on the various social networks, and when they do, it is typically surprising. This was one of those surprises to me. As I remember it, at least 3 other people began sending me links and comments showing how multi-tasking actually makes you less productive.

Here are a couple of examples:

There are very valid points in every argument posed in this area. However, I do have to point out that studies like these are very subject to situational and contextual scrutiny. For example, multi-tasking is an entirely different proposition if you compare a call center person to an IT person. You can only accept and manage so many phone calls at a time, whereas the IT person has options. This is what I am going to focus on for this post.

The typical Information Technology staff member has a specific set of duties, but they nearly always have a ton of room to squeeze in more things to do. Even though computer performance has grown exponentially since the first PC was released, there are numerous times when an IT person has downtime. For example, when installing an operating system, there’s not much to do except watch the status screen. While it can be argued that this screen should be watched (not well enough for me), other things could easily be done at the same time. For example, participating in a support forum, reviewing technical blogs, or answering e-mails.

What I am trying to say is this:

Only very specific people can be productive while multi-tasking: These people tend to already think in a multi-tasking sort of way. However, they must be a person who has a way of being organized in both thought and action.
A person needs to recognize when and what can be multi-tasked: There’s no way around it. Some things simply cannot be done in tandem with other tasks. A true multi-tasker will and does recognize this and adjust themselves accordingly.

That’s my school of thought on multi-tasking. What’s yours? Leave me a comment and let me know.

Technorati Tags: Multitasking,Productivity

My Truck Has A Super Power! Oh. It’s Just Winter.

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:07:00 GMT

PersonalThu, 07 Jan 2010 22:07:00 GMT

If you don’t already know, I live in Orlando, Florida. This means different things to different people. First, most people think of the rat. Well, I guess that’d be Mickey Mouse or Disney to you. It’s the “RAT” to me, but that’s another story… Anyhow, it’s been uncharacteristically cold in Central Florida the last few days, and it’s supposed to last through the weekend. This morning, I got a real good dose of how cold it actually is right now.

I woke up and got ready for work like I usually do when I have to work from the office. This morning though, there was a small layer of ice on my windshield. Well, in Florida, we do something that you’d not normally do to fix this. We get a cup of hot water, and pour it over the windshield. Problem solved. Actually, we usually can just use our windshield wipers to get rid of the frost, but that wasn’t working this time.

I poured the hot water, and briskly walked the cup back into the house only to return to my truck windows already beginning to frost over again! Whoa! I live in Florida for a reason, and this wasn’t it! My truck was growing ice, it seemed. It hasn’t been that cold here my entire life. I immediately thought of all kinds of jokes to tell you about the truck being Dr. Freeze, but they wouldn’t have been funny in writing. :)

Anyhow, I just wanted to let you know how cold it is for us right now. For us, it might as well be below 0 degrees farenheit. Weather reports are saying right now to expect snow in Orlando this weekend. Ugh… Have you seen the movie The Day After Tomorrow?

From Last Year: I expect the same kind of thing this year.

Technorati Tags: Orlando,Florida,Cold,Weather,Ice,Snow

Stupid Will Ran Out of Gas: A Commuting Adventure

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:36:00 GMT

PersonalWed, 25 Nov 2009 20:36:00 GMT

The other morning, I was already running late for work. I noticed the gas gauge was at empty, but that I not completely unusual for me. I am very good at knowing how much gas I have, having only ran out of gas one other time in my life.

Stuck In Front of a School

This particular morning, I was on my way to the gas station when I chugged to a stop just feet away from the entrance of an elementary school, just as parents were beginning to bring their kids to school, on an already busy road that led to a major toll road. I immediately whipped out my roadside assistance card and called them to have someone bring gas to me. I was still 2-3 miles away from the gas station, and being in front of a school, it was not a good idea to leave my truck there.

Yes… I own a truck. I used to have a relevant need to own a truck over a more fuel-friendly vehicle. I no longer need a truck, but having another car payment is not an option at this time either. :(

After a few moments of phone options and being on hold with my insurance provider, she finally came on and told me that they would send someone out, but I’d have to pay the driver directly because my roadside assistance expired back in April. I was confused, but needed the assistance immediately, so I told her to send them out. I called home since I do not manage this bill, only to find out that the roadside assistance was not expired. Kim, my lady, began to take care of that for me.

The whole time this was happening, I had my hazard lights on to warn people to change lanes. However, even though I really shouldn’t have been surprised, I was completely surprised at how many people were not looking at my truck at all as they approached it. They were doing everything but driving… Doing their hair, make up, playing with their phone, reading, and more. Then they would come to stop nearly at my bumper, leaving no room to maneuver around me. When the traffic began moving, the would then get very upset, yelling and throwing their arms around once they realized I wasn’t moving.

Although my stupidity was partially at fault for their frustration, they didn’t know that. I could have been sitting there for any number of reasons, including a legitimate break down or a fender bender. This was really their fault for not paying attention to the car in front of them, including the hazard lights.

I couldn’t even guess how many times this happened while I was sitting there. It happened so many times, that I later manually confirmed my hazard lights to be working properly. They were indeed working.

The Cops Show Up

Knowing that my presence presented not only a major inconvenience, but also a safety hazard since I was in front of a school, I began to search for the dispatch number for the local police department. As I was entering in my search terms into my G1 phone, I heard a knock on my window. It was a female police officer. I was laughing out loud as I rolled down the window. After I told her what happened and what I was doing at the moment, she began laughing too.

Once again, to my surprise, she offered to help push my truck into the school parking lot. However, I had to wait until her partner drove up. He is a motorcycle cop currently just down the road. In the meantime, I was to stay in my truck and wait while her cruiser was behind me with the lights on.

Her partner showed up, and they instructed me to just stay in my truck while they pushed it into the school, where I was to pull into a gravel are of the parking lot. Something you don’t know is that both the school entrance and the gravel parking lot are slightly uphill. I have pushed a number of vehicles in my time, and I was more than doubtful about their ability to push my truck without my help. After all, the motorcycle cop appeared to be just an average-sized guy, and the female cop was almost a petite sized woman.

The pushed me into the parking lot without any problems, and nearly made it all of the way up and into the gravel lot before stopping for a break. At this point, two crossing guards helped them push me the rest of the way up into the gravel lot.

I was amazed! I was also extremely grateful for their help. This is the first time that I have ever had such a positive experience with (on duty) police officers. Usually, they are all business, no help, and full of themselves.

The Gas Comes

After what seemed like almost 2 hours, the tow company showed up with the gasoline. However, the driver had literally no idea how to pour the gasoline into my tank. That sounds odd, doesn’t it? Well, the gas kept leaking, and not pouring into the tank. While the guy went to find something in his truck to make a funnel out of, we noticed this!

Hilarious!!! This is why he was having such troubles using something that seemed as simple as a gas can. He came back form his truck with a poster board and refueled my truck.

Even though nothing about this experience was very green, convenient, or happy, I was once again on the road. I proceeded to the nearest gas station where I filled up, and washed my truck to get the gasoline off of it. Then, I went next door to get some breakfast.

Just in case I didn’t have enough crap on my plate today, one more surprise was waiting for me… As I turned left out of the drive through lane, a cup holder that has never before allowed a drink to spill, allowed my drink to topple end-over-end onto the floor. The lid had already come off halfway to the floor, so the mess was already there before I could think about it. The only highlight this time was that the drink was an unsweet tea, so no sugars would ruin the carpet.

{SIGHS} That was my commute to work one day last week. Needless to say, it sucked! I do however have to thank the police officers that helped me. They were nothing short of incredible!

Technorati Tags: Commute

Full Disclosure About The Mighty Blog My Social Networks and Their Content

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:53:00 GMT

PersonalThu, 22 Oct 2009 09:53:00 GMT

In light of the recent changes in laws by the FTC, I felt that I should clean my slate to let you know about any and all compensation that I might be receiving for my content, links, words, and remarks. This includes, my blog, and my social network profiles. Even though I am legally obligated to mention these details going forward, you have no idea about my previous content, unless I have explicitly told you. (Something I try to remember to do anyway for credibility’s sake.)

I do not receive any compensation directly for any of my blog posts, but I do have relationships with certain vendors and companies. For example, my full-time job is with RezHub, where we focus on green travel. However, I do not get any extra compensation or benefits from mentioning them or linking to the RezHub website. Whenever I announce anything about RezHub, it is simply because I am excited about it.

This is the trend for nearly all of my blog posts… If I mention an event, product, service, or company, there’s reason other than compensation for it. I do not mention a product or company unless it falls under one or more of the criteria below:

The product/service is highly trendy or popular
I have a highly positive experience with the product/service
I have a highly negative experience with the product/service
I am a user/customer of the product/service, and I encounter and fix a problem with it

That being said, I am not opposed to blogging about a product, company, or service for compensation. But I will stick to my guns in terms of being honest. I will not say something positive about a product without believing in that product myself.

I am going to list the other companies that I have mentioned and have a relationship with, and an explanation of that relationship. But before you read the list, know this… I disclose to everyone I talk about that I will be brutally honest. If there is something I do not like about your product or service, and I think that it would be valuable to my readers, then I am going to mention it.

Applied Innovations: Applied Innovations is my web host. They provided sponsored hosting to myself, and the ODUG of which I am currently the President. As a result, they also host the Day of DotNetNuke® and other user groups that the ODUG hosts. However, there is no other compensation. This relationship is primarily a sponsorship agreement.
Banner Advertisers: I have advertisers on my site. At this time, all of them are either affiliate agreements, or direct banner advertisers. None of them compensate me for mentioning their website, products, or services. This includes companies such as DNNSpired, Brian Scarbeau, Snapsis, and Catalook.
DotNetNuke®: I am not directly affiliated with the DotNetNuke Corporation in any way, other than being on the Media Module Project Team. I do not receive any compensation from the DotNetNuke Corporation at all for my blog content. I just really love and am passionate about their open source project.
jQuery: This is the same explanation as DotNetNuke®, but I am not participating in any of their projects.
Microsoft: I am an avid user and developer using Microsoft technologies. However, I do not receive any direct compensation from Microsoft. The closest I have been to receiving compensation was receiving a free ticket to a conference.
DNN Eco-System Vendors: There are many companies operating within the DNN eco-system. I have personal relationships with many of them. Also, because I was the organizer of the Day of DotNetNuke®, I received compensation in the form of sponsorship to that event. I have not received any other compensation outside of that context.
DNN Module Developers/Companies: Keeping the previous point in mind, I also get many requests to look at someone’s module or provider. A person who works for themselves or a company will ask me to take a look at their product, and tell them what I think. In most cases, this “review” is intended to be kept offline – meaning that it was a confidential review. This scenario happens at least a couple of times a month.
In other cases, I might be asked to post a review of the product. An example would be the Tag Cloud Module by Inspector IT. I do not really look at this as compensation though, because in order for me to install the module legally, I need to have a license to use the module, which is obviously provided to me. And once again, I disclose that I will be brutally honest. If I don’t like something about the module, I will say it. This is not as common, and I do disclose how I am compensated.
Wrox (Wiley Publishing): It’s no secret that I did some technical editing for the folks at Wrox. It was a great experience that I got paid for. But I have not received any other incentives or compensation from them. I have, however, received books to give away to the ODUG members as door prizes at our user group meetings. They do not sponsor any of the content or links that I post.

That’s about it. If I think of any other relationships I have with a commercial product, service, or company, I will leave a comment here. Additionally, if you know of one that I missed, feel free to call me out in the comments below. ;)

Technorati Tags: DotNetNuke,DNN,FTC,Disclosure,Microsoft,Blog,Blogging,Social Media

Painting My Sons Room: San Diego Chargers Style

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 23:14:00 GMT

PersonalFri, 11 Sep 2009 23:14:00 GMT

A while back, our house sprung a leak in the form of allowing water to enter the attic through the ceiling. The water does what all water does on earth, it made its way down until it found ground. On its way down, it made sure to soak the dry wall, and destroy the floor in my sons room. Fixing the roof was quite simple, as it just needed to be resealed at a joint. The room however needed a new wall and floor.

Both the floor and wall were going to be taken care of for us, but I decided to do the painting of the wall myself. And since one wall was getting painted, all of the walls needed to be painted. Here’s what the room looked liked once everything was torn out.

Since my son is just as much of a fan of the San Diego Chargers as I am, I decided to make his paint job something he’ll never forget. I got Chargers colors, and executed my plan to make his walls reflect his passion for the team. I began with taping up the walls of course…

Before I can paint, I need to make sure that know where the bolt logo is going. I used a projector to trace the lines where the bolt was to go. Unfortunately, I already had a stripe of blue there too, that I’d have to paint over later.

Now it’s time to begin painting. I started with the white parts.

Now that the white sections were done, I began with the dark blue on the bottom of the wall.

I have the bottom blue done, so I can move on to the top part of the wall, where the lighter blue was planned to be.

With the blue and white sections done, it was time to do the hard part, the bolt. This was going to require extra special attention to get it right, as it was going to be the most visible thing in the room. Everyone would notice if it was wrong. So I began to use great attention to detail to get the painted sections just perfect.

Once I got the yellow part of the bolt done, we had to leave town for two weeks to handle some family business. The room made no progress by itself. once I returned, however, it was back to business. I finished the bolt, and then did the yellow outline on the rest of the wall.

With the major details completed, I was able to finally begin removing the tape on the wall for the last time. At last, I would be able to see the wall as it was intended to look. Everyone that saw it before could not see what I was able to, since I knew what the end product was going to look like.

You might be able to tell from the above pictures that I had some paint bleed through the tape. That’s easily fixed with some touch up work later. Needless to say, my son loves the room. We get his floor installed tomorrow. I cannot wait to put his room back together for the final pictures.

I will post more pictures when the room is completely moved back in.

Technorati Tags: San Diego,Chargers,Painting,Remodeling

Why I Choose Small Businesses Over Chain Stores

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:51:00 GMT

PersonalThu, 10 Sep 2009 16:51:00 GMT

I often elude to the fact that I favor patronizing small businesses on Twitter. This is true. If given the choice between a major chain and a small business, I will walk into the small business 9 times out of 10. Why is that though?

In it’s simplest explanation, I like to spend my money in my community. That money will have a greater chance of staying in my community, and in turn, benefitting my community. Let’s give you an example.

The biggest example of a chain store is of course Walmart. They have the largest retail reach of any other retailer. As a result, they are able to leverage their business size to create some of the lowest prices found on many products. Sounds great if only looked at on the surface. But when you buy a cart full of goods, how much of that money stays in the community? Here is a short list off the top of my head:

Store Associates and Managers payroll
Annual business license
Annual business and property taxes

That may not sound all that bad at first, but that is only a small fraction of the money that they accept in each transaction.

Let’s contrast that with a local business. If you go to a small business in your own community, here is a layout of the money that potentially stays in your community:

Owner payroll
Stakeholders payroll
Store Associates and Managers payroll
Annual business license
Annual business and property taxes

There are only two more bullets in the previous list, but those bullets represent the bulk of the money taken in by any business. Easily, that accounts for more than 50% of the businesses profits in any industry (as long as the company is a profitable one). All of these associates, managers, owners and stakeholders will in turn spend most of that money on living expenses in your own community. Not only that, but small businesses tend to support local sports, community programs, and charities.

In the case of the major chains, the stakeholders and owners likely do not live in your community, and as a result, some other community in another state will reap the benefits of those profits taken in by the business, not yours. Your kids and neighbors kids will not sports equipment, uniforms, tutors, and so on from those funds. Someone else’s kids across the county are.

Once we get past the money part, there are other perks about frequenting local and small businesses. The customer service and product knowledge tends to be in many cases 100% better! Local business owners are more likely to purchase local products from other local businesses, as they may cost less, and to help fellow business owners – benefiting more local people and families.

Something else to like about small businesses, is that you can rest easy that they are more responsible businesses. For example, a small business is far less likely to be blamed for, much less capable of doing half of the things that companies like Walmart has been accused of. When I mention this, I am talking about human rights issues, equal rights issues, ecological missteps, etc.

I don’t know about you, but the part I love the most about small businesses is becoming a “regular” customer. I love being able to walk into a business and everyone knows who I am, what I want, and so on. It makes the trip to the store more pleasurable, and quicker.

In the restaurant industry, this gets even better. The recipes are usually less bland. The major chains tend to remove some of the ingredients and flavors that are not mainstream nationwide. Being a regular at a locally owned restaurant takes your experience to the next level. You get to try new dishes first, get special discounts that no one else does, have your food prepared more expediently, and so on. At one place I frequent, the owner steps into the kitchen and cooks my meal for me. It’s nice. Try any of that stuff at a Darden restaurant.

The next best thing to a small business is a franchise. While more money may leave your community, a greater amount still stays in comparison to the typical chains. And the rest of the perks I mentioned still apply.

It is my priority to help my community before I help yours, and you should feel the same way about your community. Why not try skipping the major chains for a little? Imagine if everyone made that effort. Local economies would definitely get a surge of revenue.

Technorati Tags: Small Business,Local,Consumer,Economy

August 2009 INETA Newsletter Features Me

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 21:35:00 GMT

PersonalTue, 11 Aug 2009 21:35:00 GMT

I wanted to wait until it was actually out before I mentioned anything, but the most recent INETA newsletter was just sent out. I am very proud and honored to report that this newsletter happens to feature me in the first list of featured Regional INETA Speakers! It humbles me to see that they would choose me in their first round of featured speakers. Thank you, INETA.

So, what are you waiting for? INETA sponsored user groups get 2 free speakers per year. Request for me to be a sponsored speaker at your user group today!

On a side note, even though I can speak about all of those topics listed, I really prefer to speak about DotNetNuke®. Not that you’d want me for anything else. That doesn’t surprise you, does it? ;)

Technorati Tags: INETA,User Group

Do Not Fly United Airlines, Unless You Like Nightmares

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:21:00 GMT

PersonalTue, 11 Aug 2009 15:21:00 GMT

My Grandfather had cancer for a while, but more recently, his illness took over to the point where he wasn’t going to live for more than a week. At the time, we thought he wouldn’t make it past the weekend. As many family members do, we immediately made plans to fly out and spend some time with my Grandfather before he passed. We used RezHub for the flight, as we couldn’t find a cheaper flight anywhere else. (And I am not just saying that because I work there. It was literally the cheapest flight we could find.)

As fate would have it, our cheap flight was through United Airlines. (Their name is not linked, because I do not want to give them the traffic.) We chose United not only for the cheap rate, but also due to their bereavement policy. This was certainly not a planned trip, and it wasn’t a vacation. We called their customer service line, and were told that we would just need to furnish a death certificate, or the obituary, and they would refund our tickets. That sounded good to us!

The United rate continued to be the cheapest, until we showed up at the gate and had to pay for everything we took for granted at our favorite airline, Southwest Airlines (who doesn’t offer bereavement flights).

Flights to San Diego

The first flight to San Diego sucked. We had a crappy flight and plane for our first leg of the trip to Denver, CO. The takeoff and landing were very rough, and we experienced all kinds of suspicious sounds throughout the duration of our flight, including taxiing. When they would open or close the baggage area beneath us, you could clearly hear the sound of a drill being used to open and close the compartment(s). The part of the nightmare ended once we walked off of that flight.

We were told that their main hub is in Denver, which I could not confirm on their website. But if that’s true, my anger over being delayed for over an hour for them to do “routine maintenance” on a plane that had been sitting there all night and day is well-grounded. This is especially true if you consider this quote from their customer commitment on their own website.

At United, the only acceptable customer experience is one in which you arrive at your intended destination safely, comfortably and on time. When events and obstacles beyond our control, such as severe weather or Air Traffic Control delays, prohibit us from achieving this standard, we strive to minimize customer inconvenience however possible.

We did not arrive comfortably at Denver due to the condition of the plane, and we were very uncomfortably seated since we were not prepared to pay an extra $55 each for an additional 5-inches of leg room. (Yes! That’s a friggin’ upgrade option!) On top of that, their television system was not working for the 3+ hour flight. Keeping the above quote in mind again, what appeared to be an avoidable problem (remember, “routine maintenance”?) turned out to not allow us to arrive "on time” to San Diego.

The second leg of our flight to San Diego consisted of a much better flight experience in terms of the quality of the plane. No unexpected noises, and the takeoff and landing were just fine. No complaints there.

During Our Stay in San Diego

We had no issues once in San Diego. We received our bags with everything accounted for, and in the same condition as when it was packed by us. No complaints there.

While we were in San Diego, we found out less than 24 hours before our departing flight was scheduled to depart that my Grandfather had less than 48 hours left to live. This was a final determination by his hospice doctor. There was no doubt this time. He was going to pass. Once we found out that we could make arrangements to stay another week to help with his funeral, we did so.

We called United and made arrangements to change our flight to the following week. We are not made of money, so we made sure to talk to them about the situation with my Grandfather and our intentions to take advantage of their bereavement policy. They were very nice. We were told that due to the way their reservations system works, they would have to first cancel the original return flight, and re-book it for the new day. Furthermore, we would have to pay a $150.00 fee per ticket to change the flight, but it would also be refunded with the tickets, once we got back and placed our bereavement request. That sounded incredible!

United booked our flights, and sent us a confirmation of our new flight via e-mail. We were so happy that everything was working out!

Flights Back to Orlando

We spent the next week taking care of my Grandfather, then his funeral arrangements, and the family members that arrived for the funeral. But finally, the day came where we’d have to fly back home, and it did. We arrived at the check-in counter and placed our bags on the scale. We gave the attendant our confirmation number that was sent to us the week prior. To our surprise, we were told that the confirmation number was invalid! What the [censored]?!!

The attendant was very matter of fact about it, and told us that the reservation number we gave her was cancelled. Upon asking what we needed to do about this, she said that she could not do anything. We’d have to call the reservation number to work it out. So, we pulled our stuff to the side, and called. This is when we found out that our return flight (of which we had a reservation number for) was never booked. They simply cancelled the flight, and did nothing else. Argh!!!

Needless to say, but we had to purchase a new ticket on a flight that had only 4 seats left. We took 2 of them. We got lucky there. Once again, being concerned about finances, we brought the person on the phone up-to-speed on our situation with my Grandfather. We were assured that everything would be fine. Just purchase the new tickets, and then put in our paperwork for the bereavement refunds. Okay… Our scare was over for the moment.

Luckily, there was another attendant there who had witnessed everything, and as as result, he chose to not charge us for our baggage. We didn’t even ask. We were very thankful for that, and even more so since we were coming home with 2 more bags than we arrived with. That saved us about least $75 each. Excellent!

Everything was uneventful while waiting for our flight to board. We chose to hang out at a bar, where I did some work while waiting.

The flight to Denver was uneventful as well. We enjoyed a nice plane, and seats in the “5 extra inches of leg room” section. Score! I don’t think we paid for that either, but we wouldn’t have had a choice anyway.

While waiting during our layover in Denver, we were called to the gate. For whatever reason, the attendant wanted to move us up 1 row. As it turns out, we were slated to be in the last row of the plane, and she had stand-by people waiting. She moved us to the next row up to give us reclining seats on our flight to Orlando. That was nice, and appreciated. The stand-by people were stuck with the stationary seats… Nanny-nanny, boo-boo!

This flight was also uneventful, except for the weather. We experienced the expected air pockets and turbulence due to some bad storms. But what can you do about that? It happens. No problem there.

We landed and everything went as expected. We had all of our belongings, and the landing was nice. All we had to do was get home.

Once We Were Home

One of the things that the reservations people kept telling us was to not delay on submitting for our bereavement refunds. They kept telling us to do it the very next day after landing to make sure everything went through smoothly. Taking the advice seriously, that’s what we did. We faxed in our information that very next day, and followed-up with a telephone call. We were told everything would be fine. Just wait 7-10 days for our refund deposits to post.

We waited the 7 days and called them back. We had only received four small deposits, 2 each of $9.90 and $10.40. There was no sign of our tickets being refunded. The only thing actually refunded so far was our cancelled flight.

We are now 16 days later, and we still have not received the promised refund. We have two times during the last week, where we were told to just wait a bit longer.

This morning, we called again, and were told that the ticket refunds were approved and sent out, and should show by Friday. I called my bank to see if they saw the deposits pending, because they can sometimes see that before we do. They saw nothing. Great… (Sarcastic, of course.)

When we called back again after that, the refund department had changed their tune completely. They now decided that they would not refund our tickets. What the [censored]?!! We even spoke to the supervisor of that person. I am burning up with anger here!!!

United Airlines Customer Commitment

United has a 12-point customer commitment outline (screen shot above) that outlines what they promise to their customers. Here is my review of those 12-points:

Offer the lowest fair available FAIL!
The fare was lower, but the fees make up for the low fare.
Notify customers of known delays, cancellations, and diversions FAIL
We were indeed notified, but never told why until we were in the air.
Provide on-time baggage delivery PASS
Provide a fair baggage liability limit PASS
Our luggage was received in acceptable condition.
Allow reservations to be held or cancelled FAIL
Unfortunately, this does not account for bereavement situations, and the fee to cancel is outrageous. Sure, cancel your flight, but you’ll regret it.
Provide prompt ticket refunds FAIL
Ha! Only if they choose to do so, and even then, strings are attached.
Readily, capably and respectfully accommodate travelers with special needs PASS
We are fortunate to not have any special needs.
Meet customers' essential needs during long on-aircraft or in-airport delays, diversions and cancellations PASS
I could complain here, but those complaints would be tiny.
Treat involuntarily denied boarding customers fairly and consistently PASS
Thankfully, we had no problems with this.
Disclose up-to-date travel itinerary, cancellation policies, frequent flyer rules and aircraft configuration to our customers PASS
No complaints here.
Work closely with our regional flying partners to deliver responsive customer service PASS
I do not think that our customer service issues have anything to do with this.
Respond quickly, appropriately and courteously to customer questions and complaints FAIL
I think this blog entry outlines this failure pretty well already.

If this were a report card, they would be given a 41%. I guess it could be worse though, because 5 failures out of 12 possible passing ratings could have been 6 failures. I gave them the benefit of the doubt on one. That’s a failing grade pretty much everywhere I can think of. Good thing this is not school… We’d have to repeat this experience together.

Conclusion

This is not over yet, but needless to say, this is our final straw. We had already decided that they were not going to get our business, but now they are officially boycotted! DO NOT FLY UNITED AIRLINES!!! Honestly, I am clueless to how they make any profit whatsoever. New customers are important, but repeat customers define the success of a business. They lost one today, and everyone I have spoken to about them agree that they already do not use them. How about you?

Technorati Tags: Travel,United Airlines,Bereavement,Review,Boycott

Goodbye, Grandpa

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 09:33:00 GMT

PersonalMon, 03 Aug 2009 09:33:00 GMT

If you follow my blog (which it seems that a few people do), you would have undoubtedly noticed that I haven’t been blogging recently. Unfortunately, this is due to a family emergency that occurred in my family.

A few weeks ago, very late on a Thursday evening (really Friday morning), I received a phone call from my cousin. He told me that our Grandfather was very ill, and was not expected to make it through the weekend. Despite being 2,400 miles apart, I was really close to my Grandfather. Kim and I immediately began to try to plan to fly out to California the next day. We stayed up until 3 AM, trying to figure out what to do.

The fact that my Grandfather was so ill means so much to my family, as he is the eldest of us all. My family was brought to California from the island of Guam, following World War II. He is the oldest living member of the original family that was brought to the US from the island. He was the patriarch of our family, the guide. The picture is of my Great Grandparents, and their children, in their Southern California home (1950’s era).

The next day came very quickly, since I didn’t sleep too much. I decided to work from home, since we might be leaving at some point during the day. We were still looking for possible flight, hotel, and car accommodations. We were trying in every way to bring the kids with us, since the family on the west coast hasn’t met them. I tried as much as I could to concentrate on work, but it was difficult. Eventually, at about 8 PM on that Friday, we settled on leaving the kids with the family here, and fly out for a week. The thought process was that Grandpa would pass during the weekend, and then I would be there for his funeral.

My Grandfather had cancer for a few years now. He was not given a very long timeline, but he fought the disease with great effort. He was literally on his last leg, due to an aneurism about 6 months before being diagnosed with cancer. Due to the illness, he was currently not eating very much and as a result had very little energy. He would sleep most of the day, and all of the night. His mobility was now limited to what he could do from his wheel chair.

I am told that when he heard I was on my way, he waited on his front porch much of the day for me. A few of my aunts and uncles were already there, and they were preparing dinner when I arrived. The family would sit on the porch outside to eat their meals because it was cooler outside. That night, my Grandfather sat with us while we ate, for the first time in a while. I was very happy to hear that I was a part of him wanting to be less withdrawn from the socializing. Though, he fell asleep a lot during our meal.

Kim and I stayed at my Grandfather’s house for the first couple of days that we were there, helping to take care of him. It was very scary for me, as that’s when the reality and gravity of the situation really sunk in.

Despite the reason for all of us being there, we had a great time together as a family. My family deals with everything through humor, and boy was there a lot of humor going around.

During the next week, my Grandfather had a couple really good days, where he insisted on going out to breakfast. It was inspiring to say the least. Unfortunately, I paid for the first breakfast. Continuing to be the gracious host, he was really disappointed at first, and it made me feel pretty bad. Later, I was told though that he was happy that I was able to pay for everyone.

Then the fateful Thursday arrived when the hospice doctor finally came, and gave us her assessment of my Grandfather’s condition. He was given 48 hours to live. My flight was leaving early the next morning, so Kim and I made arrangements to stay another week. I am forever going to be grateful for that decision, for many reasons, not the least of being that I was the last person that my Grandfather asked for. I held his hand as he passed. The entire time was very stressful, but I was happy that he finally let go, to not suffer the illness any longer.

The following week was a blur, as we were making arrangements for my Grandfather’s funeral. Family flew and drove in from across the country. I met several family members that I have never met before. We celebrated my Grandfathers life as he would have wanted us to. He was a man who want to have a good time, and spent his good times making sure that everyone else had just as much fun as he did. That’s what we did for each other.

My family chose me to do the eulogy for the funeral, as well as one of the pallbearers. I did the best I could, and the family seemed pleased at what I said. Following the funeral, we toasted my Grandfather, drank his favorite drink, and hung out at his favorite place. He was a Prior Exalted Ruler (PER) at the El Cajon Elks Club (he is the short dark guy in the center of the picture). That is one of his favorite, and more cherished accomplishments. The club was just like family to him.

I cannot reflect on my Grandfather, his life, and his passing without realizing something that I spoke about in the eulogy. Despite how some people felt, his number one priority was family. He instilled and reinforced a sense of family into all of us that I have found unmatched in most other families that I have spent time with. Unfortunately, over time we had kept our family values, but grew apart as one by one, family members moved away from El Cajon to places like Connecticut, Arizona, Texas, Florida, New Jersey, and more. But in his passing, we were all brought back together again as a family. Our family strength was re-energized, and renewed our inner-sense of what our family really means to one another. And the torch of keeping our family together has been passed on to my generation.

So, what’s the first step in keeping the family connected in this new, technology-driven world? A family website, of course! I still have to get a logo worked up, but http://salasfamily.us has been born. I think Grandpa would be proud.

Good bye, Grandpa. I love you, and we will all miss you forever.

Technorati Tags: Family,Reflection,Funeral,Grandfather,Elks,Cancer

Flying to San Diego: Second Leg of Flight

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:30:00 GMT

PersonalSat, 04 Jul 2009 17:30:00 GMT

We made it just fine to the Denver airport, and despite a really crappy plane, the flight was smooth. However, once we arrived in Denver, we were supposed to have only a 1 hour layover. That hour turned into 2 hours due to what has been told to us was planned routine maintenance. However, if it was, then why wasn’t the layover scheduled for two hours.

While waiting, I spoke to someone else who was waiting for the same plane. He mentioned that this happens all of the time at the Denver airport. He says that everyone he knows calls this delay the “Denver conspiracy” because it happens very often. If such a thing is true, it would make sense. Imagine how much profit the airport made once the delay was announced? There is already a major profit made on things such as drinks, alcoholic beverages, food, and everything in the gift shop. But in an airport, the mark-up on such items is higher than ever. Nice plan, Denver.

Something else I noticed about Denver airport was that they recycle. I smile upon any company that has people publically travelling within its walls, and offers a recycling program to everyone. This is even more impressive at a place like the Denver airport, where they do no

Once we got onto the plane, our experience with United began to get a little better. The televisions worked in this flight, and the seats were spaced much more evenly apart, allowing for a more comfortable sitting experience.

Leaving Denver, we got to see some of the Rocky Mountains, but after was passed them, most of the land was desert. That was a clear indication that we were getting closer to California. We were able to watch a few shows, one of which was 30 Rock. It was funny.

Once again, there was a clean liftoff, flight, and landing. And this time, the plane was in much better condition. We had a pleasant flight experience, despite all of the other difficulties.

Once we arrived, we wove our way through Terminal B in San Diego, which I didn’t recognize at all. (Later, I would realize that I had never been in Terminal B before.) We are used to Florida weather. Like everywhere else, it gets hot. But with the humidity, the temperature usually feels at least 10 degrees hotter. When we walked outside of the terminal, Kim asked me why it was so cold in San Diego. Hahaha!! It was 72 degrees. Inland, it was closer to 90 degrees.

Technorati Tags: Travel,United Airlines,Denver,San Diego

Fly Away Home – Going to San Diego and United Airlines Sucks!

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 10:07:00 GMT

PersonalSat, 04 Jul 2009 10:07:00 GMT

My Grandfather has been ill for quite some time. Unfortunately, he has taken a turn for the worse recently, and isn’t expected to make it much longer. Initial reports are that he will not make it through the week. I have been expecting this for some time now, so I am not at all surprised. I will be making the best of this, and spend some time with him since it’s been a handful of years since I have seen him. That being said, let’s talk about how the trip has begun.

Making the Decision

We spent at least 8 hours yesterday trying to rearrange bills and such to determine who was going to my hometown of San Diego. It was a tough decision to make. After getting some prices and putting the information together, we narrowed our decision making to 2 possibilities. Either just Kim and I fly to San Diego, or we drive and take all of the kids on their first true road trip. We definitely wanted to take the kids with us, but we had to make the tough decisions and unfortunately, those decisions are directly linked to our budget right now.

Booking the Trip

Upon making the decision at 8 PM last night to fly, we booked our flight and rental car. For the flight, we of course booked through RezHub.com. I kind of have a little bit of a bias there since I work for RezHub. :) Luckily, we not only used them for that reason, but the cheapest flight we could find was there, on United Airlines. It was cheaper than all of the “big guys” of online travel too! We used Alamo for our rental car, as they were the cheapest for a compact vehicle. Since we don’t have the kids, we have no need to get a larger vehicle and spend even money on it, and the fuel to run it. Not to mention, that the less fuel we buy, the less carbon that gets put into the atmosphere.

The Airport

The airport was no different than it ever is. The Orlando International Airport is a pretty standard airport, and it is old. Nothing good or bad to report with it. However, upon checking in, and getting through security (event-free), we arrived in the food court area near our gate. There is a Qdoba there. I have always wanted to try their food. Though, we had an early flight, so we were limited to breakfast burritos. I had their chorizo one, and Kim has their potato and egg burrito. It was decent, but nothing to go into any great detail about.

Passenger Tech Review

Walking from front to back in this full plane, I have seen a large handful of laptops, one netbook, one kindle, a few MP3 players, one CD player, and countless handheld gaming devices.

The Airplane

This is my first time fling on United Airlines (that I’ll admit to). Their gate area is definitely going through some extensive renovations. And apparently, the plane we got stuck with is about to, after our flight. I usually fly Southwest, and when I have extra money to throw away, I like Delta. Both are worlds better than United.

I found out very quickly after seating why our tickets were so cheap. The seats are packed so incredibly close to each other! For an extra $54 per person, we could get an extra 5 inches of space. You’ve got to be KIDDING ME! I literally have my laptop squished between me and the seat in front of me, and my arms are overlapping Kim to my right, and some lady on my left (who continues to successfully battle for the arm rest). I am so glad that all 3 of us are not any wider than we already are. This flight would be enough to validate in-flight suicide.

United apparently charges for everything except soft drinks and water. “Do you want a pillow? Sure. That'll be $4. How about a snack? That’s only another $6. Don’t worry, we can swipe your card right here.” When we checked in, we had the option to upgrade to first class for only $145 per person. I thought that was pretty reasonable, but this plane doesn’t even have a first class.

The Captain announced at the beginning of the flight that our online music selection would include listening to their airline chatter on channel 9. Though, it was never actually turned on.

Kim and I began to complain to each other early in the flight about everything we didn’t like about our experience with United so far. It was amusing, because everyone around us began to contribute to the conversation, voicing the same things we disliked, and more. What was a little ironic about it was that they are all also fans of Southwest. Like us, they only are flying this flight due to either someone else paying for their ticket, getting a flight voucher, or the cheap rate.

Things are broken in this plane too. Among them, one of the 3 bathrooms. This has caused very uncomfortable lines to form at each end of the plane. And walking by someone in the aisle leaves you one of two options: either you rub up against them, or you rub up against a seated passenger while they pass. The only comfortable people appear to be the hobbit size and smaller children.

United is not the greenest of airlines either. Purchasing a snack box, blanket, or pillow will raise the level of trash you create on a flight exponentially. The pillows and blankets are individually wrapped in plastic, as are the snack boxes. Once you rip the plastic wrapping off of the snack box, you then have to unwrap every item that you wish to each inside. Yes. All of the snacks are once again individually wrapped. Fail!

I don’t care who you are, this cheap rate does not make it okay to give anyone this poor of a customer experience – and I see plenty of ways for them to save money without making customers suffer. I am not flying ever United again, following our return flight. This flight can be easily expressed using the same words that were voiced by Jaime Foxx in the movie Jarhead, “Welcome to the suck.”

Southwest, I miss you dearly. Oh yeah, I miss the kids too. ;)

Technorati Tags: Travel,San Diego,Orlando,United Airlines,Southwest

Leave Me Alone Headhunters!

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:45:00 GMT

PersonalFri, 19 Jun 2009 18:45:00 GMT

Do you not know what a “headhunter” is? Well, let me school you… A “headhunter” in the professional world is usually referred to as a recruiter. Their job is to gather up as many contacts as possible into a network of people, and in turn, they use their network to generate leads for employers looking for employees, and vice versa. This sounds innocent enough. It does. The fact is though, that the list of recruiters that I will talk to is very, very, very short.

Over the past 8 months or so, recruiters have been getting more and more aggressive in their tactics of generating and building their networks. That in itself can be a good thing, but most often in this industry, it is definitely a BAD thing. This began for me as one or more annoying emails a week, asking me if I knew anyone who fit a profile for a job, or if I was looking for any new “opportunities.” I can tell from experience, I have never really had any luck using the services of a staffing company, from either side of the coin. I know many people do, but they are the exception in my world.

The recruiters that have been getting on my nerves have been getting desperate, and as a result, their tactics are both more resourceful and annoying. Here are things that will automatically black list a recruiting firm from any future communications with me… Let’s call this the Sarcastic List of Recruiter Do’s:

Offer me a job that doesn’t really fit my skill level. Nothing really gives me the right false sense of security then being told that I am a shoe-in for a job that I am clearly under qualified for. It’s a great feeling to anticipate the failure to come. Gives me goose bumps. You know what, since I might not like that, I have been really forward to doing something boring instead. You know, a job that I am over qualified for? Those leave nothing to the imagination, so I can plan my Minesweeper sessions accordingly.
Please show up at my office uninvited, and tell me that you were in the area, and wanted to say hi. I really enjoy it. In fact, I have nothing better to do at my place of work, than to speak to you precisely at that moment. I must’ve been playing Minesweeper, just praying for an interruption. Once more, I love it even more when you tell me that you said you would drop by. I must have forgotten that conversation, or the email clearly got gobbled up by my spam filters.
I love it when you call me on my personal cell phone. Don’t worry about my minutes, I set aside a block of minutes each month just in case you decide to swipe my private cell phone number from someone else’s phone or directory. I mean, if I made it that hard to find, it is your reward and right to call me. Make it a long call, by all means.
Pretend you’re my friend. Nothing makes me happier than when you speak to me like you’re my old pal from the school yard. I yearn for that kind of acceptance. I wish every stranger I meet would pretend to be my friend – and the more transparent it is, the better. I am preparing my fake reciprocal smile for you right now.
Show me all of the qualified candidate that I cannot find. I have been looking in every closet in the office, and I cannot seem to find a single person to fill our latest position. If only there were a person who knew how to use things like CareerBuilder, Monster, Craigslist, and the local newspaper classifieds. If such a person existed, I might be able to schedule an interview. I simply not talented enough to figure those things out.
Tell me how you can correctly staff my company. I was just sitting here a moment ago thinking, “Boy, if only I had a recruiter here right now to show me where I am going wrong with my staffing. I just cannot seem to figure out how to run my department.” Please stop by uninvited and walk me through it. If you do, I will give you my cell number, so you can coach me through it at any time of the day. Call me “buddy” or “pal” too. I love that!

Now, that list was a sarcastic list of gripes that I have put together over time. Take it with a grain of salt, and let the sarcasm sink in. Any of the above can, and usually does immediately put you and your entire company on my black list for myself, my company, and the user groups I have influence over. Just be nice. Seriously.

There is obviously a real place for recruiters. I am just sick and tired of the annoying ones. There are a select few recruiters who I am willing to speak to or devote time to, and they know who they are. If you are not sure about if it’s you, let me help, it’s NOT YOU.

Technorati Tags: Gripe,Recruiter,Headhunter,Rant,Staffing

Someone Asked Me, “Why Do You Speak?”

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 15:49:00 GMT

PersonalMon, 16 Mar 2009 15:49:00 GMT

At a recent event, one of the people attending asked me why I do what I do. We were at the after event social party, and had just finished going over a lot of the volunteer things that I do. The fact is, I really do not realize how many things I volunteer for until that question is asked (or another like it). I indeed keep myself pretty busy, especially in the DotNetNuke community.

So, I really haven’t answered the question yet. And I do not think that I effectively answered it when I was asked either. The question ate at me, as I hadn’t really reflected on it in a while. I just set myself in motion, and I have been going non-stop for a long time now. Before I can effectively answer that question, I need to really explain what brought me to the point of making the decision to speak.

Point A to Point Now

My career in my current profession began many moons ago, in a technical support position, supporting WAN and LAN environments, mainly focusing on software, hardware, and networking infrastructure. Before that point, I was a Marine, where I learned how to tinker with websites from a friend. Websites soon consumed my personal life. Every possible moment when I was home from work, I would be tweaking my web pages, and learning new techniques to do so. I made every possible effort to learn those new techniques. However, in those days, there were very few blogs out there, so a lot of time was spent browsing various websites, and investigating the source to see what the developer(s) did to create specific effects and behavior.

During my tenure as a technical support person, I was tapped to build a web-based help desk ticket system, to replace the custom built VB 6 application that was currently in production. It was to be built in ASP 3.0, and I had up to that point only managed static websites. The success from my first ASP website soon led to managing the entire Intranet. The final Intranet consisted of an ASP.Net 1.1 website, a customized version of the iBuySpy Portal. I did pretty well. I received all kinds of compliments, and through my efforts, a position was created specifically for my expertise, being that the rest of the developers were main frame or mid range server programmers.

The previous position led to a position managing 42 websites, and over 70 webmasters. There, I officially implemented DotNetNuke. Up until that point, all my DNN experience had been on offline websites. I also upgraded my .Net skills to include version 2.0.

My webmaster position eventually led me to a Lead Developer position, and then my current position as a Technology Director. Whoa! Those are a lot of steps. It seems that I got there pretty quickly. But how? I mentioned my various skill sets, but I didn’t mention how I got them…

How Did I Improve My Skill Sets?

Most of my professional career was spent as the sole person knowing how to do what I do. I was nearly always the only person with any true Internet and .Net expertise. That also meant that my peers and superiors had to take my word as the law. I had to be right, or eat my own dog food, and not in a good way. If I was even once wrong or didn’t have an answer, I would lose all credibility from that point forward.

In order to prevent such an ominous and dreadful situation from occurring, I spent nearly all of my available hours reading articles and participating in forums. I spent many, many, many hours in places like Experts Exchange, DotNetNuke Forums, ASP.Net Forums, and Tek-Tips. I also invested in myself by buying various books covering subjects of which I had no one to turn to. Many of the authors of the books were people that I also saw in the forums.

There was another forum that I spent countless hours on that specialized in ASP, but had “sister” sites for other technologies. I cannot remember or find it right now, but it’s design was safari or lion-like.

Please note that I used the word “participate” in relation to the forums. I did not only ask questions, but I also spent a great amount of time trying to figure out the solutions to problems other people were having. I learned so much about the various technologies by trying to figure out the solution other people’s problems. Though there were certainly times when I found myself stuck, and the only thing that moved me forward was the assistance of some generous programmer out there in the world.

One of the in-person methods that helped immensely, were the live demos that I saw and participated in during code camps. After seeing two years of code camps, I realized that I could also help people that way.

The Meat of the Question and Answer

If you followed along, while I have attended professional training at various facilities, the bulk of my knowledge has come from interacting with others. I wouldn’t be doing what I do today if it weren’t for the community aspect of development. In particular, interacting with speakers at a code camp about topics that I was not yet confident with have proven to be invaluable to my professional growth. It was these speakers that inspired me to be more confident about the topic, but more importantly have inspired me to pick up the speaking torch to give others the same gift of confidence in themselves.

In short, I speak at events because of what I know I am doing to help others. When a person walks out of one of my sessions, I really enjoy the fact that they might go home or to work and try something that they were previously unsure about. I might have given them that little seed of encouragement that was the key to their project. I might have given them a reason to try harder, or perhaps even shown them how to fix something that has been dodging them for weeks. Regardless to what the exact result is for each person, I know that i have helped them.

It is not unusual at the end of a session for a group of people to speak to me afterwards. It is through those individuals where I find out how well I did or did not do. It is those people that give me the encouragement to step up at the next event and do even better. It is the community that makes me want to speak. We end up all feeding off of each other, like a biological circle of life. I know how I felt when a speaker or community leader took a couple of minutes to answer a question I had and could not answer myself. I enjoy giving those that ask, the same feeling that I had when reading or listening to that answer that i wished I had been able to just know on my own.

I hope that answers the question. I really do LOVE to help people. It is why I do what I do. Are there other perks? Sure. But none of them are things that one could expect to receive. Many people do not receive any of the perks that you might expect all speakers and visible community members to receive. If you are in it for the perks, you’ll be sadly disappointed. Just do the right thing. ;)

Technorati Tags: Speaking,Community,Events

Speaker Training by Andy Warren - Recap

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 19:41:00 GMT

PersonalSat, 14 Mar 2009 19:41:00 GMT

I announced a class that was to be given by Andy Warren of End to End Training earlier this week. I just got home from it. I must say that I was very impressed and found several areas that I need to improve in my own presentations. The attendees ranged from those who have never spoken in front of an audience before, to people like me who have a decent background speaking. However, I would suggest that speakers of ANY level take this class, or another like it.

Why Did I Go?

Even though I am already presenting various topics fairly regularly, and speaking to members of the ODUG on a monthly basis, I still thought there was plenty that I could learn. I subscribe to the belief that no one knows everything on any given topic. I also have learned through leadership training that in order to achieve your goals as a leader, one of the most important leadership principles are, “know yourself and seek self improvement.” This class is an example of one of the many ways that I seek to accomplish my goal of self improvement.

As it turns out, there is plenty I don’t know. While I am not a professionally paid speaker, I am certainly not a novice one. Andy’s class opened my eyes to many things that are easy things to do, but I had either forgotten about, didn’t think about, or didn’t know to begin with. For example, I am not currently remarketing myself at the end of my slide deck. I am also not putting enough time into backup plans for my demos. Another thing I don’t do is something I am simply not good at. I don’t rehearse properly, and all speakers should.

There was another reason though. Andy does an outstanding job during his presentations, so I really wanted to feed off of his brain to approach his level of expertise. Andy was clearly the deciding factor for my attendance.

What Does the Class Consist Of?

Andy does a great job of focusing the class on the most important parts of speaking: the preparation, slide deck, and the demonstrations. He keeps us focused on worrying about the little things that we can control to avoid useless stress going into the presentation, and how to handle ourselves during and after the presentation. Things of this nature include outlining, bouncing ideas off of peers, addressing hecklers or presentation hijackers, maintaining confidence levels, and keeping the audience engaged.

The class began at 8:30 AM, and went on until just after 1:00 PM. We ended the class with preparing mock presentations, and speaking in front of our peers. We then would critique each other on the mini-presentation. It was a great exercise, as we were able to get people who haven’t felt the pressure from a presentation or heckler to do so. At the end of it all, it was clear that several of the attendees had undergone an extreme experience and felt some kind of kinship to one another. I was very surprised by this.

Overall, the class was a really great experience, and I would recommend that anyone who wants to speak or already does speak to attend one of Andy’s speaker training classes. They are FREE. Yes, I said FREE. Even if he began charging for this class, it would be worth it.

Central Florida Speakers & Potential Speakers Class

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:16:00 GMT

PersonalThu, 12 Mar 2009 14:16:00 GMT

If you live in the Central Florida area, an event just came to my attention that you should consider. Unfortunately, it is very short notice. If you are thinking about speaking to a user group or at a code camp event, or just want to brush up on your existing speaking skills, I suggest you attend.

Here is the official event text:

Technical Speaking Class

oPASS President Andy Warren is teaching his free semi-annual class on Technical Speaking this Saturday (Mar 14) at the offices of End to End Training, 225 S Westmonte Dr Ste 2010, Altamonte Springs, FL. The class begins at 8:30 am and runs 4-6 hours based on the number of attendees, and is designed for the beginner to intermediate level speaker - perfectly appropriate to attend if you're wanting to prepare for the big step of doing a presentation for the first time, whether it's for a user group, SQL Saturday, or just co-workers. This class focuses on all technical speaking, not just SQL Server.

Registration:
http://www.endtoendtraining.com/public/classes/coursedetails.aspx?courseid=38

Technorati Tags: Technical,Speaking,Presentation,Events,Community

Truck Fire at My Office Today

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:36:00 GMT

PersonalWed, 11 Mar 2009 15:36:00 GMT

UPDATED! There is a video from a co-workers cell phone that captures me taking a picture of our CEO taking a picture of the commotion. Scroll down to see it...

I wear noise cancellation headphones most of my day at work in an attempt to block out unwanted distractions, and to get some great sounds from my Pandora stations. This afternoon, there was a sound that I couldn't block out. I kept hearing the fast clatter of high heels in the office. I even saw a few of the women here talking loudly, and running past my office. Curiosity got the best of me, so I got up and followed the noise to its source.

I made it to our back door, but on the way I began to get a whiff of a familiar smell. It smelled like electrical wires burning. Whew! Stinky! As I approached the back door, there were people circled around it, and it was clear that no one wanted to exit. I had no idea what was up, so I made my way out the door. Here is what I saw once outside:

Whoa! I have never been that close to a vehicle fire, and never saw one this earlier during it's burn. The smell was horrendous! I immediately made my way back inside to avoid the smell and smoke.

As it turns out, the truck belongs to one of our accountants, and the fire was caused by the battery exploding.

I was back at my desk, attempting to get some work done, when a began to faintly hear yells through my headphones again. The firemen arrived, and wanted the building cleared. Good thing I am not deaf! Though I was told that it would have been my fault for wearing headphones. Yeah, right. We had to wait outside while the firemen and firewomen did their thing. ("Firemen" validates in spell check, but not "firewomen?") Nothing else of interest happened, so here are the rest of the photos.

Technorati Tags: Truck,Ford,F-150,Fire,Firemen

Shopping At Lowes? Buyer Beware

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 23:23:00 GMT

We ran into an interesting weakness in the customer service aspect of how Lowe's (Lowe's Home Improvement) handles their financial transaction at the customer level. This could happen to you, so wake up. Get some tea. I'll wait...

... intermission ...

Okay. Away? Good. Here is the scenario...

Let's assume that you bought a really big purchase using either your bank card (preferred), or your own credit card. Say it's the best of the best in their appliance section. For the sake of this argument, we will say it's a washer and dryer set. We will assume that you just paid $5,000.00 for them both, because they are super cool, and they bring you tea. ;) Oh yeah, and they have the special doo-dad that the Johnsons next door don't have. (Basically, something that needs to be ordered and/or delivered.)

The next day, you see that another box store has the same washer and dryer for nearly half price! Awesome! Wait... We already bought them at Lowe's. No problem. Lowe's offers a 15-day price match gaurantee. Being proud, you walk in to Lowe's and they match your price. You're feeling great, because you just saved $2,400.00. You should be. After all, it's a lot of money. But the darkness begins to fall... Don't run out and use your bank card or credit card again just yet.

Here's what you just walked out of there NOT knowing...

If you are not using their credit card (referred to as the "Lowe's card"), they use a different method to refund your money. You'd think that they would just determine the difference, and just refund that amount. That's simply not the case. Instead, they do a full refund on the entire amount of the original purchase. Then, they re-charge you for the new discounted amount. It doesn't sound all that bad yet. Let's break it down though.

Day 1 Purchase	-	$5,000.00
Day 2 Refund	+	$5,000.00
Day 2 Purchase	-	$2,600.00

If this was done Tuesday through Thursday, chances are that you may squeak by with no problems. However, any other day of the week, you will likely have issues, depending on your bank or creditor. Issues? Yes. On a day where the transaction will not reconcile overnight, and using credit cards, it usually takes up to 3 business days. If you have a limit or remaining balance of $7,500.00, you're overdrawn or over your credit limit by $100.00 because the credits take longer to clear. You are now going to have all kinds of grief dealing with fees.

Lowe's says that they will take care of any fees, but that's not the point. We asked why they did it this way, as it sounds more logical just to refund the difference. They replied that they use this method to refund to prevent a double order to happen in their system. What??!

In order to prevent an order from happening twice in their system, they potentially cause the customer all kinds of grief related to their bank or credit account. The customer is potentially getting overdrawn, getting refused purchases, having to put off other purchases, calling their bank, and more. All of this, just so the Lowe's location doesn't have to go through the trouble of cancelling the extra order.

Lowe's gets a D+ for todays customer service grade. Horrible...

Technorati Tags: Shopping, Review, Customer Service

Home Depot Failed Me Today

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:07:00 GMT

I am moving to a new office very soon. One of the things that I needed to do is make a copy of the key that I need to access and secure the door on my new office. Simple enough, right? Nope.

I went to Home Depot to do this, mainly because I am not aware of anywhere else near where I work that provides the service at the same speed. Unfortunately, there are no other hardware stores around me, so supporting small businesses in this case is not really an option where I work.

Anyhow, I walked in and had two new keys made from the original. If you have not been to Home Depot to make new keys anytime in the last few years, you will not know that they have a really cool machine that mostly automates the making of keys now. They used if for me.

When I cam back to work, neither of the copied keys worked. FAIL! :( Drats! I will have to try again tomorrow, and waste more time and gas.

Technorati Tags: Meaningless

My Blog RSS Feed URL Has Moved

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 15:12:00 GMT

For those of you that don't know, Google acquired Feedburner some time ago. In doing so, Google immediately set out to move the service to their own servers. However, that comes at a cost to those of us who use this service.

However, Google did a fantastic job of making this process as painless as possible. Through a few simple clicks, and about a 1 minute waiting period, my feed was moved. There was only one more thing to do... I needed to update my website's syndication links.

I have my blog syndication links in two places. First, is the large RSS icon on the left column, and then the Feedburner widget just below it. Changing the linked image is easy enough. Then, I went into the Google Feedburner website to see if the widget code has changed. Yes, it has. I quickly copied the new markup, and pasted it in the place of the previous widget.

All in all, this process took about 5 minutes, max! Here is my new blog feed URL:

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/willstrohl

Technorati Tags: RSS, RSS

End of the Year Blog Entry - Thank You!

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 12:50:00 GMT

There is a line in a movie called, "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", starring Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt that I am thinking of. Mr. and Mrs. Smith had just faced each other again at a fancy restaurant, and then proceed to talk to each other on the phone while trying to beat the other back to their house. All of this, after finding out that they are both secretly moonlighting and the world's top assassins behind the other's back. They are even competitors... They are racing home to presumably kill each other. The end is near.

Anyhow, while they are on the phone, Pitt wants answers to certain questions about their relationship. Jolie asks him why. Pitt replies, "I don't know. I guess when you start thinking about the end, you think about the beginning." This is a great line, as it's very true.

I was thinking the other day about where I was in January compared to today. It was a much farther journey and road than I had realized. I have accomplished so much in a short year. Here is a quick run-down over some of the more important (and public) highlights.

Relaunched RezHub.com
1400+ DNN Forum Posts
1500+ Tweets on Twitter
Joined the Orlando DotNetNuke Users Group (ODUG)
Became President of the Orlando DotNetNuke Users Group
Edited several sections of Professional DotNetNuke 5 by Wrox
Edited a couple of Wrox Blox's
Began editing DotNetNuke 5 User's Guide by Wrox
Became the track lead for the DNN tracks at the upcoming South Florida and Orlando code camps
Spoke at many code camps and user group meetings
Spoke at the OpenForce 2008 Connect - Orlando
Started the JumpStartTV DotNetNuke Channel
Met and picked the brains of the DotNetNuke Corp.
Became the Technology Director of RezHub.com
Consulting gigs picked up over 200%
Partnered with DNNSpired.com
and so much more!

The list goes on, but why bore you with all of that? You get the point, right?

So how did I get all of that done in a single year? Honestly, I don't know. I really don't know. However, there's no way I could've managed a third of that all on my own. That's what this post is about. I want to thank some people in my life that helped me along my path this year.

Kim Rausch -Of course I am going to lead off with the woman of my life. Kim and I have have been together for a long time, and have known each other even longer. I even blogged about it on our anniversary. (Yes. A true, heartfelt gift from ageek.) She is the glue in my personal life, and supports me in my professional life. She even has helped with user group meetings.
Brian Scarbeau - Brian may have beat me to the punch with the user group, but he did a fantastic job starting it. It was him who chose me to take over the user group duties. His choice was instrumental in helping me with pretty much everything else that was to follow.
Shawn Weisfeld, Ken Tucker, Fabio Honigmann & Jessica Sterner - These folks are all super contributors in the Central Florida .Net community. Together, these people have been instrumental in any of the successes that I might have achieved with the Orlando DotNetNuke Users Group. Even though Shawn is no longer living here, he also has great input and has helped me a great deal.
Mike Webb - Mike has been an outstanding supporter of mine. He has helped me think about leadership and DNN in ways that I previously wouldn't have. He is an idea guy that inspires anyone who is passionate about DNN.
RezHub.com - In my day job, I am the Technology Director at RezHub.com. My supervisors have been understanding and generous enough to allow me to perform many tasks for the user group during company hours, and sometimes using company resources. I am incredibly fortunate to work for people that understand, appreciate, and support the open source movement. I am also incredibly lucky to work with the best team of co-workers I could ask for. They inspire me to reach higher everyday.

In addition, I want to thank some other folks that did not necessarily help me directly (that I know of), but have certainly had influence on things I have been a part of, and have also inspired me this year.

DotNetNuke Corporation - I had the honor to not only meet the DNN core team, but also to hang out with them for a bit. I picked their brains, had some laughs, and I was genuinely inspired at how much they care about the DNN platform. It is almost like their adopted child. They are incredibly smart, and they channel all of that genius brain activity to better the DNN platform, and in turn the rest of the lives of those who live and work in the DNN ecosystem.
Antonio Chargoury - His work on the blog module, and contributions on his own blog and in the DNN forums has inspired me to look at my sites and my approach to various tasks in new ways.
Mitchel Sellers - It is hard to imagine that Mitchel is even human with all that he gets done in a single day. His blog and input on the DNN forums has also inspired me to try new things and thing outside of the box on many tasks this year.
David Bayer - David Bayer is quite simply one of the smartest people I have ever met. Listening to him talk about anything technology related just makes me want to run out and start developing. He has fresh ideas and approaches to SEO and website value that I would have never before thought of.
Stan Schultes, Ryan Morgan, Tracy Wittenkeller - Stan, Ryan, and Tracy have all been great to me. These guys are powerhouses in the local DNN community here. They have been speaking at various code camps and events in the area and online for years - nearly entirely focused on DNN. Their daily work inspired me to begin speaking, and to share more than I ever had before.
INETA & CodeZone - It is no secret what INETA and CodeZone do for the .Net communities. Their assistance, tools, and recognition programs have helped so much in giving value to the ODUG, as well as feeling better about all of the hours that I spend working on community events.
DotNetNuke Community - The DNN community as a whole is inspiriing. The passion, contributions, efforts, and brotherhood felt in this open source community is unmatched. It feels good to tell people about how much I love to work with DNN and support the community.

Overall, I think I mentioned all of the headliners that need to be on this list. Since I didn't start with an outline, I truly apologize if I missed anyone that should be on this list. Please feel free to comment below and drag me through the dirt if I missed you. :)

Thank you so much to everyone that has had an impact on me. Positive or negative, you have all helped me to get to where I am today - on this last day of 2008. I enjoy your conversations, your contributions, your input, your support, and above all, your criticisms. I am closing this year with a whole-hearted satisfaction that this is my best professional and personal year, ever. And you all have helped this dream come true. Thank you so much!

Technorati Tags: DNN, DotNetNuke, DNN Blog, ODUG , Orlando DotNetNuke Users Group, User Group, Code Camp, Community, INETA, CodeZone

Best Buy Doesn't Have the "Best" Customer Service

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 21:41:00 GMT

Whenever I think of consumer electronics and overall guy toys, the first place I think of is either Best Buy or BestBuy.com. I have been shopping there almost exclusively for many years now. And I have always enjoyed the customer service that I received while in the store and online. I wouldn't dare post how much I spent there any given month online, but it certainly was not a small amount.

About 3-4 months ago (I am estimating), I was solicited by Best Buy to accept a Rewards Zone Mastercard. I accepted. I soon received the card in the mail, but it arrived during our move to the new house. So, the card was forgotten for 1-2 weeks before it was activated. If you read my blog, or know me, you know that I keep myself pretty busy these days, so it probably wouldn't surprise you to hear that I completely forgot that I had that credit card. I didn't try to use it until a couple of weeks ago.

Here is a wrist slapper for me... I didn't completely read through the fine print and notice the annual fee that gets immediately charged to the brand new card. (In fact, had I known that, I would not have accepted the card in the first place.) No you should fast forward to yesterday.

I finally am getting caught up on my mail, thanks to my wonderful office manager (my woman). She is wonderful...

One of the items that stuck out was the Best Buy card. I never thought that when I'd open the most recent statement that I'd see overdue charges! But once again, that one was my fault. I immediately begin to attempt to create an account online to rectify the problem.

I have a bunch of issues logging in to the online credit card management area on the Best Buy website. I was able to create the account without any problems, but once it was created, I could not stayed logged on to their system. I called their phone support and was extremely frustrated to speak to someone who I was barely able to understand. That call ended as it normally does with me. I just keep answering short answers to promote the end of the conversation. I no longer care about the problem at hand. I just want to get off of the phone.

I was able to understand one thing. He couldn't do anything to help me because I had locked my account with unsuccessful login attempts. I had to wait for the lockout to expire. I couldn't understand the amount of time that I had to wait though.

Well, about an hour later, I tried to login again, and I was in! Yeah! I proceeded to bring my account up to date. I immediately paid off my balance. There was the original annual fee of $35, and then enough late fees to nearly reach $100. However, I wanted to get this taken care of quickly. I chose their quick pay option to expedite the time that it takes for the payment to post. That cost another $15, bringing the total beyond $100.

Yippee! I paid my account. I was happy. That is... Until I noticed a status message at the top of my account page. In red text, it said, "Your Account is Closed" I immediately freaked out and e-mailed their customer service folks through a web form that they provide in the account area. I was pleasant, and asked for my account to be opened.

Well, something I didn't mention up to this point is that there is a wonderful gentleman on Twitter who assists people with the Best Buy problems. He was trying to help me out with the login problem, and was very helpful. Fortunately, it logged me in before he had to really do anything. But I tweeted him back, telling him about my account problem I just mentioned. Since accounts were not his area of expertise, he suggested contacting another Best Buy employee that frequents Twitter, and even went as far as to shoot her an e-mail to contact me when she got in this morning.

She tweeted me first thing in the morning, asking about my issue. Once I described it to her, I was instructed to send my problem details to an e-mail address she specified. I understand that certain things need to go through certain channels, and the bigger the company is, the more true this is. So I e-mailed my problem. No problem. About 10-15 minutes later, the e-mail was sent.

I made sure to include all of the details of my experience up this point, in greater detail than here. I even owned up to my mistake of not paying the annual fee. All that I asked for was my account to be reopened since I paid off the balance. I explained all of this at great length.

I told you before that I am a fan of Best Buy. I really do enjoy my experience in their stores, and I enjoyed spending my money there. But after I left there this evening from purchasing 2 last Christmas presents, I opened an e-mail from the accounts department that really ticked me off.

After all of the hoops that I jumped through to make this payment and bring my balance to $0, here is what was in my inbox:

Dear William Strohl,

This Account is not eligible for reinstatement. Your Account was closed on 12/12/08 due to inactivity. If you would like to reapply for a new account, please visit us online at www.rewardzonemastercard.com.

You will be mailed a letter of confirmation.

Sincerely,

Frank
RewardZone Program MasterCard Customer Care

I understand that they had to close my account to handle its delinquency. I even understand the late fees. Credit cards are still pretty new to me, so I am used to paying cash. At least to me, it is understandable that I forgot about a credit card even existing. Overall, even though I don't like paying "free money" like this to any company, I understand why and did so.

What I don't understand is their unwillingness to see that I had a human error where I did not mean to "stiff" them, but rather just completely forgot about the account existing. (Seeing my stack of mail, you'd understand.)

As it stands, this reply from their accounts department tells me one thing. Best Buy does not want my money anymore. I am genuinely discouraged, and upset at how this situation was just handled with a blanket policy. I am even more saddened to say that they are going on my boycott list. RIP, Best Buy. I already miss you. :'( (That's not something I have ever said before when making this decision.) At least the account is paid off...

Technorati Tags: Customer Service, Boycott

I Joined Facebook Yesterday

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 23:55:00 GMT

I joined MySpace about 2 weeks ago. I went through all of the processes. I searched for people. I requested friends, sent messages, uploaded photos, and so on. Throughout the duration of this time, I did find myself having a little fun, but I made sure to maintain my focus on self-promotion, only with a personal spin there. So far, I have only been impressed with the photo management. It obviously wasn't impressive enough for me to publish anything here though.

Yesterday, I joined Facebook. I didn't do too much then, but I did spend about 4 hours on it today. I once again went through all of the processes. I even created a group for the ODUG. While MySpace only had a single workflow that impressed me, Facebook impressed me all-around. There were a few settings that were not intuitive enough to find quickly, but other than that, the experience was very good.

If someone came to me today and asked me which one they should join, I would overwhelmingly endorse Facebook. The interfaces were intuitive, the workflows were simple and easy, the features were plentiful, and there were ways for you to plug-in existing content from your existing site(s). My only true criticism so far is that I wish the importing and exporting of content were expanded to all features, allowed more than one source to import from, and expand those features to the groups as well.

Great job, Facebook! I am a fan! MySpace... Well, the kids like you.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Will-Strohl/1046966128

Technorati Tags: Facebook ,MySpace ,Social Networking ,Review

7 Years Ago: I Met this Woman, For the Second Time in My Life

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 10:49:00 GMT

It is hard to believe what time, fate, and choices will serve up to you over time. If anyone had told even half of what I have today when I was 14, I wouldn't have believed them. I am Director of Technology for a an outstanding company, RezHub.com. I have 3 beautiful kids who are all just smart as can be. And I have the most beautiful and incredible woman, Kim.

Where We Met

I mentioned the age of 14, because that is when I first met Kim. We attended the same high school, and later I would find out the same middle school as well. Kim was one of the most beautifuls girls in the school. Her most memorable features were her captivating and sexy eyes, and to the teenage boy at the time, her enormous boobs. (Sorry. Just being honest.) I never asked her out, because I thought I knew what she'd say... The is man's single-most dumbest assumption.

We went through high school, crossing paths many times. I was a wrestler, and at one point, she was a wrestlerette (one of the girls that helped the wrestling team set-up and keep time/score at matches). We were not really friends per se, but most of our friends were mutual friends. It's pretty safe to say that I would see her often, but not in the same classes, as she was one year ahead of me. And most times when I'd see her, I would be staring... At her... Uhm... Eyes!

One story that vividly comes to mind is at one lunch break we had. We all sat on the table-tops and not the seats of these picnic tables that were outside of the lunch room. I was checking her out. And when I say that, what I really mean is that she was wearing one of those "body suits" and I was staring at her boobs. If you do not remember those, they were stretchy shirts that buttoned over the ladies' underwear area. (How do you describe that in a classy way?) Anyhow, she noticed me and said, "What are you looking at? Come here!" In a teenaged-daze, I walked over to her, and in her true smart-assed tone and abruptly up-front way of facing people, she proceeded to grab my hands and place them on her boobs. She then said, "There! Now stop staring!" Needless to say, as a teenager, that was instantly one of my favorite memories from high school and continues to be to this day.

We Met Again

Some years passed, and Kim and I had gone our own ways. I went into the Marine Corps out of high school, and she chose the school and work route. We had been out of touch for 5 years (not that I ever had her number or anything). During this time we both lived our lives. She got married and had two kids. Being a typical Marine, I saw many women and ended having one child myself.

Eventually, my time with the Marines had ended and I came back home. Although, I came back with someone. I brought back a girlfriend I met while I was in California. After another year, we split up and she went back home to California. During this time alone, I realized that I had not kept in touch with anyone from high school. So I signed up on Classmates.com and began sending messages to people that I wanted to talk to again. I do not know why, but one of those people was Kim.

I began e-mailing old friend and acquaintances, but one e-mail stood out. Kim had replied to me! As it turns out, the reply was enthusiastic too! She was about to end her marriage and was re-connecting to people as well. She immediately proposed that we meet up. I was wasting no time in saying yes to that! We missed each other a couple times as life continued to throw us curve balls, but we eventually did see each other again.

She came to my apartment, and we went out for dinner. We had a very wonderful dinner with plenty of drinks. The restaurant we went to was called Durango's and since has closed their doors. I had beer, and she had our good friend Jose Cuervo. I would have been drinking that too if I didn't have to drive. We spoke of old times, current times, and our plans for the future. As it turns out, we had no idea what the future had in store for us, as we had not been apart ever since, which means 7 short years today.

I love Kim very much. She does so much for me that I cannot even put into words. She is there for me at every turn. I do not know where I would be today if I haven't had her support all this time. At this point, she is not only my life partner and soul mate, she also doubles as my personal assistant! She keeps me abreast of everything that I forget. She is absolutely wonderful!

Thank you so much baby, for loving me as much as you do! (But remember, I asked you FIRST!!!)

Happy Halloween!

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 22:08:00 GMT

We just got back from Trick-Or-Treating in the neighborhood. First of all, I just have to express how disappointed I was in our neighbors. I didn't really count, but I would imagine that we had to walk by 3-5 houses for every house that was lit up and giving candy. :(

Here are the kids' costumes. They were super-excited, as pretty much any kid is on Halloween. No one was as excited as Kohen was, but I will save him for last...

Paige absolutely LOVES High School Musical. Her favorite character is Gabriella. So, that is what she dressed as.

Kariann wanted to be a "Goth Chic". Unfortunately, her costume didn't really come together until the last minute. We had troubles finding just the right items for her.

Kohen wanted to be just one thing ever since he saw a specific movie. In fact, he has been growing his hair out ever since to make the costume look better. Unfortunately, he stumbled a bit in school this year, so he has been working very hard to earn back being...

...

Wait for it...

...

Wait for it...

...

No peeking!

...

The Joker! You cannot really tell from this angle, but scars and all...

And I was a Chipotle burrito, of course. (http://www.willstrohl.com/Blog/tabid/66/EntryID/202/Default.aspx) I meant to get a picture of Kim. She dressed in a sexy costume, but we rushed, and I forgot. Sorry guys...

Own Your "Brand" and Promote Yourself

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:06:00 GMT

One of the internally debated things out there has to do with self-promotion. For example, you may have thought once, "Should I just post this blog entry and leave it be, or should I post a link to it in my favorite forums and social sites as well?" Jeff Blankenburg does a really good job of explaining why you should shamelessly promote yourself here. (referral credit to jbrinkman)

Jeff Blankenburg - 7 Steps to Shameless (Successful) Self Promotion

When I was in the Marine Corps, one of the things we learned about most often was leadership. This is a quality that is difficult to teach. In fact, I would argue that some folks just cannot be taught to be, or are incapable of being leaders.

The following link talks about branding yourself as the ultimate IT Professional. While it was an outstanding article, all I kept reading about was leadership. One of the key principles to being a leader is to "know yourself, and seek self-improvement." This article speaks to that a great deal, and can easily be translated into other professions. (referral credit to @jspurlin)

Brad M. McGehee - Become a More Successful IT Professional

My Costume This Year...

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:43:00 GMT

Should I dress in the same costume as last year? I dress as a Chipotle burrito. I liked it so much, I saved it. I made it for two reasons. First, you eat for free on Halloween if you dress like a burrito. Second, I knew no one else would be one. :)

Some things remain funny...

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 09:25:00 GMT

It doesn't matter how many times I see this, it is just as funny as the first time I saw it. The full version is 10 times better though.

American Heart Association

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 08:34:00 GMT

A while back someone did a favor for us and watched the kids while we went out of town. Well, when people do these kinds of favors for us, we typically buy them gift cards to their favorite stores.

This time was different. When we were going to get the gift card, this person asked us instead to donate to their American Heart Association fund raiser. I was surprised, but more than happy to do so. It was almost like a "pay it forward" feeling.

Anyhow, anyone can donate, and all proceeds go to the American Heart Association. Who knows? You might need their help some day. Just go to their web site and donate. It only takes a couple of minute of your day.

I gave in! Social Networking & Web 2.0 is beating me down...

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 22:29:00 GMT

I just joined Twitter and began playing with it. I must say, I am impressed. They have focused on one thing, maintained that focus and made it the best that it can be. I can easily see where many folks will complain about missing features, but I also believe that they will be missing the point.

http://www.twitter.com/WillStrohl

There you go. Now you can see evidence of where I have become a TWIT!!! I mean, a "tweep". Geez!...

Times Suck! Do you have a clerical job opening?

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:45:00 GMT

My girlfriend has over 7 years in clerical work. Two were as a legal secretary, and 5 was in the flooring industry. She has done accounts payable, accounts receiveable, data entry, data reconciliation, office manager, and pretty much everything else you need to do to keep the paperwork for a business up to par. She even has plenty of accounting experience.

Contact her or myself if you know of something in the Orlando area. We really cannot afford for her to be out of work. Who can these days?

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/3/900/b94

[EDIT]
I was just corrected... She has been performing clerical work for 13 years! As Steve Martin would say, "Excuuuuussee me!"
[/EDIT]

My Allergies - Like You Care (You Should)

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 12:00:00 GMT

Not long ago, we attended the Green Earth Expo in Orlando, Florida. It is a convention that is open to the public and attempts to connect green companies and vendors with customers and
other vendors/companies. It was a big success! We learned lots of cool things.

I used the word "success" because Green Travel Hub was also there representing. We had a huge turnout at our booth. We had not only consumers pointing other consumers to our booth, but
other vendors were doing the same thing. We were giving out t-shirts to anyone that wanted to talk to us, and even vendors that were there promoting their own products and services were
wearing our shirts in their booths.

Anyhow... I digress. One of the things I was able to do there was to find an organic honey vendor who are also bee keepers. One of things that they sell is pollen that they collect weekly. I had long read that the best thing to do to control allergies is to not spend $40+ a month on medications like Zyrtec or Allegra, but to take a daily regimen of LOCAL pollen instead. I just never knew where to find any.

For $3.00, I bought a bag of pollen that will last me at least a month. That sounds too good to be true, right? Wrong! Since taking the pollen, I have not had to return to using any allergy medicine. It is such a relief to be able to get off of that. I cannot stand taking pills of any kind. While I do occassionally take things for a headache, I wait until I cannot bear it any longer.

So, how can you get some pollen? Find a bee keeper at a local farmers market. Or look one up on the Internet. If those sources prove unsuccessful, just begin asking folks around you where one can be found. Good places to start might be local florists.

You'll feel so much better once you get off of the allergy medication.

Evening One - With My Daughter

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 20:30:00 GMT

We met up with my Ex and I saw my daughter for the first time in nearly a year! It was so nice to be able to hold her again. I missed her a lot.

First, we had dinner with my ex. Then we decided to go bowling. Here is our first picture together.

We all did quite horribly bowling. I don't think any of us broke 100. There is much more to come! We are going to have a blast!

Woo hoo! My new system...

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 12:00:00 GMT

My PC at home typically doubles as a file server. In PC years, my home work station was ancient. I should have replaced it a long time ago.

I just mentioned it being a file server. Well, wiith it being a file server on my home network, I naturally had permissions in place to keep prying eyes out of certain directories. For instance, the last thing I need is a curious family member to accidentally opening and changing a code file or Photoshop file.

Wouldn't you know it, I forgot to reset these permissions before removing and moving the hard drive for data extraction to the new machine (new, larger, and faster hard drive).

The file transfer didn't like me trying to move all of the files with deny entries in the ACL. I had to first try and use the SubInACL tool from Microsoft. However, I either couldn't find the right command line arguments, or it wasn't going to fix my problem.

Next, I tried an open source product from SourceForge, called SetACL. This worked like a charm. I found it on a forum while performing a Google Search to find a solution to my problem. After some reading through the online documentation, I was able to reset the permissions on all of the directories and files in the old hard drive.

Congratulations Chargers!!!

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 08:00:00 GMT

The San Diego Chargers have been waiting MANY years to get a post season win in the NFL. They made that goal a reality today...

Great job, team!!!

Long Overdue Blog: A GREAT day in Lake County, FL

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 22:34:16 GMT

Those of you who have families well know that you typically cannot expect to take the entire family out for a good time without taking out a 5th mortgage on the house these days. ;) Well, back in June we all had a blast for nearly an entire day and spent less than $20 for a family of 5!

First of all, with Florida being the tourist capital of the United States, you would expect to be able to easily find plenty of do without spending too much money. That is simply not true anymore. We spent the better part of an evening on a Friday looking for inexpensive things for a family of 5 to do in the Central Florida area. Consistently, every resource online shut us down. It was quite disappointing.

Then we happened upon the Scrub Jay Trail. If you live near any rural area in Central Florida and your head is not stuck in the sand, the Scrub Jay has come up in conversation and the news many times. The Scrub Jay Trail is dedicated to the preservation and education of the Scrub Jay. It also hosts many other species of animals and various beautiful plants. Best of all, there is no admission charge! :)

Although the trail is not very long, there is a lot to see. Among the residents are gopher tourtoises, donkeys, butterflies, rabbits, snakes, various birds (including the Scrub Jay), and more. An interesting fact that we learned while there was that this location was originally a movie set for Rosewood, starring Jon Voight, Don Cheadle, and Ving Rhames.

Although the day had already peaked at a scorching 90+ degrees, we wandered around the trail meeting and interacting with the donkeys, and scrub jays. Normally, a scrub jay wouldn't want to interact with humans (and shouldn't), but the scrub jays here are well aclimated to human interaction. In fact, one landed on my head and enjoyed the view for a while. (No, it didn't poop on me!)

It was a way too hot to see any gopher tourtoises though.

Once we reached the end of the trail, the folks that volunteer there were nice enough to show us around some of the other areas and give us some background on the trail and what its plans are. They also introduced us to the friendly and beautiful scrub jays. Although we shouldn't have, we were allowed to feed the scrub jays some meal worms. They would jump right on our hands and eat right there! It was so neat!

Well, following the sweltering trail (only because it was summer in Florida), we needed to find some way to cool down and quick! My first thought was a meat freezer, but I do not think the family would have gone for it, and who has a family sized meat freezer anyway?

We tried to stop by a local italian ice restaurant, but it was a Sunday and they were closed. However, across the street is a place called Ritter's Frozen Custard, and we have heard nothing but good things about them. I never wanted to go there before because the name simply didn't sound appetizing to me - but this day it was an EMERGENCY! We needed something cold and refreshing, and we needed it immediately.

Luckily, this day had both of the owners there. They proceeded to teach us all about the difference between ice cream and frozen custard. We also learned why grocery store ice cream is so awful. (Although I didn't have that opinion until my first scoop of frozen custard.) The grocery store ice cream is pumped full of air to get that fluffy look and texture. This allows them to more easily transport it, and pack less of it into each container. Both reasions equates to more sales. Frozen custard has a lower fat content and much less air (if any).

At Ritter's, they make their mouth watering flavors fresh each morning. With popular flavors like Cake Batter, Pistachio Nut, Mango, Vanilla, and Chocalate, you wouldn't believe the difference in flavor! Take what you remember any of your favorite ice cream flavors. Increase the satisfaction of that flavor by 10 and you might be close to how good that same flavor would be at Ritters.

I wanted to try their Mango Italian Ice, but I was also very impressed at the richness of the Vanilla. It was suggested that I try a gelati. This is a combination of the two ice creams layered into a cup. Oh boy was that GOOD! (Wikipedia says that gelati is plural, so the real name is gelato.) Mmmm... I want another one RIGHT NOW!

They weren't that busy when we got in so, they probably spoke to us more than they would most customers. Although, this is not saying anything about how friendly these folks are - because you would likely not meet very many people who are more friendly. They brought our kids behind the counter and showed them where they made the ice cream, and also showed them how to make a waffle cone. It was pretty cool! The only time I see waffle cones is on a display, under ice cream, or in a box.

To seal off this family outing, we ventured to a pet store that is located a few doors down from Ritters. We did what anyone does at a pet store when don't intend on buying anything... We played with the animals!

That was a summary of a great day that we had. If you have any other cheap family outing ideas for the Central Florida area, let me know!

So Sorry...

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 16:37:03 GMT

I know I haven't posted any new blogs lately... As the saying goes, I have been really busy.

With my daughter in town and working like crazy at work, time has been a very limited commodity in my life. :( I promise to begin blogging again soon. I already have some good topics, but no time to put them here.

My next blog entry will be about the DNN News Module Schema File.

Drive it like you stole it - NOT!

Sat, 19 May 2007 07:00:00 GMT

I wanted to share an experience I just had with a major car repair chain. I have only boycotted 2 companies so far... Here goes number 3!

I have boycotted McDonalds for life for two reasons. First, they give absolutely no regard for their customers or their health. While this is not unique in the fast food industry, this chain also dedicates a huge budget towards marketing directly to children. THAT is wrong!

The other company is 7-11. They give absolutely no customer service training to their employees and their comapny policy treats all of their customers equally like thieves. Think about it...

The newest company on the list is - TUFFY AUTO SERVICE CENTER. The location I have been going to recently is one of four locations that are franchised out to the same person in the Central Florida area.

I recently purchased one of those maintenance cards that have many free and discounted deals for typical services you would need to have done to your vehicle (i.e., oil changes, radiator flushes, alignments, etc.). Having known several people (including family members) who have done this in the past, I had no problem getting this card.

However, today's visit was less than acceptable. First, I am never happy with how slow that this chain works. The technicians or mechanics always take their time while working. Second, I have raised concerns in the past with their service and have been met with dismissive responses.

Whenever I take my vehicle to a service center, I always make it a point to watch what they are doing. Partly to make sure that I am getting what I pay for.

Today was no different. I noticed one of their employees walking towards my vehicle and get into it. It took him a while to begin to back out of the space, and I later figured out it was because he adjusted ALL of the settings on my seat!!!

Well, he began backing up regularly, and then hit the gas and zoomed backwards in the parking lost at easily 20 MPH. When he got to where the open bay was, he slammed on the breaks, screeching the tires. This is no easy feat. I have a raised F-150 with BG Goodrich All Terrains. However, I also have really bad rear brakes right now. So much so, that I probably shouldn't be driving my truck at all. However, since it is a stick, I can refrain from braking more than the average driver.

This guy had no idea how good or bad my brakes were, whether someone would come speeding around the corner towards my truck, back out of another parking space, or any other number of variables that could have played into a potentially disasterous situation.

When the screech occurred, I was not surprised, given his speed. I was already on my feet in the lobby upon seeing his display of speed. However, when the screeching occurred, everyone else in the lobby and the bays quickly snapped their heads toward my truck as it stopped. Apparently, the screeching wasn't normal. But judging on how I saw other cars moved, speed was.

The truck then began getting prepped for service and I immediately went to the counter in the lobby right in front of the other customers and questioned the person the counter. He was a younger man in his mid to late 20's with a clean haircut.

I asked him why my truck was being driven like that. He replied, "Like what?" Flabbergasted at his lack of caring and response, I described what just happened. He simply said, "I didn't hear anything." My jaw dropped and I asked him, "You didn't hear my tires screech?!" To the others in the lobby I said, "Did you hear anything?" Most immediate nodded their heads in agreement.

The man behind the counter simply continued with his invoice. Whoa! Where did he learn customer service skills? Apparently, he doesn't know what an appropriate response should be. I nudged him again with another statement, saying, "I really do not appreciate him driving my truck like that! It is not his vehicle." This fell on DEAF ears!!!

Since this was a personal issue that had raised a very emotional response within me, I decided to make my statement in a way other than what my first instinct was (it legally a better decision). :)

I waited until the service was complete and I paid my 3 dollar and change oil disposal fee. The manager was checking me out (no, not that way - dirty minds). He folded up my maintenance card nicely and proceeded to hand it to me with my receipt inside.

I gave him back the card and told him that I didn't want it. "I will never come back again." To my astonishment, he simply said without an expression, "Okay," and turned to complete some other work.

That was IT!!! I began to express my disapproval twice with the staff not offering me any explanation, or any other response. Not even a negative response.

I will NEVER AGAIN RETURN to any Tuffy Auto Service Center. I also suggest that you stay away as well. Who knows what they are going to do to your vehicle when you are not watching...

I Met President Bill Clinton Today!

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 05:00:00 GMT

I was at the CTIA Wireless Convention this week in Orlando. There are very prominent business people who were giving keynote speeches each morning. Today, we instead had the Former President George H. W. Bush and Former President Bill Clinton. It was awesome to hear them both speak! It was even cooler to meet President Clinton and shake his hand! (A HUGE thank you to my current employer that is to remain nameless at this time.) I will post pictures later. However, has anyone seen the beaded bracelet that Bill Clinton is wearing? It looks like brown string or leather with red and blue beads. I was curious as to what this represents (if anything).

Leadership Lost and Found

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 06:00:00 GMT

We have all noticed in our places of employment times when we look at the actions of a manager, director, or officer within the organization and thought something like "what are they thinking?" At worse times, this supervisor may be your own. Experiencing this from your own supervisor firsthand will indeed have a lasting effect on your life. If you have ever had any leadership training, this impact would likely be multiplied several times over.

If you are lucky, the worst leadership that you experience will be a short project that you have to do that is destined to fail. At worst, a poor leader will force your daily professional life to be something you dread. This can often be border-line harassment. However, even a dumb leader will know enough to keep this sort of harassment legal.

You will immediately notice the effects that a bad leader. The most obvious symptom is the lunch-time confessions and ventings of co-workers about how much they hate something that was said or done by the supervisor. Some signs could include senior or highly respected supervisors being relieved of responsibilities and consequently resigning. You see, such a leader will not be able to stay under poor leadership. The moral of an entire department or company can easily show numerous other signs within days or weeks.

How can you spot such a poor leader? First, if your supervisor is constantly talking about themselves, or telling you about things that are important to them - BEWARE! This is a clear indication that they are not interested in anything than what will benefit them. Even if they put you on a project, should it be successful, they will take full credit. It will be as if you had not existed, and they did all the work themselves.

A good leader instead will constantly be showing concern and curiosity about you and your interests. They would be picking your brain to find out what you need in order to be successful. The reality is that a good leader will know well enough that the kudos will come to them if their employees are successful. There would be no need of seeking out the recognition.

These were only a few examples of what to expect. I could easily write a book on this chock-full of examples of good and bad leadership situations.

If you are in fact a leader and you are reading this right now, I want to pay very close attention to the text below. I have adapted the leadership principles and traits to reflect the very same things we want in the non-military professions. I not only use these because I am a former Marine, but also because this is a proven formula on how a leader should act.

Leadership Principles

know yourself and seek self-improvement
be technically and tactically proficient
develop a sense of responsibility among your subordinates
make sound and timely decisions
set the example
know your employees and look out for their welfare
keep your employees informed
seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions
ensure assigned tasks are understood, supervised, and accomplished
train your employees as a team
employ your command in accordance with its capabilities

If you are a leader and you are not employing each of these principles, then you can pretty much guarantee all of your employees probably dislike you at varying levels (except for the suck-ups and "buddies" of course). (I can also explain the "suck-ups" and "buddies" in more detail at a late time if you wish.)

If you are not yet in a leadership position, know that is never too early to begin to use these principles. Everyone is capable of being a leader, even if the only person you are leading is yourself. Who knows? Perhaps your own supervisor will notice what you are doing and give you that over-due promotion.

I plan to make this an ongoing post. In future posts about leadership, I will explain each of these principles in more detail and also introduce the leadership traits.

Absentee Parenting 101

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 06:00:00 GMT

I just came across a topic that I know I MUST let you know about. I have blogged about parenting one time before. I am going to do so again. However, I should do it much more often. Watch any news program or playground and you will be slapped in the face with how obvious it is that the word parent is no longer applicable to most of today's "guardians".

Today we are being greeted more and more with parents who have split apart for various reasons. I am going to talk about the non-custodial parent today. Being the non-custodial parent is a highly risky proposition and this normally means that you are not living with your child. You run the risk of your child forgetting about you, calling another person their father/mother, and more. None of us are perfect, but there is no room for mistakes when you are the non-custodial parent.

No Excuses!
I am bring this up for two reasons. First, there should not be any excuse for a parent to not regularly contact their child. Second, I know the person I am speaking about will eventually read this. The most recent excuse I heard for not contacting their children was from a father. He said that he did not contact the children more because he did not want to deal with the mother. The follow-up excuse was the person did not know how to be a father because he never had one. Whoa!

It should not matter how difficult or easy it is to speak to the other parent. If you love your child, nothing should stop you from at least calling them every once in a while to find out how school is going or to say happy birthday.

All it takes to be a good parent is to make sure your child is safe, they receive a good overall education, and speak to them regularly. Express interest in what the child likes to do. Find out what they are learning in school. Ask them about their friends. These are simple things that can be done that will let your child know that you care for them. Easy as pie...

The bottom line is that the only excuse in the world to not communicate with your child is if you are dead.

This post is not meant to raise ill will or challenge the pride or ego of anyone. It is meant to hopefully cause at least one person to make better decisions in the interest of being a better parent. If this post makes just one parent pick-up the phone to talk to their child, I have done my job.

Short and sweet... Think about it.

Personal Update

Mon, 11 Dec 2006 06:00:00 GMT

PersonalMon, 11 Dec 2006 06:00:00 GMT

Not that any of you out there care as much as I do, but my daughter will be coming back to visit this week. I am really excited! I expect development to slow down tremendously while she is here. Also, there are new pictures in the online photo gallery. I have finally caught up on posting those. Enjoy!

My Truck

Sun, 06 Aug 2006 05:00:00 GMT

I was recently asked for pictures of my truck. To give you a bit of background on it, the bearings were bad in the original engine, so I was forced to let my truck sit for a while. Well, two and a half years later, several thousand dollars later and many new parts later (including an engine), you can see what she looks like now in my picture gallery. Enjoy! (If the pictures suck, blame my girlfriend. It was her first time using our new camera.)

My Truck - Her name is Angel

My Online Family Photo Album is Posted

Sat, 15 Jul 2006 05:00:00 GMT

FYI - The link has been to the right --> for a few weeks now, but as of tonight I have just completed posting all of the newest pictures. Take a look! Enjoy, but don't steal! :)

http://www.strohlsitedesign.com/Gallery/

Family Photo

Wed, 05 Jul 2006 05:00:00 GMT

My daughter Paige has come to visit. Here is a family photo of all of us! Pictured (from left to right): Kohen, Kimbereley, Me, Paige, Kariann

Update... and Code Camp

Sat, 22 Apr 2006 05:00:00 GMT

Well, it has been (once again) a while since I last posted. A bunch of cool things have happened. My new job is going well, I got my truck fixed and repainted (photos to come soon), and I have been working (which is playing to me) hard.

I really wanted to post about an event I attended somewhat recently called .Net Code Camp. It was held at the UCF Campus in Orlando, Florida and it ran several tracks simultaneously to center in on whatever subject you wanted to learn more about and network with others on. I have no idea how detailed the Code Camp would be until I got there. I failed to check the information posted on their web site.

In order to appropriately highlight what I got out of this event, I should tell you a bit more about myself...

Several years ago I was tasked with providing a new web site for the companys intranet. The previous one I had been simply updating with new content. It was similar to most things you find on the internet where someone says "I can build a web site" and the end result is something static with a single column of links and animated GIFs. In this case I was lucky and the previous people to edit the site actually knew a bit about HTML, so there was some organization to it. However, no time or design effort was given to add any scalability or flexibility to the site in the UI or the back-end programming (yes, there was some ASP done).

In planning to replace the site with something that more correctly addressed the needs of the company, I came across the common idea that this company needed a portal. Answers.com has definitions for what a portal is, so I won't bore you with it.

I searched online for a while with my favorite tool, Google. :) After some research, I kept hitting on something called IBuySpy Portal. Within some of my freebies from previous events I had been to and magazines I had subscribed to, I remembered that I disk I was given or sent had this term on it. I proceeded to and found that they had some resources to support it. There was a download and information section and a forum with plenty of users who were using and extending it. This inspired me to do the same, so several months later the new intranet web site was released to the company and it was received with open arms. I was even rewarded with our annual IT award for the web site.

If you don't already know, the IBuySpy Portal was a great start for any portal web site, but it was also very incomplete. I had to write my own Active Directory back-end for it. I also created a built-in page creation mechanism. There was so much more done to it. Also, with the different needs of various departments, I had the need to create sub-portals to account for larger amounts of information and varying needs for the way users logged in. This is only a few of the many upgrades it received. It became nearly unrecognizable, except for the fact that I didn't change the build name.

I found out about 6 months later that right after I had committed myself to this project another portal was released as an open source solution using the very same .Net language I was using. It is called DotNetNuke. This new portal offered all of the things that I had built, and much more.

About 3 or more years of maintaining that site and then moving on to a new company, DotNetNuke has become a monster compared to what it once was. So, while this new employer wants a portal solution, I now have a chance to use DotNetNuke to provide a base for the intranet and internet web site for this employer. Right out of the box, I have already save myself MONTHS of development and debugging time. I can deploy this solution and simply write new DotNetNuke modules to plug right in to the current portal. I do not have to worry about security, it is already taken care of for me. I simply use the built-in features to handle this for me.

While I have already been debugging and testing DotNetNuke in this new environment and I have not yet made it live, this .Net Code Camp came up. I wanted to go for pretty much the same reasons that everyone else does. I wanted to learn things that other people have been able to learn from their projects that have differed from mine, and I also wanted to network with others who are more experienced than I am.

To my great surprise there were several different tracks available which focused on various topics. However, the one at the very end of the list caught my eye. It said DotNetNuke!!! I was ecstatic. I immediately committed myself to sit in that one room all day long. I wanted to soak up everything that these other people have learned to give myself a head-start on my newest journey.

The track was great. I learned a lot of things. The speakers and attendees all were from varying backgrounds and had different focuses with DotNetNuke itself. As you would expect, the track began with an introduction to DotNetNuke, and ended with some more complicated stuff, only to be followed by a question and answer session. It was highly useful. It was a dream come true, so to speak.

Also, the organizers, Orlando Dot Net Users Group, did an excellent job of getting speakers and freebies there. Not only was the event completely free, but they even threw in a free lunch and a semi-free event to follow at a local bar & grill. From what they said the speakers were not paid to be there, but they also brought their own freebies and made it a point to be there and let us pick their brains. It was a brilliant success. Many of the speakers I have seen before at expensive and free Microsoft Events as well.

To sum up all of my babbling above, if you run across a .Net Boot Camp in your area GO TO IT!!! It may not be as good as the one I went to, but it is definitely worth your time. Thank you to all of the organizers and speakers who attended! Thank you so much!

Now, I just want to give a plug to a few of the speakers that I had the pleasure of listening to and learning from (not that they need it). Thank you all for your time and sharing your experience! If you have time, visit these folks:

Ryan Morgan - http://www.arrowdesigns.com/
Tracy Wittenkeller - http://www.t-worx.com/
Stan Shultes - http://www.vbnetexpert.com/

Out with the old and in with the new...

Wed, 01 Mar 2006 06:00:00 GMT

Well, today was my first day at a new job. After being there for 5 years, it was a tough decision to make. I will miss you guys (and gals). For now on thoughout my entire blog, whenever you see me refer to guys or you guys, please know that I am referring to my beloved friends at my previous employer.

At my previous employer I was officially titled "Web Programmer". However, I performed all web administration, web site design/architecture and maintenance on all of our Intranet web sites. So, my "unoffical" title was Intranet Web Administrator. I gave myself that one. It didn't matter because nearly everyone there would make-up their titles in e-mail signatures anyway. Some took it too far. We began adding some pretty funny and outrageous titles to ours just to make fun of the others. For instance, one of mine was "Internet Usage Engineer". That was mainly supposed to hint that I am a person who uses the internet. (On a side note guys, the receptionist today was pranked with a fart machine this afternoon! Hahaha!)

It is way too soon to formulate a formal opinion on my current (new) employer, but so far everything seems great! I am taking them from being a PHP and MySQL shop (one person shop) to an ASP.Net 2.0 & SQL Server streamlined mean machine! Hehehe...

One major difference between the two though is "tools". Merriam Webster Dictionary defines tool like so:

Main Entry: tool
Pronunciation: 'tül
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English tOl; akin to Old English tawian to prepare for use -- more at TAW
1 a : a handheld device that aids in accomplishing a task b (1) : the cutting or shaping part in a machine or machine tool (2) : a machine for shaping metal : MACHINE TOOL
2 a : something (as an instrument or apparatus) used in performing an operation or necessary in the practice of a vocation or profession "a scholar's books are his tools" b : a means to an end "a book's cover can be a marketing tool" c often vulgar : PENIS
3 : one that is used or manipulated by another
4 plural : natural ability "has all the tools"

Clearly a tool seems to be useful and necessary. However, the former employer would rather have you spend more man hours building the tool versus the actual cost of buying it out of the box and moving on. It would have been more productive and in the end more cost effective to buy the tool and focus more on the functionality of the applications and projects. This new employer encourages the use of "tools" to complete the job function.

Have you seen The Daily Show with Jon Stewart? If you have, you can imagine him when he hears or sees something that he cannot believe. He rubs his eyes with both hands and does a double take, "Wha..." Everytime I am asked if I need anything else following the acquisition of another tool, I am doing that inside. It is quite a culture shock. It has taken great restraint to not ask for every tool out there, but when would I find time to use them all???

Friggin' Gas Prices

Wed, 13 Apr 2005 05:00:00 GMT

I was on my way back from lunch with a couple co-workers and we were coming up on a gas station. Immediately, one of them got excited and exclaimed, "Gas is $2.19 here!" Our gas situation for the past 6 years has been very upsetting for me. The most obvious reason would of course be the amount of money that we keep having to fork out for gasoline. The secondary reason is because I know something CAN and SHOULD be done about it by our government. Gee, I wonder why nothing has been done...

(Make your own assessment here)

The thing that really urks me about it is things like I mentioned above. Our gas prices continue to go up and up, and up. After rising about 50 cents, they will get lowered 10 cents or so, and in no time you have people getting happy about the gas prices STILL BEING HIGH!

This little game being played (and not played) by the politicians is getting unbearable. Why is it that we have homeless and dying children in the streets, but we have congressional hearings on baseball and single lifeless person? We have uncountable problems here in our very own country, but only the most trivial ones seemed to get solved. And most of the time what is presented to us as a solution oftentimes ends up being another way to delay the problem further.

Someone please do something about the gas prices! There are many different solutions that would work just fine. We just need someone to take their eyes off of their next election and actually listen to their constituents for once. Yeah, imagine that! An elected official actually basing actions and decisions on behalf of their constituents. Wouldn't that be something new?!

Another one disconnected from reality

Tue, 12 Apr 2005 05:00:00 GMT

I just read a quote in MaximumPC from a game developer. If it is true, then my nightmares of customer service extinction are true as well.

"Through our own research we know that most gamers want in-game advertisements to heighten the sense of realism."
- Funcom

Their own research??? Yeah, this is the same research conducted by their sales department amongst their executives, right?

I am not a "gamer" in the truest sense of the word, but do I even need to comment further? (I will!) In an age where advertisements have covered cars, web pages, billboards, television screens (during and between programs), periodicals, clothing, movies, e-mails, and nearly every open space known to man, wouldn't it be more amicable to actual escape that portion of reality for a little while? It sounds like this statement was made by deep pockets reaching deeper.

What happened to PARENTING?!

Mon, 11 Apr 2005 05:00:00 GMT

I have read several articles recently about a bill going through and getting passed in the house "preventing teens from buying violent or sexually explicit games". If you just leave it at that, then it sounds wonderful, right? How about NO! What is really happening is the so-called "hands-off" republican and conservative base looking for more brownie points during their politcal career. There used to be a time when these types of things were left to the discretion and responsibility of parents.

What are parents you ask? One of the definitions at Answers.com says that a parent is a protector or a gaurdian. However, there are several other definitions, and perhaps this is where the problem with the local and federal governments lies. The rest of the definitions leave it as vague as stating that a parent is one who births another. Hell, any man who walks into a sperm bank is a parent then, right? Maybe I am the conservative in this arena, because I always thought a parent was the person responsible for a child - a guardian.

It seems that although our elected politicians will not come out and say it, we are obviously not responsible enough to raise our own kids. This is the message that these legislators are sending to the American public. Our conservative portions of the nation are so blind in their own agendas of just fighting against the so-called liberal movement that they will do anything to win a "battle" against them. In the meantime we suffer through such tragedies as the Patriot Act, and this newest bill because people are too lazy to open their mouths when it REALLY counts.

You are quick to announce when you get a raise or have a vacation, but when your rights are being strategically narrowed at every local and federal government session, you just sit there and twiddle your thumbs, why? It is not like you do not have access to the information. You must stand up and voice your concerns. Even if you are not a parent yet, you need to say something now because you may be one day.

The ESRB is releasing a new rating which will reside between the Everyone and Teen rating, Teen 10+. It is designed to designate that the game is not for any children younger than 10 years old. This is to eliminate games that have content like super heroes fighting and race cars crashing. What is next? Cartoon chracters playing pranks are innappropriate? How many of you looked up to Superman and Spider-Man when they would engage in a heated battle with their nemesis and eventually win because they are on the side of good, not evil? Did you turn out so bad? (Hopefully, you are not reading from a prison library!)

Some of the most violent content on television for many years was the good old Warner Brothers cartoons. What's more violent, a boulder being thrown onto Whilee Coyote for no particular reason other than to showcase it as humor, or a super hero throwing a couple jabs and saving a city? I am by no means saying that the Warner Brothers cartoons are bad, evil, or otherwise unwise for our youth to see. What I am saying it that this really needs to be put into perspective.

It seems to me that the parents who are getting behind this really have a screw loose, or they are simply too lazy to monitor their own children. They are so lazy that they are willing to let a polictician who is so disconnected from reality that they believe that these games are encouraging violent behavior in children decide what is best for their own children.

Let me clue you in on something. The problem with violence in youngsters is not that there is a cartoon using the word "fire", or that video game had a couple fights in it. The violence in children is from them being raised by outside sources. Your average family will sit a child in front of a computer or television and tell them to be quiet, when they should actually be reading to them, going over homework, or participating in any other number of family activities. Parents are not listening to their children or giving them the attention that they not only deserve, but that they also REQUIRE in order to grow into a well-rounded and responsibile citizen in our society.

These children will one day make decisions that will forever govern our way of life, and todays parents are throwing their future into the hands of politicians blindly. Shame on everyone who does not know the facts and are backing this movement.

What has happened to Customer Service?!

Fri, 08 Apr 2005 07:00:00 GMT

Customer service is something that each and every consumer once took for granted. Now, most business owners, and supervisors wouldn't recognize it was if it hit them in their groins. It has seemingly become an endangered species.

In every industry it comes in a variety of fashions. It could be a cashier (or "associate" as companies like to say now) simply taking the time to explain selling points of a product. Sometimes, this is a simple as using a respectful tone and language while on a telephone call. There are many different ways to provide excellent customer service without much effort at all. Sometimes, customer service is to people who are not even customers, or who are potential customers later down the road. For instance, an internal Technical Support Call Center would provide service to their own employees. Each fellow employee is a customer. Professional drivers deal directly with customers during each lane change and intersection - provided that there are other drivers on the road.

It is deeply saddening that customer service values are going on the way side. I have found myself boycotting more and more companies due to it. This is not to say that excellent customer service does not exist. It definitely does. However, these days it normally takes a complaint in order to see results.

I have dealt with representatives from companies like Bed Bath & Beyond, Taco Bell, 7-11, Subway, K-Mart, and more. (Yes, there was more than just the food industry.) These are normally all companies which portray a front that tells me they are serious about customer service practices. Although, 7-11 has proven to me otherwise since. Each company provides a method for you to easily provide feedback on customer service experiences in their business - good and bad. As with all other aspects of customer service, the company must adapt to the needs of the consumer. This should not be limited to various methods of sales. This should also be applied to all areas of consumer interaction.

I am namely speaking about methods of contact. If I am the type of person who enjoys filling out a card and dropping it in the mail or a comment box, so be it. Should I be the type of person who prefers to speak to someone over the phone, it should be made available. And if I should find myself as the type of person who prefers sending in an e-mail - this should be an option to me, as a consumer.

I am also a small business owner. Every single person in the world is a potential customer and must be treated accordingly.

Not only am I a small business owner, but I also keep a full-time job for stability. These days in this country, it is imperative that you have more than one plan to stay afloat. Now, in my interactions with various people throughout the day, I have business cards which are given out, a web site address, contact forms online, P.O. Box for mail, e-mail addresses, and a phone number - all of which can be used to contact my company for ANYTHING. This is a great example of such a small piece of good customer service.

Recently, I have been noticing a downward trend at a business I frequent at least once a week for breakfast on my "running-late" mornings. This is a Burger King location near my full-time job. Usually, their service is palatable, and their food substantially good (we are speaking about fast food afterall). However, lately I have been given wrong orders, burnt food, wrong order sizes, etc. I am a patient person, so I always wait it out initially to see how things go before my first complaint. This place has not changed and you never truely know what you have until you are several blocks away and you bite into a cold sandwich, or burnt bacon.

Today I decided to complain about them and another local appliance sales and service company, ServCo. Low and behold, a large corporation like Burger King cannot provide an online form, or e-mail address to contact them about this specific problem. This is simply not acceptable. The ServCo company has less information to be found online. All I have to go on is an address and phone number. By the way, one of their vehicles was cutting off vehicle after vehicle south-bound on the Florida Turnpike this morning. Thanks to our forward movements in technology, I have a couple great pictures of this.

In this time of hurry up and hurry up some more, all method should be provided to account for the consumers needs and resources. This is just one of many deficient areas of customer service today. In my opinion, the number one deficiency is training. I do not mean the diploma type either. Some things can only be learned in the work force - by capable supervisors.

The same type that will run a red light

Fri, 08 Apr 2005 07:00:00 GMT

This is the same type of person that will run a red light 2 seconds after it turns. By the way, I know who this is. He preaches cancer awareness and wears a Lance Armstrong bracelet, but smokes whenever he gets a chance. There is a word for that, but and not sure if I can say it...

Oh well, what the heck - DUMBASS!

The Patriot Act Strikes Again

Thu, 07 Apr 2005 07:00:00 GMT

Recently we in Central Florida have made the national news spotlight again. If it were only for a good reason this time...

Over the years, we have been featured for many things, but I am having a problem remembering the last time it was something positive. Yes, we dealt with not having sufficient support and supplies following the hurricanes last year, but that is about it.

In Orlando we have a Mayor accused of having absentee ballots illegally collected during the last mayoral election. In Minneola, our mayor was accused of drunk driving and getting an illegal coutesy ride home. Lake County has a newly elected sheriff who chose to excerise his own judgement on a law prohibiting election campaign signs from being on vehicles - in his case he chose to put a banner covering the entire side of a semi trailer which was conveniently parked on the side of the most busy road in Lake County. In Seminole county we had another drunk driving incident by an elected official where he initially denied being drunk throughout the traffic stop and court proceedings.

And who can easily forget our Schaivo fiasco which has so generously provided us with news coverage for 15 years now... The most recent story uncovers our controversially elected Mel Martinez having a memo sent from his office detailing talking points on how to use the Schaivo case to gain voter support among a specific voter base.

Now, the long-time sherrif of Orange County has gone and done it again! Sheriff Kevin Beary is accused of illegally using goverment resources to track down a woman who sent a letter in to the local newspaper criticizing him and his policies using stun guns. According to local media sources and his own department, he ordered the retreival of the womans home address using the States' Department of Motor Vehicles drivers license records.

Although the sheriff's office maintains that this was a legal use of power in obtaining the womans personal information, the law clearly states that such action can only be taken in the event that it would lead to additional information through a criminal investigation. The community as a whole are scratching their heads on this one. Did we miss something? Is it a criminal offense to criticized an elected official now?

After the Patriot Act, it is now easier for law enforcement to legally gain access to the personal information of any person they choose to investigate. This looks to me like another of many under publicized events directly related to the nearly communist-styled Patriot Act. It would be more appropriately called "The U.S. Government's Indecency and Immoral Prosecution Act". This would be closer to the truth. I have an idea, let's create about 15 committees to look into this and other similar cases so they can all report the same thing.

I believe our biggest opponent to getting all of this straightened out is our national media. Whether it be global-reaching newspapers, or cable/major network news organizations, they are simply too stupid to realize one thing - the truth. Their responsibility is not to gain ratings. Their responsibility is to report NEWS. This means that we see Michael Jackson sneezing before entering the courthouse, but we didn't find out about President Bush signing a controversial bill. This is rediculous.

My blog on Sheriff Beary has turned into a rant. Basically, the american public is tired of several things:

Elected officials getting special "perks" and not being held accountable for their decisions (have you seen the latest report on the WMD's???)
The news organizations reporting on useless news (who cares if Joe Schmoe lost American Idol?!?!)
Being bullied by our government - however I can say that I didn't vote for this Presidential administration either term - can you?

There are only a few ways to prevent these things from happening in the future:

Be active in your local governments - Know what they are talking about and when;, and elect persons into those positions that you have done reasearch on
Read the news from several news sources - Google news is a great starting point
Read between the lines when a politician speaks - they NEVER say the truth outright, only enough of it to not lie (sometimes that isn't even true)
Write your Congressman and Representative regularly!

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