One of the vendors at Lotusphere gave away this book, 'Getting Things Done' by David Allen. I was excited because I was recently thinking about getting this book. I'm in KC for a couple days and I started reading it on the plane. I like a couple of the concepts introduced in the first chapter. He relates his system to Karate and sports in that you want to get into a state of 'mind like water' or 'flow'. This is a state where your relaxed and able to working at your best most of the time. It's a feeling of control. In Karate, you train so that your flexible and comfortable in a stressful situation. Your mind is trying to juggle all your unfinished business whether you like it or not. He talks about a system where you write down your 'projects' and also write down actions needed to accomplish. This simple act helps to quiet your mind and help you move to a state where you feel in control. With over 300 emails from being away, I also took some time on the plane to organize my email inbox. Thanks to Notes replication! I feel like I got them under control.

Labels: Lotus Notes

Disney is great at offering many food choices. I must say that I really enjoyed the lunch served at Lotusphere. I really heaped on the vegetables. I wish I had a chef at home to prepare veggies like that every day. A good goal would be to learn myself to get creative in the kitchen and cook up some tasty veggies. It's not hard it's just a matter of doing. I felt that I had done a decent job watching what I ate with a only a few exceptions. I didn't drink to excess. Yet, when I weighed myself the first day back, I was up 6 lbs. I did realize that I had a very late dinner of pistachio's(a bag my kids gave me for my birthday). I had no lunch and the plane only feeds you mini peanuts and crackers. The following day I was down 3 lbs on the scale and yesterday I was back where I was when I left for FL. I'll take this as a win. It must be 'phantom' weight if you can shake it off so fast. Water? I don't know but I'm ready to kick it up in high gear now.
Of course, work and life are chaotic since returning from Lotusphere. I'm heading to Overland Park, KS today. I'd like to put up a database this weekend for our weight challenge. Either way, I'd like to start the challenge with the first weigh in on Monday, Feb 4th.
Thoughts?

Labels: Lotus Notes

Oh, many posts to do in reflection of the annual trek to Lotusphere and Disney World. As I sip my first beloved cup of Joe this morning, I'm thinking about the horrible coffee that the Disney hotels serve in their snack bars. Should coffee foam up when you pour it? I say "Nay, Nay". That's the first sign of bad coffee but the second is taste. It's got to be Nescafe instant coffee. From a guy who grinds whole beans and loves his coffee, this is unacceptable. Especially, from Disney, I expect better. Last year, I learned from taking the Magic Kingdom backstage tour that the Coke products are free in return for advertising. That's correct, it's all pure profit. So the $11.99 spent on the hotel drink mug is a great deal for them. I've got to believe the Nescafe is the same deal. Someone needs to speak out and correct this coffee injustice. They served Starbucks at Lotusphere. That was fine except I hear there's a boycott because of an incident with our troups in Iraq getting the cold shoulder from Starbucks. I will support the boycott if true.
The Disney experience is awesome. They really are the best at creating a magical experience. I commented to my wife that I felt that the cast members were really nice this year. I thought I was seeing a decline the last few years and now I felt it's gotten better. If all I can complain about is the coffee, that can be worked around. It would make my day to see a different coffee sponsor though.

Labels: Lotus Notes

Lotusphere 08 is over. I'm in the airport waiting for the plane. It's cool to see a few Lotusphere backpacks in the lines. I have that wore out tired dazed feeling. We had a quick run through Epcot this morning. We did Test Track, Soarin', Mexican boat ride, Norway boat ride and had nachos and margarita's in Mexico. All in all, it's been a great trip. Time to board for the great white North.

Labels: Lotus Notes

The general session had a couple cool announcements like the Atlantic project with SAP, Domino Designer committment for enhancements and the small market Connections product "Bluehouse". The session that really made me go, "Cool", was BP207 From IBM Lotus Notes Client Application to Ajax-Powered Rich Internet Application in Less than 10 Lines of Code! with Speakers: Rich Waters and Jack Ratcliff. I'm not sure what rock I've been under but this Ext.nd Javascript framework is cool. It's Javascript classes for Domino objects. They demoed enhancements you can do to views, outlines, picklists and date pickers. It wasn't long after that when I went to a Rocky Oliver session that talked about the new Dojo support coming in Domino Designer 8.5 and what you can do today with this toolkit. Question now is: With all these frameworks/toolkits, what to use when? Good problem to have.

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Labels: Lotus Notes

Duffbert and Warren Elsmore did a great job in their session today,
BP302 Admins are from Mars, Developers are from Venus: A Practical Guide for Improving Communication in Your (Working) Relationships
They had great videos pre-recorded in the Apple commercial style, worked off each other well and had some great comments. I began to understand myself more and appreciate my admins. I had a couple of "Duh" moments. You know, simple things you should realize but don't always pay attention or do. The old UI's from R3 are so yesterday and it reflects on all of us. Let's get it together and upgrade those ui's. How about a documentation wiki or database between developers and admins? I wish I had a dollar for everytime I'm handed a spreadsheet from someone asking me to complete with applicatin definitions. A current database with all details and documentation takes work but will be great to point people to and help communication.
Great job guys!

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Labels: Lotus Notes

Live blogging from Lotusphere 08 Opening session. The Orlando Symphony is doing Kashmir with the electic rock band. Very cool. My twelve year old loves Led Zepplin and especially Kashmir. Wish he could hear.

Labels: Lotus Notes

It's been a comedy of errors so far.
I've mentioned my wife ordering me ham instead of tuna sandwich. I've been joking her ever since. Then, she wanted me to have the French menu at the France restaurant at Epcot. It features a ham sandwich. I had a chicken crepe.
She insured me that she would have the Brown Derby restaurant substitue ham for the turkey in their Cob salad. I passed and went to ESPN club.
I stood in a long line for a beer in the German pavillion. When I notice no coins in my change, I realized the pretty lady charged me for 2 beers. When I got back in line for number 2, the dark beer I wanted was gone. We walked by an hour later and they had more but I already went with the light beer.
I stood in a long line for a fast pass. The kid in front of me lost his ticket in the machine and no fast pass. They fixed it and I tried. My ticket came back but no fast pass. Luckily, after I cut into the next line, I got one.
I got my conference bag and the lady explained to me that I have the yellow badge and I would attend the second opening session at 11 am on Monday. Reading the schedule on the way out of the Dolphin, the schedule says that the yellow badge has the 8am session. I'm sure I'll get in straight in time but it's getting weird.
At least my room key works this year. :)

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Labels: Lotus Notes

According to a cast member at Disney World, I'm 8 years old today. That is, when you add the two digits of my real age together, I'm 8.
I'm doing the Epcot tour today. Very excited!
We had a good flight, room is right near the Epcot International Gateway entrance. We checked out some of the new attractions including Epcot sphere, Haunted Mansion and Laugh Break. I dreamed of a tuna fish sandwich at Harbour House but my wife ordered me the ham sandwich. Lesson learned: speak loudly for what you want or don't complain if you don't get it.
Hope to enjoy more magic today!
Come on Loti! We're ready for ya!

Labels: Lotus Notes

All the essentials are packed. Grateful Dead tshirts(check), Unofficial past Lotusphere tshirts(check), Hawaiian shirt(check), book (off of a Duffbert 5 star rating)(check), laptop(check), iPod(check), Domino 7 What's New Help Guide(Certification study)(check), camera(check), Spices(check), Birthday card that sings 'Sweet Home Alabama'(check), aspirin (check)and all other usual stuff.
Official weight at 236 as of this morning. Goal to maintain.
Excitement is building and all devoted are heading to where it's at!

Labels: Lotus Notes

YES! I'm seeing (R2) sessions for Lotusphere already showing up in the schedule. Jumpstarts and one from the wicked Wednesday schedule. I realize we may run the presenters ragged but this is a great development. Thanks to all for listening to the feedback!
Sleep is for whimps!

Labels: Lotus Notes

Success!
I broke 240 on Friday and wanted to keep it off all weekend. Weekends are my weak spot.

Before toilet visit this moring - 240
After toilet visit - 238
After coffee - 239

Victory! I should be good till I fly off for Orlando. Then, the next challenge is to maintain.

Labels: Lotus Notes

I have an iMac for home use. I'll admit that I've only learned what I need to get by and I'm still an newbie. I noticed a cool new feature in my Google Reader today and wanted to do a screen shot. While searching LifeHacker.com, I found the answer: Apple+Shift+4 gives you the cross-hairs. You click and drag your screen and it creats a .png file on your desktop. (as demo'd here) Neat.
And as if I could keep track of the blogs I currently follow, Google is give me a ton more. :)
It would be nice if my fellow Lotus geeks could share more Mac tips. Please! Then I could leverage my current blog reading.

Labels: Lotus Notes

Yo Ho, Yo Ho a pirate's life for me.
Anyone want to be my partner in the Swan Race?

Register with me for 12:45 on Tuesday.

Labels: Lotus Notes

I probably shouldn't but I do. I weigh-in every morning. Today, the scale said 239. A small milestone but I'd really like to stay under 240 for good. Weekends are the roughest for cheating. Wish me luck. Maybe I can even eat veggies and yogurt at Lotusphere and stay under 240.

Labels: Lotus Notes

I like this post today by Tim Ferriss of the '4 hour work week' fame.
I've only fairly recently taken advantage of the ToDo List database in Lotus Notes. It helps to add tasks there instead of building up in the Inbox. I've got my inbox under control using many of these techniques Tim suggests. Good New Year's resolution to keep it up.

Labels: Lotus Notes

For the first time, Lotusphere is accepting reservations for Hands on Sessions. I had the email in my inbox this morning and rushed to try and reserve. No luck, it's gone already. There's a good chance that I would be turned away at the door because it will be a popular session. Maybe it's good that I might as well make another choice now.
The session is
"HND104 Implementing AJAX and JSON in IBM Lotus Domino Applications "
Speakers: Henry Newberry, Scott Good
Hopefully, I can get the materials and run through them at home when I get back. I did that before with one of their hands on sessions and it was fine. Maybe I'll be in line at the Wednesday night party with Henry again like I was at Sea World and I can hound him with questions. :)

Lesson: Be ready to make adjustments on the fly at Lotusphere.

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Labels: Lotus Notes

Does anyone want to lose weight like/with me? It's good to let people know you want to lose weight and gain support from your friends. A support group is good and helps you meet your goals. I have not thought it out much but wondering if there's anyone else that would like to join in. If anyone has ideas on how to track this and have some fun doing it, please post, email or chat with me at Lotusphere.

I have a 12 lb. head start on my goal of reaching 225 lbs. I was at 252 in Oct. I'm now weighing in at 240. For now, 12 lbs is like "throwing a deck chair off the Queen Mary", but it's a good start. If I get to 225 and I'm still motivated, we'll see if I want to go more. I believe it was 20 years ago that I was at 225.

Motivation came way of GreyHawk's post.

Please contact me or post on your blog if your interested.

Labels: Lotus Notes

John Head is organizing the Thursday night blogger party.

Head over to the link and let him know if you can make it.

Labels: Lotus Notes

With the usual 'rights reserved' to change(as I always do). It's really hard again this year to plan. I have some conflicts in the schedule and will decide on the fly or from advice from peers.

Here's what I have so far for a Lotusphere 2008 schedule. Somewhere in here I have to take my upgrade certification exam too. :)

Hint on doing this for your self:
Get Ben's schedule database.
- Build your schedule
- Use the 'Add to my Schedule' action button while your browsing a sessioin doc. This adds the session to your personal calendar.
- Use the Notes client's Print/Print Calendar to Document feature. Copy the text and paste to your blog.

Thursday January 17, 2008
Morning flight - Afternoon Magic Kingdom

Friday January 18, 2008 (My Birthday!)
8:45 am Epcot - Taking the UnDiscovered Tour - Epcot all day

Saturday, January 19, 2008
3:30 till I drop - BALD - Big River Brewery/Dinner somewhere/ESPN

Sunday, January 20, 2008

08:00 AM - 10:00 AM JMP401 QuickStart: Warp 9 -- Getting Up to Speed on Social Software and IBM Lotus Connections
10:30 AM - 12:30 PM JMP206 Web Services Bootcamp
01:30 PM - 03:30 PM JMP201 Introduction to IBM Lotus Notes and IBM Lotus Domino Integration with Desktop Applications

Monday, January 21, 2008
01:30 PM - 03:15 PM HND104 Implementing AJAX and JSON in IBM Lotus Domino Applications
03:30 PM - 04:30 PM BP206 Features Every IBM Lotus Notes Application Should Have!
05:00 PM - 06:00 PM BP304 Templates, Templates, Everywhere – If You Know Where to Look!

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

08:30 AM - 09:30 AM BP207 From IBM Lotus Notes Client Application to Ajax-Powered Rich Internet Application in Less than 10 Lines of Code!
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM AD306 Extending IBM Lotus Domino Applications to Mobile Devices
11:15 AM - 12:15 PM BP205 Extending and Customizing Templates for IBM Lotus Quickr: Straight from the Developers
01:30 PM - 02:30 PM AD303 Transforming IBM Lotus Domino Web Apps with IBM Lotus Domino Designer
03:00 PM - 04:00 PM BP203 A Look Under the Hood at a World-Class IBM Lotus Domino Web Application
04:15 PM - 05:15 PM AD304 Formula Follies and LotusScript Lunacy: Coding Feats that Will Amaze!!

Wednesday, January 23, 2008
08:30 AM - 09:30 AM BP214 Yikes...It Looks Like That?!: UI Worst Practices
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM BP209 Moving IBM Lotus Notes Applications to the Web
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM BP213 Worst Practices - the Best of the Worst
01:30 PM - 02:30 PM BP216 Interface Matters - Basics of UI Design
03:00 PM - 04:00 PM BP210 Reports, Charts, and Graphs in IBM Lotus Notes
04:15 PM - 05:15 PM BP212 The Great Code Giveaway: "Beyond Cool"

Thursday, January 24, 2008

08:30 AM - 09:30 AM BP204 Develop Virtually with VMWare
09:00 AM - 10:00 AM Weekly Project Status Meetings - Public & Education Sector
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM BP201 A Jug of Wine, a Spreadsheet, and Thee
11:15 AM - 12:15 PM AD307 Advanced LotusScript: Design Programming using XML and DXL

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It's a Major Award! - A Christmas Story

With all the fun created by the LotusUserGroup.org Best Lotus Blogger 08 award, I thought I'd give my awards for my favorite bloggers in my own way.

Hardest Working Blogger and Rush Chairman - Bruce Elgort - With Taking Notes podcast, IdeaJam.net, SalesForce.com and OpenNTF, it's easy to award Bruce with this reward. If you hang with him for 5 minutes at Lotusphere, you'll find he knows everybody like 'Otter' in Animal House. If we start a frat, he gets vote for Rush Chairman and frat President.

Best Tools, Nicest, Smartest guy combination award goes to Julian Robichaux
Julian's NsfTools have save my tail more than once. Julian also gets the award for the funniest post this year with his 'Tappas' story. The story is histerical but I also love that he posted it for all to see. It's great when we can laugh at ourselves.

Best Reviewer/World Traveler goes to Duffbert.
It's amazing how many books this guy reads. You'll be inspired to read more. He's also had some great vacations/work trips this past year.

Best Rock and Roll Blogger goes to Rocky Oliver. Besides being the self described 'Geek', he's the brains behind JamFest and SpeedGeeking. A star for writing the Domino Bible, managing the Best Practices Sessions and cool blog postings from the technical to the personal. Rock On!

Best Lady Blogger(and record for most marriage proposals) goes to Jess Stratton - I like the post she did one time where she said that her geek friends ask her to marry her on a regular basis. It's tongue and cheek but we dig cool geek chicks. Now I understand why she has a picture of her wedding on her home page.

Well, it's my list and I can do what I want. My response to all the controversy with lists. The nominations are still working in my head so I may have more.

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Lotus Bloggers

Long weekend and I'm hooked on Wii. My son got the Wii for Christmas and I didn't get into it till the New Years holiday. Wii Sports has got to be the best games to come included in a game console I've ever seen. I remember when xBox 360 and PlayStation 3 were coming out and they got all the press. Wii was pretty much ignored. Well, Nintendo got the last laugh. The action, exercise and competitive play is unbelievable. I'm really enjoying tennis. The game does a nice job adjusting to your ability and challenging you. The electronic motion sensor is really amazing. It makes the playing very realistic. The game may create friction in the family. We're getting really competitive against each other. It took me a while but I finally beat my son in baseball 1-0. I hit a long home run with 'me'. He's created a character for many of our family members. It funny to hear, 'Oma (that's German for grandma) just jacked one!'. Great fun.
In between, we've been catching many episodes of Twighlight Zone on the SciFi channel. What a creative and amazing show. I like the old time stuff too. It's funny to see some of the characters get crazy. It's fun to see some of the young great stars like William Shatner and Robert Duvall. Really cool stuff.
Back to work tomorrow. Only two weeks till Lotusphere! Hurray!