Blueman at Lotusphere?

If you want to see a Blueman at Lotusphere next month then make sure to head over here. Chris needs to raise $3,000 before Carl will “blue up” again. The cause is worth giving to without the added bonus of seeing Carl on stage in the full blue get up, including newly reshaved head.

Session Repeat Times Published

After the first round of Lotusphere session times were released earlier in the week, there was a big group of us in competition with each other. Well we still are but the session repeat times have now been released so you should, in theory at least, be able to get to each of the sessions if you pick carefully.

It also means I’ll be speaking, either with Bruce or on my own, on every day of the conference bar Sunday 😮 :

– Monday 1pm: Building a world class web 2.0 application with XPages (Dolphin S IV/V)
– Tuesday 4.15pm: How to use the wrong design element to do the right thing in Domino Web Development (Dolphin S IV/V)
– Wednesday 11.15am: Building a world class web 2.0 application with XPages (Swan Mockingbird)
– Thursday 8.30am (:-o): How to use the wrong design element to do the right thing in Domino Web Development (Swan 1-2)

Guess I’d better get back to practicing then!

Lotusphere Session Times Released

Lotusphere is getting ever closer and with me presenting and working on a stand for the first time it’s pretty much highest up my priority list right now.

To add an extra pinch of nerves the times of sessions have been published (i’d heartily recommend getting the Genii Session Database). Bruce and I will be presenting one of the first sessions on Monday in the Dolphin up against some Lotusphere royalty in Paul, Bill, Julian and Rob. I don’t envy the choices there.

The session I’m doing on my own isn’t until Thursday morning so I shall try and be good at the Wednesday night party (which is at Universal Studios by the way). But then Thursday night I can finally relax. It’s going to be a very fun week. If you’re not already booked up then you’d better get your skates on.

New rules for travellers to the US

We got an email overnight from Lotusphere telling us that to get into the US from the 1st of January next year you have to go through an application process before you travel:

———————————————————-
IMPORTANT VISA WAIVER PROGRAM UPDATE:

Beginning on January 1, 2009, the Electronic System for Travel Authorization or ESTA will be implementing new regulations in regard to VISA waivers for persons traveling TO the United States. The following countries will be required to use the Visa Waiver Program to enter the United States. Electronic pre-registration through ESTA is MANDATORY after January 1, 2009, for entry into the United States.

For further information please so to: https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov.
———————————————————-

I’ve not heard tell of this stupid new rule anywhere else so take note if you’re travelling to the US in 2009 onwards.

Amazon MP3 Store Opens in the UK

There is literally no excuse to use iTunes for buying music any more. The Amazon MP3 Store has opened in the UK. It offers basically the same music selection for less money and without DRM so you can play it on any player, not just your iPod.

There goes the credit card for December 🙂

LotusBeer London Tonight

Just a final, quick reminder that a few of us are meeting for a beer at the Market Porter near London Bridge tonight from about 6pm. If you can make it, we’d love to see you.

Welcoming niece number two into the world

I got the call this morning that my new niece was born at 5am 🙂

So join me in welcoming Constance (Connie) May White to the world.

Congratulations to Simon, Fiona and of course, Elspeth (who is niece number one).

Learning Rails Podcast and Screencast

Not content with project work, IdeaJam 1.4, TaskJam and preparing for two Lotusphere sessions, I’ve been spending a bit of “spare” time starting to play with Ruby on Rails.

I’m a bit behind the times on this but it’s a great web development environment and strangely similar to Domino web development in a lot of ways. Even so it takes a while to grok the different coding styles required. I found a great podcast and screencast here. They walk you through creating some basic apps and are incredibly helpful. They are also free! Ain’t the internets great?

LotusBeer London reminder

There are a few of us meeting up for a pre-Christmas party season beer next Wednesday. We’ll be at the Market Porter from 6pm and then probably try and get some dinner later on.

Hope to see you there.

XPages workshop (repeat 1) over

I am stunned that we got through all of the 26 exercises by mid afternoon yesterday, and other than a few errors in the scripts which we’ll have fixed for future versions of this course it seemed to go pretty well.

The feedback was pretty overwhelmingly positive and hopefully it means that the guys can go back to their offices and be able to write a new XPages app from their existing Notes applications.

We now have a few days to correct the scripts and VM images before the 9th when the second version starts. I think there were still a few seats left, so if you want to attend get in there quickly.