Real World Computing

A long time ago, it was common practice to simply put your email address on the web using a mailto url link. Unfortunately, this practice results in a ton of spam coming your way courtesy of spambots. A Potted History of Methods Over the years, a lot of different methods for getting around this problem have become available. These include the low tech methods, such as having text which reads " send email to myaccount at hotmail dot com " and needs to be reinterpreted by the reader. The use of escape codes (try http://www.mways.co.uk/prog/hidemail.php for an example), and several other ways of encoding the address in javascript. No method has been more successful than simply giving people a blank form to write their email in. Now, in Lotus Notes/Domino, this is simplicity itself but when it comes to html, you need to write a bit of code - and even then, you need to be careful not to expose anything on the web. Getting External Help It makes no sense to reinvent the wheel wh...

Ok, before everyone starts jumping on me for this, I'm talking about the need for our individual PCs to be processing this sort of stuff. Recent Issues - Scanning I've been finding myself increasingly turning McAfee's services off in order to do simple tasks without massive interference. It's a well known and demonstrated fact that applications which use a lot of small files, like the new version of the Notes client (the Eclipse version) do not run happily with Anti-Virus. Why? Because everytime they pick up a file to execute it, the Anti-Virus app "snatches it off them for a look". In the days of large applications, the anti-virus would simply scan a massive EXE file once and then move on. That's no longer the case. Last Friday, I was trying to download some things from the IBM site using their "Download Director" facility. McAfee seized the Java applet and took so long to scan it that it kept timing out. In the end, the only way I could dow...

I love Google Chat As a strong Lotus supporter, I know that I should be shouting "Sametime" but the fact is that I secretly love Google chat. Sure, there's no way it's as powerful as sametime and it's not as useful in the corporate sense of the word but as a family and friends tool, it's unbeatable. So, wouldn't it be nice to be able to put a "presence-aware" link to google chat on your blog or web page? The way to do this is surprisingly simple; You need to already have a google chat account (a gmail account). Go to this site http://www.google.com/talk/service/badge/New Play around with the settings on this page - there are several different types of "badges" When finished, copy the HTML Code from this page to your blog or website. Group Chats One thing that google chat didn't do until recently was group chats. It's all changed now and there are plenty of articles about how to start a group chat with Google Talk. The problem...

I've just added a bunch of social bookmarking links to my blogs. Since it took me a while to figure out how to do it, I thought I'd share my wisdom. Note that this method supports Blogger, Typepad, Wordpress and others. At this stage, I don't know if it supports Domino Blogsphere - Any Domino people want to provide an update? Getting the Link Information 1. Go to the Site: http://www.addthis.com 2. Click Get your Button 3. Choose Bookmarking Widget and select the type of Widget, where you want it and the blogging platform. 4. Click the button marked Get Your Free Button 5. You'll be prompted to Login / Become a Member 6. After this you'll be supplied with some code, copy the code for pasting into your Blog (see step 7 below). and here's a picture to show how simple the selection is. Making the Code Change (Blogger Only) Note: The web site ( http://www.addthis.com ) gives you pointers for blogger, and I presume for the other platforms too, so if you use a differ...

Continuing with my implementation of BlogSphere, I feel sadly let down, not by the product, which seems to be very good but by the documentation - sorry, lack of documentation. At any rate, pressing on... Configuring BlogSphere You can't configure blogsphere without the ACL being set correctly. As far as I can tell, you can only be a member of one role (ie: not in multiple groups with multiple roles). This could be completely wrong but so far it's working for me. I put myself directly into the ACL with Manager rights and the [UI-Admin] role. Logging out and then back in gave me access to the configuration options. Configuration can be selected by clicking the BlogSphere config button in the top left hand corner of the Navigator. Side Blocks The initial web view of BlogSphere V3 is much better than V2, cleaner and nicer. That said, I'm sure you'll want to add some content to the sides. In this example, I'm going to do a calendar because that one works - I haven...

I know I was going to continue on Domino's BlogSphere but I just had to mention this... Google Blogger just keeps on getting better and better. Today, my RSS feeds gave me a post on Blogger's New Slideshow tool entitled Show off your photos with the new Slideshow . This is very impressive. It allows you to add a layout element that will display your photos from a given folder in Picasa Web Albums . The integration between Google's applications is spectacular. What's more, it's not limited to Google - It works with Flickr and Photobucket too as well as other sites supporting Media RSS. Add this to features like the ability to publish RSS entries of interest directly from your feeds in Google Reader and (sorry IBM/Lotus BlogSphere) Google Blogger is, at least for the moment IMHO, the untouchable king of Blog tools. IBM - If you're reading, this sort of integration is the main reason why you should be putting more effort into integrating your systems (and oth...