Greyhawk's Meanderings

Lotus Traveler Comes to the iPhone

John Roling — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:20:18 +0000

For those of you who still didn't know, the recent 8.5.1 release of Lotus Domino came with an additional piece of software called Traveler. This allows Apple's iPhone to finally sync with Lotus Notes. My October article for Intranet Journal discusses how Lotus Traveler Comes to the iPhone

Ever since Apple's iPhone was introduced, fans of Lotus Notes lamented the fact that there was no push email solution that supported the IBM Lotus product. You could use IMAP to get your mail, but there was no real-time two-way solution like you could get on a Blackberry. That all changes with the release of Lotus Traveler 8.5.1.

Traveler requires the recently released Lotus Domino 8.5.1 in order to run, but it finally gives Notes fans two-way synchronization of email, calendar and contacts to the built-in iPhone applications. Traveler is included with Domino 8.5.1 and gives you a great reason to upgrade your servers today.

My article goes through installing the software on your Domino server, and then setting up an iPhone to connect to that server to start syncing. It's drop-dead easy, so if you were on the fence, check out the article and get synching!

That whole epiphany thing...

John Roling — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:18:27 +0000

A few months ago, I came to a personal epiphany of sorts. Basically, you never know when life is going to end, so you need to live it to the fullest, let the people around you know that you love them as much as possible, and don't sweat the small insignificant things in life. Since then, I've been a much happier person overall in pretty much every facet of my life. I've also worked hard on getting healthier. In fact, since the beginning of August, I've lost nearly 30 pounds. I did it by decreasing my portions, eating healthier and actually exercising. I know, weird how that actually works huh?

Anyway, despite all of that, and how great things have been for me lately, I was strongly reminded how it can all be taken away in an instant. A friend from high school passed away in his sleep from a heart attack this past weekend. He was 38 years old.

His name was Tim, and he's another one of those people whom everybody liked. I don't think I could find a classmate if I tried that didn't think Tim was a wonderful person. To have him lose his life at such a young age is a real tragedy, and I feel absolutely horrible for those who were still really close to him.

I'm not sure why, but this has hit me fairly hard. It could be that it was a peer who was even younger than me who passed. It could be the simple 'out-of-the-blue' nature of it. It could be that I'm three days from my 39th birthday. It could be that I'm missing my family as they've been out of town for almost a week, and I feel desperately like I should be giving them hugs and telling them how much I love them right now. Whatever it is, the feeling sucks.

It's this feeling, which I've been reminded of far too much the last few years, that reminds me to enjoy what precious little time we have. The next time something insignificant bothers you, try to remember the big picture, and take control on how you react. You have the power to control how you feel, and how you go through life. Use it.

Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.1 Coming Soon

John Roling — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:33:24 +0000

Okay, I guess this makes the 47th article for Intranet Journal.

Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.1 Coming Soon gives you a preview of some of the features and changes you can expect when Notes and Domino 8.5.1 ship in October. I really believe that this is what most businesses will end up with as a gold release for some time to come. I've been using the beta for a couple months, and it's very good. So check out the preview, and put in front of the noses of people who make your upgrade decisions!

When Notes 8.0 was released, it was a beautiful update to a very stale looking client. It looked great, and had features users had been clamoring for, but unfortunately it was slow. With each point release since, the speed has gotten better, but with 8.5.1 is really feels like they finally got it right. The client uses less memory than it did in 8.5, so there's more left for other system processes. In addition, everything from startup, to switching between apps is much faster. Simply upgrading a user to 8.5.1 should really alleviate previous speed issues.

Six Years of Ramblings

John Roling — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:15:19 +0000

Yesterday marked six years that I've been maintaining my public blog. Six years! Wow how time has flown. In that timespan my second daughter was born, I got laid off at the previous job, spent three months searching for the perfect gig, found the perfect gig, refinanced my house (three times), switched to Mac, wrote 46 articles for Intranet Journal, 7 articles for other publications, 885 blog posts and over 3500 Tweets.

Over the last year I've slowed down quite a bit here, and it's for a few reasons. When it comes to Lotus stuff, I generally try to use it for my job writing for Intranet Journal. I still post some stuff here on occasion, but if it's bigger topics, it's nice to actually get paid for my writing. Next, microblogging with Twitter has been wonderful for me. My blog has always been a creative outlet for me to write and bitch and ponder things in life, but Twitter has allowed me to do those same things with far more immediacy. I can post what's on my mind quickly and get feedback quickly. I admit, some of it is inane babble, but quite a bit of it leads to very useful conversations. Also, Twitter is something I can do quickly any time from anywhere with my iPhone. For the blog, I have to find time to write, and since I now drive to work, those two hours a day I used to spend blogging are spent trying not to get run into on the Chicago freeways.

Also, the new job demands a little more time, and I want to spend as much additional time with my wife and daughters as possible. It doesn't leave a lot of extra time to put up as many blog posts as I used to. That's okay. I have many outlets now (still including this one) that keep me feeling creative. And that's really what it's all about for me. Thanks for being a part these past six years, I'm thrilled (and quite frankly astonished) that so many of you follow along! I do appreciate it.

@IsEnd(Staycation)=TRUE

John Roling — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 23:46:49 +0000

Up until two weeks ago, I hadn't taken any vacation time all year, so in order to not lose my mind, I took two weeks off. I knew it would be sort of difficult in my new role as an IT Manager at work, but through the grace of my boss, he let me take the time off anyway. That said, I responded to email and phonecalls for work the entire time so I'm not nearly as behind as I normally am after time off. So I guess that's good!

Anyway, we stayed fairly close to home for the two weeks, and fit a lot of fun into that span. Here's what I got to do:

Upgraded a home machine to Snow Leopard
Had a poker night at a buddy's house
Was a professional photographer for a car show
Took the girls on their first train ride to Chicago
Visited the Sears (Willis) Tower Skydeck in Chicago
Had my fantasy football draft
Went to Wisconsin Dells
Visited 3 outdoor water parks and 3 indoor water parks at our hotel
Visited the Wisconsin Deer Park
Went to visit my parents in Iowa
Attended my 20th High School Reunion in Iowa
Shattered the screen on my iPhone
Rode on a horse-drawn carriage with my family in the Dubuque, Iowa Labor Day Parade
Helped out my father-in-law by driving about 500 miles round-trip to pick up a car
Had Daddy/Daughter dates with my girls
Followed the Apple "It's only Rock N Roll" event
Took my daughters to their favorite restaurant (Rainforest Cafe)
Got my iPhone screen fixed
Watched opening night football at New Trends Cigars
Visited Morton Arboretum
Had a date with the wife and saw The Hangover
Moved my desk at work to a new location while listening to the Dolphins suck

So the family and I fit in a lot in a short amount of time and it was wonderful. I'm kinda sad that it's over, but I feel pretty refreshed and ready to tackle what lays in front of me. Onward and upward!

Lotus Knows How to Secure Your Data

John Roling — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 15:57:33 +0000

This is short, to the point and a great message to get out there. Please help vote it up in the Lotus Knows Idea Jam going on now!

Lotus Knows (How to Market?)

John Roling — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:38:06 +0000

My latest from Intranet Journal is out now, Lotus To Launch Lotus Knows Campaign discusses the new Lotus Knows marketing initiative as well as the upcoming Lotus Knows Idea Jam where you can contribute your ideas for what 'Lotus knows..." I'm actually excited about this marketing campaign. We, as a collective whole, have been bitching for years that Lotus seemed to abandon any marketing efforts. It seems like that is no longer the case, and Lotus are going about it in a way I like quite a bit:

I find it refreshing that Lotus is listening to the community in this fashion. It’s using a product that runs on Domino, utilizing people who love the product, to collaborate on a marketing message that should resonate with end users. It’s an shining example of what can be accomplished with the platform beyond email and calendaring.

So get yourself registered for the Lotus Knows Idea Jam that starts this Wednesday. Let's help Lotus make this thing actually work.

For YellowDay, we celebrate OpenNTF.org

John Roling — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 21:00:17 +0000

Today I'd like to proudly announce that my employer has joined the OpenNTF.org Alliance. The Alliance allows us to show support for the open source movement and I'm very proud to become a member. I never mention my employer's name here on my blog, because what I do here in my Greyhawk68 brand is completely separate from my work (See the Attribution section of my Service Terms) . Please understand that we make much use of the code from OpenNTF and Declan has been a huge contributer as well so we want to show our support. This also allows us to do a few more things in the future, so stay tuned. Happy Yellow Day everyone!

Women, Misogyny, Tech et. al

John Roling — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 14:42:55 +0000

If you haven't seen the recent thread going around, please read Francie's post, Kathy's additional points, and my man Rob's excellent throw down. Go ahead I'll wait. Alrighty, now that you have some perspective, here are my thoughts on this (which have been brewing for quite awhile.)

I personally like to hang out with intelligent, quick-witted, strong-willed, fun-loving people. Notice I didn't specify a gender. To me, if I can have intelligent conversations, punctuated by funny dialog with someone who has definite opinions, then I'm thrilled. I do this with men AND women. But responses to this are different whether I am hanging out with women or men.

For example, I have a friend who I hung out with on a regular basis at Lotusphere for several years. She happened to fit all of my fun criteria above, but she was a pretty woman. I can't tell you how many times I had people comment about us hanging out together. I even had some people insinuate that we were sleeping together since we were together so much. No one has ever done that when I hang out with Paul Mooney or Rob McDonagh. I mean, couldn't it be that I was hanging out with her because I enjoyed her company, not that she had tits or I was fucking her?

Now I do want to make a distinction; there are catty bitch women as well as sexist pig men. Tech women have a tendency to crucify popular and good looking women in this field with as much frequency as the men do. That isn't acceptable either. You all need to get over yourselves. You set everything back just as much if not worse than the men do. Also, pretty tech women ARE NOT sleeping with your husbands, for fuck's sake...

For the record, my wife has never come to this conclusion, and she has seen pictures of me with many pretty women. You know why? Because she is an intelligent, quick-witted, strong willed, fun-loving person. She isn't threatened by other pretty women. The thing is, the wife and I are both scary liberal types that believe that everyone is equal. Wow, what a fucking concept? The coder girl is equal to the stay at home mom in our eyes. Looks have nothing to do with skill at what you do.

So here's the thing folks, stop with the little offhand gender comments, no matter how innocuous you think they are. Because something that seems like a throwaway comment to you can hurt others. And if those people respond, then they are bitches, right? No, they are human, and they are having to fight against stupid stereotypes when proving technical prowess. Our community should be better than that, and I hope we move beyond this.

IAMLUG: A Killer Conference

John Roling — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:07:15 +0000

I probably should wait until I'm not falling asleep at the keyboard, but I wanted to tell everyone about IAMLUG. For the unitiated, IAMLUG is a North American Lotus user group meeting that was just held for the last couple days in St. Louis, Missouri in the US. Quite frankly, it was one of the best events I've been to in a long long time.

Let me explain why.

First off, the expertise on display was amazing. Simply, these are the best speakers you can find in Lotus land. When I think of experts on particular pieces of the Lotus portfolio, I think of every one of these people. Chris Miller, Paul Mooney, Gab Davis and Kathleen McGivney on the admin side, The whole SNAPPS crew (Rob, Viktr, Julian et. al.) and Jamie Magee on the Dev side, Matt White on XPages, John Head on integration, Mary Beth Raven on 8.5.1 Design, Kevin Cavanaugh and Ed Brill on strategy. Those are names you ALL know, you ALL respect, and would ALL pay to see at Lotusphere. Those werent all the speakers either, there are too many to list, but simply go to IAMLUG.org to see them all. There was no fluff. Plus, in one session there was beer. Just sayin'

And like I said, you would have paid what? $3000 to go to Lotusphere to see these same people? Well IAMLUG was free. Yes, free thanks to the sponsors. Blackberry, Connectria, PSC Group, GSX, Mainsoft, MartinScott, TeamCentric and Ytria. Thanks to all of them them for helping make this happen.

The food was probably the best I've had at a conference, and the hotel was just okay. Truth be told, I spent very little time sleeping in my room, so the important things (bars, casinos, bars, cigar smoking lounge, bars, restaurants and did I mention bars?) were what really mattered to me. For $99 a night, I really cannot complain. Since this was attached to a casino all the drinks were really cheap. I bought rounds for $40 that would have cost me over $100 in Disney. This was definitely cost effective, convenient and perfect for an event like this.

Next, these people are like an extended family. One that you actually LIKE and look forward to seeing. Once a year just isn't enough, and IAMLUG helped me re-connect with these people, add new family members, meet people in person that I've only known virtually, and bond in the ways you can only do in person.

I don't know about anyone else, but the last couple of months have been very stressful for me, and this event helped me to blow off steam in the evening while learning a ton during the day. And I literally have never laughed so hard in my life. From the Booty Sweat, to the cigar lounge to the 632Crew I laughed myself sore. If laughter is the best medicine, I've just been innoculated for the rest of the year.

Thanks to Chris Miller for being the brain child, and to him and everyone who put this together on the the back end. I think it went off without a hitch.

I do want to say one thing though, and she'll kill me for it, but I'm saying it anyway. I don't believe in God or the Devil, but Francie is simply an angel in every sense of the word. Her ear was glued to a walkie for most of the conference, and simply put. Shit. Got. Done. And above and beyond that, she took care of us all. She deserves to live in paradise... with all the bananas she desires.

Do I wanna see an IAMLUG 2010? Hell and yes. Here's hopin'