The openCOD Blog

Category BlackBerry Podcasts
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Hi,

I grew up on Radio.  Listening to talk radio in London was an afternoon ritual whilst at school.  In adulthood I've relied on the BBC's Radio 4 for news and current affairs and BBC 7 for comedy.  It's not surprising then that I keep a ton of podcasts on my mp3 player (iPod). Whilst updating my subscriptions today I wondered if there was a BlackBerry related podcast.   So I searched and found Craig J. Johnston's BlackBerry for Business podcast.  I've subscribed and I'm downloading all of the podcasts released so far.  I'll post a comment after listening but if you are interested the home of the podcast is here.


If you want to go right ahead and subscribe then the iTunes feed is here & the rss 2.0 feed is here.  Additionally the BlackBerry podcast for SME's is here.

ttfn...

Posted by Jason Hook At 12:18:12 Location Cambridgeshire, UK | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Category Lotusphere2007
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I'm back from a very successful Lotusphere 2007.  RIM will I'm sure look back on the conference with some satisfaction.  Clearly they have a lot of customers today that use BlackBerry for email and calendering but if the show was resprensatative of the market there is a great deal of interest in BlackBerry as a development platform.  Valerie Wang presented a session in the middle part of the week that showed how easy it is to extend Domino applications using the MDS Studio tool (free from BlackBerry).  The session overflowed into two rooms!  Just looking around BlackBerries were everywhere.  

Applications written specifically for Lotusphere were popular: the sessions database from the Turtles, and more modestly craicBerry.  It's been interesting hearing people talk positively about applications I coded last year and probably don't know I had anything to do with :-)

I went to two RIM events during the week. A breakfast reception and the RIM party.  During the breakfast there was a little talk about a forthcoming BES 5 server for Domino that will support clustering but mainly it was a talk aimed at BlackBerry Alliance or prospective BlackBerry Alliance Partners letting them know what the programme is about.  The party on the other hand was an opportunity for me to spread the word about openCOD!  I got to speak to the top marketing, development and consulting people in the UK, Europe and Japan.  A fabulous opportunity which I believe I made best use of.  Certainly Research In Motion/BlackBerry know about this site now.  As further evidence of the demand for BlackBerry applications, during the party I spoke to a number of representatives of top companies all looking for ways to extend applications to the BlackBerry.

I forgot to ask the RIM guys if there are any plans to offer a BlackBerry certification.  Maybe an admin and development certification.  Any credible development platform needs one don't you think?  I'm going to ask and I'll let you know what the response is...

Based on the reaction at the party and throughout the week (we gained a number of new members as the week progressed) openCOD has in my view a lot of potential but it needs you.  It needs you to join in and help build a community, it needs more content and it needs a little more publicity :-)   How would you like to contribute? Maybe with a comment in the blog, a blog entry (mail me jasonhook@opencod.org), a code snippet, or an application or application idea?

I came back from Lotusphere having spoken to openNTF contributors and we have some ideas for new projects including:

• Extending Blogging to the BlackBerry using the BlackBerry browser
• Extending the most popular Domino templates to the BlackBerry using the browser/MDS or J2ME
• Investigating ways to create a very simple toolkit for extending any Domino database to the BlackBerry

More news on those ideas next week I hope!

For now thanks for visiting and ttfn,
Jason

Posted by Jason Hook At 10:27:58 Location Cambridgeshire, UK | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Category RIM Video White Papers
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As you may know I'm at Lotusphere 2007 in Orlando!  Fellow openCOD members Bruce Elgort and Bill Buchan are here too.  RIM has a lab here in Europe 8 and outside they're filming Blackberry users and asking them about their experiences.  I couldn't help myself so they recorded a couple of minutes of video of me talking about why I like my BlackBerry,which may  (or may not) appear on the web.  

I'm going to a breakfast sponsored by RIM early tomorrow and a hands on BES install/configuration session in the afternoon.  As a result of that session I'm going to write a paper (for openCOD) telling you how to install and configure BES for Domino with any tips and tricks that come up.

Must dash now but I'll post more later,
Jason

Posted by Jason Hook At 21:46:38 Location Cambridgeshire, UK | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Category craicBerry Projects Releases
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The first openCOD application craicBerry is complete and the source code is now available at http://www.openCOD.org.

When you get there you should choose "Downloads"  from the menu and then "By Date" where you'll find a document containing all of the files you need.  Information about getting started is contained in the About document of the main craicBerry database.

If you want to modify & use the whole package in production (as apposed to the BlackBerry JDE) you will need to be able to sign BlackBerry COD files.

You need to register as a member of openCOD to see and download the files.

Enjoy!

Posted by Jason Hook At 13:33:44 Location Cambridgeshire, UK | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Category BlackBerry Open Source
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For a first post in a new blog and in particular one tied to a web site it would make sense explain the reason why openCOD.org exists now and what we hope to achieve with it.  

We hope that openCOD will become a credible community producing amongst other things quality applications for the BlackBerry Platform.  In addition to stand-alone applications openCOD members will use their knowledge and experience of back-end systems by vendors such as IBM, Microsoft, Novell and SAP to create BlackBerry applications that work with other enterprise applications including existing proprietary, Open Source and bespoke openCOD applications.  

Open Source software can be a difficult concept for some and there will be opportunities through this blog for us to explore what Open Source means to us a group and to us as individuals but for now openCOD is a space where we can explore the possibilities of the BlackBerry platform and it's ability to integrate with the enterprise systems of today and tomorrow.  It's a space where we can learn from each other,deepen our understanding of best practice development and showcase our abilities.  It's a space where we can have fun doing the kind of 'work' we love, producing the kind of software we want to.

As I write this entry we are a small company (company as in group of friends) but we hope to grow making new friends and colleagues as we go.  The current team comprises of Developers, Administrators, Analysts and Users.  The chances are you fall into one of those categories.  If you do then we hope you can find something in openCOD to interest you and that you will join us.  If you have an idea for a project you can get started by registering and then floating the idea in the Project Ideas forum or go right ahead and create a new Project Idea.

Lotusphere 2007 is just around the corner and almost all of the team are preparing frantically.  Some are speakers, some exhibitors, some attendees and for now yours truly is destined to be a lurker in the lounge at the Dolphin or Swan! So for the coming week openCOD may seem a little quiet but during the week of Lotusphere we'll add a post or two as we try to spread the word amongst the movers and shakers.  Look out for an openCOD get together at Lotusphere details of which will be posted at craicBerry the unofficial web and BlackBerry based party planner.

Thank you for visiting openCOD's blog, stop by next week for news from Lotusphere 2007 and if you haven't already check out openCOD.org!

The openCOD Team.

Posted by Jason Hook At 15:36:07 Location Cambridgeshire, UK | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)