Avoiding Running While on a Streak
Mon, Aug 30th 2010 9:47p Kathy Brown So how do you avoid running when you just don't feel up to it? Blog about running, of course. In reality, I'm not avoiding running because of this stupid streak I've got going. When I run in a few minutes (yes, I am procrastinating), it will be day 456. Nothing momentous in that, but it is an awful lot. Especially when I am training for a marathon.
My marathon training has hit some speedbumps. Moving my home and moving my work all in the span of a few weeks has been a bit tough. And summer. [read] Keywords:
101
Going Beyond Deploy and Pray
Mon, Aug 16th 2010 11:38a Kathy Brown We interrupt the Nerd Girl Run retelling for this exciting announcement!
I am pleased to announce I am presenting another webcast for Consultant in Your Pocket. This Wednesday at 10 AM CENTRAL. Also, there will be a giveaway! Check out Chris Miller's blog for details.
Register here.
Thanks to Lotus and Domino’s rapid application development platform, many developers find themselves in a deploy-and-pray application release cycle. That can be fine for simple applications in uncomp [read] Keywords: domino
lotus
application
applications
development
110
Nerd Girl Run - Part 4
Fri, Aug 13th 2010 2:13p Kathy Brown We last left Thelma and Louise, er, Me and Jess in West Virginia.
West Virginia did not last long. We found ourselved in Ohio. Or rather, the GPS, nicknamed, "Bitch", directed us to Ohio. In any case, we were in Ohio. We knew we were somewhere behind a @the_turtle. We decided it was time to stop for food. This time at the lovely Ruby Tuesday in Somewhere, Ohio. Oddly enough, sitting in the parking lot...the Turtle. We went in for some dinner. And were met with ... ZOMBIES!
Okay, not exactl [read] Keywords: mac
twitter
100
Nerd Girl Run - Part 3
Thu, Aug 12th 2010 4:47p Kathy Brown Ahh...Pennsylvania.
The state in which:
Jess yells at the GPS.
We see a billboard for surfing. (WTF?)
I play a song for Jess that has a siren in it, but she thinks it's real. (Oops)
We see these at a rest stop...
And Amish Pr0n. That's right. Amish porn. We even made it a hashtag. #AmishPorn. Now sadly, at that point, we didn't BUY amish porn. But we saw it. At least, we think we did. We were getting a little crazy at that point. I'm surprised we didn't have someone stop us fr [read] Keywords: twitter
126
Nerd Girl Run - Part 2
Thu, Aug 12th 2010 9:34a Kathy Brown So we left off with impending disaster...
We had just stopped at Starbucks for some coffee. The guy behind the counter perplexed me. I was wearing a shirt that said, "Geek is the new black". He asked me what kind of geek I was. Uh...the geeky kind? Is geek so cool now that we must define our brand of geek only to be shunned by "cool" geeks?
Anyway.
Jess was driving. I was passengering. We were slowly coming awake. I must take a moment and describe our ride. Many of you may know of Jenna [read] Keywords:
102
Nerd Girl Run - Part 1
Wed, Aug 11th 2010 8:09a Kathy Brown It's been a week and I'm a little late blogging an IamLUG write-up, but what the heck. Conferences in general seem to mean more to many of us than just conferences, and IamLUG was no exception. So please forgive me if this post is more than just reporting on a conference. (And really, if you read this blog, you aren't here looking for journalism or news anyway).
So, somehow, Jess Stratton, aka @mattandjess, now aka @NerdGirlJess on Twitter, asked me if I wanted to drive down to St. Louis for [read] Keywords: blogging
google
twitter
118
Release Management Tools
Tue, Jul 27th 2010 10:49a Kathy Brown As a follow up to my post, "What is your application development cycle?", I'd like to ask what tools you use for version and release management.
There are a million questions, and a million ways to handle release management. I'm mostly curious about development for Lotus and Domino, and if you roll your own or use third party tools. [read] Keywords: domino
lotus
application
development
72
Nerd Girls Get Social
Mon, Jul 26th 2010 9:57a Kathy Brown It's official, the Nerd Girls have a session at IamLUG.
Come meet other Nerd Girls for some lively conversation! Not a Nerd Girl already? We'll share Twitter IDs, Skype names, and introduce you to our Linked In group and Twitter list.
It is during the second half of lunch on Monday. We've done panel discussions and BOFs in the past at other conferences, we'd like this to be more interactive. Let's meet, mingle and connect.
AND, we will have a big Nerd Girl announcement to make, so make [read] Keywords: lotus
skype
twitter
215
What Is Your Application Development Cycle
Wed, Jul 21st 2010 10:59a Kathy Brown I don't mean for those one-off applications. I mean for the big ones. Applications that have ongoing requirements. Apps that always have new feature requests, bug fixes, etc. And I'm strictly asking about Lotus and Domino development. What is the cycle like?
Do you develop one thing at a time, then test, then release? Do you develop a lot of features at once during a set time frame, then test, then release?
Certainly there are best practices out there, but what is the reality? I'd like to [read] Keywords: domino
lotus
application
applications
bug
development
Running at IamLUG
Mon, Jul 12th 2010 2:45p Kathy Brown If you think you might want to run with others at IamLUG, then follow @RunningNotes on Twitter. Direct Messages sent to that account will go out to all followers, so everyone can coordinate a time to run.
It was hot and humid last year, but we still had a nice time running around the arch and chatting.
If you haven't registered for IamLUG yet, get moving! I think there are still a few slots left, but I doubt there will be for long.
Hope to see you there! [read] Keywords: archive
twitter
80
Redemption
Sun, Jul 11th 2010 3:08p Kathy Brown I'm hot, sticky sweet, from my head to my feet.
No, I'm not a huge Def Leppard fan, I just ran 8 miles with a leaky sports bottle full of Gatorade.
It was hot and humid as hell this morning. But I finally ran my 8 miles. At the end my hands were stained red from all the leaking Gatorade, but at least I didn't stop to walk or feel naseous. Nothing impressively different from the other day, I was just much better hydrated.
Nature note: on my last 8-mile attempt I was lucky enough to see a [read] Keywords:
157
Dealing with Tantrums
Fri, Jul 9th 2010 12:09p Kathy Brown When my three-year-old throws a tantrum, do you know the best way to deal with it? Ignore him.
Just sayin. [read] Keywords: community
124
Walk of Shame
Wed, Jul 7th 2010 10:48p Kathy Brown Not THAT kind of walk of shame. Weirdos.
Just yesterday I blogged about a terrible run in the heat, and how I am behind in my marathon training. I also posted several tips for running in the heat. It's really too bad I don't take my own advice.
So today, I found myself in the rare situation of being home alone in the evening. It had cooled off to a mere 79 degrees from the 90+ temps we'd been experiencing. I'd been good all day about drinking lots of water. I decided to go for a run. Now I [read] Keywords:
70
401 And Running In The Heat
Tue, Jul 6th 2010 11:00p Kathy Brown No, I didn't move to Rhode Island. I missed blogging about a milestone. Today was day 401 of my daily running streak. Just for those of you that wanted to know, but were afraid to ask.
I am also supposed to be starting week 3 of my marathon training. Oops. It has been hot here. And my schedule hasn't worked out well to getting in longer runs early in the morning (which is the only time to run when it gets really hot). Today for example, it was 102 degrees Farenheit at one point. At 8:30 in th [read] Keywords: blogging
50
Marathon Training Starts Tomorrow
Sun, Jun 20th 2010 6:48p Kathy Brown Well, that snuck up on me. Tomorrow is the beginning of my marathon training. (HOLY COW!)
I looked at a couple of programs and settled on one from The Runner's Handbook. (Incidentally, a book I highly recommend for runners. Affiliate link below.) For the first half marathon I ever ran, I trained with a group. For the second and third, I used Hal Higdon's plans. For whatever reason, this plan just looked more appealing to me. The mid-week runs don't quite get as high, but with the same mileage [read] Keywords:
107
Interesting Bing Feature
Wed, Jun 16th 2010 3:21p Kathy Brown I saw an article (I already forgot where) that showed some "cool" features in Bing. (Side note, I really hate the name Bing, I hate saying Bing, it irritates me, but I digress.). Anyway, in Bing you can put in whatever search term you like and follow it with "contains:[file extension]". For example, "New Hampshire contains: .nsf" and all results will contain "New Hampshire" and an NSF file extension.
Very cool way to see a lot of sites using Lotus Notes.
Now of course, many of the results [read] Keywords: lotus
notes
111
Lotus Notes Developer Tips at IamLUG
Thu, Jun 10th 2010 11:40a Kathy Brown Most of the sessions are up on the IamLUG site here. As you can see, Tom "Duffbert" Duff and I will be speaking together once again.
Developer Tips EVERY Dev Should Know
Ever wish you had a list of all the top mistakes to avoid when developing for Domino? What about all the tips you need to know to create successful applications? Join Tom and Kathy as they show what EVERY Domino developer needs to know. They’ll explain what you need to know and why you need to know it. They’ll [read] Keywords: domino
lotus
lotusphere
notes
applications
archive
twitter
88
Anyone Using the LotusScript Symphony Toolkit?
Mon, Jun 7th 2010 11:07a Kathy Brown In this month's Lotus Developer Tips Newsletter, I wrote about using the Lotus Symphony Toolkit extract data from Lotus Notes to Symphony (Spreadsheets in Part I) via LotusScript.
I've been working a lot lately with the toolkit and just started wondering who else (if anyone) is using this?
Why or why not?
Thanks for your input! [read] Keywords: lotus
lotusscript
notes
symphony
lotususergroup.org
351
A Fix to My Crazy Domino Problem
Fri, Jun 4th 2010 11:25a Kathy Brown Behold the power of community.
Yesterday, I blogged about a crazy Domino Designer problem I was having. Many of you commented with suggestions or ideas. One of those suggestions including shutting off the Eclipse LotusScript editor. Guess what? That worked! That isn't the fix, however, or the end of the story.
Last night on Twitter, I happened to see a tweet from Mary Beth Raven from someone having a problem with LotusScript. The problem was suspiciously like mine. Mary Beth had suggested [read] Keywords: agent
domino
lotus
lotusscript
notesdomino
community
eclipse
twitter
374
Please Help Me With A Crazy Domino Problem
Thu, Jun 3rd 2010 12:20p Kathy Brown I am using Domino Designer, Release 8.5.1 Revision 20090929.1223 (Release 8.5.1) installed in Windows 7 on my laptop. Over the weekend, I updated a LotusScript agent in an application template, located on the server.
On Tuesday, I went into the office and using the same version of Designer, on my Windows XP desktop. Accessing the same application template on the same server, I open the same agent...and the code is old. Basically, while working over the weekend, I had made several changes and [read] Keywords: agent
domino
dxl
lotus
lotusscript
notes
notesdomino
application
desktop
google
java
laptop
office
server
197
Stubborn Streak
Mon, May 31st 2010 10:05a Kathy Brown My mother always said I was stubborn. I had no idea it would help me run 365 days in a row. Alternate titles for this post were "HOLY CRAP!!! ZOMG!!!1!!" (but that seemed a little much) and "I Did It!" (but I've used that before).
So yes, Holy Crap, I did it! I ran every day for the last year. Some stats:
Total number of miles run: 961
Longest run: 13.1 miles
Shortest run: 1 mile
Personal Records set: 3 (5k, 10k and Half Marathon)
It is an incredible achievement that feels am [read] Keywords:
253
Get Off My Lawn
Sat, May 29th 2010 5:05p Kathy Brown Well, it finally happened. I've been running for 2 1/2 years. I've been running every single day for nearly a year. Finally, some teens tried to mess with me.
I was running down the road. It's a hot, humid day. Up ahead at the pet cemetery (yes, just like in the Stephen King novel) some teens were sitting under a tree. As I got closer, I saw one stand up, adjust his shorts and head toward the road. He was wearing a cotton t-shirt, basketball shorts, socks and sandals. Much more equipped for p [read] Keywords:
181
Round and Round
Fri, May 28th 2010 10:08a Kathy Brown So the other day I discussed @Transform. While @Round may not transform your life, it is important to know about.
Us application developer types may not be numbers people. And Lotus Notes isn't exactly known for its number functionality. You probably aren't calculating complex mathematical equations in your Notes applications. However, even if you are calculating simple calculations, you need to know about @Round.
Note that:
3.3 * 3.3 = 10.89
and
3.33333 * 3.33333 = 11.11
No bi [read] Keywords: lotus
lotusscript
notes
application
applications
366
Introducing NotesDevTips
Wed, May 26th 2010 12:03p Kathy Brown Inspired by the session that Tom "Duffbert" Duff and I did at Lotusphere, "The Top Things All New Notes Domino Developers Need To Know", we have started @NotesDevTips on Twitter.
We will post simple (it has to fit in 140 characters) tips for Lotus Notes Developers. Please follow, retweet and most importantly reply with your tips! We will retweet your tips, so send them in! [read] Keywords: domino
lotus
lotusphere
notes
twitter
228
Transform Yourself or At Least Your Code
Wed, May 26th 2010 10:28a Kathy Brown I think @Formula is a frequently forgotten art of Lotus development. Many people start out learning @Formula, then move on to LotusScript and don't look back. That can be a mistake as @Formula can sometimes be more efficient than LotusScript. There are @functions that just don't exist in LotusScript, or require fewer lines of code, or take more parameters.
Today I bring you @Transform. @Transform can be used to transform a value, or even better, a list of values. Take for example a list of us [read] Keywords: lotus
lotusscript
development
97
Marathon Training
Tue, May 25th 2010 12:45a Kathy Brown If there is anything I have learned from running every day for (nearly) a year, it is that nothing matters.
The clothes you wear, the shoes you run in, your diet, your hydration, your sobriety. None of it matters. It can help, but you can still run, no matter the details.
And yet, I find myself wide awake at 20 minutes after midnight, scouring the internet for marathon training plans and comparing them, trying to find that PERFECT plan. Which is really silly. My goal for my first marathon [read] Keywords:
101
Something Missing - a Review
Sun, May 16th 2010 9:35a Kathy Brown I recently went to my local book store and asked for some recommendations. The guy working that day was great. He gave me several recommendations, many I had already read and loved. One of the books I hadn't read was Something Missing. A novel about Martin, a thief who takes his "job" very seriously. He also has a different take on stealing from his "clients", he only takes what won't be noticed, like toilet paper. Despite being a thief, Martin is a good person, who cares for others, including h [read] Keywords:
102
Developer2010 - Presenting, Podcasting and Nerd Girls
Fri, May 14th 2010 7:23p Kathy Brown Whew! So it's been a busy week. I've been at The View's Admin2010/Developer2010 conference.
Attending sessions, presenting two sessions, participating in a podcast, and panelist on the Nerd Girl BOF.
I presented "Fantastic Feats with @Formula", which I think went very well. A good group of attendees, especially for the first slot of the morning. I had fun, and I hope everybody learned something. Friday I presented "The Top Things All Notes Developers Need to Know" which also went really we [read] Keywords: lotus
notes
community
linkedin
podcast
twitter
204
Dropbox versus Carbonite
Wed, May 5th 2010 1:02p Kathy Brown I currently use the free version of Dropbox. I really like it for syncing between machines like my laptop at home, my corporate laptop and my desktop. It is also great for sharing files. Tom and I have used it for our newsletter articles and when working on presentations together.
I also use it as a psuedo-back up. But I have been considering using Carbonite for a real back up. However, I got to wondering if I could use Dropbox for back up. Why or why not? And would Carbonite be better?
I [read] Keywords: desktop
laptop
twitter
214
Conferences, Conferences, Conferences
Tue, May 4th 2010 11:42a Kathy Brown I am looking forward to several conferences this year and have been planning/making travel arrangements/writing abstract submissions like crazy. I hope to see you at some or all of these events.
So where am I going?
Next week, as you may recall, I am speaking at the View's Developer2010 conference in Boston. I have two sessions, one on @Formula, and the other on tips for developers.
In early August, I am headed to IamLUG. I had a GREAT time last year and am really looking forward to thi [read] Keywords: domino
ilug
lotusphere
xpages archive
iphone
62
Proxy Toggles for IE and Firefox
Tue, Apr 27th 2010 12:13p Kathy Brown I use the same laptop at home and in the office. In the office, I am required to use a proxy to access the internet. At home, I don't require a proxy. Going back and forth between the two on both IE and Firefox was driving me sort of crazy. There really is no easy one-click way to turn the proxy settings on or off.
So, I found two tools (yes, one for each browser) that do just that.
For firefox, I recommend the free add-on Toggle Proxy 1.1 and unfortunately not free, but worth it because i [read] Keywords: firefox
laptop
office
183
Calling All Nerd Girls
Mon, Apr 26th 2010 4:13p Kathy Brown I will be speaking at The View's Developer2010 conference in a couple of weeks. At the conference (co-located with Admin2010), we will be having a Nerd Girls Birds-of-a-Feather on Thursday from 12-12:45. Similar sessions and BOFs were at Lotusphere this year, and last year. At this year's Lotusphere we had buttons that were very popular (we actually ran out of them!) and will have them here as well. The buttons are sponsored by Simplified Technology Solutions.
In addition to lively discussion [read] Keywords: lotusphere
linkedin
networking
skype
90
Nike Women's Marathon
Fri, Apr 23rd 2010 3:14p Kathy Brown As many of you know, I started running in 2007. I've done a few half marathons, some 10ks and several 5ks. I'm on this crazy running-every-day kick, and coming up on one year of that. The marathon is something that "would be nice". Since I started running, I thought ONE would be nice. Just to say I've done it. (Please note: I said the same thing about 5k, 10k and half marathons). Last year around this time, I started looking around just to see what marathon I might be interested in.
My dream [read] Keywords:
SNAPPS Quickr Bootcamp
Thu, Apr 15th 2010 7:49p Kathy Brown This week I attended the SNAPPS Quickr Bootcamp, held in Overland Park, KS. It was a three-day Quickr developer training session. The next time the SNAPPS folks offer this, RUN, don't walk, to sign up.
Obviously, these guys are smart, they're frequent speakers at conferences, and they are experts on Quickr. They have done a terrific job at putting together material to get you up to speed and developing with Quickr. The three day bootcamp covered what you need to know, as well as what to watch [read] Keywords: lotusphere
quickr
333
Developer Tips EVERY Lotus Dev Should Know
Mon, Apr 12th 2010 1:46p Kathy Brown Tom and I are at it again! We'll be presenting together on a webinar in the Developer Series over at Consultant in Your Pocket. We're going to try and cram two hours of content into one hour, should be fun! Oh and did I mention the webinar is FREE?! Following is the abstract. We hope you can join us!
Developer Tips EVERY Dev Should Know
Ever wish you had a list of all the top mistakes to avoid when developing for Domino? What about all the tips you need to know to create successful applica [read] Keywords: domino
lotus
applications
development
200
Paper Coding
Tue, Apr 6th 2010 11:29a Kathy Brown The April issue of the Lotus User Group Developer Tips Newsletter is out. In it, I discuss paper coding, a twist on paper prototyping and psuedo-code. I'm curious if anyone else does anything like this when they code and what you think about it.
I'd also like to take a second to say if there is anything you'd like to know more about, or would like to see Tom and I write about in the Newsletter, feel free to drop us a line and let us know! [read] Keywords: lotus
development
lotususergroup.org
140
Code Inconsistency - Newbie Tip
Wed, Mar 31st 2010 10:45a Kathy Brown I hate when something means one thing, except
when it doesn’t.
Take for example, the following:
@DbLookup ("":"";
"":""; view; key; fieldname)
If you’re a Domino developer, you’ve
probably coded something similar thousands of times. And you know
the third set of quotes is for the server parameter and indicates the server
of the current database.
So, what would you think the empty quotes
mean in the following code?
If db.OpenByReplicaID ("";
"852 [read] Keywords: dblookup
domino
lotusscript
database
server
68
3 for 300
Sun, Mar 28th 2010 10:31a Kathy Brown Yesterday I went for a run, for the 300th day in a row.
I am very excited to have hit this milestone. 365 days doesn't seem that far away. Especially since it is the end of March. In New England, we'll still have some cold days, maybe even snow, but we are through the worst of it. The days are getting longer, too.
I won't bore with details or stats. I am just happy to say that I feel great and I really feel that one year is attainable. I love the support that you all (all five of you) [read] Keywords: facebook
twitter
63
Blog Got Goofy
Sun, Mar 28th 2010 10:25a Kathy Brown Yesterday afternoon I noticed my blog had reverted back to July 2009. Thanks to the power of Lotus, I've managed to recover my blog (via replication) back to the end of February. Thanks to the power of my idiocy and not replicating locally everytime I post an entry, I had to manually add back the last five posts. Anyway, all should be back to normal now.
End of story, replicate often and make a back up! [read] Keywords: lotus
234
List of Formula Not Supported in XPages
Thu, Mar 25th 2010 10:21a Kathy Brown As you may know, @Formula are available
for use with Server Side Javascript in XPages. There are 274 @functions
listed in the help file, 97 of those are listed as available for use in
XPages. Here is a list of the @Formula not available in XPages,
in case you might find it useful.
@AbstractSimple
@DocSiblings
@LanguagePreference
@Sign
@Accessed
@DocumentUniqueID
@LaunchApp
@Sin
@ACos
@Domain
@LDAPServer
@Sort
@AddToFolder
@DoWhile
@Like
@Soundex
@AdminECL [read] Keywords: domino
xpages javascript
odbc
password
server
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Improving Responses on Lotus Forums
Tue, Mar 23rd 2010 3:16p Kathy Brown This morning Tom Duff and I were part of the Lotus Technical Information and Education Community Meeting . The topic we discussed was the art of forum etiquette.
A thought came to me after the call, which was a way to a) improve the quality of responses on the Lotus forums and b) reward people for responding.
Check it out... [read] Keywords: lotus
community
ideajam
ideajam.net
javascript
