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Signing of from 2009 - looking back at a great year

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:34:19 GMT

2009 is drawing to a close and in less than 10 hours I'll be in my tuxedo and drinking champagne. What a year from a personal and a professional perspective.

On the personal front the highlight of 2009, by far, was on 22 August where I got married to my lovely wife. 4 months into our marriage we're having a blast. Not much have changed in our relationship which I take as a good thing. I'm looking forward to January and once again bringing her along for Lotusphere. I think she's growing used to staying in the Swan and the fact that return guests get some good deals at the spa... :-) Apparently some sun and warm weather (crossing my fingers) in January doesn't hurt either.

On the professional front it's been a year of both many changes and new challenges. As previously the year really got kicked of at Lotusphere and it was very nice seeing all of my "collegues" again and hooking up. I'll remember BALD, being part of the blogger program in those yellow bean bags, frost in Florida in January and the associated state-wide "panic", giving a session with good reviews though having a high fever and missing 1,5 days due to sickness as the highlights of my Lotusphere 2009. Of couse being in the US for the inauguration also made it special. Being "on location" in Florida bar for Superbowl was also a very nice experience.

The rest of the year has been filled with a lot of consulting on Notes and Domino, Lotus Connections and other related Lotus products. It's been very nice being able to share experience and consult on a wide variety of subjects. 2009 was also the year where I started doing a lot of teaching and we started doing Notes 8.5 Application Development workshops. I've been giving the workshop a number of times across Denmark during 2009 and it has always been a good experience. Of course some workshops has been better than others but I have always felt that I've given the attendees what they signed up for and all attendees have gone home amazed at the potential of the new Notes releases. If only more would take the time to learn Java - that's still the Achilles Heel of IBM Lotus...

Towards the end of 2009 I have also assumed the day to day management of some of the developers in the company. It's been a big change from billing out 40-50 hours a week to mostly managing and planning. It's also meant spending far more hours in the office which has been weird. I set a personal record this winter by having lunch in the office 12 days in a row. That's a first in my 2+ years at IntraVision. The change of role has been fun but also a big change and challenge and something that I'm finding myself enjoying very much. I'm looking forward to the new year and getting more into that role.

In 2009 I have also enjoyed still being part of the Design Partner programme with IBM. It's fun, educational and inspiring to be part of these conference calls and getting the inside story. The calls are something I look forward to attending and the debate is good and lively. Of course it's also frustrating sometimes when IBM Lotus do something that we design partners just don't get but that's part of the deal. All in all I still find it very positive that IBM Lotus listens and lotusknows it makes a difference! :-)

On the whole lotusknows thing I find it very positive that IBM Lotus finally got the message and starting being offensive. We still haven't seen much, if any, of it here in Denmark but hopefully it's coming at some point. There's still a big need for air cover.

In November this blog turned 5 years and it was a milestone that were reached. As I wrote on that day, this blog is something I cannot imagine not having today. The blog and way it connects me with the community is amazing. Of course more and more communication moves from blogs to Twitter these days but it's all good.

2009 was also the year where I finally got to finish LotusScript.doc version 2. It's been a long time coming and it was very nice finally to get the new version out there. Expect interesting stuff to be coming your way in 2009 when I start leveraging the LotusScript.doc Java API in other contexts.

In three months TwitNotes turns 2 years - wow! Has it already been that long? Besides, of course, being my Twitter client of choice it has also served as a very good example in all of my speaking gigs as one of those new applications that are possible in the "new" Notes client. TwitNotes is an application that builds on the Notes foundation but reads and writes data in the cloud. Showing it as an example always raises some eyebrows until people "get it". I used it as an example for the big IBM Software Day event here in Denmark this fall.

As 2009 draws to a close I'm doing another sidebar application that I hope will be useful for many of you out there although I'm mainly doing it for myself to increase my productivity. I hope to be able to reveal it by Lotusphere. It's again a cloud-based application that integrates into the Notes experience to showcase just what's possible with the "new" platform. Stay tuned...

Before I write too much I'll wrap it up by wishing you all a very happy new year - see you on the other side. For those of you going to Lotusphere - see you there!

Bye, bye 2009...

I'm very happy to announce that LotusScript.doc v.2 is finally done

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:00:59 GMT

I'm very happy to announce that LotusScript.doc v.2 is done - finally! The official point-zero release is available for immediate download. It's been a looooooooooong process and it's taken a very long time but it's finally done. You may download it here (lsdoc_200.zip).

Thanks to all those who have supported and encouraged me during the development. A very special thanks goes out to the people who donated - thank you!

Part of this release is also the website which I'm working on. The website is currently available at blog.lsdoc.org. Once everything is done it will be moved over and replace the current www.lsdoc.org. As I've mentioned before version 2 is written in Java and you may actually use the LotusScript.doc code as a general LotusScript code parser if you wish. Quite easy actually - for a sneak peek as to how to use the API see the Using the LotusScript.doc API page.

Comments as always welcome here on the blog or by e-mail to lekkim [at] lsdoc [dot] org.

LotusScript.doc v2 beta 7

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:08:53 GMT

Beta 7 (and hopefully the last beta) of LotusScript.doc v2 is out - get it here (lsdoc_200beta7.zip). This beta fixes a minor issue with comment parsing. Unless I hear anything else I will release 2.0.0 this weekend.

Please note: Please remember to adjust the Java heap size. For more information see this post.

Comments as always welcome here on the blog or by e-mail to lekkim [at] lsdoc [dot] org.

LotusScript.doc v2 beta 5

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:05:29 GMT

Beta 56 (and hopefully the last beta) of LotusScript.doc v2 is out - get it here (lsdoc_200beta6.zip). This beta fixes minor issues with comment parsing and makes logging easier to configure by gracefully failing if not configured in java.policy (for more info see LotusScript.doc v2 - java.policy changes required).

This beta also makes the database run on Notes 7 by not using StringBuilder but StringBuffer instead.

Please note: Please remember to adjust the Java heap size. For more information see this post.

Comments as always welcome here on the blog or by e-mail to lekkim [at] lsdoc [dot] org.

Update: I found a small bug so you'll get beta 6 instead of 5...

LotusScript.doc v2 beta 4

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 20:12:32 GMT

Beta 4 of LotusScript.doc v2 is out - get it here (lsdoc_200beta4.zip). This beta adds additional logging, makes the log output easier to read and fixes an issue where the sub/function parser would receive "empty source code" if the code contained a sub/function where all code was commented out using pings(') or %REM sections.

The code has now also been stress tested thanks to databases from Nathan and Julian Buss. These two databases combined have around 300 script libraries!! :-)

Update: Please remember to adjust the Java heap size. For more information see this post.

Update: If using Notes 7 beta 4 will not work. Please wait for beta 5.

Celebrating Yellow Day - LotusScript.doc v2 beta for download

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:24:17 GMT

To celebrate Yellow Day I'm releasing the first public LotusScript.doc v2 beta for download. To get it download the lsdoc_200beta3.zip file, unzip it and create a new database from the template. I'll soon blog about all the new goodness in version 2 but for now suffice to say there's a host of stuff. If nothing else you should notice a major increase in performance meaning documenting databases now take a fraction of the time it used it with version 1.

Please note that this is a beta but it should be ready for prime time. It documents my databases just fine. If you do experience anything you deem weird, or dare I say a bug, please report it by e-mail to lekkim [at] lsdoc.org.

Looking forward to hearing you comments. Thanks.

The fine print

LotusScript.doc is now written in Java and to run LotusScript.doc on non-trivial databases you need to allocate more memory to Java than what's the standard in the Notes client. To do this follow the description below.

Change the maximum possible Java heap size in notes.ini by setting JavaMaxHeapSize=256M to allow for 256 mb of Java heap.
(optional) Change the
/jvm/lib/security/java. policy and add the two following lines at the bottom of the first "grant" section. For more information see this blog post. This is only required to enable logging and it's not required.
```
// LotusScript.doc
permission java.util.logging.LoggingPermission "control";
```

LotusScript.doc v2 beta is eminent

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 17:11:33 GMT

Just a quick note to inform you who are interested that a LotusScript.doc v2 beta is eminent. It's currently out at two select people who are stress testing it and feedback is great. Performance seems to be a major selling points among a brand new engine entirely in Java. A few more adjustments and a public beta should be ready. Follow @lsdoc on Twitter for updates.

LotusScript.doc v2 soon coming to a Notes client near you

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:47:40 GMT

Just a very quick note to say that LotusScript.doc v2 is coming out soon! This morning I sent it of to two early testers before releasing a public beta 1 to the web.