The Connections Blog

Following hot on the heels of Connectr #5 in Edinburgh at the forthcoming WebSphere User Group, we take great pleasure in announcing the next in the series, Connectr #6 at the new and improved, bigger, better, shinier UK Lotus User Group. The session is due to take place at  Church House Conference Center, Westminster, London over the course of Thursday 18th and Friday 19th of September, starting at 16:00.  See the UK LUG website at http://www.uklug.info for more info. Hear about the impressive new features in version 2.0, share early implementation experiences gathered from around the globe and learn more about what helped the product to perform so well in the recent head to head at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference.  Hear how to you can use Lotus Connections from any number of everyday productivity tools, how you can integrate with WebSphere Portal and how to you can even Dogear Microsoft Sharepoint!   We will aim to cover an introduction to this product and discuss some of the issues around adoption of this ground-breaking social computing platform.

Expect this to be a very interactive session involving audience participation and maybe one or more special guests, the return of the much loved Buzzword Bingo and the ultimate test to see if you can work out the "Connection Conundrum" (who is the missing link)

As ever we have some lofty ambitions to cover in 60 minutes at the end of two days' of presentation just before going home time on a Friday, but hope we can tempt you to join us  

• To spread the word about the use of Social Networking technologies and how they can be applied for business benefit
• To share some knowledge of what to do
• To give people confidence to try things
• To be independent and objective to represent a true and credible picture
• To enjoy the experience, meet new people, get together with existing acquaintances and learn something useful in the process
  
  So ,come along and share your experiences, desires and WIBNIs about overcoming your organization's deepest fears of using Social Networking tools to delivery organizational value.  (You can even find out what a "WIBNI" is - don't Google it, try speaking to someone about it, ask some real people - a spot prize for the best suggestion on the day).

Material from previous events can be found at http://www.slideshare.net/search/slideshow?q=connectr&submit=post&commit=Search

We look forward to seeing you and making the most of your connections.

The Connectr (Lotus Connections Special Interest Group) is being cranked back into action for the Autumn Conference season with a couple of events to announce.

First up is a return visit to Edinburgh and the WebSphere User Group with a session being given by Lead Architect on Lotus Connections, Adrian Spender and his colleague Karim Heredia on the topic of an Introduction to Lotus Connections.

You can find out more information about the speakers here and you read a little more about Adrian's activities from his blog http://adrianspender.com/blog/

Adrian was very instrumental in helping us put together the Connectr #4 session in his current home town of Dublin earlier in the summer so I can vouch that he will give an entertaining and very informative session so see if you can make it along and hear first hand about how the Connections Homepage was constructed, amongst much more besides.  The WebSphere User Group is a tremendous resource for our community so go along and support it, Edinburgh is always worth a visit - you can find out more and register from the website at http://www.websphereusergroup.org.uk/.

Material from previous events can be found at http://www.slideshare.net/search/slideshow?q=connectr&submit=post&commit=Search

More news of other events coming up over the next few weeks.

I've been struggling with a strange problem with Lotus Connections 2.0 (well WAS6.1 really), SSL and IE7.  

The customer I'm working with is using self-signed SSL certificates as part of a Connections 2.0 pilot install.  Using the process documented in the Infocenter, plus Jon Mell's excellent install guide, this SSL config works fine with Firefox.  However, with IE7 (which is their default browser), even importing the SSL cert into the browser still gave a "There is a problem with this website's security certificate" error, pointing to a certificate issued by "WebSphere Plugin Key" to "WebSphere Plugin Key".  No matter what I did using the Integrated Solution Console (the new way of managing SSL with WAS6.1) I could not get rid of the error, even re-importing the self-signed cert into the plugin-key.kdb file.

However, after a lot of testing, this seems to be the way to get round this.  Make a backup copy of the plugin-key.kdb file on the Connections server.  Start the iKeyman utility (in \ibm\websphere\appserver\bin).  Open the plugin-key.kdb file (in \HTTPServer\Plugins\config\webserver1 usually), the password is usually WebAS.  In Personal Certificates, you will see a cert labelled "Websphere Plugin Key".  If this is the only key in Personal Certificates, this is your problem.  To resolve, click "New Self-Signed", label the new cert "Self-signed Plugin cert" or similar, ensure the hostname is correct, mark it as the default certificate and click OK.  Close the key database file.  Stop and restart the HTTP server.

IE7 will still prompt for the self-signed certificate, but this can be saved and installed into the browser so that it does not prompt in future.  The Websphere Plugin Key will no longer cause the error.

Hope this helps someone ;-)

A three-day virtual workshop on how to install, configure and use Lotus Connections 2.0:

Description
This technical skills hands-on workshop will show you how to leverage the six integrated services for social networking delivered by Lotus Connections 2.0. You will hear about and use the functions and features that capture, communicate, share, collaborate, organize, and deliver social software for business.
Date and location Event type        Webcast
Starts        09 Sep 2008  9:00:00 AM
Ends        11 Sep 2008  5:00:00 PM
Time zone        (GMT-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada)

What you will discover by attending:
# How to deploy, configure, and use each feature of Lotus Connections
# How to incorporate the features in existing applications and Web sites
# How to use APIs that interact with connection features

Highlights
   * Become familiar with the setup and use of Lotus Connections features
   * Understand the functions provided by each feature
   * Understand how the features work with each other and how to incorporate them with other applications and Web sites
   * Learn how to use the tools and underlying servers to configure the products for use
   * Participate in hands-on labs

This is open to customers, IBM BPs and IBMers.  I have personally attended Virtual Workshops such as this in the past and can recommend them as a great way to learn.

Sometimes you just need someone to distill things down to a more simple level.  Jon Mell on Enterprise2.0:

Enterprise 2.0 can be very simple.
                Do you believe that there is business value in who you know as well as what you know?
                Do you believe that a strong network of contacts can help you get things done and make things happen?
                Would you like to help your employees get things done and make things happen?
If so, then the question is not why would you use social software, but why would you not?

Nice one, Jon.

Remember the "www-949" community that was quietly launched back in June on a beta version of the Lotus Connections 2.0 code?  It featured some new IBM blogs plus the ability to login using your IBM ID and to collaborate with IBMers in a full Connections environment for those both inside and outside of Big Blue.

Well at that time, it wasn't particularly obvious what the community was to be used for, nor why that strange URL had been chosen, nor indeed whether this would become a full production site rather than just a temporary one.

Well, I'm glad to say that the picture seems to be becoming clearer...

It is a full production site, and as of yesterday is now on the Connections 2.0 released code (though without the FF3 e-fix just now unfortunately).  It has a rather spiffing new URL too - www.ibm.com/homepage - isn't that cool?  The 5 principal modules are nearly all accessible directly via ibm.com too - www.ibm.com/activities, www.ibm.com/communities, www.ibm.com/dogear and www.ibm.com/profiles.  Blogs? Ahh well, there was already an ibm.com/blogs page, so they are on www-951.ibm.com/blogs which is a slight shame, but I am sure we can live with that for now.



This service is open to anyone that has an IBM ID - most of you will already have this anyway, but if not, just register for one.  It does seem to have been initially targeted at the Tivoli Systems Management community, but given that it is fully open to all, I see no reason why we shouldn't be using it ourselves.  So, if you need somewhere to host an activity, or need a quick and easy blog platform, perhaps this should be the place to head to?  That is not to dismiss the great Bleed Yellow efforts, which are fantastic, just that for some things a bleedyellow.com URL might not be what you need.  Go take a look...

One of the real positives of IBM's move to use the Eclipse framework as the underlying technology on which to code the Lotus Notes and Lotus Sametime Connect clients is the ability to product cross-platform plug-ins that can link the many Lotus products together into an adaptable and flexible collaboration interface.  The Connections Activities plug-in has been available for a while now in Sametime (and Notes), and is very powerful as a means quickly provide drag-and-drop access to resources stored in Activities. However, many folks have been crying out for a similar means to access Profiles data or to link Connections communities with related groups within Sametime Advanced.  I'm pleased to see that IBM has now released this functionality:

Use the Lotus Connections plug-in to bring powerful capabilities of the Activities, Profiles and Communities to the Lotus Sametime client.

When you install the Lotus Connection plug-in, you can enable some or all of the following features:

Activities Sametime Feature 2.0: Use this feature to save chats to activities, open activities from your Sametime window, or find activities that you share with a contact. This feature provides a bridge between the real-time communication of Sametime and the work coordination power of Activities, a service of Lotus Connections.

Profiles Business Card Sametime Feature 2.0: Use this feature to find out more about the people in your Sametime Contact list. When you hover over a name in the contact list, the Profiles business card associated with that person is displayed. The Profiles business card provides the person's job title, location, and telephone number. It also provides links to other Lotus Connections features.

Communities Sametime Feature 2.0:  Use this feature to save individual or group chats into Discussion forums.  With Sametime Advanced add Lotus Connections Communities to your Sametime broadcast Communities.  Save Broadcast chats back into the corresponding Community.

Note: Your Lotus Connections Community Server administrator needs to install ifix LO31863 on your Communities server to use this feature.

Head over to the Lotus Solutions Catalog to download the plug-in.

One small but significant omission though - this plug-in is only supported on Windows XP/Vista and SUSE.  No Mac support yet which is a great shame.

Firstly, apologies for the lack of posts for the past couple of weeks... I was on holiday with the family up in Scotland - St. Andrews to be precise.  Whilst I did take the Blackberry with me, I tried really hard to be offline for the fortnight - no blog posts, reading of RSS feeds, and definitely no Twittering.  I must say, I have come back feeling wonderfully refreshed and ready to face the world.  Here's one of the photos I took overlooking the famous St. Andrews Old Course on a balmy summer evening in July (click through for a larger version):



Anyway, on with the Connections content.  Whilst I was away, a super Connections 1.0.2 to 2.0 upgrade guide was added to the Lotus Connections wiki:



Download it here. This is a great resource for anyone looking to perform this upgrade in a production or test environment. Highly recommended.  Good job, Salvador.

As I mentioned yesterday, the first fixpack is out for Connections 2.0, however as noted the instructions aren't available yet. Doh.

Fortunately Luis Benitez has come to the rescue today:

In any case, here's how to install the fixpack. First, since this is a fix pack and not a fix (don't ask me!), you can't use the wizard that comes with the Lotus Connections Update Installer. Instead, you must install the fix pack via the following command:

updateLC -fixpack -installDir E:\IBM\WebSphere\LotusConnections -fixpackDir E:\IBM\WebSphere\LotusConnections\update\fixpacks -install -fixpackID LC2001_Fixpack -wasUserID wasmgr -wasPassword pa55w0rd

Make sure you plugin the right path locations and values for userid and password. Enjoy the new fix pack!

Thanks Luis!

This is a super resource if you need some assistance convincing others in your organisation of the benefits of Social Software in general, or indeed Lotus Connections specifically.

First outed by Suzanne over at the Synchronous blog, this is a really good whitepaper by Robin Fray Carey, co-founder and CEO of Social Media Today.  It is available to be viewed and printed, but unfortunately not for cut'n'paste, hence the reason why I have quoted from it here.

Take a look...