Monday, December 27, 2010

2010 a Year of Milestones for ME

It is funny that Gregg Eldred is now getting solicitations from AARP since I have been getting them for the past two years. I was first offended, but unfortunately I have reach the age where I should expect this. This year has been full of milestones and I would say turning points in my life.

First, I recently turned the big 5 0. Since most of my family live to the mid 90s to 100s, I guess my life on this earth is half over.

Second, about every ten years since graduating college, I have shifted directions in what I do professionally. I was an electrical engineer for about 10 years, I did training sales for 10 years, and have done Lotus and business consulting services for about 10 years now. From what I see happening in the Lotus world compared to the rest of the industry, I see myself slowly making a new shift. What that is, I do not know? I still see Lotus in the picture, but the environment is so fluid. So this coming Lotusphere 2011 will be interesting for me. I am hoping that Domino is successful in turning the corner. I love the Domino product. However, at the same time, my family always comes first and if customers wants solutions based on other platforms I will move towards that direction. Many years ago, I believed in the pure Yellow approach, but over the past year I have conclude that is no longer possible. Sales have been fine, but our world is changing and we need to adapt.

Third, nothing is more important than my family and health. Without these two you really do not have much. Recently, a couple of friends and family members became ill. Without your health, all the money in the world would not matter. When we are young and healthy we never think about it. So during the past few months, I have shifted towards a vegetarian diet with minimal process foods and no more coffee and soda. The soda kick was the hardest since I use to drink a lot of soda each day.

Fourth, I have been starting to spend more time helping others in need. There are so many in need and you do not think about it until you are in that situation. I was very glad that we were able to raise $500 for charity during MWLUG 2010. We plan to do it again at MWLUG 2011 for another charity. The $500 we raised thanks to everyone who participated allows the Cleveland Foodbank to serve 2,000 meals to their community. One of the projects that I tried starting this year is "The Human Community Project." But, I could not get a certain donation from a certain company so it did not get off the ground. However, I will be restarting this project in 2011 mostly likely with a new technology. Hopefully, everyone will be hearing more about this project.

Fifth, oh I thought I had a fifth, but maybe it just the old age.

Reading: The Ten Faces of Innovation

I just started to read "The Ten Faces of Innovation." An interesting book by Tom Kelley of IDEO.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

End of Year Cleaning: Workplace CDs Place Where it Belongs

It is the end of the year and I was cleaning my desk and I found Lotus Domino's worst nightmare, CDs for Lotus Workplace. I thought I got ridden of all my Workplace CDs but they seem to keep showing up. Kind of like how Workplace is showing up in Domino. I made sure I got ridden of ALL of them this time. Crushed them into little pieces. Hopefully never to be seen again, but some how I have a feeling that is not going to happen given the direction of Domino.

Friday, December 17, 2010

New GRANITE LUG Leadership

After 3 years as President and 2 years as Vice President of GRANITE, I am happy to announce that we have elected a new president and vice president for GRANITE. Bernie Leung from Mesa Technologies will be the new President and Mike McGarel from Czarnowski will be the new Vice President. Congratulations to both of them. They will definitely provide new ideas and direction for GRANITE. I will still be an active participant at GRANITE, but this will give me more time to focus on the Midwest Lotus User Group Conference in which the next one will be in Milwaukee, WI in late August 2011.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Reminder: GRANITE Lotus User Group Meeting on Monday

Reminder that the December 2010 GRANITE Lotus User Group meeting will be held next Monday on December 13, 2010. Meridian IT/Plantronics and Kroll Track will be presenting. In addition, Bernie Leung will talk about Lotus Security. So come join us for this meeting which includes our December Holiday lunch

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Why Business Partners CAN NOT sign up for three day pass at Lotusphere 2011

I was in the process of signing up for Lotusphere 2011. Since I didn't plan to go to the Wednesday party nor Thursday I thought I would sign up for the three day conference badge which is $200 cheaper. I was surprise to find out that as an IBM Business Partner we are not allowed to sign up for the three day pass. It sounds like IBM squeezing money out of the partners again.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

WTTW 11, Geoffrey Baer is Biking the Boulevards

On November 29, 2010, Geoffrey Baer will be presenting his latest in his series of shows covering the history and culture of Chicago. The new video will air on WTTW Channel 11 and is called "Biking the Boulevards." If you are in the Chicagoland area don't forget to watch it and donate money to WTTW.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

SMB != IBM ?

This hold Lotus Foundation non-announcement has once again have me shaking my head about IBM's understanding and focus on the SMB market. As I said on Christian Tillmanns' blog.

"IBM have some of the best solutions for the SMB market, but never seem to understand the importance of this market not just in the revenue perspective, but the impact it has on the enterprise market. Remember that Microsoft’s and Google’s primary focus initially was in the SMB market. And now look where are they. If you have a good foothold on the SMB market you will gain in the enterprise market. What IBM needs to understand is that every individual consumer is a small business and they grow to become enterprises by number. Good example is what Microsoft did with Outlook. Google has done with Google Docs. IBM still does not get it. For example, if you want people to adopt Lotus Symphony DO NOT, DO NOT require people to fill out a super long form or any form at all. I told a customer to try it, but he decided it was too much trouble to fill out all that information just to download what is amount to Open Office."

But Lotus Protector is another example. There is a huge use of virtualization in the SMB market and many companies uses ESXi since it is free. So when you state that Lotus Protector is available as a Virtual Appliance why not make it easy for customers to install it onto a ESXi virtual partition using the OVF format. Instead you have to use the VMware Center Converter because Lotus Protector is in VMX format. This extra step can cause problems and corrupt your ESX partition if it is interrupted. There is a free tool from VMware out there to convert from VMX to OVF format. Why not just make it available in the naive virtual appliance format? Do you think this helps small businesses accept IBM products? DON'T THINK SO.

The concept from UX Design applies not just for visual interaction, but have huge impacts on the back-end part of the product. Cloud computing's advantage is its low barrier to entry. So you need to apply this same concept to how an IT department views an on-premise product. Lotus Foundations' concept was just that. So now that you have terminated the hardware, please give the Business Partners the ability to create their own DOM USB or CF Card so that they can have this ability using other hardware.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Using Dojo to Create a Domino File Upload Control

I having been doing research for the past couple of months on how I can create an file uploader control for my UX Pages Project which now has involved to become the iPhora Application Designer. Again Jake Howlett's Codestore.net and a couple of other blogs were great starting points. There was four different ways I could create a Domino file uploader:

- Embedding a traditional file upload control into a Domino form
- Creating a separate HTML form and referencing in the name of the Domino FUC on a traditional Domino form
- Using XPages and create a FUC
- Set DominoDisableFileUploadChecks=1 in the Notes.ini file and create a HTML Form that does a ?createdocument on a traditional Domino form (that I learned from Jake Howlett's blog)

All these techniques will work in creating a Domino File Uploader control. However, each of these techniques have limitations that I do not like. Since I am a strong believer of the total separation of form and data the use of traditional Domino FUC and XPages is totally out. The setting of the notes.ini file leaves a big security hole on the Domino server. Therefore, the creation of a separate HTML form which we do in UX Pages and referencing the name of the Domino FUC on a traditional Domino form was the closes option for me. However, since Domino 6 the name of the Domino FUC consist of %%File.DBRepID.FormID.$Body.0.??? that is unique. There is no guarantee that the name will not change. If you copy the database to another server, the name will change. I was frustrated with the whole thing and drop the whole concept a month ago. As I was listening to music, I suddenly realize the solution was extremely simple and with Dojo it is even simpler. It can be done without Dojo using traditional Ajax, but Dojo makes it so more flexible.

I needed a way to get the name of the Domino FUC on the traditional Domino form. I assume that it will be dynamic and unknown to the separate HTML Form. First assume the name of the traditional Domino form with the FUC in this case is called "fileuploader". If you look at the source of the form when you display it in a web browser you can locate and grab the FUC name and put it in your HTML form. However, I guarantee if will change if you copy the database.

Instead, I use the Dojo xhrPost or xhrGet HTTP service call, handle as text, to get the html of the form "fileuploader".



The data is now only text. Next I parse out the name of FUC and create the FUC using Javascript and place the location of the FUC into any location I want in the form. The StrLeft and StrRight are Javascript functions that does the same functionality as the Lotusscript StrLeft and StrRight.

During the dojo.addOnLoad() you can run the code to generate the FUC using Javascript onto the HTML form using dojo.byId().innerHTML based on the FUC name that you have parsed.

Now regardless of where the database is moved to the separate HTML form with your FUC will always reference the Domino FUC on the Domino form. I believe this technique will also work with a Adobe Flex upload control. Since we are using Dojo this technique works in both IE and Firefox.

I will be presenting at the virtual LTAP 2010 conference this week and I will demonstrates this technique as part of my presentation. So if you get a chance attend my session.

Monday, October 25, 2010

My LTAP 2010 Session: Introduction to Dojo for Domino Developers

I will be presenting a session at the LTAP 2010 virtual conference this week. My session is entitled "Introduction to Dojo for Domino Developers". It will introduce Domino developers who are not familiar with Dojo and how you can used it with Domino as a data store. I will provide a few demos including how you can create a Domino file uploader with Dojo that resolves many of the problems that have existed in the past. I will discuss this technique in my blog tomorrow.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Lotus Traveler Issue

Recently a couple of our clients added iPhones to replace their Blackberries in their operation and we installed Traveler for them so that they can access there mail and calendar from their iPhones. Everything is working fine with the one exception. Using BES with your Blackberry you have the option of whether the handheld or the desktop has control on the deletion of messages. So if you set it to the desktop (default) when the user deletes the message from their Blackberry to remove the clutter of messages, the messages remain in their mail file until they delete it using their Notes or iNotes client. This is very handy. However, with the Traveler Exchange ActiveSync there does not seem to be a similar option. Has anyone encountered this issue and found a resolution?

Friday, October 15, 2010

Learn about Quickr 8.5 - Reminder GRANITE October 2010 Meeting on Monday

Just a reminder that the GRANITE Lotus User Group October 2010 Meeting will be on Monday. One of the things that we will be covering is Lotus Quickr 8.5 and all the new features and API associated with this new version. Also we will be presenting sessions on E-mail discovery customer experience and using Dojo with XPages.


GRANITE Web Site

Creating Opportunities

This past Tuesday I was fortunate enough to attend a presentation by Geoffrey Baer of WTTW Channel 11 at the brand new Glenview Library which is located a few miles from my house. Geoffrey is the host of the extremely popular Chicago architecture and history series that have been running on WTTW for over 15 years on the same Gateway computers. Geoffrey presented a shorten version of his North Shore tour focused primarily on Glenview. Glenview's new library is very nice. I believe it is a bit smaller than the Evanston, IL library which has won many awards located just about a block from my office. Both are very impressive.

Geoffrey described in his talk how he became the host of the series. He was working as a producer at WTTW while he was giving Chicago architecture tours to visitors. A couple who attended his tour kept following him along even after the tour and asking him many questions. The couple was extremely impressed. The gentlemen happen to be the new appointed chairman at WTTW. Shortly after, the chairman asked Geoffrey to start his series.

This experience is very similar to one that I had almost twenty years ago. When Rob Burton, Dan Eitel, and I first started ReCor almost twenty years ago we were doing a few odd consulting jobs here and there. We networked with different organizations and one day a consultant that we met had a technical issue. She did not have any money to pay us, but we help out because it was interesting. About a year later, she came back to us and told us that she was impressed by our skills and ask if we would be interested in a project at the famous Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. As a result, we developed all the kiosks in the Take Flight exhibit that is still running after 15 years. During that time we were developing our first training course for Notes 3. Through our Lotus Partner representative we got in contact with the Project Manager of one of the largest pharmaceutical company in the world located in Illinois. At that time a number of bigger companies started to develop training for this new Lotus product, Notes 3. So the chances that we would get a sales was very small considering. She asked what we have done beside a cc:Mail course. So we mentioned that we did the kiosks at the Museum of Science and Industry for the Take Flight exhibit. She went down to the MSI and visited the exhibit. A few weeks later we receive a global-wide contract for training all their users on Lotus Notes.

You never know how opportunities can come about. Unfortunately, a few Domino administrators and developers that I have known for many years were recently layoff. I encourage them and anyone else in their situation not only to network, but volunteer your services regardless of whether it is in your field of expertise. Opportunities are there but you need to increase your chances and sometimes it leads you to a totally different area that you never expected. I was a Microwave Engineer for ten years and now the only time I am involved with Microwaves is when I heat up my instant oat meal.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

GRANITE Lotus User Group October 2010 Meeting

The GRANITE Lotus User Group October meeting will be held next Monday on October 18, 2010 at the IBM Center here in Chicago. We have a great lineup for this meeting. The topics for the meeting includes:

- Email Management, Archiving, and E-discovery
- Exploring Dojo with XPages
- Lotus Quickr 8.5
- MWLUG 2010 Summary and MWLUG 2011

So come join us and learn more about these topics. Breakfast and lunch will be included. Meeting are free for members. But non-members are most welcome. For more information and agenda for the meeting go to GRANITE site at: GRANITE Lotus User Group

Fall Colors in Michigan

With the great weather we had this past weekend, we decide to go to Holland, Michigan for our anniversary and enjoy the fall colors in Michigan. I have been married to the most wonderful lady for 12 years. We visited and hiked the sand dunes of Saugatuck Dunes State Park and P. J. Hoffmaster State Park. It was great exercise climbing the 300 foot sand dunes. You really feel it in your legs later. Both of them have beautiful beaches, but are not crowded especially in the fall. We tried getting a cabin, but they were all filled. This weekend gave me time to relax and enjoy the most important thing in my life, my family. As you can see the Lotus Software Cap make a good sun shade.









Saturday, October 2, 2010

Another Windows Server Retired

I have not been blogging at all recently. I have been so busy for the past month with projects and this weekend was the first time is a long time in which I had a chance to work on a server replacement project. The old Windows-based File Server was finally replaced with a new box running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS on VMWare ESXi 4. The new version of Ubuntu is even nicer than 8.04 LTS which we were using for some of other servers. With Quickr 8.5 now available on Linux, I will be able to retire all my Windows servers and be all Linux server shop(Ubuntu).

Busy so busy it was not good that my T41 hard drive bit the dusk a week ago and with some critical files that I was working on that I did not have a chance to back up. So next week I will be performing surgery on the hard drive to recover the data. The hard drive platters are in great shape so the data is there but the drive has issues. I brought an identical drive and will hopefully be transferring the platter to the new drive. Instead of Windows XP Professional, I will be installing Ubuntu 10.04 Desktop back on the T41. Wish me luck.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Legoland at MWLUG 2010

The signage for MWLUG 2010 was quite different then last year. The entire signage was put together with Legos. Thanks to Gregg Eldred's son and Richard Moy'son for their hard work and fun in creating the MWLUG 2010 signage.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/unknownbrick/sets/72157624698764665/with/4934131046/

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

MWLUG 2010 Winner of Flash Builder 4 Premium and Flash Builder for Unemployed Developers

Adobe Systems was gracious enough to donate a copy of Flash Builder 4 Premium for our MWLUG 2010 Giveaway during Justin Hill's Flex and Domino session. Mark Davenport from Share Logic is the lucky winner. There were many who were hoping to be the winner of this product. If you are recently unemployed and looking into learning a new technology that is in demand, Adobe System has a program for currently unemployed developers to get themselves a copy of Flash Builder 4 Standard. More information can be found at http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/free/index.html. There will be more news to come about MWLUG.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Summary of MWLUG 2010

MWLUG 2010 was a lot of hard work, but it all came together thanks to all the hard work of the volunteers, sponsors, speakers, vendors, and attendees. It was much better than last year. We had about a 20% increase in attendance this year. The session layout that the XPages speakers came up with worked great. Everyone like the approach of starting from the basics of Web development all the way up to the advanced XPages topics.

The flow about collaboration for the opening session done by Scot Rourke, David Via, and Kris Synder worked out very well.

Thanks to Avon Printing and Rebecca Leedy for their quick turnaround on the printing, conference bags, and T-shirts. Unlike last year's bags which were so small, the MWLUG 2010 bags can actually use for carrying groceries now that the conference is over. All the printing, bags, and T-shirts were done locally in the Midwest.

The lunch buffet on Friday was better than I imagined when I placed the order. Wish we had the money to have done a buffet lunch on both days. The hotel staff was very helpful. Only hiccups were the internet connections, parking, and room keys.

Highlights to Mention:

- We raised approximately $500.00 for the Cleveland Foodbank through the MWLUG 2010 Outreach Program
- Brian Smith was the lucky winner of the Hilton Garden Inn Raffle
- The evening at Pickwick and Frolic was great. We had 72 attendees attend the event. We all sat in the front. As a result, the comedians pick on Steve and Bill throughout the show. Steve and Bill were very good sports.
- The layout of the sponsor showcase and opening sessions worked out very well. It gave everyone a chance to sit down and talk including the folks from IBM which we never get a chance to do. Sponsors were happy to be in front of the attendees during the entire event.

Things to Improve on:
- One negative that we learned this year is make sure the hotel has significant amount of internet bandwidth. It was a bit hard to do the labs with only a 3Mbits wireless connection that died all the time.
- We need to change the Ask a Business Partner Expert to a slightly different venue.
- We need to include speaker evaluations
- BOF are too early for attendees especially after the evening event
- 45 sessions was a bit too much.

If you attended MWLUG 2010, please email me your comments and suggestions. We are trying to set something up with Survey Monkey, but that takes time.

Thanks everyone for supporting and making this a successful event. We look forward in seeing everyone in Milwaukee August 25-26, 2011 for MWLUG 2011. There is more to come from MWLUG during the year so stay tune.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Back From MWLUG and Ford Windstar Is Crap

I am back home from MWLUG at Cleveland and just as I was almost home, the transmission for my Ford Windstar craps out. Luckily, I have AAA to tow the car to my mechanic and that I was close to home. If I was on I-90 this would have been bad. I looked on the Web and all the signs points to the transmission. It seems that Ford Windstar all have problems with transmissions going out because of the torque converter or the pump. Of course, Ford has refused to recall it. But the end results, is you need a new transmission. I was a fan of Fords until now. This is the last time I am buying a Ford.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Already, Set, Go: MWLUG 2010

It has been a year in the making and MWLUG 2010 is already to go. It is going to be bigger than last year. We have an incredible conference with 45 technical sessions, a networking event on Wednesday night, a networking event on Thursday night with a comedy show to top it off. The MWLUG 2010 sponsors have been wonderful and the sponsors are giving away lot of high tech gadgets including cameras, iPads, hard drives, and Kindle. Hope to see everyone starting tomorrow. Stop by the Taishan Works/Phora Group table and say hi.

Now I just need to drive the 6.5 hours to Cleveland tomorrow with seven of us packed in a mini van, create a opening session presentation, and oh forgot my own presentation for my session. I guess sleep is not an option.

First Experience with Lotus Traveler and iPhone

Today was the first time we set up Lotus Traveler with the Apple iPhone. It took us a bit to find the documentation that we needed. However, I was surprised to how smooth it went. The Lotus Traveler team did a good job.

Friday, August 13, 2010

MWLUG 2010 Mobile Guide for Blackberry Now Available to Download

If you are interested in tracking each of the 45 sessions and speakers at MWLUG, the MWLUG 2010 Mobile Guide for Blackberry is now available to download from the MWLUG 2010 web site. With the MWLUG 2010 Mobile Guide you will be able to track and search sessions, speakers, review the agenda, and provide feedback on how you like MWLUG 2010 on your Blackberry Mobile device. We would like to thank our Gold Sponsor, Kryos Systems, for donating the time and resources to create this mobile application which is created using their Kryos Velocity technology.

To download the MWLUG 2010 Mobile Guide goto:

http://www.mwlug.com/mwlug/mwlug2010.nsf/uxpages/mobileguide.uxp

Thursday, August 12, 2010

MWLUG 2010: Soft Phones, Upgrading to Sametime 8.51, and Plantronics

More and more companies are now using soft phones especially as employees are becoming more and more mobile. Since voice and data has been merging into one and the same, it is important to have reliable solutions since most of us do not have a second solution except for our cell phones which many times you have to ask "Can you hear me now?" My sister who currently is managing a global team on 4 continents from home relies heavily on her soft phones through Sametime to communicate with her team. She has been using a Plantronics headset and I tried it and it is very nice. Since our old PBX is slowly dying, this finally gives us a reason to upgrade our Sametime installation. We are giving everyone attending MWLUG 2010 a chance to win a Plantronics headset.

Our MWLUG 2010 Event Sponsor and continuous supporter of MWLUG, Plantronics, will be giving away two of their headsets during the Thursday breakfast before the MWLUG 2010 Opening Session. In addition, Plantronics is co-sponsoring Thursday breakfast. So make sure you come to the Thursday breakfast for a chance to win one of the two headsets. You must be present to win. In addition, there will be another chances to win Plantronics headsets on Friday at the two Sametime sessions presented by Phil Salm and Kevin McConnell from CDW. More information about that giveaway can be found at the CDW booth.

If you are a Sametime administrator, and you are new to Websphere administration you must to come to Kevin McConnell's session on "Introduction to Sametime 8.5 WebSphere Administration for the Domino Administrator." The session is designed for Domino Administrators who now need to learn how to manage a Websphere Application Server since Sametime 8.5x is based on Websphere instead of Domino.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Coming to MWLUG 2010 You Must Visit Put-in-Bay

If you are coming to MWLUG 2010 or not, one of the nice gems of Ohio is Put-in-Bay, OH on South Bass Island. Put-in-Bay is the site of Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial commemorating Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry's September 10, 1813 naval victory over British ships in the War of 1812. The island has a lot of camping and beautiful caves.

To get to the island you need to take a ferry. Car traffic is terrible since the ferry only runs at certain times and cars are lined up like crazy and there are only so many car slots. When the ferry ends for the day and you are not across, then you are stuck on the island until the next day. I suggest you leave your car at the parking lot. It is beautiful this time of the year. I am hoping we have enough time to visit the island after MWLUG 2010.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

MWLUG Donation Sponsorship Opened

MWLUG 2010 is coming in two weeks and it is packed with sessions. What little money Lotus user groups get comes from the generously of IBM Business Partners or their members. Like last year the money we raised from the attendee donation goes to the participating user groups. Also, like last year we are having the MWLUG 2010 Donation Sponsorship Program. The money we raise from this sponsorship is divided among the participating Lotus User Groups to help run their group meetings. So if your company is interested in being a MWLUG Donation Sponsor, please contact me at richard.moy@taishanworks.com. Your logo and information will be part of the MWLUG 2010 web site and in the conference brochure. Also your company will be mentioned at the user group meetings.

In addition, if you are interested in donating to the MWLUG 2010 Community Outreach Program to get a chance to win a free weekend at the Hilton Garden Inn - Cleveland Downtown plus breakfast go to:

http://www.mwlug.com/mwlug/mwlug2010.nsf/uxpages/mwlugcommunityoutreach.uxp

The MWLUG 2010 Community Outreach Program benefits the Cleveland Foodbank.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Job Opening: Websphere Administrator

There is a new job opening for anyone who has done Websphere and Websphere Portal Administration. The job is posted on our GRANITE Lotus User Group web site. GRANITE Lotus User Group

MWLUG 2010: Announcing MWLUG Thursday Networking Event

(Cleveland, OH) August 4, 2010. We are proud to announce our MWLUG 2010 Networking Event will be held at the Pickwick and Frolic Restaurant and Club. The Pickwick and Frolic Networking Event gives everyone at MWLUG 2010 the opportunity to network with your peers and other Lotus professionals. We will be providing food and drinks. After the networking event at Pickwick and Frolic, comes join us at Hilarities 4th Street Theatre Comedy Show for an hour of comedy and fun. This event is free for attendees and all made possible by the generous sponsors of MWLUG Conference 2010. Please take the time to visit our generous sponsors at the MWLUG 2010 Sponsor Showcase during your time at MWLUG 2010.

MWLUG 2010: Conference Agenda is Now Available

(Cleveland, OH) August 4, 2010. We are please to announce the MWLUG 2010 Agenda is now online at http://www.mwlug.com. MWLUG 2010 is bigger than ever with 45 presentations, Show-N-Tell, and Labs covering topics including XPages, Cloud Computing, Sametime UC and Telephony, Quickr, Websphere Portal, Server Management, Security, and UI Design. The MWLUG Committee has worked very hard this year to bring attendees one of the best educational and social events for Lotus professionals. This event is made possible by the generous sponsors of MWLUG Conference 2010. Please take the time to visit our generous sponsors at the MWLUG 2010 Sponsor Showcase during your time at MWLUG 2010.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

MWLUG 2010: IBM Innovation Center Comes to You

(Cleveland, OH) August 3, 2010. We are extremely please to announce IBM Innovation Center Come to You will be part of the Midwest Lotus User Group Conference 2010. IBM Innovation Center Come to You provides an unique opportunity for both IBM customers and IBM Business Partners attending MWLUG 2010 to experience and learn some of the latest technologies from IBM. The IIC team will have Show-n-Tell sessions, live hands-on labs, and session on Cloud Computing security and architecture not found anywhere except. We would like to thank the IBM Innovation Center teams from Chicago, Dallas, and Atlanta for their support and participation to make this possible at MWLUG 2010.

Friday, July 30, 2010

MWLUG 2010: Announcing Ask an Business Partner Expert Event

(Cleveland, OH) - July 30, 2010. Some of the brightest and most knowledgeable experts on Lotus technology, Cloud Computing, XPages, and everything else you need are IBM Business Partners. Today we are announcing our "Ask an Business Partner Expert Event." This one-hour event will be held on Thursday afternoon at the Showcase Pavilion, August 19, 2010. Here is an opportunity for attendees to ask technical questions from our sponsoring Business Partners related to their top 5 area of expertise. Attendees will be provided a list of expertise for each Business Partner. So take advantage of this event to ask your questions without worrying about any sales pitch.

MWLUG 2010 Agenda and Sessions Coming Out Next Week

The agenda and sessions for MWLUG 2010 will be announced next week along with a few other major announcements. MWLUG 2010 this year will consist of 45 presentations, show-n-tell, and labs. So if you are looking for two plus days of intense exchange of knowledge this is the place to be plus it includes a whole lot of fun. Desk registration starts on Wednesday evening, I suggest you arrived before 6:00 PM on Wednesday. Hint Hint.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

My Lunch Room for Today

The weather so nice in Chicago especially with all the recent humid and rainy days that we have had. I rode my bike to the Northwestern University lagoon. Northwestern University has their Thursday music festival so it was nice to have my lunch while listening to 80's rock. Afterwards, I rode for 10 miles along the Lake Michigan. However, it was back to reality with four scheduled conference calls and customer discussions.



Why iNotes is a Domino Developers Best Friend

As Domino developers, we are always switch ids to test applications for your organization or work on different customer applications. As a results, you normally need to switch ids in order to check your own emails or calendar. With the latest version of iNotes, there is no need to switch back to your own id. The iNotes interface is coming inline with the Notes client and I must say is a very good application. By eliminating the time you take to switch back and forward you are saving a lot of headache and time thus providing more time for development. Yes, I can check my email on my blackberry and calendar, but I still can't get the same experience that I have with a full screen client. In addition, I get attachments that I cannot open on a Blackberry or any mobile device.

Compared with other web-based email client, iNotes is one of the best. Hat off to the iNotes team.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Vacationing in Beautiful Upper Minnesota

It is very beautiful in upper Minnesota this time of year. Spent a week up there. Here are a few pictures from my trip. Minnesota has some incredible State Parks. Unfortunately, we did not stay too long at Great River Bluff State Park because of all the mosquitoes. Last time I was here, I was stuck overnight in Duluth when the engines of our plane froze up.


Silver Creek Cliff



Gooseberry Falls State Park



Split Rock Lighthouse



Split Rock Lighthouse State Park



Town of Grand Marias



Cascade Falls State Park



Duluth



Jake Cooke State Park




Great River Bluff State Park

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Want to Learn How Dojo Really Works?

If you are interested in going beyond just what XPages has to offer and understand how the guts of Dojo works a great site to visit is http://sitepen.com. Their blog is very good in covering the basic and advanced understandings of Dojo.

Here is a great discussion on their site on how dijit widgets work.

http://www.sitepen.com/blog/2010/07/12/dive-into-dijit/

They have also great tutorial on the basics of Dojo.

http://www.sitepen.com/blog/series/dojo-quick-start-guide/

Introducing MWLUG 2010 Platinum Sponsor: Vox Mobile

We are please to introduce to everyone the MWLUG 2010 Platinum Sponsor, Vox Mobile. We would like to thank them for their support of MWLUG. As Platinum Sponsor for MWLUG 2010, Kris Snyder - President & Chief Executive Officer of Vox Mobile will be presenting at the opening session on "Mobility as an Enabler of Collaboration". His presentation will follow Scot Rourke, OneCommunity.org and David Via, IBM. Along with their presentations, Kris' presentation focuses on community and collaboration all inline with our MWLUG 2010 theme "Building a Community Through Collaboration"

Gerald Hetrick their CTO will cover later in the conference on Managing Mobile Diversity.

About Vox Mobile
Vox Mobile delivers mobile technology device and server support, as well as consulting services for Fortune 1000 companies. Vox Mobile was the first company to become a certified BlackBerry-systems integrator partner. Headquartered in Cleveland, OH, Vox supports over 100,000 mobile handheld devices and over the last four years has saved customers over $1 million by implementing outsourced technical support and expense management programs. http://www.voxmobile.com

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Announcing MWLUG 2010 Corporate Sponsor: IBM

(Cleveland, OH) July 26, 2010. We are please to announce that the Midwest Lotus User Group Conference 2010 Corporate Sponsor is none other than IBM. As the MWLUG 2010 Corporate Sponsor, IBM is providing the Midwest Lotus Community not only funds but unique speakers and resources that makes MWLUG 2010 an incredible LUG conference that is free to attendee with a $35 donation to your local Lotus user group. We would like to thank Nick Wilson and Gerald Glore of IBM plus the rest of the IBM team in the Midwest for helping make this possible. As MWLUG 2010 Corporate Sponsor, David Via will be the opening session IBM speaker and will be covering the future direction of IBM collaboration and collaboration technology.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Dojo 1.5 Now Available

Dojo 1.5 has now been release. It includes a new Claro UI theme, mobile support, more HTML 5 and CSS3 support, and an improved API. I like the new theme.

http://www.dojotoolkit.org

MWLUG 2010 and Vacation

I am back from vacation. We had a wonderful time in Minnesota. We visited my son who is interning in Minneapolis this summer. Afterwards, we went up to Duluth and Grand Marias near the Canadian border. It is very beautiful up there and peaceful. The last time I was up here was for a client meeting. We did hiking at Gooseberry Falls State Park, Cascade Falls State Park, and Jake Cooke State Park. It was refreshing compared to the terrible traffic of Minneapolis. Construction delays were amazing. The traffic was equal or worst than Chicago and we are very bad here. Maybe next time, I will bring my bike and bike the 120 miles between Duluth and Grand Marias.

Being on vacation, gives me time to reflect on what is important. It is not the Lotus technology and what is the coolest technology, but family. It amazes me every single day how wonderful my wife and kids are. It is with their support that make my professional life possible.

Anyway, now that I am back from the wilderness, there is a host of major announcements relating to MWLUG coming this week.

Today, it is all day of interface design and rich internet application design at RIAPalooza 3 here in Chicago. IBM is absent again in this conference. Microsoft and Adobe and others are here.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

CouchDB 1.0 is now released and on Windows

Something that I have been following is CouchDB from Damien Katz, the former IBMer. CouchDB 1.0 is now released. It is the first fully production-ready nonrelational database and now also available for Windows.

http://www.infoworld.com/d/data-management/couchdb-releases-nosql-database-runs-windows-229

Friday, July 9, 2010

IBM BP Partners and Consultants Need to Read This From IRS

Everyone who is a small business owner or runs their own consulting needs to read this article. Big government making small business owners life more miserable. Imagine the paperwork we now have to deal with.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/21/smallbusiness/1099_deluge/index.htm

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

MWLUG 2010: Domino, Notes, Adobe, Flex and Giveway

We are fortunate enough to have two great sessions on integrating and developing Adobe Flex applications with Lotus Domino and Lotus Notes at MWLUG 2010. Justin Hill from Prominic.NET and Jerry Carter from Teamworks Solution will cover both beginning and advanced topics on using Adobe Flex with Notes and Domino.

In addition, thanks to our Contributing Partner, Adobe Systems, we will be giving away two copies of Adobe Flash (Flex) Premium which retails for $700.00 at each of the sessions. We would like to thank Kevin Hoyt from Adobe Systems for this generous donation to MWLUG 2010. So if you are interested in learning more on how to work with Adobe Flex and Domino and get a chance to win a copy of Adobe Flash Premium come to these two sessions. Register at http://www.mwlug.com.

Domino Applications with Adobe Flex
Speaker: Justin Hill - Staff, Prominic.Net
Notes and Domino provides a RAD environment that is like no other tool. However, creating Notes/Domino applications that competes with modern UI interface from other vendors can be a challenge. Find out how you can combine Adobe Flex and Domino to provide users a modern UI interface that competes effectively while giving Domino developers new tools to extend your new and existing Domino applications.

Advanced Flex
Speaker: Jerry Carter - Senior Consultant, Teamwork Solutions
New to Flex or trying to get more out of it to extend your investment in Notes Domino? We'll look at the following useful tips which will extend your capabilities: - Two way communication between the Notes Client and Flex (aka "a hack") - N ways to get data into your flex movie (multiple native and third party approaches) - Advantages of housing the flex html in your Domino application (ties in with data integration nicely) - Optimizing your flex movie (a deployment tip for over coming the "flex is slow to load" objection) - Some Demos (integrating with Notes client, integrating with Data, custom controls)

Friday, July 2, 2010

UX Pages Project Update

The integration of Dojo into my UX Pages Project has been moving steady along for the pass few months. The current version of Dojo in Domino 8.51 is 1.32 and has certain limitations that hopefully will be eliminated in Domino 8.52 with a version upgrade of Dojo. This has been a huge learning curve for me with many dead ends.

I have added Dojo objects and Dijit form, field, comboBox, check button, radio button, spinner box, filteringSelect, and button widgets into the UX compiler engine. A Dijit widget control can now be represented by a simple UX xml tag. For example, for a simple field,



when compiled will become:



It will automatically add the dojo.require("dijit.form.TextBox") statement into the html and add links to the Dojo, Dijit, and Dojox javascript library.

Domino data is now surfaced as Dojo objects using XML and JSON using Domino agents. Long terms wise, I would like to create a Dojo Domino data store object that can create JSON and XML data stores directly from the Domino views. Can be done but a lower priority since it requires me to go deeper into the architecture of Dojo which I do not have the time.

I am planning to add data grid and more Dijit and DojoX widgets for the next version of the UX Pages Project and clean up the UX compiler code. In addition, I am in the process of separating the database that creates the UX Pages from the database that the web application runs on. Currently, the UX engine is in the same database that the web application runs and that violates my design policy of separating the interface from the data. Also, I am hoping to have the ability to create and select different UX projects and enhance the archiving capability which still has a few bugs.

The knowledge that I have gain helps me in developing XPages applications. Yes, I should be doing all my Domino Web applications using XPages, but where is the fun.

Moving from Notes Client to iNotes Client

Over the past few months for one reason or another, I have been accessing our email more and more using the iNotes 8.51 client instead of the regular Lotus Notes client. From my experience, I must said that I am very impressed with the performance and functionality of the iNotes 8.51 client. The iNotes team has done an impressive job in making the experience is some ways even better than the Lotus Notes 8.51 client. For one thing it sure comes up much faster.

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

MWLUG 2010 Opening Session IBM Speaker

MWLUG Opening Session IBM Speaker is not other than our local home town IBM Executive from Ohio, David Via.

David Via is the IBM Business Unit Executive for Worldwide Messaging and Collaboration Sales and will be presenting on the direction of IBM collaboration. David will be presenting right after our opening session speaker, Scot Rourke from OneCommunity.org. In addition, David will be updating everyone in a separate session on the status of Project Vulcan and Project Concord.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

User Interface Experience Conference - RIAPalooza 3

RIAPalooza 3 is currently opened for registration. If you are interested in interface design and would like to see some really cool stuff, come to RIAPalooza. The cost of the conference is $20.00. I missed the early bird registration of $10.00. Too busy with MWLUG 2010 and customers. The conference is a one day event in Chicago on July 23rd. This conference will open your eyes on what the world is doing in user interface design and how advanced some of the user interfaces are. And unfortunately, it also shows how behind some of the Lotus technology really is.

http://www.riapalooza.com/index.html

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

MWLUG News Now on Twitter

Thanks to Mike McGarel, we now have MWLUG News on Twitter. The url is http://twitter.com/MWLUGNews. You can check here for the latest things that are happening not only for the conference in August but also for future events through the year for the different user groups that are part of MWLUG

Friday, June 18, 2010

Round 1: MWLUG 2010 Sessions Now Posted

The first round of MWLUG 2010 sessions are now posted on the MWLUG 2010 Web site. http://www.mwlug.com/mwlug/mwlug2010.nsf/uxpages/sessions.uxp.

There is about another dozen sessions still to come including two additional session tracks. If you are looking to learn XPages, this is the conference to come to. We have over a half of dozen sessions on XPages. We will be announcing some exciting events and surpises very soon.

MWLUG 2010 Sessions Will Posted on Web Site Soon

Now that we have made our session selections for the MWLUG Conference 2010, we will be posting most of the session on the web site, www.mwlug.com, hopefully today. Unfortunately, my Domino Designer 8.51 totally crashed last night as I was setting up the session page. The Domino Designer 8.51 now needs a total rebuild.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

MWLUG 2010 Abstracts and Sessions Being Announced Today

The MWLUG 2010 Session Committee will be sending session selections today. For every session slot that we had we had about 2 abstracts submissions. There are so many good presentations it has been hard to decide. The committee will be meeting this morning to make the final selections and emails will be sent out to submitter afterwords.

Friday, June 11, 2010

MWLUG 2010 Abstract Selections and Announcements

We will be completing the MWLUG 2010 Abstract selections this weekend and announcing the sessions. Thank you everyone for submitting their abstracts. We have so many good abstracts it is bit hard to decide. We will be having a great number of sessions on XPages starting all the way from basic XPages to extremely advanced topics. So if you want to learn about XPages from the experts this is the place. We will also be having sessions on Cloud Computing and LotusLive, Mobile Application development, Unified Communication and Sametime, and a whole sort of administration sessions and business development. If you are a fan of Adobe Flex with Lotus technology, make sure you attend we have a couple of surprises for you.

We will be making a number of other announcements starting next week with a number of interesting surprises and fun. It is going to even better than last year. Attendance is beginning to full up so make sure you register and we only have a limited number of attendee slots for this event.

Reminder GRANITE June Meeting on Monday

We will be having out June 2010 GRANITE Meeting next Monday, June 14, 2010. So if you what to learn more about LotusLive for Notes, Dojo, or integration of Domino with Active Directory that come to our meeting.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Dojo Presentation at June 2010 GRANITE Meeting

If you are interested in learning more about creating Domino applications using Dojo, I will be presenting at the June 2010 GRANITE meeting on June 14, 2010 at the IBM Center in Chicago. I will cover what is Dojo and how it works. I will be demonstrating and using my UX Pages tool in creating Domino applications live. Dojo is the core to XPages. If I have time, I will talk about that.

My colleague, Rob Burton will be provide a short technical demo ADODB for Domino. See everyone there.

Friday, June 4, 2010

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Remembering the True Meaning of Memorial Day

As everyone celebrate this Memorial Day weekend, please take the time to remember the true meaning of Memorial Day. It is not about picnics, barbecues, or sport games, but the honoring the over one million men and women who have given their lives to make this country possible and what it is. They are the true heroes. As Abraham Lincoln said in the Gettysburg address.

"that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

New to Javascript? Here is Some Best Practices

As I was looking for some Javascript stuff, I ran across this web page on best practices for Javascript. Since XPages now depends on Javascript, this is a good place to start if you are new to Javascript.

http://www.javascripttoolbox.com/bestpractices/

Abstract Submission for MWLUG 2010 is Closing Next Week

Abstract submission for MWLUG 2010 will be closing on June 1, 2010. There is still time to submit your technical abstracts. We already have a great list of submissions that include a number of great presentations for developers, administrators, and managers.

Monday, May 24, 2010

What are you looking for in a Domino CRM?

Couple of days ago, Phil Salm asked about recommendations for a CRM for Domino. There are a number of ones available on the market. Some have amazing features for the enterprise organization. However, for a small business most of the features are not needed. We are working on a project and would like to know what key features that one needs in a CRM besides basic contact management, tracking calls and appointments, and managing an email campaign.

Friday, May 21, 2010

Announcing RIAPalooza 3 Conference - Chicago

RIAPalooza 3 has just been announced. It is going to be on July 23rd in Chicago. What is RIAPalooza? It is a one-day conference in Chicago on the latest of Rich Internet Application design, user interface design, and user experiences. So if you are interested go to their web site. Registration is not opened yet, but soon.

http://www.riapalooza.com/

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Domino Designer 8.51 Crashes

I have been using the Domino Designer 8.51 for the past few months as I have been developing my UX Pages tool. Domino Designer 8.51 seems to crash on me at least once a day. It seems to be happen when I am opening up a javascript file resource. Has anybody encountered this issue?

15 lbs before MWLUG 2010

MWLUG 2010 is three months away so I have set a goal of losing 5 lbs a month to get myself back into shape. I will be at about how I was when I graduated college which does not seem to be that long ago. I might be close to the same weight, but there will be a little bit of gray hair, wrinkles, and aches. I have a goal of riding about 1500 miles on my bike this year to help the weight loss. So far I am at 50 miles so I have a ways to go. When I was younger, I could have easily done this in a week or two.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

MWLUG Conference 2010 Community Outreach Program

Our Community goes beyond just our Yellow Bubble. As members of the Lotus community, we are all an important part of our local community. Everyone at MWLUG encourages you to participate in helping your community. As part of the MWLUG Conference 2010, the goal of the MWLUG Community Outreach Program is to raise money for organizations that help the local community. Our host Lotus User Group, NEOLUG, has selected the Cleveland Foodbank who provides nutritious meals every year for thousands of individuals and families throughout the Cleveland area.

Hilton Garden Inn - Cleveland Downtown has been gracious enough to provide us with a gift certificate for deluxe accommodations at their hotel that includes a two night stay for two plus breakfast in the heart of downtown Cleveland.

We will be raffling off the gift certificate at the MWLUG 2010 Opening Session on August 19, 2010. The raffle will benefit the Cleveland Foodbank and help hundreds of individuals whom have been hit hard by this economic downturn including many from our own Lotus community. Each raffle ticket will cost $10.00 USD. Please join us to help others in need.

So as your register for MWLUG 2010 starting this weekend, please consider purchasing a raffle ticket to help this cause. In turn, you have a chance to stay for two nights for two in the heart of downtown Cleveland.

If you can not attend MWLUG Conference 2010, please still consider purchasing a raffle ticket to help this great cause. If you are part of an organization and would like to provide matching funds, please contact Barb Skedel of NEOLUG at barb.skedel@voxmobile.com.

For more information about the Cleveland Food Bank go to: http://www.clevelandfoodbank.org.

To register for MWLUG Conference 2010 or purchase a raffle ticket starting May 15th go to http://www.mwlug.com.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Midwest Lotus User Group Conference 2010 Registration Opening Soon

The registration for MWLUG Conference 2010 will be opening soon near the end of this week. We have a number of surprises and events coming up for this conference. Our MWLUG Committee is working very hard to bring this together.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Ubuntu 10.04 is Now Available

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS is now available after a small delay. This is the Long Term Support version. The full version of the Ubuntu Server is free. I have been moving all my servers to Ubuntu. Ubuntu 10.04 LTS includes new features like Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC) that allows you to build your own private cloud at a relatively low cost. I will be testing it out with Domino 8.51 in the near future and will let you know how that went. I am still waiting for Quickr Domino for Linux. When that comes out I can then phase out all my Windows servers.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Adobe Flex 4 brings UI Development to the Next Level

Last Thursday I attended the Chicago Flex User Group meeting and the topic was Adobe Flex 4 and Flash Builder 4. The Flex 4 framework brings the development of user interface to the next level. With Flex 4 the skinning and layout process is now separate from the individual objects and containers like HBox and VBox no longer exist. The container is replaced with layout definitions that is part of the skin class. It is fully integrated with Adobe Catalyst so applications can quickly be developed. I see a big potential for Domino applications running with a Adobe Flex or AIR interface.

As a result of the big announcement that Apple refuses to support Flash on the iPhone, there was definitely an anti-Apple sentiment at the meeting. A couple of Flash developers I know are switching from iPhones to Android because they are that pissed off at Apple. I personally use a Blackberry.

Friday, April 23, 2010

It's Misericordia Day in Chicago so Donate What You Can

Today is Misericordia drive day. There are hundreds of volunteers throughout the Chicago area on street corners collecting donations. So if you are in the Chicago area make sure you donate your change or what you can to them. For their appreciation they will give you a small sample of Jelly Belly and the Heart tag. So you do not have to drive all the way to Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin like Alex Kassabov did to get the sample Jelly Belly bags. Misericordia Heart of Mercy Center is a wonderful organization that help developmental disabled individuals. For more information go to www.misericordia.org

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Announcing the MWLUG Conference 2010 Keynote Speaker

Knowing technology is great, but knowing how to apply technology to grow your business is more important. We are please to announce that the Midwest Lotus User Group Conference 2010 Keynote Speaker will be Scot Rourke, President and CEO of OneCommunity. Scot will present on how collaboration technologies have help OneCommunity build their organization and made it a success.

About OneCommunity
OneCommunity connects Northern Ohio’s public and nonprofit institutions to each other, to the world, and to leading technology vendors via their fiber-optic network – one of the largest and fastest in the world. OneCommunity enables innovative connections and collaborative solutions with an emphasis on education, health care, government, and workforce development. Utilizing information technology, they are transforming Northern Ohio into a globally competitive region.

For more information about Scot go to: http://www.mwlug.com/mwlug/mwlug2010.nsf/uxpages/keynotespeaker.uxp

For more information about OneCommunity go to: http://www.onecommunity.org

Friday, April 16, 2010

Damn IE bug workaround completed

If you are developing for IE 6 and IE 7 and using base tags make sure you define the base tag URL as an absolute path instead of using a relative path. Test and test even with the old crappy browsers. What a waste of time.

Damn Internet Explorer, You are a Pain in the Butt

As we started the abstract submission for MWLUG 2010, we ran into a problem with our site on IE 7. Of course, the base tags does not get picked up correctly in IE 7. So if you are trying to access the site using IE 7, switch to IE 8, Firefox, Chrome or any other browser. We are working on resolving this annoying issue.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

GRANITE XPages Training Workshop Part 2

Following the April GRANITE Meeting on April 12th, we will be continuing our XPages training session at the IBM Center. Mike McGarel and Roy Rumaner will continue going through Declan Lynch's Xpages training lessons. If you are not on the GRANITE mailing list and would like to attend please notify me as soon as possible since we need to send in the list of attendees to building security. If not, you will not be able to get in.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Evanston Illinois Bids to Become Part of the Google Fiber for Communities

Our offices are located in Evanston, IL home of Northwestern University and a number of other businesses including Taishan Works. Evanston is a great place to work and live with all its culture and activities. Evanston rallying on becoming one of the cities that Google will be wiring high speed fiber as part of Google Fiber for Communities program. Here is a short video of Evanston.

Sponsorship for MWLUG 2010 is Now Opened

If your are interested in sponsoring the Midwest Lotus User Group Conference 2010, please contact me at richard.moy@taishanworks.com or Gregg Eldred at gregg.eldred@ns-tech.com. We have an exciting conference planned with many technical sessions, workshops, and activities drawing Lotus Professionals from all over.

For more information about the conference go to MWLUG 2010

Monday, March 29, 2010

Creating the MWLUG 2010 Web Site Using UX Pages version 0.4

Last year I was working on a new thing that I called the UX Pages and DLEX Engine. It was based on the XML declaration language used by Adobe Flex. UX Pages is similar to the approach now used by XPages but has a number of advantages.

I did not have the time to devote to it last summer given all the work that had to be done for the Midwest Lotus User Group Conference plus my full-time job. So I never moved forward on developing the technology any further. However, this has changed.

This year, NEOLUG is handling a big portion of the effort for MWLUG 2010 so I have more time. In addition, I needed it for building a number of customers applications. Therefore, I have a major incentive to develop it further especially since we are developing more and more Web applications and moving away from developing Notes client based applications. Does this mean that I will not develop using XPages. Not at all. I would like to have developed the Web applications using XPages, but the applications that we are developing are not suitable with XPages at this time.

So for the past two months, I have been working on building the features of the UX Pages engine. I have been incorporating components of Dojo and JQuery into the engine. One feature that I have added the past week is the ability to version and archive the web application. This feature has already saved my butt this week.

The new MWLUG Conference 2010 site MWLUG 2010 is currently running v0.4 of the UX Pages Engine on Domino 6.5. I could easily have set up a Domino 8.51 server, but I did not want to spend the time and resources. Since it does not depend on XPages rendering, I can build the web pages using the UX Pages XML declarations and have the compiled version run on any version of Domino 6.5 or higher.

The previous version, v0.3, relied on Web agents to handle a great part of the work. The latest version, v0.4, eliminates agents to generate the web pages and runs faster. The next version v0.5 will fully incorporate Dojo and JQuery into its architecture.

One may ask why I am doing this. First, XPages does not give me all the control that I need. Second, I wanted the generated code to be cross platform so that I can easily convert the web application to work with other data sources besides Domino. Third, the process forces me to learn Dojo and JQuery. Also, I can use the latest versions of Dojo and JQuery if necessary instead of replying on the version that IBM has put into Domino. Fourth, I can still use the Notes Basic client to generate the Web application since the UX Pages tool runs as a Notes client application. The Domino Designer 8.51 is still too slow for me even with a fast Dual Core and 2 GBytes of memory. So stay tuned hopefully for some Camtasia video of UX Pages.

Midwest Lotus User Group Conference 2010 Web Site Online

Midwest Lotus User Group Conference 2010 Web Site is now online. We are planning a number of events and activities for this year. We are trying to out do ourselves from last year. The conference will be held on August 19-20, 2010 at the Hilton Garden Inn - Cleveland, Ohio. The NEOLOUG team is working hard on planning this event. The web site is Midwest Lotus User Group Conference 2010.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

It's Spring and there is 2 inches of snow coming down

Today is the first day of spring. However, it does not seem like it. It has been snowing since early this morning and it is in the 30's. It is the wet type which I hate the most. Yesterday was beautiful with the temperature in the 60s.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Happy Saint Patrick's Day Everyone

Happy Saint Patrick's Day. If I have time tonight, I will be watching "The Quiet Man" and drinking a few beers.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Why PNGs are not Support in Domino?

After all these years, can anybody explain to me why png files are not supported as an image resource in Domino. I know I can put them in as file resources, but why not as an image resource?

GRANITE XPages Workshop and MWLUG Conference 2010

As the President of GRANITE, I would like to thank PSC Group for hosting the XPages workshop that we had yesterday. Again and again, IBM Business Partners play a key role in growing the Lotus ecosystem. We would also like to thank Roy Rumaner and Michael McGarel for presenting. The next XPages workshop session Part 2 will be on April 12th follow the April 12th GRANITE meeting.

The first workshop was free for anyone. If you are not a GRANITE member the next workshop session is $15. However, if you become a member for $35.00 you get all workshops, food, and 5 technical meeting per year.

Remember, the XPages workshops are FREE FREE to all Lotus professionals currently looking for a new position.

If you did not attend the first workshop and would like to attend the next workshop, made sure to go Declan Lynch's site and learn the first 10 lessons. The second workshop will cover lessons 11 through 17.

We are looking at possibility doing a XPages Workshop at the Midwest Lotus User Group Conference 2010. If that is something that you would like to have at the conference let us know.

Welcome the Detroit Lotus User Group to the MWLUG Conference 2010

The Detroit Lotus user group, Detroit Notes Professionals, is now part of the Midwest Lotus User Group Conference 2010. The MWLUG 2010 Committee is excited that another Lotus user group has joined us and be involved into this unique event. The MWLUG Conference 2010 now including nine different user groups throughout the Midwest including:

- Central Ohio Notes/Domino Users Group
- Detroit Notes Professionals
- GRANITE Lotus User Group
- Minnesota Lotus User Group (MNNOTES411)
- Northeast Ohio Lotus User Group
- Northeast Wisconsin Lotus User Group
- Southern Wisconsin Lotus User Group
- Western Michigan Lotus User Group
- Western PA Lotus User Group

If your Lotus user group is in the Midwest and would like to join us to be part of this event let us know. You can contact myself or Gregg Eldred. Planning for MWLUG Conference 2010 is almost complete and we are expecting a great event.

Monday, March 15, 2010

GRANITE XPAGES WORKSHOP TODAY

Reminder, today is the start of the free GRANITE Lotus User Group XPages workshop. The workshop is overbooked, so if you have not registered please do not show up. If you did register and will not attend, please let us know.

Friday, March 5, 2010

Domino Designer 8.51 and Script Libraries

Until recently I was using the Domino Designer 8.02 client because it is smaller and faster. However, the new eclipse-based client has one key feature that I have always wanted in the old client that was not available. Why it was not available I do not know. The Domino Designer 8.51 client automatically sorts the functions for a script library into alphabetic order. For years this has irritated me when searching for a function. I glad they finally have this built in. Unfortunately, I am still getting Java errors when I go to preview mode, but I guess I will have to live with it.

Friday, February 19, 2010

International Housewares 2010 Student Design Competition

This coming March 14-16 is the International Home and Housewares 2010 Show here in Chicago. As part of the show, the association has the 17th annual student design competition. This year 283 students throughout the United States submitted their designs. I am proud to say that my son, Brian did pretty well and got an Honorable Mention Award and got a small sum of money to pay for school.

Brian and his colleague designed the MWLUG 2009 fixture that greeted attendees last year. Starting with the MWLUG Conference 2010 we are hoping to make it an annual competition similar to what the IHA has done for the past 17 years. The winning designs will be built for the conference. The design competition will be divided into two categories, one for graphics and the other for design.

International Home and Housewares 2010 Student Design Competition

Supply Chain Management <=> Domino

Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to attend a presentation by Michael Hugos who has written a number of books on supply chain management. It is interesting on the simplified approach that he preaches. It is very similar to what our philosophy has been towards developing our business applications for our customers. All these business applications that we have developed reside on the Domino platform.

The flexibility of the Domino platform is idea for managing these processes for a small to medium organization. Domino is not idea for a high transaction environment, but that is not necessary for small and medium size companies which makes up most of the companies in the world. Domino provides multiple ways of integrating with other environments, some of which is simple like email or a CSV file and some more complicated like Web services. In an every changing business climate, companies need to be extremely flexible in how they architect their solution and Domino give us that. The flexibility provides timely responses to a dynamic business environment.

Domino never gets the respect it is deserves. For example, a client of ours uses both Notes/Domino and Sharepoint. One group decided to use SharePoint because it was the thing that they heard people are using. What would have take one day with Domino is still not completed after 3 months. So imagine what it might be costly the company for not having this completed in a timely matter especially in this dynamic business environment which I believe is now the norm.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

MWLUG Conference 2010 Theme

The theme for the Midwest Lotus User Group Conference 2010 is "Building a Community Through Collaboration". This reflects the goals of this conference of building our Midwest Lotus community. With the addition of the West PA Lotus User Group our community has gotten a bit larger.

Lotus Quickr has been so far a great tool for us to plan this conference. It has many things that I do not like and will change as I customize the template, but it has helped us bring together all the different user groups who are involved. The number of tasks that is required to make this conference happen is enormous. Since everyone is a volunteer, the more tools we can use the better.

Monday, February 15, 2010

West PA Lotus User Group Joins the Midwest Lotus User Group Conference 2010

We are please to announce that the West PA Lotus User Group has joined and will be participating in the Midwest Lotus User Group Conference 2010 that will be held on August 19-20, 2010 at Cleveland, Ohio. We are now up to eight participating Lotus User Groups that include:

- Central Ohio Notes/Domino Users Group
- GRANITE Lotus User Group
- Minnesota Lotus User Group
- Northeast Ohio Lotus User Group
- Northeast Wisconsin Lotus User Group
- Southern Wisconsin Lotus User Group
- West Michigan Lotus User Group
- West PA Lotus User Group

As Gregg Eldred mentioned last week will are moving forward in finalizing the location and activities of the event. That is a lot of things planned so stay tune.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Installing Sametime 8.5 Entry Server on Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Issue

Has anyone installed Sametime 8.5 entry server on Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server. I am getting the message "This operating system is not supported" message. Is there a work around to bypass this check?

Free XPages Training in Chicago

As Roy Rumaner and Alex Kassabov blogged, GRANITE is having a technical seminar that will be graciously hosted by PSC Group at their offices in Schaumburg, IL on March 15. This XPages training is part of our GRANITE technical series that we have started. This first session of the series will be available for both members and non-members at no cost. For non-members we normally charge $15.00 for each event. If you were recently laid off, the entire XPages series will be free of charge. I strongly encourage everyone to join GRANITE since it provides many benefits to the Lotus community.

GRANITE is put together by volunteers whom like myself devote our time to help the Lotus community. With the recently layoffs at Abbott of their Notes developers and layoffs at other organizations, this is a good time to get yourself some training on the newest Lotus technologies. We will be also working with the IBM VIC in downtown Chicago to provide addition technical seminars in addition to our bi-monthly meetings in which we have two to three technical presentations.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Year of the Tiger

This Sunday which is Valentine's Day is also Chinese New Year, the year of the Tiger, Metal Tiger to be exact. Our family celebrates on New Years Eve and we have a feast of food that includes some of my favorite bakery goods that my mom makes. In China, Chinese New Years is traditionally celebrated for the entire month.

Snow and More Snow

I guess Chicago is now getting its share of the snow. There is about a foot of snow so far and we are expect to get another 5 to 6 inches where I am. After that the cold and wind comes. I wish I was back at Lotusphere. I really did not get a chance to enjoy the weather in Florida.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Great GRANITE Lotus User Group Meeting

Today was our February 2010 meeting for GRANITE. We had the largest number of attendees since 2008. Hopefully we can continue building our membership through 2010. We were able to sign up two new members today.

Thanks to John Head and Mike McGarel for their Lotusphere 2010 wrap up of Project Vulcan, Project Concord, and XPages. Mike also did a presentations on using OpenNTF templates to develop your own intranet. Our thanks to Mac Glore for getting us the meeting place at the IBM Center at the last moment.

I think we need to switch away from deep dish pizza for lunch at the GRANITE meetings. I can feel the cheese building up on my veins. Looks like an evening of exercising after this blog posting.

We have a new GRANITE event coming up, but I will let Roy Rumaner or Alex Kassabov talk about his up and coming event. We are planning a new GRANITE web site so look forward over the next couple of months to see what we have done.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Planet Lotus is Down: I am disconnected

Planet Lotus went down yesterday and it is going to take sometimes to come back up. I hope everything was backed up because Planet Lotus has become a great technical resource that I search for answers very often. I can get answers to my questions sometimes better than anywhere else. I hope it comes back online soon. I feel so disconnected to the Lotus community.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Lotusphere 2010: Lotus User Group BOF

Yesterday, I attended the BOF session on Lotus user groups. I am glad that the interest for Lotus user groups is growing. As the president of the GRANITE user group, I know how hard it is to run a user group. From what I heard, IBM is attempting to be more active and provide help for Lotus user groups.

We are fortunate here in Chicago that we have a great IBM team that helps us in our meetings that we have every other month. For the MWLUG conference last year they played an important role in making that happen. Hats off to the IBM team in Chicago and the Midwest sales reps. Reach out to the IBM sales and technical sales rep.

Business Partners play a key role in the success of a Lotus user group. However, it is important that the creation of a user group involve multiple BPs so that it is viewed not a benefit to only one BP. Sometimes this worries Lotus customers.

Many in the BOF were interested in restarting or starting a Lotus user group. There are many of us who are passionate about Lotus user groups so reach out to us and we would be glad to talk to you about it. There is going to be a Facebook for Lotus user groups. Unfortunately, I am not a Facebook user. I am on Linkedin.

The Next GRANITE meeting is coming up on February 8, 2010. So come join us in this meeting. I will be posting the agenda soon after I get back from Lotusphere. Tomorrow will be a sleep day as along I can fix a customer issue by tonight.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Lotusphere 2010: MWLUG Tuesday Dinner

We had a great time at the ESPN Club at the Boardwalk which included the consumption of many beers. We met at the Rotunda in the Dolphin and went over to the ESPN Club while some met us there. I blame Jim Anderson from EasySoftware for my headache.

Lotusphere 2010: Sorry, but I am a Carnivore

No more hot breakfasts at Lotusphere only continental breakfasts. After three days of pastries and bagles I could not take it anymore. So I went to McDonald's this morning. I needed the fats after standing at the booth for two days. The breakfast at McDonald's was healthier compared to the pastries.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Lotusphere 2010: ReCor Announces Extended IBM Business Partner Referral Program

From January 1, 2010 to June 30, 2010, ReCor is offering to registered and qualified IBM Business Partners, a 20% referral fee on referrals of qualified ReCor training products to their customers that result in a sale. This program is designed to help IBM Business Partners generate additional revenue by recommending ReCor training solutions to their customers. By providing training during the migration or deployment process, you help your customers maximize the return on their investment in Lotus technologies.

For more information about ReCor products visit our web site at www.recor.com. For more information about the Extended IBM Business Partner Referral Program please contact Richard Moy at (847) 424-8700 x 229 or email him at rqmoy@recor.com.


This offer is not valid for referrals of Lotus customers that have purchased products from ReCor with the past two years or who are currently under the ReCor maintenance/upgrade program.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Lotusphere 2010: BB Day Disappointment

Twice I tried getting into the competitive session on Microsoft SharePoint and twice the session was full. You would think that with the push by Microsoft on SharePoint 2010 that they would have a larger room. I was told that the slides will not be available. It would be nice if they have this session in the future either as a special session at Lotusphere Comes to You for Business Partners or have it in a business session at one of the IBM Centers.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Lotusphere 2010: Have Boarding Pass and Ready to Go

Business cards and brochures packed, laptop set up and configured, got my boarding pass and I am ready to go. Oh clothes, I need that too.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Lotusphere 2010: Getting Ready, Booth #704

It is has been a crazy day today getting for Lotusphere 2010. I still have allow of things to do on my list. It seems that the list of things to do keeps growing. See everyone there.

Monday, January 11, 2010

New Year, New ReCor Web Site, New ReCor Lotus Notes 8.51 Training

It is a new year and ReCor have just completed their new web site. Take a look. Along with the new web site, ReCor has just released the updated new Lotus Notes 8.51 training courses that include training for:

- Notes 8.51 Standard client
- Notes 8.51 Basic client
- iNotes 8.51 client

If you are going to Lotusphere, visit their booth, #704.

In addition to the interactive simulations that they have had for many years in their courses, they now have started to include interactive videos into their products.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Lotusphere 2010: MWLUG Tuesday Dinner

So whether you participated or not at the MWLUG conference or you arr part of the seven Lotus users groups that make up MWLUG come join us for the MWLUG Get Together at Lotushpere 2010. We will be meeting on Tuesday, January 19, 2009 at 7:00 PM at the Dolphin Rotudon. Look for me and the MWLUG banner. We will then go to the ESPN Zone for dinner. We had a very nice time last year. If you are coming, please let me know by sending an email to richard.moy@taishanworks.com.

CollabSphere 2022 Presentation: COL103 Advanced Automation and Cloud Service Integration for your Notes/Nomad Applications

Our presentation for CollabSphere 2022. Learn how to quickly add workflow automation into Notes/Nomad applications using No-code tools that ...