Domino Interface

I originally though this was a problem with my installation of Notes 8.02, but after talking to another developer who had the same problem with forms, I believe there is a bug in Notes 8.02 that drives us developers crazy. The ran into this problem with views, but today I wasted 2 hours of my time modifying framesets. When developing using the Notes 8.02 Designer, every so often changes that you make to views, forms, and framesets will not appear when you run the application after you made your changes. Unfortunately, I have not been able to repeat the problem. It seems to come and go. The only solution that I have found to work is to shutdown not only Designer but the Notes client. I did not have the problem with Notes 8.01. I would like to know if others have encountered or know of this problem

We have a great meeting coming up for our August 2008 GRANITE meeting, August 11. It is our annual Summer Outing and we will be having a buffet lunch at The Metropolitan Club in the 67th Floor of the Sears Tower here in Chicago. I would like to thank our sponsor this year, Research in Motion for helping us pay for the outing. But before we trek out all afternoon for lunch and a wonderful view, we will have three great technical sessions at the IBM Center covering: Best Practices of Blackberry Administration Using SOA methodology for designing Lotus Notes applications A Strategic Update on RIM's Products If you are in the area and would like to attend both the meeting and the buffet lunch please let us know by tomorrow since we need to get a head count for the private room. Here is the link to the web site about the meeting. GRANITE August 2008 Meeting

ReCor has just released two new training courses for Lotus Notes 8 in additional to our LearningDocs for Lotus Notes 8.01 - Standard / Migration course, we now have available for download: LearningDocs for Lotus Notes 8.01 - Advanced Course LearningDocs for Lotus Notes 8.01 - Basic Client The advanced course covers topics like Quickr integration with Lotus Notes and advanced rich text editing and remote users. The new Basic client course provides detailed training on the Classic or Basic client. This course took us longer because thought it seem that there was not much differences, there were many changes to the Basic client compared to Notes 6.5 or 7. From the interest that our customers has expressed, there is a lot of companies that will be rolling out the Basic client since their hardware and operating system will not support the Standard client. As I mentioned before that is a lot of new features in the Notes 8 Basic client that developer can utilizes. At the April GRANITE me...

Chris Blatnick talks in his blog about how important interface design is in making software a success. Recently I became aware of a major development project that broke many of the guidelines that we use to design interfaces. A major retailer started implementing a new POS software for their stores that was suppose to revolutionize their operation. You would think that they would work with store employees who will be using the POS systems to design the best solution, run test pilots to make sure that the software met the needs of the store employees, and have a detailed implementation and training plan. Answer NO NO NO. Software that are created by developers who live in a box and never get the customer (users) involved with most likely fail. Here are a few example of why getting users involved in the interface design is so important: Since the screen sizes of POS system usually are small you would think that they would be very concerned about font sizes, no. The designers decided ...

Yesterday I attended an all day session on Lotus Foundations for both IBM Business Partner and Lotus Foundation Partners. Being both an IBM Business Partner and Lotus Foundation Partner, it was interesting to here the perspectives of Lotus Foundation Partners (formerly Nitix Partners) versus IBM Business Partners. From the perspective of an IBM Business Partner, Lotus Foundation is has limitations. As states it is not a Domino server, but a server powered by Domino. This will likely change in the future. The Web interface is been improved. There is still a lot of work ahead to competite against Microsoft. Lotus Foundation is a good starting point for IBM. There is a number of things that I would like to see added or changed. But that is me. For Business Partners that are interested, there is discussions about forming a Lotus Foundation User Group. If you are interested, please contact me and I can get you in touch with the person who is heading it up.

It July and it is time to take some time off. This year we are going to a little known area called Giant City State Park located at the Southern tip of Illinois near Makanda, Illinois. Unlike most of Illinois, the southern part of Illinois is very different with rolling hills, cliffs, and very rough terrain. It is very beautiful in Southern Illinois. Last time I was there was in 2001 at the Shawnee National Forest. Giant City State Park is next to it and features giant sandstone pillars of over 100 feet that create natural streets similar what to see towards the end of the third Indiana Jones movie. Some streets are very narrow. A pastor of my colleague got stuck between the giant pillars and had to be pushed out. It should be fun climbing the sandstones and hiking the trails. Giant City Lodge is inside the park and features individual one and two bedroom cabins. It was build during the depression. However, it has been a frustrating week with both the van and SUV in the shop o...

A few days from now, we will mark the 145th anniversary for one of the most pivotal points in the history of our country, the Battle of Gettysburg. Thought the battle technically occurred from July 1 through July 3, 1863, the actions that occurred for the past few days 145 years ago set things in motion that resulted in one of the bloodiest battle in the history of the United States. Each year we celebrate July 4 as our day of independence. However, most people do not know how critical the actions and sacrifices that 160,000 men made 145 years ago shaped who we are as a country. I encourage everyone to study our history. It serves as a guide in business and life. If you do not want to read the hundreds of books written about the Battle of Gettysburg and would like to get a pretty accurate account of the Battle of Gettysburg, I suggest you get the Gettysburg Movie on DVD. Warning it is a very long movie. The Extended LaserDisc Edition is even longer and it is great. Even better...