Fun with TCPMon and Lotus Traveler
Sun, May 13th 2012 11:11a Stephan H Wissel Martin Luther (the original) famously stated "man muss dem Volk aufs Maul schauen" (roughly translated: "you have to watch how people talk". What worked for a bible translation also works in IT.
While it is nice to have some documentation, quite often it is inaccurate, incomplete, outdated, factual wrong or simply missing. So listening to "how applications speak" is an essential skill, mentioned here before. In this little weekend project these skills get applied to Lotus Traveler. These [read] Keywords: agent
domino
dxl
lotus
show-n-tell
traveler
application
applications
linux
mac
password
server
wiki
xml
161
Teaching an ol' dog a new trick: SET CONFIG param=value update
Tue, Apr 24th 2012 9:13a Stephan H Wissel One of the cardinal sins of Domino administration (besides FTP/copy of a server NSF) is the manual editing of notes.ini variables. To update an notes.ini variable instantly you can use the server console and type set config param=value, while for permanent changes you would add the value to a server configuration document. Using the server configuration document has the advantage, that your ini changes not only will survive a reboot or even loss of your notes.ini, but they serve as documentation [read] Keywords: administration
domino
ibm
notes
show-n-tell
linkedin
server
wiki
333
Extracting data from Domino into PDF using XSLT and XSL:FO (Part 1)
Mon, Apr 23rd 2012 12:13p Stephan H Wissel We all know "Notes doesn't print". Nevertheless the topic of document output and reports is not going away, even if I'd like to ban the reports. There are plenty of ready made tools, but today I'd like to start with home cooked reporting.
Why the effort? Using only tools that use open standards you gain more control over the whole process and you can use whatever deems fit. The downside: it is more things you need to know and might not be suitable for business users (but its great to tortu [read] Keywords: domino
dxl
ibm
notes
show-n-tell
integration
wiki
xml
xslt
255
Importing EML files into Notes (lots of them)
Mon, Apr 23rd 2012 10:11a Stephan H Wissel My friend and Lotus Champion Weerapong Panpai from
Zenith in Thailand asked me "How difficult is it to do a bulk import of eml files into Lotus Notes"? MIME as a format is plain ASCII, so on first look it seems simple.
However on a closer look you might guess where the author of an outstanding movie got his inspiration from. RFC 2045 nicely states:"NOTE: The previous four definitions are clearly circular. This is unavoidable, since the overall structure of a MIME message is indeed recursive [read] Keywords: connections
domino
lotus
notes
notes client
show-n-tell
google
java
oracle
wiki
142
Roots of Wisdom
Sun, Apr 8th 2012 10:13a Stephan H Wissel The 21st knowledge society needs to teach different skills than recalling knowledge. I introduced the 9 essential skills a few days ago. Based on an article titled "Older and wiser?" in The Economist there are 5 critical aspects of wise reasoning to add:
willingness to seek opportunities to resolve conflict
willingness to search for compromise
recognition of the limits of personal knowledge
awareness that more than one perspective on a problem can exist
appreciation of the fact that things [read] Keywords: google
iphone
wiki
169
Setting focus to the first invalid field
Sat, Apr 7th 2012 9:12a Stephan H Wissel When it comes to validation, the only secure way is server side validation (Client side validation is more: "nice suggestions for users"). One little grievance developers have - and try to fix with elaborate measures - is the requirement to set the focus on the first failed field. XPages makes this quite simple. As Tommy pointed out fields that are invalidated server side get the attribute aria-invalid="true".
Besides, as Tommy suggested, using it to style the input (check his comment - coo [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
xpages dojo
javascript
server
150
Inside the IBM Support Process
Thu, Apr 5th 2012 9:12a Stephan H Wissel No software runs flawless (even if the product is named after a fruit), so from time to time you need to interact with support. The entry point for IBM support is the IBM Support Portal or the support call center. Behind that front is quite a bit a process that is designed to be predictable, repeatable, measurable and ensure that customers get the right level of attention from the right level of expertise. Scribbled on a napkin it looks like this:
(click on the image to get a bigger picture
S [read] Keywords: ibm
consulting
database
development
244
Wipe them out - all of them (when a design refresh doesn't work)
Thu, Apr 5th 2012 6:12a Stephan H Wissel You created that shiney new version of your application, ran (in no particular order) fixup, compact and updall and replaced the design. Still some of the design elements haven't updated. Typically that happens when no attention was paid to the "prohibit design refresh" flag of the database design (all your predecessor's fault of course).
While you can go in and hunt the settings down one-by-one (tip: use an DXL export and just look for the property), it is sometimes faster and more profoun [read] Keywords: domino
dxl
notes
show-n-tell
updall
application
database
eclipse
143
Reuse web agents that use PRINT - Bean edition
Mon, Apr 2nd 2012 12:13p Stephan H Wissel Using Java in XPages does have performance advantages especially when you can use EL instead of SSJS. So I created the Java version of the reuse web agents post. You need to copy the Java either into your NSF or include it in your own extension library. Calling an agent is limited to the same database as the XPage resides in, I leave it to an exercise for my readers to improve on that.
You define the Java class as a managed bean:
agentHelper
com.notessensei.xsp.utilities.LsAgentHelpe [read] Keywords: agent
lotusscript
xpages database
java
wiki
xml
137
Story Telling
Sat, Mar 31st 2012 7:12p Stephan H Wissel Antoine de Saint Exupéry is attributed with the quote "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."
Story telling is a powerful medium to get "your message" across. It reaches far beyond the confines of ones early years and the collection lovingly preserved by The Brothers Grimm.
All of business runs on stories, when unleashed to customers often compressed into 30 seconds in [read] Keywords: wiki
349
Webservices in XPages - AXIS vs. CXF
Thu, Mar 29th 2012 10:12a Stephan H Wissel I wrote about using Apache AXIS to connect to a web service before. It worked like a charm when you import the AXIS library into the NSF. In the past few days I tried to move this code into an extension library and I had initially very little success. Here is what I tried and what finally worked:
The AXIS libraries are provided as a plug-in in the Domino server, so my first take was to declare a dependency in my plug-in to that plug-in. To successfully create a Extension Library I had to decla [read] Keywords: agent
domino
ibm
xpages google
java
server
xml
79
Connecting to Wireless@SGx using Ubuntu Linux
Fri, Mar 23rd 2012 6:13a Stephan H Wissel Singapore's island wide wireless network Wireless@SG provides encrypted and unencryped Wifi access. Unless your are a fan of being a Firesheep target, you want to use Wireless@SGx with encryption. Singtel provides detailed instructions for many platform with the unsurprising absence of instructions for Linux. So here you go:
You will need the certificate they use from GoDaddy. So go to their certificate site and download the "Go Daddy Class 2 Certification Authority" in DER format. Note down [read] Keywords: enterprise
linux
network
password
security
wifi
wireless
ubuntu
292
Make Java code for XAgents easy to test
Wed, Mar 21st 2012 9:13a Stephan H Wissel One of the popular entries in this blog is my introduction into XAgents together with related considerations and practial applications. There are a few patterns, that make XAgents easier to develop and debug.
Despite outstanding tool contribution debugging in XPages is still wanting, so any code that you can incorporate pre-debugged is a bonus. Here is what I do:
I try to write my logic in Java. I use the SSJS only to fetch the values I need to call my Java function
The functions of the Java c [read] Keywords: notes
notes client
xpages application
applications
eclipse
google
java
javascript
openntf
wiki
xml
144
Reuse web agents that PRINT to the browser in XPages
Fri, Mar 16th 2012 6:13a Stephan H Wissel When upgrading classic Domino applications to XPages one particular problem arises constantly: "what to do with the PRINT statements in existing agents that write back directly to the browser?" Currently there is no automatic way to capture this output.
However with a little refactoring of the agent the output can be recycled. You can use a computed field for the result showing it on a page that maintains the all over layout of your new application or use the XAgent approach to replace the wh [read] Keywords: agent
domino
ibm
lotusscript
xpages application
applications
javascript
properties
xml
204
9 essential skills
Wed, Mar 14th 2012 7:13a Stephan H Wissel Leo Babauta wrote a beautiful article on ZenHabits titled 9 Essential Skills Kids Should Learn. I would rephrase it as: "Your 9 essential live skills". It inspired me to this plant like mindmap:
Enjoy! [read] Keywords:
117
How much abstraction is healthy for a schema/data model? - Part 2
Tue, Mar 13th 2012 6:14a Stephan H Wissel In Part 1 I discussed Elements vs. Attributes and the document nature of business vs. the table nature of RDBMS. In this installment I'd like to shed some light on abstraction levels. I'll be using a more interesting examples than CRM: a court/case management system. When I was at lawschool one of my professors asked me to look out of the window and tell him what I see. So I replied: "Cars and roads, a park with trees, building and people entering them and leaving and so on". "Wrong!" he r [read] Keywords: admin
connections
dxl
ibm
lotus
application
java
sharepoint
wiki
xml
127
How much abstraction is healthy for a schema/data model? - Part 1
Sat, Mar 10th 2012 8:13a Stephan H Wissel When engaged in the art of Data modelling everybody faces the challenge to find the right level of abstraction. I find that challenge quite intriguing. Nobody would create an attribute "Baker", "Lawyer", "Farmer" in a CRM system today, but one "profession" that can hold any of these professions as value. A higher level of abstraction would be to have attribute value pairs. So instead of "Profession" - "Baker" it would be "Attribute: Name=Profession, Value=Baker". Such constructs ha [read] Keywords: ibm
application
db2
wiki
xml
118
Who designed that process (a visit to the SingTel shop)?
Sat, Mar 10th 2012 5:12a Stephan H Wissel First the good news: The sales rep at the SingTel shop, Brandon, was knowledgeable, patient and tried to help as much as he could, making that part of the process pleasant.
Now the breakdown of processes. I visited the SingTel shop with 2 objectives: subscribe to Fibre Broadband, after all on the 19th OpenNet will install the fibre end point, and to switch my mobile number back from Starhub to SingTel. I failed on both accounts.
Brandon explained: The installation of the end point doesn't coi [read] Keywords: mobile
297
Preparing for a boring flight - XPages.tv offline (Extract media from a feed)
Fri, Mar 2nd 2012 9:03a Stephan H Wissel David Leedy provides us with the incredible useful Notes in 9 (a.k.a XPages.tv) tutorials and insights about XPages and Notes. The feed with all the videos is hosted by feedburner. To enjoy them while off the grid you can subscribe to them using iTunes, but that's for Warmduscher .
I'll show you how to use curl and a shell script (easy to translate to a cmd file):
First you download the feed: curl -G -L -o notesin9.xml http://feeds.feedburner.com/notesin9/iTunes
Run the transformation: XSLT [read] Keywords: notes
xpages google
java
xml
xslt
182
Newspeak - if there is no word for something, does it still exist?
Mon, Feb 13th 2012 6:12a Stephan H Wissel George Orwell's famous novel 1984 introduces the concept of NewSpeak, a language where certain thoughts and the communication of them are impossible since the vocabulary has been removed from the language. In IT and collaboration we do have an "inverted newspeak" problem. The (technical) language of collaboration are the protocols and data formats. The very moment your application does understand a data format and a protocol communication becomes possible. There is a very long list of protoco [read] Keywords: calendaring
collaboration
application
applications
desktop
email
mobile
smtp
web2.0
wiki
150
Hierarchies, relations and tags - thoughts on thought processes
Sat, Feb 11th 2012 11:11a Stephan H Wissel After the German leg of my 2012 LCTY tour I spent Saturday afternoon with my old friend Siegfried Stadler CEO of HyperSkill in Munich, Germany. We share the curiosity about "what makes humans tick" and had a good chat on perception and communication patterns.
Perception forms reality and when the perception pattern of people don't match, they have a hard time understanding each other. Two prominent patterns I would call Darwin and Newton (note: that's the name I gave them, not a commonly ac [read] Keywords: collaboration
apple
facebook
google
properties
wiki
Lotussphere Session evaluations
Tue, Jan 24th 2012 12:12p Stephan H Wissel With AD106, AD111 and AD114 my colleagues and I delivered 3 development sessions. I always find it difficult to strike the right balance, so different levels of audience can benefit from them. Hunter, Viktor and I spend a lot of time discussing, creating, revising and starting over when we prepared for the sessions. It seems we were well accepted. Here are the ratings and comments:
AD106 - IBM Lotus Domino XPages anywhere - Write them once, See them Everywhere: 97.5% good & excellent rat [read] Keywords: connections
domino
ibm
lotus
lotusphere
lotusphere2012
lotusscript
notes
xpages applications
development
javascript
mobile
459
Give your web applications a speedboost and HTML5 compatibility boost in Internet Explorer
Wed, Jan 18th 2012 9:12a Stephan H Wissel With the accelerating emergence of mobile devices HTML5 takes centre stage. While the first round of the "browser wars 2.0" was all about speed, the second round is about HTML5 compatibility behaviour. With the dominance of Android and iOS in the mobile market Microsoft's Internet Explorer isn't the gold standard for browsers anymore, the test results rather show IE as trying to catch up. Furthermore, since it isn't a standard if it doesn't allow for divergent interpretation, Microsoft imp [read] Keywords: admin
domino
xpages applications
dojo
google
microsoft
mobile
server
Famous German chocolate manufacturer to cater to Singapore taste buds
Sun, Jan 8th 2012 5:12a Stephan H Wissel Ritter Sport is famous Ritter Sportall over the planet for their square shaped chocolate. Now in an unpreceded move they designed a chocolate especially for South-Asian taste buds:
This is part of a wider initiative to extend their product range. The information probably leaked before the intended April release date (thx Thomas). [read] Keywords: wiki
Nachlese München und Düsseldorf Februar 2012
Thu, Jan 5th 2012 8:12a Stephan H Wissel Das Team von Edcom und TimeToAct hat mich wieder zur Nachlese nach Deutschland eingeladen. Ed Brill, Ron Sebastian und Volker Weber sind mit von der Partie. Die Tage in München und Düsseldorf bieten immer gute Gelegenheit sich fachlich auszutauschen und viel über mein einrostendes Deutsch zu lachen. Die beiden Themen die ich zum Besten geben werde sind:
X Path: XPages aus Ihren existierenden Lotus Notes Applikationen machen
XPages Starter Kit - eigene Erweiterungen schnell und sicher schreibe [read] Keywords: ibm
lotus
lotusphere
lotusphere2012
notes
xpages openntf
160
Customer Service failures 2011
Thu, Jan 5th 2012 5:11a Stephan H Wissel "Quality is when the customer returns, not the product". A key by-product of quality is good customer service. Unfortunately customer service seems to be perceived as "cost centre" rather than "customer retention", so it is often questionable. Here are my favourite 2011 failures:
A Telco, that requires to call them when you lost your phone - but has all other transactions online and needs a week to reply to a cancel request eMail
A device maker who sends eMails replies on service requests [read] Keywords: email
mobile
network
security
164
Geek toys - Part 1: ZEO Sleep Manager
Wed, Dec 21st 2011 9:12a Stephan H Wissel The old management wisdom goes: "Only what you measure, you can track and alter" While not discussing the merits of that statement (I have serious doubts, since measurements go wrong too often), I decided to have a look into my sleep pattern. Sleep is an important contributor to wellness. So I got myself a Zeo Sleep Manager - Mobile. It is a combination of a brain wave sensor, a head band, a bluetooth unit and a charger. There's an Android and an iPhone application that comes with it, as we [read] Keywords: application
iphone
mobile
wifi
142
My Lotusphere speaking sessions
Tue, Dec 20th 2011 7:11p Stephan H Wissel There are only a few working days left until Lotusphere 2012. Travel and accommodation is booked and I'm polishing the slides and samples for the sessions I will participate. Surprisingly you will find me in the Application Development track together with high profile colleagues:
AD106 - IBM Lotus Domino XPages anywhere - Write them once, See them Everywhere,
with Viktor Krantz | Date: Tuesday, January 17 | Time: 05:00 PM - 06:00PM | Location: Mockingbird 1 & 2
AD111 - The X Path: Practic [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
lotus
lotusphere
lotusphere2012
lotusscript
notes
xpages application
applications
development
javascript
profile
130
DOTS and the eMail life cycle
Tue, Dec 20th 2011 11:11a Stephan H Wissel To use the words of my friend Mikkel: "Domino OSGi Tasklet Container (or DOTS for short) is an uber-cool OpenNTF project that allows you to write addins for the Domino server in Java. The project used to be called JAVADDIN which kind of gives the purpose away.". Together with a simple mail rule DOTS is your entry ticket in a complete eMail life cycle management solution. Despite eMail being around for a very long time, the concept of eMail life cycle management seems to be very alien to a lot [read] Keywords: agent
domino
ibm
show-n-tell
traveler
application
email
integration
java
leak
openntf
server
virus
websphere
wiki
203
When deleting XPages watch your form property "Display XPage instead"
Thu, Dec 15th 2011 9:12p Stephan H Wissel During the XPages training in Manila we found an interesting behaviour of the "Display XPage instead" property of a form. To reproduce this follow these steps:
Create a form form1
Create an XPage test1.xsp
Set the form property "Display XPage instead" (both for Client and web) to test1.xsp
Preview form1 in Notes client and web - works as designed, test1.xsp will show.
Now delete test1.xsp
Preview form1 in Notes client and web - it will show an error
Inspect the "Display XPage instead" pr [read] Keywords: dxl
notes
notes client
xpages xml
114
I want one - 2011 edition - Part III
Wed, Dec 14th 2011 10:11a Stephan H Wissel How many blur pictures have you shot? For me - countless. The Lytro claims to change that. Now let Colani or Hundertwasser have a stab at the casing. [read] Keywords: wiki
Documenting Notes Development
Tue, Nov 29th 2011 5:13a Stephan H Wissel We all know: developers are to documentation are like cats to dogs. There are cute pictures of co-existence in the internet but in reality one chases the other in a never ending fight. One of the big reasons: nobody reads documentation until a problem occurs or there is a change of watch, none of which appears in either "important" or "interesting" category of a regular developer. A partial solution for this dilemma is to automate documentation creation. I'm fully aware that a lot of genera [read] Keywords: domino
lotusscript
notes
script library
show-n-tell
xpages application
development
interface
java
javascript
openntf
wiki
xml
xslt
71
I want one - 2011 edition - Part II
Tue, Nov 29th 2011 5:13a Stephan H Wissel While I rather wear a nicely tailored shirt I have a weakness for ironic t-shirts and Despair.com is my long standing favourite for irony. [read] Keywords:
69
View selection reports
Mon, Nov 28th 2011 10:12p Stephan H Wissel In the last entry I described a method to replace view selection formulas wholesale with boolean expressions. One question I got asked was: "Do we need this?". The clear answer is: "It depends". To make an informed decision, you need to look at your view selection formulas. To make that easier I designed a report you can run against your DXL export of your database design (using DXLMagic) that will highlight stuff that needs fixing:
The report is done in XSLT and you are free to add your [read] Keywords: dxl
show-n-tell
database
openntf
xslt
93
Brute Force View Tuning
Thu, Nov 24th 2011 12:12p Stephan H Wissel Complex view selection formulas can slowdown your Domino performance substantially. So keeping them simple is a mandate for high performance applications. One of my favorite approaches here is to have a set of hidden fields in my forms that compute to true or false and then simply use SELECT vsf_Demo as selection formula, where "vfs" stands for "View Selection Formula". In large applications that results in a rather nice performance. Downside of the approach: you need to compute these values [read] Keywords: agent
domino
dxl
lotusscript
script library
show-n-tell
applications
xml
The Vulcan UI vision
Mon, Nov 21st 2011 5:11a Stephan H Wissel By now everybody in the little yellow bubble should have seen the Project Vulcan Demo:
But how would you explain it to a non-technical user? I use the following little story:
Just imagine one of your favorite artists performs at The Esplanade and you invested into some premium tickets. When you arrive a purser doesn't ask you for your ticket class, but asks: "How did you come here?" When you look astonished, he will continue: "If you came by car, please use entry A. If you came by bus, e [read] Keywords: ibm
lotusphere
application
email
planetlotus
planetlotus.org
smtp
61
I want one - 2011 edition
Mon, Nov 21st 2011 5:11a Stephan H Wissel From the marketing speak:
The world’s first real smartwatch. Multi-tasking, easy to use and love: touch, drag, swipe or pinch. Get your intuitive interface in a complex world. [read] Keywords: interface
47
The appraisal
Tue, Nov 15th 2011 11:11a Stephan H Wissel Made me cringe with laughter:
John Doe, my assistant developer, can always be found
hard at work in his cubicle. John works independently, without
wasting company time talking to colleagues. John never
thinks twice about assisting fellow employees, and he always
finishes given assignments on time. Often John takes extended
measures to complete his work, sometimes skipping
coffee breaks. John is an individual who has absolutely no
vanity in spite of his accomplishments and profound
knowledge in [read] Keywords:
49
Yong Green Food Melbourne
Wed, Nov 9th 2011 5:11a Stephan H Wissel My favorite nice lives in Melbourne. Having a local guide makes discovery of awsome food places easy. We had dinner at Yong Green Food in Fizroy. The lovingly prepared vegetarian food was a joy to look at, to smell and to eat. Highly recommended! The pictures below were taken in low light with an Huawei Ideos phone (no match to the high end phones) [read] Keywords: google
66
Protecting sensitive information in Notes documents
Fri, Nov 4th 2011 10:12a Stephan H Wissel Even in the most social businesses there is information that is available only on a "need to know" basis. Sometimes it is only a small subset of the fields in a document. In a Notes client, as long as I can see a document, I can see all the item values in it (using the document properties box), even if the field is hidden in the current form. So what are my options to protect a few sensitive fields?:
Encrypt the fields with an encryption key that only the authorised user have. Problem here: y [read] Keywords: lotusscript
notes
notes client
show-n-tell
database
properties
security
72
Balsamiq Mockups in XPages
Wed, Nov 2nd 2011 11:11a Stephan H Wissel I write most of my technical blogs to document solutions of problems I have encountered in "real" applications. The popular XAgents post is no exception here. Then I was investigating how to make Confluence plug-ins work in XPages. The specific plug-in I had in mind was Balsamiq Mockups, the tool that has proven invaluable for any screen design, both here on the blog as well as in countless customer discussions. Once I figured the XAgent it was rather easy:
If you want to embed Balsamiq Moc [read] Keywords: xpages application
applications
twitter
48
Moving a NSF from one server to another
Wed, Oct 26th 2011 6:12a Stephan H Wissel And no copying with Explorer or SSH either. Moving from one server to another is called replication. If it doesn't work as you expected you have a problem at hand that you need to fix that moment or it will bite you soon enough! (Picture courtesy of Bart Simpson Generator) [read] Keywords: lotus
notes
server
62
Upcoming XPages Training 2011
Mon, Oct 24th 2011 6:11a Stephan H Wissel There are 68 days left in 2011 and quite some of them will be filled with XPages trainings and chat. Here is the current list of my public XPages sessions in case you want to join:
7/8 November 2011, XPages class, Melbourne Australia (with Lotus beer 8th evening). Register with Geoff Cates
9 Nov 2011: available in Melbourne for 1:1 discussions (coordinate with Geoff)
10 Nov 2011: availabe in Canberra for 1:1 discussions (coordinate with Stuart Hickson)
11 Nov 2011: available in Sydney for 1:1 d [read] Keywords: ibm
lotus
xpages
108
XML Helper class for XAgents
Tue, Oct 18th 2011 11:13a Stephan H Wissel When rendering your own output in XPages agent style (a.k.a XAgents) you might want to render XML as output. While you easily can try String concatenations to get your output, you will very fast hit the wall once you deal with special characters and double byte. One way to render proper XML is building a DOM Document. This can get very memory intensive if you have a large output. The alternative is to use the SAX Parser as I recommended before. The only catch is that you have to take care of XML [read] Keywords: agent
xpages java
javascript
oracle
xml
79
Documenting Validation in XPages
Mon, Oct 17th 2011 9:13a Stephan H Wissel The last thing in a developer's mind is documentation since developers believe that hardly anyone reads it as long as nothing goes wrong or needs to be changed. What works comparable well is the generation of documentation out of code. JavaDoc, JSDoc and LSDoc are examples for such tools. They work well when the code has little external dependencies. When validating form submissions however documenting what field gets validated would be missing. I'm advocating to use validators rather than onS [read] Keywords: ibm
xpages css
google
java
oracle
xml
xslt
49
I'm an IBMer
Sun, Oct 16th 2011 10:12a Stephan H Wissel When you ask someone what they do for a living, you typically get answers like "I am a [insert-profession-here] and work for [insert-company-name-here]". If the profession isn't clearly defined you might just get the company name or the industry (best one "I work in the F&B industry on high quality standard product delivery" for flipping burgers at one of the large chains --- common mis-perception that quality = uniform delivery without variance at work).
When you ask s [read] Keywords: collaboration
domino
ibm
notes
xpages application
applications
google
office
sharepoint
wiki
47
How long does your Enterprise Social Data (needs to) live?
Sun, Oct 16th 2011 10:12a Stephan H Wissel The Internet does not forget, neither does Facebook. Before the rise of the social Intranet corporate policies were easy: When an employee left, a copy of the eMail (database) was given to compliance and then all existence of the gone member purged: the PC reformatted, the mail deleted and (eventually) contributions made as part of a corporate role assigned to the successor (typically in an ECM or WCM). With social media it isn't that easy any more. There are a number of interesting questions t [read] Keywords: ibm
policies
archive
community
database
email
enterprise
facebook
network
profile
wiki
110
Single category views and tagging
Wed, Oct 12th 2011 12:12p Stephan H Wissel Tagging is en vogue and its proponents see it as alternative to the classical folder approach. One alleged advantage of tagging is that you can have multiple tags but only one folder where a document is in. That's true for the file system and certain other mail applications but neither for Lotus Notes nor gMail. In gMail there is actual no differentiation between folders and labels (as they call the tags). What is new - and I like that a lot are better visualisations for folders/labels/tags: Th [read] Keywords: domino
lotus
notes
show-n-tell
xpages applications
wiki
61
Converting Notes Names into Internet Addresses
Wed, Oct 12th 2011 12:13a Stephan H Wissel With IBM Connections en route to many Notes shops an interesting problem arose: Many users want to convert their private mailing list into an IBM Connections community (making IBM sales happy, since you need to upgrade to full Connections for that).
I think that is a terrific idea - moving away from occasional mail blast to a rich online collaboration. Unfortunately IBM connections allows the bulk upload of member information only using their Internet addresses, but not the Notes Names that are [read] Keywords: collaboration
connections
domino
ibm
notes
show-n-tell
community
email
57
1000
Mon, Oct 10th 2011 9:12p Stephan H Wissel On 1st January 2003 I converted my static mindmap homepage into a blog and published my first entry titled Predictions for 2003. I came a long way since then. This posts marks my 1000th entry here. Some entries, predating Twitter are close to the 140 characters limit, so I could add my 4723 tweets to the list . The 1000 entries have attracted 1577 comments, with the first comment going to Singapore resident Ramasamy. The crown for most comments goes to Nathan Freeman of Lotus 911 fame with 31 co [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
lotus
lotusscript
notes
notes client
ntf
sametime
xpages archive
blogSphere
server
twitter
xml
xslt
ubuntu
56
Filing eMail doesn't make you more productive - really?
Mon, Oct 10th 2011 12:11p Stephan H Wissel IBM research published an interesting study titled Am I wasting my time organizing email?
A study of email refinding. It has been picked up in various places and looks like a field day for the "don't bother with organizing anything eMail" crowd. I think the paper is solid research for the question asked and the observations made.
However, I sense that a number of question haven't been asked that might change the producvtivity bottom line in favor of a different approach. I fully agree that [read] Keywords: ibm
lotus
notes
R7
email
outlook
51
Omnisopie - mankind according to Dueck
Sun, Oct 9th 2011 11:11a Stephan H Wissel I just finished Gunter Dueck's famous book Omnisophie (Sorry, German only). Dueck develops a unifying philosophy standing equal to Plato, Aristotle and Epicurus. While the three Greek gentlemen tried to define and devise a philosophy that can be applied to all of mankind, presuming everybody "ticking" equal, Dueck reveals that there are 3 archetypes of people: the correct people, the true people and the natural people, with each of them represented by one of the philosophers.
The differenc [read] Keywords: network
twitter
wiki
60
One or two click mobile approvals?
Tue, Oct 4th 2011 11:11p Stephan H Wissel With Mobile First being the parole of the day more emphasis needs to be spend to create good mobile user interfaces. As much as the web is not print, mobile is not just a small desktop. Nevertheless we apply lessons learned from desktop interfaces to mobile devices. Especially corporate development managers dream of write once, run everywhere (while we know that the best achievable case is write once, test everywhere). Some of the critical differences:
Your screen is small
Your pointer is big
Y [read] Keywords: xpages application
desktop
development
google
interface
mobile
network
widget
wiki
41
The 3 P of Performance: Passion, Professionalism and Persistence
Thu, Sep 29th 2011 6:12a Stephan H Wissel Every corporation celebrates their heroes (and enlightened ones mourn their losses too). I've been made Hero of the day in the quarterly GMU Breakaway Star recognition for the inaugural Q2/2011 (GMU is IBM's TLA for "Growth Market Unit", which means: the world excluding US, Europe and Japan:
Dear Stephan
Congratulations on your recent selection as one of the GMU Breakaway Stars in recognition of your outstanding contribution to our Software business in 2Q!
The GMU Breakaway Stars program r [read] Keywords: ibm
podcast
wiki
Replace IE with XULRunner in Notes Client 8.5.3 on Windows
Tue, Sep 27th 2011 10:12a Stephan H Wissel This is just in from the don't-try-this-at-home-since-it-is-unsupported department. The embedded browser in the Notes client uses an operating system dependent default engine: Internet Explorer on Windows and Firefox (or to be more precise: XULRunner) on Linux and Mac. That cuts one out on Windows from the progress made in Firefox. Luckily our favorite place to alter configuration settings for the Notes client [notesprogramdir]/framework/rcp/plugin_customization.ini got a set of new set [read] Keywords: ibm
notes
notes client
show-n-tell
firefox
linux
mac
widget
79
Large scale workflow application performance using Push Replication
Mon, Sep 26th 2011 10:11a Stephan H Wissel Imagine the following scenario (live from a very large customer of mine):
A workflow application on a central server has at any time 500-800k of active documents. Any normal user would have access to about 50 of them, while an approver typically sees 1000-1500. Using a Notes client Domino will be mainly busy not to display a record (even if you follow my advise). Contrast that with a local replica of the same application. Since documents a user can't see are not replicated these local replicas [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
notes
notes client
show-n-tell
application
database
openntf
server
67
Practise your speaking skills
Tue, Sep 20th 2011 6:11a Stephan H Wissel Public speaking is as much an art as it is a craft. Every craftsman can tell you that besides skills the right tools and practise lead to mastery. To practise speaking do that often. When your job is short of opportunities, join ToastMasters and practise there. When it comes to the tools and the knowledge about them, there is much confusion in our guild. Certainly presentation software is less a tool but a hazardous substance (the dose makes it toxic even if it is really fancy). The real tool is [read] Keywords: wiki
61
Symphony of Science: Beautiful science entertainment
Tue, Sep 13th 2011 12:11p Stephan H Wissel Now I never will forget that the universe is composed of 12 particles and 4 forces of nature.
(They haven't counted SWMBO, so that makes 5 forces). This piece is just one of a growing number at Symphony of Science. Enjoy. [read] Keywords: symphony
91
Less passwords, more security. ssh connections with certificates
Tue, Sep 13th 2011 11:11a Stephan H Wissel Succeful server administration depends on automation. Only when you can declare Runs-in-AutoPilot-mode™ your servers will run cost efficient. While DDM, Activity Trends or Domino Policies can do that for you on the Domino level (you might want to have a look at more tools and utilities), there are times where you need to automate OS level tasks (If you don't promise to never ever use this to FTP a NSF, stop reading now and go away) like moving installer files or start and stop remote serv [read] Keywords: administration
connections
domino
ldd
lotus
policies
linux
password
security
server
wiki
ubuntu
Scaling XPages across servers
Thu, Sep 8th 2011 11:10a Stephan H Wissel In China everything is bigger. The wall is longer then elsewhere and companies, catering to 1.3 billion people have a lot of employees. I'm currently working with our experts from the China development lab to figure out, based on discussions with customers and business partners, how to scale XPages when one server is not enough.
When it comes to architecture, opinions are a dime a dozend. We had "experts" chipping in who would happily split XPages server and NSF server into two introducing n [read] Keywords: domino
xpages development
google
network
openntf
server
73
Custom Controls in XPages
Mon, Aug 29th 2011 9:14a Stephan H Wissel Well designed Custom Controls (we just got 64 new ones) and a set of good libraries can accelerate XPages development tremendously. Of course preparation takes time and it takes some enlightenment to be ready to invest the time to get them right. As a quote from the London Developer Co-op states: "Dirty still remains when Quick is long gone". Some of my insights into custom controls (from various stages of interacting with them):
Custom Controls are like subforms
Custom Controls have paramete [read] Keywords: xpages development
dojo
javascript
openntf
wiki
71
What trains and servers have in common - bandwidth
Fri, Aug 26th 2011 11:11p Stephan H Wissel Practising deduction and investigation with my kids I raised the question: "Does a MRT station need more entry or exit gates?" (MRT is Singapore's local train/subway operator). So we came up with:
People reach the station at their own time, but together in a train, so much less people will at any given time want to enter concurrently than want to leave concurrently
unless of course the station caters to an event, where visitors leave at the end and want to enter the station
Depending on the [read] Keywords: domino
exchange
exchange
network
networking
server
wiki
LiveText and HashTags
Sun, Aug 21st 2011 11:15a Stephan H Wissel Without vendor backing, a UN sub committee or never concluding standard consortia the standard for inline tagging has been established. It is the humble hash (or pound) sign:#. There is a bit of wobble if it should be lower or CamelCase, but the consensus on the # tag is universal. Using the Notes client's LiveText capabilities we can put hash tags in our applications or eMail messages to work.
Unfortunately the way to success is blocked by Regular Expressions which are a member of the three o [read] Keywords: ibm
notes
notes client
show-n-tell
applications
email
properties
widgets
wiki
Capabilities and Perception
Sun, Aug 14th 2011 12:11p Stephan H Wissel When I ask around how people perceive my capabilities I often get back "You are the NotesSensei, the know-it-all XPages expert close to the equator" (or something similar). While it certainly boosts my ego to be recognised as an expert in one field, it awfully feels like a case of one of the blind men describing an elephant (with my current weight I surly qualify as one). It is a dilemma that plagues me for quite a while.
In a recent internal discussion with a manager I've been told: "Your [read] Keywords: ibm
notes
xpages applications
development
network
office
oracle
social software
wiki
68
Neurotic Leadership Programming
Sun, Aug 14th 2011 9:11a Stephan H Wissel I wrote about Gunther Dueck, one of IBM Germany's CTO before. Since the book Direkt-Karriere is only available in German, here's my summary (you could buy the Direkt-Karriere eBook and run it through a translator, but that most likely won't be fun):
Direct Career - the easiest way to the top*
* If you are not familiar with the concepts of irony, sarcasm, cynicism or persiflage neither the book nor this review are for you. Stop reading now!
Dueck suggest to anybody who is interested in having [read] Keywords: ibm
enterprise
google
integration
wiki
If it isn't in a regulation, it's not German - DIN SPEC 77224 Customer Experience Management
Sun, Jul 31st 2011 11:10a Stephan H Wissel Heise online informs us (German) about the new DIN SPEC 77224 specification (DIN is the German national equivalent to ISO, ISO specifications are automatically adopted by DIN, but being German we have extras) for "Customer Experience Management" (CEM). The Heise article links to an insightful presentation by Prof. Dr. Gouthier that explains the why and how. CEM aims beyond customer satisfaction (which has an ISO definition already: ISO 9000:2008 as part of TQM) at "Customer amazement". Custo [read] Keywords: consulting
google
twitter
wiki
More on spreadsheets in XPages
Mon, Jul 25th 2011 12:14a Stephan H Wissel Dennis really was busy. Given the fact, that he only touched XPages a month ago, the result is impressive
Soon to be found in the GPL catalog of OpenNTF. Commercial support will be available from Potix [read] Keywords: xpages openntf
84
Java security in XPages
Thu, Jul 21st 2011 6:14a Stephan H Wissel Once you push the boundaries of XPages (which are very elastic) you sooner or later will run into Java security. The Java security settings live in the file
[notes program]/jvm/lib/security/java.policy. The text file (don't edit it in Symphony, use gEdit or Notepad) defines a series of grant codebase "somelocation" { Java Permission } entries that govern what code located at a specific location is allowed to do and what not. The general rule: it must be allowed, otherwise it is forb [read] Keywords: notes
symphony
xpages java
openntf
security
server
When Sofware matures you need to cut development to stay profitable, isn't it?
Sun, Jul 17th 2011 8:12a Stephan H Wissel Besides having Fun with Dueck I discover more and more how prevalent system patterns are in business. My special foes are "Quick Win|Fix|Start" which are strong indicators for a Shifting the burden archetype at work (remember the sales cycle). Software is a very profitable business that scales very well (your marginal cost to create another software license to be sellable is practically zero - don't confuse that with "cost of sales"). Nevertheless it is also the playground for the burden sh [read] Keywords: ibm
development
security
wiki
58
Customer Care Expectations
Sun, Jul 17th 2011 7:11a Stephan H Wissel There is a whole industry providing happiness to the people that ultimately decide over a company's success and failure: the customers. However it seems to be incredibly difficult to get customer service right (Yes Starhub and AIA, I'm talking to you). The rules however sound simple:
Customer care is for the most important person in the company: the customer. It deserves to be a VIP service
Customers are humans and like to be treated like one (VoiceMenu hell isn't human - tip for Starhub: an [read] Keywords: email
facebook
google
office
twitter
72
Getting inspiration from existing work is part of the creative process and NOT something a copyright lawyer should need to go after
Thu, Jul 7th 2011 9:14a Stephan H Wissel One of my favorite authors is Neil Gaiman. Currently I'm reading his collection of short stories Smoke and Mirrors. The introduction alone is a very interesting read where Gaiman lets one peek into his creative process and when and how he got inspirations for his stories. In a refreshing honest way he cites freely which works of other authors inspired him or where he "borrowed" stories he then wrote in his own style - or even which writing style he copied for a particular piece. It is the fas [read] Keywords:
72
Singapore Lotus User Group Meeting July 15 2011
Mon, Jul 4th 2011 10:17p Stephan H Wissel It has been a long time since the last LAUG meeting in Singapore. Certain events seemed to have left the Lotus community all but dead. But we are used to that and now we are back. I'd like to invite my Singapore Lotus enthusiasts to join me Friday next week for a session on mobile applications. Ben Green from TeamStudio will share with us how TeamStudio's latest offering Unplugged allows easy mobilising of Notes applications. Please visit the event page for more details. I'm using FlickEvents [read] Keywords: lotus
notes
applications
bleedyellow
bleedyellow.com
community
enterprise
mobile
67
Taking hints from each other
Fri, Jul 1st 2011 9:17a Stephan H Wissel In fashion there is no copyright, which seem not an issue in that industry. They make good money:
In software even the look and feel is jealously guarded by all parties involved even if it wasn't their original design. However there is only so much you can do and elements start looking similar. Black top bars in web applications seem to be the latest trend.
Now taking hints from each other is a big no-no in hardware design, of course unless your hardware happens to be a car, a suit or so [read] Keywords: apple
applications
google
microsoft
office
wiki
74
"Try and Buy" Program for Quickr 8.5 Multimedia Library
Thu, Jun 30th 2011 6:14a Stephan H Wissel ANNOUNCING THE NEW
"TRY & BUY"
PROGRAM
IBM Lotus Education is excited to offer
you a Free 60-Day Trial of the NEW Multimedia Library for Quickr
8.5 (English edition). Try & Buy gives you the ability
to download the full version of the NEW Quickr 8.5 training
tool for your organization. It gives you access to courses, lessons and
hundreds of video tutorials showing users how to realize the full value
of Quickr team collaboration software.
Learn about "Try
& Buy" and all [read] Keywords: collaboration
ibm
lotus
quickr
email
server
99
How eMail encryption works and why it is an utter public failure
Fri, Jun 24th 2011 9:17a Stephan H Wissel You have a message for someone that is both confidential and sensitive, you want to ensure that onl the receipent can open it and that (s)he also gets reassurance that it actually was you who sent this and that the message has not been tampered with. Enter the world of digital encryption and digital signatures.
Notes users are used to just checking the respective check box and their messages get signed and encrypted without any further action required. When sending messages to external parties [read] Keywords: domino
id vault
lotus
notes
applications
database
email
properties
security
wiki
106
Customise your forwarding message layout
Wed, Jun 22nd 2011 1:15p Stephan H Wissel One of the big temptations in Notes is to customise the mail template. Done right it can boost your productivity. One very interesting customisation I came across was to display the Job function together with the sender's and recipients' names. That's a neat idea so I know what to expect. The information was lost when a message was forwarded and the default from/to display appeared. A quick check with a custom form showed that it worked as designed. Debbie enlightened me, that forwarding of M [read] Keywords: ibm
lotus
notes
show-n-tell
67
AIA American International Assurance - You need to learn about proper customer service!
Wed, Jun 22nd 2011 6:18a Stephan H Wissel When my kids were born I bought an insurance from AIA as part of planning to pay for their education fees later on. As matters go I had to update some particulars. It turned out that isn't possible online (not even downloading the form), so after a few calls (luckily done by SWMBO) we got all the paper stuff we needed. We filled it in to the best of our knowledge and submitted it for processing beginning of May. Today I received this computerized response dated June 06 (I seriously doubt that S [read] Keywords:
When are thank you eMails good manners and when are they spam?
Sun, Jun 19th 2011 9:17p Stephan H Wissel For those of us who got manners it comes natural to say please and thank you. So every time I get a question answered in eMail, I have that reflex to hit the reply or even reply all button to say Thank you. I'm starting to wonder if that is still always appropriate. In IBM Connections we have a widget for "Giving thanks" that separates the process from the daily stream of eMail. Why do I think it might not be appropriate all the time: I just adds another item to a long list of items that want [read] Keywords: connections
ibm
email
widget
52
The leader, the rules and the community
Sat, Jun 18th 2011 6:21a Stephan H Wissel The centre of Buddhist reverence are the Three Jewels: Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. They are not only subject to reference, but also serve as refuge for Buddhists to find calm and strength to face life's suffering. Religions, being bases in ancient times tend to use language that shrouds the everyday meaning from a contemporary reader. Transcribing (not translating!) these three terms into contemporary language reveals an important business lesson:
Jewels and refuge: In a rough world of more tha [read] Keywords: ibm
community
enterprise
office
social software
wiki
Ban the Urgentors!
Wed, Jun 15th 2011 7:13a Stephan H Wissel being multilingual has the clear advantage of being able to pull from a larger pool of philosophers. One of my recent favourites is fellow IBMer Gunter Dueck. He has written a number of books, runs a YouTube channel and has coined his own philosophy called Omnisophie. His blog/newsletter/thought collection is aptly labelled Daily Dueck.
His latest entry is titled Ächtet die Dringendmacher! which you can translate to "Ban the Urgentors" (I took the liberty to create this new word Urge [read] Keywords: ibm
google
wiki
My criteria to select a hotel
Wed, Jun 8th 2011 6:16a Stephan H Wissel Traveling a lot not only does mean spending a lot of time in other people's beds, but to get quite frequently bombarded with surveys about impressions and selections. In the nice place I stay this week the reward for going though one of those was quite some bonus points, so I invested the time. What strange questions I got: Would the pillow selection be more important than the front-desk, or is the in-room-dining menu better than other hotels. Interestingly none of the question met any of my cr [read] Keywords: ibm
wifi
2012-05-13 06:08:01 Failed to parse RSS file. (Invalid character at line 204, column 861). 
