Project Diary: Xtools (9)

 Nortel, WebDev  2 Responses »
Nov 232008
 

I’ve not made any updates lately because I’ve been learning AJAX coding techniques and I’ve been working instead on the hotfix parser.  AJAX has a lot debate on what exactly it is (which is weird), but the definition used in the book that I’m reading (and on Wikipedia) is that it is essentially a client-side programming technique that permits the website designer to asynchronously load content from the website to the client browser.

This means more streamlined content display experiences than you would normally experience from a traditional webpage.  An example would be Yahoo or Google Maps.  Both use AJAX techniques to load map data without refreshing the entire page.

The purpose of this education is the realization that I load a significant amount of page overhead (a wrapper, if you will) around the DNB data and that I could improve the load speed if I could convert the page to an AJAX enabled app (allowing me to load content in to the browser and then “page” between it without refreshing the page.)

I figure that approximately 15-20% of my page is overhead (CSS stylesheet, template information, navigation, images, etc.)  Cutting that data transfer out of each page change would be a pretty dramatic increase in my page efficiency (and make it more user friendly).

Granted, AJAX breaks the traditional BACK BUTTON functionality that we come to expect from our web browsers, but I think that’s a small price to pay.

Additionally, the hotfix parser has become much more appealing to me as a next project than the ESN parser.  I’ve been doing a lot of Microsoft hotfix patch checking on a few customer’s Contact Center and CallPilot servers at work, and this effort would have been dramatically more efficient if I had this parser.

I’ve completed the client-side VBScript that will capture all of the data that I require.  I’ve determined that Windows Installer is required to collect information about what programs are installed on a Server (not critical, but useful information) and even determined how to gracefully handle Windows Installer being missing (thus, preventing the collection of the Programs Installed info.)

Next is to start building the database tables and work on the server-side parser.

 Posted by John Williams at 7:00 am  Tagged with:

Competitor files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection

 Telecom  No Responses »
Nov 212008
 

Bloomberg posted an article on my birthday annoucing that NetVersant (one of the competitors in my employers space) filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection.

Obviously they’re not out for the count, but in this tightening market and continuing recession, this is an opportunity for all of NetVersant’s competitors.  To the best of my knowledge, this is the first large Nortel Telecom distributor that has filed any Bankruptcy papers (although Black Box was NextiraOne recently, and before that they were Williams Communications… and Shared Technologies has traded hands about 4 times in the last 9 or so years…  Intermedia, MCIWorldcom, Allegiance Telecom and now privately owned.)

It’s been tough for all Nortel Telecom distributors in the last few years (for a number of reasons).

 Posted by John Williams at 3:43 pm  Tagged with:

Where I’ve been

 Personal, Work  2 Responses »
Nov 142008
 

Well, I went to Mexico (a cruise) for a week, and then I was sequester for a week of training and then I spent a week out of town on an install.  Next week, I’m doing another install so I’ve not really had a lot of energy at end-of-day to make a blog post.

Hopefully I’ll get photos up on the website soon of my different travels.

 Posted by John Williams at 11:18 am

Microsoft Archive: Event Viewer

 CMD  No Responses »
Nov 032008
 

Event Viewer can be easily accessed using Start > Run > eventvwr.msc

 Posted by John Williams at 6:43 pm

Project Diary: Xtools (8)

 Nortel, WebDev  No Responses »
Oct 232008
 

Brought the 0.10.2 revision over to the production site as it fixes a number of critical bugs.  I’m still working on 0.11.0, which begins the implementation of the ESN parser.  All database tables have been generated and the upgrade code has been written in to the core plugin code so that when it’s moved over to the production site, it’ll be automatically upgraded to the latest/greatest.

 Posted by John Williams at 6:00 pm

Project Diary: Xtools (7)

 Nortel, WebDev  No Responses »
Oct 192008
 
  1. Revised all Xtools templates to continue to output the content of the page from WordPress (for notes/comments/documentation links/etc).
  2. Documented known bugs in a publically accessible format (in preparation for adding more beta testers)
    1. DNB Parsing, Best Practices
    2. DNB Types [static list]
  3. Documented best practices in a publically accessible format (same as above)
  4. Continued work on ESN parser & templates

 Posted by John Williams at 3:12 pm

Project Diary: Xtools (6)

 Nortel, WebDev  No Responses »
Oct 162008
 

Resolved all outstanding bugs from v0.10.0 (frankly, I’m embarressed to discover how many critical bugs there were in this release… but they’re all fixed now.) and began working on implementing the new parser.  The next one will be a alternate route selection parser.  NARS/BARS/CDP etc.

All my programming time has diminished my attentiveness to building the ARS 101 tutorial that was my original SEP goal, but I think it’s a fair trade.

Finally finished building the SQL entries and rough sketching out how I wanted to fit all of the pieces of the ESN database together.  This kind of development work is really good for helping me think carefully about how Nortel must have programmed their database (certainly the execution code that utilizes the database is another story all together.)

I also discovered that in the 10+ years I’ve been working on Nortel phone systems, I’ve never once run across a Private Line appearance.  It has it’s own unique entry in a PRT DNB which I had never encountered before this last week.  Added that to the dnbParser and fixed a couple of minor bugs in the dnbParser.

I added a few improvements to the dnbPrint template, but I’m getting kind of antsy to move on to the ESN piece of the toolset so I’m going to take a break from DNB features and work on migrating the esn parsing code from ASPECT to PHP.

You can see the latest roadmap status by visiting: http://datarave.net/bt/roadmap_page.php

I’m thinking about replicating 0.11.1 to the production environment because of all of the problems with 0.10.0.  I’ll spend more time thinking about it later, after I’ve had a good nights sleep.

 Posted by John Williams at 11:35 pm

The soon to be ex-Heller Ehrman

 Work  No Responses »
Oct 042008
 

Heller Ehrman has announced bankruptcy and a soon-to-be former Heller employer has started a blog to keep the exiting employees as they “abandon ship.”

It’s a sad state.  Heller Ehrman was a good place to work while I was there (sans the manager from hell who managed me and the telecom group for 2.5 years…)  The benefits were excellent, the attorneys were self centered and somewhat obtuse when it came to interpersonal skills as a general rule, but there were some nice attorneys that I met over my 4 year term.

All in all, if it wasn’t for one particular co-worker, getting screwed in my career growth by the manager and of course the lack of career path opportunities, I’d still be there.  My last manager was excellent (not that everyone agreed with me, but he supported me and promoted me to management in such a way that I was able to keep my job after the telecom department dissolved…  as they had fired the manager from hell and moved everyone under the network operations department.)

I was not familiar with the business aspect of the company, nor was I engaged in the office politics (and there were some…  my refusal to play the politics is part of what hurt my career there.  Of course, some wiser than myself would suggest that refusal to play office politics is just another form of office politics, but whatever.)

I moved on, I left with no hard feelings and I look back and say “yes, there were tough times, and despite the fact that it had its share of little people with big egos and attitudes, Heller Ehrman was mostly filled with good people.”

 

Addition:

What’s kind of scary/sad about this is the fact that Heller Ehrman was founded 118 years ago.  This company weathered the Great Depression, and now it founders on a major rescession.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/26/BUQF135ES8.DTL

http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2008/09/22/daily60.html

 Posted by John Williams at 8:30 am

Project Diary: Xtools (5)

 Nortel, WebDev  No Responses »
Oct 012008
 

Tasks completed:

  • Normal users will only have access to their own customer
    • Ability to add users to a customer record who can also access that information will be added in a subsequent revision
  • Normal users can now add a new customer, associated with their user record
  • Normal users can now add an unlimited number of sites associated only with their customer record
    • Ability to delete sites will be added in a subsequent revision
  • Normal users can now only upload batch information for their associated customer
  • Normal users can now only display batch information for their associated customer
  • Customer and Site management templates are much more modular in design than batchUpload and dnbPrint templates.  Batch and DNB templates will be updated to follow the modular design of the customer and site management templates in a subsequent revision.

Before I can make the dnbParser available on the production site, I have to finish re-writing a piece of the code that deals with file uploads (files are uploaded to a non-public space to prevent users from uploading dangerous content and then attempting to run it via a web browser) to separate the production and development directories used for file uploads (currently, the directories are hardcoded…  but I have to make them variable so that I can completely separate the production and dev content.)

 Posted by John Williams at 10:09 pm

Project Diary: Xtools (4)

 ASPECT, Nortel, WebDev  No Responses »
Sep 212008
 

Put up a BugTracker.  I’ll be importing the ASPECT projects that I’ve been working on over the years soon, so that if any users want to report bugs for those projects, they can.

Primarily though, this BugTracker is used to track the features/projects/ideas for my Xtools project.  I figured that while a diary is great, tracking future bugs and major progress in the project would be a little more automated if I utilized a BugTracker.  MantisBT is fairly full featured.  I have found a few bugs, and submitted them to the developer’s bug tracker.

Tasks completed:

  • Finished the basic DNB Parser
  • Finished the basic DNB Display page
    • Added simple filter and sort options
  • Finished the basic Batch Upload page

 Posted by John Williams at 5:57 pm
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