TexasSwede

What's your take on certifications?

It took me over 10 years before I took my first certifications (last year at Lotusphere, crammed in 3 tests between the sessions). I never believed in certifications, I can tell some horror stories about "certified" developers that could not code very good at all. All I say is "GetNthDocument"... 

At this years Lotusphere, I wanted to upgrade my Certified Application Developer to the Advanced level for 6.0/6.5, and also try to upgrade to Notes/Domino 7.0. The advanced upgrade (exam 273) was no problem, but I failed the 7 upgrade. Since I am still on R5 at work (some clients are on 7.0.2, but development has to be done for 5.0.12), I did not have that much experience of creating web services or using DB2 in Notes, which were what most of the test was about.

But what really made me wonder were all the questions about the new user interface. Is the biggest and most important thing for a developer to know that if you click "do not show this dialog again" when you get the prompt to close Designer, the prompt will also go away in the Notes client?

What about having a couple of questions about something that is really useful for a developer to know? Like how to work with lists, for example.

On the bus to the Lotusphere Wednesday party at Islands of Adventure, I was sitting next to André Guirard, and we talked about the tests. He said he did review the tests a while back, and they were thinking about revising them. But I did not get any word on what the current plan is.

Whew... Two busy days! Yesterday I ended up going to a sushi restaurant with Michael Wagner, a German friend and collegue. We ate us though the menu, untile they closed the kitchen and threw us out...

Today I focused on UI sessions, like "Yiekes" and the two UI sessions by Nathan T. Freeman and Chris Blatnick. Great sessions! I also went to the (last) "Worst practicses" with Paul Mooney and Bill Buchan. Hillarious, as always, especially the end with Duffbert harassing them on stage. I have some great pictures that I will put up later. Now I am just back from the Bloggers BOF (where Alan himself had to tell the room monitors to let me and Jess Stratton in, since we were tagged as "media", who normally are not welcome), and I just changed shirt (to the "Bleeding yellow" t-shirt), and I am now heading down to board a bus for Universal Studios Islands of Adventure...

Oh, yesterday I passed my certification upgrade to "IBM Lotus Notes/Domino 6.0 Advanced Application Developer", but I failed the upgrade test for version 7 today. Did not really ave time to study, though.

 Busy day. Opening General Session with secret host Bob Costas (as a non-american and non-sportsnut, I had no clue who he was, but he was good and entertaining). Plenty of news, quite a bit Linux related, even if they "forgot" to mention that Lotus Foundations is running on Linux. :-)

Other news were Connections 2.0, Quickr 8.1 and of course (as expected) Notes 8.01 and 8.5. I still can't decide if I like the new Eclipse-based Designer... But Xpages are really cool!

After the session I met a German collegue, Michael Wagner, and we walked thorugh the showcase. We ended up with a couple of shirts and assorted stuff, including blue tea cups(!) and yellow luggage tags... Some baseball caps and t-shirts were also added to the collections.

A friend of mine, who have been reading my and other blogs here, messaged me during the day and wanted me to check if Scott was single... (I checked, he is not, sorry).

..and it already feels like it used to feel Tuesday evening. It has been a busy and informational day!

I went to three jumpstart sessions:
JMP301 - Understanding Security in IBM Lotus Notes and Domino
JMP205 - AJAX and JSON for IBM Lotus Domino Applications
JMP206 - Web Services Bootcamp
Bill Buchan (JMP206) was hillariuos as always, even if he did not wear his kilt this year.

I was intending to do some certification Sunday afternoon, but the lab was already full for the rest of the day. I think it is great that certification now start on Sunday, and that they are upen until 8pm Tuesday and Wednesday.

I also went by the Lotus Stuff Store (this year located over at the Y&B, where the cert labs are as well), and got me a few little gadgets. A 15 dollar USB BlueTooth adapter, a USB extension cable with multiple connectors of different size/shape, and some other (more or less) useful things.
I got a free 4-port USB-hub, came in handy, so I can connect my MP3-player, memory card adapter for my camera, BlueTooth adapter and mouse to one port. :-)

I also learnd something very cool and interesting that probably will be revealed at the OGS tomorrow. I promised not to tell anyone, but I think it will make some big news.

Oh, and I got my backpack today, as well as my 12-year button from Bob Balaban.

 

 

 I went over to "Big River" on the Boardwalk for the BALD (blogger) meeting. Spent a couple of hours having fun. On the way home, I saw some lightning in the sky, and heard some thunder. When I was just 20-30 meter away from the hotel entrace, the sky opened up. A quick rush and a elevator ride later, I was back my room again, watching the lightning outside.

I rested for a bit, checked mail and around 8.20pm I headed over to ESPN. Many of the BALDies were there as well.

Below are a couple of pictures from the BALD meeting.

 

 

I turned on the TV in my room, and guess what shows up?

I wonder if this is a prediction of the guest speaker at the OGS...

 

I have arrived. Bad weather and fog delayed some flights into Orlando, but mine was on time. Landed at 11.35 right on schedule, and took a cab to Swan where I am staying. I registered and went to Big River on the Boardwalk to grab lunch. Just got back to my room (12th floor and nice view, see below) and is taking a break. Soon heading to the BALD gathering at Big River, I think.

The only disapointment was that I, as press (I am going as press since I in addition to being a developer also write articles for Computer Sweden), did not get a backpack. This is my 11th Lotusphere in Orlando, and every other year we got a backpack like everyone else.

I wonder how much money IBM is saving on that, can't be that much... Oh well.

Just 12 hours until boarding start for my flight to Orlando. I think most things are done, just need to load up my MP3/video player with some more episodes of Mythbusters, and pull down the latest security patches for my laptop...