So, once again, we are at the day that, in Australia, marks the beginning of the end of the year - Melbourne Cup.
As always, I had my usual flutter - the office sweeps, and a couple of bets at the TAB. I did ok this year (but only if I can claim my family's win as my own!). Collectively, we came out in front, but the best I could do was 2nd place.
My bets this year (and where they finished) were:
$5 Each way:
Maybe Better (scratched)
Blue Monday (7th)
Zipping (4th)
Master O'Reilly (the favourite) (8th)
Purple Moon (2nd) - my only winner.
Tim had the winner Efficient in a $10 bet, so that was our big family win, and Emily managed to pick up Purple Moon, and so got second place in the office sweeps.
Once again, Tim was 1 horse off the box trifecta... If only Zipping had come third we would have been celebrating big time!
For those who care - the results.
Melbourne Cup 2007
laurette rynne - November 06, 2007Still alive
laurette rynne - August 23, 2007
For those wondering, now I haven't disappeared of the face of the earth, just into motherhood! I am taking a well-earned break while Emily sleeps to catch up on some emails and I thought I should write a quick blog, just so any remaining readers know I'm still around.
The last few months have gone by very quickly. Em is now 7 1/2 months old, and is almost crawling. She's getting so big, and so full of energy she saps most of mine! Anyone interested can check out Em's very own blog for updates & photos.
Aside from motherhood, I have been working part time for the last 3 or 4 months. I do 2 days in the office, and a few hours from home. I'm finding it a nice balance, helps me use my brain for things other than nursery rhymes, but I'm not away from Em too much. Luckily, my Mum is able to look after her, so I haven't had to find child care yet. And of course, Nan & Pop love having their "Emily days". I still haven't decided which is more of a break - work or baby... although there is something nice about spending Wednesday afternoons in the park or pub with other Mums.
From a work perspective, I'm still doing Notes/Domino development, and still enjoying it, although it's very hard to be smack in the middle of debugging code, and then realise that you have to go to get home for your daughter.
Although you wouldn't know it from the site, things are moving too with Openslice, we have a new version (almost ready to call it 1.0!) in use now at our client site, but haven't yet updated the website. Keep an eye out, as hopefully things will start happening soon.
The last few months have gone by very quickly. Em is now 7 1/2 months old, and is almost crawling. She's getting so big, and so full of energy she saps most of mine! Anyone interested can check out Em's very own blog for updates & photos.
Aside from motherhood, I have been working part time for the last 3 or 4 months. I do 2 days in the office, and a few hours from home. I'm finding it a nice balance, helps me use my brain for things other than nursery rhymes, but I'm not away from Em too much. Luckily, my Mum is able to look after her, so I haven't had to find child care yet. And of course, Nan & Pop love having their "Emily days". I still haven't decided which is more of a break - work or baby... although there is something nice about spending Wednesday afternoons in the park or pub with other Mums.
From a work perspective, I'm still doing Notes/Domino development, and still enjoying it, although it's very hard to be smack in the middle of debugging code, and then realise that you have to go to get home for your daughter.
Although you wouldn't know it from the site, things are moving too with Openslice, we have a new version (almost ready to call it 1.0!) in use now at our client site, but haven't yet updated the website. Keep an eye out, as hopefully things will start happening soon.
A new Shire girl is born...
laurette rynne - June 13, 2007
Anyone who has lived in the Sutherland Shire, and probably a large number of others who live in Sydney, would know "Northies". For the rest of you - Northies is a pub at Cronulla Beach. For as long as I can remember, and probably longer than that, it has been "The" pub at Cronulla. Many a lazy Sunday afternoon (and quite a few manic Friday & Saturday nights) have been spent at Northies over the course of my adult (& teenage!) life.
The reason for this post is that today, Emily - at the grand old age of 5 1/2 months - has had her first Northies experience - and it looks to become a regular outing!
For the last 3 - 4 months, every Wednesday afternoon has been spent at one of the many parks or beaches at Cronulla with the other Mums & bubs I have met through the local Early Childhood Clinic. However, now that winter is finally on us, it has become a bit too cold to have all the little ones outside. As pubs are now all smoke-free, it has been possible for us to move our group to Northies. The pub has a nice area at one end with lounges and lots of floor space to fit in 10 - 12 prams, and blankets for the babies to lie (roll, sit, not-yet-crawl) on. Of course, it also means that it's easy for the mums to have a coffee, or a coke, or even a wine while we "watch" the babies.
Yep - motherhood is pretty tough sometimes!
The reason for this post is that today, Emily - at the grand old age of 5 1/2 months - has had her first Northies experience - and it looks to become a regular outing!
For the last 3 - 4 months, every Wednesday afternoon has been spent at one of the many parks or beaches at Cronulla with the other Mums & bubs I have met through the local Early Childhood Clinic. However, now that winter is finally on us, it has become a bit too cold to have all the little ones outside. As pubs are now all smoke-free, it has been possible for us to move our group to Northies. The pub has a nice area at one end with lounges and lots of floor space to fit in 10 - 12 prams, and blankets for the babies to lie (roll, sit, not-yet-crawl) on. Of course, it also means that it's easy for the mums to have a coffee, or a coke, or even a wine while we "watch" the babies.
Yep - motherhood is pretty tough sometimes!
Anzac Day - Commemoration & Celebrations
laurette rynne - April 26, 2007
Today is Anzac Day in Australia, a day of rememberance of those who have served and sacrificed as part of the Australian Defence Forces. It is a special day for all Australians, but for my family it will now be even more special as I have become an Aunty today. My brother & his wife have had their first baby - a little girl, Sascha Frances. As you can imagine, this is quite something for my parents, who became grandparents for the first time in January when our Emily was born.
Congratulations to Bill & Suze - good luck on this grand adventure!
Congratulations to Bill & Suze - good luck on this grand adventure!
Lotusphere comes to you - Sydney
laurette rynne - February 28, 2007
Yesterday was my first attempt to get back into work since Emily arrived as I went along to LCTY. It was a strange morning for me - my Mum stepped up to Grandma duties and came in town with me, and was looking after Emily during the sessions. It was hard, at times, to keep my mind on the speakers and not wondering what Emily was doing - was she crying, eating, sleeping (missing me?!?). For what its worth, I think it was much easier on Emily and Grandma than on me.
The first thing I can say is no different to what I said last year - it seems a bit strange to be calling this "Lotusphere", as it's clearly nothing compared to the real thing. Really, LCTY is just market update and product launch combined. While this is good, and it as great to see a big turn-out again, it's not the full technical and business conference which this region desperately needs.
Even knowing what LCTY is, I was a little disappointed in the 4 breakout sessions on offer this year. First there was a choice between mobile technology or "The Lotus Software Strategy for Team Collaboration and Document Management" which turned out to be a detailed session on Quickr (the new Quickplace). Second there was a choice between Websphere Portal & e-Forms, or Sametime. While there was a great demo of Notes 8 during the opening session, there was no session covering anything more on this - which is really the major reason most people would have been there.
So, that's the disappointments. Now for the good.
The keynote presentation, and demos were excellent. Great strong messages coming from Lotus that shows, again, that Lotus is
starting to make a grand comeback. The messages about product growth, both globally and locally, were extremely positive, and there was a real sense that Lotus isn't playing defense anymore - Microsoft was hardly even mentioned, which made for a nice change.
The Lotus Product Strategy was clear - 5 product lines - Domino, Sametime, Quickr (Quickplace), Connections (social computing - blogs, wikis etc) and Websphere Portal. Interestingly there was no mention of Workplace - did I miss something, is it gone altogether? I think this is a really strong product grouping, covering all the areas that Lotus has traditionally dominated, and the strategy places Lotus in a great position to cover the growth areas - especially in some of the new "trendy" areas - IM, blogs, wikis etc.
The other important message, which is clearly represented in the new products coming out of Lotus, is that there is a new focus on the end-user experience. Some people would say this is too little too late, but I think it's a sign that Lotus has finally got their direction clear, and the engines underneath are sound and there is now time to get the pretty stuff right. Don't get me wrong - I am a big user interface person, and I think Lotus has been lacking in this, but I also think much of the criticism of Notes UI should have been directed at developers, not Lotus itself.
The demo of Notes 8 showed some pretty cool stuff I hadn't seen before, and hinted at some things that I really wanted to get more technical detail on (for instance does the export to PDF work in apps or only from the composite editors? If it's only from the editors, when will this change??) I am looking forward to March when the public beta is available - can't wait to play around with it, even more - can't wait to be able to develop with it...
The two sessions I went to covered Quickr and Sametime. The Sametime presentation was a little disappointing as it mostly covered Sametime 7.5, which, while fantastic looking, didn't cover anything really new for me, so I don't have much to say about that. Quickr however, looks fantastic. It looks like it is finally reaching the goals that Quickplace was designed to meet. I was never a big fan of Quickplace, and detested TeamRoom. I found them clunky and hard to use, and hated the isolated nature of Quickplace. Quickr looks like it resolves many of these issues, and could be a much easier "sell" - providing it has the right technical features (information we didn't get in this high level session). I still have some concerns about the integration with existing apps, and also what sort of client install is required for the connectors, but the end result looks good enough to overcome many issues, and I also can't wait for it's launch later this year.
All in all, it was a great morning, and has set Lotus up for a great year. The future, apparently, is yellow!
The first thing I can say is no different to what I said last year - it seems a bit strange to be calling this "Lotusphere", as it's clearly nothing compared to the real thing. Really, LCTY is just market update and product launch combined. While this is good, and it as great to see a big turn-out again, it's not the full technical and business conference which this region desperately needs.
Even knowing what LCTY is, I was a little disappointed in the 4 breakout sessions on offer this year. First there was a choice between mobile technology or "The Lotus Software Strategy for Team Collaboration and Document Management" which turned out to be a detailed session on Quickr (the new Quickplace). Second there was a choice between Websphere Portal & e-Forms, or Sametime. While there was a great demo of Notes 8 during the opening session, there was no session covering anything more on this - which is really the major reason most people would have been there.
So, that's the disappointments. Now for the good.
The keynote presentation, and demos were excellent. Great strong messages coming from Lotus that shows, again, that Lotus is
starting to make a grand comeback. The messages about product growth, both globally and locally, were extremely positive, and there was a real sense that Lotus isn't playing defense anymore - Microsoft was hardly even mentioned, which made for a nice change.
The Lotus Product Strategy was clear - 5 product lines - Domino, Sametime, Quickr (Quickplace), Connections (social computing - blogs, wikis etc) and Websphere Portal. Interestingly there was no mention of Workplace - did I miss something, is it gone altogether? I think this is a really strong product grouping, covering all the areas that Lotus has traditionally dominated, and the strategy places Lotus in a great position to cover the growth areas - especially in some of the new "trendy" areas - IM, blogs, wikis etc.
The other important message, which is clearly represented in the new products coming out of Lotus, is that there is a new focus on the end-user experience. Some people would say this is too little too late, but I think it's a sign that Lotus has finally got their direction clear, and the engines underneath are sound and there is now time to get the pretty stuff right. Don't get me wrong - I am a big user interface person, and I think Lotus has been lacking in this, but I also think much of the criticism of Notes UI should have been directed at developers, not Lotus itself.
The demo of Notes 8 showed some pretty cool stuff I hadn't seen before, and hinted at some things that I really wanted to get more technical detail on (for instance does the export to PDF work in apps or only from the composite editors? If it's only from the editors, when will this change??) I am looking forward to March when the public beta is available - can't wait to play around with it, even more - can't wait to be able to develop with it...
The two sessions I went to covered Quickr and Sametime. The Sametime presentation was a little disappointing as it mostly covered Sametime 7.5, which, while fantastic looking, didn't cover anything really new for me, so I don't have much to say about that. Quickr however, looks fantastic. It looks like it is finally reaching the goals that Quickplace was designed to meet. I was never a big fan of Quickplace, and detested TeamRoom. I found them clunky and hard to use, and hated the isolated nature of Quickplace. Quickr looks like it resolves many of these issues, and could be a much easier "sell" - providing it has the right technical features (information we didn't get in this high level session). I still have some concerns about the integration with existing apps, and also what sort of client install is required for the connectors, but the end result looks good enough to overcome many issues, and I also can't wait for it's launch later this year.
All in all, it was a great morning, and has set Lotus up for a great year. The future, apparently, is yellow!