Jonvon’s excellent post can be found here, it deals amazingly with an issue that has been troubling domino developers for a number of years,

Personally I adopt a slightly lighter view on the whole subject, I have not been a true Domino developer (in the classic sense) for a couple of years now, I have just been a web app developer who uses Domino a lot, the idea of being specific to one brand or platform does not really bother me, I just use what ever the client has installed or what ever best solves the problem, I know and develop on Jboss but I do not consider my self to be a Jboss developer, so many of us are so used to domino providing all we need that we forget that it is just a bunch of tools glued together, it is a server, it is a DB platform, its a programing environment, use what you need where you need it, play to the strengths, bypass the weaknesses, hopefully Domino wont die like that, it will just evolve (cause its presence in a project wont be all or nothing).

Domino will live on, on my CV as long as I can get work and deliver to my clients with it, and quite frankly it contains the best and friendliest bunch of people that i have found in any online community.

P.S. the reason that this post does not appear on planet lotus as I don’t want to be seen to be piggy backing on Jonvon’s far superior post, but I’m just having a private(ish) vent.

On with my preparations for the suspected tapering off of my role at my current main client, first part…TRAINING

Training is one of the things that all techs like to do differently, personally i like a combination of videos i can have on repeat in the background and building practical apps to solve problems. but their are some core bits that i recon that everyone on a training frenzy should have

1) vmware workstation (or virtual box or parallels or what ever rocks your boat), if your not using virtual machines, then start!!, with them you can mess about and try things, then bin them when they go wrong, top tip: build a ‘core machine’ and clone it each time you want to play with something new, that way you don’t waste time building up the base OS each time you want to try something.

2) http://www.safaribooksonline.com , the cheapest and best way to get at all the technical books you could want for one price, they also have a really good line in videos included in the price, yes i know all about the practical side being the important, but as i have discovered with flex and spring, that just because you are making it work does not mean you are doing it right, so OFFICIALY RATIFIED base theory is needed as well (especially for interviews), understandably safari had “stuff all” new Domino training material, but all is not lost (more on that later),

now on the to individual things i have to learn

Flex 4 and Adobe Air

Thankfully this is as easy as ever with adobe really leading the way when it comes to documentation, all varieties of learning stuff can be found at http://flex.org/resources with my personal fav being the “flex in a week” video and work sheets (already updated for flex 4) found at http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/videotraining/

Xpages

Next up is xpages, now i hear there is a book coming form the powers at IBM, but alas i cant wait, and actually i don’t have to (ha ha!), because there is good resources out there from the community, the 2 important ones being:

http://xpages101.net/ (a paid for video training site produced by Matt White who co wrote IBMs internal xpages training course,and has presented on xpages at every ‘lug’ and notes conference you can mention, the content is excellent though as i know Matt as a mate I’m always the expecting him to say at the end of each lesson “so that’s done, shall we go for a pint”),

http://xpagesblog.com/ (a community technical blog that is stuffed full of juicy xpages bits and an excellent read)

There is also a spectacular 40+ series of xpages articles that i have lost the link to (will dig up and update here)

Granite Data services

This is just a “just build the darn thing and make it work” job but to my relief the guys and gals at http://www.graniteds.org have written very good documentation thank you, found at http://www.graniteds.org/confluence/display/DOC/Documentation+-+2.1

Jquery

God damn where to start, hundreds of good sources, lots of them free, but of them all i ended up with the purchased book “JQUERY: NOVICE TO NINJA” found at http://www.sitepoint.com/books/jquery1/ then worked my way thought the some usefull looking jquery pluggins taking them apart ( http://www.gmarwaha.com/jquery/jcarousellite/ and http://bassistance.de/jquery-plugins/jquery-plugin-validation/ )

Spring

This is such a hideous subject, that you just have go to http://www.safaribooksonline.com and look thought all the myriad spring books they have until you find one you like the style off, then sit down with a pack of head ache tablets and grind your way through it, you will swear a lot, then suffer an moment of Epiphany after which its just a case of filling in the mad java developer “lets make this elegant” gaps.

Adobe illustrator

Strangely Adobe aren’t as good on this as they are on flex (maybe because they have everyone by the short an curlies on it as a market leader) so its back to http://www.safaribooksonline.com where there is a excellent video series and the normal good books, practice practice party people

Android dev

This is a bit like jquery in that there is simply tones of content, I’m going to use a mixture of http://developer.android.com and http://www.safaribooksonline.com content combined with practice apps ( although as i don’t have a android phone I’m using the a vmware image of the live android image http://code.google.com/p/live-android/, thanks to the wretch for pointing this one out)

Right, back to work!!

As a contractor you know in the back of your mind that nothing can last, but humans tend to prefer a warm fluffy feeling and try to forget this fact, however my largest client has taken on a large outsourced company (its pretty much a run of the mill outsourcing, nothing that reflects badly on the company, I’m presuming its being done so that someone somewhere gets a tidier company org chart as in the long term it sure as hell is not going to save them money, i heard the phrase “strategic partnership” and thats never a good sign), unsurprisingly said company has moved to ‘acquisitive’ mode as soon as they had their foot in the door (to be fair they would be daft if they did not), this means that i suspect that time is limited (hence the countdown timer on the side of this page).

I however have more time (hopefully) to cater to this movement than lots of other people do in similar situations, and my CV is nearly as i would want it, but it could do with a bit more shinning, will therefore be trying to get the following down pat in the next few months, even if I’m wrong such a exercise wont do any harm at all.

Need to get a grip on
Granite Dataservices
Flex 4
get better at Xpages (compared to my other domino dev, i suck)
get better at Jquery (i use it but don’t UNDERSTAND it)
get better at Spring (i have practical knowledge but would suck at a formal interview)
Adobe illustrator (im ok in a “its C.A.D in colour” way, but want it for the flex 4 skinning and chibi images which means i need to be better)

Time Permiting
Android dev
Adobe Air

Its a lot of work but i have 160 days, now i just have to stop working for clients all the time so i have time to learn something (mixed blessing)

Having commissioned quite a lot of art and designs from the creatives of this world i thought i might share some tips.

General rules (you know them already and like to be treated this way, but just to remind you)

1) Dont pester, if they don’t reply, wait 24 hours before trying again, remember lack of planning on your side does not mean a crisis on their side, if its a rush job tell them up front so they can price (and plan) accordingly.

2) Agree how many edits you can make at the different stages, before paying the deposit, a single page agreement is fine.

Specific to creatives

1) Let them create, give a rough outline and then some very specific details (the important ones), you will find that they fill in the gaps better than you do, but if they ask for more details give them simply and clearly and for goodness sake never say something like “your the artist isn’t that your job”, if they are asking questions then they are trying to do a good job, help them help you

2) Portfolio is everything, good creatives will love their job, and will ‘create’ in the same way geeks ‘fiddle’, if they don’t have a good portfolio don’t employ them, it does not have to be client based, but it does have to exist

3) The best time to get hold of a creative, is when they have just finished their education (or if they have none, straight after their first decent paying job), its when they are eager and full of fresh ideas but know how to behave and deal with clients (yes i know that’s a nasty way of looking at it but its true)

Money and Rights

For DECENT work, $100 is your ball park for single detailed images ( for example of a realistic looking person ), or $250 for an original design (say for a company site), better artist cost more, poorer artist less, your judgment ($10 for anything artistic is a normally a waste, don’t be tempted), its is normal to pay 50% up front, then the final 50% upon sign off of the final images, you will then receive the master images, DO NOT accept compressed image formats as masters you want PNG/PSD/etc files with their layers intact.

Rights are a funny thing, and worth being firm up-front with, you have purchased this art, it is now yours!, an artist should of course be allowed to use their images in their portfolio, and should receive full credit where suitable, but you can change the final image if you want and the rights do not revert to them at any time in the future, always be honest on what the FULL extent of the use of the image or design could be up front (so again they can charge suitably). Rights are the only thing i have found that its no good discussing, if they want unacceptable rights (say a yearly rental of the work with a financial review annually {yes i have met that}), thank them kindly and state that “that is unacceptable for my business model”, and move on to the next artist/company

Hope these help

*Update**
As requested, the biggest place to go to get artists/designers at this point in time is http://www.deviantart.com, the best way i find is to put a post in the “work advertised forum” at http://forum.deviantart.com/jobs/offers/, then while you are waiting go and browse the categories you are looking for, most artist state if they are open for commissions, if in doubt just send them a ‘note’.

As a designer I am well aware that I suck, I am one of the people responsible for Scott Good’s quote of “The worst applications that people use are the ones they use at work” (from his Lotusphere session “BP202-There’s no fixing ugly How to make a great first impression with your applications” an amazing session which left me ashamed of my sub standard design work but determined to do better).

My bible to this end is Steve Crugs book “Don’t make me think” or as I like to call it “Amazon got it right”, a truly fabulous book (my one is dog-eared having been passed round colleges and even family), this morning much to my excitement i discovered he has published a new book called

“Rocket Surgery Made Easy:The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems“,

I purchased a pdf version and ploughed into it.

This one has the same easy feel and readability of his first book, but for me has a slightly different target audience, its one of those books that you place meaningfully on a project managers desk, or read your self, but not to actually use just to have the tools to hand to fight the good fight and guide your wayward manager/user base when they skimp on testing, it also shows you what to do with any test results you might get (chapter 10 “debriefing 101” is a particular gem which I intend to print out and take to the next meeting in which we “address functional issues” / “listen to the users bitching”), with plenty of pertinent FAQ’s, it can flicked through for a quick fix, or read cover to cover with out falling asleep (rare for any IT based book), very much recommended.