Social Business strategist, podcaster, blogger, founder of Social Connections and conference speaker
Now you can put your heart into it when you like something in Connections Cloud. The new heart icon has universally replaced the word “Like” or, in some places, the happy face icon.
Unfortunately I’ve just missed the actual anniversary, but I thought it worth celebrating that this week marks a decade since the announcement (on 22nd January 2007) of two products that have had an immense impact on my working life, Lotus IBM Connections and Lotus Quickr.
Interesting release from Swedish ISV, EGBS:
CGATE is a delightful and easy to use front end for IBM Connections. It will be customized to your organization and your employees – no need to adapt your processes to the tool, or for your employees to learn a new vocabulary. The users will get started in no time, leveraging the power of collaboration without the need for extensive training or user adoption programs. All content is stored in IBM Connections, so there is no need for an additional system to manage content. You will discover how CGATE will make collaboration a natural part of the work day – powering your intelligent organization.
Look out for more details next week when I get to experience and review the CGate solution in more detail.
If you are running IBM Connections (any version) and have configured your SSL connect between the HTTP Server and WAS by importing the WAS SSL certificate into the Plugin keyfile (versus creating your own keyfile) and haven’t changed the default password, go do so now!
As this IBM technote states, the default password expires on April 26th, 2012:
The password to the plugin-key.kdb file that is shipped with WebSphere Application Server expires on April 26, 2012 US EDT. On distributed this file is placed in the [Plugin_Home]/config/{webservername} directory when a web server plug-in is configured on an installed web server.
CVE-2012-2162If you are using the WebSphere Key and Certificate Management generated plug-in key store you are NOT affected. If, however, you are using the key store installed by default with the Web Server Plug-in for WebSphere Application Server and you have NEVER changed the key store’s password, then you must change the plug-in key store’s password, which removes the pending password expiration, to avoid a security exposure. Generally, as a best practice, IBM recommends you always change passwords from the default value to enhance the security of your system.
In reference to this specific security exposure concern, a majority of users do not reference the affected file at runtime and therefore are not impacted. However, a small minority of users must take action and use certificate management tools to remove the password expiration prior to April 26, 2012 to avoid experiencing this issue.
All the instructions for fixing this issue are contained in the technote, so take a read and make sure you’ve got this covered.
For the record, my advice when configuring a new Connections environment is to create a new keyfile with your own password, create a self-signed certificate or request a certified one from Verisign etc, then to import the certificates into WAS. This is all detailed in the presentation that Rob Wunderlich and I gave at Lotusphere 2011.
Social Connections (the IBM Connections user group) is back, returning for its third event.
Scheduled for Friday 22nd June 2012 at the IBM Labs in Dublin, this is the best chance you’ll have this year to hear directly from IBM Connections customers, consultants, partners, advocates and developers. Yes, developers too! By the kind invitation of IBM we are going direct to their European development base in Dublin, home to many members of the IBM Connections coding team. We’ll have sessions from IBMers on topics such as customisation, widget development, installation and management of Connections. Given that Connections 4.0 is imminent, you may get a sneak peak of what’s coming up in the future too!
However, this is a User Group rather than an IBM education event, so it won’t just be IBMers speaking. With two tracks (Business and Technical) we’re after the best of the best from around the community to speak at the event. As we’ve had at SocCnx I and II, the event will have a mix of customer case studies, adoption advice, technical show-and-tells, panel Q&As, and a few sessions we just can’t predict right now!
The call for session abstracts is open now, and closes on 30 April 2012, so if you would like to submit an abstract to be considered (for a 30minute session) please register for the event today and submit your idea. We’re particularly keen to hear from those outside the usual ‘bubble’ so if you’ve never spoken at Lotusphere or any of the other LUGs please don’t let that put you off. The Social Connections crowd are a very friendly bunch and we’d love to hear some new voices! If you have any questions, please contact Sharon or Stuart for more info.
All the details are at SocialConnections.info, so please head over there to register and to submit an abstract.
You can also join the LinkedIn or Facebook groups, or follow all the news on Twitter (@SocCnx). Hope to see you on June 22nd!
The IBM Connections Desktop Plug-ins Microsoft Windows is intended for Microsoft Windows users, adding social networking features and functionality from IBM Connections services, including Activities, Communities, Files, and Profiles.
The IBM Connections Desktop Plug-ins for Microsoft Windows provides the following features from Windows Explorer:
- Upload files for personal use or to share with others
- Upload files to a community or attach them to an Activity
- Share existing Connections files with other users or with a community
- Drag and drop files from your desktop to Connections Files or to a community
- View and manage versions of your files
- Add comments to files or recommend files
- Edit and publish local drafts to Connections
- Pin or follow folders and files for easier tracking
- View business cards for people and invite them to your network
- Easily access all Connections features via browser links
The IBM Connections Desktop Plug-ins Microsoft Windows supports:
- IBM Connections 3.0.1.1
- Microsoft Windows XP SP3 (32-bit), Windows Vista (32-bit), Windows 7 SP1 (32-bit, 64-bit)
I’ve been looking forward to this plug-in for a very long time, so I’m excited we have it for deployment today. I know a number of customers that have been holding back on full-scale deployment of Connections until they have native access to Connections Files, so this will make a significant difference. Hopefully the Mac version won’t be too far behind 😉
Great post on the disambiguity blog from Leisa Reichelt, detailing how new Web2.0 style tools (including Twitter, Jaiku, Facebook, Skype etc.) are increasing the levels of “Ambient Intimacy” that we share with friends and colleagues
