Stickfight

Category Tips creative
Having commissioned quite a lot of art and designs from the creatives of this world i thought i might share some tips.

General rules (you know them already and like to be treated this way, but just to remind you)

1) Dont pester, if they don't reply, wait 24 hours before trying again, remember lack of planning on your side does not mean a crisis on their side, if its a rush job tell them up front so they can price (and plan) accordingly.

2) Agree how many edits you can make at the different stages, before paying the deposit, a single page agreement is fine.

Specific to creatives

1) Let them create, give a rough outline and then some very specific details (the important ones), you will find that they fill in the gaps better than you do, but if they ask for more details give them simply and clearly and for goodness sake never say something like "your the artist isn't that your job", if they are asking questions then they are trying to do a good job, help them help you

2) Portfolio is everything, good creatives will love their job, and will 'create' in the same way geeks 'fiddle', if they don't have a good portfolio don't employ them, it does not have to be client based, but it does have to exist

3) The best time to get hold of a creative, is when they have just finished their education (or if they have none, straight after their first decent paying job), its when they are eager and full of fresh ideas but know how to behave and deal with clients (yes i know that's a nasty way of looking at it but its true)

Money and Rights

For DECENT work, $100 is your ball park for single detailed images ( for example of a realistic looking person ), or $250 for an original design (say for a company site), better artist cost more, poorer artist less, your judgment ($10 for anything artistic is a normally a waste, don't be tempted), its is normal to pay 50% up front, then the final 50% upon sign off of the final images, you will then receive the master images, DO NOT accept compressed image formats as masters you want PNG/PSD/etc files with their layers intact.

Rights are a funny thing, and worth being firm up-front with, you have purchased this art, it is now yours!, an artist should of course be allowed to use their images in their portfolio, and should receive full credit where suitable, but you can change the final image if you want and the rights do not revert to them at any time in the future, always be honest on what the FULL extent of the use of the image or design could be up front (so again they can charge suitably). Rights are the only thing i have found that its no good discussing, if they want unacceptable rights (say a yearly rental of the work with a financial review annually {yes i have met that}), thank them kindly and state that "that is unacceptable for my business model", and move on to the next artist/company

Hope these help
***Update**** As requested, the biggest place to go to get artists/designers at this point in time is http://www.deviantart.com, the best way i find is to put a post in the "work advertised forum" at http://forum.deviantart.com/jobs/offers/, then while you are waiting go and browse the categories you are looking for, most artist state if they are open for commissions, if in doubt just send them a 'note'.

Posted by Mark At 02:51:26 Location London | Permalink | Comments (6)

Category Multiple JBoss Linux

So you have got JBoss working on your linux box, if you did it manually then it was a long hard fight involving start up scripts and file permission's, but its not enough, you want more, maybe you want to try out clustering, maybe you want a dev and a live instance but only have one box, who knows, who cares, you just want it, so step by step here it is:

"JBoss" = is the both the name of the existing instance and the user its installed under (as per JBoss defaults)
"jbossXXX" =  the name of the new instance and user
"Jboss-4.0.5.GA" = the JBoss install directory

0) I'm assuming you have already added your multiple IP addresses if not go here if you are doing it with only 1 IP address and different ports then go away as i don't like you anymore, also you should be running in text only mode for efficiency, if your running a gui then shame on you, and finally you should be logged on as root or have equivalent rights

1) useradd jbossXXX
(this will create your user and their home directory)

2) passwd jbossXXX
(then enter the new password at the prompt, if you don't do this the user wont be activated)

2) passwd jbossXXX
(then enter the new password at the prompt, if you don't do this the user wont be activated)

3) mkdir /home/jbossXXX/jboss-4.0.5.GA
(time to make some where for JBoss to live)

4) cp -r /home/jboss/jboss-4.0.5.GA/* /home/jbossXXX/jboss-4.0.5.GA
(clone the current one to a new home)

5) sudo chown -R jbossXXX:root /home/jbossXXX/jboss-4.0.5.GA
(we cloned the file rights as well so lets reset the owner to the user we just created)

6) cp /etc/rc.d/init.d/jboss /etc/rc.d/init.d/jbossXXX
(make a copy of the existing startup script for the new instance of the server)

7) vi /etc/rc.d/init.d/jbossXXX
(edit it so we change make some changes)

8) press "I" to enter interactive mode
(bloody VI does not start in edit mode)

9) find the following lines and amend with the new server location/user

JBOSS_HOME=${JBOSS_HOME:-"/home/jbossXXX/jboss-4.0.5.GA"}
JBOSS_USER=${JBOSS_USER:-"jbossXXX"}

10) put the new notes ip address in this line

JBOSS_HOST=${JBOSS_HOST:-"192.168.0.10"}


11) Press "escape" to edit interactive mode

12) press 'shift'+zz to save and exit

13) now normally if you have only one JBoss server, its bound to all available IP address i.e. the same JBoss server responds to all the IP address you have on the server, but you cant have that any more so you will have to go into the "/etc/rc.d/init.d/jboss" and change the line

JBOSS_HOST=${JBOSS_HOST:-"0.0.0.0"}

to be the servers original IP address.

14) run the following

ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/jbossXXX /etc/rc3.d/S84jbossXX

ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/jbossXXX /etc/rc4.d/S84jbossXXX

ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/jbossXXX /etc/rc5.d/S84jbossXXX

ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/jbossXXX /etc/rc6.d/K15jbossXXX

ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/jbossXXX /etc/rc0.d/K15jbossXXX

ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/jbossXX /etc/rc1.d/K15jbossXX

(this makes links from your startup script to all the different ways that you can start a server up (you really only need mode 3 (multi user text) and mode 6 (multi user gui), but I'm trying to be neat here.

15) bounce the box (yes yes i know you don't have to do that, but i like to prove that servers can cope after a power outage)  reboot

and that should be your lot

*** Update ***
Now it has come to light that old versions of JBoss (seems to be below version 4.2), have a slight bug in that startup and shut down script that still putts "localhost" as a parameter, even if you have specified an alternative IP address, as we no longer have one server on the localhost IP address this obviously breaks things, so while you can start up JBoss with

/etc/init.d/jbossXXX start

to shut it down (individually), you need to use something like

/home/jbossXXX/jboss-4.0.5.GA/bin/shutdown.sh -s jnp://192.168.0.10:1099

*** End Update ***

Posted by Mark At 23:12:30 Location London | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category Site Testing Book Review
As a designer I am well aware that I suck, I am one of the people responsible for Scott Good's quote of "The worst applications that people use are the ones they use at work" (from his Lotusphere session "BP202-There's no fixing ugly How to make a great first impression with your applications" an amazing session which left me ashamed of my sub standard design work but determined to do better).

My bible to this end is Steve Crugs book "Don't make me think" or as I like to call it "Amazon got it right", a truly fabulous book (my one is dog-eared having been passed round colleges and even family), this morning much to my excitement i discovered he has published a new book called

"Rocket Surgery Made Easy:The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems",
I purchased a pdf version and plowed into it.

This one has the same easy feel and readability of his first book, but for me has a slightly different target audience, its one of those books that you place meaningfully on a project managers desk, or read your self, but not to actually use just to have the tools to hand to fight the good fight and guide your wayward manager/user base when they skimp on testing, it also shows you what to do with any test results you might get (chapter 10 "debriefing 101" is a particular gem which I intend to print out and take to the next meeting in which we "address functional issues" / "listen to the users bitching"), with plenty of pertinent FAQ's, it can flicked through for a quick fix, or read cover to cover with out falling asleep (rare for any IT based book), very much recommended.

Posted by Mark At 19:14:37 Location London | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category Lotusphere review
Back from Lotusphere and this is what i brought back

1) If your sticking with Notes for dev then learn xpages (best place is with Matt White at http://xpages101.net/ or at the http://xpagesblog.com/).
2) Mobile device support Android/iphone/blackberry, do not leave them out of ANY apps.
3) Flex is the RIA of choice.
4) Learn how to use Amazon s3 storage*.
5) Give lip service to dojo but use Jquery really.
6) Learn how to hack xml raw code (for Xpages/Websphere/Flex).
7) Ugly is out Out OUT**.
8) Tweak what ever your doing to sound like REST services.
9) Platform wise: for the client, Windows beats Mac, but Mac beats Linux (Eclipse is the future in all cases), server side: Redhat is the way to go.
10) Oldy but goldy: if your not learning Java, hurry up!!.


*Well cloud computing really, but so far the only bit that is really cloud seems to be the storage, processor renting has not changed, however there is a bit more integration with other services.

**and Web 2.0 is in In IN (well thank you for that IBM)


There is other stuff like "we have gone API crazy, please integrate everything with everything", but i recon that is the main points

Posted by Mark At 18:49:54 Location | Permalink | Comments (17)

Category no Proper LotusSphere Content
*** LotuSphere Disclaimer: I have no intention of giving you any serious or useful information this lotusphere (well while not while im actually here at least, as there are too many people doing that already, go to planetlotus to find them ***

Now sharing a room with someone is a fab way of cutting the old LS costs down but after 2 days of sharing a room with the wretch, the cracks are showing,

what has he done you ask, well i tell you, he is tidy and reasonable, which is as far as im concerned is a crime against all that's conference!!, i present exhibit A:


look at this bed!!, it has been slept in by a drunk person!!, where is the vomit, where is the ripped sheet and pillows on the floor, it a travasty, but there is worse to come:


he folds and lays out T-shirts before passing out, its wrong i tell you, tomorrow night i would not be surprised if he started hoovering, now THIS is how a hotel room should look


somewhere between a nest and a pit, with the sheets on the floor, socks should craw around the fetid air, growling gently.



P.S. I also attended a very good session Mr Tim Davis on blackberry and IPhone apps, but i turns out that i committed a number of terrible faux pas, that include asking question during the session and sliding out once i had got all the info i wanted, (i feel shamed)

Posted by Mark At 11:51:26 Location lotusphere | Permalink | Comments (2)

Category Virtual notes Views FLEX
This is terribly late, but I needed to just blog it before lotusphere. Earlier this year the Poole and myself presented at UKlug, my part of the presentation was a way of doing a few thing that we take for granted in the notes client but done on the web with flex, this included Formula validation, design information and private views

The only complex part was the private/virtual views, which while not hugely fast still gave us private views back in a easy way (it builds documents that flex then renders back as views), and permits full use of formulas, variable columns, column titles and does not require view or full text indexes

You can see it in action here (for some reason the source server it on is being REALLY REALLY slow at the moment and as the demo app was designed to be pre-loaded for a demo its load time sucks anyway, just wait till you see the "$$viewField" appear in the dropdown). there are already 2 prebuilt views.



However this is more of a 'take it apart and see how it works' thing so the flex source code is here and the whole app is here also Mr Poole's code can be found here

You may wonder why the column and view selection formula is built so clumsily, well partly it is to give an excuse to show the formula validation, but mainly its because a perfect formula builder already exists, by Jake Howlett which can be found here

Oh. Next week I will be skulking at stand 622 at Lotusphere, where i will be fighting a hangover and writing an air app so you can have Elguji's 'Jam' products on your desktop (well actually i was supposed to have already written it, however I'm a work shy sod, but bruce has forgiven me out of the kindness of his soul), so drop by and if you feel like a bit of free flex/air/webservices how-to.

Posted by Mark At 19:28:14 Location London | Permalink | Comments (3)

Category ASW Title Wallpapers LDC
Yes i know its a ASW title, but there is a freebie.
As this is The London Developer Co-op's first official outing to Lotusphere
(we are partnering with Elguji software offering custom dev work)

We have decided to do some T-shirts as a give away, BORING so far i hear you say, but wait there is more!, Matt White (may the guiding light of our galaxy shine forever on his loins) decided that hum-drum T-shirts were out Out OUT, and in the brief time between Pints of Best Bitter gave the job to the Poole and my self to organise, this has resulted in a set of designs that sometimes need explaining and often need forgiving, we will have them at stall 622, where you can experience all of Elguji's award winning software (if you can beat your way past the pile of caffeine hyped, hung over tech heads).
That is if the bloody things ever arrive from our supplier, but you'll still have to be quick as we have gone for quality and variety over quantity.

In the mean time i could not resist re-jiging some of the commissioned art as desktop wallpaper*


1440 x 900 1600 x 1200



1440 x 900 1600 x 1200



1440 x 900 1600 x 1200

*if you like them, then all of LDC's work will provide you with the same joy and satisfaction, if you don't, then Matt promises not to let me near your projects and assures you that the rest of LDC are people of skill and dignity

Posted by Mark At 19:58:22 Location London | Permalink | Comments (11)

Category None
After my first full year of proper blogging I feel justified in doing a review


1) I no longer class my self as a pure domino person, Im a Java person who does domino (and flex and other stuff).

2) I have discovered what both true beauty of the soul and self destructive evil looks like (Personal).

3) The blogging and Notes community stuff has paid me back the effort I have put into it more than I could have ever hoped. (with particular thnks to Matt White, Bruce Elgort, and that wretch Poole)

4) I now know the person I want to be (still a long way to go).

5) The people I work with now (in the lotus Community) are the best.

6) Just about everyone out there is brighter than me, but I'm not going to let them get away with it for long

7) The future is bright.

nuff said

Posted by Mark At 11:15:11 Location | Permalink | Comments (2)

Category making life hard
Now I'm not a big ranter at IBM (after all it has helped me keep bread on my children's table these many years), but this small thing is simply totally stupid!

As a flex developer, I was well aware of ILOG and their famous Elixir product that has some of the best Visualisation stuff (Gantt charts, Dials etc) that you can get, but I did not have a project I could justify buying it with, but suddenly I had one which I could use the calendar element for, so off I go to the companies website credit card in hand, only to discover that IBM have purchased them, "cool" I go, "better integration with domino etc etc, now where's the 'buy now' button?, it used to be around here?",



Colour me surprised, but its gone!!, replaced with the stock IBM "We're here to help", if you click on the "Request a Quote" you are submitted to the normal questionnaire, that basically says "we only care about big corporations that we can fleece", I cant even find out how much it costs anymore as the "pricing information" link does not give you any information of the prices (or in fact any prices at all)



"but wait!" I hear you cry, ILOG used to be a small company, so its easy for them to do small sales, its different for big companies, well fair enough, I wonder if there is a small company still selling the product on line, and their is, their name is ADOBE (Ooooooo Tiny!!)



Mine got!! there is a price



When I click on this link I'm taken to a normal e-commerce site, with purchase options, licence types, and a variety of payment methods (including even paypal), nice and easy to use and not hard to do



come on IBM sort it out, your embarrassing us here!!!!!

Posted by Mark At 10:03:01 Location Athens | Permalink | Comments (8)

Category busy busy
Just a quick status update.
Sorry i have not updated in ages, but life is very very busy (so busy im hiding from one client as i don't have any proper updates for them), and with LotusSphere coming up i am supposed to be getting my blog nice and interesting, Arrrrh, panic (goes off to get coffee).

Posted by Mark At 20:16:33 Location Work home work | Permalink | Comments (0)