Slides and demos from EnwicklerCamp 2010
Sun, Mar 14th 2010 6:50p Bob Balaban Greetings Geeks! Thanks to everyone who came out to Gelsenkirchen (Germany) for EntwicklerCamp. I did two presentations: Real-world Web Services (what happens when you sail beyond the edge of the documented world) Advanced Programming with Notes/Domino COM classes (stuff you NEVER thought you could do from .NET or even C++ programs) The conference was superbly organized and executed, congratulations and kudos to Rudi Kneght and his minions for an enjoyable and productive event. Here [read] Keywords: domino
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Everybody: February 14, 2037 at 1:30pm (plus or minus)
Wed, Jan 27th 2010 11:12a Bob Balaban Greetings Geeks! This might sound stupid, but bear with me before making up your m ind. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to present a session on the Best Practices track with my friend and colleague, Paul Mooney, titled "Meet the Grumpies: Eschew Obfuscation". A PDF of the slides we used (there aren't many of them, as most of the session was ad-lib or audience Q&A are posted below. Most of the session was devoted to people (initially myself and Paul, but then audience members [read] Keywords: admin
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Never done this before....
Wed, Jan 27th 2010 11:12a Bob Balaban Greetings Geeks! Everyone recovered from Lotusphere yet? I may do a #LS10WrapUp post over this weekend (or I may not), but for now I'm breaking new ground: a rare blog post with no technical content or Lotus/IBM-related news. I just felt like telling you about a song I really like. I picked up on Flogging Molly's "The Worst Day Since Yesterday" on an episode of "StarGate/Universe". You can hear the music here. (We won't go into the sexist nature of the group's name now. Maybe another time) [read] Keywords: ibm
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First Question @Lotusphere?? Vote now!
Wed, Jan 27th 2010 11:12a Bob Balaban Greeings, Geeks! Lotusphere2010 is just around the corner (festivities begin on Sunday the 17th, at Disney World, FL). Those among you who are repeat collaborators (i.e., have been to a few recent Lotuspheres) may know that on the final day of the conference (Thursday, Jan. 21st this year), Lotus puts a bunch of real live developers on stage, and lets the audience ask questions about the products. The session is called "Meet the Developers" officially, though when I worked at Lotus/Iris (quit [read] Keywords: admin
dxl
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Update on US COBRA health insurance subsidies
Wed, Jan 27th 2010 11:12a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! Last April I published some info in this bloc about how people (US residents) who had been laid off and who had adopted the COBRA insurance continuation plan could receive a US Government subsidy of their monthly premiums. At the time, the subsidies were only for a maximum of 9 months, most peoples' (including mine) expired at the end of November, meaning that the December premium went back up to full rate. However! The US Congress recently passed an extension to th [read] Keywords:
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I will be speaking at EntwicklerKamp, March 8-10, 2010
Wed, Jan 27th 2010 10:21a Bob Balaban Greetings Geeks! Gelsenkirchen is in Germany, not far from Dusseldorf. This will be my first appearance at this event, and I've heard great things about it, both from speakers and attendees, so I'm excited to finally be able to go myself. http://www.entwicklercamp.de/EntwicklerCamp/Home (Currently the site is mostly in German only, though some of the speakers will be presenting their sessions in English) My topics will be: Real-world Web Services (what happens when you sail beyond the [read] Keywords: domino
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Coming to Lotusphere 2010? Meet The Grumpies!
Wed, Dec 16th 2009 9:09a Bob Balaban Greetings Geeks! If you will be attending Lotusphere 2010 (January 17-21), make sure to come by the session I am pressenting with Paul Mooney: BP201 Meet “The Grumpies”: Eschew Obfuscation! Wednesday, 8:30am, Dolphin Northern A-C Who are they? They’re a group of very, very experienced Notes/Domino Admins and Developers, who love the product, warts and all, and know it very, very well. Speakers Balaban (dev) and Mooney (admin) will debate tactics, techniques, [read] Keywords: admin
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New "Admin Bootcamp" announced for Lotusphere10
Fri, Dec 4th 2009 9:59p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! Lotusphere10 approacheth! There are lots of cool sessions and activities beyond the usual terrific content. One of the new "programs" being piloted this year is something called "Admin Bootcamp". Basically, it's a selection of 4 2-hour Jumpstart sessions, all delivered in the same room on Lotusphere Sunday, and all on admin topics. There will be lots of other Jumpstart sessions available on Sunday, and also a few "Show And Tell" sessions, all of which will be 2-hours long [read] Keywords: admin
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Lotusphere Idol submisssions are re-opened!! Want to be a Lotusphere speaker?
Mon, Nov 23rd 2009 10:39p Bob Balaban Greetings Geeks! I was fortunate enough to be a judge in the first 2 Lotusphere Idol contests (Lotusphere 08 and 09). Here's the deal: You give a 5 minute slice of a presentation. If you win, you get a full 1-hour speaking slot on Lotusphere Thursday, and the adoration of hundreds of fellow-geeks. If you didn't submit when the original Lotusphere2010 Call for Abstracts went out, well, you still have time. Submissions for Idol are now being accepted through December. See Ed Brill's blog [read] Keywords: lotusphere
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Materials from TriStateLUG Presentation on COM
Wed, Nov 11th 2009 7:29a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! I had the privilege of attending the Tri-State LUG meeting this week in New York, where I presented a session on advanced Notes programmability using the COM interfaces. Great event, thanks to the organizers and sponsors for pulling it together. Here's a PDF copy of my slide deck, plus most of the code samples (some of that is proprietary...). Enjoy! 3slugCOM.pdf CPPDemo.cpp Module1.vb NotesCOM.h Program.cs (Need expert application development archite [read] Keywords: lotus
notes
application
development
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Tri-State LUG, New York, November 9
Thu, Oct 29th 2009 9:29a Bob Balaban The Tri-State Lotus User Group will be holding an all-day meeting on November 9, hosted by IBM (590 Madison Ave, NY). I will be doing two presentations: Advanced Programming with Notes/Domino COM Classes Did you ever wonder how to write standalone programs that use both the Notes back-end classes, AND the front-end (UI) classes? Did you ever want to play with the Notes objects using VB.net or C#, while maintaining your ability to call-out to CAPI entry points? Did you ever want to lear [read] Keywords: admin
domino
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Ok, we have to clear this up rightnow! "On premise" MAKES NO SENSE!
Sat, Aug 29th 2009 9:19a Bob Balaban Greetings, geeks! I've seen it, you've seen, we all have, especially in the literature around cloud computing: "On-premise" vs. "in the cloud". The discussion around LotusLive is full of this, though IBM is not the only offender. It's making me crazy, so let's clear this up right now, ok? Note to IBM and all marketing people (and managers, and executives who give presentations or interviews about this stuff): "On premise" makes NO SENSE! The correct word is PREMISES!! Don't believe me? [read] Keywords: document
ibm
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application
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I have a new article in The View
Wed, Aug 26th 2009 12:03p Bob Balaban http://www.eview.com/eview/VOLR6.nsf/CurrentIssue/94FF3BDCF710A7A78525761E004CF5DD?OpenDocument (requires subscription to read the full article) I've written quite a lot for The View in previous years, though it's been 2 or 3 since my last piece. They asked me to take one of my old articles (from 1999, on LotusScript performance tuning) and update it. The revised article (edited some of the text, re-ran all the samples, etc.) is now posted on the eview.com site. [read] Keywords: lotusscript
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Technology enables excellent customer service (Amazon.com)
Sun, Aug 23rd 2009 6:00p Bob Balaban I had a very good experience with Amazon's customer service the other day, and thinking about it, I realized that a big part of what enabled Amazon to deliver that good experience to me (and, I assume, to lots of other customers) is the technology infrastructure they have in place. Of course, I know virtually nothing about what systems Amazon uses, but I can infer a lot of the functionality based on what I observed. Let's see if I can splain... Background: I bought a Kindle e-book reader [read] Keywords: application
development
email
laptop
server
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"Lazy Evaluation": When Being Lazy Causes You More Work
Sun, Aug 16th 2009 8:29a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! I have always held that being "lazy" is not a bad thing. In fact, I often tell people that I'm lazy, and that this is why I became a software developer: I want the computer to do the work, so that I don't have to. Being "lazy" (if you define the word as meaning "don't do more work than you have to") is not a bad programming principle. It's really just another way of saying "KISS" (Keep It Simple, [Silly]). Recently, though, I got bit by a LotusScript program [read] Keywords: lotusscript
application
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java
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UKLUG! (Finally) decided I’m going
Sun, Aug 9th 2009 8:29p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! UK Lotus User Group are having a get-together in Edinburgh in October. This is another in a series of "User Group" meetings/conferences (ILUG, IAmLUG, UKLUG) of previous years that have been a raging success. For those of you who don't (yet) know, Edinburgh is NOT in England. It is the capital of Scotland, a real, honest-to-goodness country to the north of England. Scotland is part of Great Britain, which consists of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales (Wales is to th [read] Keywords: ilug
lotus
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The 2-Headed Beast: Debugging Domino Java agents with Eclipse
Fri, Jul 31st 2009 7:19a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! This topic just keeps coming back. You have a Java agent for Domino (or Notes). You want to debug it. There's no Java debugger in Designer (ok, let me clarify that: Designer 8.5x - also known as "DDE", Domino Designer in Eclipse - has a Java debugger. But (as of this writing) you can't use it as you'd expect, you have to use the "remote debugger", which I do not recommend). Eclipse (plain, vanilla Eclipse) has a nice Java debugger, but how do you debug an Agent when the a [read] Keywords: agent
designer
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Geek-o-Terica 8: LotusScript, To Delete, or Not to Delete?
Mon, Jun 15th 2009 11:59p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! I have written at length recently about garbage collection in both LotusScript and Java (see Geek-o-Tericas 3, 5, and 6 especially). I went on (and on...) about how and why you need to use the "recycle()" call in the Java classes for Notes, and why that call doesn't really exist in LotusScript, which has a more robust and automated gc mechanism integrated with the Notes classes. But, I neglected to mention the built-in LotusScript "delete" function, and since I've receive [read] Keywords: agent
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Geek-o-Terica 7: Garbage, threads and the CORBA classes in Notes
Sat, May 23rd 2009 12:09p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! I actually thought that my previous Geek-o-Terica post on garbage collection (gc) and java and Notes and threads would be the final one on that topic. For one thing, there's only so much you can say about it without falling asleep. However, I had a couple of requests to map that discussion onto the "other" Java APIs for Notes, the so-called CORBA classes. It's a good point, so here we go. First, a brief review of what's different about the CORBA classes. They're differ [read] Keywords: document
domino
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notes client
application
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Welcome Rocky back to the "independence-sphere"!
Wed, May 20th 2009 12:19p Bob Balaban Allow me to be among the first to congratulate my pal Rocky Oliver back to the land of the independent consultants! Read the full story here. One small observation I can't help making: for years it looked as though my "career path" (loosely defined) was following Rocky's. I re-joined IBM a few months after he did in 2005, and I left IBM again a few months after he did in late 2007/early 2008. This time, I'm actually ahead of him! So, Rocky: Welcome back! It is my strong prediction that [read] Keywords: ibm
Geek-o-Terica 5: Taking out the Garbage (Java)
Mon, May 4th 2009 3:09p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! I posted a short article last week on garbage collection in LotusScript. This post is about a whole different set of issues you need to be aware of if you're writring Java code for Notes or Domino. Like LotusScript, the Java language creates objects with a built-in "new" operator, and, like LotusScript sweeping up the no-longer-used memory ("garbage collection",or gc) is supposed to be automatic. But. The gc mechanism in Java is nothing like the one in LotusScript -- you [read] Keywords: agent
document
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application
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Geek-o-Terica 4: AutoUpdate on View navigation
Wed, Apr 29th 2009 4:39a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! I was getting ready to write a new Geek-o-Terica post about how the NotesView.AutoUpdate property (which also exists in Java) can affect view navigation. But Kathy Brown already did, so I'm just going to link to her post. Geek ya later! (Need expert application development architecture/coding help? Contact me at: bbalaban, gmail.com) [read] Keywords: lotusscript
application
development
java
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Geek-o-Terica 3: Taking out the garbage (LotusScript)
Mon, Apr 27th 2009 6:39a Bob Balaban Greetings Geeks! LotusScript is a cool language. One of the reasons it's cool is a feature called "automatic garbage collection". What does that mean? It means that you can litter your code landscape with snippets of memory to your heart's content, and never have to worry about keeping track or picking it up ("deallocating", or "freeing" the allocated memory chunks) later. It means you can code a loop like this (skipping all the DIMs, but you get the idea): set view = db.GetView("$ [read] Keywords: acl
agent
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database
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Geek-o-Terica 2: Using parentheses in LotusScript
Tue, Apr 21st 2009 4:59a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! Parentheses in LotusScript can be confusing. For example, check out this seemingly innocuous statement: MyFunc(arg1, arg2) Easy, right? Well, it's fine if "MyFunc" is a Function, but it will cause a compiler error if "MyFunc" is a Sub. Want to know why? The difference between a Sub and Function (you already know this) is that a Function returns a value, and can therefore used on the right-hand side of an assignment statement ("="), while a Sub does not return [read] Keywords: agent
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Introducing "Geek-o-terica"
Sat, Apr 18th 2009 1:49p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! I was getting bored with stuff, so I decided to make up a new term: Geek-o-terica. "Geek" because this is kind of a blog for geeks, and I've always introduced postings by shouting that out. The "o-terica" part is there because it is reminiscent of (is actually a non-null substring of, for you Geeks out there) the word "esoterica", which basically (pun intended) means "things understood by or meant for a select few" (NOT the face cream!). It also means "recondite", but i [read] Keywords: lotusscript
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symphony
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Come Visit at Lotus Admin/Developer ’09, in Boston
Wed, Apr 15th 2009 3:02a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! Consider this my personal invitation to you to come visit The View's Admin/Developer09 conference, in Boston (at the Sheraton Hotel, as always). Today was Jumpstart and booth set-up day. I'm there working for one of my customers, BCC. I will be working in the BCC booth (come visit!) Wednesday afternoon and all day Thursday, as well as helping to present a vendor session Thursday afternoon on BCC's premier product, Client Genie. Essentially, Client Genie is a Notes Clien [read] Keywords: admin
lotus
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notes client
policies
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Relief for the COBRA bite
Fri, Apr 10th 2009 4:59p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! I got some VERY good news yesterday, and for those of you in the U.S. who are on COBRA health plans, it may apply to you as well, so I thought I'd share (Non-U.S.ians or those who are on employer-sponsored health plans probably won't care, go do something useful.) As you may have read in these pages, I got laid off from my job back in January. Given that unemployment meant that my previously employer-sponsored health insurance was terminated, I needed to do something. So [read] Keywords:
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Huzzah! New LSX Toolkit is posted (Part 1)!!
Tue, Mar 31st 2009 4:09a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! I am pleased to report that a very long, and sorry saga, lasting more than 6 years, has finally come to a close! I am, of course referring to the LSX Toolkit. I got my new version of it today, the previous release having come out in 2001. That's a long time to wait, but Friends! The waiting is Over! Few living now remember (or care) what the brouhaha (brew? ha ha!) as all about, but I will give you a radically shortened history. What is the LSX Toolkit anyway? L [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
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lotusphere
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lsx
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rich text
blogging
database
desktop
properties
server
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New IBM-skills-centric recruiting db from BlueWave
Thu, Mar 12th 2009 3:49p Bob Balaban If you're hiring, or need to be hired, check out the recruitment site that Paul Mooney just announced: http://www.pmooney.net/pmooney/pmooneynet.nsf/d6plinks/PMOY-7Q3R54 Cool idea! [read] Keywords: ibm
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"Separation Agreement", or Spawn of the Devil??
Tue, Mar 10th 2009 8:39p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! It's happened to me a couple of times, maybe it's happened to you too: You get "terminated" from your job (downsized, laid off, made redundant...). There are lots of names for it, but no matter what they call it, the situation totally sucks. Especially if it was a surprise (as it most often is). Usually the "termination" conversation includes some explanation of what the company will "do for you". Sometimes there's "severance" pay (basically, they continue to pay your sal [read] Keywords: document
exchange
exchange
office
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Manipulating Notes preferences via CSS (8.5)
Sat, Feb 14th 2009 9:29p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! I was going to write a blog post about how the notes.css file that many of us found and modified in version 8.0 (for me, I wanted to make the unread document color in Inbox red again) has disappeared (as a standalone file) from the 8.5 install tree. When I asked someone at Lotus about it, was told that as part of the performance enhancements in 8.5, many individual files were collected together into JARs, for faster loading, and notes.css was one of these. So, I was going [read] Keywords: document
lotus
notes
css
email
planetlotus
planetlotus.org
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The difference between "Duh!" and "D’oh!" (It got around to me...) - revised
Sat, Jan 31st 2009 8:20a Bob Balaban Greetings Geeks! Here's the difference: "Duh" is a shorthand label that means "that was obvious". "D'oh!" tends to mean either "that was stupid", or "that sure was a surprise!" In a surprising (to me) phone call from my manager at Binary Tree on Thursday (29th), I was informed that I was to be laid off from the company. Yesterday (30th) was my last day of employment at Binary Tree. Because of the current economic climate, I've decided to pu [read] Keywords:
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The difference between "Duh!" and "D’oh!" (It got around to me...)
Fri, Jan 30th 2009 6:09p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! Yesterday I learned an important lesson. I mean, I thought certain things were obvious, but I hadn't internalized them, they were at arm's length, so to speak. Then those things came right down the phone line and into my lap. So, to be more specific, I started out with what we all know: "Times sure are tough! (Duh) People, a LOT of people, are getting laid off from their jobs. (Duh). So far, I'm still lucky I have mine (Duh!)" And then, The Phone Call. So, dear Geeks, [read] Keywords: email
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So I’m a political leftist. So sue me (How I celebrated Obama’s inauguration)
Mon, Jan 26th 2009 7:39p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! Back from Lotusphere09 (my 16th!) and mostly caught up on my huge sleep deficit. It was a good conference, maybe I'll post a summary later. This post, however, is about radicalism, politics, political radicalism, who's right, and who's, well, left. By way of background, I began studying Marxism in college. I'd been a bit of a "60's radical" in high school (nothing violent or illegal, but some friends and I did close down our high school for 3 days to protest Nixon's [read] Keywords: domino
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Another famous Lotus Techie (finally) Starts a Blog!
Mon, Dec 15th 2008 6:29a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! I am VERY pleased to inform you that my friend and colleague, Daniel Nashed, has FINALLY started a Notes/Domino-related blog. Having known and worked with Daniel for many years now, I can promise you that his topics will be specialized, very much in-depth, and important to Notes/Domino developers and admins (and that most likely, nobody other than experienced Notes developers and adins will be able to understand the issues he raises). Welcome, Daniel! Visit the [read] Keywords: domino
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"Symphony Karoke" to Debut at Lotusphere09
Tue, Dec 2nd 2008 3:49a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! I am pleased to announce the debut at Lotusphere09 of "Symphony Karaoke @ Kimono's" Symphony Karaoke is a blatant parody of the dreaded "business culture". Join us as brave volunteers "present" a random deck of slides, struggling to link one slide to the next, taking what was once tedious corporate monologue and transforming it into five minutes of raucous fun and hilarity. We Lotusphere attendees love to have fun at our own (and other's!) expense, and this is the place [read] Keywords: lotusphere
symphony
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Notes/Domino "MythBusters" need your input
Wed, Nov 26th 2008 6:59p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! The paperwork is finally done, the deal is signed, the lawyers are, if not happy, at least content. Lotusphere09 will now (officially) include session BP114 "Notes/Domino MythBusters". Rocky Oliver and I are doing this one together, but we need your help. We've got our own list of Notes/Domino (and general Lotus)-related myths that we think need either confirmation or busting, but we'd like to get YOUR list too. Do you have a few questions lingering in your middle-of-the- [read] Keywords: domino
lotus
lotusphere
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notesdomino
Need to disable NSD? Here are 2 ways that work
Sun, Nov 16th 2008 1:39p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! I've been debugging a Notes CAPI program the last few days. It was intermittently crashing, and bringing down the Notes Client too, if the client happened to be running. I was having a heck of a time figuring out where the crash was actually happening, though, because NSD would always kick in and do its logging thing. Unfortunately, the NSD log was useless to me in this particular situation. In the old days, I would just (on Windows) set the Visual Studio C++ debugger t [read] Keywords: domino
lotus
notes
notes client
nsd
application
email
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See you at DNUG/Dortmund?
Thu, Oct 30th 2008 8:39a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! Somehow I forgot to post that I will be speaking at next wee's DNUG, in Dortmund. Here are my topics, both to be presented on Tuesday, the 4th: - "Cloud computing" (keynote). The IBM "Bluehouse", Google and Microsoft Online computing services model is very different from the traditional IBM/Lotus packaged software, client/server one to which we have all become accustomed over the last 2 or 3 decades. Come hear about the mega-differences (business model, architecture, soci [read] Keywords: bluehouse
ibm
lotus
notes
rich text
application
development
exchange
exchange
google
microsoft
server
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To Go, Or Not To Go: That Was the Question
Mon, Sep 29th 2008 11:29a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! Have you heard? Lotusphere09 is coming! (in 4 months...). If you wanted to submit an abstract or 3 so you could get the free ticket (value of almost $1900) or so you could work on your campaign to become a Lotusphere rock star, it's too late, the deadline was last Friday. Will I be going? Freakin' A! So far I've been to all 15, and I'm not breaking my streak now. That's not the only reason I'm going, of course. However, there was a time several years ago (2001) when I [read] Keywords: ibm
lotus
lotusphere
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notes client
consulting
development
network
networking
reservation
vista
Fully Buzzword Enabled
Sat, Aug 30th 2008 5:19a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! I think I am the one that invented that phrase, and I think it was back in 1999. My colleage Karen Hobert and I were touring around, doing 3-day workshops on advanced Notes/Domino development. One of the topics I presented a couple of hours worth of material on was J2EE (Java 2, Enterprise Edition, the stuff of which WebSphere Application Server and other platforms are made). Or, it might not have been until 2002, when I started speaking at Lotusphere again, and did some pre [read] Keywords: domino
lotus
lotusphere
lotusscript
notes
application
development
enterprise
java
network
server
websphere
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Yes, I really did need NotesDocumentCollection.GetNth that one time....
Mon, Aug 18th 2008 4:24a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! I promised you a follow up to my "Spawn of the Devil" post of a couple of days ago, and this is it. I sincerely hope this will be my last-ever discourse on the GetNth topic. I wanted to be fair, and mention that there was one time, recently, in fact, when GetNth was the right solution to a problem I was having, and I really needed it. But, to tell you that story, I have to tell you this: Back when the NotesDocumentCollection class was first created (for Notes 4.0, m [read] Keywords: document
lotusscript
notes
database
java
properties
server
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GetNth Revisited - Helpful function? Or SPAWN OF THE DEVIL?
Sat, Aug 16th 2008 10:09a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks!! I was browsing my feed reader this morning, and came across a couple of interesting posts on the TeamStudio site (see the posts titled "Show Time" and "Time Differences"). Sigh. More discussion about NotesDocumentCollection.GetNth..... This topic has been a pimple on the butt of Notes developers for, let's see, EVER (ok, well, actually since Notes 4.0 shipped in January, 1996, so really only for 12 years....). I was moved to blog about it, one more (and I sincerely hop [read] Keywords: agent
designer
document
lotus
lotusscript
notes
database
interface
java
laptop
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UKLUG!
Thu, Aug 14th 2008 7:39p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! Good news (for me, anyway)! I get to attend UKLUG! The people who pay me, Binary Tree, are a sponsor, and will have a ped (or table, or booth, or however they set it up) at the show. Unfortunately they ran out of speaker slots before I could get one, so I won't be presenting a session. However, the kind/generous/ organizers were nice enough to offer me the unique (to me, anyway) chance to host the "Gurupalooza"panel, which,of course, I immediately accepted. This should be [read] Keywords: lotusphere
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Two topics for DNUG/Dortmund
Thu, Jul 31st 2008 5:59p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! I am very pleased to announce that DNUG (Deutsche Notes User Group) have invited me to present 2 sessions at their upcoming admin/developer conference (November, in Dortmund). Here are the (not yet finalized) abstracts: - "Cloud computing". The Google (and Amazon, and other companies') computing services model is very different from the traditional IBM/Lotus packaged software, client/server one to which we have all become accustomed over the last 2 or 3 decades. Come hear [read] Keywords: admin
ibm
lotus
notes
rich text
application
development
exchange
exchange
google
microsoft
server
Whoo hoo! Steve Mullen joins Binary Tree
Thu, Jul 24th 2008 10:51a Bob Balaban I am most pleased to welcome Steve Mullen to Binary Tree as Software Development Manager, beginning Monday the 28th. I have known and worked with Steve since my days at Iris in the 90s, and he was most recently the 2nd-line manager in charge of the Notes Client development team at IBM/Westford. In fact, Steve successfully survived having both me and Rocky Oliver report to him directly for nearly a year, when we all worked at IBM together. I am very excited about having Steve join us, bec [read] Keywords: ibm
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development
"Clouds", the sequel
Sun, Jun 29th 2008 6:06p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! I was going to write a follow-up post to my "Clouds" article of about 2 weeks ago, and the focus was going to be some interesting aspects of "cloud" architecture: how it's different from "regular" client/server, how you use it differently, and what benefits you derive thereby. I'm still going to write that article, but not today. Today is still about cloud computing, but after looking at several of the replies to my earlier post, it's clear that many people see real problems [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
lotus
notes
application
applications
archiving
database
email
google
laptop
microsoft
security
server
I will be showing up....at ILUG (and presenting a session)
Fri, May 16th 2008 1:44p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! Just wanted to let you know that I will be presenting a session (and attending many others) at the Irish Lotus User Group (ILUG) get-together in Dublin next month (June 4-6). My session title and abstract are: Achieving "Peaceful" Coexistence Between Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes While many organizations strive to standardize their messaging infrastructures on a single platform, many others do not. Whether through merger, acquisition or simple user preference, many [read] Keywords: ilug
lotus
notes
rich text
exchange
exchange
microsoft
3
QA and Dev, the "Itchy and Scratchy" of Software Production?
Wed, May 14th 2008 6:03a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! I'm hoping that many of you out there are fans (or recovering fans) of The SImpsons, in which case you'll have no trouble recognizing the names in this week's post as the characters in the always-fighting cat and mouse TV show beloved by all the children of fictional Springfield. If you're closer to my age (Boomer) than to Gen-X, and don't have any kids that you watch TV with, the equivalent characters of our time were probably Ben and Jerry (the cat and mouse cartoons, NOT [read] Keywords: ibm
lotus
notes
development
interface
83
Calling Notes CAPI from C#/Visual Studio
Mon, May 5th 2008 1:42p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! How many of you have ever written LotusScript code that needed to call C entry points in some DLL (such as, maybe, the Notes C API, in nnotes.dll)? I've done it, many of you probably have too. Well, I spent a few days recently trying to figure out how to do the same thing, but from a C# ("c-sharp") program running as "managed code" in .NET. I'm using Visual Studio 2005 as my IDE. In the end I cracked it, and it wasn't too difficult. The real secret was to find the magic i [read] Keywords: document
lotusscript
notes
database
google
microsoft
profile
server
Guess what? It’s been a whole year already
Tue, Apr 8th 2008 7:50p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! Naturally, I missed my own anniversary -- the first posting I made on this blog was March 30, 2007, just over a year ago. As my dad might say: "Hoo hah!" (if you're reading this and you're my father, Hi Dad!). Pretty cool, if I say so myself, I really wasn't sure when I started whether I'd be able to keep it going this long. As it turned out, it wasn't as hard to come up with topics as I thought it would be. Here are some stats: 41 -- Approximate number of main po [read] Keywords: designer
, domino
10
Recursion or Iteration? YOU decide...
Fri, Apr 4th 2008 8:23p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! Today our topic is....recursion. No, fellow geeks, this does NOT mean that we are going to practice cursing, and cursing again.... The thing is, recursion (loosely defined as the technique whereby a subroutine processes a piece of a data structure, and then invokes itself ("recursively") to process another piece. The classic example that we all learn in Computer Science 101 class is... "walking a tree". Note that this has very little, if anything to do with the techniqu [read] Keywords: agent
, designer
, document
, domino
, dxl
, lotusscript
, xml
Show ’n’ Tell Thursday - what folders is a document in?
Mon, Mar 24th 2008 1:43p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! I'm very late to the SNTT club, but I'm hoping to be able to throw in some decent techie tips at least semi-regularly, in addition to the more high-falutin' thought-pieces and questionnaires. So! Have you ever needed to figure out what folders a document is in? Here's a brief synopsis of the documented way to do it, and then I'll show you a neat way I discovered that works better and faster. You can go to the Designer Help database, select the Index tab, and find the " [read] Keywords: designer
document
lotusscript
sntt
template
application
database
java
What % of the time are YOU online?
Mon, Mar 10th 2008 5:30p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! To quote one of my all-time favorite TV characters, Roseanne Roseannadanna (ok, so I'm a baby-boomer, so sue me), "What's all this I hear about discombobulated obligations?" Or, in plain English, "disconnected applications". Today I took the Amtrak Acela (the "fast" train, or, as one of my European friends calls it, the "faster" train) from Newark, New Jersey (home of the corporate hq of my new company, Binary Tree) back home to Boston. It's a 4 hour ride, give or take, and [read] Keywords: connections
, notes
, applications
, email
, microsoft
, office
, wireless
8
And just when you thought you had division down....
Mon, Mar 3rd 2008 3:45p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! Everyone who knows me knows that I'm a big fan of LotusScript (it's not dead yet!). I've been writing code using the language for about 15 years now, and I was pretty sure that I'd explored most of the sometimes strange nooks and crannies of its functionality (with the possible exception of "Like", which I have yet to find a real use for....but that's another article). Until this morning, that is, when I tripped over a subtle issue with, of all things, arithmetic divisi [read] Keywords: designer
, lotusscript
Obscure (Rob says that works as a title)! In Which A Certain Food Fight is Explained
Tue, Jan 29th 2008 6:35p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks!! Well, like many of you, I'm recently back from Lotusphere08, relatively rested, and with the usual new collection of t-shirts and schwag. Hey, did any of you like the buttons I handed out? I got lots of compliments from Lotus management (one VP asked why I hadn't done it as an official project so I could expense it. The answer -- because then it wouldn't have been as good or as much fun. It was worth having to pay for the whole thing to be able to do it just the way I want [read] Keywords: domino
, ibm
, lotus
, lotusphere
, lsx
, notes
, community
, email
3
For those attending Lotusphere
Fri, Jan 18th 2008 12:04p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! I'm taking off for Lotusphere08 in a couple of hours, and I wanted to alert those of you who will also be there to a few things: 1) I have schwag! If you are a Lotusphere first-timer, or have attended 10 or more Lotuspheres (including '08 of course), I have something for YOU! (while supplies last) 2) I will be presenting one session (AD302) showing off some new stuff coming for Web App Development in Domino/Next (Tuesday, 11:15am, Swan 5-6) 3) I will be roaming the [read] Keywords: domino
, ibm
, lotusphere
, roaming
, development
2
Why you should come to Lotusphere, and, Tell me what to post about!
Sat, Dec 29th 2007 8:40a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! Yeah, yeah, I haven't posted in a while, blahblahblah, busy, blahblah, slacking off for the holidays, blahblahblah. Ok, now that we've got that out of the way, what do you want to talk about? Seriously! Repeat readers of this blog know that mostly I pose questions for you, "my geek posse", on topics about which I would like YOU to educate ME. Usually I describe one or more ideas we (IBM Notes/Domino dev teams) have where we want feedback from you. And (thank goodnes [read] Keywords: domino
, ibm
, javascript
, lotusphere
, notes
, blogger
, css
, server
2
Introducing...."Raj"!
Mon, Dec 10th 2007 11:05a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! I am very pleased to introduce to you all someone who doesn't actually exist. "Raj" is a "persona", a character amalgam (or aggregate) invented by my esteemed colleagues in the Lotus User Experience (UX) team, Kathy Howard and Chris Kergaravat. The UX team uses personae for various customer work roles (admins, developers, executives, knowledge workers, etc.) to help focus and define various pieces of UI design in the product. Raj is the first ever Application Developer pe [read] Keywords: lotus
, application
3
Wiring JavaScript libraries Into the Domino Server
Thu, Dec 6th 2007 9:52a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! I have mentioned Dojo in this blog a couple of times. Nononono, not that Dojo, this Dojo. For example, here, and here. The many, many responses (a LOT of responses) were all interesting, and a few patterns emerged, such as (I am paraphrasing here): Dojo is great Dojo sucks My favorite JavaScript framework is [insert name here] Watch out for browser dependencies Handhelds don't support Javascript, so what are you going to do? And so on. One principle I came away with was the fol [read] Keywords: admin
, designer
, domino
, javascript
, community
, dojo
, server
, widgets
2
Anyone notice the new blog UI?
Thu, Nov 29th 2007 11:20a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! By now you may have noticed that this blog has a rather different look'n'feel to it. This is one of the perks one is entitled to when one works at IBM and knows Steve Castledine! What you see before you is the new default "theme" for the standard IBM Blog Template that will be released with Notes/Domino 8.01 (it may appear in one of the 8.01 betas too, but I'm not sure about that). Users of 8.01 will get this as the theme when creating a new blog NSF. Previously created b [read] Keywords: domino
, ibm
, notes
, template
, blogging
2
My Lotusphere08 session
Thu, Nov 22nd 2007 3:23p Bob Balaban I will be co-presenting one session at Sphere08 (I think this is the first time I've been a speaker at Lotusphere where I've only done 1!) with my colleague Philippe Riand: AD302: IBM Lotus Domino Web Server Application Development Directions What's happening with the Lotus Domino Web application platform beyond release 8? Come to this session to learn about our plans for updating familiar services such as HTML rendering and our J2EE container. You'll also hear about some plans for new serve [read] Keywords: domino
, ibm
, lotus
, lotusphere
, mashup
, ajax
, application
, development
, server
3
What if.....we made the remote Java API run over HTTP?
Thu, Nov 8th 2007 5:22a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! I don't know if many of you have ever experimented (or even really used) the "remote" Java APIs for Domino (also known as "the Domino CORBA classes", also known as "NCSO.jar"). They are the "same" (mostly) as the "local classes" (a/k/a "Notes.jar"), in that both sets of Java implementation classes implement the same lotus.domino package of interfaces. But they are different in a few ways: The "local" classes are a thin layer of Java code on top of native call-outs to C/ [read] Keywords: admin
, domino
, ibm
, lotus
, notes
, java
, server
2
DNUG Fall 2007, Bonn Nov. 12-14
Mon, Nov 5th 2007 9:59a Bob Balaban Here are the sessions I will be leading/participating in: 13.11.; 14:30 - 16:00, Session 6 Roundtable: Programmability in "Notes Beyond" 14.11. 9:15 - 10:00, Session 5 Roundtable: Trends in IBM Software with several IBM speakers and attendees 14:00 - 15:30, Session 1 Introduction to Developing Eclipse and Expeditor Plugins for Notes And possibly 1 or 2 more, check the online agenda at http://www.dnug.de [read] Keywords: expeditor
, ibm
, notes
, eclipse
3
Does Anyone Use NSFDB2 for real?
Sun, Oct 21st 2007 3:30a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! I'm curious about this. I think Db2 (ok, officially it's "DB2", but I prefer to type it my way) is cool. Actually, I have thought that relational databases in general are cool ever since I learned about them and started using them in the late 70s. When I first heard about NSFDB2 I was President (and Janitor) of my own company, and to be honest, I had mixed feelings about the wisdom of the project. My greatest reservation was a technical one: how the heck could they ever [read] Keywords: ibm
, lotus
, notes
, nsfdb2
, application
, database
, db2
, reservation
, sql
What if....Java in Domino were better?
Tue, Oct 9th 2007 7:00a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! Today I am pleased to debut yet another guest blog from a member of our crack (not "cracked", mind you, "crack") dev team, Steve Nikopoulos. Steve and I put this post together to get your feedback on improvements to Java integration in both the Client and Server (as you'll see below). Please welcome Steve to the blogosphere, and have at it! Many of you use Java in Notes and/or Domino today. Many (most?) of you find it less that fully satisfying for any number of reasons ( [read] Keywords: administration
, designer
, domino
, lotus
, notes
, applications
, eclipse
, integration
, java
, security
, server
2
What if...."Java Views"
Sat, Sep 29th 2007 8:05a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! Please raise your hand if you are using Notes 8.0 on a regular basis. Ok, for those of you with your hands in the air (don't worry, nobody will notice), lower your hand if you do NOT know what a Notes 8 "Java View" is. I sure wish I could count the raised hands.....but I'm guessing something less than half of N8 users know about these. But, I could be wrong. Anyhow, let me try to 'splain it. In Notes 7 and before, there is special view-rendering code that knows how to [read] Keywords: composite
, designer
, expeditor
, notes
, application
, database
, eclipse
, java
, xml
2
Advisor Live, Miami
Wed, Sep 26th 2007 6:20p Bob Balaban If you'll be anywhere in the Miami area next week (Monday-Wednesday), come on by the Advisor Live conference -- http://events.advisor.com/cte0710p.nsf/w/maincib I will be doing a session called "Intro to Relational Data", one on "Web Services in Notes and Domino" (always a fave, this time I have a NEW demo. Don't want to say too much, but I will tell you that it has to do with Will Shakespeare). My colleague and pal Rocky Oliver and I will be doing one together called "Rockin' and Reportin [read] Keywords: domino
, ibm
, lotus
, notes
2
Who uses CSS in N/D apps today?
Sun, Sep 9th 2007 1:27p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! I have to say, I am not one who normally goes around advertising the, shall we say "weaker points" of the product to which I have devoted so much effort over the last 14 years. However, following my own motto (OK, ONE of my own mottos...): "Be positive when possible, be negative when necessary", I think I found something about which I must be a wee bit negative. I was discussing CSS stylesheets with expert colleague (and sometimes guest blogger on this site) Mark Vi [read] Keywords: designer
, domino
, notes
, blogger
, css
, database
, properties
, server
4
Collaboration University
Sun, Aug 26th 2007 6:44a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! Well, I (finally!) got travel approval from IBM to speak at the two upcoming Collaboration University events, the first one in Kansas City (Sept. 10-12) and the second one in London (Spet. 19-21). I'm really looking forward to this, more than usual in fact. For one thing, KC has GREAT ribs, and blues. For another thing, I'm looking forward to mingling with some of my esteemed colleagues who I don't get to chat with very often at work (Ed Brill, Mary Beth Raven, Kevin Cava [read] Keywords: collaboration
, domino
, expeditor
, ibm
, notes
, eclipse
Who uses any Notes templates as-is for HTTP access?
Sun, Aug 5th 2007 11:44a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! It will likely come as no surprise to many of you that the software product development business sometimes exhibits certain peculiarities that one would not expect. This is especially (sometimes) true at big software companies, like IBM (not that I am criticizing my employer, running a very large corporation isn' all that easy...) A case in point: One of the things a Product Development organization in a company like IBM spends a lot of time doing is trying to figure out [read] Keywords: domino
, ibm
, notes
, template
, application
, community
, development
2
What if....XHTML?
Sat, Jul 21st 2007 3:37p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks!! Today, Wizards and Witches, we are going to wave our magic wands and pretend that the Domino Web Server (among other improvements IBM might, or might not, make to the server, now or someday, or maybe never -- you know that the lawyers make me say that....) emits XHTML as a format (yes, yes, of course we'd keep the way it does it right now as an option!) There are many aspects of this possibility that interest me. But for today I am going to limit myself to a single quest [read] Keywords: domino
, ibm
, server
, xml
4
Programmable embedded views - The Freeman Way
Tue, Jul 17th 2007 9:29a Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! Here is yet another example of the diversity and endless originality of the Notes/Domino developer community. Our colleague Nathan Freeman has figured out a way to embed framesets in Notes forms, and how to embed "programmable" views as well. Check it out -- http://www.lotus911.com/nathan/escape.nsf/d6plinks/NTFN-755KEZ [read] Keywords: domino
, forms
, notes
, community
2
What if....you could pick 2 new features for Domino Designer?
Fri, Jun 29th 2007 3:17p Bob Balaban Greetings, Geeks! Today, it is my pleasure (and I hope your's as well) to grant you 2 (and ONLY 2) wishes (hypothetically speaking, of course -- the lawyers make me say that). You get to vote for two (and ONLY two) enhancements to Domino Designer. There are some rules (naturally): Only TWO If your feature is not obvious, please describe it briefly, say no more than 2 (since we're on a "2" theme here) reasonably sized paragraphs Your choices can be related to each oth [read] Keywords: designer
, domino
, ibm
, bug
, email
