John Burkholder

Today is the day. I am not waiting until the beginning of the year and setting a New Year's resolution. I am just doing it right here, right now.  It all started on Boxing Day. My wife came back with a pair of jeans and two sweaters. After wearing the same size clothes for about 15 years, my wife still has no idea what size jeans I wear. So she bought jeans that were 40 inches around the waist and 32 inches long. Then I looked at the XXL sweaters (which look fantastic) and she could tell from the expression on my face that something wasn't quite right. I looked at her, smiled, told her I love them, and gave her a thank you hug.  Secretly in the back of my brain I was thinking "is she saying I am heavier? That is an extra X on those sweaters. 40 inch waist? I know she can't keep track of my jean size (I am a 30 inch inseam), but 40 inches?" I know she didn't mean to do that.  So, later that day, I want to see how they looked on me. I went upstairs and tried on

Today I was standing in line waiting for my biscuit and this lady walked up behind me and ordered from the cook behind the counter. Somehow we ended up on the topic of "liking your job is not enough to pay the bills". The lady on my side of the counter said "how much do you need to make?" Not the point lady, and really not a question you should ask someone. The friendly cook muttered, I can't make ends meet with two jobs at minimum wage. I just hope Obamacare can help cut some of my expenses." The lady on my side of the counter went on a tirade about Obamacare. I sincerely believe she has no idea how the people she interacts with live or what they have to do to survive. So, I am going to take a moment to break down a minimum wage worker finances. Minimum wage in Illinois is $8.25 per hour. Let's assume she works 40 hours per week. Most do not so the companies can avoid paying for benefits, but let's move past that for now. Your Pay Ch

Dear Microsoft, Your recent purchase of Nokia has me wondering. What are you doing? Hardware is not your forte'. Phone is also a challenge for you...and yet, here you are buying a phone company already having challenges. I understand you may be approaching the phone market much like Apple does where they own the hardware and software on the phone. The problem is, you are already missing out on market share. Blackberry even has more market share than you do and they are for sale and bankrupt. source Nonetheless Microsoft, you really should make your people focus on what you all do best. Software. If you want the chunk of the mobile market, make software for the mobile platforms instead of trying to compete against them. Market your application interoperability with Apple, Android, etc. Don't get stuck in the cloud. Although the cloud has been marketed as more and more secure, it is still not as secure as on-premise. Many companies, governments, and educational institutio

It is really frustrating when I am the third interview of a SharePoint person and I ask 3 basic technical questions and they have no idea on all 3. I just interviewed someone with 5 years of SharePoint experience and besides knowing the technical aspects of SharePoint understood the business analysis side. She was also very skilled with SP Designer.  Here is how the questions went... Me: assume I have a user named John Smith that has access to a SharePoint site. He has a user level permission of Read and he is part of a SharePoint group with Full Control access. Which permission level does John Smith have on the SharePoint site? Interviewee:  Me: are you still there? Interviewee: yes. Sorry. You would need to interview that person to ensure the application they are tied to and the workflow has the correct authentication.  Normally this is done in the business analysis area.  Me: uh... Ok. That was nice but it didn't answer the question. (I repeated the entire question).  Interviewe

I have decided to take on the Unicef Live Below The Line challenge.  Live Below the Line is challenging individuals and communities to see how much change you can make out of $1.50. By living off just $1.50 per day for food for 5 days, you will be bringing to life the direct experiences of the 1.4 billion people currently living in extreme poverty and helping to make real change. The challenge is set at $1.50 a day, because this is the current equivalent of the accepted global figure used to define extreme poverty. This was set by the World bank as US$1.25 per day in 2005. Basically, if you live on less than that every day, you’re recognized internationally as living in extreme poverty. Want the full detail? Check it out below. "It's not that bad," you might say - "$1.50 goes a lot further in developing countries". Unfortunately not. The $1.50 figure represents the amount someone living in extreme poverty in the U.S. would have to live on. And for peo

I rarely will write a blog entry about anything political, sexual, or religious... but all of that is about to change right now. For a government to tell the "free citizens" of America who or who they cannot marry because of their sexual orientation based on religious beliefs is wrong. There isn't a gray area in this discussion, no matter how it is argued, it is wrong. Right now we have the supreme court trying to determine if Proposition 8 in California is breaking our Federal government practices and in my opinion, not only does it enflame the prejudices of homosexuality, but it creates a segregation. That's right... I said segregation. When black people were segregated, they were not allowed to marry each other in the name of the government. Believe or not, in 1967 the supreme court had another decision to make on whether it was legal for interracial couples to marry in 16 other states including Virginia...which a white man and 1/2 African American / 1/2 Native A

So in this blog entry I made comment that we were trying to figure out our next steps. The decision has been made... we are staying in Bloomington. Not only are we staying in Bloomington, I think we will be here a very long time. What brought us to this decision... I already figured out that we would stick it out one more year. I had some good propositions in the queue but none of them actually leaped out at me and said TAKE THIS JOB! We both like it here, and since we have to move Squeaky Clean Soaps to Bloomington anyway (which we found a new location downtown), it just makes sense to stay here. I will continue to spread the SharePoint cheer in Central Illinois and work with the TEKsystems. I like TEKsystems. They have treated me very well. Therefore, all future plans I had with DevElements I will now push over to TEKsystems. As far as the house... it looks like we are going to work with the landlord to have the house updated. It definitely needs it. The best part about this

Microsoft has added some wonderful Yammer social features into SharePoint. This is much like taking the communications and social development of Facebook and Twitter and slamming it into the business tools of SharePoint. A lot of arguments are surfacing on both sides of the collaboration space and I wanted to stretch my narcissistic legs and provide my own point of view on this. I am in the middle. The social features are fantastic as a new line of communication and knowledge sharing. It is powerful for receiving different points of view on questions, issues or feedback. For those who use Facebook and/or Twitter, it is very familiar and it does not require an associates degree in computers to figure out. A prime example of how social media can help solve business problems is in a Ted talk by Don Tapscott where he talks about how a company owner sourced socially a solution to his business problem.   I understand how business social can resolve problems in business. I also rea

Every 18 to 24 months, Our family makes a change. It usually involves us packing up the house and moving again. Often, this is not really a rough decision. But this time it is different. Positive indications to stay in Bloomington: The "traffic problem" people complain about here is non-existent compared to where we have lived previously. Honestly, I am sure most of the people who are complaining about traffic here would be one of the people who would just stop on the Washington DC beltway and leave their car right there in the middle if it snowed. Traffic here is actually a low stress environment for us. We have friends here and I am slowly building that same type of SharePoint community that I had when I lived in DC. The schools are not terrible (although they are not Fairfax County, VA or Carmel, IN). They have a hockey team and a few entertainment options. The cost of living is very nice here. Negative indications to stay in Bloomington: Rental housing is v

Central Illinois SharePoint User Group welcomes Paul Schaeflein!​ Paul Schaeflein (MVP, MCPD) is a solution architect/developer with experience in all versions of the SharePoint platform. Paul is a top-rated speaker, having presented at the Microsoft SharePoint Conference and TechEd conferences, as well as user groups. Paul has more than two decades experience in architecting, designing and developing software solutions. This experience covers a vast range of technologies, languages and industries. Having developed many line-of-business applications, Paul has a firm grasp on the challenges that corporate developers face when integrating them into a corporate portal. ​ Paul will present Zero to Application in 60 minutes Level 200 Learn how to leverage the SharePoint capabilities for storage, processing and presentation to convert business requirements to an application. With lots of code and lots of concepts, we will set you on a path to success using SharePoint for departm

No this is not that kind of "In Search Of..." you may have found in the newspaper or on the Russian Brides website. I am in search of something much more complicated... my birthparents. Many of you may know that I am the eldest of what is left of my family. My dad committed suicide when I was 6 via auto fumes. My brother committed suicide when I was 12 via shotgun. My step-father died of an aging heart in 1999. My mother died of a aging body in 2003 and my sister died from a lost battle with cancer in 2012. All of my aunt and uncles have passed and I don't really keep in touch with my cousins. Needless to say, I am the eldest of my family at the ripe age of 46. I was adopted. On October 18, 1966 I was given birth in Los Angeles County, California. I was immediately place for adoption. I realize that the possibility of finding my birthparents is not the best but I do have a head start. For years I did my own research and have found clues to my parents. My mother also w

Central Illinois SharePoint Users Group welcomes Rob Bogue as the next speaker for the February 13 meeting. Robert Bogue, MCITP, MCT, MCTS, MCSE (NT4/W2K), MCSA: Security, A+, Network+, Server+, I-Net+, IT Project+, E-Biz+, CDIA+ is the president of Thor Projects LLC . Thor Projects LLC provides SharePoint consulting services to clients around the world. Robert has contributed to more than 100 book projects and numerous other publishing projects. Robert's latest book is The SharePoint Shepherd's Guide for End Users. Robert has been pleased to be a part of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) program for the past 9 years. Robert is also a Microsoft Patterns and Practices Champion and has been a team member for the SharePoint Guidance. Robert is also the author of the Microsoft Learning course for Professional SharePoint developers (10232) and lead author for the Microsoft SharePoint ECM Implementer's Course. Robert is the president of the SharePoint Users Group of