IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation IBM Lotus Notes Domino Blog Template Steve Castledine

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation What is a Blog?  A blog (short for weblog) is a online journal that is frequently updated and intended for general consumption.  Blogs are defined by their format: a series of entries posted to a single page in reverse-chronological order. Blogs generally represent the personality of the author/s or reflect the purpose of the Web site that hosts the blog.  The author of a blog is often referred to as a blogger. Many blogs syndicate their content to subscribers using RSS (Really Simple Syndication), a popular content distribution tool.

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation What is a Blog (more)?  Visitors can post comments to entries on the site.  Each individual entry can be linked using a “Permanent Link” (or Static URL) from other sites  Contains archives of posts – By Month, by Category

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation A typical “Blog”

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation Where did blogs come from?

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation Blogs in the Enterprise So what do blogs do in the Enterprise?  They enable groups of people to Communicate, Discuss, and therefore collaborate. So not just for personal use. Who are these Groups?  CEO’s Office (organisation communication)  Projects (You can in Content, Central store of project data)  Teams  Organisations (free marketing, instant response to negative market information, product research, solicit customer opinion)  Yourself – just sharing ideas with others

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation The IBM Lotus Notes Domino Blog Template  Introduced at version as part of the “Innovation Pack” (includes the blog template, Notes in a USB Stick and RSS template) – will run on 6.x+ but not supported or licensed  Included within the server install  Allows end users to create blog websites on a Domino Server  Easy as creating a new database from the server side template  Template is powerful and allows end users/customers to customize the web site entirely and without changing the underlying notes design.

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation It is a standard Lotus Notes Application Blog Database

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation Key Features  Content can be added via a Notes Client or Web Client  Inbuilt RSS feeds – Content/Categorised Content/Comments  Comment System (with built in SPAM protection)  Podcasting – iTunes feeds  Social Bookmarking – Categories/Tags  Automatic content archiving, searching, future publishing and expiry  HTML Template and Tag based system for ease of Web Design editing

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation Why use Domino for blogging?  Key Features mentioned before  Security  Replication  Ease of Use  Existing Architecture  Notes on a Stick – take your Lotus Notes Client on a USB stick and blog anywhere

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation Creating a New Blog Creating a New Blog is as simple as creating a new Notes Database from a Template

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation Creating a New Blog - Wizard Database then asks some questions and you are away

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation Out of the Box Website – Lotus Notes Chief Architectwww.jeffeisen.com

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation Customising the Blog Application  Entire Website can be customised (via Lotus Notes Documents)  Database can be customised via: –HTML Template and Tag system –Stylesheet (CSS) –Configuration Document

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation Customised Template – Business Unit Executive, Worldwide Lotus Messaging Saleswww.edbrill.com

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation Customised Template – Myselfwww.stevecastledine.com

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation Customised Template - developerWorks Blog

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation Domino Server Team Blog –

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation Theme - CoffeeSpot

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation Theme - Regulus

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation Add On – Statistics Template Allows you to capture usage information for your blog. For example:  Daily Page Impressions  Monthly Page Impressions  Referrers – Any “linkage” to your site from others  Site Searches (including Googles if a public site)  RSS Feed Hits Available from Lotus Support Website: 1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=463&context=SSKTMJ&context=SSKTWP&q1=blog&uid=swg &loc=en_US&cs=utf-8&lang=en

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation Add On – Statistics Template

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation Add On – Theme Template Allows you to capture, manage and distribute themes easily between databases  Build a list of preferred company themes  “Push” updates to existing blog databases  Download Themes from a central source Available shortly (version 1 Early May) …. Probably direct from my website, maybe it will get upgraded to Lotus support download

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation Add On – Theme Manager

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation Manual “Theme” editing/customisation HTML Templates (stored as Lotus Notes Documents) hold the html and system tags. Three Template Types for Customisation  Page – For formatting each web page eg homepage  Item – For formatting each entry  Block – So we can reuse blocks of html within our pages

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation HTML Templates

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation Tags Tags tell the blog application where to place key data  - Subject of Post  - Author of Post  - Actual Content of Post  - Title of Blog Example:

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation Stylesheet (CSS)  Edited within Notes Document so do not need to edit Lotus Notes design.  Database “parses” Content Rich Text when saved so stylesheet takes precedence on formatting (removes font tags – can be switched off)

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation Configuration Document Configuration document stores all the key settings for the database – including:  Any text/html generated by the system  Site Settings/Options  Switching on/off various features: ing Content, Logging Statistics, Subscriptions, Technorati Pings, Podcasting

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation Configuration Document Location

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation Resources  Lotus Support site under “Domino Server” – search “Blog”  Lotus Notes 8 Help Documentation  Personal Website

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation Resources Two Articles on creating Themes from Scratch:  

IBM Lotus Software © 2006 IBM Corporation Questions