Podcast: Learning XPages with NotesIn9

Today we had the pleasure of interviewing the creator of the awesome NotesIn9 screencast – David Leedy (@notesin9). We were also joined by special guests Paul Calhoun and Dr. Mark Roden. We talked about:

  • How and why David got started with NotesIn9
  • Where the name for the show came from
  • What goes into producing a show
  • What community resources David provides
  • The XPages Cheat Sheet
  • What is the “Drive to 99” Event?
  • The number of shows David has published
  • The number of contributors who have appeared on the show
  • How people can get involved and contribute to the show and what do they need to do
  • Which XPages topics do people want to learn more about
  • and much more…

The show runs 31:36 and best listened to while eating Pennsylvania OR Texas BBQ.

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Podcast: There’s Gold in Them XPages

We talked with XPages developers Jesse Gallagher (@Gidgerby) and Dr. Mark Roden (@markyroden) about:

  • How Jesse got started with Notes/Domino
  • How Jesse’s interest in Ruby on Rails spilled over into XPages
  • How a Notes/Domino programmer like Jesse has approached and been successful with XPages
  • How to approach XPages app development
  • What about Lotusscript?
  • How to write “clean” code
  • Using source code control
  • Moving from Lotusscript to MVC
  • Why Expression Language and Java are important
  • What XPages can offer that other platforms cannot or offer in a different way
  • The adaptability and flexibility of the XPages platform
  • and much more…

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Podcast: What’s New with IBM Wikis

We talked to IBM User Experience Development team members Amanda Bauman, Craig Lordan, Kevin Giles, and Mike Stewart about what’s going on these days with the IBM Wikis. Topics included:

  • History of the IBM wikis
  • Types of content on the wikis (it’s not just random information spread across various pages)
  • New features in the latest iteration of the wiki template
  • Improvements in navigation and search
  • Dynamic content control
  • And more…

Bonus trivia: did you know that the short URL to the Lotus (aka ICS) wikis is wiki.lotus.com?

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JoyDrop: Give • Get • Share

This evening Apple approved the JoyDrop app that I developed for the Children’s Cancer Association.

“JoyDrop offers a place to share spontaneous moments of joy.Your “drops” of joy, collected with others, can create a sea of joy. At the Children’s Cancer Association we like to call it the Joy Effect.We invite you to share your found joy, moment by moment, drop by drop by using the JoyDrop app.Please share often.”

JoyDrop for iOS

The app allows you to share your words of joy and post them to Facebook if you want. Not only can JoyDrops be seen in the app, they can also be added and viewed on the Children’s Cancer Association Facebook “JoyDrop” Fan Page app:
JoyDrop Facebook App

For you geeks out there the iOS app was built with Appcelerator and stores data in an IBM Domino database. There are no more than 400 lines of code for the Appcelerator portion of the app. The app utilizes an XPages “XAgent” to post data and a Domino Access Services view to send JSON data back to the app to display JoyDrops. It literally took only minutes to develop the app interfaces in XPages. The Facebook app was built with XPages and the Facebook Graph API. It’s pretty cool how easy it is to utilize the Graph API within XPages.

The next version of the app will incorporate photo sharing from the iPhone and some other goodies. After that I will work on getting an Android version of the app developed.

A big thanks to my friends Matt White, Jeremy Hodge, Serdar Basegmez, Julian Robichaux, Niklas Heidloff, Mark Hughes, Per Henrik Lausten and Thomas Gumz for their support.
Stay tuned for a NotesIn9 video on how this app was put together.

Podcast: The Evolution of XPages

Russ Maher of QDiligence (@russelmaher) and Paul Calhoun (@ptcalhoun) of NetNotes Solutions talk to us about the evolution of IBM’s XPages rapid application development platform. Russ and Paul are also the instructors of The View’s popular XPages Bootcamp which is taking place in Las Vegas and Chicago this Fall. We would like to thank The View and their XPages Bootcamp for sponsoring this show.

We talk about:

  • History of the XPages Bootcamp and how they kept the course material in-line with the XPages point releases
  • Upcoming changes in Domino 8.5.4 (Niklas Heidloff’s blog post)
  • The new Java jar design element in 8.5.4
  • Server-side JavaScript Debugger in 8.5.4
  • What OSGi plugins are
  • OSGi and the Extension Library and how it has evolved
  • How XPages in Domino 8.5.4 has evolved since 8.5.0
  • How OneUI has grown over the years
  • Dojo and how it has evolved within the context of XPages
  • XPages in the Notes Client (XPINC) and how it has evolved
  • and much more..

The show runs 44:50.

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Podcast: Getting started with IBM Connections application development

In this episode of The Taking Notes Podcast (@takingnotespod) we talked about developing applications for IBM’s Connections social software platform. We were joined by three very special guests:

Topics covered during the show included:

  • Overview of the options available to developers (APIs, Widgets, Java)
  • How widgets and apps are deployed within Connections
  • Integrating apps with the Connections Profile
  • Surfacing apps and widgets within Communities
  • How IBM Connections Next will utilize OpenSocial and ActivityStrea.ms
  • How Kudos Badges was built and how it integrates and is managed within Connections
  • Why developers should use XPages to extend Connections
  • How you can work with iWidgets and XPages
  • How to access the Connections REST API’s from XPages
  • Where you can find and download sample XPages apps
  • What other extensibility features might be important for XPages developers
  • and much more…

Resources:
http://ibm.co/StartSocial – Landing for all things ICS development related including Notes/Domino “Next” and Connections “Next”
http://xpag.es/?ForConnections
http://openntf.org/p/xpages%20for%20connections

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Podcast: Learning XPages with Mark Myers and Matt White

Based on his recent blog entry about learning XPages, we brought Mark Myers on the show to discuss his approach to wrapping your head around XPages, especially coming at it as a person with a strong Java background. Matt White was also on the podcast to offer the perspective of someone who has been helping people learn XPages for several years now. We discussed things like:

  • NOT thinking of XPages as “another Notes design element”
  • Coming to XPages from the Java developer perspective
  • The amount of learning resources and help available now versus a few years ago
  • Using Java and server-side JavaScript (SSJS)
  • Some of the struggles that newbies might face
  • And more…

Mark and Matt are both members of the London Developer Co-op, and they have graciously renewed the TakingNotes discount code for XPages101 online training courses. If you go to the XPages101.net website and sign up using the discount code “taking notes”, you will receive a 33% discount off the list price of your subscription.

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Podcast: Develop native mobile apps for Notes/Domino with Domino To Go

Walfred Marzahn from YouAtNotes spent 20 minutes talking to us about their “Domino To Go” product. Domino To Go allows you to create native mobile apps that can access your Notes/Domino databases. We covered:

  • Who is YouAtNotes and what do they do?
  • Which mobile platforms are supported
  • How easy it is to create apps with Appcelerator’s Titanium and Domino To Go
  • Which development languages you need to know
  • The pricing tiers for Domino To Go Cost?
  • Are there any limits to the number of databases you can access from a single app?
  • What about offline access?
  • and more…

Be sure to check out the Domino To Go FAQ.

This show runs 21:33.

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Podcast: jQuery in XPages with Mark Roden

Today we talked to Mark Roden about using jQuery in XPages. Topics included:

  • Why use a JavaScript toolkit?
  • Why use jQuery instead of (or along with) Dojo?
  • Any considerations about using jQuery and Dojo on the same page?
  • What are some good jQuery plugins to look at?
  • What about jQuery for mobile web apps?
  • How about documentation?
  • Mark’s website is xomino.com and his Twitter handle is @markyroden. Other links mentioned in the show were docs.jquery.com, stackoverflow, and Matt White’s XPages101 (lesson 27).

This episode runs 37:23.

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Podcast: Interview with the authors of the XPages Extension Library book

On this show we sat down with all of the authors of the new “XPages Extension Library” book which is now available for purchase. This 537 page book was written by Paul Hannan (@pdhannan), Declan Sciolla-Lynch (@qtzar), Jeremy Hodge(@jeremyhodge), Paul Withers (@paulswithers) and Tim Tripcony (@timtripcony).

The book is also available as an eBook, on Kindle and as an iBook.

On the podcast we discussed:

  • How the book came to be
  • What tools they used to produce the book
  • The OpenNTF Extension Library Project and the associated Upgrade Pack 1 documentation on the IBM Wiki
  • An introduction to the XPages Extension Library and what it exactly is
  • How the book is goes beyond being “the documentation”
  • Who else was involved with the creation of the book content
  • Paul, Declan, Jeremy, Paul and Tim talk about the chapters they co-authored and some of their favorite XPages Extension Library controls
  • Tim’s WatrCoolr project on OpenNTF
  • Russ Maher and his unique way of reading this great new book
  • The XSP Starter Kit Project on OpenNTF by Nathan T. Freeman
  • XPages architect Phil Riand and Tim’s upcoming interview with Taking Notes (Exclusive!)
  • and much more….

You can also follow Julian (@jrobichaux), Bruce (@belgort) and The Taking Notes Podcast (@takingnotespod) on Twitter.

The show runs 40:10. Oh and before we forget! Be sure and listen to Episode 154 of Taking Notes to hear Paul Calhoun and Russ Maher talk about all things XPages. Thanks for subscribing.

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