The old ideas are the best.... 

Has anyone else seen the new Nikon advertising campaign? "I AM" signs being held up by various groups of people? Then on the final screen "I am" on a YELLOW BACKGROUND. Does that seem a tiny bit familiar to anyone???

Check this out:  http://www.iamnikon.co.uk/en_GB_IAM/

Comments (0)
Melissa Snell July 9th, 2010 11:50:48

Quick Notes 8 Developer Tip - correcting code indentation in Designer 8 LotusScript Editor 

One of the things that I found initially challenging about the new LotusScript Eclipse editor is that it appeared to drive a coach and horses through my old trick of matching up opening and closing statements by checking the column number of the code. For example if you had a series of nested "ifs" containing a lot of complex, badly commented code you could check which "end if" matched which "if" by positioning your cursor and checking the column number on the lower RHS of the designer client. However the new designer doesn't always line things up correctly, particularly if you are copying and pasting code about.

So I discovered this speed key: CTRL+I  (that's a capital 'eye'), which is the speed key for Source -> Correct Indentation.

Now I save the code (just in case!) and then CTRL+A followed by CTRL+I  - and voila! My code is then nicely indented.

Would be nice to be able to expand/collapse nested statements though. Perhaps for the future?

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Melissa Snell July 5th, 2010 13:42:31

Jazzing up view columns on the web using JavaScript  

Sometimes we want to do things in a view that we know would impact performance or that simply aren't possible. I'll warn you up front that this is going to be "old school" but could still have useful applications in XPages.

The Problem
I was given a web application to work on where the home page was using multiple embedded single category views set to display using Java applet. Needless to say the load time on the page could be described as "poor" if one was feeling kind. I wanted to convert the home page to use an HTML version of the views, but one particular view was interesting in that if a particular document was "overdue", there was a column set to show value as colour that turned the text red. This column calculated whether something was overdue or not by comparing a date field to @today (listed in the top 10 design crimes list in my book). So there was the issue: how can you compare a date to "today" without using @today in the view.

The solution I chose has two main ingredients:

1) A CSS class for "red" text
2) A JavaScript function that compares a date I pass it with "Today" and tells me if its in the past or not


1) The following style was added to the stylesheet referenced by the form that would be displaying the 'view'

.redText {
color:#cc0000;
}

2) The following function was added to the JavaScript library referenced by the form that would be displaying the 'view'

function setRedColor(dtY, dtM, dtD, strStatus) {
// dtY dtM and dtD are passed in as strings. strStatus is the text I want to appear in red
today = new Date() //this is today and the view doesn't know about it!
cDate = new Date(dtY+"/"+dtM+"/"+dtD)//this is the date I passed in
if (cDate document.writeln(""+strStatus+"")
}else{
document.writeln(strStatus)
}

Note that in this example I constructed a JavaScript date object from strings - if you pass in numbers, the initialization of the variable would be more like:
cDate = new Date(dtY,dtM,dtD)

You can use JavaScript function to convert if you prefer using parseInt(string).

So to pull it all together, I have a view column where I have directly coded the HTML for table rows and cells (the table tags and table headings are on the form as passthru HTML and I am using the view as a way to populate the table rows). I am pulling this view column in via an @dblookup because you are limited to the number of HTML embedded views you can display (one basically). In simple terms what the code does is compare StageCompletionDate to "today" in the JavaScript function and returns HTML directly into the table cell in the view text being rendered to the browser. Note that around each of the arguments being passed to the JavaScript function are apostrophes, so what looks like " is in fact " '. I wouldn't use the apostrophes on the date arguments if I wanted to pass them to JavaScript as numbers.

"<tr><td><a href=\"/"+@WebDbName+"/0/"+@Text(@DocumentUniqueID)+"?OpenDocument\">"+FullName+"</a></td>"+
"<td>"+
@If(Status !="Completed";"<script>setRedColor('"+@Text(@Year(StageCompletionDate))+"','"+@Text(@Month(StageCompletionDate))+"','"+@Text(@Day(StageCompletionDate))+"','"+@Text(StageCompletionDate;"D0S0")+"')</script>";;@Text(StageCompletionDate;"D0S0")))
+"</td>"+
"<td class=\"tdStatusCol\"> "+ Status+"</td></tr>"+

So there you have it! The date displays in red if the document is over due and with no major cost to the view - all the hard work is done by the browser. I really like this as a neat way you can be creative with Notes!

I've used this technique for other things, such as displaying a client-specific price for a product list. That one is a little more complicated but I can post it if anyone is interested.

Comments (0)
Melissa Snell April 1st, 2010 16:18:31

Controlling a Lotus Symphony Presentation from your iPhone/iPod Touch 

With Keynote and Powerpoint you can control your presentations from your iPhone or an iPod Touch, but how do you do this with Lotus Symphony ?

It's pretty simple all you need to do is install the Logitech Touch Mouse application, on your PC (or Mac), install the Logitech Touch Mouse Application from the Apple App Store onto your iPhone or iPod Touch and create a peer to peer (or adhoc) wireless network between your iPhone/iPod Touch and your Desktop.

The Logitech Touch Mouse application turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a wireless trackpad and keyboard for your computer, so you can point, click, scroll and type from afar, in any application, on a Mac or PC. It works via WiFi, so if you either have to connect to an existing WiFi network or set-up your own peer to peer (or adhoc) WiFi.

Once you have done this you can use your iPhone/iPod Touch to control your Lotus Symphony presentation.

As it turns your iPhone / iPod Touch into a trackpad/keyboard, it can control any Windows or Mac application, and the best part about it is its free!

More information on the Logitech Touch Mouse application can be found here

Comments (0)
Andy Dennis February 9th, 2010 11:15:44

We’ve won the Best in Community Service Award 2010 

It's official, LAN2LAN have won the Best in Community Service Award 2010 at Lotusphere. We are all really, really proud with the award for our Congrego Solution

Jasper Warren picked up our Trophy, which can be seen in all its glory below!


LotusKnows Congrego is a great solution. What a great way to start our 2010!

Congratulations to all of the other Lotusphere 2010 award winners and finalists.

All the pictures of the award and some of our friends in the community can be found on our Lotusphere 2010 Flickr Set

Comments (0)
Andy Dennis January 17th, 2010 15:48:38

Merry Xmas to you all! 

Well, its that time of the year, to wish you all and your families a Very Merry Xmas from all of us at LAN2LAN. We hope that all you boys and girls have been very good this year, so that Santa does pay  you a visit.

As the end of Xmas Eve arrives you can check out Santa's progress right here with the Norad Santa Tracker..

For a little Festive Fun check out our special Xmas egame and see if you can help Santa win the Winter Olympics..  

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Andy Dennis December 24th, 2009 11:50:43

Microsoft Exchange 2010 Storage vs Lotus Domino 8.5.x 

It's being reported that Microsoft are dropping the Single Instance Storage component that was added to Exchange 2005. This feature enabled only a single instance of an attachment to be stored in the mail store. The Microsoft Exchange 2010 server store  will allow for the native compression of  all attachments.

If you an Exchange Administrator, I'd suggest you keep a close eye on the releases and upgrade notes for Exchange 2010 and particularly the potential increase in disk space for your environment.

Now lets map that across to the space saving features in Lotus Domino 8.5.1.  These are DAOS (Domino Attachment and Object Service), LZ1 compression within a database for file attachments, design compression for database design elements and a single copy template to ensure only 1 copy of design elements are stored on your server.

• DAOS has been seen to save our clients between 30-60% of disk space by storing a single copy of an attachment that has been distributed to multiple users on a Lotus Domino Server.
• LZ1 compresses ensures those single attachments which are not distributed to multiple users are compressed.
• Design compression can be used to compress design elements
• A Single Copy Template can be used to link all of your mail files to a single template..

With all of these features enabled you can reduce the total amount of storage your Lotus Domino Server utilises.

I know which platform I would choose if my disk space is constrained.. and lets not forget Lotus Domino is not a rip and replace solution..

As always the information in this post is correct at the time of writing.

,

Comments (0)
Andy Dennis December 14th, 2009 11:33:03

I’ve been virtualized 

To be more exact, I have just become a VMWare Certified Professional (VCP4).

For an out and out Lotus techie this may seem a departure from the Yellow straight and narrow, but it actually plays well into the kind of Domino infrastructure projects we are currently engaged on. Our major theme when working with customers on Domino upgrades to 8/8.5 and now 8.5.1, is to use the process as an opportunity to enhance their environment. This can be done through deploying new features as part of the upgrade, optimising performance, consolidating servers and extending functionality though services such as Traveller, web-enabling apps with Xpages - you all know the rest.

So far, so standard, but we are increasingly integrating options for virtualization into Domino projects as customers are looking to reduce their IT footprint, make their infrastructure more flexible (Agile anyone?), and having an eye to centralised off-site services (enter the Public / Private Cloud discussion).

I'm now one of four VCPs at LAN2LAN, and will work with our Virtualization Practice on Domino related projects. One of the benefits of our multi-tier approach is that we have HP hardware and SAN expertise in house, together with network and Microsoft professionals, allowing us deliver an end to end solution for our customers.

The future is still bright Yellow for me, but perhaps running on Yellow Blades.

Comments (2)
Peter Smith December 4th, 2009 12:09:48

Vulnerabilities in the PDF distiller of the BlackBerry Attachment Service for the BlackBerry Enterprise Server 

Just received the following vulnerability notice from RIM:

http://www.blackberry.com/btsc/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=KB19860

Seems there is still a PDF vulnerability around and technote KB19860 details how to deal with it. Security severity rating range from 5.7 to 9.3.

I am planning to upgrade to BES 5.0.1 next week so will just disable the PDF ability on the attachment service till then.

Comments (0)
Jaime Alcorn December 2nd, 2009 13:11:00

BES Professional & Domino 8.5 

We have a number of clients still using BES Professional and they want to upgrade to Domino 8.5. BlackBerry Technical Support Services have the following response:

"Thank you for contacting BlackBerry Customer Support. We are pleased to assist you.

The highest version of Lotus Domino supported with BlackBerry Professional Software version 4.1.4B is 8.0.1. There are currently no plans to provide additional support for Domino 8.5 for use with BlackBerry Professional Software. The highest version of Domino currently supported is 8.5.0, when used in conjunction with BlackBerry Enterprise Server version 5.0"

So, you either need to upgrade or remain as is. Some considerations for an upgrade:

• BES Professional was aimed at the small business market and was approved to sit on a production mail server
• BES requires a dedicated server so this will cause a few issue with the migration as the Domino server name may change
• There are some issues with a migration and upgrade so you may consider setting using a new BES management database and then using the transporter tools to manage user moves
• Check your hardware specification against BES 5.0 requirements
• Plan your upgrade/migration properly - best spend more time on the planning than the execution - will save lots of time in the long run and minimise the issue you may have

Comments (0)
Jaime Alcorn November 30th, 2009 14:45:00