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.
With only 17 lines of PHP code I was able to add a Slack “slash” command (/whatshot) to bring up the list of “What’s Hot” ideas from http://ideajam.net. To do this I used the IdeaJam JSON API and some PHP code to produce the list you see in the picture above. Slack makes it very easy to add integrations. In fact, I also coded another Slack integration for an IBM Notes customer that allows them to pull up data from their CRM database with a simple “/customer” command. That code was also less than 20 lines.
Want to learn more about the Slack API and how you can integrate it with it your apps? You can contact me or you can learn yourself Slack API.
PS – no server reboot was required to add the integration 🙂
The London Developer Co-Op has created a tool named “Via” that every single company running IBM’s Lotus Notes and IBM’s Lotus Domino need to look at. I’m not going to get into the why customers need to consider LDC Via, as I think most of you know why already. Take it from me, this is the one and only tool that you can use to “modernize” your Notes and Domino data – period.
Each and every day I am hearing from colleagues, customers and community members asking what should they do with their data now that they are migrating off of the platform. Up until recently I didn’t have a solid answer, but now I do.
Go check out LDC Via now and let them know Bruce sent you. Also, if you will be at IBM’s ConnectED conference in January 2015, go and find Ben Poole, Julian Woodward or Mark Myers for a demo.
[This is a bit rough, but I wanted to get it out there]
Or does it….
Let’s face it, we all love the app dev capabilities of IBM’s (Lotus) Notes. We are able to design, build and deploy apps of all kinds for enterprise users in organizations. In fact, the users we develop these apps for absolutely love them as they help make the job that they do easier. Tie this together with email, instant messaging and IBM Connections services and you create collaborative “system” that people use to get their work done.
There was a point in time in the history of IBM Notes when line-of-business users (LOB) were able to create “utility” apps. Utility apps apps helped LOB people to better serve their customers. It was a wonderful environment where staff could be empowered to create, with very little programming knowledge these apps.
Now enter the world of IBM Connections. IBM Connections like IBM Notes is a place where people go to get work done to serve their customers. One currently noticeable difference is the way in which IBM Connections lacks the ability to create utility apps. There is no way to currently do this. There are some great developer toolkits available, however these are focussed at pure-play developers.
Now take a look at this video and see how Microsoft Sharepoint users can create utility apps.
I really want to see IBM Connections develop into the portal-of-portals for people to go to and do their work. Currently, it’s another application “destination” rather than the “primary” Lotus Notes like place to go and do their work.
Would you like to see IBM Connections have some capabilities to have users create “utility” apps? If not for utility apps, full fledged apps – an app dev platform.
While cleaning up my Mac today I found this oldie but goodie from 2002:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OpenNTF.org Releases OpenNTF Mail V1.0 for Lotus Notes 6
Vancouver, WA – October 15, 2002 – OpenNTF.org has announced OpenNTF Mail Version 1.0 for Lotus Notes 6. OpenNTF Mail is based on the standard Lotus Notes 6 mail template and adds many additional enhancements. These enhancements include:
Quick Mail – A feature that allows the user to quickly compose a new memo to predefined recipients
Quick Forward – A feature that allows the user to predefine recipients, and using drag and drop, quickly forward a message
Reply and Forward indicators added to views
Follow-Up – Ability to flag messages for Follow-Up and, using drag and drop, place them in a
Follow-Up folder
User Interface – Modified the Mail and To Do user interfaces to more closely resemble the Calendar color scheme
Productivity Actions
Added a Send/Receive action to the Mail outline
Added a Find Memo action to the Mail outline
Added the Outbox action to the Mail Outline
Added a Resend Memo action to the Sent view
Other features include an Advanced tab in the Tools | Show Delivery Information dialog to show additional message header information; a feature that lets the user stop the sending of a Return Receipt on a message; added a Message Size indicator within a Memo; modified views and folders to contain date and time; modified the size column to show kilobytes instead of bytes; and added a key icon indicator to the Inbox to let you know that a message is encrypted.
After meeting on the OpenNTF.org web site, a small group of OpenNTF.org developers or “cooks”, from Norway, The Netherlands, Australia, The United States, France, Chile and Canada, came together to collectively add features to the Notes 6 mail template. The group used the OpenNTF Project Management Template (developed earlier this year) to manage feature requests, task management, bug tracking, documentation, discussions, news and other application development tasks. Bruce Elgort, an “Iron Chef” for the OpenNTF Mail template, says “Working with a team of developers whom had never even met, many living in different time zones, is simply amazing! We went from specification to a deliverable in two weeks. Using email, Notes replication, Sametime Instant Messaging and Web Conferencing we had all the tools we needed to work as a global team. Can you say collaborate?” Vince Shuurman (Oirschot, The Netherlands) who is also an “Iron Chef” on the project says “We were able to work separately and replicate the portions of the template we were responsible for. We simply refreshed our local mail templates and were then working with the latest build. We also used the new Domino Designer 6 “design-element-locking” feature to control edits to design elements.”
The OpenNTF Mail Template V1.0 will be available on the organization’s web site at http://www.OpenNTF.org within 7-10 days.
About OpeNTF.org
OpenNTF.org was formed in December 2001 by Bruce Elgort and Nathan Freeman. The mission of OpenNTF.org is to provide applications for Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino as open source which may be freely distributed, in order to increase the awareness of the power of Lotus Notes and Domino.
Joel Spolsky – CEO of Stack Exchange & Co-Founder at Fog Creek software talks with Jason Calacanis about of all things – IBM’s Lotus Notes and other great technologies introduced in the 1990’s:
Bruce Elgort 