Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Why So Quiet?

For those (three - haha) of you who read this, sorry I have been out of touch the last couple of weeks. I just returned from my annual trip to Dayton for Marianist LIFE Central (more info here). Each summer, we have a week-long retreat for high school students and I am on the planning/coordinating team, plus the lead music minister.

We had a community of 66 students and 31 adult moderators and had a great week. I'm still kind of tired but it was all worth it, as usual.

eWeek Article on Competitors to Exchange 2007

Saw this article in eWeek describing some of the competitors to the upcoming Exchange 2007. Some good quotes from Ken Bisconti are in there.

My question is why the only quotes related to Notes/Domino are from IBMers (well, except for the "senior solutions engineer" who has used Lotus Notes in the past but "feels that has a much more user friendly end-user experience with Exchange")? Where are the business partners, integrators and non-IBM evangelists? The article links to the Application Analyzer and Data Migrator tools, which have been thoroughly dissected by Paul Mooney, David DeWell and others but there is no mention of how the tools may not work all that well. Heck, a simple Google search turns up both Paul's and David's analyses in the first 10 results.

Maybe some in our community need to make themselves known to more journalists.

Friday, July 7, 2006

Goodbye, Stevie Y.

I can't believe that Rob and The Lion King haven't posted anything about this (but Phil has), but I was saddened to see Steve Yzerman retire from the Red Wings. I know it had to happen some time and that the last couple of years have been painful for him (and, at times, painful to watch) but it is still sad.

He has been my favorite player since I started really following the Wings about 20 years ago. From his early days of flying around the ice, seemingly scoring goals at will, to the later years of making the necessary plays and steadying the ship when needed, he has been fun to watch. I still wince when I think about him sliding into the goal post and wrecking his knee. And I can still picture a few years ago playing against Pittsburgh, weaving through players and scoring while being ridden toward the boards and skating on one leg.

I doubt I will ever get one (because I don't really need it), but I've always said if I bought another hockey jersey, it would be a white #19 Red Wings jersey. Too bad they won't have a Stanley Cup banner to raise at the same time they retire his number this fall. Thanks, Steve!