Running Notes

Category Running
My mother always said I was stubborn. I had no idea it would help me run 365 days in a row. Alternate titles for this post were "HOLY CRAP!!! ZOMG!!!1!!" (but that seemed a little much) and "I Did It!" (but I've used that before).

So yes, Holy Crap, I did it! I ran every day for the last year. Some stats:

Total number of miles run: 961
Longest run: 13.1 miles
Shortest run: 1 mile
Personal Records set: 3 (5k, 10k and Half Marathon)

It is an incredible achievement that feels amazing and yet, not. It has become such a habit that it doesn't seem like that big of a deal. Of course, it is a big deal, and I am still very proud of myself. However, I think anyone could do it. I don't possess any particular skill at running. Really and truly, I am just stubborn. I decided to do it, and I did it. A life lesson (or two) from this. You can do whatever it is you put your mind to. Small steps everyday can add up to big accomplishments.

So go! Do big things. You just have to be stubborn.

Posted by Kathy Brown At 9:30 AM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (22)

Category Running
Well, it finally happened. I've been running for 2 1/2 years. I've been running every single day for nearly a year. Finally, some teens tried to mess with me.

I was running down the road. It's a hot, humid day. Up ahead at the pet cemetery (yes, just like in the Stephen King novel) some teens were sitting under a tree. As I got closer, I saw one stand up, adjust his shorts and head toward the road. He was wearing a cotton t-shirt, basketball shorts, socks and sandals. Much more equipped for playing video games than for running.

Sure enough, he starts to run next to me. RIGHT next to me. Not sure what his plan was, but I looked at him and said, "How far you prepared to run?". He paused a second and said, "2 to 3 miles". I laughed and said, "Well, you better keep up."

Then he said, "Maybe 70".

I laughed again and said, "You better watch out, that's poison ivy".

He said, "Well, just to that car" and peeled off and ran back to his friends.

Heh. Punk. Get off my lawn.

Posted by Kathy Brown At 4:42 PM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (3)

Category Lotus Notes Development Formula
So the other day I discussed @Transform. While @Round may not transform your life, it is important to know about.

Us application developer types may not be numbers people. And Lotus Notes isn't exactly known for its number functionality. You probably aren't calculating complex mathematical equations in your Notes applications. However, even if you are calculating simple calculations, you need to know about @Round.

Note that:

3.3 * 3.3 = 10.89

and

3.33333 * 3.33333 = 11.11

No big deal, right? Except if these calculations are on a much larger scale. And if they are compounded by further calculations on the results.

Enter @Round

Determine where the decimal place should go, and apply it consistently with @Round.

@Round (value, factor)

@Round (10.555, 0.1) = 10.6

Note that the syntax for the LotusScript method Round is slightly different. The second parameter is simply the number of digits after the decimal place, not a factor. In LotusScript, Round (10.555, 1) = 10.6.

Posted by Kathy Brown At 9:47 AM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (1)

Category Lotus Notes Development Twitter
Inspired by the session that Tom "Duffbert" Duff and I did at Lotusphere, "The Top Things All New Notes Domino Developers Need To Know", we have started @NotesDevTips on Twitter.

We will post simple (it has to fit in 140 characters) tips for Lotus Notes Developers. Please follow, retweet and most importantly reply with your tips! We will retweet your tips, so send them in!

Posted by Kathy Brown At 11:32 AM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (4)

Category Formula Lotus
I think @Formula is a frequently forgotten art of Lotus development. Many people start out learning @Formula, then move on to LotusScript and don't look back. That can be a mistake as @Formula can sometimes be more efficient than LotusScript. There are @functions that just don't exist in LotusScript, or require fewer lines of code, or take more parameters.

Today I bring you @Transform. @Transform can be used to transform a value, or even better, a list of values. Take for example a list of user-entered values. The values were supposed to be in percentages. Some users entered "50" meaning 50% and others entered "0.50" also meaning 50%. How can we take the list of values and only change those that were in the incorrect format? @Transform, of course!

We'd like to show all of our values in decimal format, so all we need to do is use the following code:

@Transform (valueList; "x"; @If (x>1; x/100; x) )

This translates into: for each value in "valueList", which we will call "x", if that value is greater than 1, then divide it by 100, otherwise, leave it as is.

Another example is my running log. Say we would like to transform all the values in a list of running times from minutes to seconds. But again, we are concerned that some users may have already entered the data in seconds. TRANSFORM! (Picture me like Harry Potter with my wand when you read that).

@Transform (valueList; "x"; @If (x<60; x*60; x) )

This formula assumes that if the user entered a value greater than 60 then they must have entered the value in seconds, not minutes.

As with many @Functions, you are only limited by your imagination and creativity in coming up with ways to utilize the formula. Any formula can be used as the third parameter in @Transform, including @Nothing:

@Transform (valueList; "x"; @If (x<60; x*60; @Nothing) )

Similar to the previous examples, but returns nothing for a value if the value does not meet the criteria, effectively removing the value from the list.

Happy Transforming!

Posted by Kathy Brown At 12:55 PM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (5)

Category Marathon Running
If there is anything I have learned from running every day for (nearly) a year, it is that nothing matters.

The clothes you wear, the shoes you run in, your diet, your hydration, your sobriety. None of it matters. It can help, but you can still run, no matter the details.

And yet, I find myself wide awake at 20 minutes after midnight, scouring the internet for marathon training plans and comparing them, trying to find that PERFECT plan. Which is really silly. My goal for my first marathon is to finish. To not die. I don't really think it matters which plan I pick. If it peaks at 20 miles, or runs 5 days per week, or has 35 mile weeks on the plan. Pick one. Stick with it. That's the plan.

(For those of you who are interested, I am picking plan 1 from "The Runner's Handbook".)

Posted by Kathy Brown At 12:22 AM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (2)

Category Book Review

I recently went to my local book store and asked for some recommendations. The guy working that day was great. He gave me several recommendations, many I had already read and loved. One of the books I hadn't read was Something Missing. A novel about Martin, a thief who takes his "job" very seriously. He also has a different take on stealing from his "clients", he only takes what won't be noticed, like toilet paper. Despite being a thief, Martin is a good person, who cares for others, including his clients. Martin is socially awkward and yearns for deeper relationships with people. His career choice, however, limits his ability to be honest and get close to others.

Surprisingly, this book is fun and humorous, and even suspenseful. I instantly loved Martin and his quirky mannerisms. I wanted him to find what he was looking for, and found myself unable to put the book down toward the end. All in all a fun and entertaining read.

Posted by Kathy Brown At 8:43 AM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category Developer2010
Whew! So it's been a busy week. I've been at The View's Admin2010/Developer2010 conference.

Attending sessions, presenting two sessions, participating in a podcast, and panelist on the Nerd Girl BOF.

I presented "Fantastic Feats with @Formula", which I think went very well. A good group of attendees, especially for the first slot of the morning. I had fun, and I hope everybody learned something. Friday I presented "The Top Things All Notes Developers Need to Know" which also went really well. Lots of great questions when it was over.

The Nerd Girl podcast was a lot of fun. We tried to get a lot of information into a short amount of time, but I think we succeeded. The plan is to do more of these, so I hope you'll tune in!

The Nerd Girl BOF (Birds of a Feather) was great as usual. For those of you who have never attended one of the Nerd Girl BOFs or panels, I assure you they are not "man bashing" events. The panels and BOFs are a way for women AND men to discuss issues for women in technology. I live tweeted some of the discussion. One question that arose was whether or not women are less confident about their IT skills than men.

There was a book recommendation, Talking 9 to 5, Women and Men at Work (affiliate link below). Do we undermine ourselves with our language, "I think", "This might", etc.

One woman felt some men in her workplace doubted her expertise, and frequently turned to men in her department to validate her responses. I responded that we should call people on bad behavior. If someone is acting negatively due to gender (or really anything), call them out. Maybe you are wrong and it isn't about gender, but at least if you discuss it, it is out in the open.

Ethnicity in addition to gender was brought up. The women present didn't seem to feel that ethinicity was as big of an issue in Tech than gender. Generational differences were tweeted, perhaps younger people see less differences?

Someone asked what skills women bring to IT. The Twitter responses seemed to say that you can't call out the negatives and still ask about the positives. I don't think it was meant to be, "Hey, you can't point out my negative differences and then praise me for my positive ones". The first point was to call out bad behavior. The second point was to build confidence in our skills. Yes, we *may* be different than men, but we still bring skills to the table. It was difficult to get all of the tone and ideas into 140-character bits.

Mostly, I personally find the value of the Nerd Girls groups (see below) to be in the community that is created. We can belong to many communities, and each one provides us with some value, or we wouldn't belong. I love Twitter because it connects me to lots of Lotus geeks. I love runningahead because it connects me to lots of runners. In either community, I can go to the group, and say "hey, aynone ever seen this?" and get an answer. I know I'm not the only one who experiences what I experience. It is the same thing with the Nerd Girls. Knowing you aren't alone in your situation, and getting advice or at least commiseration.

Join us! Nerd Girls on LinkedIn

Posted by Kathy Brown At 5:03 PM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (0)

Category Backup
I currently use the free version of Dropbox. I really like it for syncing between machines like my laptop at home, my corporate laptop and my desktop. It is also great for sharing files. Tom and I have used it for our newsletter articles and when working on presentations together.

I also use it as a psuedo-back up. But I have been considering using Carbonite for a real back up. However, I got to wondering if I could use Dropbox for back up. Why or why not? And would Carbonite be better?

I turned to Twitter (of course) for some feedback. Here is what they had to say: "Carbonite is better because you can back up more" - this one depends on your situation. I think for a single user on a single machine, this is true. Carbonite is $55/year with no stated limit to the amount of data, but can only back up a single machine. Dropbox is only free up to 2GB and then it's $99/year for up to 50GB. However, with Dropbox, there is no limit to the number of machines you use it on, and you can share with others. So then there is Carbonite PRO, you can use it on any number of machines with any number of users, but you are charged by the amount of data. For 20GB - 49GB (to put it on par with Dropbox), the cost is $300/year. But remember, that is for multiple users, if you had three users, you would be on par with Dropbox.

"File location". Depending again on your situation. Dropbox utilizes "My Dropbox" and if you want it to sync, it has to be in that folder. Carbonite allows you to select any file or folder on your machine, including external hard drives.

"Deleted files". Carbonite Pro states they keep deleted files in your back up for 30 days. I couldn't see anything on prior versions of files on Carbonite's website. Anyone know if you can do this? Dropbox has the ability to restore deleted files and prior versions. I couldn't find it stated anywhere how long they keep older and deleted versions, however.

"Efficiency of backup". I can't really verify this one, but was told that Carbonite is more efficient, only grabbing the changed bits and bytes rather than entire files when a change is made. If anyone has any additional info on this one, that would be great.

Of course then people threw out JungleDisk and Mozy, which I now have to check out.

If you have any thoughts or suggestions or warnings or recommendations, please let me know!

Posted by Kathy Brown At 11:56 AM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (9)

Category Conferences Lotus
I am looking forward to several conferences this year and have been planning/making travel arrangements/writing abstract submissions like crazy. I hope to see you at some or all of these events.

So where am I going?

Next week, as you may recall, I am speaking at the View's Developer2010 conference in Boston. I have two sessions, one on @Formula, and the other on tips for developers.

In early August, I am headed to IamLUG. I had a GREAT time last year and am really looking forward to this year. Last year I attended some really great sessions, and I'm sure this year will be no different. I am especially excited about the extra day they have added, TackItOn, with a chance to attend Matt White's Xpages101 day, or SNAPPS iPhone Dev Day, or Chris Miller's Domino Optimization Tour.

"BrownBert" as we've been dubbed, will be speaking at IamLUG as well. That's right, Tom and I will reunite to present an updated version of our Lotusphere session. New & Improved - Now With More Short Jokes!

And lastly (for now), I'm planning to attend ILUG. I am very excited as I have never been across the pond. I've submitted an abstract to speak as well, but am excited to go no matter if I am speaking or not. I've heard great things about ILUG/UKLUG and can't wait to attend!

By then it'll be time to submit abstracts for Lotusphere 2011!!

Posted by Kathy Brown At 10:49 AM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (2)