Why The Silence? | Blog
Mon, Jun 17th 2013 8:00a Jake Howlett Wow. More than 2 months since I last blogged. Which is the longest period of silence this site has ever seen. What gives? Is codestore dead? Does anyone care? Well a couple of you do. Enough to email me and ask if I'm ok. One even to say it's like he's "missing a friend", which was nice. One asked if I was still alive and I had to resist temptation of replying in the guise of my widow. The simple reason is I'm just way too busy to find the time to write on here. I'm working weekends and s [read] Keywords: domino
email
microsoft
sharepoint
275
Mapping Document Collections To Views | Blog
Thu, Apr 11th 2013 4:00a Jake Howlett It's now a couple of months since I wrote about a Super Useful Set of LotusScript Wrapper Classes, which I've written about on and off since February. Today I want to share a few more extensions I've made to them, which help massively when it comes to getting documents from views. Imagine the following use scenario: Dim factory As New CustomerFactory()
Dim coll As CustomerCollection
'Let's get a collection from a view
Set coll = factory.GetAll()
'Or you could to this
Set coll = factory [read] Keywords: domino
lotusscript
notes
database
247
Making Google Apps For Business Behave Like a Mail Client | Blog
Wed, Apr 3rd 2013 4:16a Jake Howlett So, I mentioned that I've moved to a new PC and, for the first time in years, I didn't install a dedicated Mail client/app. Instead I'm using direct web access to Google Apps For Business (posh name for paid-for Gmail). The one thing I never liked about using Email in a browser is that I constantly close and re-open the browser. Thus, in effect, closing my email client, which I then have to remember to re-open. Now though I've made it seem like a real app. You can do this using Chrome's "a [read] Keywords: application
email
google
141
Documenting Your LotusScript Classes | Blog
Wed, Mar 27th 2013 4:00a Jake Howlett Just a quick LotusScript tip: Hopefully you've been inspired by my recent adventures in creating custom LotusScript classes. If so, you'll have noticed that, when creating your own properties and methods in these classes that they get their own comments added in. For example, if you type "property get foo as string" and then press return, you'll see something like this:%REM
Property Get Foo
Description: Comments for Property Get
%END REM
Property Get Foo As String
End Property
Domino De [read] Keywords: domino
lotusscript
properties
125
The Perfect Desk Quest - 2013 Update | Blog
Tue, Mar 26th 2013 6:20a Jake Howlett It must be time for another update on how my desk is evolving towards the elusive "perfect desk". Previous updates here. Here's my desk now, following a recent overhaul: The two main differences from before: The Lenovo T400 laptop and its docking station have gone and the left-most monitor has moved positions to be on the right. My desk needs to not only keep up with the way I work, but also the changes of the times. I decided it was time I got "with the times" and "embrace the cloud" an [read] Keywords: domino
lotus
notes
database
development
email
laptop
microsoft
office
outlook
server
vm
161
Updating Glyphicons in Bootstrap | Blog
Thu, Mar 21st 2013 4:00p Jake Howlett Using Bootstrap, whenever I want to an icon to an element, I simply write HTML like this: Add New
And I get something like this:
The choice of icons is documented here and the icons themselves are based on Glyphicons "halflings".
All is good.
However, recently I found myself wanting to use an icon to show that a document had some attachments. Naturally, I wanted a paperclip. Just like a magnifying glass denotes searching, a paperclip denotes a file attachment. Who knows why!
To my sur [read] Keywords: css
twitter
105
Easy Access to Sub-Collections of the DocumentWrapper Class | Blog
Wed, Mar 20th 2013 12:30p Jake Howlett My favourite feature of the Wrapper Classes I keep going on about is the ready access they can give to any given class's related sub-classes. For example, let's say you have an object based on the Customer class and you want to find all their Invoices. Wouldn't it be nice to write code like this in a WQO agent:Dim customer As Customer, invoice As Invoice
Set customer = New Customer(web.document)
If customer.Invoices.Count > 0 Then
Set invoice = customer.Invoices.getFirst()
While Not i [read] Keywords: agent
properties
106
Easy Access to Sub-Collections of the DocumentWrapper Class | Blog
Wed, Mar 13th 2013 4:20a Jake Howlett My favourite feature of the Wrapper Classes I keep going on about is the ready access they can give to any given class's related sub-classes. For example, let's say you have an object based on the Customer class and you want to find all their Invoices. Wouldn't it be nice to write code like this in a WQO agent: Dim customer As Customer, invoice As Invoice
Set customer = New Customer(web.document)
If customer.Invoices.Count > 0 Then
Set invoice = customer.Invoices.getFirst()
While Not [read] Keywords: agent
properties
92
Creating New Documents Based on the DocumentWrapper Class | Blog
Mon, Mar 11th 2013 7:20a Jake Howlett So far, we've seen how to "wrap" an existing document inside a custom class, which is based on the DocumentWrapper subclass. But the document we wrap doesn't have to exist. We can use the DocumentWrapper classes to handle creation of new documents. Imagine that, anywhere in your LotusScript, you could write this: Set invoice = New Invoice(web.database.CreateDocument)
invoice.Number = factory.GetNextInvoiceNumber()
invoice.Value = 12345.98
invoice.Save()
Wouldn't that be cool!?
It's quite [read] Keywords: lotusscript
database
properties
158
Extending The LotusScript Wrapper Classes | Blog
Fri, Mar 8th 2013 3:03a Jake Howlett The wrapper classes I blogged about in February went down a lot better than I thought they might. So, taking it further. Let's extend the DocumentWrapper class some more. Since first writing about them on here I've been busy using and extending them as I go. Here are a few examples of some of the properties I've added Simple Helper Properties Some very simple properties: WebLink, UNID and IsNew. Property Get WebLink As String
WebLink = "/" + Replace(web.database.Filepath, "", "/" [read] Keywords: domino
lotusscript
database
properties
148
How to Do Infinite Scrolling in Domino | Blog
Wed, Mar 6th 2013 3:00a Jake Howlett Last week I linked to a Domino-based infinite-scrolling view demo and promised I'd write up how I did it. Even though the reaction to the demo was mixed I'm a man of my word, so here goes. It always surprises (worries!) me when I'm asked to either share a downloadable copy of a demo or write a how-to about it. Particularly when it's something that's all but completely web-based. The code is there to see; just a click away. That said, in this case, unless you're familiar with jQuery and/or [read] Keywords: agent
domino
lotusscript
notes
ajax
application
development
server
91
Infinite Scrolling Views in Domino | Blog
Thu, Feb 21st 2013 3:00a Jake Howlett On Tuesday I was talking about whether it does a user an disservice to simply give them a selection of "Form X by Field Y"-type Notes views when building for the web. I then (over-)promised to show some alternatives. Hopefully you're not expecting anything revolutionary, coz that they ain't. Just something different. Extra tools for the toolbox. Infinite Scrolling The first alternative is to use "infinite scrolling". This is something you'll be used to if you use Twitter or Pinterest. The [read] Keywords: domino
notes
twitter
114
Are Notes Views Still Relevant? | Blog
Tue, Feb 19th 2013 3:10a Jake Howlett Do users really use Views?! It's a question I've been asking myself more and more as the years go by, but it's a question I don't really know the definitive answer to. The accepted approach whenever creating a Domino-based app is to stick in half a dozen or so views, each sorted by one or another primary field. Let's say it's an invoicing app to track invoices. You might have any of the following view and more: "by number", "by customer", "by value". Do users want that though? To me [read] Keywords: domino
notes
notes client
application
105
Changing Twitter Bootstrap's Look and Feel | Blog
Fri, Feb 8th 2013 3:00a Jake Howlett Back in the days when I was a big fan of using Adobe Flex I remember one of the complaints against it was that the default look and feel (while quite nice) was always used and rarely changed, which made every single app look the same as the other. A bit like this: My love of Flex waned. This was mainly because I realised that using it was becoming less and less viable, but also because, when Flex 4 came out, they tried to make it so that you had to customise the UI. I see where they were coming [read] Keywords: admin
domino
css
twitter
86
Survey: Is LotusScript a Legacy Language? | Blog
Wed, Feb 6th 2013 6:03a Jake Howlett In the comments to my post I wished I'd not posted about LotusScript last week, somebody wrote: Quit trying to sell customers programs written in BASIC. You might as well be sending them documentation written with crayons. While I agree in essence that it's doing customers no real long-term favours writing code in LotusScript, the choice over what to use (if there's a choice at all!) is rarely a simple one. A few days later I posted another LotusScript-based entry. I expected no interest in [read] Keywords: lotusscript
110
Super Useful Set of LotusScript Wrapper Classes | Blog
Mon, Feb 4th 2013 2:00p Jake Howlett I know LotusScript is a "legacy" language, but, some of us still use it on all-too-regular basis (myself included) to think of it that way. Recently I devised a set of core LotusScript "wrapper" classes that help with some of the more mundane aspects of writing web apps built with LotusScript. A lot of the LotusScript I've written over the years has been along the lines of something like this: Dim coll as NotesDocumentCollection
Dim view as NotesView
Dim doc as NotesDocument
set view = dat [read] Keywords: domino
lotusscript
database
properties
116
How Well Do You Know LotusScript? | Blog
Wed, Jan 30th 2013 1:50p Jake Howlett The danger in LotusScript is when you spend time in other "proper" languages and then return to LotusScript, foolishly thinking you can use what you use elsewhere. Take this as an example: Dim i As Integer
For i = 1 to 2
Dim isIAnOddNumber As Boolean 'Defaults to False!
If i Mod 2 = 1 Then
isIAnOddNumber = True
End If
Print isIAnOddNumber
Next
What would you expect the output to be? [read] Keywords: lotusscript
93
My Birthday Present to Me | Blog
Fri, Jan 11th 2013 3:10a Jake Howlett I'm 38 today. As a present to myself I've bought a Concept 2 rowing machine. Well, actually I've hired it, with a view to buying it. They're not cheap and I want to make sure I get on with it first. It's in my garage, which, as you may know, makes up the other half of the out-house my office is in, so it's literally next door to where I sit all day every day, making it an easily accessible means of exercise. Having a birthday so early in January means I can double it up with my new year r [read] Keywords: office
124
Laplets are the Way Forward | Blog
Thu, Dec 20th 2012 3:00a Jake Howlett This week I got myself a new toy — a Lenovo Yoga 13 "laplet" (a laptop and tablet in one). If you've not seen the advert for it yet, then it's the one where the lid folds all the way back to make it in to a tablet. So far I've been wowed by it and can't put it down. Not only is the device itself amazing, but I've been won over by Windows 8. Initially I'd dismissed Windows 8 as an elaborate hoax but that's because I was trying to use it on a desktop (inside a VM) without a to [read] Keywords: desktop
laptop
office
vm
wifi
88
Be Careful With Custom HTML Attributes (Dojo) | Blog
Mon, Dec 10th 2012 1:50p Jake Howlett If you've used Dojo and the Dijit library to add field validation to HTML forms then you may have ended up with something like this:
All very well. Things work. Until, that is, browsers start to implement the new HTML5 "required" attribute added to the input element.
I found this out this week while supporting a site I've inherited from another developer who created it many moons ago. Long before even HTML4 was being ratified. The site still works but not in IE10.
In the case of the abo [read] Keywords: dojo
email
90
Tip: Confirm All Destructive or Irreversible Actions | Blog
Tue, Nov 20th 2012 4:00a Jake Howlett One of the (many) beauties of Lotus Notes is being able to quickly add an Agent to do almost any task. They get used (and abused!) all over the place. Most of the databases I see are almost always littered with Agents written to perform one-off data-cleansing tasks, but are left hanging around waiting to do damage. The other thing I always see is badly-named Agents whose purpose is not entirely clear from the name alone and a review of the code itself is needed in order to work out what it does [read] Keywords: agent
lotus
notes
java
107
Retirement: Buying to Let | Blog
Thu, Nov 15th 2012 4:10a Jake Howlett In my last post here I mentioned that Rockall had had a bumper year. Rather than squander all this unexpected cash on fancy holidays (that's "awesome vacations" in American) I wanted to do something sensible with it before the good times ended. What better than buying an "investment property"? This week we had an offer accepted on a Buy-to-Let property and it's now in the hands of the conveyancors to make it ours. The aim of doing this is long-term. Being self employed and 37, my retirem [read] Keywords:
89
Rockall Design Enters 10th Year | Blog
Thu, Nov 1st 2012 4:10a Jake Howlett Rockall Design was 9 years old yesterday. It's become customary on this day that I post a chart of growth (income vs years running). So, here it is: As you can see this last year has been something of a bumper year. The secret to this past year's success? Long hours and "hard" work. But mainly luck! Well, I say luck, but again, as with 99.5% of my work, it's down to being the owner of this site and having put in endless hours in to its running. Without the site the luck wouldn't happen [read] Keywords:
69
Make Sure Your Stylesheets Have the Right Content Type | Blog
Fri, Oct 26th 2012 4:00a Jake Howlett This week I got asked if I knew why a Domino-based website lost all its CSS styling when viewed over the internet, whereas it worked fine when viewed via the local intranet. The browser in question was Internet Explorer and almost instinctively I knew what the cause may be. It's when stylesheets are sent to the browser with the wrong content-type, like with this Page: Make sure you use "other" and enter "text/css", like so: Some browsers let you off with this mistake. Some don't (Firefox [read] Keywords: domino
css
firefox
86
Site Mod: Let's Get Social | Blog
Thu, Oct 18th 2012 4:01a Jake Howlett Top right on every page of this site* there's now the "Let's Get Social" section with a handful of links to sites that I'm a user of. Some of the links were there before and some are new. They all have a new look though. Thanks to brilliantly simply icomoon.io web app, which lets you pick the icons you want, bundle them together and download as a font Base64 encoded in a CSS file. Use of the font is then dead simple. Brilliant. Font-based icons are the way forward! * this assumes your scree [read] Keywords: css
mobile
93
At the End of the Day (Java Tip) | Blog
Wed, Oct 17th 2012 4:00a Jake Howlett Of all clichés people over-use, the worst has to be "At the end of the day...". It always makes me think of David Beckham's insightful post-match analysis. These past few days I've been struggling to get my tiny mind round the simple notion of the "end of the day" and how to calculate it in code. Here in the UK we're all in the same time zone. Midnight is at the same time wherever you happen to be. If you need a website to work out whether a date-based deadline has passed, it's easy. T [read] Keywords: notes
java
server
94
Taking Backups To The Next Level | Blog
Thu, Sep 27th 2012 4:00a Jake Howlett After this week's fiasco getting my laptop back after an SSD death I have starting taking backups way more seriously. Somebody asked whether I had off-site backups. Last week I didn't. Now I do. Kind of. If you can call having one NAS in the office and one in the cellar "off site". They are in different buildings, so the risk of fire or theft to both is slim enough for my liking. I fear theft more than fire and the chance of a burglar robbing the office and the cellar has to be tiny. Here's [read] Keywords: laptop
mac
network
office
89
Read This If You Use an SSD and/or Acronis True Image | Blog
Mon, Sep 24th 2012 4:40a Jake Howlett The SSD in my laptop died over the weekend - aged 1.5 years ÔÇô and without any warning. I didn't even bother thinking about data recovery. As I understand it this just isn't an option. From the outset I'd known that a) the SSD would fail at some point and b) I had to have a daily backup in place. This is something I mused about back in February when the SSD turned 1 year old and I considered swapping it at that point. Instead, based on advice back then, what I did was buy a spare SSD and [read] Keywords: notes
applications
desktop
laptop
network
workspace
120
Photo Wall | Blog
Mon, Sep 17th 2012 4:00a Jake Howlett The friend I mentioned on Friday who's a photographer kindly gave me a Canon Selphy CP500 some time ago. I accepted it ("owt for nowt, me") but never actually got round to using it. I'd always assumed it wouldn't be very good. Now that I'm getting back in to photography I decided to give it a try. Guess what - it's actually really good. It only does 4"x6" (postcard-size) prints (or smaller) but they're as good as what you'd get back from any online photo-printing service. Without the [read] Keywords: office
75
Making a Camera Pay For Itself | Blog
Fri, Sep 14th 2012 6:30a Jake Howlett How do you justify buying a Canon 5d Mk2? Not only to yourself but, most importantly, to your other half. How about arguing that it will pay for itself. Consider an average trip to Venture Photography can set you back a couple of grand then, if you could produce something similar to what they do, you've broke even. Right? The three shots above I took last week on the 5d. I then tweaked them in Adobe Lightroom 4 and had my friend/neighbour who's a professional photographer and owner of a pro- [read] Keywords: office
62
Inspiring Creativity | Blog
Mon, Sep 3rd 2012 4:40a Jake Howlett There's no doubting that this summer's Olympics were inspiring. Their tagline was "Inspire a generation", which I hope they did. Personally speaking, I don't find Olympians inspiring. I find it almost weird, them wanting to sacrifice so much just to be the best. I respect that they do it though, I guess. What I do find inspiring and what I really respect is when people have a natural and creative talent. Over the last couple of weeks I've been amazed by a couple of examples of creativity. [read] Keywords:
52
Productivity Tip: TODO Items With Eclipse Java Code | Blog
Tue, Aug 21st 2012 4:04a Jake Howlett When writing Java code in Domino Designer / Eclipse you can start a comment line like this: //TODO Must remember to refactor this. Then you will see a little blue tick mark in the left-hand side of the code pane, like so: You also see blue marks on the right-hand gutter so you can jump to all points in the current code file where work is needed, as below: Adding "todo" comments is a habit I've gotten in to over the years. They're a useful way to remind me to come back and fix something. R [read] Keywords: domino
eclipse
java
workspace
51
Embedding Fonts In Java PDF-Creating Agents | Blog
Wed, Aug 15th 2012 9:04a Jake Howlett Yesterday I talked about using Web Fonts to overcome the limitations of being restricted to the limited set of fonts available to web developers. Today I'll talk about over-coming the even more limited set of fonts available when creating PDF documents. When you create a PDF with the likes of iText you're normally limited to the choice of Courier, Helvetica and Times New Roman. Helvetica is probably the default choice, but it's borrrrrring. Let's use Source Sans Pro instead! Here's an examp [read] Keywords: agent
domino
java
38
Now Using Web Fonts | Blog
Tue, Aug 14th 2012 6:43a Jake Howlett I've always baulked at the idea of embedding fonts in browsers. It just seemsed wrong to me and against all that is pure and good about the web. Work with what you're given instead, I've always thought. Why make the user download a file to use a font? Yack. But then working with what you're given has always meant very little choice. Verdana for everything?! Bit boring. It's only since I discovered (and started using) Adobe's new open-source font, called Source Sans Pro, that I took another [read] Keywords: css
google
46
Extreme Stress Testing a Domino Server | Blog
Thu, Aug 9th 2012 4:04a Jake Howlett Earlier this year I talked about OutOfMemory Java Exceptions I was experiencing. Now I find myself back in the position of writing Java Agents that could potentially leak memory and I'm still really non-the-wiser as to whether I'm clearing up after myself properly in my code. The code I've written generates PDFs and both emails them and attaches to document. There are OutputStream, InputStreams, ByteArrays, Streams, MimeEntities not to mention all the Domino objects being used. I've done my [read] Keywords: agent
domino
ajax
database
java
leak
server
vm
47
Quick Domino Tip: Dual-Purpose Agents | Blog
Wed, Aug 8th 2012 4:10a Jake Howlett When developing I always try to use as few design elements as possible. It's a thing of mine, although surely not uncommon? Last week I needed to do some server-side validation. First I wanted to validate in "real time" using Ajax to give the user feedback as they filled out the form and then, second, I wanted to validate again when the form was submitted (you should always validate on save). I did something I'd never done before and which saved adding two new elements to do the same job; I [read] Keywords: agent
domino
lotus
lotusscript
ajax
java
server
69
Finding Uses For NFC Tags | Blog
Fri, Aug 3rd 2012 4:07a Jake Howlett One of the things I liked about the Galaxy S3 is that is has NFC capabilities. Meaning I could do some low level hackery and home automation by sticking tags all over the place. That and, maybe one day, I'll be able to use Google Wallet when I'm out shopping. Yeah, right. So, after buying the phone I ordered a pack of six tags off eBay. Just the cheap unbranded ones. They're about 50p each and about the size of a 50p coin. Apparently there's a million uses for them, but, as soon as mine arri [read] Keywords: email
google
71
Music: New Life For an Old Dog | Blog
Thu, Aug 2nd 2012 4:53a Jake Howlett I have a 12 year old Bose AWMS, which, despite its age, is still as impressive as the day I bought it. People who've never seen or heard it before are always impressed. It's funny to see the look on their faces when I bring it out ("what the hell is that!?") and how then their expressions change when I turn it on and crank it up. Bose get a poor rap (apparently, if you read in-depth audiophile reviews) but I can't fault the AWMS and have since bought a pair of Bose Companion 5s for my desk, [read] Keywords: mobile
server
wiki
wireless
58
Just When You Think You're Safe Online | Blog
Tue, Jul 31st 2012 4:03a Jake Howlett Tesco.com got themselves in hot water this week on Twitter after claiming that sending users their passwords in plain text in reminder emails was done so securely. It just goes to show you can't trust any company - no matter how "respectable" you feel they are - with your password. At first I thought I didn't a Tesco account (I boycotted them years ago) but I went there and tried to send a password reminder to the email address I would have used if I did have an account with them. It turns [read] Keywords: email
password
security
twitter
58
Testing SMS Sending + Receiving | Blog
Wed, Jul 25th 2012 4:03a Jake Howlett Having a selection of old phones lying around comes in handy sometimes. Not just as a website test lab but also for other tasks. This week I've been working on adding SMS-sending capabilities to a Domino-based website (using Twilio's API if you're wondering). In doing so I've been sending out a lot of SMS messages. Being the type of person who goes a little OTT with things like this I've been sending to 4 different numbers! To help me remember which phone has which SIM and is with which c [read] Keywords: domino
mobile
58
Don't Be Afraid of DIY Phone Repair | Blog
Tue, Jul 24th 2012 4:06a Jake Howlett How's this for Sod's Law: I take my Galaxy S2 away on holiday with me, knowing it's going on eBay when I return, only for it to break while on holiday! From what I can tell I think some sand got in the USB port/charger and screwed it up. To cap it all off it recently came out of its warranty period. Doh. The symptoms of my broken phone were that it would pause charging and say "Voltage too high". It would keep telling me this every few seconds, meaning the phone can't sleep. Nor could I t [read] Keywords: google
mobile
58
Pro-Tip 2: Text Manipulation With Sublime Text 2 | Blog
Mon, Jul 23rd 2012 4:04a Jake Howlett Today I'm going to try and regain some of the reputation I lost the other week when I blogged a "pro tip", which, it turns out, wasn't very pro at all. Talk about egg on my face! In response to blog Dragon Cotterill pointed me to Sublime Text 2, which did was took me 5 steps in one very simple step. Doh. I'm now a convert to Sublime Text and using for allsorts of stuff. It's worth a look at if you haven't seen it already. Anyway, last week I needed to create a Domino-based dropdown list o [read] Keywords: domino
notes
47
Mobile Testing Lab | Blog
Thu, Jul 19th 2012 4:03a Jake Howlett I seem to have unwittingly built up quite a collection of mobile devices, which make for a nice "test lab". Here's (the newly-responsive) Codestore seen on them all: Clockwise from top left there's an iPad (1!), a Nexus 7, a HTC Hero, an iPhone 4, a Galaxy S2 and a Galaxy S3. Which is my Favourite? Isn't the youngest child always a parent's favourite? In that case it's a close call between the day old Nexus 7 and the month old S3. They're both amazing. The Nexus slightly more-so as it [read] Keywords: google
iphone
mobile
45
Pro Tip: Quickly Convert Text in to a Programmatic Array or List | Blog
Fri, Jul 13th 2012 4:04a Jake Howlett Every now and then I need to turn a plain text list in to a useable list for my code. For example, I want to turn this plain list:Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
In to something like this:String[] weekDays = {"Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday"};
For small lists like that a manual process is fine. However, for large lists it's too just much to do it by hand.
That's when I normally use my favourite text editor, TextPad, for the job.
Let's say we h [read] Keywords: notes
349
How To Remove Voice Command From Galaxy S2 Without Rooting | Blog
Tue, Jul 10th 2012 4:03a Jake Howlett For as long as I've owned a Galaxy S2 the V-Lingo Voice Command app that comes with it has driven me mad. Always popping up when you don't want it to (would you ever want it to!?) asking "what would you like to do?" in that annoying voice. Like most of the other stock Samsung apps they've made it so you can't remove them. Which is really annoying. Although I did find out how to remove it without rooting your phone: Install Apex Launcher (free) Add a new icon for the Voice Command app to [read] Keywords: google
56
Is Responsive Design Worth It? | Blog
Fri, Jul 6th 2012 4:04a Jake Howlett Having spent quite a bit of time converting this site to a Responsive Design I then thought I'd look at visitor stats to see how many of you are mobile. Turns out it's surprisingly few of you. As little as 3% of you use mobile devices! This breaks down further, by device type, as follows: So, a third of those of you using mobile devices are using an iPad, which kind of worked ok before I converted to responsive CSS. All my work was to cater to 2% of my readers. Doh. Would I have bothere [read] Keywords: css
mobile
53
Survey: Will You Be Using Responsive Design Techniques | Blog
Wed, Jul 4th 2012 4:04a Jake Howlett In yesterday's post about Responsive Web Design I said that in the future all sites will be designed this way. Bit of a sweeping statement, but I'll stand by it. What's your take on it though? Do you think it's a pivotal moment in the evolution of the web or not? Time for a survey: [read] Keywords:
70
A Crash Course in Responsive Design | Blog
Tue, Jul 3rd 2012 4:03a Jake Howlett Did you notice that I've re-written all the CSS for this site? Possibly not. After all it should look just the same. You'd only notice a change if you visit from a mobile device or resize your desktop browser down real small. If you were to shrink your browser down it would look like this: The site has responded to this size change by altering the layout and making only the most important parts immediately visible. This is what's called Responsive Web Design! How To Be Responsive Let's look [read] Keywords: css
desktop
microsoft
mobile
55
Responding To Changes In The Web | Blog
Wed, Jun 27th 2012 6:33a Jake Howlett I now do a lot of web browsing on mobile devices (smartphones / tablets) as, I'm sure, do you. It's inarguable that this trend toward mobile browsing won't increase. Despite this, what I've found is that the majority of websites just do not work well on small screens. Well, ok, they "work" but they don't work! Consider the following screenshot of how the website for the hotel I'm staying in looks in Chrome on my Galaxy S3: Now, you might be thinking "Huh? It looks fine, what's up wi [read] Keywords: css
desktop
mobile
59
Two Weeks in America | Blog
Tue, Jun 26th 2012 6:43a Jake Howlett Over the years of running this site I've had quite a few people say things like "If ever you're in Smalltown, AZ I'll buy you a beer" - safe in the knowledge I'll never make it to Smalltown. Only one person ever offered to buy me a beer in New York city and I made sure I remembered it for the years between them offering and me finally making it there this weekend. Not only did Vince buy me a beer (and some bourbons) he spent his whole Saturday showing me the sites, kindly taking photos of [read] Keywords:
368
The Hidden Cost of Holidays | Blog
Thu, Jun 14th 2012 4:34a Jake Howlett We just got back from a 10 day break in Menorca, Spain, at a "5 star" all-inclusive resort. You can probably imagine that, as there are five of us and it was half term, this didn't come cheap. Which makes it all the more annoying when an expensive holiday gradually becomes more and more expensive due to the extra hidden costs associated with travel today. Of which there are many. The most annoying additional cost came in the form of "data roaming" charges. Annoying because I was well aware [read] Keywords: connections
roaming
email
google
iphone
mobile
56
Setting Future Expiring Cookies in IE | Blog
Thu, May 31st 2012 7:44a Jake Howlett Here's a topical one for you. I was just about to implement a cookie-acceptance form on a Domino website that I look after for a customer when I thought I'd check it in IE (as all good developers should) first. Just because. You know. Even the simplest of changes aren't bound to work in IE. And it's good job I did check too as my code worked in all browsers other than IE!! Typical. My code was in a field on a Domino-based form. User's are given the option to "accept cookie use" by pressin [read] Keywords: domino
server
56
Finally, a Decent LAMP Development Environment | Blog
Thu, May 31st 2012 4:03a Jake Howlett For years (as long as I've been a web developer) I've always had hobby sites I maintain, separate to what I do as a day job. Mostly they are built on the LAMP stack. Developing for LAMP has always been something of a geeky pastime for mine. All that SSH, FTP, Vi etc makes me feel like I've still "got it" and I enjoy the geek aspect of it. Despite enjoying this geekery I often find PHP quite tiresome and frustrating. First there's the development aspect. Developing with PHP and MySQL has a [read] Keywords: applications
database
development
google
linux
mac
mysql
server
57
Act Now to Stop Being Spammed Via Google Groups | Blog
Thu, May 24th 2012 4:01a Jake Howlett Yesterday I got some spam. Nothing new or unusual about that. What was strange was what followed. I deleted the spam but then started get dozens and dozens of replies from people asking to be removed. Some polite, some abusive but all very misguided in believing their actions would work. I must have gotten close to 50 emails, which needless to say is annoying. Despite using GMail's "Mute" feature people were changing the subject, which unmuted their newly created thread and the emails continu [read] Keywords: email
google
Native Look and Feel With Java Swing Windows | Blog
Mon, May 14th 2012 8:00a Jake Howlett A while back I talked about how I'd been using Java Swing components within code running inside the Lotus Notes client to "extend its interface" however I liked. As an example, I showed this progress-bar-enabled output window: It works but looks a bit too Java-ery for my liking. Too obviously not a standard part of the client itself. It just jarred with me ('scuse the Java pun there). Well, if you add the following line in to the Java code before opening the window above:UIManager.setLookA [read] Keywords: lotus
notes
notes client
database
interface
java
64
RFC: SharePoint From A Domino Perspective | Blog
Wed, May 9th 2012 4:01a Jake Howlett As a Domino developer, when you start to learn SharePoint, the first things that strikes you is how similar the two are. Well, they're quite different, but there are undeniable parallels. As I work my way through this book I am compiling a table of the elements that make up SharePoint and trying to match them to Domino design elements I'm familiar with. There's no real point to it other than try and understand SharePoint from a perspective I'm used to. Here's the table as it stands (very mu [read] Keywords: acl
agent
domino
script library
application
database
microsoft
office
profile
sharepoint
sql
85
Solution to Java Applet Puzzle | Blog
Fri, May 4th 2012 4:01a Jake Howlett Here's the explanation and the solution to the Java applet issue I mentioned yesterday. As you saw the page combined a Domino Java View applet and an ActionBar applet. They are two separate applets. They talk to each other using JavaScript. You can see how by looking at the source to the page. Clicking the Refresh button on the applet calls this JavaScript function:function Action1_onClick() {
document.applets.view.refresh();
return false;
}
That code is calling an exposed method of the Vie [read] Keywords: domino
lotus
notes
database
java
javascript
network
oracle
security
server
xml
51
Fancy A "Fun" Debugging Challenge? | Blog
Thu, May 3rd 2012 4:01a Jake Howlett Yesterday I debugged a particularly nasty issue. The solution to which I thought I'd share with the world. Before I do I thought it would be fun to reproduce the problem, by way of a challenge for you guys. Fancy yourself as a half decent hacker? Take a look at the the following link: http://www.codestore.net/apps/applets.nsf/view Pressing the Refresh button on the Action Bar should simply refresh the view. It doesn't. It just empties it. See if you can work out why. Muhaha. Your only clue: i [read] Keywords: domino
40
Gardening Advice Needed | Blog
Wed, May 2nd 2012 4:11a Jake Howlett Four years ago this week I moved in to - what was then - a newly-built office, shown below: As somebody commented back then it looks like all it needs is a Ladies / Gentlemen sign above each door. They were right - it does have the look of a public convenience to it. The plan was to grow ivy up it as a form of camouflage and soon after it was built I planted ivy plants along its length. Here's what it looks like now, four years on: I was expecting that, by now it would be completely covered i [read] Keywords: office
71
How I'm Learning SharePoint | Blog
Tue, May 1st 2012 4:50a Jake Howlett The fact that I'm learning SharePoint development (again) might seem like an about turn, seeing as though I didn't have much good to say about it a couple of years back when I first delved in. But back then I was using SharePoint 2007, which by all accounts, was a dog. In comparison SharePoint 2010 is a dream to work with. Dare I say it, it's almost enjoyable. My adventures with SharePoint back then were short-lived. Although it was enough to give me a good grounding and understanding of what [read] Keywords: domino
lotus
notes
development
interface
microsoft
office
sharepoint
65
A Personal Update | Blog
Fri, Apr 27th 2012 4:00a Jake Howlett It's been a while since I posted anything of a personal nature on here. Last time I did, if I remember right, it was when I was down in the dumps, desperate for work and considering throwing the towel in. Assuming anybody still cares here's a quick update on work, family and this site. Work Work is going well at the moment. I've got enough of it to keep me busy and pay the bills (and, more importantly, the taxman!!). Mostly I'm still doing Lotus Domino work. Legacy and maintenance stuff th [read] Keywords: admin
domino
lotus
xpages mobile
sharepoint
59
SharePoint: Lists Based on Domino Views With CRUD | Blog
Wed, Apr 25th 2012 4:50a Jake Howlett Here's an example of a typical SharePoint List: What's different about this List is that it's displaying data from this Lotus Notes View: Not only does the List display this data but it also offers full CRUD-like capabilities - you can also create, change and remove the documents from the Notes database using the SharePoint List frontend. Here it is creating a new document from within the SharePoint site that will update in to the Notes database. All this with very little (as in no) evid [read] Keywords: domino
lotus
notes
database
microsoft
security
sharepoint
36
Making Your Code Tidier With Fluent Interfaces | Blog
Tue, Apr 24th 2012 5:01a Jake Howlett I'm not saying it's the best way, or anything, but my preference when coding is to write the least number of lines possible. Going back to the OutputWindow class I talked about last month, you create and display it like this:OutputWindow output = new OutputWindow();
output.show();
But that's two lines of code, where the following single line would feel more natural, to me at least:
OutputWindow output = new OutputWindow().show();
Maybe it's just me?
Either way, if you don't know how to wr [read] Keywords: notes
interface
wiki
43
How To Enable Two Factor Login for Google Apps for Business Accounts | Blog
Thu, Apr 19th 2012 4:01a Jake Howlett Despite feeling quite safe online - following my self-imposed security review of a couple of years ago - there's always been that nagging doubt that a single point of failure existed in my relatively weak Google Accounts password. I did nothing about this until Jeff Atwood mentioned it this week and I finally turned on two factor authentication. You can do this through your Google Account page online, as below: I did this first for my "personal" Gmail account and then I tried to do it for [read] Keywords: admin
email
google
password
security
38
Web Services: Domino Data Inside SharePoint 2010 Using a Web Part | Blog
Wed, Apr 18th 2012 4:31a Jake Howlett In the last couple of posts on here I've been talking about how to display Domino-based data in an ASP.NET MVC application using Web Services. However, my goal was to find a way to get data in to SharePoint. So, taking it one step further, that's what I did. The image below is a SharePoint 2010 site with a "view" of Domino-based data inside it. How Did I Do That? Well, first thing you'll need is a SharePoint 2010 Server. Assuming you haven't already got one to hand and your PC is 64bit W [read] Keywords: domino
application
microsoft
server
sharepoint
vista
138
Web Services: Using Complex Types | Blog
Mon, Apr 16th 2012 4:40a Jake Howlett Last week I showed how simple it is to share data between Domino and ASP.NET using Web Services. That example was way too basic though and not a great example of how simple it really is - even in a more "real world" scenario. Here's a Notes database with some basic information about fashion designers that I made up: Now, let's share this information with our ASP.NET MVC website! First we create a new Web Service Provider in Domino Designer: I called it FashionDesignerLookup and renamed the [read] Keywords: domino
notes
database
java
properties
72
Connecting To Domino From ASP.NET / SharePoint | Blog
Wed, Apr 11th 2012 4:01a Jake Howlett I got asked recently by a customer how they could have a SharePoint site talk to a Domino web server to obtain information from it. Obviously there are lots of options, but the one I ended up suggesting was Web Services. Before making the suggestion I wanted to be extra sure it was a) possible and b) as easy as I thought it would be. To do this I created a very simple test. Here's how. Step 1: Create a Web Service in Domino The first thing I did was create a database called WebServces.nsf and o [read] Keywords: domino
lotusscript
application
database
java
microsoft
server
sharepoint
64
Organising the Windows Desktop with Fences | Blog
Thu, Apr 5th 2012 4:01a Jake Howlett Continuing on from yesterday's perfect desk posting, let's look at perfecting the desktop shall we. I've always used my Windows desktop as my main storage area for either what I'm working on at the time as well as long-term project's folders, downloaded files and read-later links/reminders. Generally there's about 40 icons on there at any one time and I try to keep them organised in such a way that I can quickly find what I want. However, every now and then, explorer.exe will crash and th [read] Keywords: desktop
58
The Perfect Desk Quest - 2012 Update - New Monitor | Blog
Wed, Apr 4th 2012 4:01a Jake Howlett Last week I took delivery of probably the most game-changing piece of IT kit I think I've ever bought. No, not an iPad 3! A 27" monitor. I've been pondering buying one for a couple of years now and finally gave in to temptation. Going with all the positive reviews I went with the consistently top-rated Dell U2711 and am not disappointed. Not at all. In fact I'm blown away. The U2711 is running at a massive 2560 by 1440 pixels. Until last week I'd been using a 24" monitor at 1900 by 1200, [read] Keywords: domino
desktop
office
55
Making Domino Designer Tidier & Less Annoying | Blog
Tue, Apr 3rd 2012 4:01a Jake Howlett Yesterday was a good day for me. I learnt of couple of tips from you guys that will help me loads. I'll share them here. Auto-Saving Java Firstly a big thanks to Andrew Magerman who has saved me hours and hours of time (potentially) with the following tip, which solves an annoyance I blogged about 3 years ago and have been suffering with ever since -- if you save a Java class from within an Agent or Script Library you have to then save the Library/Agent too. But now you don't need to, with the [read] Keywords: agent
domino
script library
xpages database
eclipse
java
60
Domino Designer's New Java Code Element | Blog
Mon, Apr 2nd 2012 4:01a Jake Howlett Just lately I've been doing an inordinate amount of Java coding in Domino Designer. Which, for the most part, I'm really enjoying. I'd much rather it were C# and Visual Studio, but hey, it's work and I shouldn't complain. At some point recently I upgraded my Notes client to 8.5.3 and then some time later I noticed a new design element appeared under the Code section in Designer, as below: Inside this new area you can directly create and modify classes, like so: This appeals to me as I fin [read] Keywords: agent
domino
ibm
notes
notes client
xpages applications
database
eclipse
interface
java
75
Adding a Progress Bar to Notes Agent | Blog
Fri, Mar 30th 2012 5:51a Jake Howlett On Tuesday I showed a custom "Java Console" I'd thrown together. Today I'm going to extend it by adding a progress bar. Here's what it looks like in use: And when done: Here's the code for using it:public class JavaAgent extends AgentBase {
private OutputWindowWithProgressBar progressWindow = new OutputWindowWithProgressBar();
public void NotesMain() {
try {
Session session = getSession();
AgentContext agentContext = session.getAgentContext();
DocumentCollection docs = agentCo [read] Keywords: agent
notes
java
117
Annoyance With HTTPS Web Services and Domino | Blog
Thu, Mar 29th 2012 4:01a Jake Howlett Obscure Domino annoyance alert! If you have a scheduled Java Agent on a server and that Agent connects to an external Web Service over HTTPS then you will likely encounter an error if both the following are true: You are using Internet Site documents. The server's Key File isn't in the default place - /keyfile.kyr The error you will see from a Java stack trace is: Error connecting to 'www.acme.com' on port '443', SSL Error: Keyring file not found. After a lot of head scratching and a lot [read] Keywords: agent
domino
ldd
lotus
notes
java
server
45
Your Own Custom Java Console in Notes Client | Blog
Tue, Mar 27th 2012 4:10a Jake Howlett When writing Java Agents that run in the Notes client you can use the Java Console to see the result of any System.out.println() calls. Useful for debugging and dumping stack traces to when there's an error. To display the Java Console you need to look inside the Tools menu of the Notes client. Not something an average user would know to do and not something you could expect them to do. The Java Console is therefore best used by us developers and isn't much use when it comes to displaying tex [read] Keywords: agent
notes
notes client
java
49
Using MIME-Based HTML Tables in Notes Client | Blog
Tue, Mar 20th 2012 4:01a Jake Howlett I remember back when I first started with Notes development having to create tables on Notes Forms to display data held in fields in the same document. Maybe you did something similar whereby you'd use one multi-value field for each column of data and add a table to your form with one field in each column. Then you'd hope there was no wrapping. All very messy. Having not done any real Notes development for 10+ years it's not something I've thought much about since. Until last week when I ne [read] Keywords: agent
notes
notes client
css
database
development
java
51
Planning for Zero Redundancy | Blog
Mon, Mar 19th 2012 5:30a Jake Howlett Following your solid reasoning I've given up on the idea of replacing a perfectly good SSD disk with one exactly the same just because it might - at some point - break. As you pointed out - it's crazy to replace a perfectly good piece of kit. Instead I took the advice given and have bought a spare hard drive of the same make, type and size and it's now sitting on my shelf in its box, unopened. Should the current SSD ever die, I can swap them over with minimum downtime. To perform this swap [read] Keywords: laptop
45
Compliance With European Cookie Legislation | Blog
Wed, Mar 14th 2012 4:40a Jake Howlett Here in the crazy land that is Europe there's a new law about to come in to effect in May which means businesses (everybody?) need to get permission from users before placing cookies on their machine. A customer of mine has asked that I implement this on a couple of Domino websites I've built for them. This is probably going to involve doing something very similar to what the ICO have done on their site, which is to show a huge great opt-in message at the top of every page which doesn't go a [read] Keywords: domino
google
javascript
password
server
38
Adobe Shadow: Easy Way to Test Websites on Mobile Devices | Blog
Mon, Mar 12th 2012 4:10a Jake Howlett Adobe just announced the free Shadow software, which lets you simultaneously browse websites on your PC and your mobile devices (iOS or Android) - making testing during development of websites a whole lot easier. It works by installing a mobile app on your devices (phones, iPads, etc) which listen for instructions from the Shadow software on your PC. In turn, the software on your PC listen for instructions from a Chrome browser extension. As you browse in Chrome all the connected devices follow [read] Keywords: development
iphone
mobile
67
One Year With SSD - Time for a New One? | Blog
Wed, Feb 29th 2012 5:20a Jake Howlett It's been a year since I upgraded my laptop to an SSD. I know this because I added a reminder to my calendar at the time to remind me that after 1 year it might be worth swapping it out. Why? Because I read some horror stories regarding their reliability and expected life-spans (most died within a year in the cases highlighted here). My plan was to change it after the first year. Should I though? Seems a crazy thing to do. considering the cost. But then, if it did fail, I'd curse myself for no [read] Keywords: laptop
50
Java: Test if a Document Exists in a Notes View | Blog
Thu, Feb 23rd 2012 4:50a Jake Howlett I'm writing some Java code in a Notes Agent that processes every single document in a database, apart from those that may exist in certain views. To test if the document is in a view or not I used this simple function:private boolean isDocumentInView(lotus.domino.View view, Document doc) throws Exception{
if (view==null) return false;
//Evaluate returns either a double of 0.0 or 1.0 for this! Dunno why?
Vector test = session.evaluate(view.getSelectionFormula(), doc);
Double result = (Dou [read] Keywords: agent
domino
lotus
notes
blogging
database
java
84
A Reason Not to Like Notes | Blog
Thu, Feb 16th 2012 5:50a Jake Howlett I've been working on a user registration "component" for a Domino database. Something to let users register for access and then, once logged in, change their passwords. As part of both processes the password entered is validated and checked it's of a certain quality. It has to be a certain length as well as containing both uppercase and lowercase letters along with some numbers. So, "P4ssw0rD" is ok but "p4ssw0rd" and "P4SSW0RD" aren't. I needed to perform this validation both in @Fo [read] Keywords: domino
lotusscript
notes
bug
database
password
76
Redirecting Users After Moving a Database | Blog
Thu, Feb 9th 2012 4:40a Jake Howlett I thought I'd share this tip as I just used it for the second time, so maybe you will one day. Imagine you need to move a Domino database and its content to a different server. Chances are that the web address will change. Let's say this database:https://server1.acme.com/database.nsf/ is moving to this new address:https://server2.acme.com/database.nsf/ How do you let users know? Do you setup URL Rewrite documents in the Domino Directory to auto-rewrite or redirect them as they come in? You co [read] Keywords: domino
database
server
51
Blocking Google Search Results | Blog
Thu, Feb 2nd 2012 8:21a Jake Howlett I've wanted this feature for ages - the ability to tell Google not to include results from certain websites. And now it's here: I first noticed it when doing the following: Searched for a solution to some obscure (often Notes-related) issue. Accidentally hit a result for a site that requires registration and/or payment. Immediately hit the back button. If now that, if you press the back button quickly enough, Google will show a "block this site" link under the result you clicked on. Or you [read] Keywords: notes
google
74
Why Might Notes Consider a MIME Field To Be Rich Text? | Blog
Tue, Jan 31st 2012 6:00a Jake Howlett I hate the idea of turning this site in to my own forum, but have an "interesting" problem for you, which might help to have the answer on the internet, so... I'm in the process of writing code to loop all messages in a Notes inbox, so I can examine their content. Now, consider this document and its Body field: The Body field is obviously MIME, right? As confirmed by ScanEz. If you were to run the following code against the above document, what would you expect to see?Item item = document.g [read] Keywords: notes
rich text
richtext
44
Two Websites I've Been Asked To Make | Blog
Fri, Jan 27th 2012 3:00a Jake Howlett Normally when family or friends say they need a website I roll my eyes and hope there's a way I can get out of doing it. But then my older brother, Tim, asked me to do one that actually got me quite interested. Tim's the engineer for a local radio station and is responsible for making sure - amongst other things - the station stays on air. He wants a way to monitor the output level of the station's signal remotely. So he's bought an Arduino kit and written a "sketch" file to have it monito [read] Keywords: network
53
New Desk Speakers: Bose Companion 5s | Blog
Thu, Jan 26th 2012 3:30a Jake Howlett Almost ten years ago I bought some Bose MediaMate. Thankfully Bose have got their online act together since then and buying the new pair you see below was quite a bit easier. I've replaced the MediaMates with a set of Companion 5s. They're a bit pricey, but I listen to music 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. The speakers I use are arguably as important a choice as the monitor. Well, that's the argument I made to my wife anyway. The MediaMate's (which are on ebay if you want them) were always go [read] Keywords:
42
Adding Even More HTML5 Goodness to Codestore
Mon, Jan 23rd 2012 3:00a Jake Howlett I used to pride myself on keeping this site up there on the bleeding edge of best web design practice. That hasn't been the case as much lately though and this site's backend HTML has stagnated for years. It keeps up with things but generally lags behind. In trying to catch up with the pace I posted on Friday about how I'd funked-up the search box. Not wanting to stop there I've now taken it a little further and converted as much of the site's markup to HTML5 as I dare. The general structu [read] Keywords: css
firefox
javascript
58
Adding a Little HTML5 and CSS3 to CodeStore
Fri, Jan 20th 2012 3:11a Jake Howlett For the last seven years the site-wide search field on this site has looked like this: This week - in a moment of boredom - I decided to spruce it up a little and now it should look like this: Whether it looks like that for you or not depends on the browser you're using. If you're using a modern and capable browser it should. If not you might see something like this: Either way it should still be obvious what it is without the field label or the "Go" button? How'd I Do That? Simple. Firs [read] Keywords: javascript
38
Writing LESS CSS
Thu, Jan 19th 2012 3:30a Jake Howlett Of all the code I write my CSS is probably the messiest and least well-maintained. While I get near-obsessed over the tidiness of other "actual" code I often find my CSS is a complete mess. When coding I try and follow the DRY approach but with CSS am usually "happy" to duplicate rules over and over; copy and pasting all over the place until CSS files become unmanageable. Writing CSS if no fun! Especially when you get to the nitty gritty of vendor-specific stuff in CSS3 like border radiuses, [read] Keywords: domino
css
twitter
46
Chrome Plugin to Open Documents in ScanEz
Thu, Jan 12th 2012 7:21a Jake Howlett If you're a Domino developer and you're not using either Chrome and/or Ytria's ScanEz then you need to stop and question why. While any browser will do (but Chrome is IMHO the best) you really need to check out ScanEz! My love of ScanEz is in no way influenced by the fact they gave it me for free. I say it because I genuinely think you'll be better off once using it. My promotion of it is like a public service kind of thing. Imagine for a second that you do use both. Wouldn't it be nice to [read] Keywords: domino
notes
google
server
52
Open a Notes Document in ScanEz from a Browser
Tue, Jan 10th 2012 4:10a Jake Howlett ScanEz just keeps getting better and better. The latest gem added is that there's now support for URLs beginning with "scanez://". So you can launch it direct from the browser (or desktop shortcuts etc). The major benefit of this - for me at least - is easier debugging. I use ScanEz day in and day out for all sorts of tasks. If you haven't tried it you really should. As I've said many times before I couldn't get by without it. Well, I could, but... Debugging Web Documents When working on [read] Keywords: domino
notes
database
desktop
workspace
39
Olive Oil Fries Mac Mini
Mon, Jan 9th 2012 4:10a Jake Howlett In the kitchen on Friday I reached to the back of the fridge and the inner light went out. I assumed it was dead. In the mean time the house's RCD had tripped, so I moved the fridge to unplug it before resetting the RCD. No joy - the RCD kept tripping out. So I unplug everything in the kitchen (which has it's own ring) and it's still tripping. Then I realised what had happened. A couple of minutes before I'd mopped up a spillage after one of the kids knocked over a jar of olives on the kitc [read] Keywords: bug
email
exchange
exchange
laptop
mac
office
42
Bootstrapping The Domino Errors Database
Thu, Jan 5th 2012 7:30a Jake Howlett For years and years there's been a database called errors.nsf on this server. It's called the Domino Errors Database and it has slowly built in to a record of general Notes-based errors and various suggested solutions. Until recently it was an embarrassment to have flying under the codestore banner. Badly, badly designed and lacking in functionality: no search, no view navigation etc. So, I've "bootstrapped" it (click the image below to go there and see): It still needs some work but it's [read] Keywords: domino
notes
css
database
server
45
Domino + Java: What To Recycle?
Tue, Jan 3rd 2012 4:30a Jake Howlett So, I've written a Java-based WebQuerySave Agent to resize uploaded JPEGs photos attached to a document. Users can upload any size of file and the code reduces them all to a maximum of 450px wide. The code is working but there are intermittent memory issues, like below: 28/12/2011 13:24:24 HTTP JVM: java.lang.OutOfMemoryError When this hits, the Java agent fails to complete (obviously, I guess) and the photo is not resized. Ouch. Before I pass blame to the server I need to make sure my code is [read] Keywords: agent
domino
java
server
52
You Need to Look at Bootstrap!
Thu, Dec 22nd 2011 6:30a Jake Howlett It's been a while since I found anything that excited me out there in developer land. Then, yesterday, I stumbled upon Bootstrap via Anil Dash's blog entry on it and I was instantly intrigued. So much so that, within an hour or two, I had this working classic Domino app up and running. I've been looking for something like Bootstrap for years! What is Bootstrap? At it's most simple it's just a CSS file. But it's more than that. It's a "framework" that lets you quickly and simply produ [read] Keywords: domino
css
dojo
javascript
twitter
83
Java: Custom Address Class to Check for Duplicates
Wed, Dec 14th 2011 3:10a Jake Howlett My adventures as a "proper" programmer continue apace. Yesterday I created a custom class in Java that implements the Comparable interface and now feel quite smug about it. Probably undeservedly so. I was writing a Domino-based reporting Agent in Java which need to loop a set of invoice documents for a given user and report back a sorted list of each unique billing addresses they'd supplied over the years, so that a data audit could take place. Here's the use case code for the class:ArrayLi [read] Keywords: agent
domino
interface
java
35
Quick Tip: One Gmail Account = Multiple Test Email Addresses
Thu, Dec 1st 2011 3:20a Jake Howlett Don't know about you but a lot of what I do requires having access to multiple email addresses (testing websites that require signup etc). To aide my development I have a few email accounts I use - a Gmail, a Hotmail, a Yahoo and a Google Apps one (my main account). That's only four addresses though, which can be quite limiting at times. In steps Gmail. If you have a Gmail account then you have access to "infinite" email addresses using that one account. The Gmail account I use for general t [read] Keywords: development
email
google
36
Processing Large Numbers of Documents From The Web
Mon, Nov 28th 2011 3:00a Jake Howlett Have you ever needed to call a server-side script that processes 1,000s upon 1,000s of documents or rows of data? If you're doing this from a browser you're going to need to take a couple of things in to account: Web connections, Agents and scripts can timeout. Users need re-assuring feedback that something is actually happening. If you make a website with a button, which, when clicked, calls a script that loops 10,000 plus document the likelihood is the browser will timeout or the user will [read] Keywords: connections
server
72
Free To Comment
Tue, Nov 8th 2011 4:10a Jake Howlett My friend's pub, The Royal Oak, was a finalist in the "traditional pub" category of the Derbyshire Food Awards for the second year running. As proud publicans they asked me to make this more obvious on their website. So I stuck a couple of rosettes at the top of it, as you can see below: Take a look at the source code if you're curious how I did it. Basically it makes use of three "tricks": negative margins, floats and transparent PNGs. It was easier to do than I thought it might be. Whil [read] Keywords: email
