Radu's corner

cross browser bookmarks sync on the same box ? not yet possible

2013-04-20T22:36:00.002+03:00

I'm waiting for Mozilla and Google to come to an agreement, so I can easily import each other's bookmarks.

This is a longer history for me, I want them cross-synced, because I use one or the other depending on the split second decision when I need to get into a browser :)

I pretty much know the alternatives, cloud sync, mobile sync, I don't care. I'd consider myself a somewhat power user which needs to get his bookmarks in these two browsers, exactly the same. Without a third party, without plugins and other crapware.

Currently the master is FF, I used to export to a .html file, then import to Chrome. Somehow this has started to fail lately, not sure if this is a bug or not.

But how about Firefox Sync and Google Bookmarks interoperability ? Their clouds talk to each other, sync my bookmarks and spare me the extra step.

dropped blogger dynamic views

2013-04-12T22:31:00.003+03:00

keep it simple is the motto I should have followed in the first place. As much as I used to found blogger.com Dynamic Views attractive, I have to admit they're also weird.

I use this place to post things I found interesting and share my experiences. I don't wanna create a magazine.

So I've reverted the template, where you can find the archives, my mail [for head hunters, I haven't dropped the email and I haven't got used to reading messages on other social networks. And I haven't ceased to the FB miraje, I still think it's kinda waste of time, so don't look me over there]

Then I also recovered the feedburner feed, the widget of proud contributor to World Community Grid and the lovely planetlotus.org latest entries.

I really hope to become more active here, again ...

SwiftFile Mail Assistant

2013-02-26T21:15:00.002+02:00

I'm curious about how many Notes customers out there knew about it, installed it and used/using it on a daily basis:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21305206

Google returns 1500 results, couple of blogs and pretty much nothing else.

I can bet this is one of those things which would have been so good to have integrated in the product's default functionality, very useful but never made it the prime time ....

eclipse's orion

2013-02-13T09:20:00.000+02:00

I've watched several articles about Orion, Eclipse's web based development tools. But never got in their hosted hub, to test and play. Until today :)

Now, that's worth the note to make it popular, it's for sure something ground breaking.

http://wiki.eclipse.org/Orion/Getting_Started_with_Orion#Logging_into_Orion

For now they allow CSS and JS. Good enough, let's see what's it capable of, I only suspect good things

my ssh fast path

2013-02-10T22:30:00.001+02:00

This is a collection of past week digging and mocking SSH things. Here's what I have:

1. a neat Gnome Terminal alternative is quake-[ohhhh that Quake !]-like terminal http://guake.org/

have handy the terminal sliding down from the screen, clearing my panel to sometimes 5 to 10 terminals [sorry, didn't get to switch tabs in Gnome Terminal]

2. very useful article about tweaking local ~/.ssh/config, several things I applied from it:
http://blogs.perl.org/users/smylers/2011/08/ssh-productivity-tips.html

3. another very useful script which you can use to perform auto-complete to hosts you regularly use.
http://surniaulula.com/2012/09/20/autocomplete-ssh-hostnames/

Managing SSH connections: this is a topic I've been attempted to get my life easier from some time ago.
First I got on different SSH managers. That sucks, I'm already on linux, c'mon !

Second I got to manage ssh connections in simple .sh scripts. With my limited scripting shell abilities, I soon got bored :) Then I had to have different users/hosts combination, I'd needed to duplicate them, eventually.

Enter hosts autocomplete: you define your own hosts on ~/.ssh/config, then enter ssh followed by usual bash Alt key, all hosts found will get displayed.

At the end, here's my current ~/.ssh/config

tada@tada:~/.ssh$ cat config
ControlMaster auto
ControlPath /tmp/ssh_mux_%h_%p_%r
ControlPersist 2h
TCPKeepAlive no
ServerAliveInterval 60
ServerAliveCountMax 10

Host xxx.yyy.com
Host xxx.yyy.com
#add hosts here, not /etc/hosts :) nice difference to NOT mix them

when IBMIM fails updating

2012-07-05T07:54:00.000+03:00

worth checking this note: https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21424419

I just solved an issue of upgrading my RSA install to 8.0.4.1 performing the update as described in that note, which is basically saying to start it as

/path_to/InstallationManager/eclipse# ./IBMIM -vmargs -Dcic.doNotReconcile=true

this blog updates to dynamic template

2012-07-03T21:12:00.001+03:00

I've mocked a bit the Dynamic Views template from Google's Blogger. This is because the previous "about me" where I've posted my gmail.com address disappeared and I only noticed today when someone wanted to get in touch.

However, on the right you can contact me on G+, also switched the default view which I like better.

I don't have a facebook account so don't look for me the there :)

Rupa with her fishes. Rich music. Definitely.

2012-05-27T20:39:00.000+03:00

Yesterday I discovered a new band whose music went straight to our souls (me, daughter and wife). Yes, I took my daughter to a live jam of Rupa & The April Fishes. Rupa, yes, it was us, me and my friends, grabbing the kids to your play. Hope you enjoyed it as much as they did :)

Total admiration for this band and the organizers, http://www.cavalleria.ro, for making the effort to have them play, though the initial day and location changed on the last minute due to flight delays. This shows respect to the audience. Hope you'll have a good stay in Romania, two more concerts in Cluj, despite a troubled start.

Looking forward to your new real concert in Bucharest, this has been more like 'Rupa's music being discovered'.

For friends wondering how they're sound like, here's a sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8Ixa0hE6JA&feature=related

jazz savings - figures

2012-04-19T22:17:00.001+03:00

As sometimes happens, looking for something and hit another one. I'm posting this just to back the findings with my feelings, don't take it for granted:

http://dtoczala.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/real-world-jazz-results-our-customers-are-not-kind-of-blue/

These figures just might be true, and that is because of RTC flexibility. You can do whatever your project tells you to. The problem domain shifts from the tool focus to how to best make use of it.

After getting your way around (I'd estimate two weeks of playing for a seasonable architect) with workitems / source control / process setup, you start discovering that you're asking different questions to yourself, like: what am I going to do with it ? I have everything in one place:

- epics / stories (or whatever your process is saying) for business users to tell their needs to the nerds (that is the crowd making things happen ... ha)
- tasks for your crowd to track their work against
- defects for business/tech to track bugs -> unavoidable ... :)
- source control to manage the code

So you see, bridging the gap between business and tech staff adds savings to your company, I'd dare to say ...

RTC and RRC

2012-04-14T21:16:00.000+03:00

Just spotted an excellent article about Rational Team Concert (RTC) and Rational Requirements Composer (RRC), which actually fills a gap to my knowledge.

Article is on devworks, a favorite place to look for interesting stuff. It touches a few points, go have a read.

From some time I've been using RTC quite extensively, handling the process / workitems definition, together with its source control system. The point is that the more I know, the more I do understand that a tool isn't enough.

I also came to understand that while tooling isn't enough, adoption is what counts in the evolution of the project.

As the PM or Architect, you can define for the project:

- template for deliverables
- process and roles in project area
- source control process for streams/components
- development conventions
- architectural decisions
- (...) add here countless items from any imaginable methodology

If your team does not adopt above items (which btw, should be tailored to suit the project needs), you're doomed to fail.

What a great PM/Architect does (I haven't seen many ... ), is convince the team that their additional work (like filling fields in workitems, write according to templates) is needed because .... (give the reasoning). And if you manage to convince that stubborn smart team member so that he freely complies and adopt your things, you're on the right track.

Development in small team of friends is one thing. Development in international teams of people only familiar to eachother over the phone, is another.

blog template change time

2012-04-13T08:07:00.001+03:00

I've applied the Dynamic Views of the blogger to my corner.

Beside the place to rant, I use this as a bookmarking place to remember stuff. And yesterday, I could not find squat on my own blog !!! this was annoying :)

So, my old template being like several years old, in the meantime Google bought Blogger, did some stuff with it (not sure I like it, though ...) ... however, I've set to experiment this fancy new feature.

I specifically like the Flipcard view from the top left hand.

started mocking with DB2 Express-C

2012-04-12T21:17:00.000+03:00

While I'm so lacking the db skills, which I freely admit, I've installed the free edition of DB2, called DB2 Express-C.

Installed it on my *buntu, running and playing with it, everything cool.

But look at these books right on the front page ! http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/db2/express/getstarted.html

Seems like I have some reading to do for the next period, just to keep me in shape

met a Big Data ironman

2012-04-10T08:18:00.000+03:00

Last week (6th Apr.) I had the pleasure of watching Jeff Jonas live, on stage, speaking about the things he does.

I'm trying to raise awarness, since this fella speaks simple and straighforward even for non-tech people. Big Data is not my domain and I personally think it's gonna take years for certain parts of Europe and their businesses to even start thinking on that.

However, the things Jeff's addressing are fascinating, have a look on the following links:

http://www.research.ibm.com/theworldin2050/bios-Jonas.shtml

http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/27/big-data/

http://gigaom.com/2010/10/11/jeff-jonas-big-data/

Lotus Notes for beginners. reloaded

2012-03-30T22:49:00.000+03:00

Nice to see these articles on Lotus Notes for beginners. http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/dominowiki.nsf/xpViewCategories.xsp?lookupName=IBM%20Lotus%20Notes%20Client%20v8%20for%20Beginners People taking part in the "I hate this crap" club should take a look at the shots in these articles. If their screen does not look the same and they know they're using Lotus for applications (well, mail included), they should form the club "I hate my IT dep. for not performing the Lotus upgrade to 8.x"

Portal L2 Support

2012-03-07T09:10:00.001+02:00

I've just spotted on some internal communication that the L2 team for WebSphere Portal maintains their own blog !!

Here's the link: https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/PortalL2Thoughts?lang=en

Fellas, I missed your blog back in 2009/2010, but here are my congrats for your initiative.

On a side note, maybe other IBM L2 teams would share their thoughts with tech tips for their products, I'm sure our customers will appreciate it.

OSGI / Eclipe / WAS 8

2011-11-10T22:35:00.000+02:00

Someone challenged me today into asking: what is OSGI ?

That reminded me that I didn't read enough to better answer this question. For that reason, here's a list of links I make as well to myself and to others curious enough to learn further:

http://www.osgi.org/

http://eclipse.org/osgi/

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/webservers/appserv/was/features/

and the search for osgi keyword through the ibm's site, which recently got an redesing, which I kinda like:

http://www.ibm.com/search/csass/search?sn=mh&q=osgi&lang=en&cc=us&en=utf

happy reading !

Notes 8.5.3 tweaks - linux style

2011-10-31T06:14:00.001+02:00

1. The now classic tweak for increasing the Notes underlying IBM JVM heap.

sudo vi /opt/ibm/lotus/notes/framework/rcp/deploy/jvm.properties

This is the location now.

update:
This first point needs an update. Seems that Lotus Client 8.5.3 is also incorporating eclipse helios, thus OSGI, thus new tweaking for performance (search saint google for eclipse helios performance tweaks)

Experimental, in above file I now run the following old/new stuff:

vmarg.Xmx=-Xmx1152m
vmarg.Xms=-Xms1152m
-Dosgi.bundlefile.limit=75
-XX:+UseParallelGC

Performance gain ? have no idea except that's now even snappier than before :)

2. I noticed an annoyance: when starting, client would not open my local replica mail db for about half minute, staying and doing .... something...
Turned out it was looking for the remote servers where I have the mail db replicas. Once I deleted the shortcuts from the Notes Workspace, it all regained the speed, directly opening the local replica and leave me alone to do my stuff in the mail db.

So, if you experience delays after you've entered the Notes client, you might as well remove some shortcuts from your workspace, to Domino servers not working or not available or something like this...

Notes 8.5.3 out for a week now, looking good

2011-10-09T21:07:00.000+03:00

howdy, I'm happy to report upgrading to 8.5.3 on ubuntu 10.04 LTS went well. 8.5.3 CD5 packages needed to get uninstalled before the new one could have been applied using synaptic. Even the Notes client crashes I had when laptop switched connections in Network Manager seems to be gone now (hey, I'm on linux, using Notes, not Outlook on Windoze ! ). I actually got used to that BUG, but now it's FIXED !

So, do not fear, go for client upgrade.

I love to see this progress, since I'm now totally disconnected from the Domino/Lotus world. Well, except advices I give occasionally, and client upgrades for which I'm always looking forward :)

While I'm on this subject, one article draw my attention, in the same spirit of "not worth leaving Notes world", check this, also tweeted about it since I loved it: http://www.bleedyellow.com/blogs/dotdomino/entry/replacing_notes_here_s_how_it_really_goes_down4?lang=en

BrowserID: breakthrough for identity SSO on web ? this just might be ...

2011-07-27T00:34:00.000+03:00

Via my RSS feeds, I stumbled on this. Whose description mentioned PKI ?! As in public/private key ?! WOW !

This might be the breakthrough I've been personally waiting for, when speaking of annoyance multiple accounts on web. I've been looking at openids past year or so, however PKI "embedded" in the current browser seems more like it. Let's keep an eye on it.

As always, adoption guides technology, so this new kid on the block needs to evolve, and be adopted by mainline, however on a first glance looking promising.

rambling social software

2011-07-01T23:32:00.002+03:00

It's rather late here in .ro, but since twitter does not allow me to post more than ... uhmm 30 chars ?! ... uh perhaps more ... insufficient, I've got this ideas to share with you.

[btw, got this twitter account, not very happy, except I can follow interesting people posting interesting articles, and me sometimes posting ... what did I post ? almost nothing. Good, parenthesis closed]

Question: Social software - what is the difference between enterprise social software and , let's call it public social software ?

Enterprise social software: Lotus Connections, and ... not knowing much else
Public social software: google+ (yes, yes, the new one), facebook, hi5 [anybody remembering hi5?] and possibly many others that I'm not aware of.

When you're part of an enterprise (IBM is one, right ?), you have:
1. a job. You're kind of known by people, you know ? If you embarrass yourself by posting stupid things, you're risking something tangible. your job.
2. a reputation to live up to. no comment necessary here.
3. rules for using the social software. Like, you're now allowed to post embarrassing pictures, or whatever crossed one's mind after long night of drinking. See rule 1.

Now, let's see the "public social software". As I said, I'm not using them, nor I think I will ever will, so this is my imagination:
1. you can use dummy accounts. You can no longer be pretty anonymous these days, however you can.
2. you also can post pretty much everything. Except, of course the normally prohibited things.
3. you also have rules, who cares ? get another dummy account if you're banned.

And here comes my 2 cents:
Using enterprise social software, you're actually connected to what's happening to your job. So, you don't waste time. You find things, you get connected, you build your personal network, maybe new opportunities came across.

Using public social software, after a while at least, you're actually wasting time. I know, facebook is different. My wife has an account and she reconnected with people she lost contact with. But still, waste of time. If I have friends, I do because I call them and meet them, not because I put pictures or write updates on a site.

Don't get me wrong: I'm a regular user of: linkedin, gtalk, yahoo, blogspot, and more recently twitter. So I'm public socially connected. If someone wants to get in touch, send an email. My personal address available on this blog.

And here's what I found at this late hour about why is it that I don't like public social software: ...I don't like wasting time ...

resistance is futile

2011-06-24T21:57:00.001+03:00

I think this was a line from some movie, but in my case I resisted since 2009 to not tweet

I finally gave in ... I created my Twitter account, I also added the widget to this site in order for you to see what I'm up to. However I'd like more to follow others, I tweet if I have short messages not suitable for blog.

I will for no reason tweet about me zipping coffe in the morning, nor about me jogging (which I also intend to start, btw)

The reason to create the account has to do with the direction social software is going, specially with IBM software which I use internally, and recently (well, not quite so) on the ibm.com site.

Facebook will not see me, though, I found absolutely no reason to use it.

WAS 8 for Developers - yes it's free

2011-06-18T10:12:00.000+03:00

It might be that IBM's announcements are not targeting prospective customers or students that much, since I do encounter people saying WAS is not free to use for development and learning activities.

Yes it is, go get it: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/downloads/ws/wasdevelopers/index.html

JazzHub Beta

2011-06-06T16:51:00.003+03:00

now, this is something worth space on my blog, in order advocate good technology.

I've been increasingly using Jazz and RTC, it actually rocks, so next things have to get better ...

https://jazz.net/hub/manager/

update: Following Dan's comment below...

My first thought is that IBM is now following a better strategy into making its smart technology popular, starting with college and university levels, where it should start. And not necessary with students, but with their professors, lectors and whoever theaches them.

One personal example: I've been recently speaking to a group of 20 students in a workshop held in Bucharest, sort of internal event. These students are learning IT applied to economics. It came to no surprise that they are NOT learning practical things, and the only key concepts they were aware of are those from their own personal lives: working on windows desktops, developing sites, some hearing about freelancing. And that's about it. Their IT general knowledge was so limited that I have spoken things they didn't understood: Ant ? What's that ? Development ? Yes, I've made some html pages, at home ...

Why ? Because they did not learn at school, and that's because their teachers are also limited in their knowledge.

Same thing here: Jazz as technology is lowering the gap between business and IT when it comes to development. It's smart technology, should be made popular. This is a smart move, so get your students there and challenge them, ask them to learn the new things, give them the bigger picture, out of their homes. Some day they might want to follow a development path, and they'll come to interviews telling us how they did development at home and not know what svn or git or ant is ...

Enterprise Architecture (EA) view from an IT Architect

2011-05-22T01:28:00.000+03:00

This post wants to share with you my take on EA, after attending a course led by some smart people. I won't share their names without permission, but they're smart, that I can tell you.

Note: this work may change over time as I read more. I actually didn't had the time to read topics/articles on EA before attending this class. This is why I might be biased or even wrong. Feel free to comment or send me emails, critics make me better.

Here we go:

1. Who is EA for:
- those companies who lost track of applications and systems
- those companies having no or sparse governance
- those companies having stakeholders which feel like wanna change things: either by their IT or their business
- those companies loosing money, market share or customers. So, all of us ? The answer is yes.

2. What EA is NOT:
- it's NOT a miracle, but a discipline / practice of doing things with more rigorous approach.
- it's NOT a method, but a journey.
- it does NOT starts in point A and finish in point B, its an ongoing effort which ends with the business itself.

because:

1. EA tries to get the business near to the practices and methods of software development, by means of change management, governance and agility.
2. EA is trying to become the link coupling together the business (your business, any type of it) and the IT.
3. EA discipline is trying to find out what you're doing wrong so you might start change things. When you start and how you start makes the difference between bad and good consultants (either yours or your collaborators/partners).

What you need:

1. an understanding that you're doing something wrong. This requires brains, only smart people admit they're wrong.
2. an understanding that IT might not be the part that needs to change, but perhaps your organization and/or business processes need to change first.
3. good consultants on doing things technically and/or knowing your industry. These are rather hard to get and usualy speak beautiful words, however, they're diplomats enough to they tell the truth in your face. If you're also smart, you get the message and you'll also recognize them. I also start to recognize BSers from professionals, so wouldn't be that hard, I guess :)
4. stakeholders willing to change things. This might be the toughest part. On the saying that "if it works, don't break it", resistance to change is usually what stops organizations to pursue such changes.

With these things out in the air, next time you receive a mail with signature from an "enterprise architect" you'll know something is wrong. Because EA is about the change we perform each day. Hell, I am as well practicing EA with some of my customers. I will never be an enterprise architect, there is no such profession, as far as I consider. There are good or bad consultants, that I know.

projects failing. lessons learned.

2011-04-20T23:25:00.000+03:00

Having been involved in several engagements past months, I took some lessons from what I consider to be good technology with bad implementations. These were not necessarily failed projects but I had a feeling of unaccomplished work. And this is because I am usually passionate about the technology I work with and I want to drag people with me, which didn't happened. Why I had these mixed feelings and the lessons I draw:

Lesson 1. Project Scope. Define the scope of your project and DO NOT cease to pressures by either your sales or customer. DO NOT accept further changes in scope without estimating impact and effort implied. Otherwise you will usually end up with more effort spend, which will translate into business issues on your side.

Lesson 2. Team skills. This is a point where the project itself needs to be planned around building or gathering the proper technical skills. Without that, I learned the hard way that nobody on customer side will ever be able to takeover your work. On the other side, not having the proper team skills upfront will again end up with more effort spend on the project.

Lesson 3. Project Setup itself. If you're working with people not willing to listen or not able to understand what you're saying, project will not end up in good conditions.

Lesson 4. I give pretty good estimates on activities part of different WBS. This last one is for me to compensate the above three points :)