IBM WCM Offers New Content Authoring Homepage

I saw this on Michael Porter's ( @Perficient ) blog earlier today

By far one of the biggest complaints I hear from clients is how hard it is to author and manage content.  There's so much you can do to improve the authoring experience but it all starts with what the vendor provides.  Last month, IBM release a new content authoring homepage to the Solutions Catalog.  For anyone using IBM WCM v 7.x, it's worth downloading.  You can also watch a video of the homepage in action.  Here's my favorite aspects:

• Thew new authoring homepage actually looks nice

• It takes out a lot of 'busy" UI that's not needed for pure authoring

• Through some configuration, it allows you to define which content templates should be available to which authors.  That makes the authoring UI even more useful

The full post is here - nice one, Michael.

Just published: Customizing IBM Connections 3.0.1

Saw this on the Connections Blog @CollaborationMatters this morning

IBM Lotus and IBM Redbooks publications have partnered to create wiki content that explains how to customize, develop, and extend IBM Connections 3.0.1. You can customize IBM Connections to fit your corporate branding and social media needs. This Lotus Redbooks wiki provides examples of how to customize the overall user interface, as well as blogs, communities, and profiles. This wiki also includes information about populating the IBM Connections Profiles database using Tivoli Directory Integrator, and using the IBM Connections API to accomplish goals, such as retrieving a person's profile. The intended audience for this wiki includes IBM Connections administrators, web developers, and others who are interested in the specific details of customizing and developing IBM Connections 3.0.1.

n this wiki, we discuss the following topics:

• General customization process

• Customizing the Home page

• Customizing strings

• Customizing blogs

• Tivoli Directory Integrator

• Customizing the Profiles and Communities business cards

• Customizing communities

• Using the API

• IBM Web Experience Factory

• IBM Mashup Center

• Microsoft Outlook Connector

The Redbook is here.

Kudos to ISW - Kudos Badges for IBM Connections

Saw this on Adam Brown's blog this morning

Announcing Kudos Badges for IBM Connections!

Kudos Badges for IBM Connections is a flexible gamification engine for IBM Connections. By providing achievements and rewards (Kudos Badges), rank and leaderboards (Kudos Rank), and missions (Kudos Missions), organisations can dramatically improve their user engagement and adoption of IBM Connections.

In addition Kudos Badges is an extensible platform that can leverage game theory to provide performance management mechanics and reward systems for applications outside of IBM Connections such as HR, Sales Force Management, Help Desks, and many more.

I reckon that @DarrenDuke had a subconscious hand in the naming of the solution, as he's the King of Kudos ( at least on @ThisWeekInLouts )

Mobile web - Fortified with XPages and Dojo

I saw this on Twitter, thanks to fellow IBMer, Vincent Perrin

 Social application developers are continually challenged to deliver applications that provide exceptional work experiences, yet do it in a timely and cost effective manner. Not only does the application experience need to be exceptional, but it needs to be available from a mobile device, web browser or desktop client. Developers need an application development platform that allow them to meet those objectives. With today's release of Lotus Notes and Domino Upgrade Pack 1, meeting those objectives became even easier.

Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.3 Upgrade Pack 1 provides a rich set of assets for building desktop and mobile web applications as well as including two social application templates. Upgrade Pack 1 contains the following:

• Domino XPages Extension Library

• Includes new set of mobile specific XPages controls and other assets

• Updated templates built with controls in Extension Library

• TeamRoom: XPages UI including mobile access

• Discussion: new mobile access

• Domino Access Services: New set of JSON based REST services for accessing Domino data

Here's Pete Janzen's article in full on developerWorks - Mobile web - Fortified with XPages and Dojo

I've also blogged about XPages previously: -

Download Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.3 Upgrade Pack 1 - XPages goes mobile ….

It's so easy to access IBM Connections from XPages

Introduction to IBM Lotus Domino 8.5 XPages - Available on OpenCourseWare on the IBM Lotus Greenhouse

Chat with IBMers from an external Sametime Client

Saw this on Twitter from ex-IBMer ( as of today !! ) Robert Farstad 

 When switching jobs from beeing an IBM'er to becoming a business partner, I knew about the possibility to use an external sametime client to chat with internal IBM'ers. So I googled a bit and came up with this page:

Chris Pepin has written about this in the past here and here, as has Adam Gartenberg, but Robert's post brings things nicely up-to-date.

Nice one, Robert (-:

IBM WebSphere Application Server - Support for 32-bit and 64-bit application servers

This goes into the "I did not know that" category ….

IBM WebSphere Application Server supports both 32-bit and 64-bit application servers in the same cluster that are managed by either a 32-bit or 64-bit deployment manager. This scenario applies to both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of WebSphere Application Server on 64-bit operating system kernels and to 32-bit versions of WebSphere Application Server on 32-bit operating system kernels.

It is recommended that you confirm that you are using the latest service levels of the operating system and WebSphere Application Server when you are using both 32-bit and 64-bit application servers in your environment.

as indicated by this Technote - Support for 32-bit and 64-bit application servers

WebSphere Application Server - 64-bits and no buts

( with apologies to IBM for re-using the excellent AS/400 CISC -> RISC marketing slogan from 1994 )

I saw this via Twitter and thought it worthy of sharing here as well

As more organizations move to 64-bit IBM WebSphere Application Server, a few common questions always come up in the discussion.

The purpose of this article is to quickly address these common questions in an FAQ style format that is easy to consume

The FAQ is available as a PDF here.

These two webcasts may also be of interest / relevance: -

Webcast replay: What is the difference between 32 and 64bit Java?

IBM WebSphere Application Server and 64-bit platforms: 64-bit Performance Demystified