Windows isn’t done until Notes won’t run
Thu, Nov 26th 2009 4:53a Alan Bell just read an email published on Groklaw from Bill Gates
From: Bill Gates
To: Bill Bass; Bob Muglia; Brad Silverberg; Brad Struss; Brian MacDonald; Chris Guzak; Chris Peters; Darryl Rubin; Doug Henrich; Erik Gavriluk; Jim Allchin; Joe Belfiore; Kurt Eckhardt; Leif Pederson; Mike Koss; Paul Maritz; Russell Siegelman; Satoshi Nakajima; Steve Madigan; Tom Evslin
Cc: Brian Fleming
Subject: Shell plans – iShellBrowser
Date: Monday, October 3, 1994 5:18PM
Its time for a decision on iShellBrow [read] Keywords: forms
lotus
notes
email
integration
interface
office
php
3
More stats and thoughts
Thu, May 14th 2009 4:51p Alan Bell Today was a little more lively than yesterday on nakedcomputers.org. So far there have been 2698 unique visitors (nearly 4 times the highest count I have ever seen on any planetlotus.org entry), most of them arriving from the home page of Linuxtoday.com so again a non-random sample. There is clearly a lot of windows XP still out there, but Ubuntu is close behind, with about 4 times the Vista numbers. I also had several people asking for their stores to be listed.
Firefox continues to be the lead [read] Keywords: blackberry
firefox
google
iphone
linux
mac
microsoft
php
planetlotus
planetlotus.org
server
vista
ubuntu
more stats
Wed, May 13th 2009 6:51p Alan Bell overall a much quieter day today, but I think it will ramp up again.
Visits
May 12, 2009
1380
59.7%
May 13, 2009
534
23.1%
May 11, 2009
399
17.3%
O.S.
Visits
Windows XP
672
39.9%
Ubuntu Linux
348
20.7%
Windows Vista
206
12.2%
Linux
183
10.9%
Mac OS X
107
6.4%
Debian Linux
84
5%
Windows NT 4
41
2.4%
Windows 2000
15
0.9%
Suse Linux
14
0.8%
Windows Server 2003
6
0.4%
Sun Solaris
6
0.4%
BlackBerry
1
0.1%
Browser
Vi [read] Keywords: blackberry
firefox
google
linux
mac
php
server
vista
ubuntu
6
Todays stats for nakedcomputers.org
Tue, May 12th 2009 6:53p Alan Bell Well today and yesterday cumulative. There was a traffic burst from stumbleupon and from Groklaw. IE 7 was at one time browser number 5 after Konqueror, Chrome and Firefox 2 and 3. A late surge saw it creep past FF2 into a distant second place. Interestingly the operating system has still got XP in the lead, followed by Ubuntu then Vista.
Top days
Visits
May 12, 2009
1332
76.9%
May 11, 2009
399
23.1%
O.S.
Visits
Windows XP
539
42.4%
Ubuntu Linux
228
18%
Windo [read] Keywords: blackberry
firefox
google
linux
mac
php
server
vista
ubuntu
7
Self selecting sample, but Firefox dominates
Mon, May 11th 2009 3:54p Alan Bell I am not sure this means a vast amount, the sample set is just “the first 66 people who give a toss what Alan says”, but I was struck by the total dominance of Firefox. The numbers don’t add up because of search engine spiders. [read] Keywords: firefox
php
4
Naked Computers
Mon, May 11th 2009 5:41a Alan Bell We have a policy at our company to only purchase computers that come without Windows. We don’t like it, we don’t need it, we don’t want it and we certainly don’t want to be forced to pay for it. This restricts the vendors we can purchase from down to a very short list. Plenty of other people are in the same position as us, it is really quite hard to find a good selection of vendors who will allow you to just buy a computer. I am not interested in the whole refund malarky, I don’t want [read] Keywords: javascript
community
php
12
Quickr #fail with dd/mm/yyyy
Thu, May 7th 2009 2:53a Alan Bell The latest Quickr bug I hit. posting here because I think more IBMers read Planet Lotus than the partner forum.
Steps to Reproduce:
Set up server and client correctly running in dd/mm/yyyy date format, as per normal in the UK
Create documents in a Quickr place at various dates in the month, some before the 12th, some after the 12th.
Observe correct creation dates for all documents in the view.
Open the documents and observe apparently correct dates for dd12 such as 25/03/2009 turning into 0 [read] Keywords: document
ibm
javascript
lotus
quickr
bug
dojo
php
planet lotus
server
3
I was gone and now I appear to be back
Tue, May 5th 2009 6:51p Alan Bell The Dominux domain kind of changed into a scummy link farm for a month or so. Sorry about that and I hope nobody clicked any links. I have no idea why it happened, or why it has come back, I am not entirely certain my ISP is still in business and I am struggling to contact them and transfer the domain elsewhere. This has just been a surprisingly minor irritation to me and further underlines the point that I don’t really do Dominux stuff any more, The Open Learning Centre is where I have to [read] Keywords: php
4
So Bill had a good rant yesterday
Sun, Mar 8th 2009 5:51a Alan Bell And few people can rival Mr Buchan in a fair ranting contest, so I won’t comment much other than here it is, and he is mostly right.
This did put me in mind of something I have been pondering for a while. You see IBM business partners do have several ways to say things to IBM. We can email folk we know directly, as Bill was doing. In theory we can use Sametime but in practice not really because the gateway is still on a somewhat broken Sametime 3.1 server until the IBM change freeze ends ( [read] Keywords: domino
forms
ibm
notes
notes client
sametime
blogger
community
database
email
ideajam
mac
php
server
4
Now this is a crazy dialog box
Tue, Feb 24th 2009 4:50p Alan Bell I am used to confusing and infuriating and just plain wrong dialog boxes, I have been conditioned to them over the years, as I suspect have you. Bet you haven’t seen one like this though, from the very clever Jigsaw download tool, the command line version of which is currently getting a nightly alpha build of Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope for me.
I clicked on “Awesome!” which is a word that only really works properly when said with an American accent. [read] Keywords: php
ubuntu
30
Notes 8.5 on Intel Atom (lpia architecture)
Fri, Jan 9th 2009 8:51a Alan Bell IBM really don’t seem to get how to do software for Linux. The current process is to download a tar file and extract a .deb from it (which is like putting a .zip inside a .zip) and then install it as a standalone deb so you have to manage your own updates. The right way to do it is for IBM to host a repository. Really IBM it isn’t hard and here are the instructions. Downloading stuff from websites to install is something that Windows users do, it is an obsolete process. Anyhow, error [read] Keywords: ibm
lotus
notes
application
laptop
linux
password
php
ubuntu
word of the day - Deportalisation
Tue, Dec 9th 2008 2:52p Alan Bell or deportalization for the American contingent I suppose. One of my clients has a deportalisation project going on. I am not involved, but it was a new word to me so I had to share it. This isn’t a Websphere portal or anything relevant to Lotus technology at all, but I think it might be an interesting new trend for people who have invested in a portal strategy who now find that the components are not best of breed solutions any more and tighter integration between applications makes them h [read] Keywords: lotus
applications
integration
php
websphere
websphere portal
2
IBM goes virtual with Canonical
Fri, Dec 5th 2008 3:51p Alan Bell Techworld has the details, including some choice quotes from an industry expert who had read the press release and made some educated guesses http://techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?newsid=108034
“Alan Bell from Linux consultancy, The Open Learning Centre, said that this was significant move from IBM. The Foundations server is a clever software/hardware combination that provides a lot of server services such as file & print and email to lots of thick client computers,” he sai [read] Keywords: foundations
ibm
lotus
notes
symphony
applications
desktop
email
linux
php
server
3
A new Social Networking site just for people called “Alan”
Tue, Nov 25th 2008 3:10p Alan Bell I would like to announce the launch of a new social networking site, specifically catering to the needs of people called Alan. If you are an Alan, or know one, then head on over to http://thealans.com where you will meet up with literally several like-named people. If you happen not to be called Alan then you can still register and take a look around, but we might just delete your profile after a few weeks. The site is based on the Elgg social networking platform. If you think your company could [read] Keywords: connections
ibm
lotus
facebook
networking
php
profile
31
Domino Designer on Ubuntu
Sun, Nov 23rd 2008 5:55a Alan Bell well actually, no not really. But that is the real icon for designer, created using the following cunning command:
touch /opt/ibm/lotus/notes/designer.exe
Clicking the icon launches the empty designer.exe file in gedit. So with the release of the Notes 8.5 Debian install I finally have a computer with Notes on it again. I don’t have a Domino server still, that broke about a year ago and I never got round to fixing it. Maybe one day IBM will realise that wrapping up .deb files in a tar arch [read] Keywords: designer
domino
ibm
lotus
notes
archive
php
server
system i
ubuntu
4
Wierd Lotusscript ACL handles
Tue, Nov 18th 2008 4:39a Alan Bell Have a look at this little puzzle, the code below simply prints the names of all the entries in the ACL of a database, but it doesn’t work unless you uncomment the commented lines
Sub Initialize
Dim db As New NotesDatabase("", "acltest1.nsf")
' Dim acl As NotesACL
Dim entry As NotesACLEntry
' Set acl = db.ACL
Set entry = db.acl.GetFirstEntry
While Not entry Is Nothing
Print entry.Name
Set entry=db.acl.GetNextEntry(entry)
Wend
End Sub
So accessing the ACL through db.acl.GetFirstE [read] Keywords: acl
lotusscript
database
php
2
What I have been up to
Thu, Jul 24th 2008 5:44p Alan Bell I have been deathly quiet on the Domino front recently, but don’t worry, I have been keeping myself occupied.
Some big news in the UK is that right now a major high street retailer is selling mini laptops, but not just any old mini laptop, this is the new webbook from Elonex (who you may remember I have met before). If you were to go right now to the home page of The Carphone Warehouse you will see a webbook. “nice, but unremarkable” I hear you say. Well that is just the start [read] Keywords: domino
blogging
development
laptop
linux
mobile
php
ubuntu
13
And another workspace . . .
Tue, Apr 8th 2008 4:23p Alan Bell I have been messing about with CouchDB for a while. Back in 2006 I put together a couple of LotusScript wrapper classes for it using LS2J to do the communications and presenting a friendly API for putting Notes like data in and out of the CouchDB database. Now I have been mucking about with Python and PyGTK trying to build something of a GUI to link with CouchDB. Here are a couple of screenshots to give you a feel of the progress so far. Firstly the workspace, because every client worth having m [read] Keywords: designer
, document
, lotusscript
, notes
, database
, interface
, php
, python
, server
, widget
, workspace
, xml
2
Document Freedom day
Wed, Mar 26th 2008 7:24a Alan Bell Happy Document Freedom day!
Today would be a great day to install OpenOffice.org or Lotus Symphony if you haven’t already. If you already use these great tools then today would be a great day to show them to someone else.
The Open Document Format is a well designed modern format which any system creating documents for use in a wordprocessor, spreadsheet or presentation tool can use. Over the last decade or so the free market in office suites has basically been destroyed by the Microsoft mo [read] Keywords: document
, lotus
, odf
, symphony
, application
, applications
, microsoft
, office
, ooxml
, openoffice
, xml
8
Almost a workspace
Sun, Mar 9th 2008 3:04p Alan Bell As many of you know, I have been playing with various small Linux based laptops which are going to change the world. One thing I have noticed on some of them is a familiar user interface. This is the Elonex One, it was launched last week in the UK and I was there to play with it, I even did a review. Here is the home screen of the One in tablet mode:
Now lets look at another small Linux laptop, this is the Asus EeePC which in the UK RM are calling the RM Minibook:
Does that remind you of any [read] Keywords: ibm
, notes
, interface
, laptop
, linux
, workspace
3
dis29500.org has gone a bit Dojo
Tue, Feb 5th 2008 5:59p Alan Bell I have been updating dis29500.org importing lots of new data in the form of the leaked dispositions and adding a new system for tagging and some Dojo prettyness. Have a play and let me know if anything breaks. Feel free to blog about it too, there will be a bit of a relaunch in the next few days, but it would be nice if the lotus blogosphere got the scoop on it. [read] Keywords: lotus
, dojo
, ooxml
2
The OLPC XO, 30,000 teachers and me
Tue, Jan 22nd 2008 4:39p Alan Bell My followup article on the visit to BETT has now been posted on the OLPC news website I know it is somewhat off topic for my regular Dominux readers, but the BETT show was pretty amazing. You might be at Lotusphere right now with an estimated 8 kilogeeks, but BETT draws in 30 kiloteachers from all over the world. In the picture on the right I am the one who would need some glue and cotton wool if I was wearing a santa suit. [read] Keywords: lotusphere
2
Day 1 of not being at Lotusphere
Mon, Jan 21st 2008 7:53a Alan Bell Well day 3 or so if you count all the days I would have been there if I was. Today is the Opening General Session which I am following live as the expected announcements flood in. So why am I here and not there? Basically when the call for abstracts went out I figured I had nothing much to say this year. Last year was great showing OpenOffice.org integrating with Notes. This year the Productivity Editors AKA Symphony is more of a reality, but I am not that interested in them. I am focusing more [read] Keywords: lotusphere
, notes
, symphony
, openoffice
4
Well I have had an amazing day today!
Wed, Jan 9th 2008 7:29p Alan Bell Back in December The Open Learning Centre (which is myself and Alan Lord - The Open Sourcerer ) was invited to meet up with The Open Forum Europe to discuss ways we could work together. They invited us to go to the BETT show and help out on their stand talking about Open Source software. I said I would bring along my OLPC laptop as an example of Open Source in education.
Come last week, my laptop had not arrived. We had nothing to show, not much to say. HELP!! We needed a new plan. I borrowed a [read] Keywords: laptop
, microsoft
, office
, vista
21
Wil Wheaton is a Lotus Geek!
Tue, Jan 1st 2008 11:59a Alan Bell One of the books I got for Christmas was Just a Geek by Wil Wheaton (thanks Conor and Abi). It is a great book, but what first caught my eye when I picked it up was the back cover, which features Wil at his desk with a bunch of books on the shelf behind him (several of which are strewn about my desk too) and in the middle of the shelf between Learning Perl and the Watchmen graphic novel was an IBM Redbook, looking carefully you can just make out that it is the Lotus Domino R5 Clustering Redbook. [read] Keywords: designer
, domino
, ibm
, lotus
, R5
8
Google Charts with Formula language
Fri, Dec 7th 2007 2:24p Alan Bell Google just released a new toy for us to play with, the Google Charts API. It really is very simple, just construct a URL in a particular way and it gives you a png file.
Lets say for example you have 12 months of sales figures in millions of pounds as below (these are not the actual Dominux sales figures)
sales:=12:15:16:18:25:30:28:42:32:35:36;
then you need to encode this by replacing the numbers with letters where A=0, B=1 etc.
valuecodes:="ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwx [read] Keywords: formula
, formula language
, google
2
The Slashdot effect
Tue, Dec 4th 2007 1:02p Alan Bell dis29500.org was on the front page of Slashdot this morning at 6am. Initially the site could not cope, but then it was running as a virtual machine with 128MB ram and hosting dis29500.org, A Story For Bedtime, The Open Learning Centre, The Open Sourcerer, Fondoo.net plus routing email and running couchDB and running the Red5 flash streaming server. It now has 450MB or ram and it is very responsive. It would have been nice to see a Domino server slashdotted, and I certainly could have written dis [read] Keywords: domino
, email
, server
7
Spot the diff
Fri, Nov 23rd 2007 4:38p Alan Bell Wikipedia or wikis in general have a really really cool feature, the history tab. It shows the differences between two versions of a page down to the word, you can easily see what has been added, what has been removed and what has been changed. Behind all this is a diff algorithm. The diff algorithm used by Domino Wiki was written by John Resig and released under a creative commons license, it works really well but it is written in Javascript. This is great for web applications and it does work [read] Keywords: domino
, javascript
, lotusscript
, notes
, notes client
, applications
, properties
, wiki
3
I wonder what happens if . . .
Sat, Sep 29th 2007 1:52p Alan Bell you copy the contents of
c:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org 2.3\program
and then paste it into
c:\Program Files\lotus otes\framework\shared\eclipse\plugins\com.ibm.productivity.tools.base.app.win32_3.0.0.20070725-1652
Well Notes starts. . .
File-new-document. . .
oh well. It was worth a try. Anyone know how to tell it what the user interface language is? [read] Keywords: document
, ibm
, lotus
, notes
, eclipse
, interface
, openoffice
OOXML limps on to the next stage of the ISO process
Tue, Sep 4th 2007 2:08p Alan Bell update: some of my figures were wrong, there are more than 69 P and O countries in total, but 69 non-abstaining countries.
Well the good news is that the many comments and technical criticisms of Microsoft’s flawed standard will now actually get read. It hasn’t been kicked out altogether, there will be a meeting in Geneva in March of representatives of all the national bodies who voted “disapproval with comments” plus representatives of all national bodies who are members [read] Keywords: odf
, microsoft
, ooxml
, xml
3
Why OOXML should not be an ISO Standard and why it matters
Thu, Aug 30th 2007 1:48p Alan Bell There has been much controversy in the IT world recently over Microsoft’s new XML based file format for Microsoft Office Documents. It is called Office Open XML or OOXML for short. Microsoft want to make this an international standard and accepted formally as such by ISO. There are many standards used in computing, many internet standards are set by the IETF. The IETF has produced many standards in computing over the years ranging from important to rather silly. The members are largely vol [read] Keywords: document
, microsoft
, office
, ooxml
, xml
7
Flash in Notes - back by popular demand
Thu, Aug 23rd 2007 2:15p Alan Bell I do intend to repost all the old articles on their original published dates, but I had a specific request for this one from an IBMer so here it is again.
Notes Rich Text is great, it can contain pretty much anything, and that includes Adobe (Macromedia/Shockwave) Flash objects. The video below (made with vnc2swf) shows how I am adding a Macromedia Flash Paper control to a memo then setting it’s movie parameter to point to this YouTube video URL. [read] Keywords: notes
, rich text
