Enterprise 2.0 and weight loss - siblings separated at birth?
Tue, May 14th 2013 12:18p Stephan H Wissel This blog entry is inspired and largely translated from this German article authored by enterprise consultant Andreas Schulze-Kopp. Having gone through some personal transformation (final results in November) myself I found Andreas' comparison of Enterprise 2.0 initiatives and weight loss programs intriguing.
The tasks are comparable: alter habits, break through the mould of old behavioural pattern (a.k.a processes in business lingo) show enough determination and will power to see it through. [read] Keywords: connections
ibm
development
enterprise
linux
profile
wiki
CRM > Sales Tracking
Sun, May 5th 2013 9:20a Stephan H Wissel IBM is ditching Siebel CRM in favour of SugarCRM. Cloud based CRM was made popular by SalesForce while Zoho wants a share of the pie too.
All to often CRM offers or is used as sales force automation tool, which it is not (only). But what makes a good CRM? It needs to provide access to anything that relates to a customer. Doh - that's what the name claims.
In larger organisations CRM typically is understood very narrowly as sales tracking tool, the broader definition as outlined above gets c [read] Keywords: ibm
lotus
notes
applications
wiki
114
Dear SingTel, please fix your routing performance!
Wed, Apr 24th 2013 9:18p Stephan H Wissel Slashdot asked for the latency to their site, so I ran a few tests with pretty consistent results in the 250ms range. Slashdot labels that as "still stuck on dialup or in space". Their expectations for overseas users was 80 to 150ms. Puzzled by the result (local websites typically respond in the sub 2ms range), I used traceroute to get to the bottom of this. Here are the results:
td.Default {border-right : 1px dotted #CCCCCC; border-bottom : 1px dotted #EEEEEE; padding : 1px}
Hop
IP
DNS [read] Keywords: admin
css
MAMIL*
Sun, Apr 21st 2013 6:17a Stephan H Wissel Cycling in Singapore can be fun once you:
Find the right group
Do it at night
Are not afraid to cycle along an unlit Cemetery or ghosts
* Middle Aged Man In Lycra [read] Keywords: wiki
168
A more actionable Connections UI
Fri, Apr 19th 2013 6:18a Stephan H Wissel IBM Connections is a two headed beast: on one hand it is a set of rich APIs offering different services (Status, Blogs, Wiki, Text, Activities etc) on the other it provides a set of UIs on top of this APIs. Yes, not one, but a set: Browser, Android, iShiny™ and IBM Notes. I'm a big fan of the APIs. After all they stand for IBM's commitment to open standards and are build with XML, REST, ATOM and ActivityStreams compliant to the OpenSocial specifications.
I'm not so sure about the UIs, [read] Keywords: connections
ibm
notes
application
wiki
xml
234
Planning applications (XPages MindMap)
Thu, Apr 18th 2013 8:18a Stephan H Wissel In a recent XPages workshop in Kuala Lumpur, the class brainstormed on the planning process for an XPages application. This is what we came up with. For every item on the list one could elaborate quite a bit, but putting that on the map would make it rather messy.
Enjoy [read] Keywords: xpages application
applications
310
Is SharePoint a Failed Vision for Collaboration?
Sun, Apr 14th 2013 6:16a Stephan H Wissel Rich Blank (of Jive software) makes a case on CMSWire to consider SharePoint a failure for collaboration. Looking closely it isn't SharePoint to fault.
SharePoint with its place concept and flat views is a 1:1 conceptual copy of Lotus Notes implemented with a (then) current Microsoft technology stack. Thus it does have the potential for successful collaboration, as the (then) success of Lotus Notes clearly showed.
With the right effort of adoption any collaborative technology can be successfu [read] Keywords: collaboration
connections
ibm
lotus
notes
email
linkedin
microsoft
sharepoint
skype
wiki
System Administrator's Mantra
Wed, Mar 27th 2013 8:13p Stephan H Wissel All that can be automated is inherently boring
All that is inherently boring will slip my attention
All that slips my attention will lead to trouble
Sooner or later the trouble will catch with me
I therefore vow to fight the beast of boredom
With skills and scripts and automation
To spend time with and for what really matters
You, my user! [read] Keywords:
398
We love Java and JavaScript
Tue, Mar 12th 2013 10:11p Stephan H Wissel But there are the other too...
Comment from Oliver:"That's not originally mine. I never made a cartoon about LotusScript. I guess it originally was about VBA (or the like). Someone had forked the original cartoon. Why not ;) " [read] Keywords: lotusscript
xpages java
javascript
270
Commuting experiment
Fri, Mar 1st 2013 5:12a Stephan H Wissel I live in the north of Singapore, the IBM office is in the east. Getting there either takes time or costs quite some money.
table.commute {width : 100%}
table.commute th {background-color : #CCCCFF}
table.commute td {vertical-align : top; border-bottom : 1px dotted #CCCCCC; border-right : 1px dotted #CCCCCC;}
Bus/MRT via Airport (to office)MRT (from office)Taxi (to office)
Steps
Walk to the bus stop: 2 min
Wait for the bus: 7min (could be anything from 0-15)
Take SBS 858 to Changi Airp [read] Keywords: ibm
css
office
wiki
Notes 9.0 seasrch improvement
Wed, Feb 27th 2013 5:11a Stephan H Wissel The IBM Notes 9.0 availability anouncement is not far off, so the Notes user population, current and future can prepare for improvements to come. One of my personal favorites is the improvement in search, that now allows you to search in your current mailbox as well as any of your archives in one go:
Next stop (?): search in multiple|all local databases. But that's a story for a custom extension. [read] Keywords: ibm
notes
410
Now it's out, keep it running!
Thu, Feb 21st 2013 10:09a Stephan H Wissel Congratulations, your new web business is up an running, your ingenious idea took flight, users are flocking in, the team is growing and they are brimming with ideas. This is the perfect time to take a step back and evaluate what it takes to run a web business that offers a global cloud based service. You need to evaluate what is your core strength and what you leave to others.
There is no hard and fast rule, just a huge set of questions. A global retail and logistics champion runs every piece [read] Keywords: ajax
application
bug
database
integration
mobile
network
office
security
server
435
Exceptional Customer Experience - of the bad kind (yes VirginAtlantic I talk about you)
Thu, Jan 31st 2013 5:15p Stephan H Wissel An action filled week at Connection 2013 drew to a conclusion and I'm ready to go home (with a little stopover in MUC). Presuming my trip is well taken care of by American Express Travel and the majority Singapore Airlines owned Virgin Atlantic I arrive at Orlando Airport to check in. At the display I see that the flight is delayed which would give me an incredible short 20 min to change planes in Manchester.
Given the fact, that there's the silly system in place that requires me to take a sh [read] Keywords: atlantic
ibm
Running a CouchDB with the authenticated Apache HTTP user
Wed, Jan 23rd 2013 10:15a Stephan H Wissel Apache CouchDB shares the same Stallgeruch with Domino thanks to sharing a warden at some time. So during the festive season I gave it a spin.
There is ample literature around to get you started with CouchDB including Apache's own wiki.
So I was looking for something more sporty.
Since Domino 9.0 ships with IBM's version of the Apache HTTP server I was wondering if I could setup couchDB behind an Apache reverse Proxy and make couchDB recognize the authenticated user accessing the couchDB as [read] Keywords: admin
domino
ibm
database
google
server
wiki
Generating Test data
Thu, Jan 17th 2013 7:14p Stephan H Wissel You have seen that over and over: Test1, qwertyyui, asdfgh as data entered in development to test an application. Short of borrowing a copy of production data, having useful test data is a pain in the neck. For my currently limited exposure to development (after all I work as preSales engineer) I use a Java class that helps me to generate random result from a set of selection values. To make this work I used the following libraries:
JodaTime: takes the headache out of date calculation
gson: sa [read] Keywords: application
applications
development
google
java
How we successfully killed eMail (almost)
Wed, Jan 9th 2013 11:15p Stephan H Wissel A recent conversation (in 140 characters or less) with Alan and a thought exchange with Luis got me thinking (again) about the death of eMail, namely the death wish the #SocBiz movement has for it.
When looking at the general discussion three items constantly get mixed up:
"eMail the transport" (SMTP for that matter)
"eMail the software" to deal with what arrives
"eMail the habit" -- of swamping people with irrelevant information and hiding relevant information from others
The tra [read] Keywords: ibm
database
email
exchange
exchange
google
network
smtp
social software
twitter
wiki
Inbox vs. Stream interaction pattern
Thu, Dec 13th 2012 7:20p Stephan H Wissel A recent Tweet exchange with Alan got me thinking on (inter)action pattern in the collaborative software we use. On one hand we have the incumbent eMail: time tested, loved, loathed and under (so the hype) thread from the new kid on the block: activity streams (a.k.a. river of news), in various technological implementations (from propriety, RSS, ATOM, JSON to activitystrea.ms). I'll compare the two from the perspective of work, where you need to get things done (pun intended). I will use email [read] Keywords: connections
ibm
lotus
notes
css
email
exchange
exchange
google
openntf
twitter
wiki
351
Age of first interest – Teach what is interesting, useful or captive! Black holes, Dinos, Knights and Smartphones
Mon, Dec 10th 2012 9:17p Stephan H Wissel This article is a translation, paraphrase and comment of Daily Dueck 180, Dezember 2012 titled (with the friendly permission of Prof Dueck):
„Age of first interest“ – Bringt bei, was interessiert, nützt oder fesselt! Über Schwarze Löcher, Dinos, Ritter und Smartphones
I find translating a text into my second language much more challenging than back to my native language. While it is comparable easy for technical text, it becomes more challenging for philosophical texts, especially when [read] Keywords: google
wiki
436
Hide my Ass on Linux
Thu, Dec 6th 2012 6:11p Stephan H Wissel When you travel a lot in places with some habits, you want to keep your internet activity as private as possible (there are other reasons too) - besides making local access harder). One of the VPN services, aptly named after a gray fury animal is Hide my Ass. I like them, since they have both OpenVPN and PPTP as well as provide access points all over the planet and don't charge for switching between them. When overseas I frequently use the Singapore access point to "phone home".
They provide [read] Keywords: laptop
linux
mac
security
wiki
491
Graceful degradation
Wed, Dec 5th 2012 9:12a Stephan H Wissel Web development is a curious thing. We constantly push ourselfs to upgrade skills and capabilities, we learn Dojo, jQuery and HTML5. We make friends with Websockets and Webworkers only to subject our creations to a runtime environment (a.k.a. the browser) we can't predict and that in many cases might not be up to the task.
So our play-it-save strategy is to look for the lowest common denominator a.k.a. only legacy supported functions can be used. This limits what we can deliver and frustrates [read] Keywords: ibm
lotus
application
development
dojo
google
iphone
wiki
369
Hyperlinks need to live forever - Blog edition
Wed, Dec 5th 2012 5:12a Stephan H Wissel THE bummer mistake in any web revamp is a total disregard for page addresses. The maximum to be found is a nice 404 page with a notice that things have been revamped and the invitation to search. What a waste of human time and disregard for a site's users!
The links to the original page live outside the sites control and Jacob already stated in 1998 Pages need to live forever. So what could you do when swapping blog platforms?
If your new platform runs behind an Apache HTTP server (also known [read] Keywords: ibm
server
wiki
364
Whiteboard Selling
Tue, Dec 4th 2012 10:12p Stephan H Wissel Boring slide driven sales presentations are not efficient, so on the constant quest to improve this IBM uses Whiteboard selling as tool to engage the audience. The seller literally paints the story and vision tailored to the customers situation and needs. Developing a whiteboard is quite an undertaking. The steps now have been outlined in a new book:
Whiteboard Selling: Empowering Sales Through Visuals
Together with The Art of Explanation: Making your Ideas, Products, and Services Easier to [read] Keywords: ibm
wiki
489
Managing @Today in view selection formulas
Fri, Nov 30th 2012 5:10a Stephan H Wissel Using @Yesterday, @Today, @Now, @Tomorrow in Notes view selection formulas is a bad idea (but you know that). But if your application depends on such a selection? The solution is to update your database design automatically with a static date. There are a few caveats:
You must be careful about date formats, since you don't want code to depend on a locale setting. So @Date(2012;12;31) is your save option
After updating a view you want to replicate it across all servers to be sure you don't get [read] Keywords: agent
ibm
ldd
lotus
lotusscript
notes
show-n-tell
application
database
server
Mastering XPages released - in Chinese
Wed, Oct 24th 2012 8:11a Stephan H Wissel Congratulations to the team. Being cut off from many experts blogs it is essential for our fasted growing XPages user base to have good reference information. [read] Keywords: xpages
161
If you think decomposition is from CSI, stop writing code!
Mon, Oct 15th 2012 1:12p Stephan H Wissel I like coaching developers to write better code, but sometimes it is too much. So here it goes:
If you think decomposition is from CSI, STOP writing code!
So, it is off my chest. Simples rule of thumb:
if a function doesn't fit on a printed page, it is too long
A function does one thing. If you loop through a document (or record) collection call a function with the individual document as parameter
Use objects and inheritance with a factory class instead of monster case structures with copy/p [read] Keywords: lotusscript
css
java
javascript
python
wiki
212
(Browser) Client side XSLT transformations
Mon, Oct 15th 2012 12:10p Stephan H Wissel In the beginning there was HTML aehm XML ahem SGML and the world was good (anybody remember the 6150 RT?).
It gave birth to HTML and XML and XSLT to transform between them and the world was good.
We would get XML data and render them either client or server side (like my favorite XForms implementation) into HTML.
Only brave ones would do this client side since an XSLT transformation is heavy and requires the mastery of yet another set of set theory based languages (XPath, XSLT).
Luckily JSON [read] Keywords: connections
ibm
lotus
show-n-tell
application
dojo
google
java
javascript
microsoft
sap
server
wiki
xml
xslt
ubuntu
233
How much effort will you spend on old browsers?
Thu, Oct 4th 2012 10:10a Stephan H Wissel The JavaScript demi-god Douglas Crockford is attributed with the statement: "the browser is the most hostile software development environment ever imagined " (I think he made that before mobile phones were around ). The problem is not only that there are different engines for HTML and JavaScript, but the fact, that older browsers are still around. Chrome and Firefox have build-in upgrade enggines and IE9++ looks quite decent. So users could do with a little reminder and encouragement (and if [read] Keywords: apple
application
development
firefox
google
javascript
mobile
twitter
wiki
211
Starting Domino on Linux using UPSTART
Tue, Sep 25th 2012 6:10a Stephan H Wissel When running Domino on a proper platform (AIX, Solaris, Linux) starting and stopping the Domino server was left to customizing a script from a technote or a Redbook's FTP site, as far as official IBM resouces go. Of course the professional source is Daniel Nashed's ultimate Domino startup script. One script to rule them all.
On Linux however the way services are started has changed a while ago. The prefered method (definitely in Ubuntu, but also Fedora, RedHat and OpenSuse as option) is Upsta [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
lotus
nsd
show-n-tell
aix
linux
password
redhat
server
wiki
ubuntu
Calendars worked better when they were manual, did they?
Sun, Sep 9th 2012 9:14a Stephan H Wissel Before calendars became electronic, having the right system in place was a signal of professionalism (admittingly abused as status symbols quite often) and calendars were very personal.
At the right level one had access to a personal assistant (the one without the D between the P and the A) who organized and maintained all aspects captured in the calendar. Inquiry of 3rd parties into your calendar was facilitated by a high powered neural network (a.k.a. the human brain) that translated the indi [read] Keywords: google
network
office
wiki
154
Mastery
Sat, Sep 8th 2012 6:11a Stephan H Wissel An old Zen proverb states: "When the student is ready the master appears". It implies that it is a student's task to get ready. But it also implies that the master needs to be ready to teach.
In traditional craftsmanship the transition from journeyman to master is accompanied with the right and pledge to take on apprentices. So mastery must include teaching to lay the foundation for the next level: "poor is a pupil that does not surpass his master". After all it is "Purpose, Autonomy an [read] Keywords:
197
The 2,147,483,648 NoteId limit
Sat, Sep 8th 2012 6:11a Stephan H Wissel Every Note in a Lotus Notes database has 2 identifiers: a 32Byte Hex Universalid (UNID) and a NoteId (actually there are some more). The UNID is assigned once, never changes (unless you force it), is derived from a timestamp and stays unique across all replicas.
The 128Bit (incidentially the same size as IPv6) are divided in the first 64Bit from the replicaID and the second 64Bit for the individual documents (but you could overwrite that). Normal use gives you 264 possible values ( = 1.819 = 1, [read] Keywords: admin
domino
ibm
ldd
lotus
notes
show-n-tell
application
database
wiki
189
XSS Vulnerabilities in Domino
Thu, Sep 6th 2012 6:12a Stephan H Wissel An IBM Technote updated on 15 Aug 2012 points to a set of XSS vulnerabilities in the Lotus Domino server. You also can read the disclosure on seclist.org about that. But first go to your server configuration document and add:
DominoValidateFramesetSRC=1
Welcome back (You don't edit the notes.ini directly don't you!). When looking at XSS vulnerabilities, they follow the same pattern as SQL injections: Input that has been provided by the user is not fully sanitised and used for output generati [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
lotus
notes
R6
show-n-tell
applications
server
sql
227
Use Chrome web apps to access IBM Connections (and others)
Wed, Sep 5th 2012 10:10p Stephan H Wissel Inside IBM (not counting the Greenhouse and SmartCloud) I'm a member of close to 200 communities. In some of them I'm quite active, in some I just follow the news stream. While the connections homepage keeps me updated with an activity stream, navigating to my favorite communities is uncomfortable.
I could add them to a browser bookmark, but that has no geek factor. Since the introduction ( read the full story) and reinvention of tiled start screens I grew fond of them and like to keep it tha [read] Keywords: admin
connections
ibm
lotus
policies
apple
application
community
google
iphone
javascript
Fixing Domino's LDAP
Thu, Jul 5th 2012 11:14a Stephan H Wissel Domino's LDAP needs some fixing before it can be used as fully standard compliant LDAP, e.g. for Linux authentication. Alan Bell decribed the procedure long ago, but no action was taken by IBM/Lotus. So Nathan stepped forward and published a project on OpenNTF.
Unfortunately the template contained modifications of IBM copyrighted code (other than the mail and application templates the Domino Directory template never was published under an Apache 2.0 license), so the project had to be taken dow [read] Keywords: domino
dxl
ibm
lotus
ntf
show-n-tell
application
css
linkedin
linux
openntf
xml
xslt
196
Testing your mobile applications on real devices
Tue, Jun 26th 2012 1:18p Stephan H Wissel Unless you are hiding under a rock, you develop mobile XPages applications. Since emulators only get you so far (the iOS emulator only runs on Mac where you don't have a Domino Designer), you want to test the app on the real devices (after you convinced your boss to buy all them). For "always on" developers with access to a development server that isn't an issue. When you are "on the run" and all you have is Domino Designer, it just doesn't work. When you try to connect to your Domino Des [read] Keywords: domino
xpages applications
development
iphone
mac
mobile
server
vm
153
Business Travel Essentials
Sun, Jun 17th 2012 12:18a Stephan H Wissel As working professional you are at risk of a sedentary lifestyle short of rushing at the airport. Getting some regular exercise is crucial. While hotel gyms seem to be a good place, it is better to be able to exercise wherever you are.
Enter FitDeck. The Office and [read] Keywords: google
office
wiki
Share your application setup
Tue, Jun 12th 2012 6:16a Stephan H Wissel There are situations where you want to document or share (eventually with yourself) the list of all applications packages you have installed on your Ubuntu Linux system. To do that you have a 2 step process: document the packages and document the repositories. A sensible approach is to do that in a "ready to install" way. With a little help from AskUbuntu, here is the solution:
#! /bin/sh
# Run this on the source system
sudo dpkg --get-selections > ~/Desktop/packages
# Run this on the [read] Keywords: application
applications
desktop
linux
ubuntu
147
Change partition layout on LUKS encrypted LVM volumes
Mon, Jun 11th 2012 6:14a Stephan H Wissel This serves as a reference on what to do if you have (a) LUKS encrypted disk(s) that contains a LVM layout and you need to alter the partition layout
Back up your data! While everything typically works out, you want to be save, so back up your data (and make sure the backup is readable)
Boot from stick
If not installed, install support libraries
sudo apt-get install lvm2 cryptsetup system-config-lvm
If not existing, create your mount points (presuming LVM contains 2 volumes here)
sudo mkdir - [read] Keywords: linux
ubuntu
Understanding the Needs of the Next Generation Digital Consumer
Wed, May 30th 2012 11:11a Stephan H Wissel My friend Jonathan Wong published an article on infopier.sg titled "Understanding the Needs of the Next Generation Digital Consumer". In it he describes the three core needs of the digital consumer. I 100% second his point of view and would summarize it with this little graphic: [read] Keywords: mobile
137
OAuth, HTTP and file size limitations
Thu, May 24th 2012 6:11a Stephan H Wissel In the brave new world of social file sharing HTTP(s) has won. From the humble webDAV specification to Sharepoint, IBM Connections, Dropbox, UbuntuOne or the emerging industry standard CMIS all use HTTPs to access files on the backends. Since HTTP(s) is the first thing that is available when a network connection is possible and quite often (especially in public hotspots) the only thing available, this success isn't surprising
The more venerable protocols like CIFS (a.k.a. SMB), NFS or SSHFS di [read] Keywords: connections
ibm
lotus
applications
bug
integration
network
password
security
sharepoint
wiki
ubuntu
108
Grow your Social Business Tree
Thu, May 24th 2012 6:11a Stephan H Wissel Culture eats strategy for lunch is all the rave in #SocBiz land and it tops the 10 top tips from Sandy Carter. When your culture is about careful nurturing and grooming, this is for you:
Social Business is like a tree. It needs to grow healthy roots and its crown needs to be balanced to sustain.
Bliss is being a gardener. [read] Keywords: twitter
525
Fun with TCPMon and Lotus Traveler
Sun, May 13th 2012 11:11a Stephan H Wissel Martin Luther (the original) famously stated "man muss dem Volk aufs Maul schauen" (roughly translated: "you have to watch how people talk". What worked for a bible translation also works in IT.
While it is nice to have some documentation, quite often it is inaccurate, incomplete, outdated, factual wrong or simply missing. So listening to "how applications speak" is an essential skill, mentioned here before. In this little weekend project these skills get applied to Lotus Traveler. These [read] Keywords: agent
domino
dxl
lotus
show-n-tell
traveler
application
applications
linux
mac
password
server
wiki
xml
110
Teaching an ol' dog a new trick: SET CONFIG param=value update
Tue, Apr 24th 2012 9:13a Stephan H Wissel One of the cardinal sins of Domino administration (besides FTP/copy of a server NSF) is the manual editing of notes.ini variables. To update an notes.ini variable instantly you can use the server console and type set config param=value, while for permanent changes you would add the value to a server configuration document. Using the server configuration document has the advantage, that your ini changes not only will survive a reboot or even loss of your notes.ini, but they serve as documentation [read] Keywords: administration
domino
ibm
notes
show-n-tell
linkedin
server
wiki
290
Extracting data from Domino into PDF using XSLT and XSL:FO (Part 1)
Mon, Apr 23rd 2012 12:13p Stephan H Wissel We all know "Notes doesn't print". Nevertheless the topic of document output and reports is not going away, even if I'd like to ban the reports. There are plenty of ready made tools, but today I'd like to start with home cooked reporting.
Why the effort? Using only tools that use open standards you gain more control over the whole process and you can use whatever deems fit. The downside: it is more things you need to know and might not be suitable for business users (but its great to tortu [read] Keywords: domino
dxl
ibm
notes
show-n-tell
integration
wiki
xml
xslt
293
Importing EML files into Notes (lots of them)
Mon, Apr 23rd 2012 10:11a Stephan H Wissel My friend and Lotus Champion Weerapong Panpai from
Zenith in Thailand asked me "How difficult is it to do a bulk import of eml files into Lotus Notes"? MIME as a format is plain ASCII, so on first look it seems simple.
However on a closer look you might guess where the author of an outstanding movie got his inspiration from. RFC 2045 nicely states:"NOTE: The previous four definitions are clearly circular. This is unavoidable, since the overall structure of a MIME message is indeed recursive [read] Keywords: connections
domino
lotus
notes
notes client
show-n-tell
google
java
oracle
wiki
101
Roots of Wisdom
Sun, Apr 8th 2012 10:13a Stephan H Wissel The 21st knowledge society needs to teach different skills than recalling knowledge. I introduced the 9 essential skills a few days ago. Based on an article titled "Older and wiser?" in The Economist there are 5 critical aspects of wise reasoning to add:
willingness to seek opportunities to resolve conflict
willingness to search for compromise
recognition of the limits of personal knowledge
awareness that more than one perspective on a problem can exist
appreciation of the fact that things [read] Keywords: google
iphone
wiki
183
Setting focus to the first invalid field
Sat, Apr 7th 2012 9:12a Stephan H Wissel When it comes to validation, the only secure way is server side validation (Client side validation is more: "nice suggestions for users"). One little grievance developers have - and try to fix with elaborate measures - is the requirement to set the focus on the first failed field. XPages makes this quite simple. As Tommy pointed out fields that are invalidated server side get the attribute aria-invalid="true".
Besides, as Tommy suggested, using it to style the input (check his comment - coo [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
xpages dojo
javascript
server
111
Inside the IBM Support Process
Thu, Apr 5th 2012 9:12a Stephan H Wissel No software runs flawless (even if the product is named after a fruit), so from time to time you need to interact with support. The entry point for IBM support is the IBM Support Portal or the support call center. Behind that front is quite a bit a process that is designed to be predictable, repeatable, measurable and ensure that customers get the right level of attention from the right level of expertise. Scribbled on a napkin it looks like this:
(click on the image to get a bigger picture
S [read] Keywords: ibm
consulting
database
development
142
Wipe them out - all of them (when a design refresh doesn't work)
Thu, Apr 5th 2012 6:12a Stephan H Wissel You created that shiney new version of your application, ran (in no particular order) fixup, compact and updall and replaced the design. Still some of the design elements haven't updated. Typically that happens when no attention was paid to the "prohibit design refresh" flag of the database design (all your predecessor's fault of course).
While you can go in and hunt the settings down one-by-one (tip: use an DXL export and just look for the property), it is sometimes faster and more profoun [read] Keywords: domino
dxl
notes
show-n-tell
updall
application
database
eclipse
121
Reuse web agents that use PRINT - Bean edition
Mon, Apr 2nd 2012 12:13p Stephan H Wissel Using Java in XPages does have performance advantages especially when you can use EL instead of SSJS. So I created the Java version of the reuse web agents post. You need to copy the Java either into your NSF or include it in your own extension library. Calling an agent is limited to the same database as the XPage resides in, I leave it to an exercise for my readers to improve on that.
You define the Java class as a managed bean:
agentHelper
com.notessensei.xsp.utilities.LsAgentHelpe [read] Keywords: agent
lotusscript
xpages database
java
wiki
xml
85
Story Telling
Sat, Mar 31st 2012 7:12p Stephan H Wissel Antoine de Saint Exupéry is attributed with the quote "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."
Story telling is a powerful medium to get "your message" across. It reaches far beyond the confines of ones early years and the collection lovingly preserved by The Brothers Grimm.
All of business runs on stories, when unleashed to customers often compressed into 30 seconds in [read] Keywords: wiki
259
Webservices in XPages - AXIS vs. CXF
Thu, Mar 29th 2012 10:12a Stephan H Wissel I wrote about using Apache AXIS to connect to a web service before. It worked like a charm when you import the AXIS library into the NSF. In the past few days I tried to move this code into an extension library and I had initially very little success. Here is what I tried and what finally worked:
The AXIS libraries are provided as a plug-in in the Domino server, so my first take was to declare a dependency in my plug-in to that plug-in. To successfully create a Extension Library I had to decla [read] Keywords: agent
domino
ibm
xpages google
java
server
xml
111
Connecting to Wireless@SGx using Ubuntu Linux
Fri, Mar 23rd 2012 6:13a Stephan H Wissel Singapore's island wide wireless network Wireless@SG provides encrypted and unencryped Wifi access. Unless your are a fan of being a Firesheep target, you want to use Wireless@SGx with encryption. Singtel provides detailed instructions for many platform with the unsurprising absence of instructions for Linux. So here you go:
You will need the certificate they use from GoDaddy. So go to their certificate site and download the "Go Daddy Class 2 Certification Authority" in DER format. Note down [read] Keywords: enterprise
linux
network
password
security
wifi
wireless
ubuntu
187
Make Java code for XAgents easy to test
Wed, Mar 21st 2012 9:13a Stephan H Wissel One of the popular entries in this blog is my introduction into XAgents together with related considerations and practial applications. There are a few patterns, that make XAgents easier to develop and debug.
Despite outstanding tool contribution debugging in XPages is still wanting, so any code that you can incorporate pre-debugged is a bonus. Here is what I do:
I try to write my logic in Java. I use the SSJS only to fetch the values I need to call my Java function
The functions of the Java c [read] Keywords: notes
notes client
xpages application
applications
eclipse
google
java
javascript
openntf
wiki
xml
144
Reuse web agents that PRINT to the browser in XPages
Fri, Mar 16th 2012 6:13a Stephan H Wissel When upgrading classic Domino applications to XPages one particular problem arises constantly: "what to do with the PRINT statements in existing agents that write back directly to the browser?" Currently there is no automatic way to capture this output.
However with a little refactoring of the agent the output can be recycled. You can use a computed field for the result showing it on a page that maintains the all over layout of your new application or use the XAgent approach to replace the wh [read] Keywords: agent
domino
ibm
lotusscript
xpages application
applications
javascript
properties
xml
106
9 essential skills
Wed, Mar 14th 2012 7:13a Stephan H Wissel Leo Babauta wrote a beautiful article on ZenHabits titled 9 Essential Skills Kids Should Learn. I would rephrase it as: "Your 9 essential live skills". It inspired me to this plant like mindmap:
Enjoy! [read] Keywords:
120
How much abstraction is healthy for a schema/data model? - Part 2
Tue, Mar 13th 2012 6:14a Stephan H Wissel In Part 1 I discussed Elements vs. Attributes and the document nature of business vs. the table nature of RDBMS. In this installment I'd like to shed some light on abstraction levels. I'll be using a more interesting examples than CRM: a court/case management system. When I was at lawschool one of my professors asked me to look out of the window and tell him what I see. So I replied: "Cars and roads, a park with trees, building and people entering them and leaving and so on". "Wrong!" he r [read] Keywords: admin
connections
dxl
ibm
lotus
application
java
sharepoint
wiki
xml
112
How much abstraction is healthy for a schema/data model? - Part 1
Sat, Mar 10th 2012 8:13a Stephan H Wissel When engaged in the art of Data modelling everybody faces the challenge to find the right level of abstraction. I find that challenge quite intriguing. Nobody would create an attribute "Baker", "Lawyer", "Farmer" in a CRM system today, but one "profession" that can hold any of these professions as value. A higher level of abstraction would be to have attribute value pairs. So instead of "Profession" - "Baker" it would be "Attribute: Name=Profession, Value=Baker". Such constructs ha [read] Keywords: ibm
application
db2
wiki
xml
122
Who designed that process (a visit to the SingTel shop)?
Sat, Mar 10th 2012 5:12a Stephan H Wissel First the good news: The sales rep at the SingTel shop, Brandon, was knowledgeable, patient and tried to help as much as he could, making that part of the process pleasant.
Now the breakdown of processes. I visited the SingTel shop with 2 objectives: subscribe to Fibre Broadband, after all on the 19th OpenNet will install the fibre end point, and to switch my mobile number back from Starhub to SingTel. I failed on both accounts.
Brandon explained: The installation of the end point doesn't coi [read] Keywords: mobile
145
Preparing for a boring flight - XPages.tv offline (Extract media from a feed)
Fri, Mar 2nd 2012 9:03a Stephan H Wissel David Leedy provides us with the incredible useful Notes in 9 (a.k.a XPages.tv) tutorials and insights about XPages and Notes. The feed with all the videos is hosted by feedburner. To enjoy them while off the grid you can subscribe to them using iTunes, but that's for Warmduscher .
I'll show you how to use curl and a shell script (easy to translate to a cmd file):
First you download the feed: curl -G -L -o notesin9.xml http://feeds.feedburner.com/notesin9/iTunes
Run the transformation: XSLT [read] Keywords: notes
xpages google
java
xml
xslt
131
Newspeak - if there is no word for something, does it still exist?
Mon, Feb 13th 2012 6:12a Stephan H Wissel George Orwell's famous novel 1984 introduces the concept of NewSpeak, a language where certain thoughts and the communication of them are impossible since the vocabulary has been removed from the language. In IT and collaboration we do have an "inverted newspeak" problem. The (technical) language of collaboration are the protocols and data formats. The very moment your application does understand a data format and a protocol communication becomes possible. There is a very long list of protoco [read] Keywords: calendaring
collaboration
application
applications
desktop
email
mobile
smtp
web2.0
wiki
102
Hierarchies, relations and tags - thoughts on thought processes
Sat, Feb 11th 2012 11:11a Stephan H Wissel After the German leg of my 2012 LCTY tour I spent Saturday afternoon with my old friend Siegfried Stadler CEO of HyperSkill in Munich, Germany. We share the curiosity about "what makes humans tick" and had a good chat on perception and communication patterns.
Perception forms reality and when the perception pattern of people don't match, they have a hard time understanding each other. Two prominent patterns I would call Darwin and Newton (note: that's the name I gave them, not a commonly ac [read] Keywords: collaboration
apple
facebook
google
properties
wiki
Lotussphere Session evaluations
Tue, Jan 24th 2012 12:12p Stephan H Wissel With AD106, AD111 and AD114 my colleagues and I delivered 3 development sessions. I always find it difficult to strike the right balance, so different levels of audience can benefit from them. Hunter, Viktor and I spend a lot of time discussing, creating, revising and starting over when we prepared for the sessions. It seems we were well accepted. Here are the ratings and comments:
AD106 - IBM Lotus Domino XPages anywhere - Write them once, See them Everywhere: 97.5% good & excellent rat [read] Keywords: connections
domino
ibm
lotus
lotusphere
lotusphere2012
lotusscript
notes
xpages applications
development
javascript
mobile
144
Give your web applications a speedboost and HTML5 compatibility boost in Internet Explorer
Wed, Jan 18th 2012 9:12a Stephan H Wissel With the accelerating emergence of mobile devices HTML5 takes centre stage. While the first round of the "browser wars 2.0" was all about speed, the second round is about HTML5 compatibility behaviour. With the dominance of Android and iOS in the mobile market Microsoft's Internet Explorer isn't the gold standard for browsers anymore, the test results rather show IE as trying to catch up. Furthermore, since it isn't a standard if it doesn't allow for divergent interpretation, Microsoft imp [read] Keywords: admin
domino
xpages applications
dojo
google
microsoft
mobile
server
Famous German chocolate manufacturer to cater to Singapore taste buds
Sun, Jan 8th 2012 5:12a Stephan H Wissel Ritter Sport is famous Ritter Sportall over the planet for their square shaped chocolate. Now in an unpreceded move they designed a chocolate especially for South-Asian taste buds:
This is part of a wider initiative to extend their product range. The information probably leaked before the intended April release date (thx Thomas). [read] Keywords: wiki
Nachlese München und Düsseldorf Februar 2012
Thu, Jan 5th 2012 8:12a Stephan H Wissel Das Team von Edcom und TimeToAct hat mich wieder zur Nachlese nach Deutschland eingeladen. Ed Brill, Ron Sebastian und Volker Weber sind mit von der Partie. Die Tage in München und Düsseldorf bieten immer gute Gelegenheit sich fachlich auszutauschen und viel über mein einrostendes Deutsch zu lachen. Die beiden Themen die ich zum Besten geben werde sind:
X Path: XPages aus Ihren existierenden Lotus Notes Applikationen machen
XPages Starter Kit - eigene Erweiterungen schnell und sicher schreibe [read] Keywords: ibm
lotus
lotusphere
lotusphere2012
notes
xpages openntf
110
Customer Service failures 2011
Thu, Jan 5th 2012 5:11a Stephan H Wissel "Quality is when the customer returns, not the product". A key by-product of quality is good customer service. Unfortunately customer service seems to be perceived as "cost centre" rather than "customer retention", so it is often questionable. Here are my favourite 2011 failures:
A Telco, that requires to call them when you lost your phone - but has all other transactions online and needs a week to reply to a cancel request eMail
A device maker who sends eMails replies on service requests [read] Keywords: email
mobile
network
security
145
Geek toys - Part 1: ZEO Sleep Manager
Wed, Dec 21st 2011 9:12a Stephan H Wissel The old management wisdom goes: "Only what you measure, you can track and alter" While not discussing the merits of that statement (I have serious doubts, since measurements go wrong too often), I decided to have a look into my sleep pattern. Sleep is an important contributor to wellness. So I got myself a Zeo Sleep Manager - Mobile. It is a combination of a brain wave sensor, a head band, a bluetooth unit and a charger. There's an Android and an iPhone application that comes with it, as we [read] Keywords: application
iphone
mobile
wifi
114
My Lotusphere speaking sessions
Tue, Dec 20th 2011 7:11p Stephan H Wissel There are only a few working days left until Lotusphere 2012. Travel and accommodation is booked and I'm polishing the slides and samples for the sessions I will participate. Surprisingly you will find me in the Application Development track together with high profile colleagues:
AD106 - IBM Lotus Domino XPages anywhere - Write them once, See them Everywhere,
with Viktor Krantz | Date: Tuesday, January 17 | Time: 05:00 PM - 06:00PM | Location: Mockingbird 1 & 2
AD111 - The X Path: Practic [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
lotus
lotusphere
lotusphere2012
lotusscript
notes
xpages application
applications
development
javascript
profile
101
DOTS and the eMail life cycle
Tue, Dec 20th 2011 11:11a Stephan H Wissel To use the words of my friend Mikkel: "Domino OSGi Tasklet Container (or DOTS for short) is an uber-cool OpenNTF project that allows you to write addins for the Domino server in Java. The project used to be called JAVADDIN which kind of gives the purpose away.". Together with a simple mail rule DOTS is your entry ticket in a complete eMail life cycle management solution. Despite eMail being around for a very long time, the concept of eMail life cycle management seems to be very alien to a lot [read] Keywords: agent
domino
ibm
show-n-tell
traveler
application
email
integration
java
leak
openntf
server
virus
websphere
wiki
110
When deleting XPages watch your form property "Display XPage instead"
Thu, Dec 15th 2011 9:12p Stephan H Wissel During the XPages training in Manila we found an interesting behaviour of the "Display XPage instead" property of a form. To reproduce this follow these steps:
Create a form form1
Create an XPage test1.xsp
Set the form property "Display XPage instead" (both for Client and web) to test1.xsp
Preview form1 in Notes client and web - works as designed, test1.xsp will show.
Now delete test1.xsp
Preview form1 in Notes client and web - it will show an error
Inspect the "Display XPage instead" pr [read] Keywords: dxl
notes
notes client
xpages xml
93
I want one - 2011 edition - Part III
Wed, Dec 14th 2011 10:11a Stephan H Wissel How many blur pictures have you shot? For me - countless. The Lytro claims to change that. Now let Colani or Hundertwasser have a stab at the casing. [read] Keywords: wiki
Documenting Notes Development
Tue, Nov 29th 2011 5:13a Stephan H Wissel We all know: developers are to documentation are like cats to dogs. There are cute pictures of co-existence in the internet but in reality one chases the other in a never ending fight. One of the big reasons: nobody reads documentation until a problem occurs or there is a change of watch, none of which appears in either "important" or "interesting" category of a regular developer. A partial solution for this dilemma is to automate documentation creation. I'm fully aware that a lot of genera [read] Keywords: domino
lotusscript
notes
script library
show-n-tell
xpages application
development
interface
java
javascript
openntf
wiki
xml
xslt
95
I want one - 2011 edition - Part II
Tue, Nov 29th 2011 5:13a Stephan H Wissel While I rather wear a nicely tailored shirt I have a weakness for ironic t-shirts and Despair.com is my long standing favourite for irony. [read] Keywords:
119
View selection reports
Mon, Nov 28th 2011 10:12p Stephan H Wissel In the last entry I described a method to replace view selection formulas wholesale with boolean expressions. One question I got asked was: "Do we need this?". The clear answer is: "It depends". To make an informed decision, you need to look at your view selection formulas. To make that easier I designed a report you can run against your DXL export of your database design (using DXLMagic) that will highlight stuff that needs fixing:
The report is done in XSLT and you are free to add your [read] Keywords: dxl
show-n-tell
database
openntf
xslt
