Libby Says...
It's such a nice day.... Not only am I looking out at the ocean, but I'm about to close up the laptop for the day and go for a run on the beach, I think. And then tomorrow, I'm going to get up early and go do my beach-front yoga class. I can feel the stress ebbing away just thinking about it. Getting ready to leave for the Admin2003 show on Monday morning. I have to spend some time this weekend going over the slides -- I wrote them months ago (like January/February time frame) and I need to review my demos, etc... Thanks to everyone who commented on the commenting blog from a few days ago. Interesting how everyone assumed that b/c I was unsure about the etiquette/appropriateness of commenting that it meant I'm shy. As it turns out, I am, but I hadn't really thought of that as the reason why I don't just jump in and comment. You'd think that someone who chooses to write a blog would be non-shy by definition, wouldn't you? Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
Let's talk about commenting on blogs. Do you make comments when you read a blog that makes you think, giggle, growl, etc? What if you don't know the person at all -- you just happened upon their blog by clicking from someone else's blog or doing a search on some unrelated topic... And what if it's not a "Domino-blog" or even a technology/professional-related blog? I find that I have no problem commenting on blogs where I know the blogger (or think that the person probably knows me). I have also occassionally commented on blogs where I don't know the blogger but it was technical blog or a "professional" topic where I thought I had something to add. Where I seem to have drawn my own line at the moment is on blogs that are more personal -- they're not by someone I know or related to a business/professional topic. It's hard at that point to know if everyone commenting knows the person or is just... commenting. I get comments so far only from people I know or at least know by association... How about you? Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
I've been waiting for my mail to replicate for about the past 20 minutes and so while I'm waiting, I thought I'd test out some of the features of the new blog template. One feature that Steve seems to think I need with all my travelling is the "held" feature. This should let me blog about something, and then set a date and time when it should be published. I think it's a pretty cool idea. I've created a blog for tomorrow, when I'll be in LA. We'll see if it posts when I want it to. :-) Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
Mike Lazar, who's guest blogging at Bruce's blog this week, made a comment about Lotusphere and how "marketing-y" the sessions are there. Ed, of course, had to respond. Having spoken at both the View's Admin shows (yes, I'll be there next week with Mike and Chris and Rob and ...) and Lotusphere, I think they're both right. (Not sure if I'm being a peacemaker or a troublemaker here, but oh well...) Yes, Mike, there are a lot of sessions there that could be considered marketing. I think you could also rightly call them strategy, and they seem to be important to lots of people, most especially customers, rather than business partners. Lotusphere is a customer event. That's not to say it isn't also for business partners and press and other folks, but I think it is primarily an event intended to get customers educated not only about Lotus technology, but also about Lotus strategy. Business partners have additional avenues that they can use to find out where Lotus is going next, such as the Business Partner forum. Most customers do not. So, I think that the sessions so many of us dismiss as marketing are at least in part intended to explain to the customers and etc what the current strategy for a particular product or set of products is. And, yes, Ed, I'd say that there has been an improvement over the last few years in the number of sessions that have technical presenters and content. Most of those, it seems to me, however, are developer sessions. Maybe that's Rocky's influence, maybe that's addressing the people everyone believes have the most influence, I'm not sure. It's true, however, that administrators' needs are addressed less at Lotusphere than technical strategists and developers (note that I'm not saying we admins are completely ignored -- we're certainly not and there are definitely some good technical sessions for admins -- note the overflow room for the spam-prevention session this last Lotusphere). The other comment I'll make about Lotusphere is that while there are more sessions in recent years given by non-IBM speakers, a large percentage are still given by IBMers. I'm not necessarily saying this is a bad thing -- there are many topics that I believe come best from someone with the entire inside story. That said, however, I think there are also sessions that folks don't see as technical (even when they may be) because they are given by IBMers -- some IBMers don't yet have the reputation as straight-talkers and attendees assume that all they will get will be the party line about a particular feature or topic rather than the truth about how it really works in the real world and what problems or workarounds might need to be considered. So, I think this contributes to the belief that there are only marketing sessions. Anyway, I think the real difference is that the View's Admin show is completely dedicated to administrators and it is almost completely objective. Regardless of anything else that means, it gives the impression of having more of what an administrator needs, technically. Well, that's my rather long-winded $.02. Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
Well, way to go Steve! There's a new version of the blog template, including RSS (yes, I've heard you all whining about those of us without, but we were all waiting on Steve....). It seems my html pages are a bit broken at the moment (bio, resume, published works list, etc...) -- we'll have to get those re-imported or something, I guess. Bear with me while we figure out the new features... :-) Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
I spent some time today figuring out my schedule for the next few weeks. The only thing I have to say is: scary. Next week, I'm off to a conference in LA for two days. The show is called The Folio:Show -- it's actually not a technical conference -- it's a conference about publishing. Instead of attending sessions on Domino Designer, JSP tags, LotusScript, and Sametime, I'll be attending sessions with names like:
Sounds interesting --it's the first conference of its kind that I've been to. For those of you that know me, you know that while I do have a background in writing (internship in a newspaper, tech writing, tech editing, writing a couple of books, etc.), and most of a minor in journalism (I switched to a minor in philosophy and history half-way through), I came to my job with the magazine not through journalism, but through the technology. Actually, it's kind of a funny story. I had just written my first two books and was looking around for ways to market them. I figured that writing for a magazine might be a way to get folks to know my name and then maybe buy my books... not too unreasonable. So I was surfing around and found a site called DominoPro.com -- it was a site that hadn't yet been launched - it basically had a statement telling what it would be someday and a name/e-mail address if you wanted more information. I wrote to the guy (his name is Chris Miller, too, but it's not this Chris). I offered to write for him, he made me a technical editor, and we went on from there... Anyway, I digress. This was about how busy I am the next few weeks.
It's at least remotely possible that there may be some guest blogging during that time. :-) Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
Yes, stipulated, I've been a lazy blogger. But. I'm back now. And you can resume listening to me blog rather than my oh-so-kind guest blogger. Thanks, Chris, for keeping my spot warm for me. New Orleans was good. You've heard from Ed (on his Lotus.com blog) already on the basic news from the show, so all that's left for me is to talk about my impressions. There was an interesting mix of people. At first I thought that there weren't very many attendees interested in Lotus. But after talking to some, and having lunch with folks, I decided that while there may have not been that many Lotus attendees, the ones that were there might've been attending WebSphere sessions in addition (or instead of) the Lotus sessions, making it harder to see which users had which brands installed. I'll write about Doug Wilson's (Lotus's CTO) "keynote" in more depth in a column, but one of the things he mentioned include the Lotus Domino Toolkit for WebSphere Studio (now in beta), which promises tools for using Domino objects in J2EE apps. In addition, we saw a demo of the RAD tools for WebSphere Studio Application Developer -- those look really awesome. Bringing so many of the innovations from Domino Designer into the WSAD toolset. I met some great vendors at the show. If you haven't looked at Bowstreet and you use WebSphere Portal Server, you might want to take a look. Of course, as Chris guessed, I drank my fair share of hurricanes, but we didn't get too out of control on Bourbon Street. The beignets were another matter, of course... More to say, but not tonight! Now it's off to dinner... Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
I feel bad redirecting everyone to my site the past couple days but the topic was taking too much of my time reading and pondering. So what did I go and do?? I posted another hot one today. Already had an IM talk about it and can't wait to see the posts. As for Libby herself, she is still at DeveloperWorks in New Orleans through tomorrow gathering tons of technical information and insight for E-Pro Magazine of course. I am sure her editorial comments for an upcoming edition will give us the whole conference picture. I did understand that the Notes sessions were not as packed as I would like to hear for that conference, but then that is from just a few people that couldn't have attended them all of course. Also, I was sorry to read about Ed Brill's escapade with his laptop. I know the pain. Mine just died recently and would not start no matter what you did. I think it was drive stiction. But we booted from CD to a Linux operating system that was compressed, then mounted the harddrive as a local drive and FTP'd the whole stinking thing to a server for me to go through my data. I need to thank Rob here at the office again for that it of magic. So look for Libby to return to a space near you and of course, my web door is always open. Chris Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
Libby continues her escapades down at DeveloperWorks Live in New Orleans. She is repeating her presentation from Lotusphere 2003 with Ed Brill while there. The rest of the time I am sure she is drinking Hurricanes and feeling awful about herself the very next morning. Ok I am kidding about that but let's go with the theory. Make sure if you are down there you see some of our friends and other bloggers. I know Rob Novak is hiding in the halls down there also. Tell him you want to hear about his new Quickplace product for administration!!! My thread on blogging presentation has gotten over 24+ great comments and information. I actually am letting it ride some more to see what else comes up before I change topics. Drag yourself on over and participate!!! Chris (IdoNotes) Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
Libby is comfortably resting in New Orleans (I am sure she had a long night with the college hoops there) and enjoying the rain. As for her blog, well I had a bigger topic that I wrote about over on my site that ate up most of my time. So take a peek over there and participate in the discussion if you want!. Chris Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
Well while Libby is currently waiting at an airport for her flight, I decided to upgrade her blog design to Steve's new template (2.09b) and hijack her site. Little does she know the abuse one could cause from here :-) LOL If anyone saw her page while it was blank, well that was the fastest loading blog I bet you have seen now wasn't it. I just reverted back to 2.08 while we see what this error is I am getting. Steve is taking a peek for me now. Knowing Libby she went and changed something unique in her code. We shall flog her later for such actions. Steve sent the updates!!! So now we have comments working for Libby also. I bet she will let me rest a few now. Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
Thanks for all who've tried to submit comments, by the way. I can actually read them in the Notes client -- we've gotten far enough that they're being saved and are showing up in the Discussions view, but they're still not displaying on the screen. So far, I've gotten comments from Volker (looking forward to seeing you in NOLA, Volker) and Ben (oh, and Chris -- but he's just been testing to try to help me figure this thing with the comments out!). Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
Well, here it is... Sunday already. I hate how that happens so quickly. Today is tax day in the Schwarz household. It's also laundry day. Both in preparation for leaving tomorrow for New Orleans... And it's also set-up-the-new-PDA-day, for me! I got a Toshiba e740 yesterday. So far I'm having a bit of trouble getting my laptop to see the cradle and let me sync, but I'm sure it'll happen. I think I'm going to give Cadenza's mNotes a try as my Notes sync tool -- anyone have opinions you'd like to share? Comments are still not working, but Steve is definitely working on it and hopefully we'll have a new template up tomorrow or so... Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
Thanks to Jess for pointing out that while the comments form comes up, it doesn't yet actually let you save a comment. Curses! I've got some things to try and if Chris would stop enjoying himself on his day off, I could get him to re-sign the db, which I think might just fix it (those pesky agents!). So, please stand by -- comments coming (and archives returning) soon! Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
Well, Steve released 2.0.9, I guess, and it seems to have fixed comments. So, you now have the power to comment away on whatever it is you want to talk about. I'm looking forward to it -- it seems like some of my favorite parts of the other blogs I read are the comments made by the rest of you! The archives still seem to be a little wonky, but hopefully that'll get worked out soon too. Thanks, Steve! Now it's back to the slightly-panicked-work-really-fast thing I've been doing all week to get ready to go out of town again. Yes, I'm headed off to New Orleans to attend (and speak at) IBM developerWorks Live!. I know Rob and Ed are going, are any of the rest of you? Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
Well, Chris and I both updated to the 2.0.8 version of Steve's template today, and added the links for Comments, but the Comments don't quite seem to be working yet. Please stand by while we fiddle with the settings! :-) Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
The official weirdest Google search to find my blog so far? Daylight+Domino+Reread -- I come up as the first result.... I'm trying to imagine putting those three search terms together.... I love Google, I have to admit. I even have the Googlebar on my browser for easy anytime use. :-) What's the strangest way you've ever been googled? Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link
If Chris and Tom can talk books, then so can I. I read as much as humanly possible. I love books. All kinds of books. Some recent reads:
When I'm stressed, I also do a lot of re-reading. Books that I've read before and enjoyed relax me more than anything else when I re-read them... Some recent re-reads:
I'm currently reading
On another note: I've been following this story. I don't get up in arms about too much, but this one has me completely furious at the idiocy that happens. I'm assuming that the problem here is that they really don't completely understand what they're doing. If they do understand and they're still doing it? This isn't the way to prevent piracy and create security -- just the opposite, in fact. Sheesh. Permanent Link to this entry: Permanent Link |
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