Just a few updates and mentions of things to come!

• Today marks the official launch of LotusLive, where you can sign up (if you aren't already) and feel free to connect to me. In case you don't know about LotusLive, it's an ever expanding enterprise-level cloud services offering from IBM.

  I hear ya, "Why should I care?". Well, the cloud services (in this case) are not just buzzword technology. The LotusLive Engage team has put together a pretty slick module-based offering - leveraging Lotus technologies like Connections and Unyte - that not only address a lot of the needs of enterprise users, but also allows business partners and customer developers to build click-to-cloud onsite solutions portfolio integration with the ever-expanding offerings.

  Our own Stuart McIntyre has started the LotusLiveBlog, where you can get the latest community information on all the slick things coming out of camp LotusLive!

• Niklas Heidloff writes - via the OpenNTF.org blog - that he and Steve Castledine are organizing a redesign of our favorite open source Lotus-themed community development resource! As mentioned, we all had the chance to suggest and vote/demote feature and functionality requests (via IdeaJam) - and now the real fun begins!

  If you're interested in helping improve one of the greatest resources to our community, follow the link above to the original post and contact Niklas and Steve directly!

• I've been posting a few quickie tutorials over the past few days, going over the basics in Domino Web Development - including creating $$ViewTemplates and a simple permalinks vs. NotesDocument UNID overview. So far, the feedback has been amazing (thanks!), and it sounds like you guys like these introductory-level Domino Web Application Development videos... so I thought I'd keep them rolling.

  Expect to see the following soon on this site (or you can subscribe to my YouTube channel):

  • Using the $$Return
  • $$ViewBody vs. Embedded View
  • Using a base href in Domino Web Applications

  Feel free to give me your gut-check feedback on these topics or suggestions for others!

• One of the projects that I'm working on - to make it uber l33t - is going to require more functionality from Zephyr than I had originally written - specifically, I want to allow Mail Merge-like functionality for Hotspots, Buttons, etc.!

  The real world need for this is pretty simple: I'm putting an Approve and a Reject image on a workflow-generated email message. Each image contains a Hotspot that - when clicked - will (in this case) point to a given Domino Agent that will handle the request (Approval/Rejection) based on the pre-defined workflow.

  Simply put, the Job Document will contain two specific NotesItems: webappURL (which I'll initially pull from a Preferences document) and docUNID. The Zephyr Email Template will contain the images and the Hotspots, each with the following syntax:

  <webappURL>approve?openagent&docUNID=<docUNID>

  I'll be adding a few other suggested enhancements to the application, including the option to use a timestamp instead of the "1"-stamp when Zephyr runs against a given JobDocument, and a Preferences-defined JobDocument purge Agent to keep things tidy. Any other suggestions for Zephyr v0.2, email/IM/comment!

Wow - ok, that was longer than I thought it was going to be when I started! ;-)

After some much appreciated feedback from those of you who contacted me interested in testing the "alpha" release of this Lotus Notes Client utility, I proudly present Showtime!

Showtime, my Blackberry Enterprise Server Push Utility for the Lotus Notes Client, allows you to create Jobs for individual Channel, Message, and Browser Content Pushes, as well as allows you to delete Pushed Channel Icons from defined recipient devices.

For more information, check out the following demo video I put together which'll give you a better idea on exactly what I'm talking about.

A few pre-reqs that came up during the initial rounds of testing..

• Since I wrote this in 8.0.n, I think you'll need at least an v8.n Lotus Notes Client.
• That Lotus Notes Client needs to be able to connect to your BES server via HTTP.
• You need to sign the NotesDatabase.
• You need to define the BES server HTTP and Push information in the Showtime Preferences NotesDocument.
• You need to have BES WAP Push Access Protocol (PAP) enabled.
• Since you can either use the SMTP address or the device PIN as the recipient... you need to have a recipient Blackberry Device.
• ... and that's about it, really.

This application will be used in many of the upcoming wireless/WAP/MDS/Mobile Application Development with Domino stuff that'll be covered on this site in the upcoming weeks. If you're a BES shop, download this utility today and start pushing Icons onto your devices and sending click-and-launch Messages via the BES Push to boost not only the user experience with your Domino applications, but also enhance your Blackberry Device user experience. Y'know - like Lotus Notes - they do more than Email...!

A special note of thanks to Brent Thornton of RIM who really helped me get a handle on the BES Push API and just what it could do... and then proceeded to answer every annoying question I could think of both blindingly fast and without condescension. You helped a n00b understand what turned out to be an amazingly powerful feature in and an opportunity to extend the Blackberry environment. It is greatly appreciated!