clearquest lessons

Here’s what I’ve learned in the last 2 days:

1. Syncs, epochs, oplogs, and multiple user accounts make my head hurt.

2. The directions SJ used to break the connection to production are missing the step to update the connection information (meaning if you try to launch CQ via the thick client or the web client, you point to PROD still) – chreplica isn’t sufficient on its own. The directions DH posted in eRooms include this information. You can update the connection info through the DB as DH recommends or through the Maintenance Tool. In my opinion, DH's method is easier and more reliable.

3. I’m not sure the restorereplica step SJ used is necessary. But it doesn’t hurt anything.

4. If you’re configuring a site to act as the ‘hub’ and it hasn’t been the ‘hub’, it will not have the right epochs for the remote sites. You need to get the epochs from the remote sites (ie, get the epochs EMCCQPA1 thinks it has for itself from EMCCQPA1) and change the epochs the new hub thinks it has for the remote site (ie, set the epochs EMCCQBANG1 thinks EMCCQPA1 has to match what is really on EMCCQPA1) or you get cryptic oplog errors on exports and the packet fails to ship.

5. If the receipt handler on a site doesn’t work when you first install, try uninstalling CC and CQ and reinstalling both. I don’t know why this sometimes happens, but it has fixed things for me every time that I can remember.

6. CQ is very sensitive to its DB sets and DB sets can be very sensitive the to the user. I could run the sync commands on BANG by hand and they would work. I could run the BAT file on BANG that the scheduled task executes and syncs would work. If I tried to execute the BAT file on BANG using the scheduled task, I got cryptic oplog errors. Somehow the account that was being used by the scheduled task (the albd account) was pulling a DB set profile from the registry that referenced PROD and not TEST. I changed the scheduled task’s account to be CQBatch and removed every DB set reference I could find from the Maintenance Tool and then the registry before re-adding the correct DB set and the scheduled task is working.

7. If you’ve just configured DBs in TEST to break the connection to PROD and packets are disappearing, something is *very* likely configured wrong. You have a typo; you didn’t commit the DB changes; you missed a change.

8. Running InSync-CQ in PROD and using CQMS commands for syncs in TEST provides an extra level of protection against accidentally ‘crossing’ PROD and TEST because they expect packets from different locations. I would recommend always using CQMS commands to get syncs rolling in TEST when you’ve just refreshed TEST from PROD even though InSync-CQ is simpler because it gives you this extra protection.

grandmothers

thoughts edited from a letter i sent to a boston.com reporter who wrote a wonderful article on being a grandmother ... wish i still had the link to the original article.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i'm years away from becoming a grandmother (my little guy just turned 5!) and am in no rush ... but i do get very jealous of my mom's role as gramma! gramma sees the milestones i miss because they happen little by little each day - she sees the bigger picture. gramma always gets to give my son complete and undivided attention - she has all of the other days in the month to get the to do list done. gramma doesn't have the feedings at night, the comforting after nightmares that keeps mommy up 1/2 the night before a big meeting, the telling rj for the 800th time to get his shoes on so we can get to daycare and mommy can go to work - gramma gets to put everything else aside and just enjoy. one of the savings graces for me when i became a new mom was that my mother didn't go on and on to 'enjoy every precious minute ... they grow up so fast!' she knew (and admitted!) that new parents just can't do that - we're too busy learning to be parents, making sure we provide for our children, and trying to catch up on some sleep so we can take care of ourselves too that we just can't completely lose ourselves in enjoying each stage, each moment. that's what we get to do when we're grandparents :)

old writings ... the hill

gee ... i was on a roll with writing snippets in feb 1997

~~~~~~~~~~~~~``

The wind howled and whipped the bare branches of the trees over her head, but all she heard was the beating of her heart and the sound of her breathing as she crouched lower on her bike and tried to reach the top of the hill. The terrain was a combination of mud and gravel. The gravel slid out from under her, causing the tires to loose traction and spin, the mud sucked the tires, grabbing them and relinquishing them reluctantly.

She reached a plateau and stopped to catch her breath for the next trek uphill. She grabbed the water-bottle from its cage and laid the bike down. Taking a long drink of the marginally cool water, she walked towards a convenient tree to stretch her calves.

She had taken her sweatshirt off just before this last climb because the temperature was beginning to distract her and now she noticed the wind that was beginning to pick up near the ground as a stiff breeze sent chills down her spine. She considered putting the sweatshirt back on over the T-shirt but decided to wait until after this last climb, until she was ready for the downhill.

It felt more like late summer than late winter. The temperature had reached well into the sixties, and the humidity, while not oppressive was still high for the time of the year. The increasing wind suggested a late afternoon storm, but still being February, she doubted a storm would materialize.

She picked up the bike and made a wish that the weather would hold out. It had been an unusually mild winter for New England, especially considering the amounts of snow the last few had brought. If the weather continued this way, she would be in shape for some longer rides once spring really arrived and other trails opened.

old writings ... tetris

another snippet written in feb 1997 ...

Time ticked away as he sat playing Tetris. Ten o’clock. Eleven o’clock. Midnight. One was approaching rapidly.

“This game must be some sort of governmental experiment,” he though. “What else could incite such a waste of time for mindless reasons. It’s not even that entertaining. And if it wasn’t back enough that they re-released it for the Gameboy back in the early nineties, they had to release it again for these supercomputers capable of a hell of a lot more. As if wasting brainpower isn’t enough, technology must also be wasted.”

old writings ... roses

a snippet that i wrote back in college ... feb 1997

The rose continued to droop and die as she sat at her desk alternatively pondering the blank computer screen and the life cycle of vegetation. Why? The roses had been a Valentine’s gift. Bought from Stop and Shop. They had started to droop and die the next morning despite the packet she had added to the water from the florist. But they had been from Stop and Shop anyway. It was some sort of effort, at least. The screen was supposed to be filled with her thesis

pre-nups and co-habs

now that bill and i are taking the big step and moving in, pre-nups and co-habs are a topic of discussion. i feel bad that he thinks it means i don't trust him. it's not that i don't trust him. i don't trust me and my decision to trust him. i've been there before and found it incredibly frustrating with the 'pre-nup' the state defines. i particularly like grrl genius's take on it:

http://grrlgenius.ivillage.com/love/archives/2006/10/marriage_smackdown_part_two_th.html

-s

snow

a couple days after the big storm ... but i'm back in the office reading email and DE had a great quote:

"Snow, snow, snow, snow, snow!
It won't be long before we'll all be there with snow.
I'd like to wash my hands, my face, my hair with snow.
I long to clear a path and lift a spade of snow.
Oh, to see a great big man entirely made of snow."

Irving Berlin wrote this. I think he was certifiable....

i'm going to have to agree with dan.

-s

bats. the sequel.

so bill and i went away for a couple days and mom puppysat. on our way home, i get a call from mom - there's a lot of snow, drive safe, the puppy is in, your mail is on the table, and oh, by the way, you have a bat in the house, love you, bye.

hrm.

a bat.

again.

meanwhile, bill's practically bouncing out of the car because he has been waiting since the last bat incident to prove he's useful and can remove bats for me.

i'm worrying about bullet holes in my walls.

we get home and i drop bill off so i can run to the liquor store to grab cherry vodka (to make beertinis for a beer tasting later that evening ... btw, our strange brew of chocolate beer and cherry vodka did win best tasting drink of the night). i get home and there's no bat.

the stories i've heard so far:

1. bill put on beethoven's 5th, opened the door and the bat flew out saying 'thank you!'

2. bill gently shoo'd the bat out of the house

3. bill took a pellet gun and shot the bat. the bat hissed and died, but remained perched out of reach near the ceiling and required two more shots to make it fall.

i'm going to stick with number 1.

-s

ghost stories

on vacation last week, we stopped at the mt washington hotel to show bill the beautiful location (and i love the historic value, too!). during our little self-guided tour, we stopped at the bar downstairs (not the cave, the other one) for a drink (mmm ... mt. washington apples!). we were the only guests at the bar and we got to talking with the bartender. bill noted the similarities between the mt washington hotel and the hotel in the shining. no, it is not the same hotel ... but it was designed by the same person. from there we got on the subject of ghost stories. the bartender shared two stories with us ...

there's a group of old guys that come up every year for a reunion and our bartender got to know them. when the princess was running the hotel, she 'adopted' orphans as caddies at the resort ... the guys were some of the kids she had 'adopted'. they reminisced about the past and how the princess looked out for them - she even came down to their living quarters every night and tucked them in. after she passed, no one looked out for the kids as well, but some mornings they would wake up all tucked in to their beds. they tried staying up to see who did it and never saw anyone, but, in the morning, they'd wake to find themselves tucked in.

the other story is more recent. last year (2006), the hotel changed hands. before the sale, the previous owner scheduled an employee photo in front of the hotel. everyone came out for it. if you look in the background, you see a shadow peeking out from behind a curtain. no guest was registered to the room. every employee that might have been in there was present for the photo. and the room used to be the princess's.

boarding and web site

i'm sore! but OMG was boarding fun yesterday! ok, so rj wasn't such a fan - got too frustrated at not being good at it immediately and we had major tempertantrums, but we'll try again later this week. after lunch i got to go out by myself and it was awesome! i braved my first trip on a lift and got to make my way down the slopes (very easy .... a very long bunny trail actually ... but still a run that needed a real lift!!) and it was awesome! i even managed my last run without falling :)

and i think i finally managed to figure out the new site format and how to generate it in jalbum :) should be posting over the next few days!!

-s