Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Where do I go? Where do I look?

OK... it's kinda late (9:30 p.m. EST) and nothings on the tube (watching Benny and Joon... love that movie... one of Johnny Depp's underrated roles) and surfing the web (mostly through PlanetLotus.org.)

I've been a Lotus Domino/Notes administrator for some time, since the R5 days, but the title of admin is mostly in name only. I know enough to be dangerous, but other than that, I rely on my local consultant, Googling (is that a real verb now?), and Notes.net (just about in that order) for quick answers to my, sometimes, stupid questions.

I've been to some administrator training classes, but it was so long ago, and learned a lot of stuff that, at the time, did not affect me or my company. Most of the training was back in the R5 days, and I never had the opportunity to take any of the R6 or, now, R7 admin classes at places like New Horizons and DataPlanners (are they even still in business?)

I'd love to find some low cost online alternatives to spending time away from the office. I work in a small shop (me and our network admin... that's it) and it is difficult to leave for a week or two for training classes. I was lucky enough to get to go to Lotusphere last week. I probably won't be able to go again until 2009.

I forget where it was, possibly the "Beat the Developers" session, as I hear it is informally called, but someone brought up the lack of books of any type for R7 or R8 out in the market. I'd love to have some kind of reference book to um... refer to when I have questions or want to look at how to do something. I need it in plain English. I need someone to explain it to me like I don't know what you are talking about, because, for the most part, I don't know... or at least don't feel like I know.

I'm a terrible reader. I'm more of a skimmer than an actual reader. Hell, in high school I never read one book that was assigned to me. I do regret it now that I'm 25+ years removed from high school, as I missed out on reading some good books... some classics. (Whoops... guess I went off on a tangent for a second...) I probably I would not take the time to read through the help text in the Admin client to find what I'm looking for. I suppose I would if there was no place else to turn, but it wouldn't be the first place I looked.

So, I guess what I am asking is this: Where do I go? Where do I look for learning more about being an administrator for Lotus Domino, without having to leave the office for a week at a time? I've been taking classes online through Ed2Go via my local college. I've taken everything from HTML to Javascript to Project Management classes. Each class is 6 weeks long, all done online, at about $90 per class. I get a certificate stating that I took the class and passed the online exam when I'm done (granted... it's not worth the paper it's printed on), but I also have all the class materials printed out and in a three ring binders that I can refer back to when I need to. It would be awesome to find something similarly available for administration training.

That's all I'm looking for. That and something that I put under my pillow at night and have the information drilled through my thick skull and into my long term memory so when I wake up, I know all I need to know. Which ever is easier, I guess.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Just some sites I have bookmarked...

Someday I'll get these put on this site on the sidebar, but until then, I'll just post them here:

Woot! - They sell one item per day. When it is sold out, you gotta wait until tomorrow. Once a month, the have a Woot!Off, where for an unannounced time period, when an item sells out, they put up another item. Some items are brand new, some are refurbs. I've purchased several items from them, and only had to return one item, which was handled very easily.

Overheard in NY - Some funny, overheard comments (some NSFW - language only) from people in and around NYC.

Overheard in the Office - Some funny, overheard comments (again, some NSFW - language only) from offices all over the place.

Postsecret - PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail
in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard. Some images are NSFW - contains some nudity and language.

My first Lotusphere experience...

I'm going to take care of two birds with one stone, so to speak, with this first post. This will be my first blog entry, hopefully leading to more blogging in the near future. I am also going to write about my first visit to Lotusphere in Orlando.

There are a lot of people I would like to thank for making my first trip to Lotusphere a great learning experience, as well as a lot of fun. I won't thank everyone by name, but I would like to specifically mention Andy Donaldson (for his Guide to Lotusphere post) and Bruce Elgort and Julian Robichaux (and many guests for their Taking Notes Podcasts prior to Lotusphere.)

While I had a great time and sat through some wonderful sessions for five days straight, I think the best sessions I attended were the two BOF's related to blogging (the one at 7:00 a.m. that Jess moderated) and the 5:45 p.m. that Ed Brill (I still don't know what he looks like) was supposed to lead, but Alan Lepofsky did instead.) Andy called me out in this BOF, but I was going to speak out, whether Andy said something or not.

The group of bloggers in attendance at the evening BOF was like a who's who of Lotus bloggers, in my mind. Yes, "rock stars" in a way. You people appear to have a tight knit group, but seemed to welcome the newcomers as if they were long lost friends. I appreciate that welcome into your group, eventhough I was not a blogger at the time.

I would like to make a comment to Gabriella Davis, who was in attendance to the BOF session, and made a comment about posting something that appeared to be so basic... there are new blog readers every day (I am one of them.) Who cares that something you post is basic and readily known to many of the bloggers out there. There are more people like me, new to the blog reading world, new to Lotus administration/development, that whatever you post may be just the answer we were looking for. Don't be afraid to post what's on your mind. Someone may be waiting to read what you have to say, and they don't know it yet.

I had a great time at the ESPN Zone and Jellyrolls on Thursday night. I did spend most of my time waiting to see if Gregg Eldred's request ("The Immigrant Song" - Led Zeppelin) would be played by the duelling piano players. It was great to talk with Gregg, as I am originally from his part of the world, and we talked about many different things, but it all had to do with music and radio from the 80's.

Now... I've got to get a work blog going to introduce Lotus Notes 8, Quickr, and Sametime to the people where I work. Not sure how I am going to go about doing that, but I think I know have some contacts/ifriends that I met over the last week, that I should not have a whole lot of problems coming up with ideas.