Category Archives: Presentations

09.23.15
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Icon UK, Upgrading Connections and Adapting To Technology

This week I was at Icon UK at IBM’s offices on South Bank and as usual it was a great event.  Lots of technical and non technical content, attendees, speakers and sponsors and it gave me the chance to talk to people I rarely get to see (some I hadn’t seen since January).  It always give me a boost to attend a community event and reconnect in person with everyone.  There were several sessions I missed and wished I could have attended so I’ll keep an eye out for the the published slides.  In the meantime I thought I’d share the slides from my two sessions.

The first one is on upgrading Connections – this is a new session and I tried to take a lot of content and present it in a more accessible way.  I’d be interested in feedback on whether you think it’s useful though

My second session was with Mark Myers and we talked about the importance of learning to change your technology.  There aren’t many slides because it was an informal talk but the point I certainly wanted to make was that as technologists or engineers we need to stop identifying ourselves with a brand or a product or a system and instead identify ourselves around our areas of expertise which can cross into lots of technologies.  Once you take a step back and do that you realise things like “Cloud” are not a threat, they are an opportunity to bring the skills you already have into play.

09.14.15
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Icon UK – One Week Away

Icon UK starts in London this time next week and I’m looking forward to the opportunity to see friends and talk about new ideas and new technologies.  I’m also doing two sessions this year both of which I’m really pleased with

On Tuesday at 10.20 I’m presenting “Planning and Completing An IBM Connections Upgrade” – this covers everything from patching DB2 to completing a side by side Connections 4.5 – 5 Upgrade.  It could easily run to 300 pages as a detailed technical presentation but instead I’m going to talk about how to plan, how to backup, in what order to do things and most of all – the things that can trip you up.  I tried a similar presentation at MWLUG for the first time and decided it was too wordy so I’ve taken another run at it in a different style –

Then straight after that – because I assume this is some kind of test – I’m presenting, with Mark Myers, a discussion around adapting to changes in technology  This session is about my experiences as an admin, Mark’s as a developer and both of ours as consultants in embracing the “new”.

A Consultant’s Story – Changing Your Technology
The Domino community is a vibrant, passionate world, but the market reality is now hard to ignore. You may be looking at the marketplace as it stands and thinking about the future. You may have spent a long time becoming well known in a technology set, only know to find it is going away. In this informal session come share your stories and here why you’re a lot more valuable than you may think you are. Expect a love of the Domino platform, a good dollop of positivity and a bit of painful honesty.

Plus it’s a great location on London’s South Bank and the Gala Party on Tuesday night (free to all attendees) is at the amazing 1918 HMS President currently decorated as a Dazzle Ship on Embankment.

All profits from Icon UK go to the Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity so if you haven’t registered yet,  go here to sign up and join us.

See you there

07.27.15
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THIS is how our community learns, thrives and has fun like no other

In just over two weeks’ time I’m heading to Atlanta for the MWLUG conference.  It’s my first MWLUG visit and this year’s conference is ridiculously packed with technical experts, champions, sponsors and more great content than you’re going to see in person anywhere else in the US this year.  Take a look at this schedule (you’ll see me on it).

4.45 on Thursday I have a Domino session called “What is your server trying to tell you“.  I’ve done similar sessions with this title before but I always update it to talk about the best tools and new tricks I use to manage or healthcheck Domino environments.  It’s great having a pure Domino Admin session so I hope you’ll stick around to catch mine.

11.30 on Friday morning I have a session on “Planning and Completing A Connections Upgrade” whether it’s a version upgrade in place, a side by side upgrade, a fixpack or a cumulative release I’ll talk about how to plan, what to look out for, how not to finish until you’re completely done and deciding when to upgrade and when not.  If you’re thinking of upgrading to CR3 which shipped last week this should be a valuable session.

If you haven’t registered go do that now and i’ll see you there (the weather should be balmy in August yes?) REGISTER

07.13.15
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Configuring Domino for SPNEGO

I was recently asked to put together a live demonstration for a customer on how they could use SPNEGO to access their web based Domino applications. To do that I opted to build a lab environment consisting of a Windows domain controller, a Windows based Domino server and a Windows 7 workstation so I could have a clean environment to present with.

Here is a modified copy of that presentation which will hopefully help you configure SPNEGO in your own environment.

Thank you to Sean Cull at Focul for clearing this presentation so I could share it.

If enough people are interested I would consider doing a webcast of this with a demo against my lab environment.

04.15.15
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New Sessions At Social Connections

Here I am at Heathrow heading out to Boston for Social Connections this week.  Held at IBMs Research Centre in Boston Social Connections is focussed around IBM Connections (what else!) software with most sessions lasting only 30 minutes.  That’s a tough trick to pull off in a technical session but I’m taking it as a challenge to get my information across in so short a time.  I’ll be there on Thursday all day and presenting with Terri Warren from IBM on “Who Does Connections Think I Am?” At 4.55pm where we’ll dig into how your identity and directories work.  On Friday I have two sessions – one of 30 minutes on being a Connections Administrator at 12pm and a high speed 15 minute session at 1.30 on Design and how to choose what servers, features and add-ons you’ll need. 

So three entirely new sessions I hope you’ll enjoy – see you there!

03.26.15
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Nice Strategy Map From IBM

Today at the Keynote of #ICSUG in Germany, Kramer Reeves presented a strategy map for ongoing development of IBM’s Messaging.  A big thank you to Henning Schmidt (@schmhen) for tweeting this. Note the ND+1 and ND+2 in 2016/17 and 2017/18 alongside July 2021.

Obviously “SUBJECT TO CHANGE” but this very clear statement from IBM at today’s Keynote points to an  extremely ambitious and forward looking strategy

“We have made the big bet that Domino is our long-term strategic server” – Kramer Reeves”

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03.04.15
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Don’t Miss These Sametime Webcasts From IBM

IBM have three upcoming webcasts in April and May, all of which are definitely worth attending especially if you’re deploying Sametime Media elements.

April 8th   Serviceability Tool for IBM Sametime presented by Jeff Miller from the IBM Sametime team

The serviceability tool reviews your Sametime install , configuration and performance and outputs recommendations for you.

click here for details

April 15th Media Manager High Availability with Tony Payne and Jennifer Wales from the IBM Sametime team

click here for details

May 20th Sametime Troubleshooting Tips & Tricks with Tony Payne from the IBM Sametime team

click here for details

03.04.15
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My Caffeinated Sessions At Social Connections

I’m delighted to say that I will be speaking at Social Connections in Boston this April.  It’s a great conference entirely about all aspects of Social Software and IBM Connections.  I like to try something different so I asked for 30 minute slots for my technical sessions this year

Staying On Top Of Connections Administration

From SSL certificates to setting up application security and rebuilding searches, we’ll cover how to identify the most common problems and resolve them quickly.

To do this we’ll also discuss how to set up logging and review both IHS and WAS logs and the key information you’ll need to supply IBM when opening any PMR (and where to find it).

I then have a session on Connections identities and LDAP with Terri Warren called

Who Does Connections Think I Am?

and one on designing a Connections environment – this one is only 15 minutes long.  You can give up 15 minutes to hear how to plan your Connections environment can’t you?

Connections Design From The Bottom Up

To see the full agenda for Social Connections or better yet, to register, click here

See you there!

02.19.15
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Engage UG In Ghent A Session And Rowdy Lunch

I’m very happy to say that Theo and the Engage.ug team have chosen one of my sessions (I sent in far too many submissions – sorry Theo!) to present this March in Ghent.   If you haven’t registered, it’s a great (FREE) European conference with a packed schedule and I can’t recommend it enough.  Go on and click the link above.  I’ll wait.

At 9am on Tues 31st in Room B I’m presenting “How To LDAP – Working With External Users In Connections ” where I attempt to show you all the options for adding and managing external users in your IBM Connections environment.

This isn’t the same session I did recently at ConnectED because I believe that attendees need some more detail on LDAP itself before they can make good decisions on how to configure and deploy it for external users so I’m modifying the presentation to add more technical grounding in LDAP to give context before moving on to external user configuration.  I hope you enjoy it.

I’m also doing a lunchtime session on Monday with Paul Mooney on “Changing your Technology”.  How do you adapt to changes in technology and how can you identify and harness the skills you take for granted?

“The Domino community is a vibrant, passionate world, but the market reality is now hard to ignore. You may be looking at the marketplace as it stands and thinking about the future. You may have spent a long time becoming well known in a technology set, only know to find it is going away. In this informal session, Paul Mooney and Gab Davis will share their own stories and explain how you’re a lot more valuable than you may think you are.  Expect a love of the Domino platform, a good dollop of positivity and a bit of painful honesty”

….We’re in Room A at 12.45 on Monday, bring lunch and shots of tequila..

01.31.15
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IBM Connected Pt 1 of 3 – My Presentation Content

As I head home from Orlando I have a lot of things I want to share so it seemed best to split these into different blogs about different things.  This one is just the content from my three presentations.  I hope you found them useful if you came along and I hope you find these useful if you couldn’t make it but just download them.

Thanks to Terri Warren from IBM for working with me on the Connections and Directory Integeration presentation. It was our first time presenting together (and first time meeting!) and I think it went well – we had a lot of very technical content as you’ll see but the room stayed with us right to the end.

I was asked a lot about Connections101 and when it will be updated.  I am working on the Linux v5 version now including IBM Docs and that hopefully will start appearing online in the next few weeks.  Then I’m considering an iSeries install version if the hardware works out…

BTE201 – Working with External Users in Connections

BP201 – Creating your own Connections Design

BP206 – Connections Directory Integration (with Terri Warren)