Steve Castledine

Back soon...

Steve Castledine — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:21:31 +0100

Things a tad busy right now...

New Lotus Wiki’s - powered by Domino

Steve Castledine — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 09:27:25 +0100

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.

Content encoding information within HTML or XHTML markup

Steve Castledine — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:25:25 +0100

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?

Probably my favourite Eclipse Domino Designer feature - search

Steve Castledine — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 18:56:14 +0100

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:

How to enable the selection gutter in Notes 8.5 Beta 1

Steve Castledine — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:10:04 +0100

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

Notes Domino 8.5 Public Beta Available

Steve Castledine — Fri, 30 May 2008 08:20:44 +0100

Do I smell xPages, Notebook, Domino Designer in Eclipse?

Available here.

Lotus Notes Domino - Public Access use in web applications

Steve Castledine — Wed, 28 May 2008 08:41:42 +0100

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.

You know its a holiday weekend when..

Steve Castledine — Fri, 23 May 2008 17:36:36 +0100

Luckily I have a lot of work to do, so it will not feel so bad when it is raining outside!

Lotus Notes Formula that is bugging me

Steve Castledine — Tue, 20 May 2008 17:07:04 +0100

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!

Twitter broke so will have to blog instead

Steve Castledine — Tue, 20 May 2008 09:45:05 +0100

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 :)

Nail Biting Weekend

Steve Castledine — Fri, 2 May 2008 12:30:45 +0100

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

Steve Castledine — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:04:21 +0100

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).

Please Help Me Its Lotus Notes

Steve Castledine — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:04:17 +0100

So Ed mentioned "Tweetscanning" - a search of the Twitter 'verse. Its actually pretty interesting - well to me, at 8pm, when my mind is burnt from running through some unit tests.

Anyway searching for Lotus Notes is interesting. Gems such as:

DEAR GOD, I HATE LOTUS NOTES. You can't search your emails? Seriously, what year is it?

and then

It's the robust search features that make lotus notes such a great enterprise solution.

Of course this is Notes fault not the setup/use:

Nice. Lotus Notes just now notified me of a meeting that I had this morning

(same person)

I have attended a meeting that was really tomorrow & missed half of one that was today. Good job, Lotus Notes!

Anyhow, it goes to show lack of training in any product can make a dent in its reputation. I figure a quick guide on standard email features should be put up on the web not just for version 8, but version 5, 6, 7 just because some people are still there, and when they can't figure things out they add to the negative chatter. We want positive chatter.

My favourite:

i'm still wondering how in the hell lotus notes is STILL being used!!! my bro's company just switched TO lotus from exch2003 wtf??

I love Alan's press release for a new product from IBM Lotus - LND - one day I wish we could have some software that can do all of that :)

Its all gone a little quiet

Steve Castledine — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:23:00 +0100

Yes its a little quiet over here. Baby, work and football pretty much drain all of my time and I am finding Twitter an easier way to "blog" - kind off.

I have loads of things I would like to blog about, but alas I am not the one that has the authority to do that (there was an internal "milestone" today with a feature close to my heart - but that's for others to discuss). Working away on Notes Domino 8.5 right now with even a few thoughts as to releases beyond that, a lot of work, but I would not swap it for the world (into my 3rd year at IBM already).

Incidentally, day to day I do not do that much with the blog template, that's a job firmly with support etc although I do act as a final place to go to for customer PMR's that cannot be resolved. A little word on that, as I have had a few "grumps" at me recently. Because IBM ship the blog template, and they obviously charge good money for licensing/support, I cannot really offer support directly to customers. Obviously this puts me in difficult situations as I am a bit of a "yes boy" when it comes to customers, but my employer pays me at the end of the day and it is unfair to devalue things like Premium support packages by operating a "backdoor" support service (excuse my terminology).

Having said that I am trying to get some documentation sorted out in the form of a public wiki for the blog template. This then I can contribute on a "as needs" basis and hopefully existing users can chip in as well - more on that soon. I'm hoping that this will then become a 1 stop shop for anything blog template related.

Now off to watch Manchester United v Barcelona!

Trap door is opening

Steve Castledine — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 10:04:59 +0100

Things are not getting any better at the bottom of the Championship:

Leicester are now in the bottom 3 with four games to go in the season. Another defeat arguably caused yet again by the referee by sending a player off after only ten minutes and giving a penalty at the weekend, only for the FA to admit this week it was a mistake and rescind the red card. Doesn't give us any points back!

I've lost track how many times officials have made huge mistakes like this and cost us games. It wouldn't happen in the US - too many Lawyers.

Saturday sees the visit of Colchester. Already relegated, they should be cannon fodder. But with nothing to play for but pride that relaxed attitude and our obvious "panic stations" to get the win could be our downfall. I hope not otherwise I will be a miserable old man come sunday!

Dopplr badges on blogs

Steve Castledine — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 09:28:41 +0100

Update - Dopplr have now sorted the CSS which caused the issue with IE - so no need for the workaround mentioned below.

I've noticed people starting to use Dopplr badges on their blogs. The Dopplr badge html does not currently allow users to specify dimensions so it tends to mess up html a little and can "bleed" over your content.

Hopefully Dopplr will think about providing some sizing functionality, but in the meantime you can adjust the badge html a little to better fit by adding some width css to the dopplr div:

You may need to play a bit as it does reduce the image quality. The following is a width of 170px

Twitter, TwitNotes and Notes 8 Standard are just great

Steve Castledine — Mon, 7 Apr 2008 13:46:08 +0100

I first used Twitter in the middle of last year and instantly dismissed it (to myself) as "pointless" and like watching paint dry - who needs to know who x eat for dinner?

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

Well since Mikkel released "TwitNotes" (a sidebar app for Lotus Notes that allows you to "twitter") I have had to chance to retry and re-evaluate.

First things first, and Mikkel has done just a great job here - his app is just great. You can hear more from him on the latest Podcast from Bruce and Julian (Taking Notes).

Secondly, this is the biggest piece of evidence yet (I have another that I want to find time to review that Nathan Freeman has done with his Carousel app) for me of how the new Notes 8 "Standard" client is just a great product to go forward with. Its not just got a better UI, it does cool things which are essentially useful things. The nature of its new architecture is already showing the innovation possible by developers and business partners. I even get to display my blog comments for viewing instantly with a "few clicks of the mouse":

Anyway back to twitter, I don't know what it is but I find it way more addictive than Facebook (which is fast being dumped by me) basically because it is 100 times more useful and people don't ask me to join their vampire game every half and hour!

Why is it useful? Well for me I have been working at home for a long time now and this just helps to bring you closer the community at large. Even if you have a real busy day having TwitNotes loaded keeps you in touch with the goings on - you don't even need to participate. This is what Instant Messaging has been missing - the ability to participate but at a more regulated pace that suits your working day.

I always look for business value that is possible from Social Software. Blogs, wiki's and instant messaging etc have always been easy to demonstrate, so far with twitter, I'm not sure you can, but who cares, socially it does just great for me and I think this is a "stayer".

Catch me on twitter - scastledine.

Gmail Custom Time saved my day

Steve Castledine — Tue, 1 Apr 2008 13:17:13 +0100

Imagine when I realised I had forgotten to email my wife happy birthday last week. Well I have been saved by Gmail Custom Time.

How do I use it?
Just click "Set custom time" from the Compose view. Any email you send to the past appears in the proper chronological order in your recipient's inbox. You can opt for it to show up read or unread by selecting the appropriate option.

Is there a limit to how far back I can send email?
Yes. You'll only be able to send email back until April 1, 2004, the day we launched Gmail. If we were to let you send an email from Gmail before Gmail existed, well, that would be like hanging out with your parents before you were born -- crazy talk.

If only life was this simple! Actually the line about forgetting to email my wife happy birthday kills me more than Gmail Custom Time!

Career Change

Steve Castledine — Tue, 1 Apr 2008 09:59:39 +0100

After many years in the IT profession I have decided to take a "career break" and move into something different. My second love are motorbikes so from today I am the proud owner of my own Suzuki store - just 1 mile from my home:

Of course this is just April's fools as I love my job and the community it is within. But I always find this store amusing when I pass it. No relation to me whatsoever!

Blog Server Fixed - Notes Communication speeds still a little strange

Steve Castledine — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:06:28 +0100

Been having network and server issues here at home office of late so this site has not been available or its been taking a day to load each page. RSS feeds gave up the ghost about a month a go - it seems (I don't tend to follow myself!).

Resolved many issues, a lot of different systems seem to break round the same time. Replaced my Web Server with a new one made up of components from multiple suppliers and so keeping costs down to £190 for a 2 gig 3mhz dual core machine including all the delivery charges (i'm not a freelancer anymore!).

One issue I have outstanding and I'm wondering if my router is playing up, but Lotus Notes communication speeds across the network from client to my Web Server suddenly dived a few months back and I have never got to the issue. Need to do some investigating as whilst my web server is now working great over http - my client to server is still not happy. Maybe traffic is going out to my ISP who have some sort of throttle on that port (wild guessing here) - some testing to be done. I should not be lazy and install a second NIC and attach to local network so only local communication is done here.