The View Admin/Developer conference 2012 - Washington DC

I'm one of the many speakers you might want to catch up with at The View in Washington DC May 16-18th. I'll be presenting:

• Everything you ever wanted to know about Lotuscript - a full-fat, 90 minute expansion of the BLUG presentation I did earlier this year
• Web Services. An overhaul and update of the web services presentations, including xPages REST and v8.x client experiences, as well as calling Web services from c#, Flex, etc.

I wont have much time there - I arrive late Wedesday night, and thanks to commitments at the Marykirk Raft Race on the following Sunday, I have to leave on Friday afternoon.  Tony and I will be manning the hadsl booth

On a personal aside, I'm really hoping to get to the Smithsonian Air and Space museum for an hour - I was last there when I was 12, and I'm sure its got some great new stuff since I last visited...

A new motorbike?

After the BLUG trip around Europe, I was really itching to get a new bike. Something more set up towards touring and something with more torque (so you can just sit in a gear instead of fishing for the right one all the time).

A Kawasaki Versys 650 tourer sounded perfect. And with a zero percent finance deal, only £100 down and £210 a month. So I popped into the dealer in Aberdeen, and tried to get on one. It was about an inch and a half too tall for me. There was no way (without platform soles) that I'd get my feet on the ground. Something that I like to do when I stop at lights, for instance. Or try and park. 

The good news was that there was an aftermarket knuckle fitting for the rear damper which lowered the seat more than enough. Fantastic. Could they fit it and I'd go for a test drive? 

Ah. No. I'd have to buy it myself (around £100) and have them fit it, so I could get a test drive. "Okay", I said, "I'll think about it".

I then went around to the BMW dealership in Aberdeen. Got there and there was a big RT1200 at the door. Excellent. I went in, holding a motorcycle helmet, and asked the nice receptionist where the bike sales were. 'Dundee' came the answer.

'Wait. So here in Aberdeen, the oil capital of Europe, and home to a huge number of engineers who all love riding bikes - they have to go 30 miles south to actually buy a BMW?"

"Yes". So I left.

All of a sudden my 22 year old ZZR 600 was a lot more comfortable, responsive and above all - short - than anything else I could think of. Perhaps next year.

So on the way home, wearing normal trousers, battling a 30mph headwind and punching through a sudden cold downpour - I still grinned. 

Sponsoring User Groups

I''ve been most remiss in keeping you all up to date.

Hadsl - the company behind FirM - the best user management tool in the Domino Community is sponsoring at least two user group events in the next few weeks:

• BLUG - the Belgian User group event ran by Theo. Its a fantastic event, in a very nice city - Antwerp - in a very nice country - Belgium - famous for beer and chocolate. Well, thats two of my favourite things to start with.
  
  I'll be presenting Everything you ever wanted to know about Lotuscript
  
  xPages as we've been told is the future, but there's a very large amount of lotuscript-based business critical apps out there. My session intends to give you the low down on everything you need to know, including maintaining, coding, tricks, traps and pratfalls. 
  
  Richard Sampson, the quiet and studious member of HADSL will be manning the stand. 
  
  Just to add difficulty to this, Paul Mooney has insisted I drive my 22 year old motorbike (currently being repaired after its last outing with Mooney!) on a 1,500 mile, 7 country, 4 ferry marathon. Whats the betting it'll actually get there and back again?
• Roy and Tony are going down to AUSLUG in Melbourne, for its second year. Roy will be going down a wee bit early to see the Formula 1 season kickoff - he being a first class Petrolhead. So if you have the absolute pleasure of going to Auslug - and I wish I was - go and say hi to Roy and Tony.

Later in the year, we're also sponsoring UKLUG in September and look forward to that too.

Its going to be a fun year!

Keep Calm and Carry On

So how good is 'hidden'

I thought I'd test my 'hidden' installation. This is what it came back with:

It came back with a location less than 15 meters away. Its at the wrong end of my house... In rural Scotland. Not bad. And it came back with screen shots (I'd to blot most of it out) and flicked my on-board camera on (without me noticing it). Both images, when clicked, go full res.

So is it good? Yes.

Okay. It relies on the scrote who nicked it to switch it on, plug it into the internet, and be stupid enough to be caught. Fine. And that might never happen. They might just wipe the machine and resell it. Well thats fine by me - at least all my personal data won't have been harvested. 

If they do switch it on, I have a nice evidence pile ready for the police.

Is it worth it? Yes.