This past week I had the pleasure of presenting twice at Rudi Knegt's EntwicklerCamp conference in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. Attached are the two presentations and the demo database which was shared between them.

Being Classy in LotusScript

jQuery in Domino Application

Demo Database



(7)

For those who have not heard, the work at Teamwork Solutions has sadly come to an end. They are focusing on placement opportunities and have gotten almost completely out of the project business. I am the last technical employee in the project practice to leave the company. A couple are hanging on as contractors, but the only employees left are Steve Branam, Scott Good, Steve McIntosh, and Alison Pickett.

So I took a job doing XPages development at HealthSpace USA in Lakewood, Ohio (just west of Cleveland). We have a notes client based system that supports the various health and safety inspection processes for State and Local governments in the US and Canada. Think pools, snack bars, to bowling alleys and everything in between...There are several hundred organizations that use some parts of the system. My job is to get it to work on the web with XPages.

I am never sure how much I will blog going forward but perhaps I may have some new stuff to cover...

(14)

You can get to the real German Mustard USA site at www.GermanMustardUSA.com.

You may have come here after searching for German Mustard. This page was incorrectly setup for a couple of domains to be the default page on this server. You can get to the real German Mustard USA site here. Go there, the "senf" is outstanding! We feature Händlemaier's brand Bavarian mustard ranging from the awesome "der süße Hausmachersenf" (sweet house mustard) to the sizzling "Superscharfer Senf" (super hot mustard) the flavor is excellent and compliments any meat I have found to enjoy it with.

I developed this site for my buddies, Paul and Chuck at PC Importers. Used XPages and am hosting it on an 8.5.2 Linux based domino server. We will see how it goes.

FWIW, the shopping cart credit cards are processed through First Data. We keep no identifiable financial data in the Domino data store. I am sure someone will comment on the need for more protection. Please tell, what more do I need?

(4)

Dear Friends and Germania Members:

There is a private group on Facebook that is by name "Germania Society Members" is supposed to be a place for Germania members to interact about issues and events in our club. It was not created by the Germania Web Site team, nor, it seems, is the sole administrator, an active board member, willing to grant administrative rights to the Germania Website team.

I am leaving this group. I have learned that it is only for folks that have no disagreements with the administrator's agenda for the club. Some folks who are very active in the club have been removed from this group arbitrarily by the administrator. One is a current board member and another is a former officer. This action occurred after they opposed an action by the board which was apparently supported by the administrator of this page.



(14)

I am running a vote for the Burgermeister for the Germania Society's40th Oktoberfest on August 27-29.

Vote here, vote often.

The voting and tabulation pages are all Domino and jQuery.

(2)

Pat and I returned last night from a delightful week with my daughter Rachel, Jorge (her husband) and Miriam (their 14 month old daughter).

There are a ton of pictures here, here, and here.

(3)

Elizabeth Berstien summed up my sentiments on this whole Social Networking stuff in the Wall Street Journal.

Notice to my friends: I love you all dearly.

But I don't give a hoot that you are "having a busy Monday," your child "took 30 minutes to brush his teeth," your dog "just ate an ant trap" or you want to "save the piglets." And I really, really don't care which Addams Family member you most resemble. (I could have told you the answer before you took the quiz on Facebook.)

. . . Amidst all this heightened chatter, we're not saying much that's interesting, folks. Rather, we're breaking a cardinal rule of companionship: Thou Shalt Not Bore Thy Friends.

Verizon Wireless also has been running a commercial in the US showing some overly trendy parents overdoing the whole Twitter/Facebook thing.

I have only used Twitter briefly while at Lotusphere and IamLUG conferences. Even there the percentage of totally useless drivel I had to filter out to get an occasional nugget of insight was phenomenal. I have given up following opening Twitter clients because the good information I might get is completely drowned out by Richard's ".. new office mate is The Dread Pirate Roberts"

At the same time, Facebook has become, for me, almost entirely a gaming place due to the insidiously addictive Mafia Wars from Zinga. The odd thing about this is that I am very rarely interested in playing games on the computer. It is very curious that I now look forward to the hour or so of wasted time doing jobs, buying Mega Casinos and beating up on lower level players to pick up some valuesd loot. I keep telling myself to blow away the 2,000+ "friends" I have recruited to make my character stronger so I can actually see more of the stuff from people (like my duaghter) who really are friends. But doing so, it seems, would simply give me another place to see the Tweets that have caused me to disdain Twitter.

Perhaps the reason I do not appreciate the noise created by these networks is connected to my general unwillingness to "Toot my own horn" or make noise at the same level of noise that bothers me as I hear it from others. Perhaps this also applies to blogging. I have tried to use Planet Lotus and various readers, but the noise level even there drowns out the valuable nuggets.

So I will continue to participate infrequently in these new social mediums until I have something (I think is) real to say. Anyone who wants to tell me why that is wrong can reply here or tweet it someplace that I can more easily ignore.

(21)