Yep – A connections technical tip.  Sign of the times I suppose.

Recently on a PoC I came accross an issue where I couldn’t edit profiles.  The user had correct rights, but soon realised that all users were having the same issue.  The profile edit screen is not displaying editable features.

Fixing it was relatively easy.  Stop the connections server and clear out it’s temp directory (for example,  AppServer>\profiles\AppSrv01\temp\<node name>\Connections_server1).  Start the server again and the issue goes away.

Welcome to Project Dragonfly on IBM Connections.  Dragonfly is an offline mobile client for IBM Connections including your most-requested features and built by Teamstudio on the Unplugged offline business engine.

More information on planned features here

If you want to get involved, go to the greenhouse

Yesterday, Bruce Elgort and Julian Robichaux released their podcast recorded with Gab Davis and I about connections101.net.  In there we try to answer the questions we have been asked and reveal the sinister reasons behind the project.  (insert muhahahaha noise here).

At BLUG, I gave some opinions on demoing connections to customers. Our approach so far has been quite successful. Tell them to forget we are a 26-staff technology company and just think of us as a small company. Then, we show how we use it.

In the meantime, Warren has setup some great little videos on our connections site. More are to follow on the .
Bluewave Group youtube channel. Comments welcome of course.

This is a joint post by Paul and Gab…   As posted here a few weeks ago and due to the feedback from the community and IBM, we have decided to go live with an education site dedicated to IBM connections software.  So… (drum roll), www.connections101.net is now up.  To start, we are going to take you through our steps and tips on how to install a pilot connections deployment.  This may take some time, but we will get there.  As we are finding our feet, the site may change a bit over the coming weeks, but as ever, we focus on content.

Paul and Gab

The past 1 1/2 years has lead to a lot of changes in my day to day job.  Aside from the usual Domino stuff, I have been involved heavily in Traveler, Google Apps and more recently security.  Also connections.  Quite a bit of connections recently.  Aside from hating the product with a passion when it first came out (due to having to install Connections 1.0) I have come to two conclusions.

1.  IMO there is little coherrant documentation on the installation with suffiient explanation to educate admins on “what” they are doing and potential implications.  I like good documentation.  I like to think that I write good documentation.  And bad documentation drives me nuts.

2. Once Connections is installed on a site, it does provide value if championed and used correctly.

So, I have been chatting with my partner in crime, Gab Davis on an idea I have been toying with.  I would like to see if there is any interest in the crowd as we both think it is a reasonable sized undertaking.   What if we documented a complete installation of Connections under what we could consider a starter deployment, and explain the products as we go.  By that I mean, starting with operating system level, and taking you through the installation, configuration, bolt on of moving parts and eventual administration of Connections.  I reckon this would take about 25-30 blog posts to get to a production”ish” deployment.  Possibly using google video for some of it too.

If you think it would be useful, let us know in the comments.  If you think the documentation is good enough out there and something more advanced is needed, that’s cool too.

Would this be of interest?