Month: December 2009

Open Office / Lotus Symphony will be in trouble


Oh no! Microsoft have realized that free is a very good price and when Office 2010 is released in June of 2010 Office 2010 Starter Edition will be free. Zero cost. Finally every computer sold will be able be have a valid, licensed, version of Microsoft Office. The Starter Edition will be add supported. Just how many adds and how these will be displayed I don’t know.

Office 2010 Starter Edition will be released simultaneously with the rest of the Office 2010 suite, Sharepoint 2010 Server, Office 2010 Web Edition and Office 2010 for Windows Mobile.

I see this as a very wise ploy by Microsoft and Starter Edition will be a treat to the free productivity suites that are currently free. The release looks like a very interesting release and will pose a great and real threat to Google Apps on the web and Open Office and Lotus Symphony as the productivity suite. Of course one could put the opposite spin on the story and see it like Microsoft is reacting to the success of the open source and free counterparts.

For more information on Office 2010 Starter Edition listen to Windows Weekly 133: A Fish Called Windows.

TwitNotes 1.0.12 available – finally working on Notes 8.5.1

Ever since the first beta release of Notes 8.5.1 I have been aware that TwitNotes didn’t work on this release of Notes. TwitNotes was able to display and search for tweets just fine but you were unable to submit new status updates. I have been asked numerous times to update the plugin but I just didn’t have the time.

Today I finally took the time to try and solve the problem. And what a problem. It took all of 3 minutes to solve. Another 5 minutes to upload the code to the update site. If only I had taken the timer sooner… Oh well!

So to update TwitNotes either

  • drag the widget descriptor onto your MyWidgets sidebar panel or…
  • do an update installed features operation (for those who know about updates sites etc. this is by far the easiest way to upgrade)

As with previous releases I wish to thank those who kindly reminded me of this problem – nice to see people using it.

DDE keybindings and preferences

Domino Designer on Eclipse (DDE) is a huge leap in the right direction for our IDE of choice. I agree there is room for improvement but be sure that IBM Lotus knows this as well. Having DDE is a big help in my day-to-day work and with the right key-combinations and the right tweaks to the preferences it can become even better. Below are some of the nice keybindings I find myself using all the time and the preference tweaks I always do.

  • Ctrl-F6
    Switch view – allows me to easily switch between editors using the keyboard
  • Alt-<arrow back>
    Back in history, not within same editor (i.e. when jumping lines) but between editors
  • Alt-<arrow forward>
    Forward in history, same as above
  • Ctrl-Alt-L
    Goto correct Erl() line

The last one is probably one of the most important functions you should know when making the transition to DDE. Many developers have discovered that the error line number reported by the Erl function in Notes isn’t necessarily the correct line when trying to locate the line in DDE. Is problem stems from the way the new LotusScript editor calculates line numbers. This is a *MAJOR* flaw IMHO as line numbering is so basic to an IDE that it should just work! This is however not the case but luckily IBM Lotus has provided us with the next best thing namely a function to convert the Erl() line number to an actual line number in DDE. Knowing the key combination to invoke it makes it less of a hazzle.

In the preferences I normally tweak are the following:

  • GeneralEditorsText Editors
    Show lines numbers
  • Domino DesignerLotusScript EditorFonts and Colors
    Minor tweaks to the default color setup to make code easier to read.
  • Domino DesignerLotusScript EditorRemove existing object code when saving with errors
    In DDE you may save LotusScript code with errors but then what should happen to the compiled object code (the code actually being run). Should it be removed or kept in place?

Besides all of the above a thing to remember is that DDE is a brand new beast and simply sitting down in front of it and using it without investing any time in getting to know it is pretty arrogant and probably also a little stupid. I really suggest spending some time getting to know it and making sure it looks, acts and feels like you want it to.

Eclipse Demo Camp Copenhagen – it is on Thursday!

So the Eclipse Demo Camp Copenhagen will take place on Thursday in the IBM offices in Copenhagen. Checkout the wiki page for more information. The lineup looks quite promising. 

Tonny Madsen, RCP Kompagniet
What exactly is the new e4

Jesper Steen Møller, NineConsult A/S
XPath2, XML Catalog and XSLT tooling

Bent Agervold Jensen, ReportSoft,
BIRT

Mikkel Heisterberg, Intravision
Signed plugins and how these works end-to-end in Lotus Notes

Jakob Lyng Petersen, Maconomy
Building a Generic Client for Business Professionals
using Eclipse RCP

Ekkart Kindler, DTU
Model-based Software Engineering with the Eclipse
Modeling Framework

Steen Brahe, Danske Bank, Use of the Graphical Modeling
Framework in Danske Bank

Jan Schoubo, LEJLN platformen
Linux-Eclipse-Java-LEGO NXT - For absolute beginners

Looking forward to seeing you there.

Using Abdera XPath on the Lotus Connections service document

As always namespaces and XPath/XSLT is “funny” to play around with. Tonight I have been messing a little with the ATOM feeds available in Lotus Connections and needed to use XPath to extract a URL from the service document instead of the object model in Abdera. I didn’t find it all together easy to figure out so I’ll post it here in case it helps anyone. The key is to specify a java.util.Map with the two namespaces in use (atom, app) when doing the XPath (the “ns” variable) and remembering to use the correct namespaces in the actual XPath string. 

Document<Service> doc = ...;
XPath x = Abdera.getNewXPath();
Map ns = new HashMap();
ns.put("atom", "http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom");
ns.put("app", "http://www.w3.org/2007/app");

String link = x.valueOf("/app:service/app:workspace" +
   "/atom:link[@rel='http://www.ibm.com/xmlns/prod/sn" +
   "/mv/theboard']/@href", service, ns));
System.out.println("Link: " + link);

Lotusphere 2010: Must be ready!

I was lying awake around 4am this morning thinking about Lotusphere 2010 so I must be ready. It will be an interesting conference as I’m not speaking and we’re not exhibiting so I’m free to roam around. Looking forward to heading to Orlando.

LinkedIn vs. Facebook

Ever since I joined Facebook just a few months back I have been in a constant dilemma about friend requests from colleagues, business partners and other people that I work with or have worked with. The reason it took me so long to join Facebook to begin with was that I knew that I eventually had to decide on how to treat this, for me, new social network. Joining Facebook didn’t make it easier for me – quite the opposite. I now have a long list of friend requests from people that I work with or may get to work with at some point. I want and need to deal with these in some fashion.

The way I have chosen to deal with these friend requests is to disregard any friend request on Facebook from people that I work with or might, no matter how slim the possibility, get to work it. I don’t do this to be mean or anything. I simply want a social network where I can share information with my wife, family and “real” friends. Not that I don’t consider many of the people I work with friends – they’re just in that other category of friends. I would like to have a place where I can post comments and pictures where those not in the know, or with other points of view, might get the wrong idea. I would like a place where I can be myself.

Making this decision about Facebook also made me look more carefully into LinkedIn. It means that I will now use Linkedin for all those business connections. Much as I have in the past. I will of course also continue to use the various Lotus Conenctions sites available out these as well. So if you want to hook up with me with catch me on LinkedIn.

I would love to hear how you have decided to deal with the proliferation of social networks and where you draw the line between your personal and professional life.