Today we begin the Best Practices for Building Web Applications for Domino 8.5(.1) Remote Redbook Residency... and I'm a little more than excited with not only the team that we've managed to assemble, but also the content that we are looking to cover in our 8 week remote residency. I'm excited by the prospect of creating content for both the seasoned Lotus developer as well developers new to the platform.

This residency begins 19 Oct 2009, ends 11 Dec 2009 (8 weeks), and requires 8 residents. The residency is a remote effort, enabling all participants to work from their primary work location.

Having participated in the first Lotus Remote Residency, I'd recommend you sign up - you not only get the opportunity to share what you know (read: SME recognition), but you also get to work with some of the best and brightest in the community. I've made long-lasting connections with both my fellow residency members as well as see a lot of referrals even today coming from my bio page in the wiki.

Specific topics the residency will cover include:

• High level introduction of XPages.
• Introduction to the value of Domino as a Web app platform and Designer as the tool for building those apps.
• Review of the underlying technologies and skills required to build a Domino web app using XPages. Will also include a focus on JSF and Dojo.
• Best practices approach to Domino web application development, including an MVC architecture approach.
• Understanding Domino design elements, specifically focusing on XPages and other design elements pertinent in an XPage built app.
• Sample of building a Domino web app from scratch which illustrates how to use XPages.
• Building workflow into the web application.
• Modernizing existing applications - focusing on conversion of Notes client apps to XPages as well as modernizing Domino Web apps built on the classic technology.
• Server Configuration, with special focus on clustering and other new settings related to XPages 8.0 resources.

IBMers, Business Partners, and Customers can apply for this residency by visiting http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/residents.nsf/50da6a28780ffa688525701b004a4f21/027d19083bd74e6985257638006546e1?OpenDocument

And if you have any questions about time commitments, what you need to bring to the table, or anything that I as a former remote residency participant can either answer or get answered, leave a comment in this post or email me at ctoohey@dominoguru.com!

UPDATE

I had the chance to speak with the residency coordinator - John Bergland - and it looks like I'll be on the residency team (although I've yet to receive the formal notification - which I suspect will come closer to the Oct. 19, 2009 start date). For those of you interested, there's still time to register.

So if you're an IBMer, Lotus Business Partner, Lotus Customer, or just your average yellowbleeder and want to work with some of the best in the business to help shape the best practices approach to leveraging Lotus Domino 8.5.1 technology - sign up right now!

(With special thanks to Nathan for the unofficial logo!)

Today I was officially announced as the Lead Lotus Community Advocate for a newly formed group consisting of IBMers, Lotus Online Community members, and IBM/Lotus customers. The simplified goal of this group is to share information and collaborate with people far beyond our "yellow bubble". It's yet another example of IBM listening and acting to better the experience of those who sell the product, those who use the product, and those who are interested in the product.

The Lotus Technical Information and Education Community is open to anyone interested in working together with IBM to improve the global community experience through - for starters - solid and innovative solutions-specific content generation:

From the Lotus Technical Information and Education Community mission statement:

"This community is for anyone who creates, uses or is interested in technical information for Lotus & Websphere Portal products. Technical content includes product documentation, online help, learning materials, IBM Press, developerWorks articles, white papers, Redbooks, wikis, blogs, podcasts, webcasts, and more -- anything that helps users more effectively utilize our products!"

Aside from leveraging the aforementioned community resources, there are current plans to hold demos and training (for those of you interested in learning about new features and products from IBM) as well as talks of new resources and initiatives. And those are only the ideas we have today...

Interested in participating in this community effort and sharing your ideas? Interested in learning more about features and products that can help you and your customers? Membership guarantees citizenship! ;-)

Man - yesterday was like the worst day I've ever had getting emails from IBM domains...

First, as those who follow my babble on Twitter may already know, I was denied 4 times by the Lotusphere 2009 Content Team. No sour grapes however - seeing all of the amazing ideas come from our community confirms that this will be the best Lotusphere EVAR! It's awesome to see the turn out from our community and beyond - shows that the product that we all live by and love is alive and well - can't really ask for more than that!

For those of you who've asked me offline, here's a list of the submissions that didn't quite make it:

• Developing Business 2.0 Applications with Lotus Notes and Domino
  Was going to talk about Blogs, Wikis, Social Bookmarking, etc. for the business using Lotus Notes and Domino.
• Fixing it with Brokers! True REST and Middleware Domino Application Architectures
  Using Java Servlets to broker REST requests from X to Domino, Tim Tripcony and I were going to have a lot of fun with this one...
• Integrate with Anything! Application Development Practices for Integrating Domino with other Enterprise Technologies
  The Lotusphere Idol submission that got more than a few people interested, Tim and I were going to start off with some basics and then rip the whole thing WIDE open - showing everyone how they could integrate their Domino Applications with - well - anything... from Web 2.0 Web Services to Cold Fusion to Flash to PHP to Notepad-created Apache-driven HTML.
• XPage Yourself! High Performance Domino Application Development
  This was one that I was certain would rock. Tim (notice a trend here, I'm trying to stand on the shoulders of greater men here...) and I were going to aggressively attack XPages and conventional Domino Database architectures - showcasing both the advanced caching and scoping capabilities of XPages while looking at things like eTags to make applications sing on the Web Browser Client. This one, I'll admit, stings a little.

The good news? I still plan on doing these sessions... but as articles, podcasts, videocasts, etc. Kinda speaking for Tim on this one too, but I'm certain he'll be along for the ride once some of his Lotus 911 pre-Lotusphere 2009 plate is cleared off. (If you only knew what was in store... wow!)

So later in the day, I recieve another email from an IBM domain - this time from the RedWiki team lead, regrettably telling me that the residency will be postponed until at least 2009. I think they're still accepting nominations, but it's still in the air as to when the residency will happen. Those interested, get your applications in for review (and maybe those that want to stress how important the RedWiki is/can/will be can comment in this thread in case someone's watching...).

To finish this post on a very high note... I got a notice last night that Cristian D'Aloisio - who has been BETA testing Showtime - posted a few thoughts on his blog. If you're interested in BETA testing it, get a hold of me and I'll send you over a copy!

It's finally public!

A new remote residency for the Domino Web Development Best Practices RedWiki just opened and is now accepting nominations. I've submitted my nomination for review and suggest those of you who have delved deep into all-things 8.5 do the same. This residency is our opportunity to really get the product off of the right foot as those of us familiar with the new features and capabilities in Domino 8.5 can show-off and really evangelize, as well as give real-world usage scenarios - since we live and use this technology in the real-world!

A quicklist of topics to be covered in the Best Practices for Building Web Applications for Domino 8.5 Remote Residency include (via ITSO):

Topics to be covered include:

• Creating new Web applications
• Updating existing Web applications
• Extending rich client applications for Web browser use
• Navigation techniques
• Refining the look and feel
• Code execution
• Common tips and techniques

So, for those of you interested, get your nominations in - the deadline for submission is October 31st, and the residency runs from November 10th to December 19th, 2008! Consider it a ramp-up for Lotusphere ;-)