Steve Castledine

Nail Biting Weekend

Steve Castledine — Fri, 2 May 2008 12:30:45 +0100

A nail biting holiday weekend awaits with the last game of the season live on Sky Sports 2pm sunday (GMT). We play at a team (Stoke City) who are at the top of the table and requiring points for promotion to the Premier League. We need to match the team below us or draw and pray the team above us lose. A win guarantees survival - but that's unlikely.

Last chance saloon now. We can technically stay up if we lose or draw and be saved by our goal difference. For the great club you are Southampton - I'm hoping you lose!

I'm not normally a betting person but I have put some money on us going down, on the basis that I never win bets so this is another one I want to lose. £260 in my pocket if it goes wrong - it would not make me happy.

I'm afraid, very afraid.

Nokia N95 8GB

Steve Castledine — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:04:21 +0100

This week I upgraded to a Nokia N95 8GB from my trusty Sony Ericsson.

First, people would ask why I didn't just get an iPhone? Well many reasons, the first being I didn't need to pay to upgrade to the Nokia whereas an iPhone would have cost several hundred pounds - so actually that's a lot of reasons!

I also looked at spec. With 8GB on board memory, 5mp camera (2mp on the iPhone), 3.5g mobile network (old 2g on the iPhone), has Wifi like the iPhone and GPS with maps and navigation (which I believe the iPhone has). So even if the cost was the same I would only choose the iPhone on "fashion" and touch screen alone. The Nokia also uses S60/Symbian which opens up the possibilities for mobile based twitter etc and no locked features.

There are some things I would redesign with the user interface - it works fine but every now and again I think an option has disappeared when I needed it in that focus especially around web browsing. A better way of managing which connection to use would make things easier as well. Like if Wifi is on - always use it - not have to tell it to switch from the 3.5g network (but that could be user trouble). Switching between displaying horizontally or vertically seems a little hit and miss as well (in terms of how you "just do it" consistently from each application).

So far I'm loving it and the battery almost lasted two days of use (with me playing with everything on it). The screen is very clear (240 x 320 pixels - 16 million colours - clear enough for great video quality) and it takes great photos for a "phone" (I remember it was not that long ago that the average digital camera was at 5mp spec).

Please Help Me Its Lotus Notes

Steve Castledine — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:04:17 +0100

So Ed mentioned "Tweetscanning" - a search of the Twitter 'verse. Its actually pretty interesting - well to me, at 8pm, when my mind is burnt from running through some unit tests.

Anyway searching for Lotus Notes is interesting. Gems such as:

DEAR GOD, I HATE LOTUS NOTES. You can't search your emails? Seriously, what year is it?

and then

It's the robust search features that make lotus notes such a great enterprise solution.

Of course this is Notes fault not the setup/use:

Nice. Lotus Notes just now notified me of a meeting that I had this morning

(same person)

I have attended a meeting that was really tomorrow & missed half of one that was today. Good job, Lotus Notes!

Anyhow, it goes to show lack of training in any product can make a dent in its reputation. I figure a quick guide on standard email features should be put up on the web not just for version 8, but version 5, 6, 7 just because some people are still there, and when they can't figure things out they add to the negative chatter. We want positive chatter.

My favourite:

i'm still wondering how in the hell lotus notes is STILL being used!!! my bro's company just switched TO lotus from exch2003 wtf??

I love Alan's press release for a new product from IBM Lotus - LND - one day I wish we could have some software that can do all of that :)

Its all gone a little quiet

Steve Castledine — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:23:00 +0100

Yes its a little quiet over here. Baby, work and football pretty much drain all of my time and I am finding Twitter an easier way to "blog" - kind off.

I have loads of things I would like to blog about, but alas I am not the one that has the authority to do that (there was an internal "milestone" today with a feature close to my heart - but that's for others to discuss). Working away on Notes Domino 8.5 right now with even a few thoughts as to releases beyond that, a lot of work, but I would not swap it for the world (into my 3rd year at IBM already).

Incidentally, day to day I do not do that much with the blog template, that's a job firmly with support etc although I do act as a final place to go to for customer PMR's that cannot be resolved. A little word on that, as I have had a few "grumps" at me recently. Because IBM ship the blog template, and they obviously charge good money for licensing/support, I cannot really offer support directly to customers. Obviously this puts me in difficult situations as I am a bit of a "yes boy" when it comes to customers, but my employer pays me at the end of the day and it is unfair to devalue things like Premium support packages by operating a "backdoor" support service (excuse my terminology).

Having said that I am trying to get some documentation sorted out in the form of a public wiki for the blog template. This then I can contribute on a "as needs" basis and hopefully existing users can chip in as well - more on that soon. I'm hoping that this will then become a 1 stop shop for anything blog template related.

Now off to watch Manchester United v Barcelona!

Trap door is opening

Steve Castledine — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 10:04:59 +0100

Things are not getting any better at the bottom of the Championship:

Leicester are now in the bottom 3 with four games to go in the season. Another defeat arguably caused yet again by the referee by sending a player off after only ten minutes and giving a penalty at the weekend, only for the FA to admit this week it was a mistake and rescind the red card. Doesn't give us any points back!

I've lost track how many times officials have made huge mistakes like this and cost us games. It wouldn't happen in the US - too many Lawyers.

Saturday sees the visit of Colchester. Already relegated, they should be cannon fodder. But with nothing to play for but pride that relaxed attitude and our obvious "panic stations" to get the win could be our downfall. I hope not otherwise I will be a miserable old man come sunday!

Dopplr badges on blogs

Steve Castledine — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 09:28:41 +0100

Update - Dopplr have now sorted the CSS which caused the issue with IE - so no need for the workaround mentioned below.

I've noticed people starting to use Dopplr badges on their blogs. The Dopplr badge html does not currently allow users to specify dimensions so it tends to mess up html a little and can "bleed" over your content.

Hopefully Dopplr will think about providing some sizing functionality, but in the meantime you can adjust the badge html a little to better fit by adding some width css to the dopplr div:

You may need to play a bit as it does reduce the image quality. The following is a width of 170px

Twitter, TwitNotes and Notes 8 Standard are just great

Steve Castledine — Mon, 7 Apr 2008 13:46:08 +0100

I first used Twitter in the middle of last year and instantly dismissed it (to myself) as "pointless" and like watching paint dry - who needs to know who x eat for dinner?

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

Well since Mikkel released "TwitNotes" (a sidebar app for Lotus Notes that allows you to "twitter") I have had to chance to retry and re-evaluate.

First things first, and Mikkel has done just a great job here - his app is just great. You can hear more from him on the latest Podcast from Bruce and Julian (Taking Notes).

Secondly, this is the biggest piece of evidence yet (I have another that I want to find time to review that Nathan Freeman has done with his Carousel app) for me of how the new Notes 8 "Standard" client is just a great product to go forward with. Its not just got a better UI, it does cool things which are essentially useful things. The nature of its new architecture is already showing the innovation possible by developers and business partners. I even get to display my blog comments for viewing instantly with a "few clicks of the mouse":

Anyway back to twitter, I don't know what it is but I find it way more addictive than Facebook (which is fast being dumped by me) basically because it is 100 times more useful and people don't ask me to join their vampire game every half and hour!

Why is it useful? Well for me I have been working at home for a long time now and this just helps to bring you closer the community at large. Even if you have a real busy day having TwitNotes loaded keeps you in touch with the goings on - you don't even need to participate. This is what Instant Messaging has been missing - the ability to participate but at a more regulated pace that suits your working day.

I always look for business value that is possible from Social Software. Blogs, wiki's and instant messaging etc have always been easy to demonstrate, so far with twitter, I'm not sure you can, but who cares, socially it does just great for me and I think this is a "stayer".

Catch me on twitter - scastledine.

Gmail Custom Time saved my day

Steve Castledine — Tue, 1 Apr 2008 13:17:13 +0100

Imagine when I realised I had forgotten to email my wife happy birthday last week. Well I have been saved by Gmail Custom Time.

How do I use it?
Just click "Set custom time" from the Compose view. Any email you send to the past appears in the proper chronological order in your recipient's inbox. You can opt for it to show up read or unread by selecting the appropriate option.

Is there a limit to how far back I can send email?
Yes. You'll only be able to send email back until April 1, 2004, the day we launched Gmail. If we were to let you send an email from Gmail before Gmail existed, well, that would be like hanging out with your parents before you were born -- crazy talk.

If only life was this simple! Actually the line about forgetting to email my wife happy birthday kills me more than Gmail Custom Time!

Career Change

Steve Castledine — Tue, 1 Apr 2008 09:59:39 +0100

After many years in the IT profession I have decided to take a "career break" and move into something different. My second love are motorbikes so from today I am the proud owner of my own Suzuki store - just 1 mile from my home:

Of course this is just April's fools as I love my job and the community it is within. But I always find this store amusing when I pass it. No relation to me whatsoever!

Blog Server Fixed - Notes Communication speeds still a little strange

Steve Castledine — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:06:28 +0100

Been having network and server issues here at home office of late so this site has not been available or its been taking a day to load each page. RSS feeds gave up the ghost about a month a go - it seems (I don't tend to follow myself!).

Resolved many issues, a lot of different systems seem to break round the same time. Replaced my Web Server with a new one made up of components from multiple suppliers and so keeping costs down to £190 for a 2 gig 3mhz dual core machine including all the delivery charges (i'm not a freelancer anymore!).

One issue I have outstanding and I'm wondering if my router is playing up, but Lotus Notes communication speeds across the network from client to my Web Server suddenly dived a few months back and I have never got to the issue. Need to do some investigating as whilst my web server is now working great over http - my client to server is still not happy. Maybe traffic is going out to my ISP who have some sort of throttle on that port (wild guessing here) - some testing to be done. I should not be lazy and install a second NIC and attach to local network so only local communication is done here.

Football is a depressant!

Steve Castledine — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:52:22 +0100

Every season is a new hope, however every season for a long time now Leicester City have slowly got worse and worse as a team.

Even though this season we must have spent more money than anyone in the division on players, we just do not seem to be able to win games (its been nearly a year and a half since we won 2 games in a row). It seems the more you pay for the players and pay each week the less they are prepared to knuckle down and put enough effort and energy into winning anything.

Four managers (mostly clowns - where do we get them from?) in a year has not helped either for stability - players do not know if they are coming or going (mostly going it seems).

6 games left and with the team below us having played 2 games less than us, the bookies have us as favourites to drop out of the division for the first time in our history and also losing our status of I think one of nine teams in the land that have never dropped out of this division.

Never did I think I would see the day that I wonder if we can manage to beats the likes of Scunthorpe and Colchester over the next few weeks to help us survive. Sheffield Wednesday, Coventry, Norwich, and Southampton join us in this dog fight as once historically great clubs but now in decline . Who will survive? Who will join Division 1's Premiership graveyard with teams like Leeds United and Nottingham Forest having already succumbed to bad times?

Blink and you would have missed the snow

Steve Castledine — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:34:26 +0100

The only snow of the winter so far and it melted within an hour of waking up on Sunday:

Millie did not care:

Happy St Patrick’s Day from Millie

Steve Castledine — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 14:52:55 +0100

A bottle of the house white please...

Welcome Millie Rose Castledine

Steve Castledine — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:18:29 +0100

Millie was finally born Saturday night - 8 pounds. Labour was something like 29 hours and then poor mum had to have an operation in Theatre to "put her back together" for a few hours after that as well.

Everyone is now fine, healthy and home. Millie is even allowing us to get our sleep back (in fact we have to wake "her" up for feed in the night). Two nights without sleep left me feeling and looking plain awful - so I cannot imagine how Mum feels!

Exciting times - aside from the various tools used to deliver the baby (all I can say is I winced when they came out), its been an amazing journey and experience. Thank you Mum!

I hope these pictures show ok - my server is still playing up.

Online Videos - Any advice?

Steve Castledine — Sat, 9 Feb 2008 09:37:42 +0100

Ok so I want to do some online videos for a new site I have planned. They are "help/tutorial" type things - a lot of them are around the blog template.

I have TechSmith Snagit which can produce the videos - and does a good job. This saves as avi. The problem is the files are "big" - I would like to compress them or something.

Anyone have any tips here for good software to help me, best practices, best settings to get good quality (no point having fuzzy text) but low file size? Places to host the files and link them from my site? I will do copies on YouTube - but that always reduces quality.

Oh and my budget is zero so don't say get a Mac. I have to work with what I have, free software, borrowed/given software etc etc. I even have to do my own voiceovers and stunts :)

Excellent Java and Eclipse beginners guide

Steve Castledine — Fri, 8 Feb 2008 15:10:31 +0100

I got this link for an excellent Java with Eclipse beginners guide (online video) passed to me by a colleague - I thought it was excellent so I thought I would share:

Slowly (very) getting my work down ready for arrival of Baby - which could be any day now (due Feb 12th).

I managed a training run today of 3 miles after not running for more than 2 months due to a hip injury (and a cracked rib). That 2 months has cost me about half a stone and a severe lack of fitness. I'm not sure I will aim to run any marathons or half marathon this year - it was the extreme training I did last year that took its toll on my body in the first place.

Just enjoying the relative peace and quiet around here - whilst I can! Oh and my server seems to be playing up right now so its a bit slow around here - not sure why - not got time to find out why! Hope its not hardware - already lost my mac and my laptop this month to hardware failure.

Blog Template 8.01 update presentation

Steve Castledine — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 11:54:01 +0100

Here's a short presentation I put together going through the changes in the 8.01 release of the Blog Template.

It contains some useful technical information about upgrading etc.

Hopefully will have more blog entries soon - busy :)

| View | Upload your own

Yeh that’s no problem

Steve Castledine — Wed, 9 Jan 2008 16:25:46 +0100

Back shortly - having my usual sufferance of living by my favourite saying "Yeh that's no problem".

Happy Holidays and Christmas to all

Steve Castledine — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 10:43:15 +0100

That time of year again. Another year that has flown by - it doesn't seem five minutes since I was thinking about our wedding last New Years eve.

So just a quick message to wish everyone a happy holidays, Christmas and fantastic New Year. I'm "officially" on holiday all next week but I'm not signing off as have lots to do and will be progressing the following projects (so hopefully you will see some updates) and keeping on top of work stuff :

Notes Template Documentation Wiki (waiting to finish some work on another project then will switch back to this)
Theme Manager (As soon as I have my project spaces setup will be posting beta 1)
Notes Template User Guide Wiki (as Notes Template Documentation)
Project Wiki Space's for my blog (further developing the "bliki" format)

Blog Template Web Rich Text Editor Upgraded

Steve Castledine — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 09:54:50 +0100

One of the things that desperately needed sorting was the web rich text editor in the blog template.

Pre IBM it used Tiny MCE:

Then for various reasons it had to be removed in order to meet the code deadline for Notes Domino 7.0.2, which meant a quick solution was needed (knowing that in the future it would get an upgrade) so we ended up with a very basic rich text editor:

For 8.0.1 this has now been updated with code from Dojo and looks and functions an awful lot better:

The html from the rich text editor then converts back to Notes Rich text in the client: