Life has proven too hectic for me since joining Group to be able to continue my efforts of a daily summary of Lotus development news. But we had a lot of of great posts on August 11 (Yellow Day) it is worth the effort to summarize some of the goodness shared by members of the Lotus community.
.
- Corey Davis announced the Gold release of his Flow LotusScript Logging Engine on OpenNTF.
- Corey Davis also announced a 33% discount on all of Conxsys products for the next week.
- Nathan T Freeman provided us with some insight into how simple the hybrid model for LotusLive will work.
- Nathan T Freeman then announced the relaunch of his Escape Velocity blog that has moved onto the GROUP Live site.
- Nathan T Freeman also covered the exciting opportunities presented by IBM working together with GROUP to develop a new set of XPage extensions that will be released on OpenNTF. The objective of the project will be to fill in some of the gaps in XPages such as Picklists, name picker, computed "subforms" draggable framesets, scrolling dojo grids, dojo layouts, and calendar views.
- Nathan T Freeman announced the immediate availablilty of @Transmogrifier, a tool that allows Notes developers to convert @formulae into SSJS code. The tool is supported by a plug-in that adds a new set of @functions to the SSJS language.
- Nathan T Freeman saved the best for last with the announcement of Genesis. A project Nathan and his team at GROUP (which include me) are presently working on that aims to provide a way for organizations to take any Notes Classic application and convert it to an XPage application. And that is just the start! As Nathan later commented, don't be surprised if a later release adds the ability to migrate SharePoint (or other) applications to XPages too! I am still in complete awe of what this project can, and will in the future, do. This was one of the main reasons i decided to join GROUP last month.
- John Head posted a new version of the Contacts Experience project on OpenNTF. This project, which extends the standard Contacts template, now supports Office 2010 and makes a start with support for labels, and custom fields.
- Martin Humpolec announced the availability of a new Notes sidebar plug-in (PDF Signer) that signs PDF files using your own certificate.
- David Leady has announced that NotesIn9 can soon be downloaded onto your iPad for viewing and will soon be adding Admin tips.
- Yancy Lent dressed up PlanetLotus for the day before announcing an amazing new site (Domino Directory) that showcases some of the great Web sites developed using Domino technology.
- Mike McGarel contributed some Beatles lyrics with a Yellow Day twist.
- Peter Presnell: My own contribution was the release of ∙dominoFramework 2.0 on OpenNTF. A project that encapsulates much of my work as a Notes developer over the past 16 years.
- Chris Toohey announced a two for $5 promotion of his dominoGuru.com applications.
- Chris Whisonant announced a new look/feel to the Bleedyellow.com site - an implementation of Lotus Connections available for use by members of the Lotus community for free. (Hint: you're probably looking at it now!)
- Garrett Wolthuis's tip was using Kathy Brown's NotesAdmnTips and NotesDevTips addresses on Twitter as a way for the community to share admin and dev tips.
- And thank you to Gregg Eldred for his posting "I think I'll have a few more beers".
. Hard to believe a day after IBM's announcements for Notes 8.5.2 and LotusLive Notes we had so much other great stuff to talk about. Than you to all those who contributed to the day's success.
|
 Ratings
0
|
Today IBM made a series of announcements that have a major impact on the future of the Lotus Notes client.
.
The first was the announcement that Lotus Notes 8.5.2 will be available from August 24. As a member of the Lotus Notes Managed beta program I have been using 8.5.2 pretty much exclusively for the past four months. It is just that good! There has been extensive coverage of the many new features being added with 8.5.2 I probably don't need to cover them here. What does it mean to have yet another Notes client upgrade to plan? Well, if you and your organization have not already migrated to 8.5.1 it should be your objective to help make that happen sooner rather than later. Bypassing 8.5.1 and going straight to 8.5.2 seems to make the most sense to me. The incremental value of migrating from 8.5.1 to 8.5.2 is going to vary from organization to organization. 8.5.2 has a lot of great features, performance improvements, and many bugs from 8.5.1 (and before) that have been addressed. .
Today's second announcement is of much more strategic importance to the future of the Notes client. IBM today announced that on August 24 our little baby is growing up and moving to the cloud. On that date LotusLive Notes will become available to the general public. Made available as part of LotusLive 1.3, companies interested in migrating all or part of their collaboration and social networking infrastructure to the cloud using the SaaS model, will now have the ability to utilize the power of the Lotus Notes client as an interface to that offering.
. With earlier releases of LotusLive, IBM had already negated most of the market advantages that Google might have tried to gain with its Google Apps offering. LotusLive iNotes already offers cloud based mail, contacts, and calendaring with 25GB storage, IMAP and POP support, spam and virus protection all for the very attractive price of $3 per month per user, with a minimum purchase of a single user license. With today's announcement it is now possible for companies to move these same in-house services to the cloud but still retain the advantages of using the Lotus Notes client for an equally impressive $5 per month per user (25 user minimum). Sorry, no steak knives, but it also includes the instant messaging capabilities provided by the integrated SameTime client. IBM also announced that LotusLive Notes would provide full
integration with existing LotusLive features. A new bundle of LotusLive
Notes and LotusLive Engage for $10 per month per user (again, 25 user
minimum) will extend the LotusLive Notes capabilities with Web conferencing, Files, Activities, Forms, and Charts. .
What wasn't formally announced today, but included as part of a blogger briefing was some insights into some of the announcements likely to be made between now and LotusSphere that will further fill out the LotusLive Notes offering. These include:-
- A future bundling of LotusLive Notes which will add an enterprise CAL for Lotus Notes to the existing bundles for an extra $1 per month per user. This will allow users with an existing Enterprise CAL to migrate to LotusLive and still retain the ability to access on-premise Notes applications for a very attractive price.
- LotusLive Notes capabilities for mobile devices will be enhanced first with the offering of Lotus Notes Traveler (for an additional charge).
- Look for a joint announcement later in the year by IBM and RIM on the availability of BES as part of LotusLive.
- Also look for announcements in the next few months for additional languages to be supported, and enhancements to busy time and shared calendar management.
- IBM has already started to talk about Project Concord and we should expect likely announcements of a technology preview becoming available.
- It has already been announced that the latest beta for Symphony 3.0 includes LotusLive plug-ins. I would expect this product should become available during this same timeframe.
- A hybrid model for LotusLive is also likely to become available soon. This will allow organizations the flexibility to deploy parts of their organization onto the cloud while still retaining some parts on-premise. This is consistent with the overall Lotus offering of providing choice to organizations something I think gives Lotus a significant advantage over its competitors offerings of "one size fit all" or "its my way or the highway". And the migration to LotusLive will be as easy as existing Lotus Notes replication/routing.
Perhaps the one major hole in this initial Notes client offering for SaaS is Notes/Domino applications? IBM's answer to this was that it was not looking to provide these types of services as part of its core LotusLive offering. Rather it was looking towards a number of its key Business Partners to provide these services. This was not news for me, as over the past few weeks since joining GROUP, I have been learning that GROUP is one of those partners working very closely with IBM to make this happen via its GROUP Live offering. And while I can't say much just yet about what Nathan, Tim, Colin, Keith, and I are working on, I (think I) can say you can also be looking towards GROUP to make some pretty exciting announcements in this space between now and LotusSphere. What I have been learning these past few weeks is that GROUP believe that "the impossible" just take a little longer... and for them a little longer means a few months! So today's announcement of the Lotus Notes client joining the LotusLive family is just the first of many important steps that will be taken this year and beyond. Having nurtured its development over the past 20 years the Notes client is getting ready to leave it on-premise home and set up a new home in the clouds. And that is just the start of a much larger journey that may see it reach even further when we begin to see the vision outlined in Project Vulcan appear in future announcements at LotusSphere and beyond. Man, I am really starting to like the way Lotus Notes has grown up and matured as a potential future quarterback of a championship winning collaboration team. How about you?
|
Ratings
1
|
Yellowday has already arrived on some parts of the globe such as Australia. Being an Aussie I am not waiting for Yellowday to arrive here in Los Angeles to kick off celebrations -- we are amongst the last on the planet to do so My contribution for Yellowday is a major update to my ∙dominoFramework project on OpenNTF. This project represents a collection of much of the knowledge I gained over the past 16+ years doing Notes development. Over that time I have collected ideas and code from all corners of the planet and tried to integrate it into a single consistent framework. For much of these 16 years I have either been a consultant and/or contractor and the framework has been the cornerstone around which most of the my applications have been built.
.
Shortly before joining GROUP (I'm the orange guy with no hair and glasses!), I undertook a major rewrite of the entire
framework. This was an update to reflect some of the many things I
have learned over the later part of my career. For a while I played with the idea of using it as the basis for a commercial product. Sadly, for that to work I needed an app store. Rather than continue to develop the framework, I decided it would be much more exciting for me to start shaping the future of Notes itself by accepting an offer to work with GROUP. That decision will mean that I will only be using the framework sparingly going forward. So I have decided the time was right for me to share the code I have developed and provide the option for others to extend it moving forward by making it available on OpenNTF. Patrick Piccard is part of a new generation of Notes developers that are starting to emerge inside the yellow bubble. He is also one of a number of developers who have decided to use the framework to build their own applications and he has been a big help in the beta testing of this latest version. While I will stay involved with the project, I will be adding Patrick as a chef for this project to ensure I do not slow down any future enhancements that may be contributed be him and others. . I would also like to thank the many other beta testers of the product - Aecio Neto, Bauke de Kroon, Darren Oliver, Fredrik Sjöström, Ian Randall, Joerg Schlusemann, Steve Cannon, Sylvain De Weerdt, Tony Austin, Ulrich Krause, and Ursus Schneider. THANK YOU.... .
For those of you not familiar with the framework, it is an Object Oriented framework containing a large number of classes that extend the core capabilities of Lotus Notes and LotusScript. Notes being Notes, I have tried to make my implementation of OOP as light and fluffy as possible while still adhering to its core qualities. In addition I have developed the UI components that would most commonly be used in creating a generic Notes application. With this release I am making available a separate template that can be used as a starting point for building new applications. Every Notes application I have built over the past 5 years has been created using earlier versions of such a template. The ∙dominoFramework database contains the original components used in this template along with additional libraries and design elements that can be used to extend applications with specific capabilities. The database also includes a number of developer tools (not all mine) that can be used to make the life of a Notes developer more productive.
.
For additional information I would suggest navigating your way through my blogs here on bleedyellow. I originally started this blog with the sole purpose of sharing information about this framework. Somewhere along the way I got caught up with bitching about the lack of development for LotusScript, XPages Kindergarten, calling for the death of Notes client development, Project Vulcan, and letting everyone know that SharePoint Sucks. But, before and in between all that there are a great many posts that outline some of the great many capabilities this framework provides.
. Happy Yellowday 2010 to all!
|
Ratings
0
|
I almost choked on my cornflakes this morning when I read a blog entry by Tom Austin at Gartner - Big Red Flag - IBM's Ed Brill suggests you do not read Gartner research on Notes/Domino email. I couldn't believe the crap that was being served from a blog with the Gartner name in its banner. I had read Ed Brill's earlier blog about the Gartner report. We all know Ed's role at IBM. So no-one is going to be surprised if he puts an IBM spin on analyst reports. What vendor doesn't. But it certainly would come as a surprise to me if Ed would actually suggest not to read analyst reports, even if they aren't 100% favorable to IBM. So I checked my facts, and just as Nathan Freeman commented on Tom's blog, Ed never made any such suggestion at all. Now I rarely suggest Nathan is one to water's down his comments with an over-abundance of frosting but I think he might have been kind to Tom in suggesting it was a "reading comprehension error". To me it is purely and simply 100% factually incorrect. In the part of the world where I grew up we call that "complete and utter bull-shit". I see no effort to retract the original assertion so one has to ask the question of what is motivating Gartner to undertake such deceptive tactics. Surely for a company such as Gartner their credibility is everything. What does it say about the credibility of their analysts if their research is as in-depth as the research done for this blog article.
.
And why even feign surprise that a vendor would take selective quotes from one of their reports. I have been on the receiving end a number of times when consulting companies such as Accenture, Avanade, and others have used selective comments from analyst reports to justify migrating away from Lotus Notes. If Gartner are seeing a greater demand for migrating away from Notes to Exchange it may be because Mircro$oft have done a very good job at spinning one-sided versions of analyst reports. Of course they do that behind closed doors at meetings where little chance is provided for a more balanced perspective to be made. At least Ed had the decency to put his views in a public forum where they can be openly viewed, discussed and debated. I certainly don't condemn Ed for daring to put an IBM spin on the report, I actually congratulate him for at least trying to balance the one-sided spin Micro$oft have been able to sell to many companies over the past few years. I hope to see even more of it. The world needs to know that there are little, if any, benefits to be gained from migrating from one-email platform to another. The only people making any money from it are consultants. E-mail is becoming a smaller and smaller part of a much larger need - collaboration and social networking. Perhaps rather than reading reports from Gartner we should pay more attention to reports from companies such as IDC - It seems they might get it a little more. .
Note: I make no claim of being an "equal opportunity analyst firm". I am a 100% Lotus bigot. I earn my living by providing Lotus Notes related development services. But at least I am honest about what motivates me to write blog articles. And personally, I think I do a little better at checking my facts than some - even for what is a personal blog.
|
Ratings
0
|
Since joining GROUP my focus has been on developing test strategies for some pretty amazing applications now under development. This requires me to conduct a great many unit tests of LotusScript functionality... (Think 1,000s of tests here because these guys write code pretty fast).. I have previously blogged about ways to generate automated test plans. That is a big help when it comes to creating large test plans, but the issue still remains with how to automate the execution of so many test scripts. Fortunately my automated test plans give me a Notes document for each and every unit test along with the name of the library, class, and method (function) that it must call. So in theory I have a good idea about what the nature of the call that must be to executed for that test. It's just a question of how to automate that.....
.
It turns out that dynamic LotusScript (i.e using the Execute statement) provides a very useful way to build LotusScript on the fly based upon the contents of the Unit Test document., execute that test, and then store the result of the unit test back in the unit test database. The following code shows one approach:- . '/**
' * Execute A LotusScript Unit Test using dynamic LotusScript to resolve the Library, Class, And Method
' * @return Unit test result
' * @unittest
' */
Function executeTest() As Boolean
Dim Code As String
Code$ = |
Use "∙domino.UnitTest"
Use "| + Me.Library + |"
Dim Test As DominoUnitTest
Dim TestClass As | + Me.ClassName$ + |
Sub Initialize
Set TestSuite = New DominoTestSuite("| + Me.Library$ + |","Class| + Me.ClassName$ + |")
TestSuite.OutputDestination = FRAMEWORK∙TESTOUTPUT∙DATABASE
Set Test = TestSuite.addTest("| + Me.TestID$ + |",| + Me.MethodName$ + |)
Set TestClass = New | + Me.ClassName$ + |()
Actual = TestClass.| + Me.MethodName$ + |
Call Test.assertTrue("| + Me.MethodName$ + |",CBool(Actual))
Call TestSuite.ReportResults()
End CBool(Actual)
End Sub
|
executeTest = Execute(Code$)
End Function
The dynamic code is first assigned to a String variable using static text and variable subsitution. The "End" statement is used to return a value from that code. And finally, the Execute statement causes that code tto be executed and the result returned by the parent function. Using this code I can now create a form action to execute any single unit test without writing any additional code. I can also create a view action that would execute all selected unit tests in a view.
|
Ratings
0
|
In a recent edition of This Week In Lotus there was a discussion about some of the new features coming with Lotus Connections 3.0. One of the features mentioned was the ability for customers to un-bundle the standard services and just purchase a single service. The example given was that a customer just wanting to use Lotus Connections for discussion forums could just purchase a Lotus Connections server that ran the Discussion service. I have reflected on this for a few days as it has got me wondering.... . Back in the days when Lotus was.. well Lotus was Lotus Notes, the product was branded as groupware and the Discussion template was an important part of the product positioning. Discussion databases in their original form have now become somewhat dated. Concepts such as Google Wave and FaceBook are now presenting a better model for how communities of people prefer to use discussion forums. But still, have we now reached a point where IBM might start pushing customers towards a product like Connections for discussion needs over the use of the Discussion (or TeamRoom) templates available within Lotus Notes? I have used both products for discussion forums and I can't say the current Discussion capability available in Lotus Connections is any better than the Lotus Notes discussion template. In fact, I feel the Lotus Notes option provides more functionality, plus I can easily customize it whenever I need.
.
In recent weeks Ed Brill has alluded to the fact that IBM would prefer to not support any application templates as part of Lotus Notes. Countering this, there are members of the Lotus community that would like to see IBM expand the range of out-of-the-box templates it provides. We should also consider the fact that IBM's sales team is largely provided incentives to sell new product rather than retain existing product sales. That's great for new Lotus products, but not so good for a product with an established 20-year base of customers. It would be easy in an environment like this to see Lotus Connection 3.0 being sold into organizations at the expense of Lotus Notes for application needs as simple as Discussion database, document libraries,.... .
Of course, IBM aren't stupid, and we do not yet know a lot about how Project Vulcan will be implemented. I have previously suggested Lotus Connection and LotusLive will be the big winners from Project Vulcan. Maybe as part of Project Vulcan, IBM have a plans for a discussion forum capability that goes even beyond that of FaceBook and Google Wave. If they do, it would seem likely this would be provided as part of Lotus Connections and not as a new/enhanced template within Lotus Notes. I'm not saying this would be a good or bad thing. But it does change my perceptions about how Lotus Notes is (or may be) positioned moving forward. i.e. Are the days of Lotus Notes as an out-of-the-box solution numbered? Is this now the domain for Lotus Connections and LotusLive. Will Lotus Notes ultimately be targeted solely as a custom application development environment?
.
Note: I do not have access to any internal information about future Lotus products outside of Lotus Notes 8.5.2. The above is conjecture based purely from information available in the public domain from blogs, presentations etc.
|
Ratings
0
|
For me This Week In Lotus has become compulsory listening each week. One of the interesting points mentioned in last week's edition was the fact that not only was Lotus (Connections/Quickr) named by IDC as the Worldwide Market Shared Leader in Social Platform Software, but the fact that Micro$oft ($harePoint) failed to even appear in the rankings. Yes, that's right. Despite all the marketing effort by Micro$oft to oversell their product as the universal solution to everything, they have failed to receive important industry recognition that their software even qualifies to make it into the social software space.
.
We already know that SharePoint fails to make the grade as an application development platform for groupware solutions. Now the evidence is growing that its social platform components are not being widely implemented. The IDC report shows that social software is one of the hottest growth areas in the software industry. So it is little wonder that Micro$oft are spinning their marketing wheels trying to gain a position of market dominance. They need to so that they can force proprietary standards on its unsuspecting audience. The last thing they want to see is open standards being adopted in yet another industry sector. As noted in my recent entry SharePoint Sucks, Micro$soft seem to be overselling a product to organizations that are now struggling to find meaningful ways to deliver on that promise. IDC clearly are not fooled by the marketing hype. Out of the box Sharepoint is proving to be great as a file store to build silos around existing data . But the question must be asked, is it proving to be useful (and cost effective) for delivering anything else?
.
For Lotus Notes developers it is somewhat frustrating that we must wait for Project Vulcan to arrive and integrate the product (think Notes 9) with the full social software capabilities provided by Lotus Connections and Lotus Quickr. But it is happening (look for an update at IAMLUG this week).... This is already obvious to many, but the future of Lotus Notes is now intertwined with the future of the Lotus Brand. What was once known simply as "Groupware" has now been dressed up and given a new name "Social Software". Yes, Lotus Notes also pioneered the way on this concept too - well before it became fashionable and trendy. As the IDC reports shows, Lotus continues to be a dominant force in that space, and after 20 years of effort Micro$soft still can't deliver a product that qualifies in this space. So when your organization is developing a strategy for social software make sure the decision makers get to see a copy of the IDC report. Have them ask their $harePoint salesman to explain why their product doesn't even appear on the map! A true and meaningful comparison is not between Lotus Notes and $harePoint or even Lotus Quickr and $harepoint, but between the Lotus Brand and $harePoint. And Lotus is clearly winning that battle!
.
Related Reading:
IBM Leads Social Platform Software Market
|
Ratings
0
|
Prior to this week, if you had asked me to identify any single week in which I learn't the most about Lotus Notes and what it could do to transform the way I work, I would replied my first ever Lotusphere - earlier this year. Amazing as that was, it did not even come close to the awesome experience I had this PAST week.
.
As many of you will know by now, I was offered, and accepted an opportunity to join Group Business Software. This was not an easy decision to make. It involves moving my entire family from our home here in Southern California across the continent to the Atlanta area. It was a very very important decision because I also found myself in a position where I needed to decide my career path. I was reading with great interest blogs from prominent members of the Notes development community such as JonVon and Jake Howlett and their struggles to remain full time Lotus Notes developers. I was an active participant in those discussions as I too was searching for answers. The options being presented to me that would have allowed me to remain in Los Angeles where either with companies who were doing the same things with Lotus Notes as they were ten years ago, or companies that were likely to migrate away from Lotus Notes in the near future. Often they were doing both! My research has suggested to me that SharePoint is a crap development environment and I would simply not enjoy doing this type of work for long. Google is getting a lot of attention but does not seem to have any clear vision of where it is heading as a development platform. The future seems to heading towards the cloud and I believe IBM/Lotus have as clear a vision with Project Vulcan as anybody. And any gaps that may exist in IBM's vision is almost certainly being plugged by Group's own plans for the future. So my decision to join Group, and drag my family with me was a vote of confidence in the future of Lotus Notes and especially the work being down by Group Business Software.
.
This week was my first week on the job. I was provided the chance to travel to Atlanta to meet with the rest of the team with whom I would now be working. A team of five people who can collectively boast 83 years experience with Lotus Notes! The project leader is Nathan T Freeman, who probably needs no introduction. Nathan is a person who I have long considered to have one of the most amazing minds. Not just in Notes development, but development in general. With Nathan, there is absolutely nothing out there which can't be solved in some way using Lotus Notes, especially now Notes has the power of XPages and Java. The second member of the project team is Tim Tripcony, another well known member of the yellowverse. It is hard to imagine that anybody is pushing the boundaries of what XPages and SSJS can do as much as Tim. The other two members of the team are Colin Macdonald and Keith Smilie. These guys keep a much lower in the Notes community but they are also equally amazing with the leading edge stuff they are working on, especially in the areas of Java and Eclipse development.
.
So that leaves me, the newest member of the team. I come from a largely corporate environment, barely out of XPages kindergarten. My one strength, Notes Classic and LotusScript development is so yesterday to these guys. I knew joining Group would be like learning to swim by being thrown in the deep end. I perhaps didn't realize how deep the water was going to be, or how far from the end of the pool I would land. But the good think about this project team is that if I need somebody to mentor me in taking my own skills to the next level I could not ask for a better group of zen masters to guide me. It is amazing to see a group like this work together. Egos are parked at the door. Everyone is there to help each other and solutions are found to amazing technical problems in a fraction of the time it might take in a more normal development environment. If this project team doesn't have answers, there is a pool of 75+ Lotus engineers elsewhere within Group to call on plus an extensive network with many of the gurus at IBM. I can't believe my luck to have landed in such an environment. It is a Notes Developers Nirvana. This week I had the chance to take a glimpse at the future of Lotus Notes as a serious "heavy weight" development platform. I cannot talk about the specifics of the projects we are working on, but they involve doing things I never even dreamed were possible. So its back to Kindergarten for me again.
..
I imagine the content of my blog will now change. In the past its content has largely been dictated by what I am doing in the Notes development world. In my new roles I will be focusing on testing the code developed by the rest of the team, so expect more focus in that area. I will also be in java/Eclipse kindergarten for quite some time, so I will probably share some of my experiences there. And I will also have a chance to seriously extend my XPages/SSJS skills too. In the past my work had focused around my own OOP/LotuSScript based ∙dominoFramework which had been the cornerstone of almost every application I have built over the past 4-5 years. That will no longer be the case so I am planning to post all that code in an update to my existing project on OpenNTF. My blogs may be a little less frequent due to the amount of effort required to come up to a new speed. But for me it is is all so very very very exciting. I can't wait until LotusSphere when some of the exciting stuff I am now working on will be on show for all to see. If this past week was any gauge it should be HUGE!!!!
.
ps: A big thank you to Nathan and Group for providing this amazing opportunity. And a heart-felt thank-you to everyone that I met this past week in the Group office for all the assistance you provided. And the biggest thank you of all to my wife, Michelle, for finally agreeing to allow us to take this next journey together.
|
Ratings
0
|
|
For those that have seen the "Project Vulcan" vision (and understood it) I expect there is an understanding that IBM's intentions are to aggressively target cloud computing and Enterprise 2.0 with the full force of the Lotus brand. This will see important changes being made to most (if not all) products in the Lotus portfolio, including Lotus Notes. Lotus Notes probably has the biggest footprint of any product in the Lotus portfolio, so it makes sense that it has a very important role to play in the future (IMHO). I mention this because I am frequently amazed at the type of articles that get read (or not read) on Planet Lotus. Sure its not a very accurate guide, but it is perhaps the best tool available to sense what is gaining attention inside the yellow bubble.
.
If you are a big reality TV fan and prefer to read some of the Shock, Horror, Scandal articles being posted with regular frequency (yes I have contributed a few myself) then that's fine. But I would also recommend to those people who read my blog for the articles about either code, architecture, and/or product strategy, that you also consider paying very close attention to articles that cover Enterprise 2.0, social networking, analytics, Lotus Connections etc. These are the types of solutions I expect your customers will soon be demanding from you. These are also the application needs I expect IBM and its business partners will soon have tools that will allow you to build some pretty amazing stuff. Tools for which Google, Sharepoint, SalesForce etc will struggle to compete. So prepare yourself now to start kicking some Micro$oft butt by learning as much as you can about these important changes that are now arriving on our doorstep. It just might be the important change that will allow people such as JonVon and Jake Howlett to return full-time to Lotus development. It just might be the kind of stuff that will have us all smiling.
|
Ratings
0
|
Editorial
I am starting in my new role at Group next week and will be travelling to Atlanta over the weekend for a week of induction. I am unsure what I may do with this blog series having this new role. I expect I may not have much time next week, so don't be surprised if you do not see any posts next week.
.
Below is a summary of news making the rounds today inside the yellow bubble that may (or may not) be of interest to Lotus Notes developers.
.
Lotus Notes Classic
- Arturs Mekss has contributed a LotusScript class for processing XML on OpenNTF.
Lotus Notes Standard (Composite Applications/Eclipse/Widgets)
- @NA
Lotus XPages
- Stephan Wissel has published a cool diagram outlining the many skills an XPage developer may need to acquire. I would argue this is way too much to expect a Power User to ever acquire, and it may be that over time it will prove too much even for a Lotus Notes developer. It could be we start to see specialization in the field, especially between front-end and back-end development.
- In a follow-up to his previous article, Stephan Wissel expands his solution for categorized views with additional code to take account of column totals.
- Niklas Heidloff has yet another great demo that accompanies the latest release of the Mobile Controls project on OpenNTF. This one features Slide, fade, and flip Transitions.
Lotus Notes
- @NA
Lotus
- This Week In Lotus Epsiode 7 - Rick Astley makes my day has gone to air. Listen to Stuart McIntyre, Darren Duke, Chris Miller, and Ben Poole discuss the latest news in and around the Lotus community.
- Holli Konig is promoting an Open Mic session - Notes 8.5.1 Upgrade & Deployment Best Practices on July 15.
Enterprise 2.0
- Mary-Jo Foley reports that Micro$oft is encouraging its partner to be "All In" with the cloud just like itself. It sounds like "the cloud" will soon become a fairly crowded and congested place real soon!
- An interesting blog from Patrick Sledz in which he questions whether Micro$oft should be targeting SharePoint customization at developers or power users. I find this discussion interesting as I am sure we have a similar confusion with marketing Lotus Notes as a RAD platform. At least Lotus Notes is a mature product and we have already benefited from the great many of applications developed and deployed by power users. I can't help but wonder what happens with SharePoint if it is "owned" by IT and locked down by Administrators in the same way Lotus Notes has been in many some organizations.
Technology
- The Apple App store celebrates its second birthday tomorrow. In that time more the store has grown to 250,000 applications and 5 billion downloads.
- An interesting article from Don Reisenger about a Pew research study showing Generation Y expect to remain active social networkers for the next ten years.
- The latest market share data shows Android gaining ground on RIM and Apple.
Lighter Side
- Thanks to Keith Brookes for Hamster Power Your PC. You have to laugh because this is a real product!
.
@YesterdayInLotusDev
|
Ratings
0
|
Over on Yancy Lent's sister-site Planet Sharepoint there is an interesting article - Why Microsoft is wrong in their SharePoint bring to market approach?. I find it interesting because it raises the point about who the target audience should be for a product. It mirrors recent debates on Planet Lotus about the positioning of Lotus Notes and the Lotus Notes App Store. No signs of any robots over there... But certainly some of the same questions.
|
Ratings
0
|
Below is a summary of news making the rounds today inside the yellow bubble that may (or may not) be of interest to Lotus Notes developers. .
Lotus Notes Classic
- Chris Toohey has published an article about his "Lotus Notes Domino Logic utility" call Controller.
Lotus Notes Standard (Composite Applications/Eclipse/Widgets)
- @NA
Lotus XPages
- teamstudio have a Webinar on July 21 titled Mobilise you Apps in 30 minutes. This will demonstrate their new Unplugged product tht allows developers to port an XPage application to Blackberry devices as a native application.
- Niklas Heidloff has a demonstration of the new Spinning Wheel control available as part of the Mobile Controls project on OpenNTF.
Lotus Notes
- Dan Lynch has posted an interesting article with an eDiscovery calculator. Dan points out that ediscovery costs are significantly cheaper for Notes/Domino than they are for Outlook/Exchange.
Lotus
- Episode 114 of Taking Notes sees Bruce and Julian taking with Chris Blatnick about all things LotusLive.
- IBM have published a new case study from Azlan that outlines the benefits of LotusLive Engage.
Enterprise 2.0
- Paul McDougall reports that IBM's research labs in Israel will lead a project designed to deliver a Plug-And-Play Cloud Framework. This article has so much jargon I am not sure i have a clue what they are doing but Artifact-Centric Service Interoperation sound impressive!
- Chris Sparshott shares a presentation from IBM that outlines what IBM is doing with iPhones and iPads.
Technology
- A research report release by Barclays Capital predicts the arrival of the iPad and other tablet devices is likely to eat into sales for netbooks and low-end notebooks.
Lighter Side
- Thanks to Ulrich Krause for Paul the Octopus - Outlook vs Lotus Notes
.
@yesterdayInLotusDev
|
Ratings
0
|
Below is a summary of news making the rounds today inside the yellow bubble that may (or may not) be of interest to Lotus Notes developers. .
Lotus Notes Classic
- Marie Scott has published a great little tip for allowing iNotes to failover by making a few changes to the code in the iNotes Redirect database.
Lotus Notes Standard (Composite Applications/Eclipse/Widgets)- Bob Balaban has a cool tip on debugging Java agents from within DDE (8.5.1).
Lotus XPages
- Tim Tripcony has published an article that explains how to use Perspectives to get more out of your DDE experience, especially XPage applications.
- Niklas Heidloff has published a demo of Slide In menu Control included with the the Mobile Controls project on OpenNTF.
Lotus Notes
- David Leedy has published a story about his own success in selling the value of Lotus Notes as a Rapid Application Development environment.
- Ed Brill has posted a great case study, a Haiti relief application that exploited Lotus Notes' RAD capabilities to deliver a solution in TWO HOURS. This adds to an earlier article from Ed in which a SMB parises the value of Lotus Notes and the DominoWiki template. Notes developers looking to build a case for expanding the role of Notes within their organization are starting to see some compelling stories being published over the past month. Lets hope somebody decides to consolidate these to make a killer viral marketing kit.
- Chris Miller is about the publish issue #4 of the IdoNotes newsletter. If you are not already a subscriber do yourself a favour and visit his link to sign up.
Lotus
- IBM have announced a new Webcast on July 14 to discuss Sametime integrtion with Lotus Quickr 8.2.
- Joyce Davis reminds everyone that registration is still open for the free IAMUG conference in St Louis August 2-3.
- It looks like Darren Duke may have started another debate within the Lotus community. This time the issue is IBM's support for Business Partners. You have to know any blog entry that reaches 500+ hits on Planet Lotus is hot!!
Enterprise 2.0
- Jake Howlett comments on the pain he is experiencing in customizing SharePoint applications. These comments do not seem to differ too much from my own research (and here) which suggests that true developers attempting to customize out-of-the-box solutions quickly come to hate the platform and the difficultie sit presents in doing true RAD.
Technology
- ZDNet have published an interesting article weighing in on the concept of an Enterprise 'app store'. Another article from Fortune magazine makes note that many of the new innovative apps being developed are almost excluively being developed for mobile devices.
- It looks like it is now official. Microsoft have indeed embarked on a new round of layoffs that include the SharePoint/Office team.
- Chris Voce discusses potential changes being made by Micro$oft to their software licensing model that looks likely to move closer to the cloud model.
- Mathew Miller discusses the first front facing QWERTY Android coming to T-Mobile.
- Adam Zeis reports that Borders have now opened their eBook store and a reader application for the Blackberry.
Lighter Side
- In the absence of anything else that came to my attention today... the following post from me takes a tongue in cheek view of Real Notes Programmers.
@YesterdayInLotusDev
|
Ratings
0
|
Warning: This is NOT a technical article on LotusScript of XPages, this is 100% a a rant.... .
A few months back I blogged about an amazingly bad customer experience I was having with HP. Little did I realize that HP had a whole lot more bad treatment in store for me, its customer. It is now six months since I first placed an order on-line for a new computer from HP. I am a slow learner, and perhaps a little too stubborn. Because in that six months I consumed a lot of time and effort fighting for what I believed was fair and right in the belief that someone in HP might actually have an interest in ensuring its customers actually get what they order. Sadly that is not the case. But I did learn a few things:-
.
- When a situation seems completely bizarre, it probably means you don't have all the facts. e.g. I failed to understand why my computer was late arriving, and I then had a hard disk fail before I could install my software, and then I TWICE had the wrong replacement parts sent to me. All after talking with a wide number of people and confirming what was being done. This seemed too bad to just be a coincidence. It was. What I later learned was that when I ordered my computer HP had gone out of stock on the RAID 0 disk drive I had ordered. Late shipment? I guess that was them figuring out how to get around my order. Disk drive failing on arrival? Anyone want to bet they found a defective drive and stuck it in my computer just so they could ship it out. Mixed up my orders for replacement drives? Nah, they knew they didn't have any RAID 0 drives and hoped I would accept a replacement drive that didn't match what I had ordered.
- Don't EVER assume the advice you are given is either truthful or accurate. e.g. After I received a replacement computer which had the wrong operating system installed I was told I could not get a refund for the difference in the values of the operating system delivered versus that originally ordered. Nor could I be given an upgrade key to download the upgrade myself. What I was told was I could pay for the upgrade from Micro$oft myself and in return I would receive an extended warranty for the computer. I didn't accept that and I was later told (by somebody else) that if I ordered and downloaded an OS upgrade I would void the warranty on my computer making both the current and extended warranty worthless.
- When you are assigned a case manager who is completely incompetent, insist on having a new case manager assigned ASAP. My case manager (Lucy) was a complete and utter waste of time. I complained on a number of occasions about the way my case was being handled and they kept passing me back to the same account manager. HP are a Lotus Notes shop and Richard Schwatrz kindly offered to raise my case within their internal "Voice of the Customer" program. The only thing that did was to have a message sent back to my bumbling account manager to resolve my case. No follow up, nothing. I am convinced Richard was the only one in HP that ever cared. They didn't even have a process by which I could register a complaint about her appalling service. So either give up early or find a way to get a change. Its going to be hard enough to get a resolution without having a case manager who is stuck on stupid.
- To get anything done with a company like HP you need leverage. For a brief period of time I had two of their computers. Neither was what I ordered but I now had equipment worth more than what I ordered. For this brief period of time I actually had a level of interest from HP in getting a solution. Like a fool however I trusted them when they said if I returned one of these computers they would then forward me a third computer with everything I ordered. But when I did everything changed. Suddenly that promised replacement computer could no longer be delivered until I also returned the second computer. Now I was the one having to jump through all the hoops and if I didn't follow their every instruction then everything just stalled. All they had to do now was offer a solution that they knew would be completely unacceptable to me and then they could simply close the case file and move on to the next victim. No leverage = no interest.
- But the lesson I learnt most of all is that HP solve their customer service requests by trying to make anything that is in any way shape or form inconvenient to them to be even more inconvenient to you in the hope you will just go away. If I had taken all the time and effort I spent on pursuing this matter and converted that into billable hours as a Notes developer I could have bought a brand new computer several times over. They knew by keeping me on the phone for several hours at a time only to keep going round in circles had a good chance of getting me to give up. They knew how much time and effort was required to install all my software and transfer data onto a computer so they kept insisting on replacing my computer rather than finding a way to easily replace the missing hardware/software or offer a simple refund.
.
So in short... If you order a computer from a company like HP you need to cross your fingers and hope they provide a set of components that all work. If they don't you need to assess whether the cost of the replacement part is worth the time and effort you may consume in pursuing a claim. And bear in mind no amount of time my be enough to actually get you what you ordered. Once HP have your money their interest in you is zero... unless they can convince you to again spend more money. I learnt my lesson, and while I started this year a loyal HP customer over a 10 year period, the one thing I do still have is the right to express myself when I next need to decide what computers I will be purchasing. I only hope HP supplies computers to BP because they truly deserve each other!
|
Ratings
0
|
I haven't yet officially started at Group but already my computer is starting to have all manner of weird and wonderful products added such as the Eclipse Plug-In Developer Kit, Expeditor, Subversion etc. And then there is that java thing... I have often heard about these things but have never really had a great need to truly understand them. Mainly because my clients never paid me to use these new technologies. They hired me because I was a Real Notes Programmer...
- Real Notes Programmers... don't program with java. If God had wanted us to program in java he never would have given us @formula and LotusScript.
- Real Notes Programmers... don't use Expediter... Real Notes programmers can't even spell it much less use it!
- Real Notes Programmers... have no need for the Eclipse Plug-in developer kit. If the battery on their laptop runs low they already know how to plug it in.
- Real Notes Programmers... don't do code control. And if they did, it would be CIAO and almost certainly not Subversion.
- Real Notes Programmers... have no need for a package explorer. When they are expecting a package they use UPS tracking.
- Real Notes Programmers... Don't have a need for developing a page life-cycle that extends beyond WebQueryOpen and WebQuerySave.
- Real Notes Programmers... only like Project Vulcan because its allows them to once again talk about Star Trek
- Real Notes Programmers... cry uncontrollably when they are forced to develop customized SharePoint applications
- Real Notes Programmers... feel the need for DDE about as much as Domino Administrators look forward to having their own Domino Admin client migrated to Eclipse. So to the Administrator that forced me to upgrade to DDE all I can say is "what goes around... comes around".
- Real Notes Programmers... don't need unit testing. Who needs JUnit or nUnit when your code always runs first time allowing you to leave early and consume a few beerunits.
I guess when I officially start at Group next week my life is about to change. They seem to have a different perspective on what a Real Notes Programmer does.
|
Ratings
0
|
