Samples sell products. Especially with the Midas Rich Text LSX, people want a sample close to what they will need. If it works, they buy it. I call this "From Try to Buy". There are 24 sample available on the Midas LSX samples page now. The biggest obstacle though, is that people must request a Midas evaluation license, download the software and sample and install just to see if the sample is what they need. If they know the sample is what they need, they'll do it. If not, they might go off to check Facebook and forget about it.

So, as I release Midas V4.32 today and V5.00 in the near future, I am moving to a new plan, "From Spy to Try to Buy". I will make a brief video for each sample, showing exactly what it does, and add it to my Mini-Lessons.info site with code and extras. If those fit, it will be worth continuing. Every video should be about 2 minutes long, so you can quickly decide whether a sample is worth pursuing.

I had a couple that already existed, such as Instant Reports with Midas LSX and Redact credit card numbers with REGEX using Midas LSX, but I'm taking the opportunity to update each sample since some are quite old. In fact, the first new one I've done is below, and it is an update of the sample published in 2003. The code is still relevant and used by many companies today. The video is in HD, so don't hesitate to watch it full screen.

The full mini-lesson is available as Lesson Midas#6, or the sample database can be found on the Midas LSX samples page.

As part of my new Mini-Lessons.info tutorial site, I use the sidebar to list resources (mostly books) that are related to the topic. While I have some of the obvious IBM Notes/Domino books already, I'd like to add any others that people feel are a good fit. Also, if you've written or helped with one, let me know and I'll add that as well.

If you have written or know of a good book in the other categories, GIMP, ePublishing, Web Design (esp. CSS and HTML), please let me know as well, of course. I just figured this might be the one place where people would know about Notes/Domino.

I wanted to introduce my new site, Mini-Lessons.info, as a place to find brief but useful demos and tutorials on a number of topics. There are a number of mini-lessons on Gimp 2.8 (a free open source alternative to Photoshop), as well as a few on IBM Notes/Domino and on our Genii Software products. I'm not sure whether I have worked out all the issues with leaving comments yet, but there are useful tutorials there. Of course, I am always open to suggestions. I want to do a series on XPages, as well as others on coexistence.

But I need to explain first that these are mini-lessons. The goal is to teach a trick or show a feature in three minutes or less (most meet that, and the average is under 2 1/2 minutes). That may not seem like a lot of time, but my purpose is to avoid the long, drawn out demos that leave you waiting and waiting to get to the meat of the matter. If you want 15 minute demos, there are plenty of places, but I hope to keep to the very short lesson format.

Also, every mini-lesson will have additional information, links, downloads and more on the Mini-Lessons.info site, but will also be available on Youtube for those who just want to follow the playlists for the various topics. To start you off, here is mini-lesson Notes#3 Hide Your Unmentionables using Domino's Internet Site Rules.

While a number of people I know in the IBM world are active in Google+, there are many others who clearly tried it out for a while but gave it up after last posting in early 2012.

It's time to revisit your profile and see how things like Communities and improved Hang Outs have made Google+ more and more useful. There are IBM-related communities such as XPages and IBM Domino Developers and IBM Connections Professionals & Power Users, as well as many, many more active communities on other topics such as Android with almost 13000 members, the Writer's Discussion Group with over 11000 members and so forth.

Support and capabilities for company pages has improved dramatically, and while I don't do much with that, a number of companies have run with the idea of  page that can have related communities, invite people to Events and Hang Outs.

While I know that IBM has its own communities based on its own software and such, the one other thing that Google+ has is new customers. Facebook is not an ideal way to meet new people and do soft marketing, and Twitter is too staccato for developing new relationships, but Google+ makes that very easy and integral to the experience. At the very least, don't leave your account like an orphan advertising that its owner no longer cares or engages.

It seemed about time to create another video demo on IBM Notes, so this is a short exploration of some of the things you can do with borders in tables either in documents or on a form/page/etc. (which are rich text as well). No third party tools or even Domino Designer needed. All of this can be done by any Notes user. Think of it as virtual Speedgeeking.

If you are curious, you can download the image file used for the border.

It's hard to believe that it was only a month ago that I posted my Elevator Pitch demos post in which I suggested that very short Youtube demos, like an elevator pitch compared to a full presentation, might have a special appeal to people. Since then, I have produced fifteen of these short videos (plus a longer one for the Crystal Coex story) averaging under two and a half minutes. Those videos have accumulated 2500 together with momentum growing all the time. Several have been on Gimp 2.8, the FOSS image processing software which is roughly comparable to  Photoshop. Others are on the Midas Rich Text LSX, CoexLinks, Notes 9 and general rich text topics. I expect more of all of those in the future, but I think the concept has been validated. People like short and sweet videos.

My latest among the Gimp 2.8 mini-lessons is below, but you can see the whole playlist at Gimp 2.8 mini-lessons playlist..