Today was the official beginning of the Sage Millennium Symposium. This is the direct result of all of the user base griping about how we missed this place and how we wish we had a little conference all on our own, like the way it used to be. Much like a magic genie, Sage granted us our wish and here we are again, for my coworkers who joined me in this trip it’s old-hat to them, it’ll be my first time staying at Kingsmill Resort.

We arrived last evening and I found this place to be very expansive, definitely charming, and a great place to “Get away from it all”. The price tag, well, that’s definitely on the high side, but the quality is unmistakably there. My room is laid out very spaciously and everywhere they could have skimped out they did not, which earns my respect.

Last night we went to the Red White and Blue, which is a Blues-themed Memphis style BBQ Rib restaurant in Williamsburg. The food was okay, the ribs were done well. What more can you ask for while traveling into a tourist trap?

Overnight everything went well, my iPad doubled as a noisemaker/alarm clock very nicely as well as a book, a newspaper, a game of Uno and a window into the world of all my collected RSS feeds that I aggregate through Google Reader.

In the morning we all visited Colonial Pancake House. We’re in the middle of Pancake House Central and this one got a 5-star review so we decided to give it a shot. There wasn’t much that was remarkable about the place, the food was good, the atmosphere was what you’d expect and the prices were fair.

After breakfast we talked for a little while and then my coworkers settled on hitting the local outlet mall. I didn’t have anything else better to do since the meat of the convention wasn’t due to begin until 2pm, so I tagged along. We found it easily enough as the two coworkers who had been here before knew the path to the outlet mall very well. I pulled in and parked, scanned the shops and immediately noticed the kitchen outlets, which are (I think) identical to the ones in Michigan City. We only had an hour and then one of my coworkers who knew I was fond of Under Armour pointed out that UA had a factory store in this particular outlet mall. UA is kind of like my Kryptonite, I’m quite fond of their clothing and seeing the store put a foolish grin, even for a short flash, on my face. As we walked along everyone sort of split up and went their separate ways. I joined my boss on a search for a replacement tote-bag to replace the flimsy bag provided by Sage when we registered the night before. We weren’t able to find anything for her and as we walked we met up with our other coworkers and while they went looking in a nearby shop I decided since there was only about twenty minutes left that I should at least check out the UA shop. It only took me ten minutes to pick out some things I liked and went to try them on. I did buy some Under Armour, but it was on the clearance rack, $10 off plus 20% after that so I wasn’t feeling too upset about the cost. Under Armour is mighty expensive stuff, but it’s durable and it’s one of my few vices that I get to indulge in from time to time.

Afterwards we put all our winnings in the back of the rental SUV and headed back to Kingsmill. We heard the welcome song-and-dance from Sage regarding their database software, Millennium, which powers our alumni and donor record database.

Sage laid out the Millennium roadmap for us, telling us what to expect in the future and some of us were mildly jilted that they delayed the “Rip out that damned Java!” request we lodged with them last year. Now we’ll have to wait for version 8 to roll around, we’re currently on 7.6.1 and we’re dallying with the notion of upgrading to 7.7.1 or 7.8, maybe on the outside chance, 7.8.2. This software is very competent at what it does, there have been some missteps and from what I can perceive they essentially rushed a RDBMS product into a “web enabled” paradigm by using shortcuts. In the short-term this worked great, they were able to convert their Windows only application interface with one that worked via a web-browser. On closer inspection this greatness tarnishes because you can only use IE6 or IE7 on Windows XP, not Windows 7. (Windows Vista works, but it’s abomination, so we don’t speak it’s name). The key sticking point is that the software relies in very specific and vital parts on loading the Java runtime library. In ways, they cheated. They got a product rushed to market and it worked well as long as you had all these backup-singers in place to provide the parts to make the entire production work. This would be not-an-issue if it wasn’t for the fact that in order to use this core-to-our-business-case software, we are effectively stuck using Java 1.5.11. This in and of itself isn’t harmful, but this old copy of Java is vulnerable and opens up computers to a heaping batch of security vulnerabilities, add to that damning fact that another piece of software we use, BSR’s Banner requires an updated jInitiator and JDK update which forces a machines JRE to the most updated version, breaking Millennium. So we have two products we need so that we can do our jobs and Java is the pinion of suck that we’re stuck upon. Removing Java is only the first step, as they really ought to only push their web-based product (and it’s the only thing that they can really push, so get to it!) and that product really ought to be W3C compliant. If that was the case then all my users could have the freedom to select whatever operating system they liked to interface and use the database. They could use Chrome on Ubuntu or even Safari on the Mac. The benefits of switching out Java for AJAX and Javascript are pretty compelling, even as such that by doing so they would effectively enable other non-Java OS’es to be able to login, such as iPhones, iPads, Galaxy Tabs, and Androids. Technically one of our staff could query our database on a color Nook. It’s not the particular devices that I’m in love with (despite the fact that I am quite smitten with my iPad) but rather that standards are respected, that the software follows a logical and plain design and works well, simply.

After the chat and the disenchantment discovering the delay with tearing out Java we waited around for the Welcome Bash at 5:30pm. Sage puts this welcome on whenever they have an event like this one, open bar, nibbly bits, the works. I chatted with a new Millennium client that’s coming out of Boston, MA. The school starts with a B, I’m terrible with names unless I have business cards and as dumb luck would have it, I totally forgot to bring business cards with me on my travels this week. Duh. We waited and schmoozed until about 7pm when we had to gather everyone up and head to an Italian restaurant here in Williamsburg called Donelos or something. We did more eating, more chatting, and only now did I have any time to myself. I was going to call Scott and relate to him the days events and then I looked down at my watch and felt wrong to make a call after 9pm. So, instead of a call, I thought I would write a blog entry and share this with all of you. Tomorrow we’ll have presenters and I’ll write a lot of ‘neat ideas’ that ‘I’m definitely going to get to work on’ until I actually get to work and that occupies all my time and this entire batch of ‘neat ideas’ falls by the wayside. It always seems to happen this way. When I don’t have life pushing me around I can get all creative and clever with the database, but without fail, life butts in and I’m right back where I started.

On high notes, I have discovered Whitley’s Virginia Peanuts. These are hand-picked giant peanuts in a variety of preparations. I ended up buying two little 16oz. sacks, one Honey Roasted and the other Honey Toffee. They will serve as snacks during this week when I can’t get free of my meetings and end up missing the snacks they lay out for us just outside our meeting halls. These peanuts are exceptionally good and the lady in the little shop we went into had a great sense of humor.

I’m thinking about contacting my family out here and see if they’re available Tuesday or Wednesday night, perhaps I can manage to get the rental SUV for the night so I can get down to VA Beach and then back up again, we’ll see how my coworkers feel and if my family has time.