Category Archives: Community

My MWLUG presentation

Posted on by Posted in #IBMChampion, Community, HTML/CSS, IBM/Lotus, Javascript, jQuery, MWLUG, Notes/Domino, Web Development Leave a comment

I have been very busy ever since the MWLUG conference in Austin, but now you can finally view my presentation and download the sample code. Enjoy!

 

MWLUG_2016

I will post the code for my Phonegap Demo next week.

Reminder: you need to sign the database (or at least all the agents) with an ID who has the rights to run agents, or the Ajax calls will not return anything.

If you are interested in having your Notes applications modernized and moved to the web, feel free to contact me at karl-henry@demandbettersolutions.com.

Are you in Texas? Do you work with ICS products? Then you should read this!

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If you are located in Texas and work with the IBM Collaboration Software products (Notes, Domino, Sametime, Connections and BlueMix) either on-premises or in the cloud, you now have a unique opportunity on August 17-19. MWLUG is coming to Austin. The conference is only $75 to attend, for 2 1/2 days of session and networking. There are 52 session scheduled, many of them presented by IBMers, top business partners and IBM Champions.

So if you are local, take this opportunity to learn what is coming in the ICS area, and perhaps learn a few new things about the products you already use. There will also be vendors present showing tools and products as well, giving you a convenient overview of what tools are available on the market.

I hope to see a number of fellow Texans in Austin in four weeks!

MWLUG – Abstract submission deadline approaching

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The deadline for session abstract submissions to MWLUG is this Friday,  May 27. You have until 5pm that day to submit any session you like to present at the conference, which takes place in Austin August 17-19.

Even if you don’t plan to present, you can of course register for the conference. There is a limited number of seats, so don’t miss out on this conference!

 

Registration for MWLUG is open!

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MWLUG ( Mid-West Lotus User Group) is a user group event that thakes place in different cities every year. They started in the Mid-west, hence the name, but in 2016 the conference will take place in Austin, TX on August 17-19.

Registration is now open, and the fee for this 3-day conference is only $75. Yes, you read that right, the conference is practically free. You just pay for your travel and lodging. So go ahead and register!

I was able to attend MWLUG for the first time 2015 in Atlanta, and Richard Moy and his team delivered a first rate event. I have no doubt that the 2016 conference will be at least as good. So if you can go, take this opportunity. I expect that there will be many excellent presentations again this year.

Some upcoming conferences

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IBM Connect is not the only conference that you should attend if you are interested in the IBM collaboration/social platforms, there are many other spread out over different continents, and many of them are even free. You just pay your travel and hotel.

Next one up is Engage (formerly BLUG) arranged by Theo Heselmans and his team. This year it takes place in Eindhove, the Netherlands on March 23-24. There are less than 20 seats left for this free event with world class speakers, many of them are IBM Champions. Inhi Cho Suh, the new GM of IBM Collaboration Solutions, will be speaking at the Opening General Session together with Suzanne Livingston, Christ Crummey and Sarah Gibbons, all from IBM. There are five tracks with sessions, and if you look at the agenda I am sure you will find plenty to choose from. Theo always put on a great conference, I really wish I was able to attend! Update: there will be 43 IBM Champions attending, 33 of which will be presenting!

On April 11-13 you have EntwicklerCamp in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. This conference, which has been taking place for many years and I have heard much good about, is arranged by Rudy Knegt and the cost is €1499 for the three day conference. If you look at the agenda, you will see that there are sessions not only in German but also in English. Many of the sessions are presented by IBM Champions.

ICON US (formerly IamLUG) did not take place last year, but in 2016 Chris Miller and his team is back with a two day vertual conference. It takes place May 9-10 and you can register here. Seats (even if they are virtual) are limited.

Social Connections 10 is taking place in Toronto, Canada this year, June 6-7. Keynote speakers are Luis Suarez and Alan Lepofsky. As the name indicates, this conference focuses on IBM Connections. Early bird registration ends on April 1, and the cost is CA$229.00 while the regular price is $CA269.00.

Then there is MWLUG, this year taking place in Austin on August 17-19. Richard Moy and his team did a great job in Atlanta in 2015, and I am looking forward to this years conference. This is an “almost free”  conference, the fee is $75 but don’t be fooled to think it is a cheap conference. Don’t miss out on some excellent content!

So go to some user conferences, be social and learn amazing new things!

 

 

My Connect 2016 presentation & demo database

Posted on by Posted in Bootstrap, Community, Connect, HTML/CSS, IBM/Lotus, jQuery, Lotusscript, Notes/Domino, Web Development 6 Comments

Connect2016_DemoDesignAs I promised, I would post my IBM Connect 2016 presentation on my blog.

Presentation (PDF): {link} 

Demo database (ZIP): {link}

You can also find the presentation on SlideShare.net.

To the right you see the database design, you want to look in the Agent section for the agents and in the Pages section for the HTML pages.

Note: You need to sign the database with an ID that have the proper rights. Otherwise the code will not work.

Enjoy!

 

IBM Connect 2016 – Receptions and parties

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Henning Schmidt have a great overview of the many social events going on at IBM Connect 2016, starting this Saturday with BALD (Bloggers Annual Lotusphere Dinner) at 3pm. If you are going to the conference, read the list here: http://www.schmhen.de/2016/01/26/ibm-connect-2016-reception-and-party-overview/.

IBMBeer

Hope to see you in Orlando, it is now only 24 hours until I head to the airport for my flight.

IBM Connect 2016 – Travel Tips

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Many of you going to IBM Connect 2016 in Orlando in a just two weeks are coming from other countries. There are a few things you may want to be aware of.

First of all, if you need a visa to enter the US you have hopefully already arranged that. If you are covered by the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) you don’t need a visa but need to fill out an electronic ESTA application. Normally you find out at once if you are eligible. The ESTA application is valid for two (2) years, assuming you haven’t changed passport, name or something has happend that makes you ineligible for ESTA (for example arrested for a drug related offense). You may want to look up your old ESTA to make sure it is still valid. I have been told that the ESTA form has changed and now requires more information than before.

You also need a passport with a machine-readable zone on the biographic page and it must be an electronic passport with a digital chip containing biometric information about the passport owner in order to be allowed to use the VWP. It is also a good idea to make sure your passport is valid for at least six months after you intend to leave the US.

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After you get to Orlando and pick up your luggage, you need transportation to the hotel. Mears Shuttle is $33 for a round-trip ticket to Hilton Orlando, or $29.70 if you order on their website using the promo code WEB10.

If you need a rental car I can recommend Turo (formerly RelayRides). It is a peer-to-peer car rental, usually much cheaper than a traditional rental car. You need to create an account ahead of time, since you must send copies of your drivers license to the site before you can rent. I have used the service several times, I rented two cars for 10 days in Hawaii in 2014, a SUV in Denver for an extended weekend and several times I rented a car locally for a day for some transportation. You can see it as Uber for car rentals.

If you haven’t got a hotel room yet, and if the Hilton is over your budget (perhaps you pay for the conference yourself), Days Inn across the street has much more reasonable rates. I got a room for $59/night.

Hope to see you in Orlando!

Connect 2016 – People, not technology

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For the 20th time I am heading to the conference previously known as Lotusphere. IBM has renamed it Connect, but to me it still is the same conference. The focus may have changed from Notes and Domino to Connections, Cloud and Mobile, but the people is largely the same: a mix of developers, administrators and managers who all are interested in or using the IBM collaboration products.

As a wise man said: it’s not about technology, it’s about the people. And I am looking forward to the people. I have many good friends in the Yellowsphere community (I don’t have a better name for the IBM Collaboration Software community), people I admire and have learned much from over the years. I hope that speaking at Connect 2016 (a first for me) will help others like I been helped in the past. That is why I enjoy helping people out in the forums and on Stack Overflow, and why I blog and share code: a way to give back to the community.

Lotusphere/Connect is a way to connect with the community. Every year I leave the conference revitalized and energized. I have been hanging out with my peers, sharing a couple of adult beverages, having dinners with some of them and — most of all — getting ideas and inspiration. Working as the only Notes developer at a company gets lonely, and Lotusphere/Connect is the one of the few time of the year I get to “talk shop” with people that do the same thing as I do. No mater how understanding and technical my wife is, when I start talking about some cool Lotusscript class or the benefits of list over arrays her eyes glace over and she is gone…

As I write this, my workplace is migrating from Notes to Outlook/Exchange for email. A pilot group (including me) was migrated last weekend, and the rest of the users will be migrated this coming weekend. Applications will stay in Notes for a long time, though. They are not going anywhere.

Even if I would have switch to a different platform for development at work, I hope to still be involved in the Yellowsphere community. I am also working on some cool side projects where I use Domino as the data backend but where the browser based front-end is built using modern web technologies like Bootstrap and jQuery. So I hope to be doing things with Notes and Domino for many more years.

So if you haven’t registered for Connect 2016 yet, hurry up. We are getting close. I booked my flight and my room earlier today and for the first time since 1999 I will not be staying at the conference hotel. Instead I found a good rate at Days Inn across the street, about a 5 minutes walk away away and at 25% of the cost. Since I am once again paying out of my own pocket, I could not justify the cost of staying at Hilton where the conference takes place.

If you want to listen to my session “AD-1100 : Break Out of the Box – Integrate Existing Domino Data with Modern Websites” it takes place at 5pm on Tuesday February 2 in the Solution EXPO Theater. It’s a 20 minute long (or should I say short?) Lightning Talk.

I hope to see you in Orlando in January and February!