Category Archives: IBM/Lotus

October Community Webcast – Wednesday October 15

Posted on by Posted in Cloud, Connections, IBM/Lotus, Notes/Domino Leave a comment

This Wednesday it is again time for the monthly ICS community webcast. This month’s guest speaker will be Luis Guirigay, IBM SME for Social, Mobile and Cloud.

Below is the description of the webcast agenda.

Never before has there been more opportunity for IBM Notes Domino Enterprises! Join Luis Guirigay to learn about the latest tools that will help your company get the most of the Domino platform and increase your ROI. Step through all of the latest user experience options in IBM Notes, Domino, and iNotes, and Traveler that will take your company to the next level of social email. Step through the benefits and options to access mail and apps in the cloud and get the lowdown on the IBM Connections Cloud (formerly IBM SmartCloud) offering. Get the latest information on IBM Mail Next and how the Design Advisory Program is going.

Read more here and register here.

Free Software – Password Reset for Notes/Domino

Posted on by Posted in Administration, Bootstrap, HTML/CSS, IBM/Lotus, jQuery, Notes/Domino, Open Source, Software 7 Comments

Earlier this year I was asked to research some alternatives for a web-based password reset function at my work. One of the larger support burdens are users who forget the passwords, especially in the first few days after changing it. We have a 90 day password lifespan, then a new password need to be picked. Some users wait until the last minute, which usually is Friday afternoon right before they go home, making it very likely that they will forget the new password over the weekend. Another big group is auditors, who may come in every 6 months or so, and by then their passwords have of course already expired.

I first looked at some COTS solutions from HADSL (FirM) and BCC (AdminSuite). They were both very competent, and in addition have several other functions that I really would like to have in my environment (like synchronization between Domino Directory and Active Directory). However, as my company is in a cost saving phase, I was asked if I could build something myself, so I played around a little, and came up with a small and simple application.

The application contains two web pages. The first page (Setup) is where the user will setup the security questions used for password recovery as well as entering an external email address that they have access to even if locked out from the Domino account at work. This page is protected by regular Notes security, so the users need to set this up before they lose access to their account.

The second page (Request)is where the user can request the password to be reset. After entering their Notes name, the user is presented with one of the security questions. If the question as answered correctly, the user can now enter a new password. If the question is wrong, another of the questions is presented to the user. I am also using regexp to make sure that the password match the requirement our organisation have for password strength.

Both pages are built using Bootstrap (v3.2.0),  jQuery (v1.11.0), and for the icons I use Font Awesome (v4.2.0), all loaded from BootstrapCDN. I also use a few local CSS and Javascript files to handle older versions of Internet Explorer. The process steps were created using code by jamro and you can find the code here. By the way, Bootsnipp is a great resource to avoid having to invent the wheel again. There are hundreds of free snippets of code there to build neat Bootstrap functionality.

When the user fill out and submit the setup page, a document is created in a Notes database. When the user need to reset the password, the security questions and answers are retrieved from that document. To prevent unauthorised access to the Notes documents, they use Readers fields to prevent them from being visible to anyone but the signer of the agents running on the server.

This application can of course be updated with more functionality. Instead of allowing the user to pick a password, one could be generated by the server and sent through email to the address entered during setup. There are probably other things that can be done to adapt this application to the needs of your organization. And you probably want to change the logo on the pages to fit your organisation.

You can download the application here. It is licensed under Apache 2.0. I will try to get it up on OpenNTF.org soon as well.

Read the “About” page for instructions on installation and setup, as well as full license and attribution. Enjoy!

#ThrowbackThursday – Worst Practices at Connect 2013

Posted on by Posted in Administration, Connect, IBM/Lotus, Lotusphere, Lotusscript, Notes/Domino, Programming Leave a comment

Paul Mooney and Bill Buchan returns with a brand new Worst Practices at IBM Connect 2013.

This session alone is almost worth the cost to attend Lotusphere/Connect/ConnectED.

There is a slight skip towards the end, when I had to switch batteries. Otherwise you have the whole session, including the warm-up performance.

More on IBM ConnectED 2015

Posted on by Posted in Connect, ConnectED, IBM/Lotus, Lotusphere Leave a comment

This morning Kristin Keene, Events Manager for ConnectED,  talked more about the upcoming IBM ConnectED 2015 in January at the monthly ICS Community webcast. IBM realized that the last few years they been swinging over too much to the business side, and is now going back to a much more technical conference. As I mentioned the other day, some tracks are new, some are renamed and some are gone. As an example, ChalkTalks replaces the old Birds of a Feather, but will take place throughout the day, not just morning and evening.

ConnectED_slide

The keywords mentioned was “smaller and more intimate”. The conference will be at Swan only, to condense it and make it all in one place to make it easier to connect with IBMers and other attendees. Opening General Session will be Monday morning as normal, but in the Swan Ballroom.

IBM Connected 2015 schedule

IBM Connected 2015 schedule

As opposed to previous years, the number of IBM attendees will be greatly reduced, to around 300. Most of them will be subject matter experts, speakers or staffing the labs. All IBMers will be invite only, not coming as regular attendees as in the past. The lab decisions are still a little bit up in the air, according to Kristin, but the Meet the Developer lab will be there as usual. The special event (previously an evening at one of the local them parks) will this year be more of a special party, as she put it.

Registration for connect is already open, the call for abstracts just opened this week and close on October 10 (probably extended to October 15). The full agenda will be finalized on November 15, and the presentations are due on January 1 from the speakers who were chosen.

Kristin also said that IBM does not consider this the last Lotusphere/Connect/ConnectED, but she does not know exactly what will happen after the contract with Dolphin and Swan expires after the 2015 conference.

You can read more details here.

Hope to see you in Orlando in January!

Survey about Notes and Domino directions

Posted on by Posted in Notes/Domino, Software Leave a comment

PSC is doing a community survey about the direction of IBM Notes and Domino. John Head, Director of Enterprise Collaboration at the Chicago-based consulting company PSC Group explains that it’s not about gathering data, the (optional) email address collected will only be used to notify about the result.PSC promises to share the full results publically.

I am personally looking forward to see the result of the survey. You can take the survey at http://bit.ly/PSCXPagesSurvey.

IBM ConnectED agenda published

Posted on by Posted in ConnectED, IBM/Lotus, Lotusphere 1 Comment

The agenda for IBM ConnectED (the conference formerly known as Lotusphere and IBM Connect) has now been posted.

Connected

As previously announced, the conference is one day shorter than before, ending already on Wednesday. There are no jumpstart sessions listed for Sunday, but the Master Class sessions are returning that  day. The individual sessions have not been announced yet, the call for abstracts have not even ben sent out. So it will probably be at least a month or two until the list of sessions is announced. But expect a more technical conference and less marketing that the last few years.

A new item on the agenda is TechnOasis. The way it is listed (together with the name) makes me believe this is the solutions showcase with a different name combined with the social café. If you look at the tracks, it seems like BoF (Birds of a Feather) has been renamed Chalktalk:

Come one, come all! Chalktalk sessions are informal, interactive discussion groups for attendees to share ideas and experiences in an small group,  and open forum setting. Feel free to submit topics that interest you, either those you would like to lead, or topics and discussions that you’d like to participate in! As a reminder, attendees build the agenda by voting on all submissions and ultimately select the sessions that will appear on the agenda. So you’ll be sure find something that’s well worth your while!

The Wednesday special event was moved to Tuesday evening in 2014, and it will again take place that day in 2015. The event is shorter, 7pm to 9pm, which could indicate that it may not be one of the parks like previous years. On the other hand, since the conference will be smaller the park may not need to stay open as late to allow everyone to ride all the rides. I have (in the past) left the Wednesday party around 9 or 9.30, so if a majority been doing that, it may save IBM some money closing the park earlier. I guess we have to see. Personally I am hoping for Universal Studios with the new extension to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter that was opened this summer.

Read more here.

 

#ThrowbackThursday – JMP 101 from Lotusphere 2012

Posted on by Posted in Connect, ConnectED, IBM/Lotus, Lotusphere, XPages Leave a comment


I recorded this video of the session JMP101 IBM Lotus Domino XPages JumpStart at Lotusphere 2012 in Orlando. The conference, later renamed IBM Connect and now renamed again to IBM ConnectED, will take place again in January 2015. Perhaps this video will get you inspired to do some XPages development, or you can show it to your boss as a good example of what you can learn at ConnectED.

Hope to see you in Orlando in January!

Nominations for IBM Champions are now open!

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The nominations for IBM Champions for 2015 is now open. If there is someone in the ICS (IBM Collaborative Solutions) community whom you want to show appreciation for their work, go here and nominate him or her. You can only nominate non-IBMers.

ChampionDefinition

So who is deserving to be an IBM Champion? Well, you can see the a list of qualifications here. It could be people helping out on Stack Overflow or in the developerWorks forums, or people evangilizing ICS products and solutions by speaking at conferences or sharing their knowledge through blogs, videos or other means. If someone in the community have been helping you in the past, consider thanking them by submitting a nomination, if you think they match the qualifications. You can see the list of current champions here.

Remember, existing Champions don’t get renewed automatically, they need to be nominated again. You don’t have to fill out all the information on the submission form. Fill out as much as you can, better an incomplete nomination than none at all! Nominations close on September 17 at 5pm Eastern time. So get yrou nominations in before that.

 

 

IBM ConnectED 2015 – registration open

Posted on by Posted in Connect, ConnectED, IBM/Lotus, Lotusphere 1 Comment

Connected

IBM ConnectED, the conference formerly known as Lotusphere and Connect, has now opened the registration for the 2015 event.

The “early bird” conference fee is $1,595 and on October 4 it goes up to the full price, $1,795. This is less than Lotusphere/Connect in the past, but the conference is also 20% shorter at 4 days instead of 5. The cost per day is actually less than previous years, if you look at the full price (if I did the math right).