Time for Launch

I'm happy it's Friday.

Not because it's the end of a hard work week and I need a break. It has been a hard week, two of my big products are being released today. Yesterday at 4:30 we were still having trouble with some of the underlying software. That was after I found some other problems earlier yesterday. One of these two clients (a new one this year) hadn't tested his parts enough and had questions for my other (experienced) client, who in return asked me. So I had things to tweak at the last minute.

And this morning I was still making other adjustments that came to light when I got in to the office. I have now pushed everything, all corrected versions and clean data, out to the production system. (And, thus, taking a blog break.)

I've done this before, this is my third year for one of these products, it's not a big deal. Usually. But this year we've changed both the underlying software to a completely new version (kinda like a XP to Vista change, but I hate Microsoft so I don't like using that analogy, but it's the best I've got at the moment), and a new Blade web server, (from a Sun machine, if you care). So a simple deployment of this product this year is complicated by all the new variables — on my part as well as all my clients' parts. I hope it works.

I've got two more deployments next Friday, and five more a week or two later. In February I'll need to have another product ready for usability testing, and in March I'll be migrating one or two more products to the new system. If all the prep work has gone smoothly, they'll get migrated while I'm on spring break with the family on the Dalmatian Coast.

While I'm glad I've got these products released today and I've got a break before I need to make sure next week's releases are ready, and working, and tested for goodness sake, I'm happy it's Friday for a completely different reason:

Tonight Friday Night Lights is on. It has become one of my favorite TV shows, certainly my favorite drama. Yeah, it's a show about high school football in Texas, but not really. It's about people and relationships, parents and children, murder and drugs. The characters aren't the usual perfect Full House-esque sit-com people, they have real issues.

We interrupt this post to bring you this:
Speaking of real issues, my supervisor just came to tell me he couldn't get any of the PDF's to open. The ones that are supposed to be in production today. sheesh. I can. Let me figure this out.

All fixed, where was I? What was wrong?
Oh, the default pdf wasn't declared so anyone using a test account printing a pdf would get a failure message. It wouldn't have been a problem in production because the users have that defined.

Anyway, Friday Night Lights, great show. I like the way the parents interact with each other and with the kids, the coach and his team. The conversations seem real, the writing is good. I look forward to watching it every week (I'll ask Dan "Are the panthers playing tonight?" instead of asking if it's on) and I'm into it to the point of standing and cheering when "our Dillon Panthers" are running in for a touch-down as if I were at the game in person. But it's really not about football. Give it a try, Fridays at 9:00 on NBC.