John D. Head aka "Starfish"

PSC Getting Started Sample Database for Microsoft Office and Lotus Symphony Integration from Lotusphere 2010

John Head — Mon, 8 Feb 2010 12:00:00 -0500

In both of my Lotusphere 2010 sessions, JMP106 “Kum Bah Yah” Meets “Lets Kick Butt” : The Integration of IBM Lotus Notes and Domino with Microsoft Office, .NET, and IBM Lotus Symphony and BP214 IBM Lotus Symphony : Finally, A Developer's Friend, we used the PSC Getting Started Sample Database. I promised to share it with everyone - and I apologize for the delay.

This database has samples for the following technologies:

Lotus Notes automating Microsoft Word
Lotus Notes automating Microsoft Excel
Lotus Notes automating Microsoft PowerPoint
Lotus Notes automating Microsoft Project
Lotus Notes automating Lotus Symphony Documents (UNO)
Lotus Notes automating Lotus Symphony Spreadsheets (UNO)
Lotus Notes automating Lotus Symphony Presentations (UNO)
Lotus Notes automating Lotus Symphony Documents (LotusScript)
Lotus Notes automating Lotus Symphony Spreadsheets (LotusScript)
Lotus Notes automating Lotus Symphony Presentations (LotusScript)
Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) reading Lotus Notes
VB.NET reading Lotus Notes
C# reading Lotus Notes

Every sample gets the PSC Getting Started Database and inserts the text string from the Session Name (sessionname) field on the Configuration Profile document.

You can change the value to anything you want. We wrote these demos so you can learn one and then compare to the next sample. You will see the same code used over and over (1 thru 10 at least). This isolates what you have to learn. We plan on adding more to these samples over the year. Please feel free to download, use, and if you have your own products you want to include - send me the samples!

I am still trying to decide if this belongs on OpenNTF.org or not ... but for now it is here.

Thanks to Alex Kassabov, Eric McLaughlin, and Jimmy Minata for helping on this database.

Congratulations to the New Orleans Saints and Illini alum Pierre Thomas

John Head — Mon, 8 Feb 2010 09:30:00 -0500

I would like to congratulate the New Orleans Saints on their Super Bowl 44 win. To the team, organization, fans, and city - enjoy and celebrate. Oh wait, it's Mardi Gras time - you are already celebrating. Just keep it going :-)

A special congratulations to Pierre Thomas, the running back who scored two touchdowns. I got to see Pierre play 2 seasons with the University of Illinois Fighting Illini. He was overshadowed by Reshard Mendenhall at school, but man has he come on strong in the NFL. Pierre was not drafted. He earned that spot. And I think he is the best back on the Saints. Here is a great tribute video to both Pierre Thomas and Kelvin Hayden of the Colts, another former Illini.

Sean Payton, head coach of the Saints, Saints special teams coach Greg McMahon, Saints assistant special teams coach Mike Mallory all served as assistant coaches at Illinois as well. Congrats to them.

See me (and other Lotus Business Partners) in a great Lotus Knows video

John Head — Mon, 8 Feb 2010 09:00:00 -0500

I had the chance to record some thoughts on how PSC uses Lotus technology at a Lotus event last fall. Here are the results:

I hate seeing myself on video, but that is a great video :-)

Social Media Makover - Slides and Wrap Up

John Head — Thu, 4 Feb 2010 15:35:17 -0500

I wanted to thank everyone for coming out to a great evening of social media and real life makeover goodness. We had a great crowd who were engaging and interactive. As promised, here are the slides from last night:

Social Media Makeover Presentation

View more presentations from John Head.

I wanted to thank our vendors:

Halo [For Men]
Nicholas Joseph
The Shinettes
Robin Walker of AskRobinWalker.com
Mark Beier
Ellehomme Medspa

A shout out to Nathan Freeman for the amazing logo which everyone loved!

Also, thank you to my co-speakers:

Mark Carter
Christopher Rollyson

And our host, the Metropolitan Club of Chicago. Speak thanks to Christy Cumbo of the Met Club for her amazing efforts! We are looking to do another Social Media Makeover event sometime in the May / June time frame. I will post more when there is something to share.

IBM Lotus Symphony Website gets a makeover

John Head — Wed, 3 Feb 2010 22:30:54 -0500

With the Symphony 3 Beta 2 Download, there is a new look and feel for the Symphony.lotus.com webpage

Love the logo in the bottom right :-)

IBM Lotus Symphony 3 Beta 2 is now available

John Head — Wed, 3 Feb 2010 22:27:01 -0500

IBM Lotus Symphony 3 Beta 2 is now available!

Lotus Symphony 3 Beta 2 is now available! Give it a try. Tell us what you think.
Lotus Symphony 3 Beta 2 represents a major new advancement for our Lotus Symphony users. Based on current OpenOffice.org 3 code stream. Lotus Symphony 3 Beta 2 offers loads of new features and capabilities and improved file fidelity. The Lotus Symphony team is excited to get it out to you and get your feedback.
Lotus Symphony 3 Beta 2 introduces support for Visual Basic Macros, OLE Objects, and embedded audio/video as well as delivering business card and label templates commonly used. Users will also find enhanced support for and interoperability with Microsoft Office 2007 files and OpenOffice.org file formats.
We've enhanced the user interface and added features throughout the product, such as support for nested tables, presentation masters and Digital Signatures. Lotus Symphony 3 Beta 2 also makes improvements on commonly used features such as comments and DataPilot tables for pivoting on large datasets.
So, download Lotus Symphony 3 Beta 2 today and try it out.
We do caution you though, as with all betas, there are still some kinks to work out before we're finished. So, please treat this as beta code and not production code. And, please take care to choose the right forum for support and feedback.

Get IBM Lotus Symphony 3 Beta 2 here. Remember, this is just the stand-alone version. There will not be a public beta of the embedded version that installs inside Notes. When IBM Lotus Symphony 3 ships, you will be able to install it on top of Notes 8.5.1.

You can also download the toolkit here.

Social Media Makeover TONIGHT!

John Head — Wed, 3 Feb 2010 14:00:00 -0500

It's not to late to attend Social Media Makeover tonight, Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010.

(special thanks to Nathan Freeman for the amazing logo!)

You get three great speakers; talking about simple changes and techniques you can use in 2010 to utilize social media in your career;

Mark Carter
Christopher Rollyson
John Head

There is also a group of great vendors who will cover traditional makeover tips for 2010, including:

Halo [For Men]
Nicholas Joseph
The Shinettes
Robin Walker of AskRobinWalker.com
Mark Beier
Ellehomme Medspa

If you are in the Chicago area, please come join us! You can get your tickets on Eventbrite. I look forward to seeing you there.

Social Media Makeover Preview: Christopher Rollyson of The Executive’s Guide To LinkedIn

John Head — Wed, 3 Feb 2010 12:00:00 -0500

As a preview for the Social Media Makeover on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010, here is a preview of one of the vendors who will be at the event:

Christopher S. Rollyson
Managing Director, CSRA, Inc.

Christopher S. Rollyson has guided executives on using disruptive technology to transform business for 24 years. As a management consultant at global and specialist firms, he has advised Fortune 100 companies on how to assess, pilot and scale their use of the Internet, service-oriented architecture, Web 2.0 and social networks—and he has pioneered the use of these technologies as a marketing executive. Currently Managing Director of CSRA, he has a global reputation for his knowledge of Web 2.0 and social networks. He advises firms on how to use Web 2.0 to reduce time to trust, and he speaks at conferences worldwide. CSRA's Social Network Roadmap is a methodology that helps enterprises adopt social networks more aggressively by mitigating risk while its Executive's Guide to Web 2.0 helps companies to apply LinkedIn, Twitter, Blogging and Facebook to innovate their business processes.

Facebook: http://www.Facebook.com/csrollyson
Linkedin: http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/csrollyson
Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/csrollyson
Web: http://executivesguide-web20.com
Email: subs@rollyson.net

Chris will be talking about how using LinkedIN can make an impact on your 2010. If you are in the Chicago area, please come join us! You can get your tickets on Eventbrite. I look forward to seeing you there.

Social Media Makeover Preview: Mark Carter of TweetNetworking.com

John Head — Wed, 3 Feb 2010 10:00:00 -0500

As a preview for the Social Media Makeover on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010, here is a preview of one of the speakers who will be at the event:

Mark J. Carter
Founder, TweetNetworking, LLC and Networking For A Cause

Mark J. Carter is the founder of TweetNetworking, LLC and Networking For A Cause. He ran Chicago’s first Twestival (an international event in 150+ cities) and is currently setting up Chicago’s 3rd Twestival. Carter regularly trains companies and individuals on how to get real results with social media.

A few social media projects: Carter helped jumpstart “Saving The World”; a web community founded by NY Times Bestselling author Tim Sanders (which involved running a book launch both online and offline). Carter runs a social media team for Catalyst Ranch; one of Chicago’s premier meeting spaces for creative events and more. He recently came on board “Story From A New Friend”; a 501c3 Non-profit in Chicago to help launch them in Chicago and then take their events national.

Carter’s social media companies started offline (consulting about how to create pivotal and profitable relationships) and then grew online by applying 7 years of “been-there-done-that” results with business networking/referral systems in the social media realm: How to use Twitter, Facebook and blogs to build your business and brand.

Facebook: http://www.Facebook.com/mjcarter
Linkedin: http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/mjcarter
Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/mjcarter
Email: mjcarter@TweetNetworking.com

Mark will be talking about how you can give your Twitter use a makeover in 2010 and more about social media for the individual. If you are in the Chicago area, please come join us! You can get your tickets on Eventbrite. I look forward to seeing you there.

Social Media Makeover Preview: ElleHomme Holistic Medical Spa

John Head — Tue, 2 Feb 2010 14:00:00 -0500

As a preview for the Social Media Makeover on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010, here is a preview of one of the vendors who will be at the event:

Ellehomme Holistic MedSPA

A new medspa in the Chicago West Loop, ellehomme offers massages and other spa services in a great atmosphere with great hours on the weekdays. ellehomme will be doing chair massages and eyebrow waxing at Social Media Makeover this Wednesday!

If you are in the Chicago area, please come join us! You can get your tickets on Eventbrite. I look forward to seeing you there.