Category Archives: General

01.12.17
by

What Kept Me Busy In 2016 and Where Am I Going Now?

I think this post might be just under the wire for 2016 reviews so let’s talk about what I was working on and learning for the past year.  I always need to be learning, if I’m not I feel like I’m standing still and last year most of my learning moved outside of the core IBM products simply because there was little new to learn.

So what kind of projects did I work on?

  • Security reviews of Domino, Connections, HTTP environments
  • Single Sign On projects including deploying SAML using ADFS and TFIM as well as lots of Kerberos / IWA integration projects
  • Designing hybrid environments for customers moving mail to the cloud
  • Lots of TLS configurations on lots of different products
  • IBM Connections upgrades to 5.5
  • IBM Sametime deployments from sites that had 8.5.2
  • Domino consolidation, maintenance and hardware migrations
  • High Availability for Traveler, Domino HTTP and Sametime

What was I learning?  I’m always looking for interesting and challenging technologies that can make a difference to those smaller customers who need to stretch a tight budget.  It’s how I got involved with Notes originally in the early 90s – It allowed me to make big changes quickly for smaller customers.  This year that has meant staying on top of cloud and hybrid security issues and single sign on products and technologies.  Beyond that I have become really interested in data visualisation and have been working with products like Tableau and some of its cheaper competitors to see what they can offer.

Then in December I signed up for a Lynda.com subscription to ensure I have a good grounding in wider technologies and how they can work together.  Of course signing up and actually making time to learn are two different things so that takes us to 2017.

Goals for 2017

  • More data visualisation tools / learning cool things to do with Tableau
  • Building myself a Lynda training plan
  • Deploying Verse on Premise for existing Domino customers and introducing those without Connections to that integration piece
  • More work with database technologies around performance and security
  • Identify ways to deploy docker solutions with better stability and security
  • Improving my languages (I’ve been working on Italian and want to learn Spanish)
  • Working on interesting projects or ones that make a difference

As you can see my “goals” are fairly loose, I am always open to new ideas for technologies to learn (except development languages – blech).  It may be my review of 2017 will be nothing like my goals list and I won’t consider that a failure.

 

 

12.15.16
by

So THAT’S what it’s about

“A New Way To Work” – all of us in the IBM mail space have heard the phrase and seen presentations but does it actually mean anything to me – a set in her ways mail and calendar user who just wants mail to work and be fast?

In the past few months I have been using Verse On Premise in its beta form as well as the beta versions of Verse for iOS.  I had previously played around with Verse in the cloud but since my 20 year old mail file is on our Domino servers, the majority of my mail and searching activity was done via Notes and Traveler.  iNotes was never a client of choice for me.  I don’t archive mail very often (alright never) and so there’s a lot of history there.

So what have I found? I absolutely love Verse.  It’s fast and the layout is clean but as promised there are features that are so ridiculously useful** they have literally changed how I work for example

  1. Flagging for “needs action”  via a single click which then lets me set an action date for today, tomorrow, a week or other
  2. At the same time I can add a  personal note to the  message that travels with it,  and is visible when reading it in Verse.
  3. I can then remove the  message from my inbox by clicking on it.
  4. Viewing just those messages that need action which are automatically categorised by “today”, “tomorrow” etc.
  5. All of that, the action, the date, even the private notes transfer to Verse for iOS on my phone and iPad.

Add to all of this is the fact that it’s my same mail file on my same Domino servers. I could and can still open using the Notes client, using iNotes, even using Outlook if I want.  There are lots of things to enjoy about Verse and everyone works differently, but this is one group of features that live up to the hype of having tricked me without noticing into a new way of working 🙂

** no screenshots in here as it’s advanced beta still under NDA but the features have been shown publicly and hopefully will be in final product

10.20.16
by

Introducing Penumbra Briefings

On today’s Community Call we were able to share a new initiative being started by The Penumbra Group called Penumbra Briefings.  Penumbra is a worldwide networking group of Business Partners that we have been part of for over 20 years and has as its members many partner companies and people you already know very well.

So what’s a Penumbra briefing?  At our regular meetings one of the things we all enjoy are the open discussions about IBM news and technologies as well as what we are individually working on.  Our idea was to bring that approach to a wider audience in the hopes that others will find it useful and interesting too. These are intended to take two formats:

  1. Monthly webcasts with published topics and with an audience Q&A at the end.
  2. Daily briefings during Connect 2017 in  San Francisco.  Independently from IBM (and not part of any official agenda) we will be holding briefings about the days’ events, sessions and news which will be both live for people attending and broadcast for those not.

If you have 2 minutes to give your feedback on today’s briefing or even the briefing idea,  it would help us identify topics of interest and the best format moving forwards.  We have a very brief survey here http://bit.ly/PenumbraBriefing

Thank you to Tony Holder, Mike Smith, Lance Spellman, Nigel Cheshire, Wannes Rams and Julian Robichaux for being panelists and moderators today.

More information about the briefings in the presentation below and here is a REPLAY of today’s call.  Details of our next briefing in November will be available soon and we hope you can attend.

 

10.14.16
by

It’s Cham-peen Time

The IBM Champion program is once more open for nominations for 2017 Champions.  For those of you that don’t know, the Champion program has been set up by IBM to reward and thank people who have established a voice in their community.  To become a Champion first IBM need to know what you do and there is a nomination form which can be used by others to nominate you or by you to nominate yourself.  All the nominations are then reviewed by an internal IBM team who choose the Champions each year.  Before going any further you can nominate people here until Nov 4th.

Last year Theo Heselmans and I were selected as the first IBM Lifetime Champions which means we don’t need to be nominated (I will still be nominating others) and last week I participated in a web conference with IBM on the Champion program, what it’s about, what the value is to you and how to become one.  You can watch and download that event here and I recommend you do if you’re interested in becoming or nominating a Champion.

For me being a Champion means that the work I do, writing, speaking, feeding back to product development, has been valuable to someone , that they wanted to say thank you and that IBM recognise my work.  It doesn’t change what I do or make me more beholden to IBM but it does expand my audience and makes me feel good 🙂  So that said, if there is anyone who makes a difference to your work, answering questions via forums, twitter, on their blogs, who speaks or organises a conference or whose contribution you’d miss if they were to stop – NOMINATE THEM here.

I have heard plenty of people say (and said it myself once) “well if no-one nominates me I guess I don’t do enough” and that simply isn’t true.  No-one knows what you do as well as you.  Other people may not nominate you because they don’t know everything you do or simply because they think you have already been nominated.  I’ve been guilty in the past of not nominating someone I thought was a shoe-in only to find out no-one else did either.  Nominating someone else is also a huge compliment to them and a way of saying thank you even if they don’t end up becoming a Champion.

Now go out there and get nominating !

09.29.16
by

Heads Up For UK Amazon Echo Buyers

After spending far too long (i.e. more than 10 mins) on tech support with my Amazon Echo today I finally rang them.  My problem was that it refused to acknowledge I had Amazon Prime and that TuneIn radio didn’t work so I couldn’t say “Alexa, play BBC Radio 4” for instance.

Calling Amazon UK support and I’m told they entirely messed up the UK Echo devices which ship to auto register with amazon.com.  Apparently tech support have to manually change your Echo registration on their end to force it to connect to the UK site instead of the US and they are “rushed off their feet” doing that as each person calls.  It should be sorted by tomorrow.

  1. The setup was a pain and far too confusing for anyone not technically savvy (say my mother in law)
  2. There is no remote control supplied although one exists they are just too cheap to supply it with the device
  3. They shipped it with the wrong configuration assuming there is no other country other than the US.
  4. You have to call them to get it manually fixed

Amazon is definitely no Apple …

09.26.16
by

Mac OS Sierra and VPN Problems

I upgraded my Mac at the weekend to Sierra, which went beautifully.  Fast and no problems at all.  Until this morning.  This morning I went to connect to a customer VPN and it has disappeared from my list of VPNs on my Mac.  On further checking I realised that customer ran their VPN as PPTP and PPTP is no longer supported as a VPN option on Mac OS.

screen-shot-2016-09-26-at-11-51-20

I can use 3rd party VPN software and I guess removing it was Apple’s best option – leaving it in place but disabling it would have just led me into trying to make it work not realising it was no longer supported.  Still a warning pre-install of “if you upgrade the following services and applications will no longer work” would have been nice if a bit much to ask for.

Consider this your warning*

*And yes I know PPTP isn’t secure and the customer shouldn’t be using it but that one isn’t my decision.  

09.14.16
by

Icon UK – UI, Sparks and Changing Technologies

Icon UK starts tomorrow, well officially tonight / late this afternoon.  I have a busy week of presenting and helping others present but I wanted to share some of that here

Tomorrow I have a presentation called “Domino in the Front, Party in the Back” which is about all the client options available to you if you’re using Domino for mail.  All 10+ of them.  Including Verse on Premise….

The Icon UK site is down right now but on the agenda I believe I am just after lunch on Thursday http://iconuk.org/iconuk.nsf/agenda.html

Talking of lunch.. that will run from 12.35 – 1.15 and then please come and join Nerd Girls who will be running Spark Ideas from 1.15 – 2pm.  Our speakers are

Amanda Baumann – embracing being a performer
Devin Olsen – Gas, Tires, Oil, and Smoke: Living fast and loud with your hair on fire
Femke Goedhart – The happy pilgram – adventures with strangers on the Camino Portugues
Ben Poole – It’s just twigs and dust isn’t it? Vegan cooking by a meat-eating newbie
Rene Winkelmeyer – pledge1percent

.. this year we will be taking questions for the speakers after their 6 minute talks so come prepared 🙂

Anyone who is at Icon UK and can volunteer to video the sessions for me , please get in touch.

On Thursday night in speedsponsoring I will be talking about how to a maximise your investment in Domino as a mail server including talking to the business about client options.

Finally on Friday, again just after lunch, Mark Myers and I will be holding an open forum discussion on “Changing Your Technology” – how to highlight your skills, work out what to learn and position yourself as a technologist.  I hope you can join us.

So lots of things for me to do , none of them as deeply technical as my usual sessions so that’s a bit scary for me and outside my comfort zone.  It’s going to hopefully be a fun few days

 

09.13.16
by

Before second guessing IBM try a CTRL-F

A new press release just appeared from IBM announcing extending support for Domino 9, Notes 9, Traveler 9, Sametime 9.0 and Designer 9.0.1 amongst others.

Now do me a favour, before you do anything else,  press CTRL-F and look for the word “END”.  You won’t find it.  This is extending not ending support.

Now could IBM have done better by using the words “at least” – in my opinion yes but since I assume the document was minutely inspected by IBM lawyers, it can’t make any open ended promises.

We live in a world of fast changing technology and many of us work with technologies that are 20+ years old.  Who knows what will happen next year, in 2 years or in 5 years.  That’s a good thing.  We should embrace changing technologies that match how we, our environment and our work evolves. Every change offers an opportunity but today and for the foreseeable future it should be enough that Notes and Domino aren’t dead and they aren’t predicted to die anytime soon.

Not even in 2021.

 

08.22.16
by

Icon UK & Spark Ideas

I’m very pleased to say that i’ll be speaking at Icon UK being held in London from Sept 15th – 16th at IBM South Bank.  The only user group event all year I get to travel to from home..

I have two sessions, plus Nerd Girls are doing a combination Sparks and panel on the first day and I’ve signed up to do speedsponsoring which may be about Traveler performance. Or Domino tips.  Or something…

Domino at the back, party in the front – choosing the right UI for mail
Day 1 @ 2.50pm
How often do you hear that the business is discussing moving mail platforms because “our users want X” where X is nothing to do with the server and everything to do with the client UI. Domino remains the best mail server available but often user dissatisfaction drives a move and that comes from being asked to use the wrong client or from a bad deployment. If you’re using Domino you have an ever expanding range of clients to choose from browsers, iNotes, Verse, Traveler with iOS integration, Android applications, POP3 and IMAP. Come to this session to learn how to find the right client to fit the business and keep your Domino infrastructure.  

Choosing The Right Path – What Kind Of Technologist Are You?
Day 2 @ 11.50am
How do you present yourself and your skills to others? Do you talk about products you work with or your technical skills? You may consider yourself an IBM developer or admin but the brand is less important to your career than the knowledge you have. In this freeform session we’ll discuss how to identify and highlight the skills you use every day that make you stand out and then use that understanding to decide what to learn next. Come along and join in the discussion

Nerd Girls – Spark Ideas
Day 1 @ 1.15pm
We are bringing  the very popular Spark Ideas to Icon UK, celebrating everyone’s uniqueness , what drives us to create our own path. We are once more looking for  people who want to talk on any subject important to them, that’s interesting, fun and hopefully inspirational. Oh and that lasts 6 minutes 🙂   We hope you will grab the opportunity to  speak especially if you never have before.

If you want to see what Sparks is all about,  take a look at our Vimeo channel of previous sessions

Contact me with your ideas or if you need help deciding what might work or just if you wonder what this is all about.  

I hope to see you there ..

 

03.14.16
by

Whilst You’ve Not Been Looking Something Amazing…

Next week in Eindhoven there is an IBM conference running for two days but if you haven’t been paying attention you may not have noticed what Engage has become and if you don’t act very quickly  – like today quickly, you’ll miss a fantastic and free opportunity.

Started and run by Theo Heselmans , Engage has grown far beyond the original Belgian community and this year – with almost 400 attendees and 85 speakers he’s providing an event for attendees from around the world and another great location – the Evoluon in Eindhoven.   Even if you made it to Florida in January (and especially if you didn’t) what’s awaiting you in Eindhoven is something very new including strategy sessions, round table discussions and content that hasn’t been seen anywhere else.  That includes my session – this year with puppetry (because how better to explain SSL vulnerabilities than by using hand puppets) .

The keynote is being given by an IBM team led by Inhi Cho Suh the new General Manager for IBM Collaboration Solutions, Suzanne Livingston (Group Product Manager, IBM Mail, Chat, Meetings & Social Cognitive Solutions), Chris Crummey (World Wide Executive Director of Evangelism and Customer Experience) and Sara Gibbons (Senior User Experience Designer).  

The round table discussions  are definitely something I’ll be attending too, scheduled 4x each day and each individually hosted by either someone from IBM or an event sponsor. Want to talk to Inhi Cho Suh about ICS strategy? Ed Brill about Verse Deployment or Matt White about extending your skillset to Cloud technologies?  You won’t easily get that opportunity again.

All that is just the beginning, take a look at the full agenda here then RUN don’t walk to try and grab the last 20 or so places before registration closes.

As for me, I’ll be driving over next Tuesday and presenting Thursday morning so I have plenty of time to go to sessions myself and just generally see and talk to people.  If you want to meet up or have any questions to ask me, just email or DM me and we’ll get something organised.

My session is at 11.30 on Thursday morning  is Building & Deploying SHA2 Certificates
If you saw my session with Mark Myers at Connect in January you may wonder if this is the same thing.  It’s not.  For a start I have hand puppets and no Mark.  I hope to explain where to expect your highest risk, how to stay secure by having a strategy and how to generate and actually deploy SHA2 certificates in Domino, WebSphere and IBM HTTP Server.

I hope to see you in Eindhoven !