We Made it Onto the “Best List”

SEATTLE — Nine Washington community colleges, including Clark College in Vancouver, are on list of the 150 best in the nation.

The Aspen College Excellence Program picks its top 150 by doing a data review. It picks the schools that show the most student success, in term of persistence, completion and transfer.

The program wants to see consistent improvement over time, as well as equity in outcomes for students of all racial/ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds.

This web development insructor is very proud of Clark’s students, administration, staff and faculty.

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10 Years for MacOSKen Podcast

Please join me in wishing Ken Ray, host of the MacOSKen podcast, a happy 10th year show anniversary.

I have been listening to his show for almost 9 years. Each morning after I grab my first cup of coffee I head on over to iTunes to listen to his daily show covering all things Apple.

Happy Show Anniversary, Ken!

XPages Developer in California Wanted

Would you be kind enough to post on your blogs/FB pages that Princess Cruises has a FT position open for an XPages/Domino developer.

The Sr. Programmer/Analyst position is at our Santa Clarita, CA office and our Domino/XPages team is about 13 people. Telecommuting is not an option.

Great benefits package and plenty of work. If you know someone who is interested, please have them contact me via email so I can give them a reference.

If you are intereted let me know so I can put you in contact with the people at Princess Cruises.

Slack: What Great Execution Looks Like

For those of you who know me, I’m a huge fan and user of Slack; both the company and the product. Here are some things that Slack has done and continues to do right:

  1. Social Media: They know how to use social media to connect with their users. They respond to every tweet and do their best to help you. If they can’t help you they connect you with somebody within Slack that can help.
  2. Integrations: Out of the box they offer an extensive list of products and services that they integrate with. This is a HUGE one as I use many of these integrations when I setup my new Slack groups. Oh, and did I mention that they work and they work as you would expect to work.
  3. API: The Slack API is very well thought out and documented. I have developed several bots, some simple and some quite complex using their API. There isn’t much you can’t do.
  4. Just enough features: Slack doesn’t try to be all things to all users. I’m hoping that Slack continues to carefully craft the user experience in the same way that they already have.
  5. Mobile, Web and Desktop: Right out of the gate they offered first class desktop, the web and mobile clients. All that worked very well.
  6. App Store/App Directory: Need I say more.

It’s these six things that make Slack a company and product to admire. There are so many companies trying to take on Slack and there are some other products that do what Slack does. Bottom line is that they are not Slack the company and Slack the product.

I expect in the forthcoming weeks, to see other companies announcing products to challenge Slack’s dominance and I’m looking forward to seeing how those new products align with the six things I outlined above, if at all.

Now Open For Business

A few months ago I re-opened my professional consultancy and here’s what I have to offer companies and executives:

  • Provide an honest assessment of your information technology operation
  • Offer executives a “plain English” explanation of technology
  • Personalized executive technology coaching and training
  • Help you answer the question “IT tells me everything is perfect but is it really?”
  • Offer you the cold hard facts about social media
  • Provide opinions and constructive feedback for new software and hardware initiatives
  • Help you learn more about the “cloud”, its benefits and how it can be implemented
  • Assist you in determining if your company’s data is secure
  • Provide you a motivated and expert speaker for company events and conferences

Here’s a partial list of the companies I have and continue to work with:

  • US Department of Agriculture
  • Washington State Department of Utilities and Transportation
  • Social Security Administration
  • Vulture Street Innovation
  • Systems Advisory Services
  • Environmental Protection Agency
  • IBM
  • TNT Shipping Services
  • Pricewaterhouse Coopers
  • HSBC
  • Agfa
  • Honda Research
  • EPIC Aviation

Let’s talk.

Liberate Your IBM Notes and Domino Data!

Just in case you missed the LDC Via webinar earlier this week on how to liberate your IBM Lotus Notes and Domino data, you can watch it right here, right now.

Without completing a migration successfully, you can be left with an expensive-to-own infrastructure that delivers limited value, where the necessary skills to maintain and enhance it are increasingly hard to come by.

LDC Via completes the migration picture by providing an ideal new home for data and applications previously on Domino.

The time is now to really consider the future of your Notes and Domino data and applicaitons.

You Won’t Want to Miss this, Seriously

On Tuesday, January 12th, 2016, LDV Via will be hosting a webinar entitled “Introducing LDC Via”. I highly encourage that each and every IBM Notes/Domino customer attend this webinar.

In this webinar you will learn what LDC Via is, and why it’s a great fit for Notes / Domino customers and technologists. Then we will delve deeper into how to work with LDC Via to build collaborative applications.

Seriously folks, take an hour out of your busy day to see how LDC Via can liberate your IBM Notes and Domino data.

Register Now >