John D. Head aka "Starfish"

Dream Theater’s "Black Clouds & Silver Linings" sells 40,000 copies in it’s first week, places in top 10 of US Charts

John Head — Wed, 1 Jul 2009 13:49:20 -0500

So pretty cool news for Dream Theater:

The new album from DREAM THEATER, entitled "Black Clouds & Silver Linings", sold 40,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 6 on The Billboard 200 chart.

Commented DREAM THEATER drummer Mike Portnoy: "This is truly amazing.... that after almost 25 years together, this band is still growing and progressing and doing bigger and better numbers than ever... I can't think of many bands that can claim that. Plus — a progressive metal album with four songs over 12 minutes in the U.S. Top 10??? (wedged between JONAS BROTHERS, EMINEM and HANNAH MONTANA!) Hell must've frozen over!!!! (This must be a first of its kind...)"

DREAM THEATER's last CD, "Systematic Chaos", opened with 36,000 units in 2007 to enter The Billboard 200 chart at No. 19. 2005's "Octavarium" premiered with 27,000 copies to debut at No. 36.

In addition to the standard-version CD, DREAM THEATER's tenth studio album, "Black Clouds & Silver Linings", was also made available on vinyl LP, as well as a three-disc, special-edition CD that includes the full album, a CD of instrumental mixes of the album and a CD of six cover songs.

DREAM THEATER's "Chaos In Motion 2007/2008" double DVD set sold just under 9,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 2 on the Top Music Videos chart.

I will have a review of both the new release and the collectors edition box set over the weekend

New Media Tuesday - 6/30/2009

John Head — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:00:00 -0500

Here is what's coming out today ...

Movies

12 Rounds: Extreme Cut
Do The Right Thing: 20th Anniversary Edition
Dog The Bounty Hunter: Best Of Season #5
Eastbound & Down: Season #1
Education Of Charlie Banks, The
Entourage: Season #5
Eureka: Season #3
Heroic Age: The Complete Series: Part Two
Hi-5: Season #2
Human Contract, The
IT Crowd, The: Season #2
Island (2005) (#38 in the DVDPS Top 40)
Jonas Brothers: The Concert Experience: Deluxe Extended Movie
Lookin' To Get Out: Director's Cut
Monk: Season #7
Parker Lewis Can't Lose: Season #1
Patton 360: Season #1
Psych: Season #3
Secret Diary Of A Call Girl: Season #2
Stargate Atlantis: Season #5 (#10 in the DVDPS Top 40)
Street Fighter: The Legend Of Chun-Li: Unleashed And Unrated
Twelve Kingdoms, The: Complete Series

Computer Games

BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger Limited Edition ( Xbox 360)
Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood ( Xbox 360)
Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince ( Xbox 360)
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs ( Xbox 360)
BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger Limited Edition ( PLAYSTATION 3)
Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood ( PLAYSTATION 3)
Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince ( PLAYSTATION 3)
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs ( PLAYSTATION 3)
Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince ( Nintendo Wii)
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs ( Nintendo Wii)
Roogoo: Twisted Towers ( Nintendo Wii)
Fritz Chess ( Nintendo Wii)
Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince ( Windows 98 / 2000 / Me / XP / Vista)
Rise of Flight: The First Great Air War ( Windows Vista / XP)
Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood ( Windows 2000 / XP / Vista)
ArmA II ( Windows XP / Vista)
Mega Man Star Force 3 Black Ace ( Nintendo DS)
Mega Man Star Force 3 Red Joker ( Nintendo DS)
Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince ( Nintendo DS)
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs ( Nintendo DS)

Music

Wilco (The Album) ~ Wilco
Cradlesong ~ Rob Thomas
American Saturday Night ~ Brad Paisley
Electric Dirt ~ Levon Helm
Wait For Me ~ Moby
Now, Vol. 31 ~ Various Artists
Jonas Brothers: The Concert Experience (Two-Disc Extended Edition + Digital Copy) ~ Nick Jonas, Joe Jonas, et al.
Road Show ~ Stephen Sondheim
Jefferson Airplane: The Woodstock Experience ~ Jefferson Airplane
Johnny Winter:The Woodstock Experience (2CD) ~ Johnny Winter
More...

my pic(s) of the week:

New Killswitch Engage comes out today as well - pretty killer disc if you like aggresive but melodic metal

For those interested, I use DVD Price Search for upcoming movie tracking and Amazon's New Releases Page for music and computer games

Update on OpenNTF.org Technical Issues

John Head — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:13:12 -0500

Here is the update I just made in the IP WG Forum:

1. fix login issues with Safari (this might be a webkit issue so it could effect Chrome as well)

A fix was implemented to allow Webkit login (tested with both Safari 4 and the latest Chrome). Redirect from any page other than the homepage is not implemented. We want to fix this but went for the immediate fix that prevented login.

2. fix the time out issue on the XPages forums

A fix was implemented this morning via a LPTA token setting. The time out is set for over 3 hours. Should only effect postings in process.

3. fix the CSS where stuff does not display correctly

A fix was implemented so that no text is cut off. There are still some issues with the views not filling the width of the pages. We consider that a bug and will work to fix this, but wanted to fix the bug that was stopping Firefox users from reading text in place ASAP.

Please test and confirm or report issues for each of these. I know there is a wishlist of features - those are on hold until we get some of the bigger issues 100% fixed.

Thanks for everyone's patient and the hard work of the Lotus 911 team who worked over the weekend to get this stuff done.

Blackberry Development Resources from a Good Friend

John Head — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 15:52:56 -0500

A good friend of mine that many of you know, John Wargo, asked me to highlight his upcoming book BlackBerry Development Fundamentals. While not specifically about Blackberry development for Domino, John includes a few examples that utilize Domino data.

I have know John for many years, and this is a book I will recommend to anyone! John's blog also has Blackberry and Domino content and tips. John, get yourself added to PlanetLotus.org! Oh, and get your book on the Kindle in DX format - only way I am buying books these days!

Crain’s ChicagoBusiness promotes PSC’s iPhone app

John Head — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:49:49 -0500

Crain's ChicagoBusiness sent out an email to it's newsletter list promoting the Crains's Chicago Golf iPhone application. What I love about this is Crain's is promoting their own website and services, but are also promoting PSC. You can see that in the picture, they highlighted that we build the application. The application also has text on the main page "Developed by PSC Group, LLC" with a page of information about us.

Not only is PSC involved in developing applications for the hottest application platform today, but we have a great partnership with someone who wants to see us succeed.

You can download the Crain's Chicago Golf iPhone app from the iTunes Application Store. Search for Crain's Chicago Golf or PSC Group.

OpenNTF.org Updates: Technical Issues, Proposed IP Resolution Discussion Extenstion

John Head — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:06:54 -0500

I made two posts in the IP Working Group forum I wanted to make everyone aware of:

Technical Issues we are working on

Here is the current bug list:

1. fix login issues with Safari (this might be a webkit issue so it could effect Chrome as well)
2. fix the time out issue on the XPages forums
3. fix the CSS where stuff does not display correctly

There are some feature requests like just showing top level topics, but those will come later.

We are actively working on these three issues and will have them solved by Monday AM US time. We are even looking at backup plans to roll back the forum to domBulletin - whatever it takes to get the problems solved.

I will update this thread as we have more information to communication. Thanks for you patience.

IP Proposed Resolutions - Extending the Discussion Period

I am going to extend the time period for discussion on the Proposed Resolutions and NOT bring them to the Steering Committee for vote on 7.2.2009. I will give everyone until the following SC meeting (which will be no later than 7.16.2009).

I know the technical issues are keeping people out of the discussion. I do not want there to be anyone who uses these technical issues as a reason for not contributing.

I have updated the Proposed Resolution posting to reflect this

Commenting disabled here, please post thoughts in the forum

Reality Check on the OpenNTF.org IP Discussion

John Head — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:08:20 -0500

So in the past 60 hours, there has been a huge amount of debate, discussion, and even a bit of nasty sludge being thrown around after the IP Working Group Conference Call last week. I decided to stay out of the fray and have only answered questions about technical issues outside of the IP Working Group forum until now. I decided to write this blog so people knew exactly what I was thinking and feeling around this. Hopefully an open revelation will help settle some of the issues and fears.

1. The IP Working Group Forum Technical Issues

So let's get this out of the way. Yes, the new XPages forum design is having technical issues on OpenNTF.org for the General Forum as well as the Working Group forums. This sucks. We have time out issues, display issues, and more. It looks like Safari has login issues as well with the site, which has nothing to do with the XPages forum design. These issues frustrate me as much as anyone else reading or commenting - I am basically living in that forum right now. As IP WG Chairman, I take full responsibility for the issues. I apologize to anyone dealing with them. I can not make the changes myself to get the issues fixed, but will take it on as my #1 priority. I will get this fixed even if it means moving the forum to another site. Please give me some time to work on this and I will report back on the progress before the end of the week.

2. The OpenNTF.org Alliance and all the legal mumbo jumbo

Many people complained that OpenNTF.org was not transparent before IBM got involved. I was one of them. One of IBM's first acts was to form the Alliance and make OpenNTF.org more like a real open source program, like Eclipse.org and Apache. To do that, we had to implement layers of stuff, like Steering Committees, Working Groups, and legal mumbo jumbo. This frustrates the hell out of me - as it frustrates many of you. To grow OpenNTF.org to allow in larger companies like IBM, we need to have this. To make OpenNTF.org transparent and not reliant on any one person or company, we need to do all this. And because we don't have a bucket of cash lying around, we are doing this all on our own time. On top of our full time jobs. I can not tell you how many evenings Nathan and I have been up chatting until midnight talking about OpenNTF.org in the past 8 weeks.

The IP work will be behind us by the end of July for the most part. I hope the OpenNTF.org Not for Profit creation will be done by the end of August. After that, its just maintenance and on going governance stuff. Please, be patient. If you don't care about the IP stuff, fine.

3. Open vs. Managed Repositories - What the Hell

One of the requests has always been that IBM get more involved with OpenNTF.org. Money, exposure, hardware, software, etc. But at the end of the day, what I want is IBM contributing and consuming assets to OpenNTF.org. I want to see templates put up for community contributions and then consumed and put back into the box. Templates that get QA'd and are supported by IBM - which means customers will use them. This is a huge process with no guarantees. To have any chance of this happening, we need to add some managed processes to OpenNTF.org. That is where the Managed Repository comes in.

So here is the bottom line. We are not changing the way projects work today. Anyone who registers can create a project. That will not change. You can make releases like always and people can download your stuff. What we want to change is adding a managed repository next to this. At release time, the contributor can submit that release to be reviewed for the managed repository. That release will get reviewed by a committer (which is a standard open source term, not one we came up with). They look for basic stuff - license violations, etc. If it passes, that release gets put into the managed repository. No development or changes are made - we call it is a snapshot. That managed repository has some implications - tested, verified releases. From my research, combine this process with the Apache license, and we can get more companies to consume from OpenNTF.org. This includes IBM.

I know the licensing is a hot topic. We will start that discussion after the 4th of July. I think I even have a way to handle both sides of the debate.

So for everyone trying to figure out what were doing: we aren't taking anything away. We are adding a process that you don't have to use. You don't want your code to be in the managed repository? Don't mark a release for contribution over there. As far as I can tell, this caters to both ends of the community and is the best of both worlds. If you disagree - I welcome the feedback. Just please put it in the IP WG Forum :-)

4. Aggressive Passion

So I am going to be blunt here: I am taking much of the criticism personal. I know that 99% of what is being said is not targeted at me or meant to be harmful. Reality Check: I have spent over 100 hours of my own personal time trying to wade thru all the IP issues. The copyright mess where what is law in one country is not in another. How to take a community like sourceforge and add on a community like Apache and make everyone happy. If I come across as someone who is carrying the OpenNTF.org IP process like its a burden over my shoulders, I am. I do my best work when I get personally involved. So when someone calls out my presentation and takes a shot at it, it angers me. For sure. If that makes me an attack kitten, then sign me up for the tattoo. No apologies for doing what I believe in.

I am also taking this attack personally because the time and effort of others around me. There is a lot of work by Peter Tanner of IBM, Nathan, and legal councils - some with very personal connections to me. There are so many better ways to provide feedback. Why can't we stop all this spin and just work together?

I will be 100% open here - much of what we are doing today is rolling back changes that IBM put into place before the Alliance was announced. I looked at much of the initial outline for the repositories, licensing, and process and was furious. Nathan and I literally spent a day on the phone getting ready for the first Steering Committee meeting - which we pretty much hijacked. I made a personal decision that instead of bitching, I would take on the challenge of fixing it. That is what I am doing. I welcome all feedback. But please, do not expect me to sit here and take criticism without taking it personally. That is not how I do things. It may be my worst fault, but it is who I am.

I want everyone to help make OpenNTF.org the best it can be. I don't want to discourage anyone. I have seen claims that I am badgering people. Sorry folks, but that is spin. I am making the best effort I can to have this entire discussion out in the open. Privately, all I have done is ask people to bring their contributions to the discussion into the IP WG Forum.

I do not own OpenNTF.org. OpenNTF.org is owned by the community. I am just the person trying to make something happen in a bucket of chaos. I ask that everyone who believe in OpenNTF.org do the same - in whatever manner you can provide.

Spending my afternoon at Windy City Social’s Social Media Masters Event

John Head — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:24:55 -0500

At a great event today put on my the Windy City Social organization covering topics of Social Media. If your interested in following along, you can watch the stream on-line or follow us on twitter at #wcsocial.

Agenda
1:00 - 2:00	Registration, Networking, One on One Consulting Sessions
2:00 - 2:15	Welcome, Introductions
2:15 - 2:45	Brand Experiences that Start Conversations	Get Stirred Up's David Roth and Rick Bacher on creating branded consumer experiences that generate marketing buzz—lessons from Cereality and their agency work
2:45 - 3:15	E-mail Makeovers	Reagan Taylor, NCR eCommerce Consultant will make over audience emails and show you how to develop emails that increase response and customer engagement
3:15 - 3:30	BREAK
3:30 - 4:00	How to Get the Most out of the New Fan Pages	Brad Keown from Facebook will show you how to use the fan pages to promote your business
4:00 - 4:30	You Call It Winner - Top 10 Tips for Improving Your Natural Search Rankings	Learn about simple changes you could make to your site and blog that will increase natural search rankings from Avery Cohen, Metrist Partners
Evening Consulting Sessions, Networking and Bonus Session Begins
4:30 - 5:15	Snacks , networking and one-on-one consulting sessions with sponsors	Attendees will get the chance to meet one on one with some of our speakers and sponsors for 15 minute consultations on how they can improve their emails and web site.
5:15 - 6:15	How Great Companies use Facebook and Twitter to promote their business	Moderator: Liz Strauss Panelists: Ginny Morrison, Lane Hospitality; Charlie Festa, Threadless & Kelly Olexa, Ford Fiesta “Agent”
6:15 - 8:15	appetizers, drinks, one -on -one consulting sessions	2 sponsored drinks, light appetizers and continued consulting sessions

One on One Consulting Highlights

Email Makeovers
SEO Review of Your Site
Strategic Blog or Website Review: Strategic Marketing & Blogging Expert Liz Strauss (limited spaces)
Twitter Tune-up: Register for Twitter and get tips from top tweeters

IMPACT Comes to You 2009 - Hosted by PSC : July 22nd in Schaumburg, IL

John Head — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:00:00 -0500

PSC is pleased to be sponsoring and hosting a free IMPACT Comes to You event on July 22nd in Schaumburg, IL. Following the successful Lotusphere Come to You model, IMPACT Comes to You brings you all the news from the IMPACT 2009 conference from this past May.

Did you miss IMPACT 2009 in Las Vegas? If so, then you will want to join us in suburban Schaumburg, IL for an overview about the latest and greatest in the world of IBM WebSphere. In this one-day session we will show you how to work smarter for a Smarter Planet with IBM’s Business Process Management Suite (BPMS) enabled by Smart SOA and Web 2.0. The emphasis this year will be less on feature and function and more on applying WebSphere to reduce risks and improve ROI.

Agenda:

9:00 am - Welcome & Introduction
9:15 am - Smart work for a Smarter Planet
10:00 am - Top Smart SOA projects for Today’s Economy
10:45 am - Break
11:00 am - Drive Business Agility with Dynamic Business Processes
11:45 am - SOA and WebSphere: Entry and Exit Points Customer Case Study – local Success story
12:30 pm - Lunch
2:00 pm - BPM: Automate Manual Processes to Reduce Costs and Achieve More Rapid ROI
2:45 pm - Transform Insight Into Action: Planning Your Approach
3:30 pm - Break
4:00 pm - Put Customers at the Center of Your Business
4:45 pm - Closing remarks and END

This session is offered free of charge. Complimentary refreshments including continental breakfast and lunch will be provided.

You must register here to attend.

PSC sponsoring IamLUG, John and Alex speaking on Integration

John Head — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:56:14 -0500

I am happy to announce that PSC is one of the Gold sponsors for the first I am Lotus User Group (IamLUG) in St. Louis on August 3rd and 4th, 2009. PSC will have a booth and we hope to have some very cool friends joining us (more on that later).

Alex and I are also doing an version of our Lotusphere presentation on Notes/Domino and Integration with Microsoft Technologies and Lotus Symphony:

Integration and Coexistence: Leveraging Lotus and Microsoft products to build better solutions

In the real world, you use both Lotus and Microsoft technologies in your environment. You do not want to be in the middle of a product selection war, you want to solve your business problems. This session will show you how to integrate Lotus and Microsoft technologies, including: - Lotus Notes - Lotus Domino - Lotus Symphony - Microsoft Office - Microsoft .NET - Microsoft SharePoint You will go home with real world samples and lots of tips and techniques.

We are going to use this conference to debut some of the killer projects we have been working on this year. Advanced Office 2007 integration with Notes via the Ribbon UI, some advanced add-ins for the Office applications the allow you to share content, and even a hint at a replacement for DNFS.

There will probably be another session announcement shortly as well.

Looking forward to seeing everyone in St. Louis in 6 weeks!