Categories
Bluemix Well Crap XPages

The XPages and IBM Bluemix showstopper, for me at least

Ok I’ll admit it..  I’ve not really been paying much attention to IBM’s Platform as a Service offering called “Bluemix”.  For the longest time there was no XPages component.  Of course I’d love to play with all the other technologies that it offers, and there are a lot, but as primarily an XPages Developer at the moment I just don’t have good time or practical ideas for anything else.

Then they finally put XPages and the “XPages NoSQL” database into Bluemix.  Experimental for now, but it’s in there.  Now it has my attention.  I could run XPages in Bluemix and maybe hook into all the Watson goodness and all the other bells and whistles that they offer.

As soon as the XPages Experimental went live I saw several posts by Marky Roden and others and I’m thinking cool,  now I can get started.

Then I went to MWLug and learned something really REALLY unexpected.

Because the Domino server is NOT “Multi-Tenant” it means that the “XPages NoSQL” database is really just a semi-isolated slice of I guess an actual Domino server.  I’m not sure of the plumbing.  But it specifically means that this “XPages NoSQL” database should NEVER EVER be used for PRODUCTION data. If one customer caused a crash it would take down multiple customers. The “XPages NoSQL” database on Bluemix has only ever been intended to be a “developers playground”.

My current understanding is that if you actually do want to use XPages on Bluemix for a production app then you must host the data either on IBM’s Softlayer service or “On premises” with your own copy of Domino.

So I guess that you need to subscribe to Bluemix for the “app” but then also pay for the data either in a Softlayer subscription or via Domino licensing.

This really REALLY disappoints me and assuming I’m understanding this correctly, I’m not sure I see the point in anyone doing much with XPages and Bluemix unless maybe you just HAD to access some Bluemix specific resource from an XPages application. Maybe there are use cases for this but none that really jump out at me.

If I’m wrong on any of this please let me know.

Categories
Community

MWLug Wrap up and NotesIn9

I just got back from a GREAT MWLug conference in Atlanta. I’ve been to several MWLug’s and they just keep getting better. It was an amazing conference full of friends, fun, food, drink and information.  I learned a lot from the many sessions and came home with ideas of things I definitely want to try. This conference had so many great sessions I had to make some very painful decisions on which ones I attended.  I think they’re going to have to start doing repeats soon if this keeps up.

Regarding NotesIn9, I was just blown away this year.  Of course it was great to see all my friends and co-conspirators.  🙂  But this year I met just a TON of new people which was awesome.  Some I’ve only ever talked to via the email / internet, and some were just brand new all together.  Simply brilliant!  I think more people came up to me this year to talk about NotesIn9 then the last three conferences that I’ve been to combined.  It was great to get feedback and hear that the show has been of value to so many people.

I’ve been taking a break from live speaking lately and this was the first time in a while I regretted not attempting to speak myself.  Not that I would have made it with this bunch of speakers but would have been fun to try.

I was also very excited to see many of the speakers were previous NotesIn9 contributors.  That’s always fun for me to see people from the show speak live.

The other big benefit I get from conferences is  just the feeling of clarity.  It’s great to get away for a couple days and think. It feels like it reboots my brain and I come back refreshed and ready to get back to it.

So what about NotesIn9? I’ve certainly been slacking in that department for a while. I think it’s time to reboot that as well. No big announcements or promises.  I’d much rather do then talk about doing.  🙂

I want to give big thanks to all the organizers and sponsors of MWLug.  It’s a super event and I’m already looking forward to that next year in Austin, Texas!

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Well Crap

BAD bug found in IBM Domino 9.0.1 FixPack4 (FP4)

So Declan pinged me about a weird problem he discovered which I was able to confirm.

Get this:

If you have a view column that is calculated by a formula and you change the programmatic name of the column to something that matches a field on the document that that fields value will show in the view column and NOT your calculated formula.  OUCH!

This does NOT occur in FP3. We’ve seen this in the Notes Client as well as in XPages Code. Jave Code I believe.

 

If you look at the screenshots.  The first one has 2 arrows pointing to “test” and “15”.  Those values come from a field called “legacyID”.  The other documents have correct information because they don’t have that field on them. The second screenshot shows the programmatic name with the formula I’m using.  All I did was change the programmatic name from what I was using “homeCode” in this instance to “legacyID” which is a field that was NOT already inside the view.

It’s possible that this problem does not occur into DDE makes a change to the database – either via direct edit or design refresh.

I saw some other posts about bugs in FP4.  I’m not sure what they were though.  I know there’s some debug information that was left turned on that shows on the server console.  That has already been corrected in IF1 I’m told.

We’re not running IF1 yet so I do not know if there’s a fix for this view problem yet.

 

fp4bug-1

fp4bug-2

 

 

Categories
Community XPages

NotesIn9: Will Kinda… Let’s talk about MWLug!

I’m going to MWLug.  One of the best community conferences that’s run by the community and put on for the community.  Their Dev track is OUTSTANDING this year.

Here’s a little video I put together talking about the conference.  Hopefully I can convince you to come and say hi!

http://www.mwlug.com/mwlug/mwlug2015.nsf/Home.xsp

August 19-21 2015

Categories
Learning XPages Notes In 9 XPages

NotesIn9 Updates the #XPages Episode Guide

It’s been long overdue but I finally got around to updating my Episode Guide to contain all my shows.  Please check it out!

https://www.mindmeister.com/280533435

I often get questions from people on “Where do I start” with XPages.  This guide probably isn’t great but I do have some nodes for “Start here” and “Beginner” that I typically point people to.

I hope it’s helpful!

=====

P.S. Call for Ideas / Help!

This mind map is meant to be a poor mans Table of Contents.  XPages.TV was meant to fill that role but that’s an epic fail and I’ve not had time to re-write it yet.

The problem is that unlike a typical “topical blog”,  some of my early shows are as valid today as they were back in 2009.  It’s difficult for people to find all the NotesIn9 content.  So I’m trying to come up with a nice interface for people to find all the shows.  I do NOT know a WordPress way though I’m sure there’s something out there.

The problem with the mind map is I need to manually re-key it.  Also it would be nice if shows could be in multiple categories.

If anyone has a better ideal or solution please let me know.  I like the visualness of the mind map but I don’t have a way to auto feed it.  Maybe there’s some WordPress plugin that’s better overall that would aid users in finding shows.  WordClouds and Searching just doesn’t cut it. Ideally something that’s NOT manually maintained would be great.  It can be a pain to publish shows because of all the duplicate data entry.

Please comment or email me any ideas you might have.  I’d appreciate any advice.

Thanks!

 

Categories
Uncategorized

Goodbye headphones

Sadly my trusty Logitech headphones have come to the end of the road. 

  
I think I recorded almost every episode  of NotesIn9 with them except for maybe the first couple shows. So I definately got my money’s worth from them. I’ve replaced them with another Logitech pair though I don’t like those nearly as much. But maybe I’ll get used to them. 

Thanks headphones. It’s been a good run. 🙂

Categories
Uncategorized

NotesIn9 179 : XPages Bootstrap Date Picker Part 2

Today John Jardin completes a Hat Trick of contributions to not only NotesIn9 but the XPages community.  Huge thanks to John for his efforts here!!!

Today John completes is 2 part series on using a Bootstrap Date Picker inside XPages.

Categories
Notes In 9 Podcast XPages

NotesIn9 178 : XPages Bootstrap Date Picker Part 1

In this show John Jardin returns with another great XPages meets Bootstrap show.  Today he’ll show us how to get a better date picker for your XPages applications.

Categories
Notes In 9 XPages

NotesIn9 177: Bootstrap Pager Styles for XPages

In this show IBM Champion and great friend of NotesIn9, Mr. John Jardin returns with the first of several shows talking about Bootstrap and XPages.

In today’s demo he’ll show you how to turn the rather bland page into the much nice Bootstrap look and feel.  And the best part?  You don’t even need to use Bootstrap to do it.

Check out the video to learn the secret!

Categories
Uncategorized

NotesIn9 Experiencing Technical Difficulties

In case anyone is looking for XPages.TV or XPagesCheatsheet.com…  they’re going to be unavailable for a bit due to hardware failures…

🙁