Lotus Rock Star

Category Collaboration University
I don't know whether to quote Mel Brooks "It's good to be the king!", George S. Patton "Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.", or - more likely - Groucho Marx "Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men -- the other 999 follow women."

While I have spent 36 hours in videoconferences in Washington DC, the frenzy of preparation, packing, printing and some other fine gerund that would have made that a swell alliteration have been going on in SNAPPS land. Flurries of emails went ignored by me or got terse "you decide" answers today, probably dropping jaws all over Kansas, Georgia, Canada, London and the world. I gave up the reins. I delegated. I asked how things went. New signs came in, new sessions, labs came together, the guys deep-sixed a hotfix that actually hotbreaks.

And HEY YOU PEOPLE SIGNING UP TODAY for Monday, I will not be undermined as the king of procrastination! How dare you! OK, fine. You get a seat. Viktor has to sit in the corner. Poor Viktor, 16-hour days all week. He'll probably want a cot to sleep on in that corner.

Tomorrow morning, Dulles to Midway, meet Liz and Melissa and head on over (told you I follow women). Badges! Boxes! Tech checks! I defy anyone to have more fun than me tomorrow. Seriously. Oh, and if you do register tomorrow for the, like, one chair left, your badge will probably be in crayon. Hope you don't mind.

Nite folks - reading back I think I'm a little punchy on 2.75 hours sleep last night. Or I've been reading Steve McDonagh and it's rubbing off. Brilliant guy.

Posted by Rob Novak At 9:40 PM Location Washington, DC | Permalink | Comments (3)

Category Collaboration University
The past week has been a whirlwind of final-countdown activity towards next week's Collaboration University in Chicago. Both Troy and Julian flew to KC last week for our own final prep, the rest of the speakers are submitting their final drafts, and the video production is going live for our pre-conference sessions tomorrow or Thursday.

And while there was a bit of a pile-on last Thursday and Friday for registration, it appears that there could be as many as four chairs left in the room on Monday morning. That is, unless we have some last-minute registrations. So - hope you like your neighbors, because the likelihood of getting an empty seat next to yours is pretty low when we're all together. And, we have only two possible spots left in the post-conference workshops (that's after wrangling together an extra 20 laptops!).

Checking in on London, where the facility has 10 fewer spots, it appears we have about 2 seats left in the main session. Of course there, we have a window at the back of the room with a nice patio, so I suppose we COULD have some people outside with their noses pressed against the windows. It would be unattractive, but I suppose workable. Or, I could be nice and have some speakers step outside while the general sessions are underway. (Yes, I'd do that!) In London, we're 3 laptops short for workshops, so a few people will be using their own machines, or we'll give up our own for an afternoon.

Suffice it to ay I'm extremely pleased that this year we have the right size venues, the largest attendance yet, and the perfect mix of new content delivered both live and via pre-conference video.

There are still those six chairs, folks. So if you want the opportunity to fill one of them, now is the time! Go over to the website, review the final agendas, and register!

See you in Chicago or London!

Posted by Rob Novak At 12:11 AM Location SNAPPS Glactic Headquarters | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category Collaboration University Quickr
I've mentioned before that we're creating pre-conference video sessions for Collaboration University in order to "level the playing field" on day one - that is, to deliver the most basic sessions before the conference starts so we can provide a more advanced learning experience even for those new to the products. It also lets us conduct the conference in 3 days while still offering almost 40 sessions. With seven or eight of these video sessions already assigned, I hadn't planned on doing one myself. But then the guilt got hold of me for being Mr Delegation Guy, and I decided to summarize nine years of experience deploying and developing for Quickr (and it's previous names) and do one myself with the above title.

While the full session is for CU attendees, it'd be mean of me not to share the list. So I'll be nice. My decision in choosing this topic came out of the experience I've had with the majority of Quickr customers who have deployed on their own, or even with assistance, and at some point faced tough decisions, ran into brick walls, or seen their deployments run amok. In some cases, my recommendations are just common sense responses to IBM's packaging or deployment choices that cause problems down the road (in other words, product problems). And while not every suggestion is for every operation, I'm confident that most of them will apply in any given company.

So without further ado:

10. If you just installed Quickr using an administrator's name from the directory, STOP. UNINSTALL. READ THE DOC AND START OVER.  This is perhaps the most common initial mistake and it causes numerous difficult-to-diagnose problems until the question is asked, answered, and the admin is trying to reverse engineer ten years of underlying authentication code to get themselves out of the jam.

9. Clean up notes.ini, and move qptool server task lines to program documents. If your Quickr server isn't the administration server (it shouldn't be, unless it's all by its lonesome), you don't need to run, say, the Design task at 1 AM. And three qptool activities at 4 AM...three java programs on a Domino server kicking off at the same time. Bad idea, my friends. Bad idea.

8. Set up Multi Server Single Sign On (MSSO, yes I know it's missing an S, don't ask). Do not use single server, and basic is kinda...amateur.

7. Hunt and forage for all the REAL proper field settings for your desired upload and download file restrictions. Hint, they're not in the doc.

6. Set up poor man's backup, right away, for rapid recovery of places, rooms or documents. Rotate it nightly. Hint, it uses qptool archive and a USB or SATA drive. Then let the admin folks (or you, I suppose) deal with transaction logging, backup APIs, tapes, offsite storage, and all their regulatory mumbo-jumbo on their own time. In the meantime, I can set up a recoverable system in about 20 minutes.

5. Remove the old themes from the "Select a Theme" UI. Really. Now. They are UGLY, sometimes broken, and inappropriate for the product. Bad idea again. Worse than the first one.

4. Set up a custom invitation script. Control your own text in invitations to places, and free yourself from IBM branding. The example from Lotus Devcon 2000 in Las Vegas still works. What? Don't have the backpack? Search my blog for "invitations", I posted the whole thing three years ago. Still works.

3. Take the Standard Template for Teams. Make a place. Change Basics. Make choices appropriate for your company. Make it a placetype. Hide the Standard Template for Teams. Now it's yours.

2. Make a custom login form. Unless, of course, you like advertising for IBM and pointing out capabilities you might not want to expose yet, like connectors to Microsoft Office.

1. And the number one recommendation for Quickr deployments....drumrolll...


Read More

Posted by Rob Novak At 11:32 AM Location SNAPPS Glactic Headquarters | Permalink | Comments (2)

Category UKLUG Collaboration University


In the months running up to industry events that we produce and organize, it's inevitable that organizers will be very focused on their own events. Take for instance the strangely intertwined lives of myself and Warren Elsmore - Warren has, with the UKLUG team, been putting together a brilliant program for UKLUG, while as expected, I've been focusing on Collaboration University.

Now Warren is one of the partners speaking at CU with four sessions on SSO and Clustering, and in fact I'll be speaking at UKLUG with my session "Lazy Development: One Line Wonders for Domino Applications". And to be honest folks, it's no accident that CU runs Mon-Wed September 15-17 and UKLUG runs Thur-Fri September 18-19! Liz and I are staying over, and Julian will be sticking around as well. After both events, I travel to Miami for LoLA...more on that later.

But here's a wild and crazy idea. If you're coming to CU, tack on a couple days and register (while there's room) for UKLUG! It's free, covers a variety of Lotus-centric topics, and who knows, I might buy you a beer (or two)! And if you're coming to UKLUG and want a deep-dive into Sametime and Quickr, have a look at CU. There's no overlap in the programs, so you can truly make the week of September 15th into a great training experience - with more than 50 sessions between the two events!

Let's make it "Lotus Week in London"...hmmm, I can hear a tune in my head...

Posted by Rob Novak At 9:48 AM Location SNAPPS Glactic Headquarters | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category Collaboration University

These fun interviews were conducted by Scott Treggiari, LotusUserGroup.org Program Director. Thanks very much to LotusUserGroup.org for publishing the interviews!

The podcasts can be accessed here on the LotusUserGroup site, or you can play Carl's below. Chris's was in the previous blog posting.

Carl Tyler, Director, epilio.com Take a few minutes to listen in to this informative conversation. You'll be glad that you did as Carl shares details about how he got his start with Lotus technologies, discusses what project he found most interesting to work on, tells us his favorite session at Collaboration University (and why), and lets you in on one of his newest, favorite software gadgets. Plus, get a sneak peak at tip hell be sharing at the conference that lets you customize the appearance of your Sametime Meeting Center! Oh yeah, also, listen in to find out why we owe Cincinnati an apology...

Posted by Rob Novak At 10:17 AM Location SNAPPS Glactic Headquarters | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category Collaboration University

These fun interviews were conducted by Scott Treggiari, LotusUserGroup.org Program Director. Thanks very much to LotusUserGroup.org for publishing the interviews!

The podcasts can be accessed here on the LotusUserGroup site, or you can play Chris's below. Carl's is in the next blog posting.

Chris Miller, Director of Messaging and Collaboration, Connectria
Listen in to this informative interview with Chris Miller to find out what version of Notes was out when Chris started in the business, hear what collaboration technologies Chris sees as critical for enterprises today, get insight into why he sometimes needs a mute button for his kids when they're in the car, and a lot more. Its a light, fun, and interesting interview. Don't miss it.

Posted by Rob Novak At 9:55 AM Location SNAPPS Glactic Headquarters | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category Collaboration University
One of the new benefits we have this year at Collaboration University is the creation of pre-conference sessions as videos for attendees. They will be posted the week before the conference and range from 20 minutes to an hour in length - whatever the topic dictates. The past couple years, we've noted that coming into CU people have a variety of skill sets and are at different levels of expertise in different subjects. This is to be expected of any group, but with the intense training we tend to put together, it creates a conference producer's dilemma - some people really can use the basics, while some are beyond them and want to dive right into more advanced topics. For instance in 2007, we had a number of people who were new to Sametime, and two from IBM who were responsible for the entire IBM Sametime infrastructure as attendees. See the problem?

Our approach the past two years has been to quickly get the basics out of the way on the first day then progress rapidly into meatier stuff by afternoon. Even so, we'd get a few complaints from those who have more experience, because they already knew all the morning content. That worked "OK", but this year with the delivery of these early sessions outside the confines of the three onsite days, we've found a great solution. Those who need and want the basics get them - and can attend all of these sessions on their own time - and those who don't are not missing anything because we're starting the conference at a higher level.

Of course the side benefit is that instead of 30 sessions, we are delivering nearly 40. More work for us, more content for you. We decided to do the following sessions as pre-conference videos (subject to change), and I'm considering adding one more myself...you'll not the conspicuous absence of my name here...

- Basics of the Dojo Toolkit (Viktor)
- Using DDM in your Sametime and Quickr Environment (Gab)
- Installing Sametime Standard Server (Chris)
- Domino Reporting & SNMP Traps (Warren)
- Installing and Configuring Eclipse for Sametime Plug-in Development (Carl)
- REST for the Lazy Developer (Julian)
- Fundamentals of Quickr Development: Forms, Themes, and Placebots (Jerald)
- Deconstructing Quickr: Understanding Quickr Behind the Scenes (Troy)

As an example, Carl Tyler put together this 5-minute segment of his pre-conference video on Installing and Configuring Eclipse for Sametime Plug-in Development. It is the prerequisite session for his live session on creating Sametime plug-ins (makes sense), and in the full session you can follow along and prepare your own machine to be ready to use those live materials. Enjoy!

Posted by Rob Novak At 5:21 AM Location SNAPPS Glactic Headquarters | Permalink | Comments (1)

Category Collaboration University QuickrTemplates.com SnappShot

With 3 weeks remaining before Collaboration University's biggest events yet, we're almost all heads-down working on completing client projects and writing demos and presentations. I say almost because Julian has hit the ground running and taken charge of a long-awaited update to our QuickrTemplates.com site where soon we will make several announcements and unveil enhancements to further template development and support for the Quickr community.

We're also working on a SnappShot 8 upgrade, working with some of the newer features in the DDA API. Hey, that sounds like I know something! Seriously, I don't. But we're running debug code on the Sametime dev server this week and hope to wrap it up before leaving on what for me will be a whirlwind tour of D.C.->Chicago->Naples->Miami->London->Miami->Home over 22 days.

As if this weren't enough, we have a client whose legal requirements for engaging with us involves the procurement of our resumes. Of the seven requested, we had four very out of date, two new ones, and well...I last wrote a resume in 1993 using PFS: First Choice on the laptop provided for my first Masters' degree. So I have some work to do!

Posted by Rob Novak At 12:12 PM Location SNAPPS Glactic Headquarters | Permalink | Comments (2)

Category Collaboration University

I can't begin to explain how cool this is.

We have a very different approach to our keynote address for Collaboration University in Chicago this year. With so many high-level IBMers already helping out, I thought it would be an interesting and exciting change to invite someone whose experience with collaboration and teamwork extends beyond office walls, beyond mobile devices, beyond laptops. Someone whose work in this area REALLY COUNTS.

Colonel Ed Hackett, USMC (Ret.), now president of EH-Group, Inc. has agreed to be our keynote speaker at Collaboration University 2008 in Chicago. I have had the pleasure of working with Ed for nearly a year in the advanced collaboration space and am thrilled that he is available to join us. The topic of his keynote address is "Collaboration when it Counts", and will represent quite a different "30,000 foot overview" than you're used to at our industry events!

Here is a little more about our guest speaker:

Ed Hackett is the President of EH-Group, Inc. a consulting firm specializing in the national defense and homeland security arena.  His company supports several strategic level projects on Maritime Security and Maritime Domain Awareness for the federal government. Ed is a retired Marine Colonel, a fighter pilot, and test pilot.  In his twenty-five year career as a Marine, Ed's journeys provided an extensive exposure to the many diverse and exciting cultures around the globe.  His last military assignment was on the Joint Staff, at the Pentagon, where he focused on global security engagement. Ed is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, The United States Naval Test Pilot School, and the United States Air Force Air War College.

So please join me in welcoming Ed to Chicago! And yes, he probably will get there a lot faster than any of us...

Posted by Rob Novak At 1:35 PM Location SNAPPS Glactic Headquarters | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category SNAPPS Quickr Templates


The SNAPPS Quickr Templates at QuickrTemplates.com have been updated with various fixes and a new feature I'll describe here. But first, a note on versions.

We elected to match version numbers with Quickr when 8.1 shipped, so 90 days ago when they were posted, our versions revved to 8.1. Now we also have fixes to the templates unrelated to the Quickr version number or hotfix level, so have taken our versioning out two decimal points - the new version is 8.1.0.1. If we have another release before IBM revs to 8.1.1 (or whatever's next), our version will be 8.1.0.2. Clear? Good.

Fixes in 8.1.0.1:
1. Various UI fixes in QSurvey and QIssues to align the preview of questions, and to drop the secondary information (description, explanatory text or translation) about the question to the line below the question. This was caused by CSS changes in Quickr 8.1.

2. A fix to QProject - only Managers could see content in Firefox, and IE threw an error. The link to create a new Enhanced Task was in a section of the page that was not visible to Authors or Editors, causing an error - and in Firefox, the error stopped processing of further JavaScript (the Gantt chart). The link has been moved to use a standard Enhanced View Form.

New feature:
The Enhanced View Form in 8.1 had a selector to show a particular default form as a link - similar to Quickr Folders. New in 8.1.0.1, you can decide which level of access is required in order for a user to see the link. For instance, in QSurvey, you may want only Editors to create a new survey, while all Authors can complete the survey (and specific to QSurvey, this is now the default). This is now possible. In order to use the new feature this way in other templates or in your own applications, you'll want to hide the form in Customization-Forms so people don't create new documents using the "New Page or Folder" link and selecting it from the list.

Here's how it works:


Once you're in edit mode, about halfway down the form you can choose the default form, then the new feature:



The end result:


But only for Editors. Authors and Readers can't see the link.

Now for the less than perfect bit. If you're upgrading, due to a bug in Quickr that's been around since the dawn of time (but is being fixed now), you'll need to re-save the Enhanced View Forms in your templates and places. Quickr doesn't like forms being imported with new fields if them if documents without those fields already exist. So it's a one-time inconvenience. We've written agents to update these in the past, but figured that was a little too technical for many of the template users. It's all in the documentation.

Enjoy!

Posted by Rob Novak At 9:13 AM Location SNAPPS Glactic Headquarters | Permalink | Comments (1)