After reading about the current state of affairs for the extst.ibm.com Sametime community at Adam Gartenbergs and Chris Pippins blog I must say that I’m a bit disappointed. How can it be that IBM choose not to support the latest and greatest of their flagship collaboration client on extst.ibm.com? Of cause it will happen at some point in time but why the wait? Simply get going, edit those sametime.ini files and while you’re at it add the client ids for 8.0.2, 8.0.3, 8.5, 8.5.1…
I’m baffled!
I’m at a customer site today where they are running Notes 7.0.2 but would like to experiment with (the new) Notes 8.0.1 Standard client. The upgrade of select users went fine but the embedded Sametime client was unable to connect to the Sametime 7 Limited Use server. After some searching on Google and in the developerWorks forums the problem was easy to solve thanks to posts there and some additional searching. I simply needed to add the client ids of Notes 8 and Notes 8.0.1 Standard to the sametime.ini and restart Sametime.
The steps are as follows:
References:
I’m having major issues with using the Sametime screen capture tool on Vista (I’m on Notes 8.0.1 Standard on Microsoft Vista Ultimate). The tool works but it’s like the cursor is “stuck” somehow and the selection tool is very sluggish. Wierd!
The *very* wierd thing is that it works much better when the tool is started from the sidebar plug-in Connect client than from an active chat. Not perfect like on Windows XP but much better. Go figure!
Update: Now it’s also sluggish from the sidebar…
Technote 1291048: Enabling debug on the Sametime Connect 8.x client.
This technote ís only for Sametime 8 and refers to the “proper” Eclipse way of debugging. Refer to technote 1244422 for info relating to Sametime 7.5.
Over the last few days I have been working with Chris Whisonant from LOTUS911 / bleedyellow.com to write a custom Sametime blackbox for bleedyellow.com. In case you don’t know, a blackbox in “Sametime speak”, is what you write if you would like to get business card info from systems other than Domino Directory or LDAP.
This blackbox uses the DB2 JDBC drivers to plug into the Lotus Connections Profiles database at bleedyellow.com to get business card data from there. This means that if you update your bleedyellow.com profile with a photo your co-bleeders will now be able to see it when they hover their mouse over your name in Sametime.
Besides the photo we also surfase the blog-link and the timezone instead of company name and department as you can see in the screenshot below.
During my work with this blackbox and previous work I have done with the UserInfo API for two upcoming articles in THE VIEW on the same subject I have learned a lot of stuff, both good and bad, about the API. The API gives you a lot of flexibility but there are also major shortcomings so expect some blogging on this in the future. For now simply rejoice! 🙂
Now I invite you to update your Lotus Connections profile and share any comments you have on the hovering with me or Chris.
P.S.: I know there is a Lotus Connections plug-in for Sametime that provides hover-functionality from the Solution Catalog but I really wanted a server-based solution.
Nice video of the Lotus Sametime integration into Microsoft Office incl. Outlook (main focus is on Outlook). It’s nice even if you just need to see what the integration looks like since you’re probably running Notes. Right? 🙂
So I’m finally done with version 1.0 of the Sametime Awareness Simulator (SAS) application that I hinted to during Lotusphere.
The purpose of the application is to solve the problem that all that run demos involving Sametime run into: How to get 20 users on Sametime, some available, some away etc. without running 20 concurrent Sametime Connect clients. With SAS you can simply manage all this from with one application.
From the screenshot on the right you can see the application with 3 users added. Only one is logged into Sametime and as you can see you can set the status for each individual user by right-clicking or using the menu or toolbar. There’s also a preference dialog for setting the hostname of the Sametime server to use.
I’m interested in getting some initial feedback before releasing the application into the wild so if you need something like this let me know by e-mail (mh [at] intravision.dk). I’m looking for 5 people or so to test drive the application. Please only write if you’re actually going to use it and not if you just need a new toy… 🙂
I will be releasing it soon enough.
The application is written in Java using the Sametime Java API and using the Eclipse RCP application framework. It runs as a standalone application so you do not need Eclipse installed.
The IBM Composite Applications wiki has been launched and is supposed to a one-stop-shop for information about Composite Applications. There’s also a new Sametime wiki.
Well I discussed the SAS with Nathan last night at the Welcome Reception and it seems like it struck a nerve and it’s something that’s usable for a lot of the guys in the showcase. I cleared everything out last night so I will probably be sharing the application during the day (Monday).
I have many plans for future enhancements. For now it only simulates awareness but a logical extension would be for it to be able to accept file transfers, join group chats and reply to 1-on-1 chats. One should be able to specify a prerecorded chat script for individual users.
More to follow…
As part of the preparations for some of the stuff we (IntraVision) will be showing off at Lotusphere 2008 I have developed a Sametime Awareness Simulator. The simulator is used to simulate Sametime users in a demo environment without having to run multiple Sametime Connect clients when all you need is to simulate awareness (that is some users being available, some away etc.). The application will let you manually add username/password combinations or read the usernames and passwords from a configuration file at startup. It will also automatically set the awareness status as specified in the file (available, away, in a meeting, do not disturb).
Below is a screenshot of the application which you can see is written using the Eclipse RCP framework and the Sametime Java SDK. I hope I will be able to let you all to download the application for use in your own demos.
Now I’m off to the beach… 🙂