IBM Social Connections II - Cardiff ( Wales ) - Friday 9 December 2011

This from Stuart

Social Connections 2 will take place on 9th December, 2011. It will be a one-day event with a formal agenda running from 9am to 6pm, with an informal social gathering scheduled for the evening.

Cardiff University have graciously offered to host the event. They have a wonderful conference facility known as the Glamorgan Building, formerly the offices of the Glamorgan County Council, which is just a 10 minute walk from the city centre and railway station. The building is splendid, and the rooms we will be using have many of their original features including oak-panelling, oil-paintings and more - an anonymous hotel this is not!

For more details AND, most importantly, registration, please go here here here

Hope to see you there ...

IBM Web Experience Factory - Some good stuff ...

This sadly misleading title doesn't really say it all: -

Building CRUD applications with Web Experience Factory 

Mind you, entitling an article "Building Create/Read/Update/Delete applications with Web Experience Factory" would be equally illuminating :-)

Creating a Multi-Page Input Form using Web Experience Factory

Finally, I also note that: -

IBM Web Experience Factory Version 7.0.1.1 (fix pack 1 for 7.0.1)

was released earlier in the month, with a few useful defects resolved: -

• Ref 43104  SAP Function Call - Execution Password Not Updated for Portlet

•  Ref 43784  Schema reader bug causes Xerces to throw "Content is not allowed in trailing section." when parsing a schema file

•  Ref 43825  DesignerWarClassLoader attempts to define bad class when reading .class files from WEB-INF/classes

•  Ref 44256  Style properties view does not work when the Item is selected from the available items or all named items in the application tree

•  Ref 44421  Lotus Web Content Management Authoring builder: link components can link to library components

•  Ref 44483  Renaming files from copied folders causes corruption of all the models that use the original file

•  Ref 44889  Add back SAPAccess.setProperties() to allow users to switch the destination properties at runtime

so that's definitely worth a download, and it's only 150 MB :-)

IBM Lotus Notes on an Apple Macintosh ...

I keep looking for these two items, so thought that this'd be a good place to "stick" them: -

Keyboard shortcut and file location differences for Lotus Notes for Macintosh

https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21415768

Where is the Notes.ini file located on the Macintosh?

https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21090921

Useful ...

Interesting quirk when forwarding HTML emails from Lotus Notes 8.5.X

This from one of our my UK customers: -

Notes R8.5.x will crash when forwarding an HTML format e-mail that refers to images on remote web servers, IF your Notes client's proxy settings are enforced by a policy AAAAND the list of proxy exceptions on the Desktop Settings policy document in the Domino Directory uses semi-colons to separate the hosts (like Internet Explorer does): The proxy exception list must be separated with commas.

So, in summary, use commas (,) rather than semi-colons (;) to separate hosts in the Lotus Domino proxy exception list.

Will see if I can find an IBM Technote and update this ….

Jonathan Halman and IBM Connections 3.0.1 Upgrades

Some good stuff here from that young Mr Halman - if you want to know more about the potential challenges of upgrading IBM Connections to 3.0.1 on Linux using a non-root user, this is the place to go, and the thing to read.

Knowing Jonathan, there's more of the sweet stuff to come.

Nice one, son :-)

Clustering IBM Lotus Quickr 8.5 for WebSphere Portal: An end-to-end guide

A great find from Keith via the power of Skype and Twitter

This guide describes the comprehensive, step-by-step procedure for installing, configuring, and building an IBM® Lotus® Quickr® 8.5 for WebSphere® Portal cluster.

In this white paper

• Introduction
• Installing and configuring the Deployment Manager
• Installing the primary WebSphere Portal node
• Configuring the primary node to remote database
• Installing the secondary WebSphere Portal node
• Configuring security on the clustered Quickr environment
• Configuring IBM HTTP Web Server for a clustered environment
• Troubleshooting
• Conclusion
• Resources
• About the authors

Cheers, Keith, good catch….

WebSphere Portal Upgrades - Learn the Lessons

This is rather timely advice for anyone about to start an upgrade of their WebSphere Portal environment.

IBM WebSphere Portal upgrades can be a very cumbersome undertaking. This document is meant to provide a basic set of what to do and what not to do when performing Portal upgrades.

Failure to observe these points, particularly in the 'What NOT to do' section can result in an unusable system and often results in complete reinstalls.

Have a wee look at the Technote, and learn from others.

Methods for rendering IBM Web Content Manager search results in IBM WebSphere Portal

File this in the useful-but-not-right-now category: -

There are four different ways to render your IBM® Web Content Manager (hereafter called "WCM") search results in an IBM WebSphere Portal 6.0.x/6.1.x/7.0.x page by using the Web Content Viewer portlets; specifically:

• Search Center portlet

• Search and Browse portlet

• WCM search component

• Using the Search and Index APIs (SIAPI) to build a custom search port let.

This article explains rendering results from the first three options, using the legacy Web Content Viewer and the Web Content Viewer 286 portlets. Custom search portlets are not covered.

IBM Connections - Your product needs YOU

Do you use IBM Connections ? Do you ever wish it was different, or had features that you'd dearly love to see ?

If so, now's your chance - the team are looking for YOUR feedback, via this Ideation blog.

Here's some of the ideas under consideration: -

• Do you want to see folders within a Community
• The ability to mention someone in a status update and show this in their activity stream / River of news (by a @usename)
• When I comment on an idea, allow me to upload an image…….
• "Mail Community" should be a configurable option by Community Owners

and my personal favourite: -

• Native support for IBM i

Go on, get in, you KNOW you want to :-)

IBM Sametime 8.5.2 - From Zero to Hero

Some excellent work from two of my IBM colleagues, Frank Altenburg and Volker Juergensen, available in a variety of places: -

IBM Sametime wiki

Slideshare

IBM Connections on ibm.com

so you really have no excuse for not downloading it, and having a wee play.

Enjoy :-)

IBM Connections - Checking it out ...

Last week, I hit a problem that I'd previously seen, and blogged about, earlier this year.

I was trying to update one of the IBM Connections configuration artefacts ( the Files configuration ), using these commands: -

$ /opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/profiles/Dmgr01/bin//wsadmin.sh -lang jython -user wasadmin -password *********

wsadmin> execfile("/opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/profiles/Dmgr01/config/bin_lc_admin/filesAdmin.py")

in order to complete the Kerberos/SPNEGO configuration, and hit this error: -

WASX7015E: Exception running command: "execfile("/opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/profiles/Dmgr01/config/bin_lc_admin/filesAdmin.py")"; exception information:
com.ibm.bsf.BSFException: exception from Jython:
Traceback (innermost last):
File "", line 1, in ?
File "/opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/profiles/Dmgr01/config/bin_lc_admin/filesAdmin.py", line 14, in ?
ImportError: no module named lotusConnectionsCommonAdmin

I'd referenced Mr Halman's blog here,  and yet I was still seeing the same issue.

Having talked it back and forth with Jon and his colleague, Brian, I eventually realised where *I* was going wrong.

I was executing wsadmin.sh whilst NOT being in the directory where it's located e.g. /opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/profiles/Dmgr01/bin.

In other words, it was a path error - it looks like wsadmin was trying to source something that filesAdmin.py needs, and was starting from the wrong place, EVEN though I'd explicitly specified the path to filesAdmin.py.

To my simple mind, this is perhaps sloppy coding e.g. using a relative rather than an absolute path, but c'est la vie.

So, the solution was simples - run the command as follows: -

$ cd /opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/profiles/Dmgr01/bin 

$ ./wsadmin.sh -lang jython -user wasadmin -password ********* 
wsadmin> execfile("/opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/profiles/Dmgr01/config/bin_lc_admin/filesAdmin.py")

so I could then go on and do this: -

wsadmin> FilesConfigService.checkOutConfig("/home/wasadmin",AdminControl.getCell())

Thanks to Jon and Brian for their support and assistance …..

IBM Connections 3.0.1 and IBM Tivoli Directory Integrator 7.0.0.0 - Not playing nicely ...

The title of this post is a plot spoiler as it gives away the solution to the problem that we saw earlier today.

This is with a newly minted IBM Connections 3.0.1 server, where we're using IBM Tivoli Directory Integrator to populate the Profiles database from Microsoft Active Directory 2003.

We're testing with a single user, added into the collect.dns file within the /opt/IBM/TDI/V7.0/tdissol/TDI directory, so we only wanted to run the Assembly Line that pushes users into Profiles (./populate_from_dn_file.sh ).

However, when we ran this script, we saw this exception in the ibmdi.log: -

...

2011-08-11 12:14:58,041 INFO  [TDISOL30] - CTGDIS116I Scripting hook of type prolog0 finished.

2011-08-11 12:14:58,049 ERROR [com.ibm.di.config.interfaces.MetamergeConfigCFG] - CTGDKE225E The evaluation of parameter assemblyLine in Functions/SourceRepositoryLookupFC using expression '{javascript ret.value = lcConf.source_repository_lookup_assemblyline;}' caused an error.
com.ibm.jscript.InterpretException: Script interpreter error, line=2, col=12: Unknown member 'value' in Java class 'com.ibm.di.util.ParameterSubstitution$Parameter'
at com.ibm.jscript.types.JavaAccessObject.put(JavaAccessObject.java:832)
at com.ibm.jscript.types.FBSReferenceByName.putValue(FBSReferenceByName.java:87)
at com.ibm.jscript.ASTTree.ASTAssign.interpret(ASTAssign.java:94)
at com.ibm.jscript.std.FunctionObject._executeFunction(FunctionObject.java:230)
at com.ibm.jscript.std.FunctionObject.executeFunction(FunctionObject.java:162)
at com.ibm.jscript.std.FunctionObject.call(FunctionObject.java:148)
at com.ibm.di.script.ScriptEngine.call(ScriptEngine.java:456)
at com.ibm.di.util.ParameterSubstitution$Parameter.expand(ParameterSubstitution.java:476)
at com.ibm.di.util.ParameterSubstitution.buildArgumentList(ParameterSubstitution.java:377)
at com.ibm.di.util.ParameterSubstitution.substitute(ParameterSubstitution.java:176)
at com.ibm.di.util.ParameterSubstitution.substitute(ParameterSubstitution.java:231)
at com.ibm.di.config.base.BaseConfigurationImpl.expandPropertyValue(BaseConfigurationImpl.java:1090)
at com.ibm.di.config.base.BaseConfigurationImpl.getParameter(BaseConfigurationImpl.java:871)
at com.ibm.di.config.base.BaseConfigurationImpl.getParameter(BaseConfigurationImpl.java:842)
at com.ibm.di.config.base.BaseConfigurationImpl.getParameter(BaseConfigurationImpl.java:875)
at com.ibm.di.config.base.BaseConfigurationImpl.getParameter(BaseConfigurationImpl.java:842)
at com.ibm.di.config.base.BaseConfigurationImpl.getParameter(BaseConfigurationImpl.java:875)
at com.ibm.di.config.base.BaseConfigurationImpl.getParameter(BaseConfigurationImpl.java:842)
at com.ibm.di.config.base.BaseConfigurationImpl.getParameter(BaseConfigurationImpl.java:875)
at com.ibm.di.config.base.BaseConfigurationImpl.getParameter(BaseConfigurationImpl.java:842)
at com.ibm.di.fc.Function.getParam(Function.java:153)
at com.ibm.di.fc.AssemblyLineFC.getTCB(AssemblyLineFC.java:484)
at com.ibm.di.fc.AssemblyLineFC.startInstance(AssemblyLineFC.java:644)
at com.ibm.di.fc.AssemblyLineFC.initialize(AssemblyLineFC.java:552)
at com.ibm.di.server.FunctionComponent.doInitialize(FunctionComponent.java:164)
at com.ibm.di.server.FunctionComponent.initialize(FunctionComponent.java:138)
at com.ibm.di.server.AssemblyLine.initConnectors(AssemblyLine.java:1916)
at com.ibm.di.server.AssemblyLine.msInitConn(AssemblyLine.java:3422)
at com.ibm.di.server.AssemblyLine.executeMainStep(AssemblyLine.java:3239)
at com.ibm.di.server.AssemblyLine.executeMainLoop(AssemblyLine.java:2888)
at com.ibm.di.server.AssemblyLine.executeMainLoop(AssemblyLine.java:2871)
at com.ibm.di.server.AssemblyLine.executeAL(AssemblyLine.java:2838)
at com.ibm.di.server.AssemblyLine.run(AssemblyLine.java:1274)
2011-08-11 12:14:58,049 ERROR [TDISOL30] - CTGDIS266E Error in InitConnectors. Exception occurred: java.lang.ClassCastException: com.ibm.jscript.InterpretException incompatible with java.lang.String 
java.lang.ClassCastException: com.ibm.jscript.InterpretException incompatible with java.lang.String
at com.ibm.di.fc.AssemblyLineFC.getTCB(AssemblyLineFC.java:484)
at com.ibm.di.fc.AssemblyLineFC.startInstance(AssemblyLineFC.java:644)
at com.ibm.di.fc.AssemblyLineFC.initialize(AssemblyLineFC.java:552)
at com.ibm.di.server.FunctionComponent.doInitialize(FunctionComponent.java:164)
at com.ibm.di.server.FunctionComponent.initialize(FunctionComponent.java:138)
at com.ibm.di.server.AssemblyLine.initConnectors(AssemblyLine.java:1916)
at com.ibm.di.server.AssemblyLine.msInitConn(AssemblyLine.java:3422)
at com.ibm.di.server.AssemblyLine.executeMainStep(AssemblyLine.java:3239)
at com.ibm.di.server.AssemblyLine.executeMainLoop(AssemblyLine.java:2888)
at com.ibm.di.server.AssemblyLine.executeMainLoop(AssemblyLine.java:2871)
at com.ibm.di.server.AssemblyLine.executeAL(AssemblyLine.java:2838)
at com.ibm.di.server.AssemblyLine.run(AssemblyLine.java:1274)
2011-08-11 12:14:58,052 INFO  [TDISOL30] - CLFRN0027I: After iteration, success records is 0, duplicate records 0, failure records is 0, last successful entry is null
2011-08-11 12:14:58,054 INFO  [TDISOL30] - CTGDIS100I Printing the Connector statistics.
2011-08-11 12:14:58,055 INFO  [TDISOL30] -  [iterate_over_dns] Not used
2011-08-11 12:14:58,055 INFO  [TDISOL30] -  [PopFromDns_lookup_dn] Errors:1
2011-08-11 12:14:58,055 INFO  [TDISOL30] -  [callSyncDB_mod] Not used
2011-08-11 12:14:58,055 INFO  [TDISOL30] - CTGDIS104I Total: Errors:2.
2011-08-11 12:14:58,055 INFO  [TDISOL30] - CTGDIS101I Finished printing the Connector statistics.
2011-08-11 12:14:58,055 ERROR [TDISOL30] - CTGDIS077I Failed with error: com.ibm.jscript.InterpretException incompatible with java.lang.String.
2011-08-11 12:14:58,055 ERROR [TDISOL30] - CTGDIS078I AssemblyLine AssemblyLines/populate_from_dns_file failed with error: com.ibm.jscript.InterpretException incompatible with java.lang.String.
2011-08-11 12:14:59,618 INFO  [TDISOL30] - CTGDIS037I Server terminates because only main thread is left.
2011-08-11 12:14:59,618 INFO  [TDISOL30] - CTGDIS174I Config Instance TDISOL30 exited with status 0.
2011-08-11 12:14:59,618 INFO  [server] - CTGDIS228I Unregister server: TDISOL30.
2011-08-11 12:14:59,620 INFO  [server] - CTGDIS627I IBM Tivoli Directory Integrator Shutdown.

... 

As you can imagine, this was causing a little frustration - we tried all the usual tricks, including turning off and on again …..

The solution ?

As per the title of this post, for some reason, we'd forgotten to apply the 7.0.0.5 fix pack to IBM Tivoli Directory Integrator.

This was confirmed by the command: -

$  /opt/IBM/TDI/V7.0/bin/applyUpdates.sh

which returned: -

...
Information from .registry file in: /opt/IBM/TDI/V7.0
Edition: Identity
Level: 7.0.0.0
License: None

Fixes Applied
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
None

..

Once we correctly applied the update, the same queryreg command returned: -

…

Information from .registry file in: /opt/IBM/TDI/V7.0
Edition: Identity
Level: 7.0.0.5
License: None

Fixes Applied
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
TDI-7.0-FP0005 (7.0.0.0)

…

The moral of the story ? Read my own blog post and then read it again … and again … and again ….

IBM Lotus Quickr Library Widgets for IBM Connections 3.0.1

Luis Benitez mentioned this earlier in the Quickr Skype Community ( ping me for details ).

The IBM Lotus Quickr Library Widgets for IBM Connections 3.0.1 provides the following features:

• A "Linked Quickr Library" widget surfaces an existing Lotus Quickr library. Members of the community can read and manage library documents based on their roles in the Lotus Quickr place that contains the library. An administrator or user with a Manager role in the place must add community members as place members before the members can access the library. Membership changes are not synchronized between the community and place, an administrator must update both.

• A "Quickr Library" widget creates a new Lotus Quickr place with a library, and surfaces that library in the community. When the place is created, community members are synchronized to Lotus Quickr and made place members. Any membership changes in the community are synchronized to the place. But membership changes in the place are not synchronized to the community. For example, if you add a member to the community, that change is synchronized and they are added to the place. But adding a user to the place will not add them to the community. When the community is deleted, the place and library are deleted.

 

The Widgets are in the Greenhouse here.

IBM WebSphere Portal and Web Content Manager - Sneak Peak of a New UI Design

Thanks to a Tweet from Raul Munoz, I popped over to the Australia Development Lab ( sadly only virtually, not in person ) to pick up on an update from John James, showing a preview of a new UX design that the team are working on: -

There's much more detail, including a nice 5-minute video, here in the Greenhouse.

IBM Connections on the Apple iOS devices ( should that be iConnections now ? )

W00t, anyone with an iShiny mobile device ( iPhone, iPad or, iGuess, an iTouch ) should know about this.

The IBM Connections app for iOS devices is now available in iTunes for free download.

IBM Connections is social software for business. It enables you to build a network of colleagues and subject matter experts, and then leverage that network to further your business goals. With its integrated suite of tools, you can share and discuss ideas, work collaboratively on presentations or proposals, plan and track project tasks, and much more. IBM Connections is a web application that is deployed on a company intranet to promote collaboration within the company. The IBM Connections mobile application extends access to company data to employees who are on the go. 

Use the mobile application to perform common IBM Connections tasks with a minimal number of steps. If IBM Connections is deployed in your company, you can download this application and log in using the same credentials as always. (The server must be running version 3.0.1 plus the July 2011 mobile update or higher and the mobile application must be installed on it. Check with your IT administrator if you aren't sure.) If you do not have IBM Connections deployed in your company, but want to try it out, log into a deployment hosted on Lotus Greenhouse, which is an IBM product trial site. Just register with Lotus Greenhouse to create a user name and password. Download the application, and when prompted for the Connections server URL to connect to, specify https://greenhouse.lotus.com/mobile.  Use the credentials that were created when you registered to log in. 

Go here for the link and get going …

PS Thanks to @CuriousMitch for the link to the Mobile Update

IBM Collaboration QuickStart for Social Business

Saw this on my "River of News" this morning, whilst browsing IBM Connections.

Welcome to IBM Collaboration QuickStart for Social Business on the IBM SmartCloud Enterprise - your instant access to three leading products in social software - IBM Connections, IBM Lotus Domino, and IBM Sametime.

Designed for ease of use and minimal administration, this IBM SmartCloud image is preinstalled with 85 user profiles, including names, email addresses, user photos, and more. The goal is to get you up and working quickly without any installation, hardware, or maintenance. All you need is access to the system and some time to start seeing the benefits of a truly social business.

 You can use the image for: 

Profiles. Quickly find the people and expertise you need.
Activities. Organize your work and tap your professional network.
Files. Post, share, and discover documents, presentations, images, and more.
Communities. Work with people who share common interests and expertise.
Blogs. Present your ideas in weblogs and get feedback from others.
Bookmarks. Save, organize, and share bookmarks.
Wikis. Create web content together.
Chat. Locate and instantly connect with others via presence awareness, business cards, and instant messaging.
Mail. Manage your inbox with full-text search, delegation, mail filtering and sorting, conversation views, and flags.

Social businesses are more successful because they focus on the energy, creativity, and decision making of their people. People can find what they need more quickly, solve problems faster, and discover valuable expertise and information in ways they were not even expecting. 

Looks good, looks very very good :-)

Are you DB2LOOKing at me ?

One of my friends pointed out an easy way to extract the underlying design etc. of a DB2 database schema.

I'd previously suggested that he use db2 describe select * from … but he rightly pointed out that db2look is far more useful.

As an example, this is the command as used for a Property Extension database underlying WebSphere Portal v7

$ db2look -d PROPEXT -e -t LABLOBPROP  > /tmp/petables/LABLOBPROP.txt

For further information on DB2LOOK, check out the Information Centre here: -

db2look - DB2 statistics and DDL extraction tool command

LotusLive Symphony - Presenting Itself Nicely

Following my earlier post, I noticed this from Ed Brill 

The third tech preview for LotusLive Symphony is now out on Lotus Greenhouse. The new update provides presentations support in addition to documents and spreadsheets. As we have been demonstrating with the previous tech preview releases, our focus in LotusLive Symphony is on collaborative documents, including real-time co-editing, tasks and assignments, sectioning, and versioning. 

For those involved with Greenhouse, please check out the new tech preview and let us know what you think.

Want to have a play ? Then go here and enjoy

IBM Connections - Widgets A-Wonder ...

One of my ISSL chums alerted me to this - it's definitely worth a look ...

Modify Reporting Chain Widget

The reporting chain is very powerful concept within Lotus Connections, the issue with it can be that the organizational view of the structure can be either dated or non-existant. Until now, organizations have been forced to do without this important component of Lotus Connections if they didn't have an accurate structure.

JustNudge Software has released a widget that allows for the organizational reporting chain to be modified from within the application itself using a bottom up approach – that is where a person selects their manager. This allows the structure to be developed organically without the need for a large IT project to update the structure if it doesn't exist accurately at the moment, thereby making Lotus Connections implementations just that little bit easier.

Updating your reporting structure is as easy as navigating to your manager and clicking a button!

Alternate Reporting Chain Widget

IBM Connections assumes a single reporting line, but in many organisations there can be multiple reporting lines that need to be captured in a user's profile. This widget allows for the population of multiple reporting lines and displays this information on the user's profile.

The widget is simple to use and can be modified either "top-down" – where a manager chooses profiles that report to them, or "bottom-up" – where a person chooses their alternate manager. This is done by finding the appropriate profile and selecting the button in the widget:

Profile Progress

A good IBM Connections installation is dependent on a well populated profile and a vibrant profile community. A well populated user profile allows people to find and collaborate with people more quickly and easily.

Our profile progress widget provides visual feedback and tips to help the user populate their profile using a visual feedback mechanism similar to that provided on LinkedIn. This feedback allows the system to be populated according to the requirements of your organisation, for example, if there is a particular field within the profile that is valuable from an organisation perspective then the profile weighting can be adjusted to both advise and reward the user to populate that field.

IBM's Louis Richardson talks about "3 keys to consider for social business"

Thanks to Jon Mell for drawing my attention to this on YouTube

As you look at vendors and solutions to help you become a social business, there are some specific areas you should consider. We've listed 3 that we've seen as we've worked with companies around the globe.

Enjoy