Rob’s Blog

UKLUG was a great success

Rob Wills — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:55:54 +0100

On Wednesday I drove up to Edinburgh in time for the UKLUG conference. It was a great chance to meet up with friends and catch up on all things Lotus. Timing is everything and the conference was timed with 8.5.1 about to be shipped. There was an air of confidence about recent changes to the products.

UKLUG was extremely well organised and my thanks go to Warren and all those who put in tireless hours.

The 8.5.1 version is by all accounts a slicker beast than 8.5.0. Many of the chief complaints with 8.5 were about the time it took to load. Those complaints seem to have gone. The Designer client has finally got its make over and IBM have done the right thing and made it a free download. This is a good move. It may be slightly late but better late than never. Doing the same for the Notes client (without the ability to connect to servers) would be a good thing too. The POP3 and IMAP protocols might need a little attention but it would give students somewhere to try out their applications designed in their Designer download. All we need now is a port to a few games consoles (XBOX360, Playstation3, Wii) and the client will become ubiquitous.

On the way up to Scotland we accepted an offer from someone who wanted to buy our house. So we now need to go shopping ourselves and find a new home. We want to buy a home in the Peak District that gets snowed in each year with some land. Broadband connection and four wheel drive vehicle is obviously mandatory.

After UKLUG we drove up to Insch north of Aberdeen to visit my brother and his family. I spent Saturday chilling out with a chainsaw, an axe and a few beers (afterwards). We spent the whole of Sunday driving back. 10 hours in all owing to traffic on the M6.

Lotus nose

Rob Wills — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:12:24 +0100

$4.5m Oracle ERP Project dumped for Legacy IBM Lotus Notes/Domino and IBM UniVerse Systems

Rob Wills — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:12:55 +0100

My background since I qualified as a Chemical Engineer back in the days when a Commodore 64 had plenty of RAM has been bespoke software development for Engineering Contracting Companies - Oil & Gas and more recently Water. Over the years, I have had a hand in the development of most of the modules required to operate these companies apart from the core Financials modules. The emphasis of the systems has always been projects. The company tenders for projects and takes responsibility for building a water treatment works or whatever - not just designing it.

Much of the software has been developed in a DBMS called IBM UniVerse - or at least IBM acquired the company that acquired the company that acquired the company that owned Prime Information. It is a DBMS that supports multi-values fields and variable length fields rather like a Lotus Notes database. It is clearly not a relational database although it can operate like one. So it is great for ad hoc SQL type queries unlike Notes which is great if you've got a pre-built view.

In 1996 we introduced Lotus Notes into the mix and introduced additional features to the systems like workflow. Lotus Notes/Domino and UniVerse work very well together partly because of the similarities in their architecture.

The systems could be operated with any Finance Systems that had open interfaces. Between 1992 and 2008 the company used SUN Accounts licenced from a company called Systems Union.

As mentioned here and here, I was on the team that migrated to Oracle eBusiness Suite ERP away from SUN Finance and our in-house developed systems.

Well Oracle EBS suite was not a good fit for this company. It ended up like a millstone around their neck and they have reluctantly taken the decision to go back to the legacy systems I wrote. The $4.5m cost of the migration has been wasted. I hope they learn from the experience but it was an expensive lesson. I hate to say "I told you so" but it's in those blog posts.

So I start next week on the return journey. What we could have achieved enhancing those systems with just 10% of that cost doesn't bear thinking about. It is a crying shame.

I am trying to come up with a project name for the migration back into the "legacy" apps. So far I've come up with Project Karma and Project Phoenix. Any better suggestions?

Going to Lotusphere 2010?

Rob Wills — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:28:26 +0100

If you're flying to Orlando in January next year, you may want to check out the Virgin deals at the moment. You need to book by 23rd June though.

I now have an excuse to try out Traveler

Rob Wills — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 08:51:55 +0100

I was out shopping yesterday at Makro and the particular store was closing down so there were a few bargains.

I ended up buying a Motorola MPx220 mobile phone since it was going cheap. I know nothing about the phone whatsoever but it seemed like a good excuse to try out Traveler since the phone uses a Windows Mobile OS.

So I will try and install Traveler from Paul and Warren's The World is going Mobile presentation at Lotusphere and see whether the presentation is "developer friendly".

Now if only Traveler worked natively on Foundations, that would be cool. Until then it will have to be installed in a Windows VMware image since Lotus Foundations now provides this functionality with the Lotus Foundations Run add-on.

Using Lotus Foundations’ Built in VMware Server

Rob Wills — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 13:06:25 +0100

In my last post, I mentioned the ability to run VMware images was probably the most important addition to Lotus Foundations with the new 1.1 release.

Lotus Foundations Run is the name given to the new add-on software that brings the power of VMware Server 2.0 into the mix allowing Lotus Foundations to host applications on virtual servers.

So now Lotus Foundations can host Windows applications. You can install practically all operating systems and then install applications on top of those operating systems.

Installing Lotus Foundations Run is almost identical to the installation of Lotus Foundations Start. Full details can be found here.

Now what I know about virtualisation takes about 30 seconds of revision. I've recently installed VMware workstation for the first time. I'm no expert.

I decided to try out this new software using a couple of downloads from Jump Box which basically hosts ready made images that you can use straight away. The two I chose were free. All I did was download them, unzip them and copy the image folders onto my Lotus Foundations server. A couple of clicks later and they were deployed - that simple.

I deployed SugarCRM and Ruby on Rails knowing precisely nothing about either of them! Obviously, using an application in Production is going to require a little bit of tuning to decide what resources are required but Lotus Foundations Run is extremely easy to use.

Foundations ready for growing your business on

Rob Wills — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 10:15:55 +0100

Well you've probably already heard that IBM have now released Lotus Foundations Start 1.1 and Lotus Foundations Branch Office 1.1. If not then here's a link to their press release.

But what does this mean?

Basically Lotus Foundations Start is the add-on software that you install onto the Lotus Foundations appliance that includes Domino. The 1.1 release introduces version 8.5 of Domino (LFS1.0 was based on Domino 8.01). The Branch Office version allows a Lotus Foundations server to become part of an existing Domino infrastructure which was a much requested feature.

How do you install the new version?

The Lotus Foundations status page automatically notifies you that an update is available for the Lotus Foundations core (i.e. the Linux operating system). Installing these releases is simply a matter of clicking on the displayed link and then rebooting the server. After rebooting the new software will be running. Installing a new version of Lotus Foundations Start requires you to download the package from the IBM site and copying it onto the Foundations server. This is a simple process documented in full here.

Once installed the Lotus Foundations status page should show Lotus Foundations 1.1 running on port 1352 as shown below.

What else is new with the 1.1 release?

Probably the biggest addition with the 1.1 release is the inclusion of VMWare Server 2.0 into the mix allowing you to install different operating systems and applications. For example, you can now install Windows Server onto your Lotus Foundations appliance. This allows you to run applications that only run on Windows. An added benefit of this approach is that you can support your Windows software remotely even after a Windows crash.

Once I've had a chance to play with this new release, I'll tell you what I like and don't like about it. At this point in time, I have no idea whether the inclusion of Domino 8.5 exposes any of the really cool features of that release like DAOS. I'll have to run a few tests.

Lotus Foundations getting ready for the mainstream

Rob Wills — Tue, 3 Mar 2009 18:58:26 +0100

This year I went to Lotusphere for the first time. What made me go this year when I couldn't justify it to myself in previous years?

Well one key reason was Lotus Foundations. Lotus Foundations is the IBM branding of their acquisition of Net Integration's NITIX brand over a year ago now. A Lotus Foundations appliance is a clever combination of hardware - including an integrated back-up solution - with software. The software is based on Linux but has been designed for simplicity of operation. It basically suits small businesses and also branch offices or sites where there is no I.T. support. It deals with the complex networking that a small office requires as well as security, e-mail, office software etc.

I bought a Lotus Foundations box and I love it! My company, Inter Weavers, has now become a business partner here in the UK so that we can start to sell these appliances.

The latest version 1.1 of the Lotus Foundations Start software out shortly includes free VMWare server support so that you can install any Windows software (in addition to Linux distributions) in a VMWare partition. So if you needed you could install a Windows Server OS in your VMWare partition. When your Windows server blue screens, you can still access your Lotus Foundations server and you can restart your Windows server remotely!

It also includes better support for branch offices allowing the server to integrate better with other offices in the company. The server is designed to use Lotus Domino for e-mail and the new version uses the latest 8.5 release and allows a Lotus Foundations Server to integrate with an existing Lotus Domino domain.

My clients work in Engineering and they tend to set-up site offices with between 3 and 20 people working in portacabins for two year durations. Lotus Foundations is perfect for them.

I am able to provide Lotus Notes applications for my clients on top of Lotus Foundations. It combines the power of Lotus Notes/Domino with the simplicity needed to support without travel.

Please click on the graphic below to see a video all about Lotus Foundations. It can take a while to load but it is well worth watching. If you're interested in more information, please let me know here or on the Inter Weavers site and I'll get the information you need.

London Developer Co-op

Rob Wills — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 17:03:07 +0100

Last year my company Inter Weavers went into partnership with three other companies and the London Developer Co-op (or LDC for short) was created. LDC has since grown to six partners. My initial reasons for teaming up with other companies was one of resourcing. I was in a position where I was in danger of having too much on my plate but didn't want to turn work away. However, it also gives us the opportunity to bid for larger projects with wider technical scope and we are already having some success in that direction.

And here's one of my favourite tracks from the 80s ...

Shrovetide football @ Ashbourne

Rob Wills — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 17:37:27 +0100

Yesterday and today was Ashbourne's annual football event. It is basically football before they invented the whistle. Ronaldo or Drogba wouldn't last two minutes in that scrum. Take a look!

Calling Oracle Stored Procedures from Lotus Notes or Domino

Rob Wills — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:35:55 +0100

I am currently writing an application for one of my clients that creates new projects in the Oracle eBusiness Suite ERP from the Lotus Notes client. Oracle have public APIs written in PL/SQL that you must use for the task. I created a PL/SQL "wrapper program" to call the APIs and called this as a stored procedure.

When this application is complete, I plan to write an in depth article on the techniques I used.

However, in the meantime, I thought it was worth posting the syntax that I used to call the stored procedure with both input and output parameters. The documentation for calling a stored procedure is a little sparse.

So here is an example stored procedure. You could call that using an anonymous block like so. The LotusScript code to call that stored procedure using the LC LSX is here.

Finally, I used an on-line book to learn the fundamentals of PL/SQL which you can find here. I plan to buy that book because I'll be using Pl/SQL again.

Upgrading to Windows2000!

Robin Wills — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 15:00:06 +0100

No not the Operating System; we're having new windows at home and the company is called Windows 2000 Limited! It probably seemed like a good idea at the time but now instead of the futuristic appeal that it once had, the name is kind of dated and makes you think of second rate operating systems. Still, they could have called it Windows Millennium I suppose which would have been worse.

Seriously the quality of the windows and doors, the price and the attention to detail of the fitter are first rate so if you live anywhere near Ripley in Derbyshire where they are based, I highly recommend them.

They are also providing a large conservatory but we have to wait for planning permission with that one.

I’m back!

Robin Wills — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 10:53:31 +0100

Thirteen months ago, I had some minor issues with my blog template when I upgraded to Notes 8. What I should have done was upgrade my template to the version that Steve Castledine had brought with him to IBM which was now an official Notes template but instead I procrastinated - and stopped posting.

This is not an apology. I'm not sure anyone noticed really.

But I've now upgraded my blog and intend to post more frequently. It took all of 10 minutes to upgrade and I wish I'd done it earlier. Thank you Steve for providing an agent that converted my HTML theme so that it worked in the new template.

What's happened in the last thirteen months?

Well quite a lot really and I'll be posting about some of that. On the personal front, Julie and I decided to get married after a whirlwind 17 year romance! My company is one of the founding partners within the London Developer Coop, or LDC for short. That will help all of us to resource our bigger projects better and to take on bigger projects jointly which is quite exciting. I also went to my first ever Lotusphere last month which was a real eye opener. Inter Weavers has joined the Lotus Notes/Domino Design Partner Programme and has become a Lotus Foundations Business Partner. I've also been working hard implementing Oracle ERP for a client and integrating it with Lotus Notes and Domino using PL/SQL and the Oracle APIs. The world has also gone into financial meltdown whilst I've been away.

So plenty to blog about; Planet Lotus here I come ...

BT ISP kicked into touch for poor service

Rob Wills — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 21:00:28 +0100

Last week our broadband went down over the weekend.

OK I thought. Deep breath. I'll call Bombay, Bangalore, Pune or wherever their call centres are.

I ended up calling them maybe ten times. Each time they are extremely polite but constrained by a script that doesn't have too much leeway for diagnosing the problem. What's more they told me my mobile/cell phone number and asked me on each of those occasions to confirm that it was correct. That's OK the first time but it gets a tad annoying after a while.

They confirmed that they thought the line was faulty but then asked me to call again in an hour so that they could escalate it to "Engineering". Frustrating to say the least but, hey, I could live with that.

They finally decided that a visit was necessary so we decided on a morning visit (between 8am and 1pm) on the Tuesday. I was working at a client's so Julie waited in. At lunchtime on Tuesday, Julie started losing it.

BT's line faults are now outsourced to Open Reach. However, you can't speak to them directly. You have to get Bangalore to relay messages to them or to relay messages back to you. This is an Indian version of Chinese wispers. Unfortunately, some of the messages coming back seemed to conflict somewhat with reality. Someone somewhere was telling porkies like that the Engineer was on the way. We had that message a few times. Julie waited in all day and didn't get a visit!

The next day just before Julie was about to go out, a van arrived. No apologies. Julie has to cancel her visit.

It turns out that the BT modem/router was faulty. Now you might ask why I didn't try and swap it out in case. I wish I had. However, the Help Desk just said the line was faulty. The faulty modem meant that they couldn't hand shake from their end but they didn't ask whether I had a spare modem.

It turned out that the Engineer didn't have a spare modem either. Not his job. BT would have to post one and I'd have to pay for it because my BT modem was out of warranty.

Turns out I was sick to the back teeth of BT and wasn't going to pay them a penny more.

I had been researching ISPs anyway because I needed a static IP because I wanted to host my website and mail internally. So I am now switching to plus.net at http://www.plus.net who have a UK based Help Desk. I'll be paying �20 a month for a 20GB up to 8MB broadband service. I get free static IP address(es) and a free Wireless/Router/Modem. It should be sorted this week.

The other ISP I was considering that also have a good support reputation and also provide free static IP addresses are Zen at http://www.zen.co.uk.

Oh and while I was at it we switched our land line phone service to plus.net as well. We kept the same number and we get free evening and weekend calls for a line rental of �10 per month.

So when I said we wouldn't be paying BT a penny more, I meant it!

Not made Lotusphere (again)

Rob Wills — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:13:32 +0100

I spent the afternoon trying to combine an honest day's work with catching up on the Opening General Session at Lotusphere. There was plenty of live blogging going on and I was able to get a flavour although being there would have been better! It seemed to me that this year is one of consolidating on last year's announcements and strategies.

I guess my highlight was the Designer client in Eclipse with a new class browser etc. However, doing this was a no brainer once the strategy for using Eclipse was decided on way back before the Hannover announcement. Making the Notes client available on Apple's Leopard and also Ubuntu has got to be a good thing and is only possible because of the Eclipse strategy.

There was quite a lot for small businesses. This is a huge market and one that IBM Lotus Notes/Domino is under-represented in. Hopefully that's going to change.

I am booked on a Notes/Domino three day course on Composite Applications in March. I think that being able to tie Notes in with other desktop applications and systems will differentiate developers more and more in the future. It can also be a huge differentiator between Notes/Domino and the competition.

The improvements coming in Quickr and Connections are going to strengthen the overall Lotus Software branding and they will start to make inroads into companies also considering Sharepoint. I only wish that there had been some sort of announcement that Lotus Document Management (Domino.Doc) functionality could have been incorporated into Quickr.

One project I have on the drawing board is a Lotus Notes Composite Application front-end to Oracle eBusiness Suite ERP. It was interesting that IBM are going to develop a customisable product with SAP code named "Atlantic" that will be sold by both IBM and SAP. This seems to be much bigger than the SAP templates giveaway that didn't seem to get the same support from SAP.

So in conclusion, I am happy with the consolidation of a successful strategy and glad that IBM haven't tried to bring out a whole bunch of brand new products. Looking forward to the Eclipse Designer release!!

BE Systems acquired by Blue Wave

Rob Wills — Mon, 3 Dec 2007 08:55:40 +0100

As announced in Barcelona today, BE Systems is now owned b y Blue Wave. The press release can be found here:

http://www.elsmore.net/warren/blog.nsf/Downloads/WELE-79HKRN/$File/Bluewave%20press%20release%20FINAL.doc

In Domino blogging circles, this means that Warren Elsmore now works for Paul Mooney. These talented conference speakers, LUG organisers and Domino Administrators join forces. The combined company is also better able to serve its customers - which is what it's all about.

So congratulations to both companies!

Today’s tip : Don’t put your mobile in the wash

Rob Wills — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 20:39:03 +0100

Well I have been without a mobile phone for a little while since Julie washed my last one. Anyway, today I decided to try my luck on eBay. I got a Pearl 8100 for just over �100 which seems like a good deal. Now I just have to wait for it to arrive. Fingers crossed.

Update: My Blackberry Pearl arrived earlier this week. I'm very happy with it. I have plenty to learn though and it will take a little while for me to get up to speed. I am currently just using it for calls and haven't investigated getting e-mail working. A while ago, I downloaded a ten user enterprise licence from RIM so I'll probably try and get that working. I guess I'll need a data contract as well from one of the mobile network providers. Anyone know what the going rate is for that? I currently am on pay as you go with Orange.

What next for eTimesheets?

Rob Wills — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 21:19:18 +0100

A week or so ago, I released eTimesheets onto openNTF as an open source project.

eTimesheets is a web based Timesheets system that I had developed a few years ago when I was based in India at a subsidiary of Inter Weavers that was called Tiger Infotech. We learnt a lot when we developed eTimesheets and it was successful for us because one of our clients took it and we integrated in into their existing systems.

Here's the link to the eTimesheets project on openNTF:
http://www.openntf.org/Projects/pmt.nsf/ProjectLookup/eTimesheets

I decided to open source it because we weren't doing anything with it. I decided that letting companies use it for free may provide some opportunities in the future if one of those companies want to interface it with their HR system, their ERP system or their Leave Request system.

So now the product has been downloaded about 150 times but I could sure use some feedback. Was it easy to install? If not what do I need to add into the installation guide? Do you like it? If not, what enhancement would you like me to consider adding? Please comment away.

eTimesheets finally released!

Rob Wills — Sun, 4 Nov 2007 16:33:09 +0100

I have finally released eTimesheets to the http://www.openNTF.org site as project eTimesheets. Please download it and check it out.

UPDATE: I originally uploaded the NSF databases with local encryption! This has now been fixed which also reduced the filesize from 9MB to 2MB. Apologies to anyone who has downloaded the 9MB version. Please download the 2MB version instead. I simply edited the original release document rather than creating another.

UPDATE 2: This is getting embarrassing. I released eTimesheets without giving Manager access to the Default ACL group despite writing the installation instructions on how to change the ACL after download. It is now rectified. Apologies to anyone who downloaded version 0.9 which has now been replaced by 0.901.

Coming soon to openNTF : eTimesheets

Rob Wills — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 14:14:31 +0100

This post is my way of forcing myself to get my act in gear by committing to release a web based Timesheets System to openNTF within a week. It is something I've been meaning to do for over a year now! I had the system developed in India during my spell there and it has been in production at one of my clients for a few years. I also use it to record my time and mileage and then use it to create invoices.

You can see some screen shots already that I have added to the openNTF project. I just need to decide upon a licence and finish setting up some installation documentation and I'll then upload the NSF applications.

Please let me know if you think this might be useful to you. There are enhancements that I have in mind too but I want to wait and see what the feedback is like first.

Here's the link to the project on openNTF: http://www.openntf.org/Projects/pmt.nsf/ProjectLookup/eTimesheets