I’ve been getting a lot more emails from NotesIn9 viewers lately. Many are asking for XPages help with a particular problem.
While I prefer questions unrelated to Ni9 to be asked on StackOverFlow.com with the tag “xpages”, just so the question and answer is public and can therefore benefit more people, I’m always happy to get the email and will certainly try and help where I can. I can’t always. But I will try. Some of the emails say something like “I don’t expect a personal response”. Umm If you’re going to email me you will most likely get a personal response!
Just tonight I got 2 emails. 1 was about a problem with the Ext. Library and update sites. That I don’t know a ton about. The other was a problem reading values from a notes document. That I think I have a good handle on. 🙂
The Ext. Library email started like this:
Hi David, here me again.
Sorry if I’m disturbing you, but I need some help.
Again – it’s email – you can’t “disturb” me and I’m always happy to help.
The second email which was more up my ally BUT started like this:
Help Needed:
Phone # does not show up in the export to Excel. It shows up blank on the exported Excel spreadsheet.
That email then continued in with a description and included maybe 70 lines of code.
If you’re asking for help… especially if I don’t know you. Say hello first! Tell me about yourself. Tell a joke. Tell me what you like or don’t like about NotesIn9. I don’t care but add a little personal touch please. Remember I’m just a customer. I’m not a BP looking for clients. I do this all on my own time. I’m ALWAYS happy to try and help where I can as I’m sure most of the people in the community are also willing to try and assist. StackOverFlow is proof of that.
I don’t really have a good wrap up to this. I guess just a reminder to be nice to the people you’re asking for help and they’ll likely be more willing to go the extra mile for you in return. You get what you give.