Back soon...
Things a tad busy right now...
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July 18th, 2008
New Lotus Wiki’s - powered by Domino
I bleed yellow, but I bleed a "Notes/Domino" shade of yellow the most. So its great to see good looking stuff coming out of Domino via the "Domino Powered" product wiki's on developerWorks.Ed Brill also wrote a piece here.
Content in each wiki is organised by top level categories, however content is also joined across categories by tagging. So you have a "master" tag cloud on the home page, that allows you to see content by tags across all areas, but when you enter a content area the tag cloud automatically filters down. This then allows you to view content filtered by tags in that area. For me a great, but simple, illustration of how categories and tags can work together (and the differences between them - splitting v joining).
This allows for maximum flexibility without making the user choose between a hundred category levels, and then find they are not where they want to be.
For the wiki purists, obviously there is more to come to make these the ultimate in wiki, but small steps etc.
Technorati: Lotus Notes Domino 5 Comments
June 17th, 2008
Content encoding information within HTML or XHTML markup
Its a question I ponder over a lot at the minute, do I actually need to include the content encoding information inside my html? (eg meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1").Generally a web server includes the content encoding information in the http header when serving up web pages. For whatever reasons (I think stemming back to getting html to 100% pass the html/xhtml validator test's) I have tended to also include the encoding information in my html. This can cause problems when your html then is based on a server that is telling the browser something different.
I am wondering whether excluding this encoding from html, and maybe more importantly XHTML is ok, even though the validator's squeal warnings at you? Am I just getting my character sets mixed up with my content encoding? (I just wanna code!).
Any thoughts? What's the best practice here - especially when dealing with software that has to run on multiple language platforms?
A sub question for those running Domino servers that are not English. Presumably German, French servers etc still come with the default of ISO-8859-1? Do you ever change it to use UTF-8 as a standard?
5 Comments
June 16th, 2008
Probably my favourite Eclipse Domino Designer feature - search
Search in the new Domino Designer for Eclipse just rocks. If I have a string I need to locate, or a function I need to track all instances of where it is called etc, I am now in my element, at last.You can search entire databases or even across multiple databases at the same time. Its just great:
Then a simple right mouse click, and select HTML Editor:
and I am away:
Technorati: Lotus Notes Domino Domino Designer 0 Comments
June 15th, 2008
How to enable the selection gutter in Notes 8.5 Beta 1
Gutter selection is back in the 8.5 Notes Beta 1. Here's how you enable it:File > Preferences > Basic Notes Client Configuration > Use Lotus Notes Selection model
Technorati: Lotus Notes 1 Comments
June 11th, 2008
Notes Domino 8.5 Public Beta Available
Do I smell xPages, Notebook, Domino Designer in Eclipse?Available here.
Technorati: Lotus Notes Domino 3 Comments
May 30th, 2008
Lotus Notes Domino - Public Access use in web applications
We were having a discussion yesterday about "public access/public documents" and the use of in web applications on Lotus Domino.Firstly a bit of information on "public access". Put in very basic terms, its original need was for the mail template to create a "two tier" access system. Because it was a requirement to let people into your mail database to access your calendar etc, but deny access to your email this second tier was created - "public documents". This "access type" has two levels "read" and "write".
So if someone is granted "Read public documents" access to your application they can access all design elements marked "public access". So if a document has been created with a "public access" form and an associated view has "public access" set then they can see this data even if they have "No Access" to your application.
The second level of access is "Write public documents". This allows you to "create" data in the application that you may have No Access to, again using design elements marked as "public access". Because this level also allows you to edit/delete "any" public document (whether you created it or not and whether you have delete rights or not) I don't believe this is safe to use on the web. So what can you achieve with "public access" on the web that you couldn't with standard ACL control?
So this leads me to my main question(s), what are people's uses for web applications with "public access documents" and were they aware of the security implications? Maybe people can even correct me - maybe I have this all wrong? Wouldn't be the first time (or the last) and I love to learn.
Technorati: Lotus Notes Lotus Notes Domino 10 Comments
May 28th, 2008
You know its a holiday weekend when..
Luckily I have a lot of work to do, so it will not feel so bad when it is raining outside! 0 Comments
May 23rd, 2008
Lotus Notes Formula that is bugging me
Sometimes its the simple things that can be the hardest to fix.I have a dialog list.
The dialog list gets its data from a view using the formula:
xlist := @DbColumn("":"NoCache";"":"";"vSysCat";1);
fullList := @Unique(xList);
@Trim(fullList)
So why oh why does it display the list correctly but doubles up the existing selection with each word a separate line? This is basics, but its gone from my head!
Technorati: Lotus Notes Formula 10 Comments
May 20th, 2008
Twitter broke so will have to blog instead
Twitter broke so I will have to blog instead :)Well the inevitable happened the other week and Leicester were relegated into the 3rd tier of English football for the first time, ever (now only 8 English clubs who have never been there). This is not that many seasons after we were relegated from the Premiership after finishing in the top ten for many seasons. The misery of this is captured here on the BBC.
The only "sports" bright spot is that Leicester Tigers Rugby Union got into the play off finals with an exciting victory over Gloucester at the weekend. As defending champions this was a complete fluke as a few weeks ago we were dead and buried after a poor season.
Work is busy with many things overlapping each other so trying to manage my time better than I ever have been able to before. I even spent a day a few weeks back rescuing what used to be my inbox - it was a disaster zone with such a flow of email. Managing it better is something I will work out when I get some time - the "not urgent" things tend to disappear forever whilst dealing with stuff that needs to be done.
I tried using folders a long time ago but that failed miserably. I tend now just to flag stuff I have not touched and leave it in the inbox and use Notes 8 search to locate stuff. I also delete as many emails as possible that have no need to be stored. I do wish I could also mark outgoing emails as "not important" so they did not get saved then my outbox would just be a record of stuff I need to "record" going out.
I'm trying to put together a "1stop shop" for blog template documentation. This keeps being held back by deadline work on Notes 8.02 and 8.5 - but it is high on my priorities. There are some interesting projects going on using the template which I will share at a later date.
I'm also about to write a paper on Domino and XSS, A security threat which is more often than not ignored in the Domino development world.
On the running front, after making my joints into saw dust after last years training for a marathon and having to rest for 3/4 months, I started training about 10 weeks ago again. 7 miles is my usual lunch time run with the occasional 10 mile and for sprint work 3 mile. I'm starting to feel the "wear out" affects again so need to monitor how I go and maybe take some rest again. Playing football tonight will show whether the "rubbing" feeling in my hip is just a temporary thing or if its starting to go wrong again. If I can continue my training I want to do some half marathons this year - I think full marathons are beyond my joints capabilities to withstand the training. I'm 35 but have battered my body for years and years with football etc - its starting to catch up with me.
Millie continues to grow and amaze. She seems the best behaved baby on the planet. At 10/11 weeks old she sleeps through most night's. She usually only cries when she is hungry and spends her days chattering away and smiling/laughing. She is definitely the boss around here though, and she has decided that its best if she holds her bottle now in case we take it off her when she dribbles :)
Technorati: twitter Leicester Tigers LCFC 7 Comments
May 20th, 2008
Nail Biting Weekend
A nail biting holiday weekend awaits with the last game of the season live on Sky Sports 2pm sunday (GMT). We play at a team (Stoke City) who are at the top of the table and requiring points for promotion to the Premier League. We need to match the team below us or draw and pray the team above us lose. A win guarantees survival - but that's unlikely.
Last chance saloon now. We can technically stay up if we lose or draw and be saved by our goal difference. For the great club you are Southampton - I'm hoping you lose!
I'm not normally a betting person but I have put some money on us going down, on the basis that I never win bets so this is another one I want to lose. £260 in my pocket if it goes wrong - it would not make me happy.
I'm afraid, very afraid.
Nokia N95 8GB
This week I upgraded to a Nokia N95 8GB from my trusty Sony Ericsson.First, people would ask why I didn't just get an iPhone? Well many reasons, the first being I didn't need to pay to upgrade to the Nokia whereas an iPhone would have cost several hundred pounds - so actually that's a lot of reasons!
I also looked at spec. With 8GB on board memory, 5mp camera (2mp on the iPhone), 3.5g mobile network (old 2g on the iPhone), has Wifi like the iPhone and GPS with maps and navigation (which I believe the iPhone has). So even if the cost was the same I would only choose the iPhone on "fashion" and touch screen alone. The Nokia also uses S60/Symbian which opens up the possibilities for mobile based twitter etc and no locked features.
There are some things I would redesign with the user interface - it works fine but every now and again I think an option has disappeared when I needed it in that focus especially around web browsing. A better way of managing which connection to use would make things easier as well. Like if Wifi is on - always use it - not have to tell it to switch from the 3.5g network (but that could be user trouble). Switching between displaying horizontally or vertically seems a little hit and miss as well (in terms of how you "just do it" consistently from each application).
So far I'm loving it and the battery almost lasted two days of use (with me playing with everything on it). The screen is very clear (240 x 320 pixels - 16 million colours - clear enough for great video quality) and it takes great photos for a "phone" (I remember it was not that long ago that the average digital camera was at 5mp spec).