Mat Newman: LIVE from Yellow Central

More uses for iCalendar feeds - How to add Facebook Birthdays and Events into Lotus Notes

Mat Newman  17 May 2012 12:33:04 PM

Just worked out how to get Facebook birthdays and events into my Lotus Notes calendar using an iCalendar feed ... here's how to do it:

1. Log into facebook, choose Events, then choose the drop-down and select birthdays:


2. Go back to the drop-down and choose "Export Birthdays"


3. In the "Export Birthdays" dialog, highlight and copy the link


4. Back into Lotus Notes Calendar, choose the "Add Calendar" option and paste the link from step 3


5. Facebook birthdays now in your Lotus Notes calendar



You can also add Facebook Events you have subscribed to using the same steps, just choose "Upcoming Events" at step 1.

Adding Facebook calendar entries to Lotus Notes ... easy! Enjoy :-)

• Comments [4]

The Open Document Epiphany ... It’s time to add real functionality to Lotus Notes field types

Mat Newman  16 May 2012 08:19:35 PM

Remember OLE?  Remember the Lotus Notes Microsoft Office and Lotus SmartSuite document Library databases?

The great thing about OLE was that while on a Windows operating system, users could edit data directly in a Lotus Notes document utilising the other programs available on their machine.  One could do anything from embedding a drawing, to creating a presentation.  And yes, I still have databases containing e-suite content ;-).  Even today, it's still possible to choose 'Microsoft Word' or 'Lotus WordPro' as your alternate email editor (shudder!).

The bad thing was ... Apple stopped supporting OLE yonks ago, and to my knowledge, it's never been available on a Linux system.

What was the benefit of OLE?

Simple; one could create a document stored in a Lotus Notes database and utilise all of the editing power and features of another application directly within that Lotus Notes document.

Why was I thinking about this?

Running along the beach this morning I recalled a comment John Head made a while ago detailing why Microsoft OneNote was such a great tool compared with the Lotus Notes Notebook/Journal database.

Flat out, John is right ... I do love my Lotus Notes Notebook, and there are features available within Microsoft OneNote that make it more feature-rich than I currently have available within my Lotus Notes journal due to the storage mechanism - a Lotus Notes Rich Text Field.

While there have been updates to the capabilities of Rich Text Fields in the last couple of versions of Lotus Notes, the basic editing capabilities and features haven't really been extended since Lotus Notes version 5.  Yes, version 5 was introduced 13 years ago in March, 1999.  This post is not to denigrate the reasons why, or introduce a debate on the capabilities of the Rich Text field, but rather; introduce a simple concept:

What if we had a new field type introduced into the Lotus Notes document arsenal?

Open Document....

WOW!

Now I would be able to create a Lotus Notes Notebook entry with the flexibility of an Open Document Presentation file.

And it's already cross-platform, due to the availability of embedded IBM Lotus Symphony within the Lotus Notes client install.

Think about it.  Remember my post from a couple of days ago regarding digital-literacy-its-more-than-just-process?  Well at it's core, OneNote is nothing more than a flexible presentation editor, plus some bells and whistles, less the slide management tools, that enables one to group and categories 'files' within a single application.

Which is essentially what a Lotus Notes Journal/Notebook has done for the past 20 years!

Except:  The Lotus Notes Journal/Notebook only has one editing mechanism, the Rich Text Field.

Think of creating the equivalent of a Notebook/Journal 'Clean Sheet' with actions that enable one to Title and Categorise the content, while the actual editing of content was performed within an infinitely more flexible container - the Open Document field, rather than a simple Rich Text field.

DAOS has already been perfected on a Domino server, so including this functionality to manage the OD(F/S/P) content within a Lotus Notes document would surely just be a simple extension of this concept.

IBM/Lotus if you're listening, I would LOVE to be able to extend the capabilities of so many applications by including 'Open Document' field types within an application, it would most certainly make reliance on word processing, presentation or spreadsheet applications even more negligible.

The Open Document Epiphany ... Yes, It's time to add real functionality to Lotus Notes field types.

• Comments [6]

Adding the Weather to your Lotus Notes Calendar

Mat Newman  15 May 2012 08:22:15 PM

Following up from a question on yesterdays iCalendar post enquiring about the Weather feed in my Lotus Notes calendar:

"On another note, I would love to know how you got the weather data into your calendar?"

One of the comments pointed to Darren Adams excellent post on the topic, and here are the detailed instructions updated with Weather Underground's current site design.

The steps to add a Weather Calendar feed to Lotus Notes:

1. Visit Weather Underground: http://www.wunderground.com
2. Enter your City and choose Search



3. On the Search Results screen, point to the blue drop-down icon
4. Hover your mouse over the "Download iCal" link
5. Right-Click the link and choose "Copy Link Location" (or whatever option is similar in your browser)



6. Inside Lotus Notes, open your Calendar, and choose the "Add a Calendar" link under the "Show Calendars" heading



7. In the "Add a Calendar" dialog, choose "iCalendar Feed"
8. Paste the location copied at step 5 into the "URL" field
9. Choose additional options: "View Offline", Colours and Icons



10. The Result: Weather information populated into your Lotus Notes Calendar




Adding the Weather to your Lotus Notes Calendar (and making it visible on a mobile device using IBM Lotus Traveler) ... Easy!

Enjoy :-)

• Comments [4]

How to create an iCalendar Feed from a Lotus Notes database

Mat Newman  14 May 2012 04:00:14 PM

One thing coming up over and over again on Twitter recently is how much users hate Lotus Notes because it can't provide them with an iCalendar Feed that they can sync with another service like Google or OSX iCal.

Interestingly, the iCalendar standard was actually co-authored by a Loti (a Lotus employee), Frank Dawson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICalendar)

Out of the box Lotus Notes accepts iCalendar feeds as a consumer (you can add feeds to your own Lotus Notes calendar using the "Add Calendars" tool), however Lotus Notes is not - by default - an iCalendar Feed provider.

Until now!

Figure 1: iTeam's Training Database as the source for iCalendar Feeds, consumed by Google and Lotus Notes:



Note: The time might appear to be out in the Lotus Notes calendar feed (above), however; That is Lotus Notes being it's usual clever self and adjusting the time for me because I'm currently in Timor-Leste and the Calendar feed is coming from Hobart, Tasmania :-)

So how did I do it?  It's all in the database you can download at the end of this post, but essentially it's just a view that is embedded in a page, and the page is in the correct format to produce an iCalendar format .ics file.

Sorry for using @Today in a view selection formula folks, but it was one of the easiest ways to get only 2 weeks back and 2 months forward without touching anyone's data.

This database contains a view (iCalNotes) and a page (ical.ics).

You can try this out by adding the following URL into your own calendar system as a feed: test feed.

When these design elements are added to any standard database, they will enable users with HTTP access to the host Domino Server and at least 'read' access to the database to subscribe to an iCalendar Feed based on that databases content.

The Database requires a standard Lotus Domino calendar design, including a form called "Appointment", which contains the Following Fields:

Subject
From
iNetFrom (Optional)
StartDate
StartTime
EndDate
EndTime
Location

These design elements have been tested using a Standard Lotus Notes Mail Database Design.  The design elements will work in ANY Lotus Notes Database that has a calendar form included, and uses the Standard form and field names indicated above.

Once installed, access the feed from:   http://yourserver.com/yourmail.nsf/ical.ics
(where yourserver.com is your own domino server's internet address and yourmail.nsf is the full path to your mail database)


BE CAREFUL MODIFYING THE DESIGN ELEMENTS IN THIS DATABASE, THEY HAVE BEEN TESTED AND VALIDATED USING AN iCALENDAR VALIDATION SERVICE HERE.  IN ADDITION THEY HAVE BEEN VERIFIED TO WORK WITH GOOGLE CALENDAR FEEDS, MAC OSX iCAL FEEDS AND LOTUS NOTES FEEDS.


No guarantees. No Liability. Your Mileage May Vary. Use at your own risk. Caveat Emptor.

Download Template (<-  Right-Click and Save Target)

So there you go, how to create an iCalendar feed from any Lotus Notes database. Enjoy! :-)

• Comments [14]

Killing two birds with one stone - Or here is a ’new’ IMAP template ... that also uses a familiar interface

Mat Newman  2 May 2012 04:32:13 PM

As a few of you may be aware, a couple of weeks ago I entered into an exchange with Andy Pattinson (Twitter - ‏ @APACloud) regarding Gmail, it's ease of use, etc, etc...

In addition, I recently reached out to John C Welch (Twitter - @bynkii) who announced he was about to trial Lotus Notes again.  You may remember his post from a couple of years ago when he last reviewed Lotus Notes which caused quite a stir.  While the language he used in his follow up left something to be desired, he raised some valid points regarding his interaction with the product.  The reason I reached out to John was because his last review was based entirely on his experience with Lotus Notes using the IMAP template (which hasn't been updated for a loooong time) connecting to IMAP and SMTP services, rather than a Lotus Domino Server.

Many who commented on John's previous review pointed out that his experience would not really show-case Lotus Notes and it's capabilities since he wasn't utilising the typical Lotus Notes user experience while interacting in a Lotus Notes environment.

With this in mind, I tweeted John and offered to create a Lotus Notes account for him so he could experience the software in it's purest form.  It would appear that he intends to use IMAP regardless of this offer, as his reply was:

bynkii @matnewman why is it MY fault for setting up Notes in a way the setup wizard allows me to? Why not bag on IBM for 14 year old templates?
May 2, 2012 8:08:44 AM from Twitter - Twitterrific for Mac

Fair call.

So this one's for you John, an updated IMAP template I knocked up today in a couple of hours, and for you Andy, I've made it look a little 'familiar' to again showcase that Lotus Notes can do anything:

The Lotus Notes IMAP template for R8 with a (hopefully) intuitive and familiar interface:


All you have to do John, is download the following file to your /Lotus/Notes/Data directory, open the IMAP database with the old design and choose "File -> Application -> Replace Design"  Choose the Template with the title: "v8 Mail (IMAP)". If this option is not available, you may have to choose "View -> Advanced Menu's" and try again.  Because Lotus Notes is a secure system, you will have to click "Start Trusting Mathew Newman/isw" a couple of times so that the code I've re-written will work, but at the end I trust you will have a much more pleasant experience utilising Lotus Notes against an IMAP server:

Download Template (<-  Right-Click and Save Target)

Hope this helps, good luck with your review.

• Comments [7]

Digital Literacy, it’s more than just process

Mat Newman  30 April 2012 10:57:57 AM

This Week in Lotus episode 97 resonated soundly with me this week, especially the discussion surrounding Digital Literacy.  Darren Duke made the comment:

"...If you're doing a 4 year degree ... the technology you use today is going to be invariably different to the technology when you come out..."

As an educator, one of the most important things I impart to my participants on any subject are the concepts they are learning about, before moving on to the process.  Sure, I can teach the process for performing a Mail Merge in Wordperfect, AmiPro, WordPro, Word, LibreOffice, OpenOffice and Symphony, but more importantly, one should understand that a word-processing application is capable of combining data from another source to produce a final document with variable information (the concept).

Similarly, I have never taught a word-processing class without discussing the importance of Styles.  Styles - after all - are the most important feature a word-processor contains that enable users to easily implement and maintain a consistent look and feel throughout their document.  Discussing the concept of styles is just as important as teaching the process for creating and using them.  If a user understands the concept, it enables them to sit in front of a new software application and using help resources, locate the process for implementing that concept within that unfamiliar application.

This - to me - is the crux of Digital Literacy.

It should not matter which particular software application is being used.  If one has a high degree of Digital Literacy, then one understands the concepts that an application holds, and therefore only needs adjust their behaviour while using that application to execute the process that will provide the desired outcome.

I often find it interesting to review how a user utilises a particular application.  A classic example recently was a user who had built a sophisticated navigation tool for their fellow users that enabled them (via hyper-links) to navigate through the various documents and forms located on a shared drive to easily locate the information they required.  Sound like a classic intranet? A Sharepoint or Connections infrastructure? Or even Lotus Notes?  Nope. It was all done inside Microsoft Excel.

Not to say that the user had done this 'incorrectly', or that they were using the 'wrong' tool, but simply; Were they using the tool best suited for the outcome they required?

Users who are familiar with a particular process (ie: the functions available within an application) will often fall back on that application to produce some really creative outcomes.  Often because they lack the Digital Literacy to understand that there may be a more appropriate tool available to them.

So the next time you do some training, a demonstration, or presentation, why not spend a few moments explaining the concept before you launch into steps 1-2-3 of a process.  You will enhance your presentation immeasurably because you will be helping to increase the Digital Literacy of your audience.

Thanks Darren, Stu and Jon for discussing this important topic.

• Comments [4]

Symbian Belle now available in Australia

Mat Newman  23 April 2012 12:28:51 PM

Wandering around the Qantas lounges last week it was obvious that Nokia's market share in Australia is declining - as it is in other parts of the world - with the most visible device being the obligatory iPhone.  My own device preference remains the Nokia E7, mainly due to the excellent Telephone capabilities (it is a Phone after all), in addition to the form factor; including a large physical keyboard, and the flip-up screen, which I really like working with.  The hardware is just as important to me as the OS, which in the case of Symbian, has menu's on every screen providing an array of choices and a really nice 'hold' feature (similar to a right-click) that allows me to easily action most items in a list.  

Over the last few days Symbian Belle - the latest iteration of Nokia's Symbian based operating system - was made available for users in Australia.  There are still a few model phone's for which the update is unavailable due to carrier specific implementations of the operating system, but for those with unlocked devices you should be able to access the update from within the device settings, for others you can check your availability here:  http://europe.nokia.com/find-products/nokia-belle-update/nokia-belle-update-availability

Obviously the first thing I did after the update wiped many of my installed applications (beware of this one!) was to put IBM Lotus Traveler and IBM Sametime back on my device.  Traveler installed without a hitch, but none of the versions of Sametime I have for Symbian (8 through to 8.5.2) are compatible with 'Belle'.  Each simply refused to install with an invalid certificate option.  I will be attempting this again over the next few days to see what is required to have the 'Nokia E-Series' Sametime client working on my Nokia E-7 running 'Belle'.

Most of my applications reinstalled with the latest updates and versions specific for 'Belle' from the 'My Apps' link inside the Nokia 'Store' (formerly 'Ovi Store' - look for the same icon, without Ovi in it's description).  As I have mentioned before, the inclusion of 'My Apps' in the Nokia store makes it really easy to get apps back on to your device if you ever need to wipe it, or move to a new Nokia (Symbian) device.

First impressions; the new features I found that deserve a big thumbs-up:

• The Notifications pull-down,
• The vastly improved on-screen keyboard,
• Better multi-tasking and faster application navigation screens,
• Simplified and better organised menu's,
• Home screen icons (across 6 home-screens now instead of 3) have text descriptions on them, great when many of these are web-site bookmarks
• Better organisation of options screens.

What seemed to be more difficult:

• Switching between profiles,
• Enabling Battery 'Power Saving' mode,
• Opening 'Messaging' (where the IBM Lotus Traveler folders live) no longer goes to the 'Folders' view, it goes straight to conversations.

Switching between profiles:

In the base install, the only visible way to switch profiles is to open the "Notifications' screen by pulling down from the top menu, and using the single toggle option for 'Silent'.  After a little playing around, if you add the 'Profile' widget to one of your home screens, it will give you the option to easily switch to the default profiles.  Beware! A few of the default profiles you may be used to have been removed in 'Belle', where the choices are now:

• General,
• Silent,
• Meeting,
• Offline

Enabling Batter 'Power Saving' mode:

Jump onto the Store and search for 'Nokia Battery Monitor'.  An excellent little app that makes the switch into power saving mode quick and easy, while also providing a plethora of options on battery optimisation and information about usage and projected time remaining while using a number of core applications.

Opening messaging defaults to 'Conversations' (SMS message) view:

Go to applications, either by using the main button, or the new button on the bottom menu, and hold on any application icon to get the choice to 'Add to Home Screen'.  Adding Lotus Notes Traveler Mail, Contacts Look up, etc, will put the icon on the current home screen and touching it goes straight to the Lotus Traveler folders in the Messaging application.

What I didn't like:

The new sounds and tones are distinctively made with some sort of electronic 'xylophone'.  These were all very quickly replaced.

Some Screen Shots:


The Verdict:

A great update for Symbian devices, including late model E and N series Nokia's.  Overall a better, easier layout to navigate through, with most options now more accessible through the notifications pull-down (with the exception of those listed above), more home screens means more widgets, and less wading through menu's for apps, the phone itself seems generally more responsive, faster and better at multi-tasking.  Beware: battery life is affected dramatically the more 'live' widgets you include on those extra home screens! (Make sure you get the Nokia Batter Monitor from the Store)

If you have a device which supports Symbian 'Belle', I would recommend upgrading as soon as you can.

• Comments [0]

REVEALED: IBM Lotus Traveler’s NEW client for Android TABLET

Mat Newman  17 April 2012 06:20:23 AM

During the AusLUG 2012 keynote address, Ed Brill was kind enough to lift the covers on my NDA and allow me to demonstrate the upcoming IBM Lotus Traveler client for Android Tablet to attendees.  Ed has also recently extended this offer to enable me to blog about the upcoming release.  The new client will be available with the 8.5.4 release of IBM Lotus Traveler coming later this year.

First impressions: WOW!  The new IBM Lotus Traveler client for Android is a complete departure from the current release, which is actually the same client available to Android Smartphones.  The new client takes full advantage of the extra screen real estate on the Android Tablet, has more features, and additional options for both Mail and Calendar.

As a heavy calendar user, I am particularly impressed with the new Agenda and Month views, especially when selecting a date in the month view where a pop-up appears allowing one to scroll through the details on that day without having to switch back to a day view for the information.  Being able to create meetings and invite participants easily using the completely redesigned calendar form is also quick and painless.

Demo time: here are the screen-shots!

The Mail Client

The Main Mail screen

Mail: Selecting a message

Mail: Download full content

Mail: Message options and menu

Mail: Selecting multiple messages

The Calendar Client

Calendar: Agenda view

Calendar: Day view

Calendar: Week view

Calendar: Month view with a day pop-up

Calendar: Calendar form

I'm really looking forward to this release becoming publically available.  Great work IBM!

Edit: I've been using this version for a few weeks now on my Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet and am really happy with the client from a Mail, Calendar and Contacts perspective.  For an early beta everything has been running flawlessly.  For those who have followed this post through twitter, I remind you that these are screen-shots of a beta version that is NOT currently available to the general public, and will be released later this year with the 8.5.4 version of Traveler.

• Comments [9]

#TipOfTheDay Don’t try and Admin a Lotus Protector server if your JRE is newer than 1.6.0_23

Mat Newman  12 March 2012 01:37:27 PM

Had configured Lotus Protector for a customer, and was showing them how to enter the Admin page and make some modifications.

The client didn't have Java installed, so we pulled the latest release from java.com, only to discover that none of our changes could be saved from his machine.  That's when we found this support technote on the IBM Site:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21473125

Key thing here:

All attempts to save configuration changes are ending up with the Java error 'error writing policy'.... Solution A: Downgrade Java on the machine where you want to manage Lotus Protector to Java 1.6.0_23 (or older)

Downgrade Java (Oracle have done a WONDERFUL job on their site making you now register to get older versions of JRE's BTW) and all is good again.

BTW: For anyone who has ever complained about the way Lotus Notes works, try the following Java Dialog:


Hitting the default option by clicking "Yes" or pressing the Enter key DISABLES the java applet, meaning you CAN'T Admin the Lotus Protector server! Doh!

• Comments [2]

The customer thought they were getting a new email program .... until they were shown what Lotus Notes could do

Mat Newman  8 March 2012 01:11:22 AM

This one straight out of the "I didn't know we could do that" box.

The customer thought they were simply getting a replacement for Outlook.  So there's Exchange and Outlook busted.  Then their SOE document was copied and pasted into a Notes database which immediately made the content available to Notes, HTTP Browsers and mobile clients, there's Word busted.  And why does the name of the document creator show up with a green 'on-line' icon? Oh, there's Lync busted. Then they needed a solution to host their web site, there went IIS.  Then they needed to be able to transfer large files outside of their organisation, there went IIS and FTP thanks to Declan Lynch's FileSendr from OpenNTF.  Then they needed a file management solution beyond what a file share and VPN could provide - Oh! Connections entitlement in 8.5.3 anyone! -  there went Windows, IIS, and Sharepoint.  Then they needed a Database that had outgrown an Excel Spreadsheet (too unwieldy) and Access (not scalable enough) which was imported straight into Lotus Notes in a blink of an eye.  Then they discovered they could improve the performance of their ESX by running light-weight operating systems in the guest servers by replacing them with open source.  Oh and what will Lotus Notes servers (Domino) run on...

Then they realised that Lotus Notes live text could recognise information and link directly to that content from their (Microsoft SQL Server Based) Accounting package.  Finally, they took a good hard look at what it cost them every year for a Word Processor, Spreadsheet and Presentation editor.

At that point the customer realised that changing to IBM Lotus Notes and Domino was not just a good decision, it was a stroke of brilliance!

Outlook, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access, Windows,  Exchange, Windows, Sharepoint, Windows, Lync, Windows, IIS, Windows, FTP, Windows, SMTP, Windows ...

So many are ready to categorise IBM Lotus Notes as 'just' email.  So was this customer, who; thought they were getting email ... until they were shown what Lotus Notes could do.

• Comments [3]