Crap, I've been tagged. Here you go: five things you may or may not (want to) know about me:

1. Sandpaper gives me the willies. I'm not sure if the word "willies" is going to translate properly for the non-English speakers out there, so if not it's that shiver you get up and down your spine sometimes. I can't stand touching sandpaper, or emery boards, or anything like that. I thought everyone was like that until I was about 12 -- kind of like how no one likes the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard. Apparently I'm kind of a freak that way.

2. I can't stand needles. Not an unusual thing, but I'll throw it out there anyway. Last time I gave blood (in high school) it took over 30 minutes to drain a pint, and the Red Cross people told me they had plenty of blood and not to come back.

3. I had never bought a TV -- ever -- until last week. I've owned several television sets, but they were always given to me in one way or another. My wife has still never bought a TV (she didn't go to the store with me).

4. I can stand with my feet facing in opposite directions. And not just one facing left and one right, I can turn one foot completely around to point behind me. Supposedly this is odd. I've just always been able to do it.

5. I once went to Halle Berry's house to assemble some furniture. I worked for a furniture store in Atlanta while I was in college, and she bought a few things that needed to be built. She was wandering around the house the whole time I was there, singing to the radio, wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt. She was super-nice, and I think she even offered me a drink (like a water, not like "shaken or stirred"). It was right after she married David Justice and moved into an enormous new house -- I got to meet David Justice a few weeks later too, and he wasn't nearly as friendly.

   I also got to build a bed in Bill Berry's cabin outside of Athens while he was still drumming for REM. He was really nice too, but he was whistling the song "Do The Hustle" off and on the entire hour I was there. Drove me up a wall.

Apparently I have to tag 5 more people now. Let's see. How about Alan Lepofsky, Damien Katz, Chris Miller, Mac Guidera, and... oh, what the heck, how about Mother Vowe (just to see if he'll play ;-).

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Is your site defensible against algorithmic shifts and other shifts that could hurt your income potential? Andy Hagans offers a quick quiz to test the stability of your site.

SearchDomino.com contributor Chuck Connell provides an overview of Domino Domain Monitoring (DDM) and outlines strengths and weaknesses of the Notes/Domino 7 administration tool.

Address Book. ?Contacts. ?Personal Directory. ?Little Black Book. ? There are many names for it, but no matter what you call it, essentially this is the place where you store the names, phone numbers, and email addresses of your friends, family, and coworkers.

In Lotus Notes, your personal address book is the database names.nsf.


Did you know you can have more than one address book?

Over the last 10+ years of using Lotus Notes, my address book has built up quite a list of names! ? I use my address book as the primary source for all my contact information, both work related and personal. ?I also synch my address book to many things, such as my BlackBerry. ? Many of the people listed are names I don't want getting in the way when I am addressing an email. ? Similarly, many of these names are people I don't need clustering up my phone.

The solution was simple. ? ?Similar to the way we archive old email, I decided to "archive" my older contacts. ? ?Here is how you do it:

1. ?From the Notes menus, choose File - Database - New. ?(or press CTRL+N)
2. ?In the dialog box, leave Local as the Server, and enter a Title and File Name. ? These can be whatever you would like. ? "Friends and Family", "Secondary Address Book", "Old Girlfriends", etc. ? ?The most important thing is that you choose "Personal Address Book" as the template, as shown by the arrow in the screen shot below.



3. ?Press OK, and Notes will create the new database for you.

Now we want to transfer contacts from your original Address Book, into the new one you just created. ? As with any change, you many want to make a backup before doing this, just to make sure you don't loose any data!

4. Open your original address book, names.nsf. ? Select the contacts you want to move. ? From the Notes menus choose Edit - Cut. (or press CTRL+X)

5. Open the new address book that you created in step #2. ? From the Notes menus choose Edit - Paste. ?(or press CTRL+V)

Now you have a nice and "clean" primary address book, and an archive that you can look up any of the old names if/when you need them.

Ken Holman sent me copy of the latest draft of the OASIS/UBL Methodology for Code-list and Value Validation, which is a pretty good use of Schematron. It looks like a neat and workable solution to a problem that is somewhere...

Welcome to 2007! This week Simon St.Laurent gives us an interesting report from the XML 2006 conference.

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The Lotus Notes User Interface (UI) is made up of several different elements. ? Today I want to describe the four elements shown in the screen shot below. ?I'll describe the areas the arrows below are pointing to, working from the top of the screen down to the bottom...



The top arrow points to the File Menus, and the second arrow points to the Toolbar, which contains Toolbar icons. ? Most likely you are accustomed to these two UI elements, as most programs use these.

The next row contains "Window Tabs". ? Lotus Notes has had a "tabbed interface" since version 1 in 1989. ? As I pointed out last year, I find it amusing that now tabs are all the rage in other programs such as web browsers and chat clients.

The fourth arrow points to the Lotus Notes Action Bar. ? Action bars (and the Actions Buttons they contain) are available at both the Notes datbase view level (as shown above) and the form/page level (shown below).



As you move from one Notes database to another, the file menus, toolbars, and window tabs stay pretty much the same (they are some contextual changes) as they are associated with the overall Lotus Notes interface.

However, Action Bars are unique to the specific Lotus Notes database you are in. ?The database's developer decides what actions are most appropriate for you to use. ?For example, in your mail file you have Actions such as "Forward" and "Reply", while in a Discussion Database you have Actions like "New Topic" and "Response".

If you like to use your keyboard more than your mouse, you can access Action Buttons by pressing the ALT key and the number corresponding to the Action Button as shown below. ? I describe this feature in more detail in the tip Extended Accelerators.


I wish more programs had Actions similar to the way Lotus Notes does.

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Let me start by wishing you all a very happy new year! May 2007 be a year full of inspiration and creativity! Today I’ve picked another topic from my list of requests that readers of my blog send in: swirly curls. Lets add some trendy elegance to your illustrations! Here we go…

Step 1 - Draw a spiral

Go to the Toolbox and hold down the mouse on the Line Tool so the other tools are revealed. Select the Spiral Tool. Now click and drag a line from the center point outwards. Instead of click dragging you can just click to get the Spiral Options box and enter the spiral radius, decay and spiral segments and click OK. I've used 80% of decay and 10 segments. If you click drag the spiral, remember that you can move the spiral while dragging if you hold down the spacebar. Give the spiral a stroke and no filling. Copy the spiral and paste it in front: go to the Edit menu and choose Paste in Front or hit command/control + f. Now select the Rotate Tool and click the center point of the spiral and drag the spiral to the right to rotate it a bit.

Step 2 - Transform the spiral into a nice curl

Select the Selection Tool (black arrow) or hold down the command/control key so you get the transform handles. Scale the spiral as shown in the image so you add thickness to the spiral from the center point out and you'll get a nice curl in the end. Select the center points of the 2 spirals. Use the Direct Selection Tool and drag a rectangle over the anchor points, make sure no other points of the spirals are selected. Go to Object > Path > Join (or hit command/control + j) to join both paths. Now do the same for the 2 ending points of the spirals.

Step 3 - Add a fill and put the curl in place

Click the double arrows right above the colors in the Toolbox to swap the stroke to a fill. Change the fill to your preferred color. Now drag the curl in place. Rotate the curl if needed so it forms a fluent line with the object you attach it too. You can select both and choose the Add to shape option in the Pathfinder palette if needed so they become 1 object.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Maybe this can be done in another way by using a special brush instead of copying the path, transform it and join the points, not sure. I haven't experimented with that. I just get perfect curls when I use this technique.

For those who missed the final result of this illustration, check it out & download a desktop ;)

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