Tuesday 30 November 2010

IBM Lotus Notes Traveler - An Open Mic Call - Wednesday 8 December 2010

Abstract

IBM is hosting an Open Mic conference call with Lotus Development and Support Engineers to discuss IBM Lotus Notes Traveler on Wednesday, December 8, 2010.

Content

Please join us for an Open Mic Q&A session on IBM Lotus Notes Traveler. Additional information will be posted to this technote closer to the date.

Date

Wednesday, 8 December 2010

Time

10:00 AM Eastern US time (15:00 GMT), for 60 minutes

Please see this Technote #1433029 for further information, and this forum posting if you want to submit questions in advance ...

WebSphere Portlet Factory 7 - Problems with AXIS Web Services

One of my pals saw this exception earlier today: -

An error has occurred.
The error message returned was: "Error in method displayData_InputPage_NextAction. Error in method displayData_ShowResults. Error in method getDataViaWSDL.invoke. Error in method getDataViaWSDL.invokeInternal. java.net.ConnectException: HTTP ( 404 ) Not Found address : http://wpx7.uk.ibm.com:10039/WPF0001/servlet/AxisServlet". 

Please refer to the logs folder in your deployed application for additional error information.

Click here for a detailed error message.

when attempting to execute a simple model that consumes a Web Service - in his case, this was a WSDL-based service that he had created with another model that consumed DB2 UDB using JDBC.

In addition to the above exception shown in the browser when he ran the model, we also saw: -

Caused by: com.bowstreet.util.WrappedException: The AXIS engine could not find a target service to invoke!  targetService is null [Root exception is javax.xml.ws.soap.SOAPFaultException: The AXIS engine could not find a target service to invoke!  targetService is null]

javax.xml.ws.soap.SOAPFaultException: The AXIS engine could not find a target service to invoke!  targetService is null

in the SystemOut.log file of the underlying WebSphere Portal 7 instance.

I reproduced the same problem on my own lashup, so dug a little further.

I regenerated the models a number of times, and also published and republished my project, but to no avail.

In the end, thinking laterally,  I wondered whether WPF v7 had introduced any new options when creating projects - I know that the dev. team were talking about providing more options for project creation in order to reduce the default size of a generated WAR file.

Sure enough, when I looked at the  Project Properties ( select the project and click the right-hand mouse button ), under WebSphere Portlet Factory -> Feature Info, I saw that there are now new options for Axis 1 Extensions and Web Service Enablement Extensions.

From trial and error, I can tell you that you need BOTH options.

Monday 29 November 2010

New Lotus Connections 3.0 Plugins Are Now Available

More Lotus Connections loveliness from Mr Luis Benitez Esquire

Anyway, I wanted to make you aware of the new plugins that are now freely available from our App Catalog for download:

Friday 26 November 2010

WebSphere with a side of SPNEGO

Found this on the IBM site whilst lurking around ....


Abstract: SPNEGO, or the Simple and Protected GSSAPI Negotiation Mechanism, enables a straightforward single sign-on (SSO) mechanism for WebSphere in Kerberos environments.

This document is intended to provide instructions to configure SPNEGO for WebSphere Application Server in standalone and clustered configurations using Microsoft Active Directory as the Kerberos security server. It is meant to be a ‘quick-start’ guide, providing the minimum steps and default options required to get up and running quickly in both WAS 6.1 and WAS 7.0 environments



Definitely worth a read if you, as I am, are looking at Kerberos/SPNEGO with WebSphere ....

Success installing Lotus Domino 8.5 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5

I've had this problem a few times in the past, and either worked around it, or solved it and forgot how :-(

In preparation for my Lotus Connections 3.0 installation, I've been trying ( and failing ) to install Lotus Domino 8.5 onto a VMware image of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5.

The error that I see is: -

Error: The installer is unable to run in graphical mode. Try running the installer with the -console or -silent flag.

when I run: -

/tmp/linux/domino/install

I'd tried logging the installer in log mode: -

/tmp/linux/domino/install -is:log /tmp/foobar.txt

but, apart from showing me the detail of what was going on: -

Executing launch script command: "/tmp/isjykAnI6/jre/bin/java" -cp "":"setup.jar":"" -Dtemp.dir="/tmp" -Dis.jvm.home="/tmp/isjykAnI6" -Dis.jvm.temp="1" -Dis.media.home="" -Dis.launcher.file="/tmp/linux/domino/tools/setupLinux.bin" -Dis.jvm.file="/tmp/isjykAnI6/jvm" -Dis.external.home="/tmp/linux/domino/tools"   -Xms20m -Xmx1024m  run  "-G" "overwriteJVM=yes" in working directory /tmp/linux/domino/tools

it didn't tell me anything I didn't already know.

Googling around, I found this: -

Error when installing WebSphere Message Broker for Linux x86 V6.0

which helped me, although the author still appears to be struggling :-(

As part of his PD routine, he'd installed two RPMs: -

yum install libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3
yum install libXp.so.6

I tried the first ( libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3 ) but that didn't help.

I then tried the second ( libXp.so.6 ) and .... voila, the installer launched as it should, and I was good to go.

Will contact the author of the blog post, and thank him for helping me out of a hole :-)

Thursday 25 November 2010

IBM community newsletter generator plug-in for Lotus Connections

Following up on my recent post, this plug-in allows you to generate a newsletter for any given Lotus Connections community directly from your Lotus Notes / Sametime / Symphony client.

Having used it a few times today, words can't begin to express how awesome this is - the ability to look at any of my communities ( of which I'm a member of many many fine communities ) and, at the click of a mouse button, generate a newsletter ( in nicely formatted HTML ) which can then be pasted into an email or blog post or, and you'll like this bit, be inserted directly and automatically into the community blog itself.

Other than that, I can also get metrics about my communities: -

Blog entries 191
Unique blog entry contributors 15
Average blog entries per community member 3.131
Average blog entries per contributor 12.733
Blog views (all time) 3973
Blog comments 0
Unique blog comment contributors 0
Average blog comments per community member 0
etc.

and .... even better ... launch any one of the communities out of the Notes sidebar straight into a web browser - I use Firefox, but your browser of choice, including Notes, can be used to navigate directly into the community.

Thanks, Luis, you rock :-)

Purely an aide memoire, formatting text in a blog post

I was looking for a way to format text and images within a blog post, by editing the HTML.

My requirement was to have text and images placed down the page, without having text wrapped around the images, and without using a <TABLE></TABLE> tag pair.

My friend and guru colleague, Brian, showed me how to do it using the tag: -

<div style="clear: both;">

Easy when you know how ... and now I know how :-)

"Too many open files" whilst running WebSphere Portal 7 on Ubuntu Linux 10.10

Not sure if this explains why my WebSphere Portal 7 installation seems to hang on a particular thread, and never complete it's startup, but I was seeing this in the SystemOut.log file: -   

[25/11/10 09:38:29:352 GMT] 0000001b Ffdc          I com.ibm.ffdc.impl.Ffdc setFailsafeProvider FFDC1001I: FFDC provider aborted with exception {0}
...
java.security.PrivilegedActionException: java.io.IOException: Too many open files
...
Caused by: java.io.IOException: Too many open files

I've increased the number of open files available to WebSphere by setting ulimit -n 40000 in /opt/IBM/WebSphere/wp_profile/bin/setupCmdLine.sh.

Will test and report back ...

Success - iWidgets and Portlets, all generated thanks to the power of WebSphere Portlet Factory Designer

Following an earlier blog post, I have this morning rebuilt my WebSphere Portlet Factory development environment in order to create portlets and widgets against WebSphere Portal v7.

I have a  VMware image running WebSphere Portal Express v7 ( a 4 GB VM running on my shiny 8 GB Thinkpad ), and can access the portal via a shared IP address ( VMware is using NAT to allow my host and VMs to interact ). Therefore, I can get to Portal via an "external" browser and also via WPF - the hostname that my portal is using is wpx7.uk.ibm.com which is in my host OS' host file.

On my host OS ( Ubuntu Linux 10.10 ), I have installed WebSphere Portlet Factory v7 into an installation of Eclipse 3.5 ( Galileo ). I run WPF as root ( using the sudo bash command to allow me to emulate root without having the root password which Ubuntu doesn't use ).
Having started WPF with a nice clean new workspace ( /root/workspace ), I then created a WebSphere Portlet Factory Project, and chose to configure it against WP7.

I then created a new WebSphere Portlet Factory model, using the "A simple "Hello, World" model." quickstart - this allowed me to create a portlet AND an iWidget, each of which simply displays a message ( "Hello World!", of course ). Having created the model, which merely has five builders, including a Portlet Adapter and a Widget Adapter.

I took the option to deploy the model to my Portal server. The first time around this prompts me to either connect to the portal server via a shared file system ( which is quite painful when going from Linux to Linux e.g. you have to use SMB/Samba or NFS ) or, new in v7, via HTTP, which uses a SOAP call to update the file system on the remote box. I took the latter option; this updates the WPF project properties.

Having done this, the final step was to tell WPF to generate the iWidget which doesn't happen automatically the first time around.

To achieve this, I clicked the right-hand mouse button over the project name, and chose Widgets -> Publish Widgets to Lotus Mashups toolbox.
This prompted me for the credentials of the portal server - these can be entered each time, or cached.

Having done this, I then logged into Portal and, using the shiny new Page Builder Theme, I created a new page ( Actions -> New Child Page ) and then added my portlet and iWidget to the page ( Actions -> Edit Page -> Customize ).

*UPDATE* I've also provided a walk through, via screenshots, of the setup, and can share if required.

Lotus Connections 3.0 - It's Here ...

As per my earlier posts, Lotus Connections 3.0 was released yesterday ( a process known as electronic General Availability or eGA ). I did start the download last night, but hadn't realised that my laptop was plugged into a dead power socket, meaning that it had shut down when I got back to my hotel room :-(

So, having just finished the download of the code now; I have: -

IBM Lotus Connections 3.0 for AIX, Linux Multilingual (CZMD1ML)

-rw-r--r-- 1 hayd hayd 1197987840 2010-11-25 05:27 /home/hayd/DownloadDirector/CZMD1ML.tar

IBM Lotus Connections 3.0 Wizard for Linux, AIX Multilingual (CZMD4ML)

-rw-r--r-- 1 hayd hayd 318136320 2010-11-24 19:04 /home/hayd/DownloadDirector/CZMD4ML.tar

I already have all of the other pre-requisites, as outlined here: -

Lotus Connections 3.0 System Requirements - AIX
Lotus Connections 3.0 System Requirements - Linux
Lotus Connections 3.0 System Requirements - Windows

so can commence my installation as soon as time allows :-)

Wednesday 24 November 2010

Precompiling JSPs in order to speed up WebSphere Portal 7

This comes from TheServerSide.com via Sonia Malik on Twitter, and looks to be a rather useful tip that I probably did not, but ( as ever ) had forgotten: -


WebSphere Portal Server Guru, Sal Pece, provides this quick tip on how to improve the first-time run performance of your WebSphere Portal Server pages. The tip is demonstrated for WebSphere Portal Server 7, but it also applies to WPS 6.1 as well.

How To Speed Up WebSphere Portal Server 7 After the Initial Installation

When any version of WebSphere Portal is first installed, there is always a significant load time for each JSP page.   The poor load time is attributed to the fact that each JSP page must be compiled the first time it is accessed.  To avoid the delay, execute the precompile-jsp command.

1. Open a command line and navigate to the following directory:

C:\IBM\WebSphere\wp_profile\bin

2. Execute the following command (all on one line)

ConfigEngine.bat precompile-jsp –DwasUser=wasadmin –DWasPassword=wasadmin

3. 28 minutes later (although your mileage may vary)…

BUILD SUCCESSFUL

The script completed successfully and I’m happy to report there was a noticeable improvement in performance when browsing through WebSphere Portal Server 7 pages for the first time.


I'm running the script on my WebSphere Portal Express v7 VMware image now and will report back ....

*UPDATE* It took 31 minutes 8 seconds on my VM; will now see if WP is any faster :-)

Thanks to Sal for creating, and to Sonia for sharing ....

Tuesday 23 November 2010

2010 Exceptional Web Experience Conference - Materials available for download

This from my friend, Sonia - something else I need to download when I get to the hotel tonight; man, that wireless broadband is going to get busy, busy, busy

An Exceptional Web Experience is achieved when the intended users'  expectations have been met - or better yet - exceeded. This annual event is dedicated to helping organizations learn how to keep pace with the expanding, and ever increasing, Web-savvy user. You'll learn about the
latest Web portal, content, social, mobile, commerce, business process management and other innovations/technologies available from IBM and our Business Partners - as well as best practices and success stories. See just how powerful and beneficial an Exceptional Web Experience can be, and how companies and organizations of every size can drive better business outcomes. This is an On Demand collection of recordings of some of the best sessions presented at the 2010 Exceptional Web Experience Conference held in Chicago.

This offering contains the following on Demand bundles: -
  • Exceptional Web Experience on Demand : Best Practices and Implementation (WPS01)
  • Exceptional Web Experience on Demand : Developing Exceptional Web Experiences (WPS02)
  • Exceptional Web Experience on Demand : Web Experience Platforms and Solutions (WPS03)
More information available at : WPS04 - Exceptional Web Experience on Demand : The Total Experience

Lotus Connections - Two new cool things available from The Catalog on Greenhouse

My IBM colleague ( and general guru ), Luis Benitez, has recently added a rather cool tool to the  Catalog: -

IBM community newsletter generator plug-in for Lotus Connections

This plug-in allows you to generate a newsletter for any given Lotus Connections community directly from your Lotus Notes / Sametime / Symphony client.

Now I have used a version of this tool on the IBM-internal deployment of Connections, known as W3, and it's rather neat. The tool automagically trawls a given Community and generates a nicely formatted ready-to-send newsletter that you can then mail out to your Community members, in case they don't have time to review the Communities of which they are a member, either via the UI or via an ATOM/RSS feed.

I'll download and try this plugin, and report back.

In related news, another very smart IBMer, Suneil Berajawalasuneil, has created the: -

IBM Lotus Greenhouse masthead controller plugin for Firefox

Have you ever tried to demonstrate a Lotus product on the Lotus Greenhouse website and the audience of your demo was confused by the extra Lotus Greenhouse menus on top of the product menus?  Well, now you have a solution.  Using Greasemonkey for Firefox, you can now run a script that allows you to hide the masthead while demonstrating products on Lotus Greenhouse and then turn it back on again when your done!!

I've not yet had a reason to use Greasemonkey, but it sounds like yet another Firefox plugin without which I cannot love :-)


Lotus Connections 3 - What's In The Box ?

Stuart McIntyre has written a great presentation on the new features in Lotus Connections 3.0, which is worth a read.

The presentation, on Slideshare, can be reached via this post on Stuart's blog ( when I say Stuart's blog, I actually mean to say ... one of many blogs that Stuart hosts to which he and others contribute )

I'll download when I'm on a decent broadband connection ....

Lotus Connections 2.5 - More on "metrics"


 A colleague asked if there was any way to monitor whether a Community had become inactive. Whilst I haven't yet seen a specific isAction() API ( or similar ), there is this wsadmin command that can be executed ( as part of the communitiesAdmin.py Python script library ): -   CommunitiesService.listComm(List list)   Prints the information associated with the communities in the list input to the wsadmin command window in an easy-to-read format. The data printed includes community name, UUID, type, who created it, creation date, last person who modified it, date of last modification, membership list size, and description. If the list includes members, then this command also prints the membership list. If the list includes references, the command also prints the reference information.

This command is run in two steps. First, generate the data to input into the listComm command and assign the list to a variable. The variable is then used as input into the listComm command.

For example:
 wsadmin>byMember=CommunitiesService.fetchCommByMember("jane_doe@company.com") wsadmin>CommunitiesService.listComm(byMember) 
CommunitiesService.listCommToFile(List list, String filename)

  Prints the information associated with the communities in the list input to the specified file using an easy-to-read format. The directory to which the file is to be output must already exist. The data printed includes community name, UUID, type, who created it, creation date, last person who modified it, date of last modification, membership list size, and description. If the list includes members, then this command also prints the membership list. If the list includes references, the command also prints the reference information.

This command is run in two steps. First, generate the data to input into the listCommToFile command and assign the list to a variable. The variable is then used as input into the listCommToFile command.

For example:
 wsadmin>byMember=CommunitiesService.fetchCommByMember("jane_doe@company.com") wsadmin>CommunitiesService.listCommToFile(bymember,"/temp/CommMembers.txt") 
I nabbed these two commands from the Retrieving and listing community data section of the Lotus Connections 2.5 Information Centre.   Now it'd be nice if this information was available via a callable service / feed, similar to the Server Metrics : -    http://<servername.com:port>/communities/service/html/servermetrics   but one can't have everything :-)


Monday 22 November 2010

IBM Java - Accessing the JRE's Control Panel on Ubuntu Linux

There are probably fifty-eleven other ways to do this, but this is the simplest.

Run the command: -

/usr/lib/j2re1.6-ibm/jre/bin/ControlPanel

to launch the IBM JRE's Control Panel to change console settings, clear applet cache etc.

Lotus Connections - CMIS-based Files Connector

As per Luis' blog post: -

One of the new capabilities in Lotus Connections 3.0 is the support for CMISfree plugins out there that already work with CMIS. (Content Management Interoperability Services). CMIS is a standard API for managing files and one of the cool things about adding this support is all the


Thank to the CMIS support you can now interact with the Files capability from:


and many more

Enjoy :-)

Like books, want to pay less ?

If so, you may find these two sites to be of use. I buy and read a lot of books; real, paper books, with covers, pages, spines etc.

However, I don't always want to pay full price, especially if I'm trying out an author for the first time - this year, Alastair Reynolds and Iain M Banks have become new friends, but I didn't want to jump in and spend £15 on a book that I might just not like :-( airport purchases notwithstanding ( well, we've all done it; you get to the airport, with minutes to go before your flight, and grab the first book that you see ).

Anyway, here are two sites where you can get Second User ( better than saying Second Hand ) books: -

Oxfam - apparently, these folks are one of the biggest book sellers on the High Street, which is tough for the independents :-( - delivery is free *BUT* they'd like you to make a donation if you so choose, and you can select Gift Aid

Green Metropolis - unlike Oxfam, these folks aren't ( as far as I know ) a charity, but they do good deals on books - free delivery, £3.75 per book, occasional three-fer-two offers etc. *AND* they also buy as well as sell

Hope this helps .....

PS Did you know  that Oxfam stands for Oxford Committee for Famine Relief ? No, well, neither did I until quite recently. I guess that the full title was a little hard on shop sign painters :-)

Sunday 21 November 2010

More from the Wiki - WCM, WCM and more WCM

Creating an Intranet using Lotus Web Content Management

This article is the first in a multiple-part series that is going to follow a typical Lotus Web Content Management (WCM) project. It will cover the various phases of the project and the deliverables output from each. It will not focus on the low level technical how to – as this is covered in the Info Centre, the WCM Redbook and in individual articles on the wiki. It will instead focus on the processes that should be followed and the deliverables that should be created in each stage of the project.

The project which will be followed is a real one called the ‘Intranet Template Project’. One in which my team designs and implements an Intranet template. The final deliverable will be an installable WCM Intranet template which may be deployed, customised and extended as a starting point for your Company Intranet. The deliverables provided during the series will be the actual output from our project that can also double as templates that can be reused in your WCM project.

You can read the rest of the article here.

WCM Troubleshooting

Find troubleshooting techniques that other administrators use to resolve issues with Lotus® Web Content Management and share methods that you have developed. If you are looking for a workaround to a specific issue, don't forget to check the Lotus Web Content Support page. If you are trying to find logs or looking for information about how to turn on tracing, look in the information center which can be accessed from the WebSphere Portal and Lotus Web Content Management Product documentation page.


IBM Content Templates Catalog

Following up from my earlier  blog post about the CTC, there's a useful article on the Wiki here:  -

The goal of the IBM Content Templates Catalog (CTC) is to demonstrate the range of modern site designs that can be accomplished on the basis of the IBM portal and content management technologies, and to show how it can be done. To support this goal, the CTC provides three main areas that you can apply directly to your web designs:

1. A catalog area that offers ready to use web building blocks for customer sites. These building blocks realize modern patterns featuring commonly required content types and assets.

2. A jump-start area for rapidly integrating the selected CTC assets into a pre-existing site, or the development of new sites from scratch based on CTC assets; and

3. A sandbox area, which provides a 'playground' for first steps, and experimentation, as well as for easy comparison and selection of alternatives.

The CTC also provides the core technology and the quality assured implementation on which all Toolbox Industry Templates that are available on the market today build their WCM modules. The context of the Industry Templates demonstrates that the CTC core technology can be well integrated into larger web landscapes. But even as a stand-alone offering, the CTC provides unique support for straight forward web site creation.

IBM Redbook - Accelerating Web 2.0 Collaboration within WebSphere Portal 7.0

Just noticed this recently released Redbook ( RedWiki ? ) item -

  • Introduction
  • Functional Benefit
  • Implementing Web 2.0 Services in the Portal
  • Combining Services and Applications to Web 2.0-enabled Portal
  • IBM Accelerators
  • Web 2.0-enabled Themes
  • Live Text and Semantic tagging

Take a look here for more details.

Friday 19 November 2010

Lotus Greenhouse Next - Now using Lotus Web Content Management

My Lotus colleague, Stuart, pointed out that the new Lotus Greenhouse Next site has been updated to use Lotus Web Content Management.

Head over to the Greenhouse Next site to check it out.

Thursday 18 November 2010

Customizing IBM Lotus Domino V8.5.x to auto-zip mail attachments

Lotus Domino is a robust and scalable platform that can be used for the mail messaging requirements of an enterprise. A Domino administrator has different options to choose from when assigning a mail client to the end user; for example, the following types of clients are configurable with the Domino mail server: -

  • IBM Lotus Notes clients
  • IMAP clients, such as Microsoft® Outlook Express
  • POP3 clients
  • Lotus iNotes
  • IBM Lotus Domino Access for Microsoft Outlook clients (last release was 8.0.2)

The default mail template supplied with Lotus Domino can be customized by use of Lotus Domino Designer per the requirements of an organization. This article builds upon this facility, explaining how you can customize the underlying code and design elements to automatically zip attachments, on the fly, in an outbound mail message.

The template used here is version 8.5.1, but the same code will also work on earlier versions, including V7 and V8, though there will be a difference in the line numbers in the script library. This article addresses only the following use cases:
  • Lotus Notes clients
  • Lotus iNotes

Want to know more ?

Then head over to the Wiki and check it out ...

Symphony for the Converted - Mass Convertor : Batch converts MicroSoft Office files into odf format

This plugin will mass convert MS office files into Symphony ODF files. You should verify your converted files are in the format you want. Not all functions are able to convert completely into ODF format. Please verify your files are in the format you need.

Support OS: Windows ,Linux and Mac


Wednesday 17 November 2010

IBM WebSphere Portal and Lotus Web Content Management Version 7.0 Reviewer’s Guide

I downloaded and read this relatively new document from here [PDF] earlier today, as I was looking for a description of the new Web Application Bridge portlet: -

WebSphere Portal Version 7.0 software also introduces the new web application bridge (WAB), providing organizations with enhanced flexibility to integrate existing web applications for security-rich, personalized delivery through their portal solutions.

The WAB provides a proxied web environment that enables presentation of external web content without requiring URL redirection or content introspection.

This new technology is designed to make it easier than ever to integrate existing web applications and dynamically present content through the portal, including Microsoft .NET or Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) applications and existing Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) applications.

Worth a look ....

Tuesday 16 November 2010

IBM Lotus Forms Application Experience Designer Beta

This is your chance to test an exciting new feature of IBM Lotus Forms, The new Application Experience Designer lets you quickly and easily build web applications for data collection. With nothing more than a browser - users can create sophisticated HTML/JavaScript applications that guide users through the steps involved with the data collection process. The design environment provides a simple and straightforward point and click user interface for specify the application, eliminating the need to write code. All application and data definitions are captured automatically as part of the design process and stored for later use in the production environment. This approach allows for rapid application development to with minimal technical skills. Solutions designed with the new Application Experience Designer are agile and easily changed to accommodate changing business requirements. They are also extensible and easily integrated with existing systems like business process management, data bases and other applications.

Benefits of Lotus Forms Application Experience Designer include:

  • Agile, Easy to Use - Allows business to respond without expensive, time consuming development cycles.
  • 100% Standards-Based - Lowers TCO and leverages common IT skills.
  • Highly Performant - Meets the needs of today's customer, partner and citizen facing deployments.
  • Compelling User Experience -Leverages best-of-breed, Web 2.0 technologies (CSS, Dojo, JavaScript.)
  • Integrates Easily - Complements SOA, BPM and other line-of business systems.

Q&A

Q. Do I need to have Lotus Forms to beta test this new feature?

A. No you do not need to have Lotus Forms. This feature beta has been designed to be used independent from Lotus Forms and can be installed by itself

Q. What new applications can I address with the Lotus Forms Application Experience Designer?

A. The new feature complements the traditional Lotus Forms document centric architecture by letting you build highly performant data centric.web applications.

Q. How will the new feature be made available?

A. Current plans are for the Lotus Forms Application Experience Designer to be introduced as part of Lotus Forms in 2011.

Q. What skills do I need to be able to build applications with Lotus Forms Application Experience Designer?

A. A basic understand of Web Applications, is all that is needed. Building applications is entirely point and click inside of a browser.

Q. How sophisticated can the applications be?

A. Users can build comprehensive, highly performant, rich client application experiences that include workflow and integration with other systems.

Do you want to know more ? If so, download the beta from here.

Monday 15 November 2010

Interested in LotusLive ? An IBM Business Partner ? Then take a lookee here ...


LotusLive offers a suite of collaboration capabilities that can bring people and information together quickly and easily across multiple time zones in a secure environment. You can quickly share information with customers that have different systems and skill levels. With LotusLive, you can create a central repository with version control to store and share documents, save time by using online meetings and instant messaging, and have your users share, edit, and access files and presentations by role.

In this workshop, you will learn how to use integrated social networking and online collaboration services provided by LotusLive to help you easily work with your customers. Also, you will learn about security and reliability, how to integrate services into applications, and how to integrate applications into LotusLive itself. With you acting as a user and administrator, hands-on exercises will show you how to achieve results with fewer resources by simplifying and improving interactions with customers.



This is a **FREE** self-study workshop running on December 7, 2010.

Click here for details.

Mmmmmmmmmmm, cookies, I LOVE cookies

Thanks to my pal, Brian, I now know how to identify cookies in Firefox *AND* Internet Explorer, using the "special" URL: -

javascript:alert(document.cookie)

which is rather useful.

I've also been using the View Cookies plugin for Firefox, which is available from Bitstorm.

All in all, mnom mnom

Friday 12 November 2010

Packt Publishing - Discounts on IBM books in November

Apparently, Packt are having a discount month during November on all IBM books: -

During November Packt is celebrating the recent success of its IBM book range with an array of special offers, including:

  •   20% off all Packt IBM print books
  •   25% off if you purchase 3 or more books
  •   30% off all Packt IBM ebooks

Their titles include: -

  • WS-BPEL 2.0 for SOA Composite Applications with IBM WebSphere 7.0
  • IBM Lotus Sametime 8 Essentials: A User's Guide
  • IBM Lotus Notes 8.5 User Guide

For further information, click across to the Packt site.

Hmmm, how did I manage that ? VLC opens instead of Gnome's File Manager ( Nautilus )

Somehow, I managed to conficker Ubuntu 10.10 to always attempt to open a folder in VLC rather than the more conventional Nautlius File Manager.

Not sure how, but I was definitely using VLC to watch Battlestar Galactica: Razor t'other night so it must be pilot error :-)

Anyhow, I fixed it as follows: -

  1. Navigate to the Desktop ( or, to be fair, any other view of a folder hierarchy )
  2. Select a folder with the left-hand mouse button
  3. Right-click ( this is now a verb ! ) on the folder
  4. Choose Open With Other Application
  5. Navigate to File Browser
  6. Expand the Use Custom Command twistie
  7. Verify that the custom command now reads nautilus
  8. Ensure that Remember this application for "folder" files is checked
  9. Click Open

That's it, that's all it takes.

Easy when you know how :-)

To be fair, this  thread on UbuntuForums did help but I had to read and re-read it to be sure, to be sure.

Lotusphere 2011 - 30 January - 3 February

Interested in all that's new in Lotus ? Got some spare time at the end of January ? Fancy somewhere slightly warmer than Western Europe ? Like sunshine ?

If the answer to all of the above is "Oh my Gosh, YES YES YES", then consider a trip to sunny-but-sometimes-cold Orlando and join the Lotus folks at Lotusphere 2011.

This year ( well, next year if you know what I mean ), it's slightly later than before, edging into February, which adds to the excitement.

Want to know more ? If so, check out the new LS11 social aggregator site, or simply visit the official site or follow the trend on Twitter.

Perhaps, if I'm lucky, I'll see you there :-)

Thursday 11 November 2010

File does not exist [/LotusQuickr/LotusQuickr/CreateHaiku.nsf?OpenDatabase]

Hmmm, I was seeing: -

File does not exist

in my browser, when I tried to create a new Quickr place using Lotus Quickr Services for Lotus Domino 8.5 ( this freshly installed onto Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5 ).

The Domino console gave me more detail: -

11/11/2010 05:15:43 PM  -File does not exist [/LotusQuickr/LotusQuickr/CreateHaiku.nsf?OpenDatabase]

When I checked: -

cd /local/notesdata
ls -al /LotusQuickr/LotusQuickr/CreateHaiku.nsf

there's no such directory called LotusQuickr/LotusQuickr *BUT* there is a directory called LotusQuickr/lotusquickr :-)

So, as a quick "hack", I created a symbolic link to fix the problem: -

cd /local/notesdata/LotusQuickr
ln -s  lotusquickr LotusQuickr

Having done this, I can happily create new Quickr places.

The strange thing is ... this worked earlier in the day :-(

Wednesday 10 November 2010

Problems installing Lotus Quickr Services for Lotus Domino 8.5

During an installation of Quickr 8.5 onto Domino 8.5.1 FP3, I saw the following exception:

Processing directory /local/notesdata/domino/html/qphtml/../85010
An unexpected error occured during post-install processing:
The qrdpreview library is missing from the install.
Please contact IBM Technical Support.

Died at (eval 33) line 459.
/tmp/server/tools/lib/NIC.pm line 1031
The installation failed for the local host.

I'd previously seen this exception when I tried to install Quickr onto Domino 8.5.2, which I know is not a supported platform, as per: -

Lotus Quickr 8.5 for Domino System Requirements - Linux

which states: -

Domino Lotus Domino 8.5.1 Fix Pack 3 Interim Fix 2 or later
All Applicable OS Lotus Domino 8.5.1 (32-bit only)

So I have FP3, and am now trying to obtain IF2: -

Domino 8.5.1 Fix Pack 3 Interim Fix 2 (8.5.1 FP3 IF2) - Quickr 8.5 ECM Support

I've subsequently downloaded and installed IF2 which is now included in 851FP3HF434-linux.tar but to no avail.


Tuesday 9 November 2010

Google Search Appliance - Not following the (re)directions

We were seeing a problem where we couldn't access the GSA on port 80 or 443, instead receiving: -

The page isn't redirecting properly

Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete.

    *   This problem can sometimes be caused by disabling or refusing to accept
          cookies.

It turned out to have been a misconfiguration; the GSA was effectively redirecting requests back to itself :-)

Under System Settings, the Default Search URL -> Redirect requests for '/' setting was set to '/'.

Initially, I replaced the '/' with the FQ URL of the default collection and default front-end: -

http://10.65.127.54/search?site=default_collection&client=default_frontend&output=xml_no_dtd&proxystylesheet=default_frontend&proxycustom=%3CHOME/%3E

which worked OK.

I then simply blanked out the value, and again it seems to work.

In both cases, it redirects to the default front-end / collection: -

http://10.65.127.54/search?site=default_collection&client=default_frontend&output=xml_no_dtd&proxystylesheet=default_frontend&proxycustom=%3CHOME/%3E

The thing that drew me to this was that the HTTPFox plugin threw up a (NS_ERROR_REDIRECT_LOOP) exception after a number of HTTP 302 redirections

IBM Lotus Connections 3.0 Reviewer's Guide

This Reviewer's Guide provides an extensive overview of the latest version of IBM’s social software, Lotus Connections 3.0, and its nine applications: Home, Profiles, Activities, Blogs, Bookmarks, Communities, Files, Forums, and Wikis. In addition, this guide explains how to extend the features and functions of Lotus Connections to your existing applications.

  • Introduction
  • Lotus Connections 3.0 applications overview
  • Profiles
  • Communities
  • Forums - New!
  • Files
  • Wikis
  • Blogs
  • Bookmarks
  • Activities
  • Home Page
  • Mobile
  • Extending Lotus Connections to other applications
  • Moderation
  • Compliance
  • Conclusion
  • Resources

Monday 8 November 2010

More on Lotus Connections 3.0 - is it cool, or what ?

And .... there's more

Lotus Connections 3.0 Demo (YouTube)
Lotus Connections homepage
Lotus social collaboration platform homepage
CEMEX Client video story (YouTube)
Lotus Knows blog post

As well as the Connections 3.0 beta on Greenhouse here.

*UPDATE* Link to LC demo on YouTube updated to new link

Also, there's a Twitter search here for all LC3-related content.

IBM Lotus Connections 3.0 provides social software for building professional networks and customer communities

W00t, Lotus Connections 3.0 has been announced today, with Electronic General Availability (EGA) due on November 24.

Here's the Announcement Letter

  • IBM® Lotus® Connections 3.0 is designed to help you:

  • Exchange ideas with, and benefit from, the expertise of other people using the new Forums application
  • Expand your professional network through social analytics based recommendations for people to connect with, and communities to join
  • Build vibrant communities that encourage participation with sub-communities focused on key topics of interest to the members
  • Access profile information, search for expertise, and view status more quickly with an enhanced page navigation
  • Stay informed of the latest updates from across your social network with new notification capabilities
  • Access your social data while on the go using an expanded choice of mobile device support

Friday 5 November 2010

Sorted - VMware Workstation 7.1.2 build-301548 failing to fully configure on Ubuntu Linux 10.10 Maverick Meerkat

Over the past few days, I'd noticed that, whenever I started VMware Workstation, I was prompted to recompile it's underlying modules to fit with my kernel - 2.6.35-23-generic-pae #36-Ubuntu SMP

Normally, this occurs once after an update, and then it "sticks" until the next kernel upgrade.

However, this was repeating, which was a bit annoying.

By running the vmware command within a terminal window, rather than via the Gnome launcher, I also got to see more errors: -

Starting VMware services:
   VMware USB Arbitrator                                               done
   Virtual machine monitor                                             done
   Virtual machine communication interface                             done
   VM communication interface socket family                            failed
   Blocking file system                                                done
   Virtual ethernet                                                    done
   Shared Memory Available                                             done

and: -

make: *** [vsock.ko] Error 2

Well, I'm happy to report that, after a spot of Googling, I found the solution on this rather useful little website: -

Debian/Ubuntu Tips & Tricks

and, more specifically, this article: -

How-To: WMware Workstation 7.1 on Ubuntu Maverick Meerkat 10.10

which pointed out the the vmci module is the guilty party.

In essence, I needed to download a patch and then extract and execute it: -

tar -xzvf vmware-7.1-ubuntu10.10-patch.tar.gz
cd vmware-7.1-ubuntu10.10-patch
sudo ./apply_patch.sh

Having done this, running the vmware command ran through the recompilation as normal, resulting in this: -

Starting VMware services:
   VMware USB Arbitrator                                               done
   Virtual machine monitor                                             done
   Virtual machine communication interface                             done
   VM communication interface socket family                            done
   Blocking file system                                                done
   Virtual ethernet                                                    done
   Shared Memory Available                                             done

Excellent job :-)

Thursday 4 November 2010

Lotus Notes *IS* Cool - as it's now supported on Ubuntu Linux

W00t, I knew that, if I waited long enough, the world would come around to my way of thinking.

According to this flash on developerWorks,  Ubuntu Linux 10.04 is now a supported platform for Lotus Notes 8.5.2.

To quote the flash: -

The technote linked below has been updated to reflect that Ubuntu 10.04 LTS is now an officially supported platform for Notes 8.5.2.  It also notes the exception that if using the Sametime 8.5.1 add-on installer to upgrade the embedded version of Sametime in Notes 8.5.2, you should be aware that the Instant Share functionality of Sametime 8.5.1 Advanced is currently not supported on this platform.  

Technote #7019218 - IBM Lotus Notes 8.5.2 System Requirements - Linux

So, what are you waiting for - let's go Linux :-)

Looking for Lotus Wikis ? Look no further than here

Joyce Davis has shared this new consolidated page for all of the Lotus product wikis: -

    * IBM accelerators
    * IBM Composite Apps
    * IBM Mashup Center Includes product documentation
    * Lotus ActiveInsight
    * Lotus Connections
    * Lotus Domino
    * Lotus Domino Designer
    * Lotus Expeditor Includes product documentation
    * Lotus Forms
    * Lotus Foundations Includes product documentation
    * Lotus iNotes
    * Lotus Instructor Community Courseware
    * LotusLive
    * LotusLive iNotes
    * LotusLive Meetings & Events
    * Lotus Mobile Connect
    * Lotus Notes
    * Lotus Notes and Domino Application Development
    * Lotus Notes Traveler Includes product documentation
    * Lotus Protector
    * Lotus Quickr Includes product documentation
    * Lotus Sametime
    * Lotus Symphony Includes product documentation
    * Lotus Web Content Management Includes product documentation
    * Lotus Widget Factory
    * Lotus Workforce Management
    * WebSphere Dashboard Framework
    * WebSphere Portal Includes product documentation
    * WebSphere Portal Express Includes product documentation
    * WebSphere Portlet Factory Includes product documentation

Want a wiki ? Go there, go there now :-)

Tuesday 2 November 2010

Yet more WebSphere Portlet Factory training resources

To add to my earlier post, there is also this most excellent course: WPC52 IBM WebSphere Portlet Factory 7.0: Application Development which is also available in-person or online, both in public and on a per-customer basis.

The next iteration of this course runs during the week commencing November 15.

Here are some other useful links from our friends at Davalan.

Portal Development with Portlet Factory
Portal Development
Portlet Factory on Twitter

Lotus Notes - it's cool, pass it on

One of my Lotus friends, Darren Adams, has just announced a new website, NotesIsCool.com, which is definitely worth a look.

If you're wondering what's been happening with Notes in the past few years and, perhaps, haven't been in a position to upgrade past version 7, then I definitely recommend that you take a look.

There's a lot of good stuff there already on Day 0, including such tempting tasty topics such as: -

  • Adding a web search engine to the search bar
  • Drag a message into an EML file
  • E-mail conversations
  • Calendar overlays

with the promise of more to come.

If Doctor Who can make bowties cool, then try wearing a bowtie when you use Notes.

WebSphere Portlet Factory v7 - Training

Here are three new online courses for WPF that include the most recent version 7 product: -

IBM WebSphere Portlet Factory 7: Technical Fundamentals

This instructor-led workshop developed by Streebo Inc. is designed for developers, technical leads, technical managers and architects who have little or no background in IBM WebSphere Portlet Factory.

IBM WebSphere Portlet Factory 7: Advance Topics and Concepts

This instructor-led training by Streebo Inc. is an advance level course that is targeted towards you with who have existing knowledge of Portlet Factory and its function and builders.

Exploring new features in IBM Websphere Portlet Factory 7.0

This is a 1-day update course on WebSphere Portlet Factory 7 developed by Streebo Inc. is targeted towards you who have prior experience/ training of working with previous versions of Portlet Factory. You are introduced to the new features and functions of the WebSphere Portlet Factory 7.

Whether you take one or all, you'll pick up some useful skills: -

  • Provide exceptional web experience for users with new v7.0 features
  • Building Rich Internet Applications (RIA) with the Latest Dojo builders & AJAX Builders
  • Leverage automated construction of Smart Portlet applications to support multitouch devices like iPhone, iPad and Android tablets, etc
  • Automating portlet patterns for maximum reuse and return on investment
  • Portlet Integration with databases & legacy systems etc.

Interested ? Well, go and visit the links for more information.

Monday 1 November 2010

Lotus Symphony 3.0 - Navigating on Mac OSX 10.6.3

One of my Australian friends asked how she could navigate the "presentation editor" within the Presentations component of Symphony.

By Presentation Editor, I'm referring to the default middle pane of the screen, rather than the Slide Sorter (LHS) or Properties Panel (RHS).

So, for me, the trick is to navigate between "slides" as follows: -

[fn] + [left arrow]              Beginning
[fn] + [right arrow]             End
[fn] + [up arrow] Up e.g. slide 7 -> slide 1
[fn] + [down arrow]              Down e.g. slide 1 -> slide 7

This is on a fresh installation of OSX 10.6.3 ( plus fixes ) where I've made no changes to the default keyboard layout.

This is also using the GA, rather than beta, version of Symphony.

Visual Studio Code - Wow 🙀

Why did I not know that I can merely hit [cmd] [p]  to bring up a search box allowing me to search my project e.g. a repo cloned from GitHub...