Category Archives: Notes/Domino

CollabSphere 2018 – Registration is Open

Posted on by Posted in #Domino2025, #IBMChampion, CollabSphere, Community, IBM/Lotus, MWLUG, Notes/Domino Leave a comment

The conference formally known as MWLUG (Mid-West Lotus User Group) is now renamed CollabSphere. This year the conference will be held in Ann Arbor, MI on July 23-25.

Visit the brand new website at www.collabsphere.org to learn more, to register for this very cost-efficient conference, or why not submit an abstract for a session?

I have been attending MWLUG for several years myself, and it is an excellent conference. High quality speakers presenting over 50 sessions and workshops, networking with representatives from IBM as well as with presenters and other attendees and an exhibit floor where sponsors and vendors are showing their products and services.

With IBM expanding its portfolio of products and services, and with the new innovations in the rejuvenated  Notes and Domino product line, this will be the conference to attend this summer. Expect some exciting news to be presented at CollabSphere, and to see more of the latest version of Domino, due to be released in the second half of 2018.

I hope to see you at CollabSphere, and perhaps even see you present!

Domino 10 is coming… in 2018!

Posted on by Posted in #Domino2025, IBM/Lotus, Notes/Domino, Uncategorized Leave a comment

IBM and HCL have promised to release Domino version 10 by the end of 2018. The other  week there was a joint webinar where some of the new features were discussed. If you missed this, there is a replay of it available. I will discuss some of the features in just a moment. But just look at the infographics below. There are so many new features already lined up.

The promise of Open IDEs means that we should be able to use more modern development tools. Hopefully the latest version of Eclipse, and maybe even Visual Code and/or Visual Studio. Those were frequently requested during the Domino 2025 jam. Support for OAuth authorization was also promised, as well as more REST APIs. Support for Loopback was mentioned.

There were even demos, despite HCL only being 8 weeks into the development. Quite a few features had already been developed earlier, at IBM, but were not released for one or another reason.

For being less than a month before the big IBM Think conference, where you would expect some big news to be presented, HCL and IBM did not hold back. This makes me very excited about what all we will get to see in Las Vegas later this month.

So what all did we get to hear about and see last week?

Let’s go directly to Domino. A new file format, called NSF-2 is being discussed, and we were promised an increase of the maximum file size from 64 GB to 256 GB per database. This is very welcome. DAOS has been a stopgap, helping when the database contains a large number of attachments. But when you have a very large number of documents, you previously had to split them into multiple databases. 

While on the subject of a lot of documents, IBM is planning to overhaul the search as well, using elastic search (ES or E-Search as IBM calls it) to search even faster in large data sets. Even more support for running Domino in Docker containers is planned, including Docker Enterprise images. Domino running on Raspberry Pi?

For me as developer, the most exciting news is that Domino will support Node.js. HCL promised a full node.js implementation, so you can use the package manager npm within Domino. It also sounds like HCL is at least thinking about ways to implement support for Git. This is huge, and it will give Notes/Domino developers access to modern tools and functionality. But not only that, it will be easier for Domino customers to find expertise in the form of developers, as node.js is a very popular framework. In addition, Domino developers will learn new technologies, making them more attractive on the market.

 

During the Q&A session afterwards, the representatives for both IBM and HCL promised even more cool features to be presented at IBM Think in Las Vegas, coming up next week. Among what is to be presented is a brand new roadmap and a list of the features requested during the Domino 2025 jams earlier this year. I can’t wait to see what is in store for Domino.

There are several sessions covering Domino 10, and you can bet I will be in the audience! I hope to see you in Las Vegas next week.

 

 

Will I see you at IBM Think?

Posted on by Posted in #Domino2025, #IBMChampion, App Modernization, Community, Connect, IBM/Lotus, Lotusphere, Notes/Domino, Watson Leave a comment

It is just over a month until IBM kicks off Think 2018 in Las Vegas. This conference takes place March 19-21 and merges several conferences, including IBM Connect (formerly known as Lotusphere).

After attending 19 Lotusphere/Connect conferences in Orlando (as well as one in Nice and one in San Francisco), I am ready for something new and exciting. IBM Think brings in many different parts of the IBM portfolio into one big conference, where we can learn about new and exciting technologies that we may not been exposed to before. I am looking forward to learning more about AI, security, blockchain, IoT and much more.

But I am of course also excited to learn about the upcoming Notes and Domino 10. IBM and HCL has promised too show actual working code at Think, and will present a timeline not only for what features we will see in the end of the year in Domino 10, but also in upcoming versions.

I have a feeling we will finally see functions and features people have been requesting for many years. A large part of the IBM:ers who worked on Notes and Domino moved over to HCL late last year, and I suspect they have been very busy. Here is an excerpt of a session description:

For those of you who want to integrate Domino applications into modern web applications and cloud platforms like Salesforce, etc., we will show you how. Domino is embracing JavaScript, Node.js and open source to become a full-stack web development platform anyone you hire off the street today can be productive in.

If anyone is interested in attending IBM Think I have a special promo code that will give you a $100 discount. Contact me at texasswede@gmail.com (use the subject “IBM Think Promo Code”) and I will mail you a code. You can also contact any other IBM Champion for a code.

See you in Las Vegas in a month!

 

Domino 10 and Beyond – my thoughts

Posted on by Posted in #Domino2025, #IBMChampion, App Modernization, IBM/Lotus, Javascript, Lotusscript, Notes/Domino, Watson, Web Development 5 Comments

It has now been a little over a month since IBM announced the new direction of IBM Notes, Domino, Verse and Sametime. I have been thinking through what I think this means for the product and the ecosystem of third-party tools and business partners. Some people view the move of development from IBM to HCL Technologies as an abandonment of the product family. But that is not how I see it.

IBM has, despite their size, limited resources to dedicate to development of the Domino family of products. They have new products and services they are trying to bring to market, and by having HCL take over the development and add more resources, this is a win both for IBM and for Notes/Domino.

With more developers dedicated to the product, I expect to see more frequent updates and new features added quicker than we have been used to the last 5-6 years. The product management and future direction of the platform is still managed by IBM, but with more non-IBM resources at their hands I hope the product managers will be able to push harder for the addition of new technology and updates, bringing Domino back to a first class development platform.

Domino was an outstanding product, but for the last 6-8 years the innovation mostly stopped. New technologies were not added at the pace they were adapted by the rest of the world, and the support for new protocols like TLS 1.2 was lagging. IBM also but on Dojo as the framework for XPages, while the rest of the world mostly went to jQuery.

But if IBM allows HCL to update some aging parts and add new functions, requested by the community, I can see this being a great platform. And IBM says they will listen to the community and the users. Starting this month, IBM is bringing the Domino 2025 Jam to four cities in North America: Toronto on 12/8, Dublin (Ohio) on 12/13, Chicago on 12/14 and Dallas on 12/15. here will also be several events in Europe as well as a virtual Jam sometime in the future.

At the Domino 2025 Jam developers and users will be able to suggest what features they find important, what needs to be fixed, and where they want to see the product go in the future. I don’t think the Jam will have a huge impact on the upcoming Domino 10 release next year, but it may help IBM prioritize where to put their effort. Where I see the Domino 2025 Jam being helpful is in the longer timeframe, especially if it is repeated every 12 to 18 months to verify that the product direction is still what the market is looking for.

I also would like to see IBM addressing at least the most requested changes on IdeaJam.

Let me describe some of the functions and features I want to see in an upcoming version of IBM Domino.

Javascript Everywhere

For the last 20+ years we have mainly been using Lotusscript, both in the client and for agents on the server. It is a powerful language, but if you have been working with other more modern languages (Lotusscript is based on Visual Basic) there are many limitations and functions you are missing.

I would like to see Javascript made into a fully supported language everywhere. Both in the client and on the server. Add support for jQuery, to make it easy to address elements, and create a Javascript API to complement the Lotusscript functions.

In addition to making it easier to create and parse JSON (used in and by most web applications today), it would open up the product to new developers who may come from a more traditional web development background.

I would love to see Lotusscript get a modernization, but I doubt that will happen. In order to improve Lotusscript, a quite lot of changes are needed. Instead I think the future improvements should be on the Javascript API side.

External API

Any modern product needs a public API so other tools and applications can integrate with it. I would like to see support in Domino for LoopBack, like IBM is doing in LiveGrid. When you create a view, there would be a matching API created to create, read, update and delete documents, as well as list all records, perform searches, etc.

But there should also be additional more specialized API:s available, perhaps the most common functions should be exposed as API calls out of the box.

Integration with External Services

Notes and Domino also needs integration with external services, e.g IBM Watson, Mongo DB or Node-RED. Why not support for IFFTT? Expose the calendar as a Google Calendar feed. But also make it easy to connect external services to Notes and Domino. Make it easy to use Oauth 2.0 to login to a Domino-hosted service and vice versa.

New Domino Designer

Unlink Domino Designer from the Notes client. Create a Eclipse plug-in (and make sure it stays updated to work with new versions of Eclipse). This will help new developers to start working with Domino, using tools they are already familiar with. The goal should be that someone familiar with Javascript should be able to open Eclipse and start writing code for Domino, and the only thing they need to learn is the Domino Object Model.

Add ready-to-use web components/plugins, so the developer can easily add for example a name-lookup into Domino Directory or a date/time selector. Support CSS frameworks like Bootstrap, and make it easy to modify the look of the applications.

Notes Client

The Notes client makes it easy to quickly build applications. You get a lot of the core functionality of the applications “for free”, like views, forms, etc. But you are also limited in how the application looks. You can change the look of views somewhat by selecting background colors, fonts and a few other attributes. On forms you can select between two different looks for some of the fields, while other fields can not be modified at all. What I would like to see is a way to easily restyle everything by using CSS. Then you can make the forms and views look much more modern. Let the developer create “themes”, a set of CSS rules and perhaps images that can be applied to new applications in seconds. These themes could be published online, for other developers to use.

These are just some of the ideas I have for improvements to Domino. What are you ideas?

ICON UK – Webinar about IBM’s Domino 10 and HCL partnership

Posted on by Posted in #IBMChampion, Community, IBM/Lotus, Notes/Domino, Sametime, Verse 1 Comment

On November 9 at 15.00 BST (16.00 CET, 10am EST), ICON UK will host a special edition of their “Around The Table” webinar series focusing on the recently announced strategic partnership between IBM and HCL. The partnership, which covers the Notes, Domino, Verse and Sametime product families, will deliver a multi-year roadmap for the products, and Notes/Domino 10 has already been announced for a 2018 release.

The webinar is free. You can read more about it at https://iconuk.org/iconuk.nsf/events.html, where you also can register.

Who wants to live forever? IBM Notes and Domino!

Posted on by Posted in #IBMChampion, App Modernization, IBM/Lotus, Notes/Domino, Sametime, Verse 1 Comment

We have heard people claiming for years that Notes and Domino is dead. Today IBM announced a move that hopefully should put those statements to a stop.

To Infinity And Beyond!IBM is partnering with HCL Technologies on the future development of IBM Notes and Domino, as well as SameTime, Verse, Traveler and the other associated products. The products will still belong to IBM, and they continue to manage the product strategy, marketing and licensing using the current offering management teams. The existing IBM development teams will be moving under HCL, where the actual development will happen.

From a customer standpoint nothing will change, except for an increase in investment and development. Support will still go through IBM, using the same PMS system as today. But it will allow IBM to get more developers and resources towards the development of new versions, using the finite budget they after all  have. It is a commitment to a sustained long-term roadmap and increased engineering ability.

The big news is that IBM is committing to releasing Notes and Domino 10 in 2018, and also announced that there is no end-of-live date for Domino. Not even an “at least until…” date like before. IBM are even discussing the next version after Domino 10.

What can we expect to see in Domino 10? Inhi Suh, General Manager for IBM Collaboration Solutions, said that application modernization is one of the big focus points. IBM will hold several “jams”, sessions where customers and business partners can give input on what they want to see in upcoming version. You can already register  for the first one, called Domino 2025.

Inhi says that not all functions will be in Domino 10, that is not even possible. But there is an increased commitment to the platform, and I expect that we will see many new and exiting features.

In addition, IBM will focus more on small and medium size businesses, not just large organizations. Domino is a great platform even for smaller organizations, so this is a welcome change in strategy.

So what do I think about this announcement? It is very exciting. Domino is a powerful and competent web application platform, and with some modernization, like support for HTTP2, support for Javascript everywhere (in the client as well as on the server), improvements to Lotusscript, and a modernization of the client user interface, the product could be truly amazing.

Anyone who knows their Notes and Domino history knows that the original product, Lotus Notes, was actually not developed by Lotus. It was Iris Associates who created it, under a contract with Lotus Software. many of the developers eventually went from Iris to Lotus, and then to IBM, as IBM took over Lotus. I truly hope that the amazing developers who have been working on the products for decades will be able to move over to HCL and their expertise will be utilized. In my mind that Is crucial for the future success of the products.

If you are a Domino user today, you should be very excited about this news! As more news are made available, I will post them here on my blog.

 

Rebuilding my Domino infrastucture

Posted on by Posted in Administration, IBM/Lotus, Notes/Domino 1 Comment

Recently I did some long overdue changes to my Domino infrastucture. Many years ago, when I initially setup my Domino server, I put it in the domain /Martinsson, since my domain at that time was martinsson.com (as well as martinsson.net). The server was just for practice and fun initially, but I ended up doing more and more.

In 2013, when my wife Christina and I started a small business, I added additional internet domains to the server. Our business Demand Better Solutions strated getting some traction, and I changed my email address from karl-henry@martinsson.com to karl-henry@demandbettersolutions.com. But I kept having issues with the outgoing email. Often people did not get my emails since they ended up in their spam folder. I figured that it had something to do with the domain

It was time to bite the bullet and do something. I decided earlier this year that I would setup a server from scratch, on a new hosting service. I arranged hosting with Prominic, a company specializing in high quality Domino hosting. The account was setup in no time and the Domino server was ready to be configured. My new Domino domain would from now on be /DBS.

I am not a stranger to installing and configuring Domino servers, but I decided have a real administrator set up it up for me, to get everything perfect..This way I would hopefully also learn something. Another reason I wanted some help had to do with setting up cross-certifications with my old server in the old domain. My plan was as follows:

  • Set up the new server
  • Cross-certify the two servers and admin accounts
  • Replicate over all databases from the old server to the new
  • Update the ACL on all databases and remove references to the old server
  • Delete the old server and all data files
  • Install a second Domino server in the new /DBS domain
  • Set up replication between the two servers (on different hosts)

I was lucky enough to get help from one of the best, Lifetime IBM Champion Gabriella Davis from The Turtle Partnership. If you need high quality admin help or advice, with Domino or IBM Connections, Gab is outsanding.

Gab helped me set everything up on the new server, I replicated everything, fixed the ACL settings and deleted the old server. The build of the secondary new server went off without any issues, which is not surprising when you consider the stability and maturity of the Domino server platform.

I updated all DNS settings, replicated all databases to the second server, and I was ready to rock’n’roll.

Everything worked well for a while, until I noticed that some email services still categorized a number of my emails (but not all of them) as spam. I did some research and realized that I never changed the SPF record for my domain to point to the correct mail server.

SPF is a email validation system, it works similar to a DNS lookup. When a mail from my domain arrives at a mail server, it performs a lookup to get my SPF record. This record, which is just a plain text string, describes which server(s) are allowed to send mail on behalf of my domain. If the server connecting to the mail server is listed in the SPF record, the email is accepted.

I updated the SPF record, and everything now works perfectly.

This is just another example of how powerful but still easy to use IBM Domino is as a server. The only issues I had were external ones, not related to Domino. Kudos to IBM (as well as the original developers at Iris) for building such a robust and still easy to use platform.

 

 

 

My MWLUG presentation: Elementary!

Posted on by Posted in #IBMChampion, Community, IBM/Lotus, jQuery, Lotusscript, MWLUG, Notes/Domino, Programming, Web Development 1 Comment

Yesterday I presented at MWLUG, and I want to share my presentation with both the ones attending and anyone who was not able to be there. I am posting two version, one with just the slides, and one with speaker notes, where I tried to capture the content, if not the exact verbiage of the session.

I hope to be able to post the demo database with the code later this week or early next week.

 

My presentation at MWLUG

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

Tomorrow, August 8, you are welcome to attend my presentation “Elementary!” at MWLUG 2017. In about 45 minutes I will show how to easily incorporate Watson functionality in your own applications, both on the web and in your Notes client applications.

I will be using Node-RED and IBM BlueMix to do this, and I think many will be surprised how easy it is, and how little code is needed. For example I will implement translation from English to Spanish with two (2) lines of server side code. To call this from the web you just need another handful of lines.

I hope to see you tomorrow at 5pm!

Will I see you at MWLUG?

Posted on by Posted in #IBMChampion, Community, IBM/Lotus, MWLUG, Notes/Domino Leave a comment

It is less than 2 weeks left to MWLUG 2017, an outstanding Conference that I will be attending for the third year. This will also be the third year I will be speaking, and this time it will be a brand new presentation. My session, AD103, will be on Tuesday, August 8 at 5pm.

I hear that there are still a couple of openings left. If you have attended a previous MWLUG conference you are entitled to 25% off the registration fee of $100. But even at $100 this is a great deal, with over 50 sessions and much more.

So what are you waiting for? Register, and I will see you in two weeks in Alexandria, VA!

Creeper